accent nail – the Spiff

One of the Best This Weeks Nails

December 26, 2013 No Comments

Choosing just one favorite nail color from the year would be impossible. If you’ve ever read one of my “this weeks nails” posts, you’ll quickly see I pick a new favorite nail color of the year…every week.

I do, however, truly love both these colors, the picture, and how I wrote this post so it’s definitely one of my favorites!

I’m only going to admit this once, so pay attention.

There was a time when I didn’t know what Tiffany blue was. Oddly enough the boy I was dating knew exactly what color it was, but I hadn’t a clue!
How I could call myself a woman at that time, is beyond me. And if right now you’re thinking, “Oh gosh, I don’t know what it is either!” No judgment here, my friends. Don’t say anything and in a second when you see my nails, just say out loud, “Boy I’m tired of that old Tiffany blue” and everyone will think you’re so glamorous :)

Seriously though, I believe it was 2006 that the boy I was dating at the time gave me a clue as to what my Christmas present was going to be and the clue was, “It comes in something blue.” That Christmas I got both my first piece of Tiffany jewelry and an education in the finer things in life-I’m eternally grateful for both.

My nails this week remind me of that time. It’s Maybelline Color Show’s “Green with Envy” with an accent nail of OPI’s “Designer De Better”. Both go in my top 10 of favorite nail colors from this past year and have provided a bright happy nail pallet this week. It was nice to change out of something dark for a little while.

I decided to add another dimension (or rather take one away) by putting Essie’s Mattifier over the blue. Some colors are perfect both shiny and flat and this is one of those colors. I like to do this every once in a while because it switches things up and breathes new life into old looks.

It’s nice to look down at my nails, smile at the color and think of the boy that gave me that necklace and eventually those two diamond rings on that accented finger :)

accent nail, fall, style setter, this weeks nails

This Weeks Nails

October 17, 2013 No Comments

It was time I widened my nail polish world.

In a recent Style Setter blog, I wrote about all the great nail polishes you can find around West Town Mall. One of those places was Crabtree & Evelyn.

This past week I used the “Mica” color I bought from there (for only $6, by the way!) and I have to say I’m very impressed!

The color went on smooth and layered nicely with only two coats, and was the exact look of silver metal I was going for. This polish had a big job to do. It was my party polish!

Over the weekend I celebrated my 30th birthday with family and friends (a little early, I don’t turn 30 till the 30th, but it makes the birthday last all month!)

This polish was precisely what I had in my head that would add a bit of tough edge to my sparkly outfit. I wanted something that would be dark but not too dark and have a bit of sheen without competing with the sparkles. This Mica was just what I needed.

And just to add a little pop of color, I added the “Don’t Know…Beets Me” pink by OPI and gave it it’s own edge by doing it matte.

Speaking of edge, how cool is this clutch?! I picked it up on our trip to Myrtle Beach in August. I just love the snakeskin pattern along with the brass knuckles. It’s the kind of clutch that would balance out any girly ensemble (and double as self defense…I also found it’s good for opening packs of napkins :)

Happy Thursday!

accent nail, nail art, nails

Ikat? I can.

March 4, 2013 No Comments

Nail art is really just grown up arts and crafts.
It’s for those of us who miss that part of our lives (along with a designated nap time).

I know I rant and rave about it sometimes (catch me on the wrong end of a nail art experiment, late Saturday night, and you’ll hear all the negatives about it-no problem).

This one, however, really had me curious, especially after it turned out better while I was in the process of trying to remove it.

I thought I’d give this Ikat pattern technique a whirl last night.

The Ikat pattern is everywhere right now. And while I’ve yet to like it enough to spend money on it, I will do a test run of my love by putting it on my nails. Just two of them though, I’m not yet that gun ho.

It’s a pretty interesting technique, and I was very curious to see whether or not it would work.

Here’s what I did…

I picked out my colors: white, pink, black, and Tiffany blue (aka: Maybelline’s “Green with Envy”)

Then I painted them alternately on my ring fingers. So first a full nail of white…let it dry…then a full nail of pink, then so on and so forth.

Ok, here’s where it got interesting…after your nail is completely dry, you take a Q-tip and dip it in nail polish remover and you drag it in spots across your nail.

Now first, I went very slow and had only very little remover on the Q-tip, that did ok. It ended up leaving more cotton mess on my nail than anything else. It actually wan’t until I had heavily dipped a Q-tip in nail polish remover and was trying to get the whole thing off my nail that it started to look cool.

What ends up happening is the remover burns through all your layers and leaves a smearing of each color. Don’t worry if you burn all the way through and can see your nail, I just touched that part up with a sharpie a little bit.

And you definitely don’t want it to look perfect, because that’s the beauty of the whole Ikat pattern. It’s smeary and blurry by nature so if you’ve imperfectly smeared, you’ve got it!

I don’t think I’d try to attempt this on all of my nails, but it certainly adds a bit of personality as an accent.

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This Weeks Nails

January 24, 2013 No Comments

Decide your mood and stick to it.
That’s the lesson I learned with my nails this week.

Unfortunately I learned this lesson several rough drafts of repaints too late. However, what I ended up with I’m pretty happy about.

What I started with was another attempt at the monochromatic look. I’ve seen this done perfectly, but have yet to achieve it myself. It’s when you take five shades of one color (blue is what I tried) and paint them from dark to light across your hand.

On the left you see what I ended up with.

The only problem I have with this look is that you have to nail the shade progression or else your fingers will end up looking like Easter M&M’s.

After about 24 hours of extending my arm out and staring at my hand, I finally decided to save myself a week of appearing as if I was constantly singing “Stop in the Name of Love”, and start over.

What I changed to was a simple OPI “Ski Teal We Drop” with an accent nail technique I’ve been mulling over.

Yes, this was much better.

What I did for the accent nail, was I took a pink sharpie and drew lots of scientific looking shapes like these…then I simply just added black parenthesis to them all. And wha-la! A cool little cheetah print nail was born.

Make sure when you do this that you let the print dry for a while. I thought I had given it ample time, but when I put a top coat over it (which is a must) it still smeared a little bit. So just give it even longer then you think it needs to dry.

Now I promise myself, and you, that next weeks nails are already decided and I’ll stick to my decision even though I’m trying out a new technique and I don’t know if it will work.

You’ll just have to make sure you tune in next Thursday to see what it is and if I keep my promise!

accent nail, nails

Tiffany Blue

January 17, 2013 No Comments

I’m only going to admit this once, so pay attention.

There was a time when I didn’t know what Tiffany blue was. Oddly enough the boy I was dating knew exactly what color it was, but I hadn’t a clue!

How I could call myself a woman at that time, is beyond me. And if right now you’re thinking, “Oh gosh, I don’t know what it is either!” No judgment here, my friends. Don’t say anything and in a second when you see my nails, just say out loud, “Boy I’m tired of that old Tiffany blue” and everyone will think you’re so glamorous :)

Seriously though, I believe it was 2006 that the boy I was dating at the time gave me a clue as to what my Christmas present was going to be and the clue was, “It comes in something blue.” That Christmas I got both my first piece of Tiffany jewelry and an education in the finer things in life-I’m eternally grateful for both.

My nails this week remind me of that time. It’s Maybelline Color Show’s _____ with an accent nail of OPI’s “Designer De Better”. Both go in my top 10 of favorite nail colors from this past year and have provided a bright happy nail pallet this week. It was nice to change out of something dark for a little while.

I decided to add another dimension (or rather take one away) by putting Essie’s Mattifier over the blue. Some colors are perfect both shiny and flat and this is one of those colors. I like to do this every once in a while because it switches things up and breathes new life into old looks.

It’s nice to look down at my nails, smile at the color and think of the boy that gave me that necklace and eventually those two diamond rings on that accented finger :)