Lest We Forget - Remembrance Day 2012

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…

You are now living in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours…

You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."

Ataturk, 1934 - Gallipoli Memorial at ANZAC Cove

My base colour is two coats of essence Viva La Green. My bottle was very thick and tacky. As this is the first time I used it, I think people had opened the bottle in the store before I bought it.

Poppies are an enduring symbol of Remembrance Day and I chose to use these for my manicure. Both of the images that I believe to be poppies are from Bundle Monster image plates. The image with the two poppies comes from BM09 and the single poppy is from BM06. Konad special polishes in red and green were used for the stamping.

Interlocking Dots

I first noted this manicure to be tried for a later date on Kelly's Kolors. Kelly's post was bookmarked in the Nail Ideas folder and that was where it stayed until now.

Fast forward to today. I wanted to do a new manicure but what? I already had Orly Sapphire Silk out on the desk. Hmmm essence You Belong to Me looks as though it would complement well with that. I did not want to stamp and I was not sure whether either of those polishes would be suitable for stamping. Then I remembered the interlocking dots.

All of my nails were painted in You Belong to Me and I applied three coats. A coat of Seche Vite was then applied because I am impatient and I did not want to wait for the polish to dry naturally before I could apply the tape.

I am a big fan of doing only one accent nail because there is less chance of me ruining the entire look. It also takes less time and it was getting close to my bedtime. So, I taped off my ring finger with some de-tackified sticky tape. On went Sapphire Silk to make a corner of teal delight. I pulled off the tape and started dotting right away. After letting the polish dry a moment, I applied another coat of Seche Vite.

I am very glad I can not take pictures of my right hand easily as I failed with my ring finger. There was little control over my dotting tool. The resulting design did look good but it certainly was not the neat interlocking design I have on my left hand.

Star Filled Royal Navy

There are these iridescent blue stars scattered all over my desk. I put as much from the package into a jar in an attempt to contain them but they would not fit. Originally I had bought them to do a special sleep over franken for my daughter when she had a friend from out of town stay over. Sadly the franken did not work as the polish and the stars did not play well together.

In an effort to use some of these stars I decided to match them with Orly Royal Navy. This is because I thought that the blue shimmer in Royal Navy would match well with the stars. Thankfully I was right. In the sunlight the shimmer looks pretty special with the colour change from the stars. Of course my photographs do not capture how good this looks in reality.

This manicure used two coats of Orly Royal Navy and then a smidge of top coat to stick the stars onto. Then a coat of top coat over the lot. I did notice in one of the pictures that you could see a little of my nail line on one of my fingers. It was not that noticeable but I could have done a third coat.

I did not clean this manicure up as I was not sure whether it would be staying on my hand or not. This was because I decided that I would try the essence Gel-Look top coat I bought a little while ago. I have used it once or twice before and I have not liked it. I am too used to quick dry top coats and I am impatient. I don't have the time or inclination to be careful with wet fingernails while it takes hours to dry.

The finish on the Gel-Look top coat was not anything special. It seems much the same as Seche Vite or any of the other top coats I use. The dry time seems to take for ever. I have not yet been able to wear this top coat on any of my manicures as the polish is still tacky an hour later. For a new bottle of top coat, the viscosity of the formula seems rather thick. I do not think I will bother with this top coat again.

Bee Obsessed Dad - Featuring VL002 Honeycomb Image

Happy Father's Day Dad! This one is especially for you.

The reason why I perk up my ears when something involving bees comes along is because of my Dad. He is an apiarist and is currently showing Mr R the tricks of the trade. Bee related things also make for great presents for both him and my mother since they have a good bee collection.

When I was browsing etsy for Indie nail polish, I came across Vivid Lacquer's store. My attention was immediately drawn to her stamping plates. Honeycomb alert! I had to wait for a little while for some disposable income but buy both plates I did. They arrived in excellent condition in their own plastic bag inside of a black box. The plates also had blue plastic film to protect the surface of the plate.

Two coats of China Glaze Happy Go Lucky were used as the base colour and the stamping was done in essence Just In Case. When I tested Just In Case for stamping on paper it seemed to do well. It did not stamp so well with this plate. I chose Just In Case because I thought it would go well with the yellow and I did not want to stamp with gold or black. The honeycomb image is from VL002. In my opinion the stamping on my thumb seems to have worked the best and this was the first nail I stamped on. Using nail glue, I affixed a fimo slice bee to my middle finger.

In my pictures I am holding a candle that Mr R, Miss L and I made with honeycomb foundation. Bee keepers often attach sheets of this to frames in their bee hives to help the bees out and to maintain neat honeycomb production. You don't want the bees making their honeycomb anywhere they want.

Overload! Nail Polish everywhere. (Picture Heavy)

A trip to the city! Hurray! I had a wonderful trip away and I managed to steal some time to oggle nail polish. There is not much available locally and I went into overload when I saw what one Target had. Sadly, I did not get a good look because I had to take someone to the toilet before heading off again.

Finally, I was able to bash my credit card around at Target, Priceline and Terry White Chemist. There was also a side trip to browse at Myer. Sadly, none of the assistants were interested in helping me there. That is probably a good thing because I may have caused my credit card to commit suicide with Illamasqua. I did have trouble deciding what to get because I think I already have a lot of polish. Admittedly I do not have as much as some people out there but... I need to remember that I have to store it somewhere. Miss L had to take her own picture of the haul.

I was thrilled with finally seeing essence branded polish. Although the bottle is small at 5 ml, I did not realise that it would be cheap as well at $2.55. Some time soon I think I will have to try Absolutely Blue to see what it is like. There was also a "Gel Look" top coat that I grabbed. I have since tried essence gel-look and it did not seem any different to the shine of the Seche Vite on my other hand.

There were a few deals in Priceline and one enabled me to finally get some of Revlon's Quick Dry Top Coat. I had read a good review on this and thought that it was worth trying since it was something I could buy in a hurry if I ran out until I could get other top coats. While I was there I also bought a Colorstay Base Coat.

Also at Priceline, I bought two L'Oreal polishes. Normally I do not buy L'Oreal but Miss L and I liked 613 Blue Reef and 211 Opulent Pink. Blue Reef is more teal than blue and a good addition since all of my teal polishes tend to have some kind of shimmer and are not a creme finish. Opulent Pink was chosen because I want to try a manicure idea with that type of shade. It is not quite the strawberry pink-red shade I wanted but close enough.

Miss L chose two Nicole of by OPI polishes in purple. I adore purple and so does Miss L. These are One Less Lonely Glitter and Virtuous Violet.

Almost there! We have two Chi Chi polishes next. My friend asked me if I was trying to tell her something when I showed her the name of the polishes I chose - Gimme Gimme a Man and Cradle Snatcher. Should I admit I had a giggle over the names and bought them in part because of this? I have an orchid pink in the same colour family as Cradle Snatcher and I hoped for a better formula than the Models Prefer one I have. I am very happy to report that the brush from Chi Chi is much better and the polish stays better.

Finally...

These came from Daring Digits when she had a sale in July. The bottles are 12 ml each and are very elegant. I bought Robin because I thought he would make a good Christmas polish. The other two have hearts in them. Awww, how sweet. The level in First Love is lower because I had to re-take the pictures when I had already used it.

Phew! Done!