Dragon Lady Nails: sponge

Showing posts with label sponge. Show all posts

Neon Gradient

I have been feeling the neon colors lately because it's officially Summer and all. I did this neon gradient a few days ago and wore it for about 4 days. I started off with two coats of Orly Dayglow, a pretty white with a hint of blue shimmer, from their Summer 2012 collection. I then used the two coats of neon yellow I got in my neon 3-pk Color Zone polishes at TJ Maxx. I did the gradient itself with both the neon yellow and and neon pink from the Color Zone set. These two polishes have this beautiful white/silver shimmer to them. I love it! Unfortunately the green that came with them doesn't share it's sisters' shimmer. You can see the shimmer in the pink bottle in the bottle shot picture below.

sunlight

I used a piece of foil and a make-up sponge to do my gradient. I put the yellow and the pink right next to each other on the foil then dabbed the sponge in it in an up & down motion, creating a nice blended gradient on the foil and my sponge. I then sponged it onto the nail in the same way. I did this twice for each nail, then topped it off with one coat of Seche Vite.

lightbox

After wearing this mani for a day, I decided it needed just a little something. A stamp. I decided to just do an accent nail stamp and because of the "summery" feel of this mani I went with a cute palm tree/beach stamp from SH19.

Hope you all enjoyed this one, I know I did! Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Pink Wednesday: Unnamed Cosmetic Arts Creme & Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter

I haven't done a Pink Wednesday in a while and I definitely miss them. I thought I'd go for a mellow, pastel, Springy kind of a pink today. I just "happened" to stop into my local Ross this morning after class and scored a cute, pastel pink creme from Cosmetic Arts for $1.99. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm on a No-Buy this month...you're not going to tell on me though, right? Sweet, I knew you had my back! ;)

Anyway, this pink creme is lighter than Color Club Peppermint Twist (I was kind of worried it was a dupe but it's definitely lighter). This is 2 coats over my franken nail treatment that I use as underwear (I am hoping it will help my poor nails still recouping from those gels).

I thought it could use something...yes, I mean glitter. So here's where I sponged on some Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter, a hot pink glitter. I topped it all of with two thin coats of Seche Vite for smoothness and shine. I was going to take my dotting tools and dot over this for my Week 16: Dotticure Mani but decided to wear it the way it is to class tonight and do my Week 16: Dotticure tomorrow after class.

Actually posting this from class, so gotta go. I'll try to post the giveaway tonight after class. Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Merry Pinkmas!!!

Merry Christmas all! I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas! I thought I'd pop in now that gifting and food is done to show you my Christmas Day mani. I was getting tired of the green and red manicures and even my blue snowflakes so I opted for pink. Yep, pink! I couldn't find a pink in my collection I wanted to use as a base coat so I frankened (is that a word?) one up. Unfortunately I used to lower end polishes to make it so it was a bit streaky and took 3 coats but I love the color. I haven't come up with a name for it yet, so we'll just call it Merry Pinkmas for now. Ya know being how it's pink and it's Christmas.

I then sponged on Sinful Colors Snow Me White (flat white creme), then sponged over it with Orly Au Champagne (frosty, shimmery white), then again with Sinful Color Smoking Hot (small, white iridescent glitter). I konaded some Christmas trees & "Merry Christmas" from m12. As well as some snowflakes from m59 and one from BM-14. I used Konad special polish in white, Color Club Foil Me Once (light pink foil), and Color Club Hot Like Lava (bright pink foil) as my stamping polishes.

I went back over the Christmas trees with China Glaze Shooting Stars and used Kleancolor Aurora for the pink stars.

So here's a few shots of the final result, a few of which don't capture the true color or the glitter sparkle showing once again that I need a lightbox. Luckily, hubby wants some pics of his bonsai so he said he'd build me one after our vacay. Woo Hoo!!!

Merry Christmas and Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Stone Cold Snowflakes

I was starting to feel left out for not doing a snowflake mani, I was going to save mine until after Christmas but I was getting kind of tired of red and green so figured it was time. For the mani I used Orly Stone Cold, which I think is my new favorite dark blue. It's both bright and dark at the same time! I think it's in part to the small flakies (large shimmer?) that makes this polish pop. I then proceeded to stamp with XL Special Holiday plate K, m59, and BM-14. I used China Glaze Adore, China Glaze Devotion, and Konad Special Polish in white for my snowflakes. Excuse the lack of clean up as I was racing the sun to take pictures...I have decided I just need to cave and build a light box. LOL!

I then decided to sponge some iridescent glitter on top. I used an unnamed pink to purple to blue giltter from Shades of the Season and then Sinful Colors Smoking Hot. I still haven't decided whether this was a good idea or not, I think I liked it better before the glitter. What do you think?

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Day 9: RAINBOW nails

I love this mani, makes me really not want to do tomorrows challenge. I went for a sort-of double rainbow, I did a rainbow sponge with Color Club Peppermint Twist (pink),China Glaze Peachy Keen (orange-peach), Lemon Fizz (yellow), Re-fresh Mint (green), & Bahamian Escape (blue), and Sally Hansen No Hard Feelings (purple). Then to make it EXTRA rainbow-y I topped it off with China Glaze Fairy Dust (holographic micro glitter in clear base).

I think that I will definitely be doing this mani again, every time I look at my nails it makes me smile. I just might re-do this for finals week.

**UPDATE** Fixed missing pics and part of post from Day 8: METALLIC nails and Day 7: BLACK & WHITE nails. =)