Gnarly Gnails: April 2012

Monkey See Monkey Do Time! Featuring Chalkboard Nails.

Monday, April 30, 2012
By Missy
15 Comments

Challenge: Adventures in Stamping Sundays

Adventures in Stamping Sunday - Queens Day!

Sunday, April 29, 2012
By Missy
5 Comments

The lades in the AIS group decided to switch things up this weekend and do a stamping based on Queens Day - I think it's great to celebrate other countries' holidays, I always like to learn about these things personally.

Here is some wiki info on this holiday:

Koninginnedag or Queen's Day is a national holiday in the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Celebrated on 30 April (the 29th if the 30th falls on a Sunday), Koninginnedag is Queen Beatrix's official birthday. Though Queen Beatrix was born on 31 January, the holiday is observed on 30 April as it was the birthday of her mother and predecessor, Juliana. Many of the traditional activities are held outside, and observing the holiday in April makes suitable weather more likely.

The holiday was first observed on 31 August 1885 as Prinsessedag or Princess's Day, the fifth birthday of Princess Wilhelmina, heiress to the Dutch throne. On her accession, the holiday acquired its present name, Koninginnedag. When held on 31 August the holiday was the final day of school summer vacation, leading to its popularity among children. Following the accession of Wilhelmina's daughter Queen Juliana in 1948, the holiday was moved to her birthday. Her daughter, Beatrix retained the celebration on 30 April after she took the throne in 1980. Beatrix altered her mother's custom of receiving a floral parade near a royal palace, instead choosing to visit different Dutch towns each year and join in the festivities. In 2009, the Queen was carrying out this custom in the town of Apeldoorn when a car was driven into a crowd surrounding the royal family's vehicle; seven people in the crowd were killed, and the car's driver also died soon afterwards.

Koninginnedag is known for its nationwide vrijmarkt ("free market" or flea market), at which many Dutch sell their secondhand items. It is also an opportunity for "orange madness" or oranjegekte, for the national colour, when the normally straight-laced Dutch let down their hair, often dyed orange for the occasion.

Now, on to the nails!

For this look I did a multi-layered nail with a stamp on top.

Started with a marbled nail using the saran wrap technique and Orly You're Blushing with Fingerpaints Black Expressionism. Wish I'd have shot this part first as it was a pretty cool marble look, a little too much black though!

Then I stamped a crown on the thumb and a damask/wallpaper type design on the other fingers. In hindsight I should have done this look in orange based on the Queens Day description, but I kinda was thinking of skipping this challenge until the last minute and I was already in a different color scheme!

For the stamping I used the goldish Claires Magnetic polish.

Brand: American Apparel

Stashapalooza - Drawer 2!

Saturday, April 28, 2012
By Missy
7 Comments

Drawer 2 of my first Melmer is very special to me.

This one holds all of my Indie polishes, my failed attempts at frankening, my euro polishes and some of my higher end polishes.

Lets get right to it, this baby is packed with pics!

Here is the drawer. After taking pics of all of these, I am surprised it isn't fuller. Then again, last time I looked it was half this full! No idea why that little plastic box in the back has a $ sign on it!

Most of the polishes in this drawer may only be 1 or 2 of a brand. So there's lots of pics!

American Apparel polishes. This is Smoke Dazzle, Meteor Shower & MacArthur Park.

I love these bottles, and the polishes. I need more. I wish I'd been into polish when I worked next door to an AA store!

Butter London. It's getting there...most BL's dont wow me for their price tag, it has to be pretty special for me to drop more than $12 on a polish. But it does happen!

Wallis, Henley Regatta, Tart With a Heart, The Black Knight and Trout Pout.

Catrice! I owe my lovely new friend Angi a huge thanks for picking these up time and time again for me. If I could get these locally I'm pretty sure they would be the most collected of my stash, hands down.

Currently 16 Catrice Polishes.

Cosmetic Arts - never even heard of these until I found them in a Ross store and I loved the neon-ness of them! These don't have names on the bottles, sorry.

My precious Lippmann's!

Today Was a Fairytale, Across the Universe, Happy Birthday, Candy Shop. Sweet Dreams, Good Girl Gone Bad and Yellow Brick Road.

My small stash of Dollish Polish.

Zombie Flesh, Cold Winds are Rising, Random Dancing, Material Girl and Team Salvatore.

Essence.

Where's the Party, Gagalectric, Prism@tic White, Fruitys and a duo!

Hungry Asian - Sneeze Breeze and Sea Creature (these are AWESOME)

See? So Awesome they get 2 photos.

Illamasqua. If they had em at my local Sephora this would be exponentially larger!

Milf, Ranpage, Jo'Mina.

Julep polishes.

Randoms I've picked up at Llarowe. Lynnderella Connect the Dots, Up Colors Azul Arco Iris and Hits Hera.

Maaaaaaaaaaaaaanglaze!

The first bottle is Fatty's Got More Blood but it's in a Fuck Off & Dye bottle (my good friend Taylor gave me this for Xmas, I think they mislabeled some bottles and gave her freebies, so thats what this is, a bastard)

Fatty's Got More Blood, Santorum, Ilf, and Lesbihonest.

Randoms. A England Saint George and Models Own Green Tea.

Nerds.

Nebula, All of Time & Space, Hyperspace Bypass and Largo!

Misc. Indies, Nostalgic Nail Lacquers in Jem and Andie. KBShimmer in Newsprint and Dandy Nails in Funhouse.

Tonymoly. I love Tonymoly. They make some cool stuffs.

Pinky Star, Shooting Star and Mars.

And last but certainly not least, my Whimsicals. Whimsical Ideas by Pam is an Indie Polish I found out about a few months back on MUA. I'm sure if you've been around here much at all, you have seen numerous swatches of her polishes on my chunky fingers! She is awesome and she is blowing up so fast, I am so happy for her huge success, she deserves it, these polishes are REALLY good quality and unique. You can find a link to her FB page on my sidebar--->