TopCoatIt

Getting your house ready to sell is a lot of work! I feel like it’s all I’ve been doing for months now. I’m ready to be done sorting through junk and painting and caulking. We’re in the home stretch though, so there is definitely a light at the end of the tunnel.
All the home improvement-ing has occasionally made it difficult for me to find time to work on fantastic manicures for you all. This past weekend was one of those times. I thought I was going to have to repost an old mani or just ditch out on it all together today. Then I remembered these gems. I did this mani for a guest post that has yet to be published, so I figured I’d put them to good use and show them to you today. I’ve been keeping my nails quite a bit shorter than this lately. I feel like they look really long here.

For this design I used Julep Vera, Alyson and Brandt. Any guesses as to what blog this mani was meant for? If you aren’t familiar with my argyle tutorial, you can check it out here.

Oh how much I’m wishing for spring. I’m sick of the cold and the dry itchy skin.This isn’t the first time I’ve taken my inspiration from a tissue box. I’ve had a bit of a head cold, so I’ve been spending lots of time looking at tissue boxes. I started with a base color of Julep Alyson. The rest of my colors are Zoya Robyn and Arizona, Color Club Edie, Sinful Colors Timbleberry and CND Asphalt.

I was excited for this week because I hadn’t tried a Saran wrap mani yet.  Just to make sure I understood what I was supposed to be doing I Googled it.  Evidently it’s acceptable to use the Saran wrap to add or remove polish from your nail.  I opted for the remove technique.

I really thought this color combination would have a little more pizazz.  It’s pretty, but it just kind of looks like a stone of some sort.  I do sometimes look at it and think it looks like one of those Hubble telescope images.

My base color was Orly Decades of Dysfunction then I polished on Orly Space Cadet and pulled some of it back off with my little balls of Saran wrap.  This is definitely a technique that I would like to play around with more.  I’m not overly thrilled with these results, but am intrigued enough to keep trying.  I did achieve a pretty neutral effect though.

Have you tried the Saran wrap technique? What do you think?

Be sure the check out all the other manis today:

Amanda of Amandalandish
Anna of Going to the Showing
Anne of Grape Fizz Nails
Ashley of Art Evolve
Brandi of The Collegiate Nail
Chelsea of Nailed Blog
ChiChi of I’m Just Me…ChiChi
Cordia of Seriously Swatched
Elizabeth of Did My Nails
Jamie of Polish, Please!
Jenn of All That is Gorgeous
Katherine of Haul of Fame
Maribeth of Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite!
Marisa of Polish Obsession
Meredith of Polish and Charms
Nory of Fierce Make Up and Nails
Sarah of See Sarah Swatch
Tara of Polishy of Truth

I have a peasant-ish top that I got from Old Navy that I love.  It makes me think of peacocks but I think it’s because of the colors rather than the pattern itself.I was wearing it the other day and thought the pattern on it would be a fun one to try.  And I had all the right colors.

My base color is OPI Swedish Nude, the olive green accents are OPI Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window and the bright aqua is Color Club Edie.

This is the first time I’ve used Color Club Edie.  It’s such a bright, happy color.

I’m loving this design. It feels very grown up.

Happy Tuesday!  Today we’re showing our oldest polish.  I wasn’t really sure which of my polishes was older, but being that I have a few OPIs that don’t have the wide brushes, I figured that makes them pretty old.  I know I bought them when I was in my teens.  They’re in surprisingly good condition.  You’d think they would be all dried up and gloppy, but not so.

These polishes are such delicate colors, it made them difficult to photograph.  I started with OPI Shanghai Shimmer.  Talk about mannequin hands.  If this polish didn’t have a shimmer to it, you wouldn’t have been able to see it at all.  I was terribly unimpressed.

So I added some polka dots in OPI Hawaiian Orchid, a super, super pale pink shimmer.  It makes for a very subtle combination.  Evidently I didn’t always like bright and colorful polishes.  I have a couple bold ones that are pretty old, but I only ever used them on my toes back in the day.  I used to buy French tip kits pretty regularly, but always struggled to get them to look good.  Oh how times change.

Be sure the check out all the other manis today:

Amanda of Amandalandish
Anna of Going to the Showing
Anne of Grape Fizz Nails
Ashley of Art Evolve
Brandi of The Collegiate Nail
Chelsea of Nailed Blog
ChiChi of I’m Just Me…ChiChi
Cordia of Seriously Swatched
Elizabeth of Did My Nails
Jenn of All That is Gorgeous
Jenna of I’m Still Thinking
Katherine of Haul of Fame
Maribeth of Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite!
Marisa of Polish Obsession
Meredith of Polish and Charms
Nory of Fierce Make Up and Nails
Sarah of See Sarah Swatch
Tara of Polishy of Truth