Dinglehopper

Also known as Ariel, the Little Mermaid’s styling tool of choice.  Dang, that girl manages to look so great given all the DIY fashion she’s got going on (shells, dinglehoppers, fetching burlap sacks.)  Prince Eric is such a dummy, though – Ariel really shouldn’t waste her hotness on him.  She’d seriously be better off with the crustacean-murdering chef at his castle.  Or one of Ursula’s eels.  Eric is totally the worst!

I think this post may have gotten away from me a bit. 😉  Just some mermaid nails for the summer solstice.  I’m sure Ariel’s enjoying the extra daylight hours.  To the rest of the summer!

Butterfly Candy

Squeezing some of my sunniest polishes into the final few days of summer with this pretty swatch of Candy Lacquer’s Butterfly Candy, a favourite rainbow glitter bomb speckled with a kaleidoscope of butterflies (fun science-y tidbit: that is the actual technical term for a grouping of butterflies, a kaleidoscope.  So beautifully fitting!)

Frozen Pink Lemonade

Adventures in water marbling have once again produced a pretty – if ill-defined – animal that started out life as a nod to the mighty banana split and instead wound up as slushy frozen lemonade.  I suppose that’s what happens when you forget the brown “chocolate sauce” polish.  Also when you water marble as terribly as I do; it always seems like every nail is just doing its own thang, heedless to my pleas for nail art consistency. Although I guess screwing up every water marble mani I’ve ever done is its own type of consistency, so at least there’s that!

Summer Swatches

The craft stores may already have their Halloween decor on clearance, but I think there’s still lots of time left on this summer thing.  And for once, I can’t say that’s a bad thing – unlike previous years, I haven’t had a terrible problem with the heat.  And while I’d say that a major contributing factor has been the wetter-than-usual (and therefore cooler-than-usual) summer we have been “enjoying” in eastern Ontario this year, I think the lack of profuse sweating may actually be due to my rather profound weight loss – about 50 pounds since the end of February!  Also probably the hour-long swims I enjoy four or five times a week – a crack of dawn swim in my building’s indoor pool seems to bring my core temperature down to something approaching normal for the remainder of the humid day.  Totally awesome side benefit to this weight loss business; I highly recommend.

I also recommend this collection of sweet summer polishes that will see you through the final sultry days of the season in polished perfection.  Drawing from a wide array of indie vendors – Polish Me Silly, KB Shimmer and Painted Polish among them – there’s a nod to every great and vibrant thing about the summer, from gorgeous oceanic hues to drippy cherry popsicles.

First up we have Whimsical Idea by Pam’s Wacky Watermelon (here over Pure Ice’s lime green, Wild Thing) and Different Dimension’s You’ve Gotta Be Squidding Me.  I’ve used Wacky Watermelon in a few different manicures over the years, but Squidding Me is one I rarely pull out of my box of magic nail tricks.  And I really have no idea why, because it’s a gorgeous one – smooth jelly finish, and that flamingo pink hue shot through with purple shimmer?  Lush and vibrant, yet tremendously flattering, even for us pale, pale lasses (although I’ve no doubt it would look stupendous-er on those with darker skin tones.  Which is literally everyone else in the world.)

Taking a nod from the boardwalk, we have the two lacquers I always think of as my “bubblegum ice cream” polishes, Polish Me Silly’s pink I Lost My Marbles and Dollish Polish’s custardy yellow Get Your Sprinkle On! Get Your Sprinkle On! has always been a favourite – I think it looks like french vanilla ice cream topped with rainbow jimmies.

You’ve Gotta Be Squidding Me makes another appearance in this manicure as a fun, flamingo-hued base on which to layer another Whimsy, this time turquoise glitter Mermaid, alongside A England’s lush aqua holo, Whispering Waves.  This mani makes me smile – it’s very South Beach.  Somewhere in Sarasota there’s a granny rocking a velour tracksuit in these exact colours. 😉

The white polish in this manicure, Painted Polish’s Chasing Rainbows, reminds me of colourful shells washing up on a white sand beach, while the pink polish, ILNP’s Jello Shot, reminds me of melted cherry popsicles. Also its namesake, the deadly, deadly jello shot (*shuddering in remembrance of hangovers past.*)

Finally, we have another manicure featuring a favourite polish, KB Shimmer’s coral pink glitter, Belle of the Mall, and Candy Lacquer’s Citrus Smoothie (once again over Pure Ice’s Wild Thing), a mad mix of citrus-hued glitters that remind me of sweet fruit salad.  Belle of the Mall is such a great polish; awesome consistency and the coolest Hawaiian Punch hue.  It’s summer in a bottle, just like all of these polishes!)

Veggie Tales

Veggie tales and veggie nails!  Just some bitty little baby vegetables to close out the summer harvest, Finger Candy-style. 🙂

Nautical Nails

Every year I leave my beach and nautical-themed nails until the very end of the summer. That’s an odd little quirk, isn’t it?  I think that’s because beaches and I just aren’t sympatico – I somehow managed to get a sunburn – indoors! – the other day while wearing a freshly-applied coat of SPF 60, and I’m downright scared of pretty well everything lurking out beyond the surf.  But chubby little whales and anchors?  That I can do, even if it’s coming a bit late in the season. 🙂

La Patisserie

Just a few end-of-summer treats to sweeten up this hot and humid Saturday night.

Actually, pastries of any variety (but for the 3D Fimo kind I’ve used here) don’t tend to fare very well in the humidity.  I went to a wedding once in a very beautiful – but un-air conditioned – venue in the very dog days of summer, and the cake slid apart in the middle of dinner.  Being in frosting-covered pieces didn’t diminish its taste one iota, but knowing how much wedding cakes cost – A LOT – and knowing how much planning and effort goes into creating one – also A LOT – it was a bit of a shame.  But a delicious shame, like all the very best ones. 😉

Summer Melon

Clear blue skies and humid temperatures in the 40s call for three things: 1. Air conditioning, 2. A swimming pool and 3. Watermelon.  Actually, these are pretty much the only conditions under which I’ll eat watermelon, as I’m really not that fond of it.  It’s a filler fruit, like honeydew.  And cantaloupe just flat out makes me want to hit things.  I’m clearly melon biased.

Except when it comes to this fun glitter topper, Whimsical Ideas by Pam’s Wacky Watermelon, a fun, summery favourite of mine that I layered over a pretty new acquisition, OPI’s pale turquoise creme, Sailing & Nail-ing.  In the last week alone I’ve used this polish in three different manis, it’s that great.

I did have a bit of trouble with Wacky Watermelon in that it bubbled fiercely, leaving unsightly pockmarks all over my otherwise pristine manicure.  I’m chalking this up to the unholy humidity we’re experiencing – I’ve actually noticed that none of my polishes behave all that well in these kinds of temperatures.  Just like me!

Summer Popsicles

Well, we’re right in the mix of this summer business now, aren’t we?  It was a muggy one today, with more of the same supposedly on tap for tomorrow, and just in time for Canada Day.  Ah, but it wouldn’t be any sort of decent Canada Day if you weren’t sweating your bollocks off at either a cottage or on Parliament Hill with about 300,000 of your dearest and drunkest friends.  I will be eschewing all of the above because I am a Canada Day buzzkill – years of just not good times, starting all the way back in high school, have led to me kind of going into hiding on July 1st.  I’m happiest at home, listening to Sloan, watching the Trailer Park Boys, working on my Tim Hortons’ nails.

Speaking of, here’s some nails!  Regrettably not of Timbits (crack-laced donut holes; kidding about the crack part, although Timmy’s fans are kind of rabid about their double-doubles and cherry chips) or anything at all having to do with Canada Day, but I got the summer part in, using Candy Lacquer’s Melting Popsicles glitter topper over a pale blue creme for a pretty, warm weather look that’s at least thematically appropriate for the sweltering summer temperatures.  Might even work for Canada Day itself, were it not for the fact that I’m duty bound by our Constitution to paint red maple leafs on my nails come July 1st.  See you with those tomorrow!

 

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. 😉