My ellagee custom and a giveaway teaser...

Hello!!! I know it's been a long time since I've posted but I've been so busy loving on some new polishes. This one is my favorite of all and warning, this is gonna be a loooooong post!

Custom

I contacted Laura at ellagee about doing a custom for me based on my favorite color. I'm sure you can guess what it is based on the pictures below...it's a certain blue, made famous by a certain jeweler...ahem...

This is what she came up with and I named it Angela Blue. Because it's mine. ALLLLLL MIIIIIINE! Actually there were 3 bottles made. One for myself, one for a giveaway (teaser), and one for my polish bestie, Heather at I Feel Polished. I know she loves this color too so I thought it would be a good surprise for her!

I picked Laura to do my custom because she is crazy easy to work with and I love her polishes (I now have 50. Yes 50.). She sent me pics and let me make the final decision. I absolutely love what we came up with :-) The formula is amazing, it's opaque in 2 coats, and I'm pretty sure if I run out she'll make me more. I hope! I also decided to do an accent nail because this polish is way too pretty for my manicure with it not to shine!

Accent nail

For my accent nail to go with Angela Blue, I was inspired by the lampshades made famous by *cough* Louis Comfort Tiffany. His lampshades are so beautiful and coveted by many. Especially by me. Anyway so I found a picture of one with red, orange, and purple flowers and decided to do my own take on it. For the base I used another custom (SURPRISE!) from Laura that came with my Angela Blue, Sweet Heather, inspired by the white ribbon that's on the boxes from the aforementioned jeweler :-) Then I used a very small dotting tool and Zoya Elodie, a medium orange/coral, and made an irregular dot in the middle of my nail. Using the same dotting tool, I used Pure Ice Siren (red), ellagee Haleakala Sunrise (pink shimmer), and ellagee Aloha Oe (purple shimmer) to make irregular shapes for the petals. Next I used Essie Go Overboard (dark teal) for the leaves. Then using a very small nail art brush (and a shaky hand but remember, I did this on my left hand...and I'm left handed o.O) I used Sinful Colors Black On Black to fill in the lines and actually make the petals and leaves. Then I drew some random lines coming off the flower to indicate the "lampshade" part. I thought it turned out really well, considering A) this is my 2nd attempt at free hand nail art and B) I did it right-handed!

Giveaway

I have one more bottle of Angela Blue to give away to a lucky reader. As soon as I hit 100 likes on Facebook and 100 followers on IG, be looking for a chance to win a bottle of my custom!!

Pretty in blue,

The Unprofessional Polisher

Twin Nails #2 with I Feel Polished!

Today I have a twin nails post with my friend and fellow blogger, Heather at I Feel Polished! I was needing some inspiration for our twin nails, and one day it was right in front of me...my shower curtain!! Here's what I came up with:

For these nails, I started with two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. Then I used one coat of ellagee Rainbow Syrup to give it a sort of opaque sheen since my shower curtain is not clear but grayed out. Then, using a dotting tool I alternated dots of Zoya Pippa, Revlon Urban, Zoya Tangy, ellagee Delphinium, and ellagee Bashful Sadie! It's pretty darn close to what my shower curtain looks like!

And here are Heather's nails:

And here are our nails together in an awesome collage Heather did for me:

It's so much fun doing twin nail posts, especially with Heather who has been so supportive and encouraging when it comes to my blogging! She's an inspiration and a very lovely lady inside and out!!

Have a great weekend!

The Unprofessional Polisher

This is puzzling...

Hah! Not really! Today on the blog I have some puzzle and stripe nail art that I think turned out really well, despite the time it took to do it :-)!!

First, I started out with two coats of Zoya Wednesday, a medium turquiose blue-green cream. Then I used one coat of top coat. After it dried, I taped off my ring fingers and thumbs like a window using striping tape. Then, using Zoya Ziv, a metallic gold foil, I painted the corners of the "window" gold and pulled off the tape. Using a large dotting tool I then dotted on the top and side of the Ziv square to make a puzzle piece. On my pinkie, middle, and index fingers I used gold foil striping tape to make two stripes going random directions.

I love the combination of Ziv and Wednesday, but if I had it to do again I wouldn't have bothered with the striping tape! I think the puzzle pieces are cute on their own! Although Ziv is a little difficult on clean up so next time I'll have to be extra careful with her!

Neon dotticure!!!

I am so excited about the mani I have on the blog today! I already posted them once to my Instagram because I couldn't wait to share them with you all!

We've already established I am a neon lover, mostly because as I said before, I grew up in the 80s. So I decided to do some nail art using neon polishes.

After a couple of fails with what I had planned, I went with a simple neon french manicure. Then I thought, "You know, these are cool but they could be spiced up some. What could take these nails from bright to obnoxious?" The answer? MORE NEON! That's when I decided to add the dots :-)

For these nails, I began with one thicker coat of Sinful Colors Snow White. I let it dry for about 5 minutes. Then I used China Glaze Pink Voltage and polished my entire nail. I let that dry for about 15-20 minutes. I watched Deadwood on Amazon while I was waiting :-)...I'm trying to clear out my watchlist to make room for new shows but I keep adding things to it! After Pink Voltage was try I used striping tape to tape off the last 1/4th of my nail. Using Orly Melt Your Popsicle I polished the tips. I let that dry for about 5 minutes then I used ellagee Glass topcoat.

After the topcoat, using a small dotting tool and a very small dotting tool I dotted Snow White onto my nails in a pattern I liked. Then I went back over the Snow White using China Glaze Towel Boy Toy for the larger dots and Heart2Art You Had Me At Yellow for the smaller dots. After letting the dots dry for about 45 minutes, I went over my nails again with Glass topcoat to finish them off!

I absolutely love this mani!! It is so bright and fun and summery, plus it's a treat to look at, and tons of people have commented on it already! Hope you enjoy these as much as I do!

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Happy Hump Day!

The Unprofessional Polisher

Bowling-ish dots!!

Today I have a fun manicure I did on a whim one day...and I think it turned out pretty cute!

Nothing makes me happier than the combination of red and white. Mostly because I'm a Cardinals fan and, well, those are their uniform colors! So while I had Nie-cy French Vanilla on, I suddenly thought, why not add some fun red polka dots?!?!

Using a small dotting tool and OPI Wocka Wocka (I LOVE that name!!), I put red dots all over the index and ring finger of my left hand and the middle, pinky, and thumb of my right hand. Then I put a triangle of dots on the remaining nails. I call these bowling-ish nails because the triangle of dots reminds me of the dots on a bowling lane where you can line up your ball (not that I ever actually USE them, but nonetheless)! These were fun and I wore them for 2 days!!

Pink and brown dotticure

I seem to be doing a lot of dotticures lately, and I'm sorry for that, but I just keep finding more and more dotticures I want to do!! :-)

Today I have one for you with one of my favorite color combinations, pink and brown. I'm not sure why I like this combo so much, but I do!! For this mani, I used Zoya Normani, a hot cocoa brown cream, for the base. Then using a large dotting tool and Orly Fabulous Flamingos and ellagee Forgetful Lucy, I made large dots in random spots all over my nails. Then I went back with a medium dotting tool and dotted Lucy on Flamngos and Flamingos on Lucy. I then used a small dotting tool with Zoya Chantal to make smaller dots in random spots.

I got a lot of compliments on these nails, and I wore them with a pink polo shirt and jeans to work!! Definitely one of my favorites I've done lately!

Happy Easter Chicks!

Everyone who knows me knows I love nail polish and nail art. A coworker of mine found these nails on the internet and I thought they were absolutely adorable! I recreated them for Easter and I hope you think they're as adorable as I do :-)

Credit to sugarmitten.wordpress.com for the original picture.

PS...pardon the flaky skin...aftermath of my psoriasis flare. I'll just have to live with it for a few more weeks before it's completely gone :-(

Half-framing Dotticure

Good morning! It's Monday. It's April. And it's SNOWING!!! Two days ago, it was 80 degrees and I had to turn the A/C on. I love living in the Midwest! It's AWESOME! (that was a tad sarcastic in case that didn't come through there...)

Today I have a half-framing dotticure in spring-like colors for you all, which almost makes up for the fact that it's not very spring-like today. For this one, I used Zoya Cole and Zoya Edie. Cole is a peach cream and Edie is a medium blue cream. I first polished two coats of Cole, then using large, medium, and small dotting tools half framed my nails using Edie. I like this manicure a lot! It's not too much bling but not too much plain open cream polish either!

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Square Hue Interlocking Dotticure

Happy Monday! I have what I think is a very cute manicure for you all today. I have been anxiously awaiting my first Square Hue subscription box since like March 27! I couldn't wait to see what colors were in there! The suspense was killing me! Finally it arrived on Friday and I spent all weekend oooohing and aaaaahing and trying to figure out what I was going to do with them!

Originally I was going to swatch them all and give you all a review on each individual color. However, fate decided otherwise. I had a perfectly done swatch of one color on, and stepped outside on my porch to admire them. At that moment, one of my boys came outside to play basketball with the other 4 14 year old boys I had at the house and slammed the front door. It was locked. And no one with opposable thumbs was inside the house.

Grr.

So in the process of breaking into my own house, I smudged four nails. Rather than redo them, I came up with this rescue mani and I think it turned out well! My boys thought they were strawberries, but they don't know anything about nails anyway lol!

First, I painted two coats of Beethovenstraat with a coat of top coat. I liken this color to a mix between olive green and lime green. It's not quite bright enough to be lime, it's not dark enough to be olive. It's a fun color for summer for sure! Then, using striping tape, I taped off half my nail and used Kalverstraat to paint on one side of the tape. Kalverstraat is a difficult color to describe. In the bottle, it looks bright pink. Over Beethovenstraat, it looks tomato red. Coming off on the cotton ball with remover, it looks orange. Square Hue's website shows it as pink, so we'll go with it's a bright pink high gloss creme! I then used Beethovenstraat and Kalverstraat to dot along the taped line alternating colors. When I was done with that I put Beethovenstraat dots on the Kalverstraat side and vice versa!

I've been trying to do this dotticure ever since Heather did it on I Feel Polished some time back. I have ALWAYS messed it up! So you can imagine my excitement when this one turned out!

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Spring Dotticure!!

I am so excited for this post! I have had a horrible time learning to use dotting tools effectively...for some reason they have rarely worked for me in the past. Today I decided I was going to tackle it again, and I wasn't quitting until I got a dotticure I felt was good enough for me to post. I don't know if I scared the dotting tools into submission or what but this was my first attempt!!

One thing I did learn is to use a tool about two sizes smaller than you think you need. I attribute that to my success. Onto the dotticure!

I wanted something that said Spring is FINALLY here! Pastel colors always say Spring to me so I chose a light pink and a lavender cream for this. First I painted two coats of Cover Girl Outlast Stay Brilliant #145 (why do they not name their polishes I ponder), a lavender cream, on the pinky, ring finger, and thumb of my right hand and my index and middle finger of my left hand. Then I painted two coats of ellagee Forgetful Lucy, a light pink cream, on the index and middle finger of my right hand and the pinky, ring finger, and thumb of my left hand. After that dried completely, I dotted #145 over Lucy and vice versa.

I love how these turned out and hopefully my skill with the dotting tools continues to improve!

Neutral Dots and Scallops

So...this manicure didn't quite turn out how it looked in my head...first because I don't have much experience with dotting tools and second because I don't have a lot of experience with nail art. So bear with me, these first few months might be painful for all of us!

For this manicure I did two coats of Zoya Odette. Then, using a large dotting tool, I made dots across the top third of my nails with Zoya Chantal. I filled in the space between the dots and the tip of my nails using the dotting tool as well. Then, using Odette, I made smaller dots across Chantal.

It was supposed to resemble scalloped tips, but it kind of looks like ice cream with sprinkles to me!