Legend of Zelda Triforce Nail Art

Just to, you know, really drive it in that I'm a huge geek.

Let me tell you a little story about my first Legend of Zelda experience. I was 12 and I was staying at my dad's apartment for the weekend. I had brought my Nintendo 64 over for entertainment purposes (not that he wasn't entertaining, exactly, he was just studying to be a paramedic) and we had rented Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I haaaated it. My problem was that I couldn't find the frigging Kokiri Sword. I played for all of 20 minutes, decided the game was lame, and went about my life.

Fast forward a year; waiting at a bus stop with my friend from elementary school's big scary sister. I was a freshman in high school and I didn't belong anywhere. This big scary sister and I started talking video games, and she lauded about a game called Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I was like, girl, whaaaat? That's shit's lame. And she's like NO. So she let me borrow it (and helped me with the sword) and thus began the most epic journey of my life up to that point and a best-friendship that's still intact to this day.

We defeated Ganondorf during New Year's Eve of 1999/New Year's Day 2000. EPIC.

Ocarina of Time is very near and dear to my heart (I say it's my favorite video game of all time but I'm pretty sure that's just in a sentimental way... it's definitely in my top 3). That's the end of my story.

Courage! Wisdom! Power! I know I'm holding a GameCube controller here (I don't know where my N64 controller is, thanks) but just go with it. Windwaker was pretty great too, if we're going to get all crazy about it.

Colors used were:
Zoya - Storm & Raven
Sinful Colors - Ruby Mine & Emerald Envy
Ciate - True Blue
OPI - Oy-Another Polish Joke!

I was going to freehand the Marks of the Goddesses instead of just the individual Triforce bits but I just so happen to be taking a medicine that makes my hands kind of shaky, which is also super awesome for doing nail art.

I was going to re-take the pictures after I reviewed them because I kind of hated how they turned out, but I was going to do it after we went to the grocery store. But then something suck-filled happened, which you can read about tomorrow </3 

Daring Digits - Horde Swatch & Review (and some Warcraft nail art)

Back when the baby was immobile, I Warcrafted around with a Night Elf Hunter babe named Pancayk. Then I started working from home (cue quasi-adulthood) aaaaand my days of dungeon crawling were over. *Nostalgic siiiigh*. I first played WoW in the summer of '06 at my friend's house-- it was the first time I really played an MMORPG (as I owned a cute indigo iMac which wasn't exactly suited for online gaming) but that was my only frolic around Azeroth until last year when my boyfriend bought a computer built specifically, seriously, to play WoW from one of his co-workers. Ughhhhh. Some people long after previous lovers, previous jobs, previous living conditions... my heart yearns for the sweet touch of my Razer Naga.

Going right along with my unintentional theme of TV show/video game inspired polishes, I bring you Horde by a polish brand I had never heard of until I saw this polish on Storenvy: Daring Digits. It's from an entire WoW collection which I can basically find nothing on. Oh hwell.

Horde is, of course, a blackened jelly base with small metallic red dots and larger, I want to say, like, satin-finish hex glitter. Application was meeeehhhhh. Trying to get the glitter on in a single smooth coat was akin to finding Ashes of Al'ar-- lots of glitter fishing to be had, and the base was pretty sheer so I would definitely recommend layering it over a black or other dark polish.

Shown below is two coats of German-icure by OPI with Horde applied in a dabbing sort of way (with a thin coat of the base applied between dabs for more dimension). Accent nail is two coats of Zoya - Raven with China Glaze - Xtreme Thrash for the Horde symbol (touched up with Sinful Colors - Cross my Heart). All topped with two coats of Essie G2G (I found it!).

This was my first adventure with free-handing nail art and I'm pretty relieved that it doesn't look like complete poop-poop. I didn't have a super tiny brush so I, um, found the smallest one I had and cut the bristles on the side so just a little tuft remained. I thought that Xtreme Thrash (ridiculous name, by the way) would be too orange-leaning to match the red glitter but it was spot on. I also realized that I don't own a single red creme polish. Is that some kind of crime in nail world? (Also were you completely creeped out by my spider-hand in picture 4? Good).

The formula with this guy definitely left something to be desired, and I kind of desperately wished it included tiny red glitter too to break up some of the glitter-less space, but I do like how it looks on the nail. Definitely evocative of Horde-y things.

Zoya - Jules Swatch & Review

Jules was one of like 18 polishes I got from the first Pinterest board sale I ever bought from. That was so awesome.

Anyway, Jules here is this greige base with loads of gold and silver shimmer. Zoya does these kinds of polishes so well. A little watery but it built well enough in three thin coats. Essie G2G on le top.

Jules is one of those neutrals that had a nice added oomph, like skin-tone polishes that have, say, pink shimmer. Definitely one of my faves.

Adventures in Nail Stamping: My First Success!

I bought a Konad double-sided stamper and a brand-unknown stamping plate (it's octagonal and is labeled KD28... I googled it and found nothing, and when I googled "Russian Doll stamping plate" a round version of what I had by a company called Nail Craze came up. So I don't know) with the cutest little triplet of Russian Dolls, this winter sweater pattern and a pretty floral pattern (and a mouse? And a flower "sprig," if you will). I wanted to do a fall-themed mani, so this is what I came up with.

I used Hard Candy - Crush on Lava (which is this really neat sort of burgundy-rust to gold duochrome... sort of like Orly - Space Cadet without the blue base) and stamped with Essie - As Good As Gold, then lightly brushed on some Zoya - Maria-Luisa.

It doesn't shift to quite as green of a hue the pictures are showing you in real life. The macro is really the most accurate in terms of color. As Good As Gold was awesome to stamp with. I haven't done a lot of experimenting with stamping yet, so it was nice to actually have something work out pretty early on.

Well, all right. I'm going to go play some GTA5 while the kids are asleep.

Zoya: Aurora Swatch & Review

I LOVE AURORA I LOVE AURORA I LOVE AURORA.

Firsties: Because of the move, I'm still not on my regular computer and I haven't downloaded my watermark font onto this one which is why my watermark is lame. Because you noticed that. Because "lbol" is going to prevent people from stealing my pictures. Because my pictures are worth stealing. Because everybody knows what "lbol" stands for.

Secondsies: I bought Aurora from a Pinterest polishes for sale page along with 11 other polishes for $32 including fees and shipping, most of which were Zoyas. I LOVE PINTEREST I LOVE PINTEREST etc.

Thirdsies: Look at this shiz--

3 coats, sunlight

I KNOW, RIGHT? So, Aurora is a fuchsia-violet jelly with holographic glitter, but not just ANY holographic glitter, it's all irregularly-shaped and things. Plus, I swears, it's linear holo to boot, just in a very scattered way.

Application was all right. It didn't apply as smoothly as other brands I've been obsessed with lately (coughSINFULCOLORScough) but it was mostly 'opaque' (as much as a jelly can be, anyway) in 3 heavy coats. I almost typed goats just then. Three heavy goats.

3 goats, shadelight

Aurora is from Zoya's 2012 Ornate (holiday) Collection. I also got Storm from the same collection that I cannot wait to try. I. Love. This. Nail. Polish.

I need some consistency to this blog, right? Polish shot with the bottle, without the bottle, wonky watermark, crappy lighting in like 239482973 of the swatches, and so on. I just need to hit my stride. Or not suck so hard at blogging. Or a happy combo of bolth.

Striping Tape & Gradients: NOTDs

In the midst of the moving madness, I still find the time to paint my nails. I guess you can probably see my haste, hahaha. Not the best cleanups in the world... Not that it matters. My nails have been chipping like maniacs what with packing and all. No breaks yet! Knock on wood.

First up is a little striping tape action. I don't love striping tape when left on the nail because no matter how careful I am to make sure to cover up the ends with top coat, they always start to peel within like, an hour. But using striping tape to make line designs with layered polish is definitely my currently favorite technique.

Orly - Glitz & Essie - Sunday Funday, sunlight

I've been using the Essie quick dry top coat and I must say, it's a nice change from my insanely gloopy almost-empty bottle of Seche Vite. It's not as, hmm, sturdy (?) feeling as SV, but it still leaves my nails super-shiny and it does dry rather fast.

Barielle - Berry Blue under Hard Candy - Bity Blue & Essie Naughty Nautical, sunlight

I mean, I really love that design, too. It was a Julep NOTD a while ago and she used gold and army green which is really quite lovely too. This got messy, however. Besides my wonky pinky paint-shape, my cuticles were, indeed, blue. Berry Blue is a gooorgeous deep blue, but it bleeds like no other during cleanup. 

SOPI - Is It Payday Yet?, Salon Perfect - Robin's Egg Blue & OPI - Parlez-vous OPI?
Zoya - Maria Luisa (awesomeeee) on my ring finger, sunlight

I joined a new facebook group called Nail Polish Challenge the other day and one of the prompts was pastel gradient. As you can tell, I suck hard at gradient. I understand the technique, but I'm not patient enough to let the first coat dry all the way before sponging on a second layer and it gets all sponge-marky. I like the color combo, though. I'll try this again around Easter, I think. Maybe I won't be so bad at it by then!

I bought Charla and Maria Luisa from Zoya.com a couple days ago. As a new registered user, I got one polish for free which was pretty great. Plus shipping was free too (I think because of a promotion that was running...?) Also, I've discovered pinterest nail polish sales/swaps! Oh nooooo! That just took this obsession to a whole new level!

I also recently did my first swap with the most lovely lady in Canada. She writes a darling fashion blog that you should check out here: bluecollarredlipstick.com. She was super patient with my complete cluelessness about swapping. Plus, she swapped me some really spectacular and HTF polishes!! I can't wait for that package to come. Friendliness really seems to be a trend in the nail polish community. It feels like everybody's rooting for each other and trying to help locate lemmings and things like that. That's not very common on the internet, I've noticed.

Well, have a good weekend, everybody ever!

  

Seafoam & Poppy Mani

I was seriously all about this blog in the beginning, okay? And I still intend on being. Just stuff and stuff.

So, nail stuff, then.

I have these Sonia Kashuk hairbrushes that I seriously love the colors of (they were on clearance at my local Target, hay) sooo I decided to paint my nails in one of the brush's, um, honor.

There's some Salon Perfect Robin's Egg (which is more green-hued than what I typically think of robin's egg blue being), a bit of Zoya Raven (which has almost unrecognizable shimmer) and Essie Meet Me at Sunset (which is my favorite color currently, an orange-tinted bright red crelly? I'm clearly confident with my nail polish, like, technicalities...). I first taped the top half of my nail off and did the Robin's Egg, then (impatiently) removed that tape and taped off a little further up for the Raven. I have had absolutely zero percent success with taping over existing polish. I know it's because I don't wait long enough for it to dry. But having done two coats with the tape on, the polish forms a little ridge for me to be able to bump the brush right up against the next color without having to worry too much about the new color going all up on the previous one.

SO ANYWAY MANI INSPIRED BY HAIRBRUSH which should obvs be in some sort of manicure-month thing.

I picked up some pretty rad changes-color-in-the-sunlight polish from Five Below that I'm going to swatch soon. I know you're on the edge of your seat!