Hey Now, You’re an All Star

Just in case you needed reminding. 🙂

(Guardians of the) Galaxy Nails

Here’s an updated take on an old nail art technique known as galaxy nails.  That’s basically beauty speak for “sponge a bunch of colourful polishes onto your nails in a nebulae-like fashion, top with tiny pinprick planets and GO!”  But no actual “Guardians of the” in this post (wee confession regarding the movies: I no like) – just trying to guard these pretty galaxy nails from chips and general destruction. 🙂

Blast From the Past

The 1960s called – somewhere, a family, dreaming of a future that looks like the Jetsons, is missing the pattern from its Formica kitchen table AND linoleum.  Thank goodness I found it here on my nails, in only THE most fetching and trendy shades of the decade, avocado and harvest gold (my grandparents had appliances in both, actually!)

Pew Pew!

Holographic lasers (ILNP’s silver holo, Mega) dance across a midnight blue sky (Enchanted Polish’s Desert Night Sky) in this simple, striping tape-enabled manicure. Pew pew, a direct hit!

Shoot for the Lush Stars!

Doing the matchy-matchy thing again with my nails and my bath products, this time co-ordinating my manicure to two releases from Lush’s winter holiday collection, Shoot for the Stars bath bomb and The Magic of Christmas reusable bubble bar.

Design-wise, both the bath bomb and the bubble bar are adorable as all get-out – super rich pigmentation, cute little add-ons and SO. MUCH. GLITTER!  But in terms of performance?  Well, true to its name, the golden stars embedded in the Shoot for the Stars bath bomb shot straight OFF the bath bomb the second it hit the water, leaving behind these oddly grainy little patches of oily orange ick that I didn’t want to look at, let alone share a bath with.  And while my bathwater was the most gorgeous shade of sparkly, darkened teal, getting there took the bath bomb next to no time, dissolving totally – and with very little fanfare – in a little under 30 seconds.  Very poor value for its $6.95 (Canadian) price tag.

Annnnddddd The Magic of Christmas reusable bubble bar (which became no such thing after a great big fault line opened up straight down the middle) smells like Tang.  Or that powdery orange “beverage drink” from McDonald’s.  Then again, I don’t think ANYTHING from Lush actually smells like its description, although that certainly won’t stop me from trying to find the one exception!  In the meantime, matchy manis make everything better.

A Pastel Galaxy (31DC2016)

Just a smattering of bright stars against a soft sky lit by the last rays of the day.  That’s poetic fancy talk for this is a manicure I did for day 19’s theme of galaxies in the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge. 🙂

Moons Over Tatooine (31DC2016)

It never ceases to amaze me the interesting, mostly unknown paths my adventures in nail art have led me down.  Tonight, for instance, I found myself consulting Wikipedia on the possible existence of two moons on the Star Wars planet of Tatooine.  I was curious as to whether it had two moons to match its two suns (and also whether I could use it as the inspiration for this silhouetted manicure for day 18’s theme of half moons in the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge.)  Turns out it actually has three, although the third rotates into Tatooine’s orbit so infrequently, it technically functions as another planet.  So there you go, your fictional astronomy lesson for the day. 😉

Galaxy Quest

Not the movie, although I’ll confess to finding it much more tolerable on recent viewings. It’s just one of those movies – very much like Men in Black – that has never really appealed to me.  Anything that has to do with space stuff, actually, particularly the two Stars, Wars and Trek.

But enough about the holes in my pop culture sci fi knowledge, and on to the sci fi nails. Thankfully, one area I no longer seem to be struggling in quite so badly any more are my galaxy nail designs.  Galaxy nails have never really been my thing, because I seem unable to pull off a delicate star design.  But with a little assistance – okay, a lot of assistance – from my secret weapon for creating the perfect starry lacquered sky, CND Vinylux’s Dazzling Dance, this dusky mani turned out quite beautifully.  Quest fulfilled!

And a small shout-out as well to the obstinate little water droplet clinging to my index finger, which lasted through 80 some-odd photos and completely dodged my attention until, well, now. Nicely done, water droplet!

Also, this manicure matches the leggings I’m currently wearing.  I’ll leave you to decide if that was intentional or not. 😉

What’s the Frequency, Sandra?

I have as of late been feeling quite nostalgic.  The start of the summer break always has a way of doing that to me, but this year’s Summertime Sadness has felt especially potent. It’s the memory of all those hot, heady, almost languid days of summers past when my biggest responsibilities were showing up at my part-time job for 20 hours a week and remembering to slap on a coat or 12 of sunscreen before hitting the backyard pool, lest I crisp up into a large Celtic lobster.

Anyhow, I’ve been feeling all of the nostalgic warm and fuzzies lately, particularly in relation to days of fashion past.  And what you’re looking at here is the nail art equivalent of an outfit I wore my final year of high school until the pants literally fell apart at the seams.  Because they were crazy gigantic, super janky jeans that one of my best friends quite inexpertly Frankensteined together out of a slightly smaller pair of gigantic jeans and two hip-to-toe panels of burnt orange paisley and polka dotted fabric.  And no, I did not attend high school in the 1970s – this was the mid-90s.

I would inevitably pair those jeans with my favourite t-shirt, because I wore that thing all the time, and if I wasn’t wearing it, I was probably naked.  Khaki green and printed with a huge black star across the chest, I’m pretty sure it’s the same t-shirt Michael Stipe wears in R.E.M.’s What’s the Frequency, Kenneth? video.  I’m not sure where Michael Stipe might have picked up his star tee, but I purchased mine from Ron Jon’s Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach, Florida (that’s remarkable really only in that it turns out that Ron Jon’s was an unanticipated eight hour round-trip drive to and from our hotel; I will never forget that, and if by some chance I do, my dad, who drove that day through, like, the backwoods of Florida (I believe they’re called the Everglades) will be there to remind me!)

Rounding out the whole look was a beat-up pair of once-dusky blue Converse sneakers with “I hate my generation,” a lyric from a Sloan song, scrawled across the right shoe’s instep.

Good grief, being a teenager was – and no doubt is – (try)hard work. 😉

Foiled Again!

When I feel lacking in creative spark – sort of like I do now, caught somewhere between seasons and holidays – I like to haul out my polish collection and just start playing around. Sometimes my nail experiments – those moments when I just randomly throw any combination of polishes together – don’t yield the most positive of results.  I’ve sat back on more than a few occasions and gone, “Well, that’s just crap!” before blighting my efforts from the earth with acetone.

But every now and then I hit on something that’s easy, fun and super cute, and I’m all the better for having just mucked about first for a bit to see what sticks.  For this very opalescent-looking manicure, I used two shimmer-enhanced, foil-type polishes in Pantone’s Colors of the Year, pale periwinkle Serenity and baby pink Rose Quartz.  Laying down a base of the icy blue, I then topped it with random, nearly-dry brushstrokes in the frosty pink. And that’s pretty much it (save for the tiny silver star studs I added at the very end.) The resulting mani is super pretty, yet somehow still subtle, the purple shimmer in each frosty, foil-type polish blending beautifully for a simply gorgeous look.  Love.