Sponging for Dummies

Here's another stamping from the new Bundle Monster set.  This one reminded me a lot of the sponging technique, which I still haven't been able to master.

I had a really hard time lining this one up at the bottom edge of my nails, so some of the dark areas are abruptly straight near my cuticles.  Also, clean-up was a bear with this very dark blue-violet polish.  Next time I'll prepare my skin with a little something slippery beforehand!

Here's what the image looks like on the plate, for comparison's sake:

 

I used the image at 3:00.  I guess you can tell I had a hard time getting it centered too!  I'm looking forward to trying this one with a metallic color over a creme.

I'll distract you with some pretty nails.

Here's Orly Sweet Peacock, looking glowy next to the sleeves of my 1958 sweater, which are coming along quite nicely:

Gorgeous color.  I had a little trouble applying it - it was rather thick and the first coat was quite patchy, but it evened out with the second.  I hope it lasts a while - foils tend to chip easily on my nails.

What's occurin'?

Well, not as much knitting as I'd like, but I have managed to get Adrift to within two inches of bind off!  Hurray!

It's actually starting to look cardigan-like!  I also restarted Betty - worked flat this time.  I don't know why working flat seems so much easier and faster to me.  Quite counter-intuitive.  I'm getting close to the yoke bind off:

But the weather has been very summer-like here, so at the moment I'm concentrating on getting Adrift done with hopes of wearing it at least once before autumn returns!

I hated my mani so much yesterday that as soon as I got home I took it off and replaced it with this:

Orly Sea Gurl

Interestingly, I got a lot of compliments on yesterday's mess of a mani!  But I like this one better, especially after I added sparkly tips this morning:

Orly Sea Gurl with OPI Spark de Triomphe

I've been wanting to try this out ever since I saw it on Pinterest a couple months ago.  I did it a little differently from the tutorials I read, which said to wipe most of the glitter polish off the brush and then stroke backward from the tip of the nail.  I felt like I'd get glitter underneath my nails doing it that way, so instead, I wiped off about half the glitter and then dotted it along the tip of the nail.  I dotted the tips of two nails, and then went back to the first one and pulled the glitter down, and then pulled down the second.  I think the few seconds of dry time in between helped the glitter to set a little so that it didn't pull all the way down the nail.  I'm really loving this!

My niece made me do it.

Yesterday we had a dinner date with some friends.  On the way there, my niece got hungry - too hungry to wait another hour to hour and a half for the dinner to be served.  So I took her to Walgreens, and as soon as we stepped inside, we were greeted by  this:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Set the Stage

This polish was in my mind because Twisted Knitter just posted about it the other day, and is doing a giveaway.  I had been planning on buying Sephora OPI Only Gold for Me, but when I saw this one, I felt it was a good substitute at one fifth the price.  And Niecey-poo fell in love with it.  So into our cart it went!

After she downed a bag of pistachios, she was ready to resume shopping for nail polish (!), so we also came away with this one:

Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Ice Queen

This morning we were looking at some nail blogs, and I think she got inspired by Emerald Sparkled's black and gold nails post today, because she asked me to paint her toenails black and then put on the gold glitter.  Here are her toes:

They look pretty good, considering it was hard to get her to sit still long enough for them to dry!

Here are my nails from yesterday and today:

Orly Pure Porcelain

Earlier in the week we stopped by Ulta and I found this polish I'd been looking for. I'm so glad I got it; it' different from the other white polishes I own.  This one leans pink, whereas SpaRitual Driftwood leans yellow and Nubar White Peony leans grey. I love this type of color, so I'm glad I have them all.  And of the three, this one has the best formula.  This is only my third Orly polish, and except for Space Cadet, I'm really impressed with the formula and the brush.  If I found their range of colors more inspiring, I'd probably buy more of this brand.

So that was my manicure for our friends' anniversary dinner last night, and today I jazzed it up with my new gold glitter:

I'm taking a little time today and adding a new page to the blog of polishes that are available to swap.  I'm not sure if I'll be able to finish it today, though, so if you are interested, keep checking the Swap page!

Summer Colors

Here's what the sky looked like at 1:00 p.m. yesterday in Chicago:

The menacing view from my guest bathroom.

I needed to get some summer colors on my digits to brighten things up:

Toes:  Orly Frolic
Fingers:  Essie Tart Deco

The Orly is only the second polish of this brand I've purchased, the first being Space Cadet, with which I was less than impressed.   The formula was very thin and shrank as it dried - before I even put any top coat on!  And the color looked a lot less appealing on my nails than it did in the bottle.  But I had a $5 coupon from Sally Beauty, and knowing that a lot of people love this brand, I decided to try it one more time.

Frolic applied very nicely, and I liked the brush.  But it dried semi-matte, which I thought was unusual.  I'm not sure if this is common with Orly.  Top coat fixed it of course, and I think the color is great.

Here's a better pic of the Essie:

Essie Tart Deco

I wasn't sure this color would work on me, but I really like it.  Unfortunately, I messed up one nail while cooking dinner later on.  But it was fun to look at all afternoon while I was working on finishing up Capri!  Button bands are knitted and sewn on, neckband is picked up and knit.  All that's left is to sew the thing together!