Grey Skies Are Gonna Clear Up

Yup, it looks like the sun is rallying to make an appearance today, for the first time in about a week.  I mean, it’s still minus 8, but hey, we just might see a sunshiny day!  Yay, Vitamin D.

I dig this polish, KB Shimmer’s Make My Gray, out of storage every year around this time.  There’s just something optimistic about the bright turquoise and flamingo pink glitters bursting through the pale grey base and gunmetal-hued accents.  But oof, she’s a temperamental one in terms of consistency.  I think if I’m really looking for a reason why I only use this polish once a year, it’s probably because using it is a lot like trying to paint your nails with lumpy pudding.  Mmm, lumpy pudding!  It’s a pretty jerk, that’s for sure.  All the same, it’s nice to see it show its face at least once a year – hey, just like the sun!

Clear Up, Grey Skies

Closing out the month (or starting it off, according to WordPress Standard Time) with a simple, no fuss swatch of a polish that looks a lot like today’s weather – grey, overcast and rainy, but with the occasional visible patch of blue sky – KB Shimmer’s Make My Gray.  As for the little pink bits?  I suppose they could be any spring flower foolish enough to have already showed itself around my not-yet-done-with-winter city.  In fact, weather reports are calling for freezing rain and snow this coming weekend, so who’s the fool now, huh (me, always me, for living in a city with a terrible, largely unpredictable climate.  Aside from the fact that it predictably sucks.)

Negative Nelly (OMD2)

Negative space nails – a manicure in which areas of your nail are left bare or a design is cut into the polish itself – represent *the* trendy nail art technique of the moment. This is probably because it creates a super cool effect (so long as you don’t mind bits of your bare, stained, chipped and gouged nails being exposed to the judgemental eyes of the world), but also because it’s indisputably HARD, and nail art enthusiasts are nothing but a group up to an annoyingly difficult challenge.

Speaking of challenges, these nails, my second attempt at a negative space mani, represent my entry in the Oh Mon Dieu nail art challenge for day 23’s theme of negative space. Yet for all my tough talk about how difficult and time consuming they can be, it was probably the easiest-going manicure I’ve done in months. Isn’t that always the way? You fret about the hard ones and slack on the easy stuff, only to discover that you rock at the advanced difficulty, but have somehow forgotten how to use a dotting tool.

For these negative heart nails, I used a favourite glitter polish, KB Shimmer’s Make My Gray, for a pop of colour, adding Bourjois’s watermelon-hued Rose Imaginaire to my index and ring fingers. Once dry, I softened up the polish I wanted to erase by dipping a detail brush in acetone and marking out the little hearts. Then, using the pointed edge of an orangewood stick, I carved out the hearts, scraping up any excess polish as I went. Finally, I cleaned up the smudges left behind in the bare areas with a detail brush dipped in acetone, sealing the whole thing in with a coat of Seche Vite to smooth down any lumps and bumps.

It goes without saying that the next time I try a negative space mani, it will be a crapfest of epic proportions, but for now I’ll revel in the unexpected easiness of these nails – negative space nails with virtually no negatives!

Gray Skies Are Gonna Clear Up

“…paint a pig on your nails/wipe off that old dingy polish/there’s better stuff you got on sale…”  That’s how that song goes, right? 😉

Here I’ve shown a new polish from KB Shimmer’s spring 2014 line, Make My Gray.  Much like KB’s Full Bloom Ahead – another pick from the spring line – reminds me of crocuses and daffodils poking through the snow, Make My Gray evokes the overcast skies and gray puddles common to this time of year, with tiny, promising bits of blue sky and coral flowers emerging from the mild gloom.  A lovely and unusual springtime pick.

Emerging from the gloom as well are my patented polished piggies!  Pigs don’t hibernate, although mine apparently do, as I stopped painting pigs on my nails sometime last year following a veritable rash of swine-centric manis.  And you know what?  I’m glad to see their blank eyed, off centre, slightly bewildered faces yet again.  Viva la piggies!