Oh my poor little abandoned blog how I have neglected you these last 4 days, but it's not my fault honestly! Thursday was consumed by my usual work commitments and then brutal house cleaning in preparation for my birthday party Friday night, then Fridy was work and party, and the rest of the weekend... well... that was all the birthday parties fault, and my hubby! Knowing full well that it only takes a quarter glass of vino to send me on my merry way, that swine, with the excuse of ''come oooooon it's your birthday!'' plied me with 3 full glasses of champers before my guests had even arrived!! It was all over from that point on, people kept showing up with bottles of plonk for me and the hubby kept filling up that glass, and the rest of the night is nothing but a vague recollection of drunken shenanigans. The morning after I was absolutely hanging, and remained that way for the entire weekend. the dead body shaped dent in my couch can testify to that. I was a hot mess, a zombified vegetable laid groaning on the couch for days on end, reminded of why I drink so little in the first place, I felt god awful. Needless to say that ''come ooooon it's your birthday'' is no longer acceptable to me as a viable excuse for getting in the state I was in, and all attempts to resist peer pressure will be made in the future.
I did attempt to write a blog post over the weekend until I realised that it was mostly jibberish, and gave up before I did any serious damage! Though these past few days have shown me that perhaps my original goal of a post a day may have been ever so slightly over ambitious, and real life will often do it's best to get in the way of that, but I'll be posting as often as is humanly possible as I am really enjoying it!
So now that I have made my humble excuses for my absence it's time to show you my birthday nails!!!
These nails were inspired by my favourite sparkle encrusted leggings that I wore for my birthday, and it was a really difficult mani to photograph so this post is a bit picture heavy, it was hard to do these nails real justice! I used mylar flakes (just the individual flakes not a mylar flakie polish) and the effect reminded me of opal stones which I just love!
First I did the base with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear, ''Lime Lights'' (though the colour itself is mint not lime?) I chose this as the colour most prominent in my sparkly leggings is a light minty green. Using my dotting tool I picked up pieces of mylar and placed them on a layer of tacky topcoat.
I covered the full surface of the nail with the mylar flakes a little like a mosaic, then covered everything in several layers of topcoat. The flakes are different sizes and some are bent or folded and have sticky uppy bits, so I put lots of topcoat on so it was really think on the nail, let it dry overnight, and then I was able to use a nail block to buffer the nail surface to a smooth finish the morning after.
I covered the full surface of the nail with the mylar flakes a little like a mosaic, then covered everything in several layers of topcoat. The flakes are different sizes and some are bent or folded and have sticky uppy bits, so I put lots of topcoat on so it was really think on the nail, let it dry overnight, and then I was able to use a nail block to buffer the nail surface to a smooth finish the morning after.
After buffing I brought back the shine with another layer of top coat, but I used a holographic top coat this time (frankened from my spectraflair!) thinking it would be awesome, but it was a bit pointless with the effect of the mylar. This pic was taken in artificial light and shows the nice opal effect of the flakes.
This second pic was taken in direct sunlight and the grainy effect is caused by the holo top coat. The linear holograph was interrupted by the light of the mylar flakes and looks like a scatter glitter instead, but the holo was still barely visible due to the strong irridesence of the mylar.
I really love this opal effect though, and I would like to try it over a dark colour and without the interruptive holographic topcoat. Here in the thumbnail pic you can get a better look at the graniness of the scattered holo top coat.
I mixed some different colours of mylar flakes so you can see the pinks. greens, blues and yellows and the lovely irridescent effect, unfortunately I just couldn't capture how colourfully sparkly these nails really were no matter how I tried, but if you can believe it these nails are so much more pretty in real life! I was really happy with how they turned out, even if they would have been better without the holographic top coat, because it matched so nicely my sparkly leggings!
Here are a couple more pics of the nails with the leggings, first in artiificial light then in natural sun light.
The photography doesn't show the sparkle very well, but you can make out the different pastel colours from the diamantes that I was trying to replicate in my mani, and I think I was successful in capturing the light and colours of the leggings!
I had also tried to do nail stamping over these nails with a bright pink polish, and also white instead, but it was just too much and looked messy. These nails really just needed to be left as is and anything else on top was overkill. I shall be doing more with this wonderful mylar stuff though, including shredding it into tiny pieces with my electric coffee grinder to franken me up some flakie polishes!!
If you would like to try this mani yourself, you can purchase a set of mylar flakes in 12 different colours from my store HERE!
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