Those Summer Nights

These nails are very 1980s inspired, no?  Must be all that Stranger Things I, and everyone else with a television, have been watching (40 mil viewers, Netflix, really?!)  Actually, the reason this manicure is so rad is because it was inspired by the 1980s-themed event my husband’s been playing in Rocket League, an RC car-meets-goal…sports…game?  All I know is I’m rather confused, and yet delighted, when I watch him motor a small replica Ecto 1 with striped sunset wheels down an underwater arena playing field in order to bury a hockey puck in a net that will explode in Michael Bay-worthy pyrotechnics.  Now, THAT’S a video game!

Also, yes, totally the inspiration for these nails, which I did using a quintet of Enchanted Polish holographics, including House of the Rising Sun (yellow), Desert Sunset (orange), Dope Jam (pink), and two mystery polishes from 2015, November (magenta) and January (dark purple.)  Extra super pretty as against the actual sunset this warm – SO warm – summer night.

Rainy Day Rainbows

Only type of day we’ve been having lately, actually.  It has rained SO MUCH this summer, and it’s also been humid as crap.  There was also some major springtime flooding this year.  I’d say we are positively wrung with water about these parts.  Hmm, that sounded a lot ickier than I had intended.  Meteorlogical water, just to clarify. 😉

Anyhow, here’s some rainbow nail art, set on a slant!  And I hope the end of your weekends, friends, feature more rainbows than rain.

Suit Up

This striping tape-assisted manicure reminds me of pinstriped suiting fabric, set on a slant and shot through with holographic rainbows.  So a textile perhaps for the very confident gentleman?  Or no man whatsoever right now, since the summer weather is hot as balls, and I pity the guy who has to wear a suit in this.

Speaking of balls, this favourite Colour Club holo has a fun name – Crystal Baller.  But owing to its hue, I just look at it and think it should be called Blue Baller.  Because I am a pervert and deeply juvenile. 😉  But it’s ever so pretty, is it not?  One of those polishes I always reach for when the sun is out at full blast, and boy howdy, is it ever.  Stay made in the shade, pretty peeps.

Met Gala Monday

Well, one week on.  But as with all things in my life lately, it took me a while to find my nail art supplies amidst the mess of these (never-ending) renovations, and it’s not like *I* was the one attending last Sunday’s Costume Institute Gala at the Met – Anna Wintour would never have the scrubby likes of me around, let alone in my current state of perpetual dishevelment, both physical (our new bathtub is lovely; now could we just get a faucet and reconnect the water?) and mental (I keep losing important things – my keys, my wallet – and yesterday I very carefully wrapped up a rasher of bacon and laid it in the cupboard beside the crackers; I just found it this morning.)  Had I managed to score an invite, it most likely would not have been my best showing.

But do you know who looked abso-friggin-lutely fantastic?  Cara Delevingne.  “The cosmic hula-hooping dirt scientist from Suicide Squad?” no one is asking.  Well, yes, her, and okay, I’m in agreement that her turn as Dr. June Moon (seriously) is maybe not one of her better roles as an actress.  But in wearing one of her many other hats as a model, the girl slays – she’s got the strong features, lithe figure and cocky attitude necessary to pull off major runway looks like the one she sported last week at the Met Gala.

Years ago I was super into celebrity gossip; spent too much time contemplating the hows and whys and wheres of shoeless Britney in the night.  I kicked my “need” for up-to-the-minute details on the whatabouts of my not-so-favourite stars a long time ago, but I still love looking at morning-after photos of the fashions sported by celebrities on the major red carpets.  And of all the red carpets, the Met Gala’s themed event has got to be the majorest (the carpet was actually pink this year), with nearly all the attendees adhering to the year’s chosen theme.

2019’s theme was “Camp: Notes on Fashion.”  And not camp as in “Here’s a nylon tent and four pegs; good luck keeping the bears out of your food” but as in Susan Sontag’s definition (pulled from the 1964 essay that inspired this year’s theme) of a “love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration.”  So look for a lot of colour, bonkers headpieces and unexpected adornments.

I literally gasped out loud when I saw Cara Delevingne’s Pride-inspired Dior confection.  She looked like one of those striped, rainbow-coloured lollipops you get at the fair.  With a bunch of bananas and eyeballs stapled to her head.  And girl was working it – she even had a pimp cane. 🙂 Oh, but that dress!  Ultra mini, super broad shouldered, horizontal stripes in a rainbow’s worth of unusual colours…had I the money, the bod and any place to wear it (simply pulling on a pair of pants these days feels like a pretty major accomplishment) it would be mine.  I’ve never been so in love with an outfit in my entire life.  I’d even wear the banana-eyeball fascinator.

I’m also not sure I’ve ever been so in love with a manicure as I am with this one, either the striped base version or the excessively, artificially adorned one (no eyeball or banana nail charms, but I found some suitably weird ones in my collection all the same.)

In following the exact colour pattern of the stripes on the dress, I used virtually every single Enchanted holo I own; I’m particularly fond of the very retro assortment of greens and blues on my middle finger.  And I’m totally blowing my own horn here, but those stripes are free-handed – striping tape is great in some applications, but it tends to pull and bleed when you’re trying to do such fine detail work.  Better to take my chances with a fairly steady hand.

Really, this might be one of my favourite manicures EVER, and I’ve been doing this a while – nearly six years by my last count.  It’s just the most fun, whimsical thing I think I’ve ever done, and I adore it!

So a very nice way to kick off the week, proud of a thing I did.  And to a week that make you proud, friends – I hope we all have wonderful ones. 🙂

Where’s Your Head At?

Both the loose – so loose – inspiration for these nails (the album cover art of the Basement Jaxx’s Where’s Your Head At?) and also a valid question for this blogger and nail artist: Where exactly WAS my head at, because this manicure is pretty terrible!  Bad colours, cruddy brushwork, ugly lighting.  And this was actually my second attempt at this design today; you should(n’t) have seen the first one.  Eh, sometimes these things don’t work out, but a bit of practice never hurt (and I’m sorely out of practice; too much post-vacation reminiscing and not enough nail art-ing.) 😉

Tim Hortons

Closing out this Canada Day long weekend with a nod to Tim Hortons, the beloved Canadian coffee and donut chain.

So if Canada has, as I assert, a bit of a national drinking problem (most of our holidays devolve into some sort of excuse to get blisteringly drunk whilst lakeside) Tim Hortons is the caffeine and starch purveyor that puts hangovers in their place the morning-after.  I don’t love Timmies, as it’s affectionately called, as much as many of my fellow countrymen and women, although I have warm memories of my dad and I making late night Tim’s runs when I was attending university and he’d shuttle me to and from class. I’d get this powder-based “espresso” concoction that was nothing but pure, ear-splitting sweetness and watery milk; my gateway coffee drug. 😉  They also serve these little donut holes called Timbits – they’re essentially legalized Canadian crack. Perfect for putting some much-needed spring in your step the Tuesday after the long weekend, so chow down and, as always, drink up, Canada.

Levels

This looks like the display on a stereo from the 1980s.  You know, something to measure the boom, bass and thuds.  Or it’s the digital speedometer from a high school friend’s plush Crown Vic.  My husband thinks it looks like the socks he wore to my parents’ for dinner last night.  It could also be a gene sequencing test.  So basically these are Choose Your Own Adventure nails – and which path will you take? 😉

Kitty in Stripes

After posting a tutorial of my own yesterday, I thought it was high time to tackle another manicure from a Hello Kitty nail art book I was gifted over the holidays.  The first mani of the book was a classic Kitty desgin – red and white polka dots, yellow-nosed and red bow’d Kitty.

The second design of the book keeps things similarly simple, this time introducing bold horizontal stripes in the classic combo of black and white, with just the barest hints of candy floss pink and glittery gold accents. Another easy tutorial to follow, resulting in a very pretty Kitty, indeed!

Choking Hazard

While I was looking up photos of jawbreaker candies for this sweet manicure, it struck me just how much of a safety hazard these candies really are.  All of them start out life tooth-breakingly hard, but when you add in the sheer size of some of them – about the size of a child’s fist – I don’t know how they’re not sent off to the same prison as Kinder Eggs for choking hazard crimes.  They’re basically dental work-destroying, candied ball gags.

But cute?  So cute!  And at the end of the day, still candy, so ignore all that prior talk of busted teeth and blocked trachea, huh?  Also a great excuse to use the so, so messy splatter technique for this manicure, which involves blowing nail polish out the end of a straw and onto your nails (always blow, never suck; these nails just look edible!)

Alice, What Have You Done?

Mr. Finger Candy likes to joke that my taste in video games is completely schitzoid – it’s either totally family-friendly, G-rated fare (currently working my way through the PS4 reissue of the Lego Harry Potter series) or it’s a blood-soaked, LSD-fueled descent into Victorian era madness (I’m awaiting 2017’s release of We Happy Few, a gorgeous, Bioshock-ish game about a filthy, dystopian version of 1960s London where everybody pops a super mood-enhancing drug called Joy to distract them from all the real activities going on in dirty, dystopian London, which would be mind control and slaughter.  Good times!)

2011’s Alice: Madness Returns, a favourite of mine – indeed, I launched this blog with nothing but those first rough Alice designs – falls squarely into the latter category.  It’s beyond messed up – rough subject matter, abject cruelty, nasty blood and gore.  Cripes, why would I play such a thing?  Well, I haven’t, not since I platinumed it back in 2011 (yes, I just used “platinum” as a verb.)  But Alice ranks as a favourite simply by virtue of its beauty; it’s the most gorgeous video game I’ve ever seen, filled to the brim with mesmerizing visuals.  Sometimes I’d just park Alice on a cliff and randomly swing the camera around, taking in every inch of the sick (in every sense of the word) artwork.

Getting down to these inspired-by nails, our girl Alice wears black and white striped tights.  And since American McGee’s version of Alice can’t seem to take two steps without running something through with her Vorpal Blade, I added a bit of blood spatter.  Finally, when Alice needs to take giant leaps across immense chasms, she busts out this nifty little double-hopping float that (usually) lands her gracefully on the other side. The best part of that move (aside from the physicslessness of it all) is that when she hops, she’s swept up in this pretty little tornado of blue, black and white butterflies that guide her safely to the other side.  So I added some of those boosting butterflies – can’t be too careful when you’re running (floating) through Wonderland hacking and slashing. 😉