Polish All the Nails

Ever have those days where you just can't make up your mind?  Of course you have.  That's me with these nails.  This is the first time I've tried a glitter placement on pointy nails and it's surprising how much the shape can affect a gradient.  I was going to go with the gold-green-blue gradient but then the black and white was cool and then I'm like ooo purple and stuff whatever.  At least the glitter is good.  Let's take a look at Rainbow Indecision Nails, shall we?

Ok so I've been trying something a little different lately.  The acrylic tips I've been applying let me get the length I've aspired to without having to actually get my nails there naturally.  I'm ok with this.  Some of us just get to have super long nails with no traumatic breaks and some don't.  Since I now have the tools, I thought I'd give a different nail shape a go and it turns out slightly rounded claws are awesome and give me all kinds of room and inspiration to try different things.  Thus, fiery mermaid scale nails!

I tell you, I can't remember the last time I did back-to-back posts.  The combination of having a job that requires a real commute instead of a five minute walk, said job being rather intense, then having my mum visit and going on vacation as well as managing The Sparkly Shop makes it difficult to manage.  I'm also old and get sleepy.  I'm not going to make sweeping statements about how I'm going to post every day from now on because that's not realistic but I just might be able to manage doing more.  You should follow me on Instagram  though, that I do keep updated.  Anyway, on to the glittery duochrome-ness! 

I've been working with hex-shaped glitter for years now and let me tell you, switching to triangles is quite the revelation.  There are so many new patterns and shapes to make, especially when you have fifteen colours to play with.  My current favourite thing to do is to make aztec-inspired patterns, mostly because the triangles in said pattern are such a PITA to create by hand.  So, let's take a look at my latest triangle thing, shall we?

Stars! Yeah! Woo!  I used to hate star glitter cos you'd always get bits sticking up and catching on everything.  Turns out that doesn't happen when your stars are teeny and adorable.  Yess.  It also makes me feel clever when I use matte glitter over holo polish.  No idea why but I feel like I'm inverting a paradigm.  And then I get to feel even more superior for spelling paradigm correctly the first go.  IM SMART GUISE.

Ok!  So.  Stuff.  I've had an interesting few weeks lately.  My mum came to visit and we got to surprise her with a trip to Curacao and it was so awesome.  I saw soo many fish, seriously, if you like diving or snorkeling even a little it's like paradise.  All this plus work means blogging is hard so here's something I did a little while ago.  It's glitter, but it doesn't take a million years to do.  Hooray! Sparklies, stuff, blah let's go. 

Ermerger guys, I don't have any glitter on me!  Well, I do, just on my nails.  I always have glitter on me.  And cat fluff.  It's funny how often my bf comes home with glitter in his beard.  That means it's been there all day... Anyway, new nail vinyls mean something a bit different.  I swear I'm not actually obsessed with mermaids, it just seems like it... Anyway, again, shall we?

MOAR GLITTER YES SPARKLIES GOOD VERY MUCH YES.  I'm such the wordsmith.  What I lack in wordies, I make up for in sparklies!  Cos I have another mermaidy thing to show you!  This one is purple, pink and gold!  I have even made the glitter available if you wanna try.  You know, if you aren't chicken.  Bock.  I HAVE HAD A LOT OF COFFEE THIS MORN, DEAL WITH IT.

Hi everybody!  Sorry for neglecting you, life is hard.  I've still been doing nails but taking that extra step to take the proper pictures and edit them and actually write words is just a step too far lately.  To make up for it I did a mega sparkly mermaid mani!  With glitter that clocks in under a mm!  For what's probably very close to a thousand pieces of glitter! YOU STILL LOVE ME RIGHT????

The challenge isn't going super well for me.  I could do it, but it's bringing up this whole complex mess of procrastination, pressure and something undefinable that makes me just want to avoid doing it.  I feel like I'm rebelling when I don't do a day.  Screw you Past Laura, you can't tell me what to do!  Add the pressure of choosing something for "Glitter", well, that's clearly not going to be done on time.  It's late, but look, rainbows!  

Less complaining, more nails is now my motto and dammit that's a thing I'mma do.  Let's call these my nails for the Flowers prompt of the 31DC2014.  I rarely have a concrete idea in mind when I do my nails and this a good idea of how an idea evolves into pretty decent nails, if I do say so myself.  Let's take a look, shall we?

This challenge is haaaaaaaaard.  Like, omg.  Especially when you're sick.  Cos days don't wait.  They just keep going and then you're behind and urgggh.  So apparently the solution to being sick and being behind is to stick on acrylic tips from a set you borrowed from your friend, remember you really be doing dots, make dots that kinda look weird like octopus sucker thingies and then post it anyway woo.

Do you understand the pressure for someone like me to have a challenge prompt like "rainbow"?? It's a lot of pressure.  I love rainbows and do rainbows a lot so having to do rainbow on command is hard.  So I have these triangle studs I haven't used yet.  Two problems, why not make a solution?  TRIANGLE RAINBOW STUD NEON THINGS YES.

So yeah! Woo! Black and white!  Like, yeah, that's a thing!  All the black glitters!  Over white!  So black and white!  Woo!  There's not the most to say really. 

Dammit this challenge is hard.  Taking proper photos is just the really hard part on top of actually doing the nails cos you have to edit them, fix the colours, and then actually write the post.  Hence the placeholder posts.  I'm totes going to go back and do them proper, I swear.  Ok so Violet.  Not super feeling it, so hence the mature-shirt-for-older-ladies thing I have going here.  Oh well.  It's a thing.  Onward!

Oh yes, the placeholder is back cos I'm sleepy again.  To the Instagram!

Ok, Day 4 of the 31DC2014 and we're at green!  I'm green um da ba dee da ba green ohhh yeahhh I'm hip, I'm with it, you better believe it.  Green isn't my favourite colour but I had enough green circle glitter to whack on so that's a thing.  Even though it took me a while to find a green polish cos I have a million blues in the way... Onwards!

I'm so sleepy and disorganised so here is yellow, from instagram!

Ok woo day 2!  Orange!  Obviously that means oranges on orange.  In glitter.  I mean, duh, what else am I going to do?  Oh, and orange you glad I didn't say banana?!!?? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA 

Oh hi!  I hope you're ready for this: I'm doing the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge!  The wonderful Sarah at Chalkboard Nails totes talked me into joining in and of course I have to.  I'm hoping it'll get me going more into blogging and not just being lazy and posting to instagram.  Day 1 is red, so of course it's a case of redding all the reds!  Onward!

Hot damn do I love neon studs.  I mean, look at how awesome they are and are .  And saying hot damn.  But mostly neon studs.  They have this awesome smooth texture and THEY FRICKING GLOW UNDER BLACKLIGHT.  The only way these could be more awesome is if they were somehow holo too but I think I can survive.  I really should come up with a new pattern....eh.  I have soooo many too, if you're interested ..... NEONNNNNNNNN.

Laura is a happy Laura cos Laura has shiny dinosaur nails!  Woo!  I have fought long and hard with these metal whatevers and I finally defeated them.  Which means I get dinosaur nails!  They're even better when they're paired with a sparkly multichrome polish, even if it is brown.  Rawr, I'm a Laurasaurus :D 

TRIANGLES.  TRIANGLES.  THEY ARE AMAZING.  Also, still surprisingly pleased with the Sally Hansen Miracle Gel polishes.  SHINY.  TRIANGLES.  BAM.

Nail foils are so amazing in theory.  Super shiny, super holo and really quick to do.  However, as soon as you move or apply top coat, they die.  Thus, the eternal quest to find a top coat that doesn't ruin the finish of the foils.  I FOUND IT.  Sally Hansen Miracle Gel top coat DOESN'T KILL FOILS.  To prove it, I thought I'd have a go at doing nail foil stripes and it turned out awesome except for where I kept trying to cover up the gaps.  SHINNIEEEESSSSSS!  Oh and of course I need charms . 

Can I just first up how grateful I am to everyone being so supportive of The Sparkly Shop?  We've just passed our first monthaversary and it's just been amazing.  So thank you!  The triangle glitter sets though, hot damn.  I had a feeling they might be popular just because you don't see it very often but the orders have been ridiculous!  Since I did a full coverage one the other day, I thought I'd show you something you can do with it that doesn't take quite as much time. 

How has it taken me this long to realise that triangle glitter existed and that I should be all over it?? I'm silly.  Anyway, it's a thing and it's amazing and I love it and it's so nice to have a change from hex glitter.  It's so even and beautiful and matte and sparkly, there just aren't enough adjectives.  Yeah so this is what it looks like when you mix 15 colours together on your nails.  WONDERFUL THINGS.  You might even be able to get this glitter too - it's going up on The Sparkly Shop  this afternoon at 3pm.  I swear though I just want to share the sparklies.  Sorry for the self-promoting.  Anyway, focus, glitter time!

It's hardly a secret how much I love sparklies.  If it were at all practical, I would make my middle name Sparkly.  Laura Sparkly Tucker.  That does have a nice ring to it.  Anyway, this adoration of all the sparklies means just about my favourite thing ever is dazzle glitter .  It's like a bunch of tiny pieces of glitter were smushed together into a larger piece.  And oh, so sparklies.  I've done red and silver manis using this glitter before so that's the perfect excuse to use the pink.  That makes sense, right? 

So I conceptually get dotting tools.  They're a good idea and some people have done amazing things with them but I just can't get a satisfactory result of them.  The dots are  never completely even.   That's usually when I say screw it and use glitter.  I LOVE YOU AND YOUR CONSISTENCY GLITTER.  Especially circle glitter.  And unicorns always make things better.  

GLITTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.  I'm Australian so it's still aaaaaaar.  It's been a while since I've done a good mermaid glitter placement so I did that.  Some of the macro photos show why it's not the best idea to try to do glitter placements when you're tired cos they go a bit wonky but over, sparkly.  So the question I get asked the most is where I get my glitter from.   WELLLLL on Friday you can get some from me.  At The Sparkly Shop .  In very limited quantities because I may be a glitter hoarder but I'm not that much of a glitter hoarder.  Also charms.  Anyway, on to the pics!

I don't have quite the same volume of time free to do my nails I used to, because I now have to commute 20 whole minutes to get to work and I keep falling asleep at crazy early times.  This usually results in me slapping on the nearest polish I can get away with two coats of and then accenting with as many charms I fancy at the time.  Charms are the best for making your nails fancy with no effort what-so-ever.  Yesterday I felt like wearing smiley-face charms with pineapples on top.  It took stablenails on Instagram pointing it out that I'd inadvertently created minimalist Carmen Miranda nails.  THIS PLEASES ME, THANK YOU STABLENAILS. 

No matter how many times it kicks me in the face, I can't give up on watermarbling.  It works just often enough that I blame myself for any errors and my faith in it working one day lives on.  I got it to work though the other day and to celebrate I slapped on teeny sparkly lizards.  Only the best celebrations for me!

I always have high hopes for my nails but sometimes, things just come out more awesome that I expected.  I've had these hex studs for a while - it was quite the revelation when I found out they existed by the way - and the obvious thing to do is do a full coverage mani with them.  Especially given they're surprisingly easy to cut which makes my life a lot easier.  Shall we?

OW MY NAILS ARE ON FIRE THEY'RE SO FIERY OW HOT.  Also though glitter placements are great and we should all do them all the time.  Even though Pointy and Thumbie have been in the wars lately, it's still awesome to have glitter.  It is also hard to type blog when there is a purring kitty in the way, right Rocket?

GUYS GUYS GUYS LOOK I DID A THING!  I've been light on the blogging lately because I've been working really hard on a totally new thing: THE SPARKLY SHOP!! I've been incredibly obsessed with nail charms lately and kinda got carried away buying them to the point where I realised I could totally sell them.  I wanted to show you some of my favourites here, and to let you know you can get 15% of any charms if you use the discount code BLOGGYPANTS.  OMG SO EXCITING YOU GUYS.  First up, we have the magnificent bicycle charms !  Enamel, rhinestones and gold for bike complete with a basket and pedals.  I nearly died.  Next, Zebras !  The teeniest little guys, all stripy and whatnot. You know you want a safari on your nails.  These are not holographic as I'm sure they've been described as before, but in fact multichrome rainbow cubes!  Yeah.  And pearls.  And sparklies. It's ok if you aren't into safaris, what abou...

Ok so this may look familiar.  I have used this glitter before, it's just that it's so sparkly, I can't help it. Like, the most sparkly.  Sure, it's a pain because you have to be careful you don't get two pieces stuck together and the glitter won't sit flat flat but LOOK AT THE SPARKLIES.  I even made a time-lapse video of how to do it!  It's like, if I say I'll do something a thousand times, I might actually do it! Also, sorry about the lobster fingers, sparklies > normal skin tone. 

Ohhh yeah everybody, IT'S ACTUALLY NEW CONTENT.  I'm finding it really hard to go to work, sleep, do my nails AND take the pictures.  I'm actually also working on a super secret new project too that you might be interested in so there's that too.  So I do what I can.  What I can do right now is checkerboard nails! Yeah! Wooooo!

It's been a little while since I've done a glitter placement.  Partly because I keep falling asleep on things and partly because of a super secret project I've been working on.  Very super secret.  I've already told you too much.  But when it's ready oooooooo well.... Anyway, I had a little time so of course that means glitter rainbow mermaid nails. 

I've been on a bit of a buying binge lately, mostly charms and studs from all over the place.  Turns out I love weird rainbow studs so much I bought them in three different sized circles and an oval shape.  I have absolutely no short term memory about what I buy.  If it's in my collection though, I could tell you definitively whether I have it or not.  Anyway, the only solution to having this many rainbow studs is clearly to just use them all at one.  Alien Eggs, BAM.

It's hardly a secret that I like sparkly things.  Glitter?  Awesome. Sparkly tiny charms? Also awesome.  I've had so many new awesome ones I knew it was time to do Crazy Tacky Nails 2!  I love that it's hard here to tell where my nails stop and the ring begins.  Yay for charms!  Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Just like there's a whole patch my brain that lights up for sparklies, there's another patch for miniature things. Just anything miniature.  I want it.  Can you imagine what then happens if you combine miniature AND sparkly?? Like, I die.  So even though I can't generally put my hands in my pockets these days it's so very worth it for the nail charms.  And cherries go with cherries, right??

If you've been here a while, you'll know that if I come across a good thing, I'm going to keep doing that thing til I run it into the ground.  Turns out to be a good thing if you can put a twist on it.  My neon nails from a few days ago were really popular and I was just going to leave it at that until someone on Reddit mused about said nails under blacklight.  I have a black light bulb so it's the perfect excuse to do even more complicated neon nails.  SO.  GLAD.  I. DID.  Cos LOOOK: