A Freehand First

I was going through my desk drawers the other day when I came upon a pack of hole reinforcements.  In the back of my mind, I was planning on buying some the next time I happened upon them and using them to do a mani.  I had no idea I had these in my drawer and have no memory of purchasing them!  Nice right?  Damn I'm getting old.

I have also been waiting forever to get this one last holo from Jade that was always out of stock.  I had a color combo in mind and was waiting for the last polish to complete the set.

So the forces have gathered, I found reinforcements, I got my last holo and the sun was out.  It was time to do what I had in mind.

Before we get to the awesomesauce, I wanted to show you my newest plant additions. I had seen these before Christmas in my hardware store where I buy my birdseed and thought they were cute.  When I went back recently to buy more seed, there they were.  Fate had intervened again and it was destiny that I bring these cuties home.

I have many plants in my house.  I just love having that around me.  These are the tiniest, cutest little plants ever.  They are a sort of terrarium.  They are miniature succulents in a tiny glass jar.  One is shaped like an ornament.  Now these pictures will be misleading.  These are literally around 2.5 inches in diameter and maybe 3-4 inches tall.  I just hope I don't kill them!

Here they are.

How freakin cute are these?  I just couldn't pass them up when I saw them a second time.  Cross your fingers they survive!

Now onto the mani at hand.  Here is your silly bottle shot.

Now stupid me had all four of these out planning to use them, but didn't use one of them.  The last three are the ones I actually used.  These are Jade Sunset, Uau, Oasis and Vermelho Surreal.  Gorgeous.

I started with a full mani of Oasis.  Here are the starting shots.

Sun

Indoor Sun

Sun

Indoor Sun

Now the picture on the website shows this as yellow.  This clearly is not yellow but a green yellow.  I still love it, but am waiting for that elusive true yellow holo.

Now my plan was to do layers of the next colors using the hole reinforcements. Here is a picture of that step.

What I didn't bother to think about was the fact that when I put another reinforcement on, while still wet, it would pull up the polish underneath.  So yeah that's what happened.  I had not the patience to wait it out. So instead I free handed to next layer of color.  Here is that step, precleanup.

Indoor Sun

Indoor Sun

Since I'm used to free handing my funkys, this was easy for me.  I decided next I wanted to do dots with black polish.  Guess what I realized?  I really don't have plain old black polish.  I need you guys to shout out some good ones (NON DRUGSTORE) for me to get.

So I used my stamping black and dotted.  Then for some weird reason, I got the urge to try my striping black polish.  I decided it was time to get past my fears and try it out.  That's what I did.  It turned out tribal and I love it.  Here are the very cool results.

Sun

Indoor Sun

Sun

Indoor Sun

Close Up

Macro

First of all, the linear holo of these Jade are amazing.  Second, I realize this is not the most extraordinary tribal you've ever seen.  But lastly, this is the first free hand tribal you've ever seen from me!  I am pretty damn proud of myself here and hope to have the courage to try more in the future.

What black polish do you like?

Until next time people.  Any thoughts out there?