Stripes, Dots, Hearts

With Singles Awareness Day fast approaching I've been a little inspired to use to colors and motifs of the season on my fingers.  I'd seen a lot of fun stripe themed nails in blogland and they looked easy enough to do, so I figured that would be my next attempt.

My base coat is 160 Shall We Dance by Sally Hansen on most of my fingers with the accent being done in 530 Back to the Fuchsia.  As I was gathering up my supplies and paint brush I noticed my dotting tools and so pulled them out and brought them along for the ride.

And once again, me + camera = fuzzy picture.  (I try, ladies, I really do to take clear pictures...)  Anyway, I used NYCs 134 French White Tip for the white dots and tip on the accent finger.  The white stripes were done with a wee bottle of something or other that had a really long striping brush.  I added a heart shaped rhinestone to the accent finger to finish that one off.  For the stripes and the dots, in addition to the white I used Sally Hansen 530 back to the Fuchsia and 470 Red My Lips.

What I learned from this endeavor is that I'm terrible at freehanding stripes and next time I will use tape to mask off different areas and then paint the colors on that I want.  The second thing I learned is that I love my dotting tools!  Love, love, love.  So much so that when everything started to peel I decided I would do a purple themed version of the dots as the next mani.  I even had the color palate all picked out:

More 134 French White Tip from NYC and then Sally Hansen's 370 I Lilac You for the base coat with dots of 409 Good to Grape and 470 Purple Pulse.  I got as far as getting the base coat on and then had to get on with my day and simply didn't get back to it.  When the base started to peel off and there was plenty of tip wear, I knew this one would have to wait because I had another something I wanted to try for Single Awareness Day.

This one is based, not so obviously, on those little conversation hearts.  This time I knew that trying to free hand QT Pie, and Txt me on my nails was not really an option, so I pulled out the stamping plates with the idea of stamping hearts on my nails.  This did not go as planned. 

I don't know what it is about me and stamping, but those little plates just laugh at me when I try to get the polish onto the stamper.  I managed to get a good stamp on my thumbs, and a mediocre stamp on my pointer fingers before giving it up.  In the end I attempted a few freehand hearts with a paint brush before getting my sister to do the rest of the hearts.  She used a dotting tool to push the red paint around until it was heart shaped.  The end result is the mish-mash you see above.  ... And I have got to learn how to clean up my fingers properly before taking pictures.

The color palate I used was Revlon 100 Buttercup, Essie 764 Bikini so Teeny, Sally Hansen 160 Shall We Dance, Sally Hansen 540 Jaded, and Sally Hansen 50 Whisper as the base colors. For the hearts is was back to Sally Hansen 470 Red My Lips.  I think I probably should have used a different pink and purple on this one as those colors are really quite pale.  I'll have to add a creme pink to the list for the next time I'm out and I think 370 I Lilac You would have been a better choice for the purple.

While out and about trying to track down a good yellow and pale blue for the conversation hearts idea I picked up a few other things that caught my interest.

On clearance at Target I picked up OPI's Congeniality is my middle name and Last Friday Night.  Congeniality has what looks like a red base with purple shimmer in it.  I'm looking forward to trying it on.  Last Friday Night is all glitter and I do love a glitter polish regardless of how hard it is to take off.  The shiny 004 Azure from the Sally Hansen Luster Shine also caught my eye.  I do hope they come out with something a little more purple in this line.  What's a girl to do with out her favorite color?

Next up is 260 Girly by Revlon.  Pink and glittery over all, but there are little bits of purple sparkle in there too.  And lastly a wee bottle of pink hued nail beads.  If the current conversation heart mani doesn't make it to Single Awareness Day I have a plan to use these little guys as an accent for a caviar style design.  Part of me hopes the conversation hearts don't last past Wednesday.  Not pictured is Fergie by Wet-n-Wild.  It's a polish with big glitter stars in a clear base. 100% fun!

So that's what I've been up to in the painting department.

Hugs and Polish,
Kay