#52WPNMC - Pale Blue - China Glaze Sea Spray

Hi Goddesses

I've recently gone a bit pastel-mental.  I don't know whether it's a yearning for Spring or renewal, but I recently separated all my pastels out into a separate box so that I could drool over them and use them for the next few weeks.

In doing so, I found a polish I had kind of forgotten I had, and DEFINITELY forgotten its level of spectacular.

China Glaze Sea Spray is the most amazing pale blue, greyed in tone, but laden with shimmer.  It's truly gorgeous, and you should try to grab it if you can.

I thought this would make a really springlike dotticure, so I created some large white dots and then centred them with smaller dots of Barry M Dragon.

Once I'd glossed it, it was all a little but too much, so I matted it and LOVE the final result.

Happy Spring People!

An InLinkz Link-up

Blue Mosaic

Hi Goddesses  

Happy Easter to everyone, or Happy Chocolate Day :)

Here's the 3rd in my series of mosaics, and this one is all about BLUE.    The technique is exactly as described in the previous post (here).

For the blues, I used -

* base of CG Sea Spray

* a-England Tristam

* Butter London Victoriana for the shimmer

* OPI Ogre The Top Blue

* LA Girl Glitter Addict in Incognito

* CG Secret Peri-wink-le

There's a lot of congruence to these blues, and by that I mean they fit really well together.   You'll see when we get to the purple one how important that can be!

Choosing the right colours is a bit like selecting the colours for a water marble - you need to make sure they will play nicely with each other.   It helps that blues all have a similar tone, but it's trickier to choose wisely when you get to colours like green or purple which can be either cool toned or warm toned.   From the mosaics I've done, I would suggest you stick to one tone rather than mix them.

Tomorrow - the pink one, which has a twist :)

Enjoy xx :)

China Glaze - Sea Spray

CHINA GLAZE – Sea Spray

Hi Goddesses

I do love being proved wrong, especially about a polish.

Sea Spray, bless her little socks, was never destined for a massive role in my collection.  I bought her purely because she was a nice shade of pale blue, and I knew I would need this sort of colour for any blue gradients or splatters that I did.  I also assumed she was a summer only colour.

Roll forward a few months, and I feel like this is ALL I have been wearing for the last couple of weeks, because Sea Spray is the perfect winter colour – cool, frosty and icy – and has therefore been the background of choice in many of my Christmas manis.

It is worth allowing her a moment in the spotlight though, because she is a very pretty colour.  For some reason she makes me think of gulls and bird’s eggs – she is a lovely lush greyish pale blue, and therefore not at all sickly or clichéd.

This greyishness also gives her a depth that sets her apart from her peers.  It gives her a silkiness, a sereneness and a smoothness that is hard to beat.

I know a lot of you have this beauty already, so I am not blogging her to draw your attention to something you may have overlooked, but I AM blogging her as a polish *I* overlooked, and who turned out to be very much more than I thought she was.

Enjoy J  xx

J

Top Tip – if you’re ever unsure what a nail colour looks like, go to Google images, which will give you plenty of contrasts and compares.

Snowflakes Take 2

PURPLE CRUMPET FAIRY CHALLENGE – The 31 Days of Christmas

Day 8 - Snowflakes

Hi Goddesses

So, after the Delphinium mare-inium, here I am with my 2^nd attempt at snowflakes, and I do like this better, though still not as much as some other bloggers!  It’s sad but true – although all snowflakes are unique and have different patterns, the best manis are the ones that do the same pattern on every nail.  Hmmmmmm.

The more obvious choice of base colour is now CG Sea Spray, a really beautiful shade of pale blue.   White striper pen, and a few white dots.  And then a top coat of Don’t You Wish by Pure Ice to try and give it some frosty sparkle.

For something sooooo simple, I seem to have found snowflakes REALLY hard.  I am of course my own worst enemy, for several reasons –

·         I am not artistic in a “oooh you can draw” way.  I can do cartoony things and patterns, but I am not very good at things that are supposed to resemble things

·         I hate to practice or plan.  I think and I do.  My better manis recently have been ones where I have put more thought in – dammit, I’m gonna have to knuckle down and be adult about this

·         I prefer dotting tools to brushes.  Even with nail art pens I am not getting thin enough lines, so today I have thinned some of my brushes!

·         Its really not helping that I am right handed and I am doing all this with my left hand, cos I can’t take polish off my left hand too often because of the silk wrap.  I think *this* is actually the best excuse of all, and the most logical and persuasive.  How would YOUR nail art look if you were doing it with the wrong hand ?

Lol.  So, snowflake malarkey done, but I am not satisfied.  Maybe I’m just bored with those colours.  Seriously, I don’t think I can use Sea Spray again for months!

Oooooh I wonder what purple neon snowflakes would look like …….

Oh sorry – forgot you were still here ….. was truffling through purples ……  ooh, look at that one ….. sorry, sorry, rude! Rude!  Byeeeeee

Enjoy J xx

J

Top Tip – if you’re ever unsure what a nail colour looks like, go to Google images, which will give you plenty of contrasts and compares.

Walking In a Winter Splatterland .....

Winter Splatter Mani

Hi Goddesses

This is a short post because I have a lot to do today!  I am prepped up to Day 11 of the Christmas Challenge and as I am GLORIOUSLY off work today, I want to get further ahead J  (and yes, I was a swotty pants at school).

I toyed with doing a winter water marble and I think I still will, but as I needed something quick and easy the other night, I thought I would do a winter splatter instead.

Whilst I am really pleased with the photos and the colour combination, this doesn’t look on the nail how it looked in my head, and so it’s a bit of a fail for me.  I wanted icy colours and a bit of sparkle so I used 2 coats of DS Coronation (silver holo) and then splatter with SH White On, CG Sea Spray and OPI Its Totally Fort Worth It.

Each of these colours on its own is cold and wintry – together ?  meh, I just didn’t get the variation I wanted.  I’m especially sad about ITFWI – in the bottle this is a pale grey with wonderful shimmer.  I look at the nail and even *I* can’t see where it landed, and I know I blowed it on!

Not a total fail, but not the success I wanted either.

Enjoy xx J

J

Top Tip – if you’re ever unsure what a nail colour looks like, go to Google images, which will give you plenty of contrasts and compares.

Elves ???? Elves ??? Oh Shit!

PURPLE CRUMPET FAIRY CHALLENGE – The 31 Days of Christmas

Day 6 - Elves

Hi Goddesses

Ugh, ELVES.  I seriously hate the person who suggested this go on the challenge list.  Elves.  There is just no easy way round this.

I have been obsessed with this for days, but obsessed in a bad way – crapping myself and wondering what exit excuses I could come up with.  Elves!  Arrrggghhh!

I kept putting this off and putting it off lol, finding all sorts of jobs around the house to do – and I NEVER do jobs around the house!  Eventually, I calmed down, and started with the nail I knew would be easiest – the tunic.

1 successful nail calmed me enough to start the others.  I decided to do the thumb sideways on so it would look better in the full hand shot – it really annoyed me that I couldn’t get all the snow globes pointing in the same direction.

Just to be perfectly clear, what we have here is –

·         Elf foot with jingly bell

·         Elf tunic

·         Elf hat

·         Elf tights

·         Elf mitten

Colours used –

·         Most nails have a base of CG Sea Spray

·         Green = CG Starboard

·         The goldy stuff is CG Twinkle Lights

·         A white striper, a black striper and some red dots.

Thank GOD that one is out of the way.  Now it’s just reindeers I need to crap myself about …….

Enjoy J  xx

It’s not too late to join us – just click here and do as many or as few days as you want – no pressure, just fun J

Enjoy xx J

J

Top Tip – if you’re ever unsure what a nail colour looks like, go to Google images, which will give you plenty of contrasts and compares.