Summer PixieDust Colour Blocking

Hey all,

I don't know about you, but I've really been enjoying this summer. It's been absolutely fantastic! 

And like when I was in school, I never think about it's imminent departure.

I try to live each day totally embracing the season at that moment.

But now everyone's getting excited about the latest fall collections.

Deep, dark and rich colours... Velvety shimmer...

But wait. Hold up everybody.

It's still summer.

I refuse to contemplate anything fall related until September 22nd.

Until then I'm putting my beautifully manicured fingers in my ears and chanting "summer will last forever"

On that note... 

I've been ignoring my Summer PixieDusts. So I decided to give them a little lovin.

Glistening summer fantastic! These colours are gorgeous together.

Bright, bold and sparkling, just like a beautiful summer day.

I think they turned out quite fabulous. Very retro, my co-worker said.

What do you think of my textured summer fun?

And are you holding on to summer or hoping for fall?

Zoya - Solange, Beatrix & Destiny

Let's Spin a Yarn...

Here's some shots of the shawl I've been working on.

I'm in love <3 I mean, I fall in love with everything I make. 

But this is one's for me :) I'm keeping my baby!

Bored yet?

I hope everyone's having a good week. Tomorrow's Friday!!

Tomorrow is also my best work girlfriend's last day at work. It's kind of sad. But life is change. She needs change. 

Instead of having a work friend, I'll have a friend. Five years of hanging out 5 days a week doesn't just disappear.

But that's just it. Five days a week. You get so used to it. And it makes things way more fun.

Candy, if you ever read this...I'm going to miss your bitchy presence so much. 

All the lunches, phone calls, and chats with Paul made the last 5 years a blast. 

I'm so glad Army of Darkness lead to our "unlikely" duo.  

Bruce Campbell, tea and bitchiness forever!

Have a great night and an awesome manicure.

jeebjeeb

Holo-Dust Fantastic

Hey all,

How's your week going? 

There are a million little things I wanted to do this evening.

And so far I've only done one :P Argh!

So I'll just let the nails do the talking.

I've been dreaming of combining the Colour Club holos with Zoya PixieDust for a very long time.

And it turned out just as I'd hoped! Drool-tastic! :O

This may be one of the girliest manicures I have ever concocted. 

It feels like I'm wearing a designer handbag on my nails. Does that make sense ?_?

I really REALLY love it though. What do you think?

I did the gradient with Color Club Over the Moon & Miss Bliss

And the next day I used Zoya Godiva and striping tape to create the semi-quilted look. 

I used 6 pieces of tape for each finger. It was a bit time consuming but I did it while watching Gangster Squad.

What a fun movie. The cinematography was amazing, everything looked so good.

And it was quite violent, but in an over the top comic book kind of way. I cheered a few times, it was that much fun :)

If that sounds like your kind of good time, check it out, it's a blast!

I will leave you with Kit-kat looking more blissed out than I have EVER managed to capture her.

I couldn't believe it. Usually she's the picture of cool and reserved. 

I like to think the snugly crocheted blanket had something to do with it. 

When I grow up, I want to be a cat. sigh. 

Have a great night and an awesome manicure!

jeebjeeb

London Lightning

Hey all,

Happy weekend! Any plans? I'm going to my favourite tea place today! Finally. I've been putting it off. But I'm almost out of my current favourite, Earl Grey Pu'er, and it's freakin me out. What's your beverage addiction of the moment?

I have been a bad blogger. I was blinded by my rage last post and forgot to thank Nail Polish Canada for including me in their latest instalment of Favourite Swatches of the Week. My Stamp On It manicure was featured alongside some very cool manicures, so check them out! :) 

As an ode to their pick I decided to do another stamp on pixiedust.

I used Zoya - London & A-England - Excalibur

I really love this combo. It's both flashy and subtle.

And I must mention again how amazing A-England is for stamping. Such density and definition!

I'm still really enjoying the textured matter glitter of PixieDust and can't wait for the summer collection.

What do you think of this look? Would you try it?

 Earlier this week D, from Dagadelic, and I spent an evening making nail polish jewellery. It was so much fun. She gave me ideas I hadn't even considered. And the results were amazing. I'll take some pics and post them soon. I'm not actually finished putting together everything we made yet :P We have received some major compliments though, very cool. I think we may have an major addiction looming. :D
And sometime in between jewellery art I need to find the time for nail art. (Expect a gradient.) And reading. And crochet.
I guess it's true. I do love to keep myself busy. Like they say, idle hands are the devils playthings ;) How are you keeping your hands busy?

Have a great weekend and an awesome manicure!
jeebjeeb

Stamp on it!

Hey all.

How was your weekend? I hung out with my wee bro on Sunday. We made rice krispie squares without Rice Krispies. It was my idea to use Reese's cereal and Cap'n Crunch. And wow. Sugar bomb! I was kicking myself after. It's so sweet even my brother could barely eat any. I only have to learn this lesson once. Branch out and experiment by all means, but keep at least 40% rice krispie content. Trust me.

Slowly I'm trying to make my way through this candied monster. It breaks my heart. If I had the right proportions it would have been finished Sunday night. Instead it sits on the table screaming "Why don't you love me? You MADE me!" If it was a child I'd have to keep it in the attic. When was the last time something sounded delicious in your head but didn't pan out in reality? I hate when that happens. :P

I did make one really great discovery this weekend though! (It wasn't all empty calories and cavities.)

I hadn't seen anyone do it yet, and I was curious. And to my amazement...

You can stamp on Zoya's PixieDust with regular polish and you don't need a topcoat. :O

That's right, no topcoat! 

No matter how many times I ran my finger over it, the stamp did not budge!

It was a beauty to apply, and has a cool stuccoed look to it, with very crisp edges.

And it retains all of it's wonderful PixieDust feel.

Chyna still sparkles like crazy underneath Purity.

I love the flat white against the depth of glitter. 

It makes me think of picnic tablecloths.

If drag queens went on a picnic,

 this is what their tablecloth would look like.

So what do you think of the PixieDust with stamp on top?

Will you try it?

I wore the manicure for three days, 2 during the

weekend, and 1 very heavily worked day,

wear was minimal and the stamp remained perfect.

Try it.

You'll like it. 

         Have a great week and an awesome manicure

                                    jeebjeeb

St. Patrick's Divergence

Hey all,
Happy St. Patrick's Day. I'm not Irish, but green is my favorite colour. So today deserves an extreme amount of green. :)
I was inspired by Nailside, one of my favorite bloggers. Her designs are absolutely stunning and her tutorials are excellent. When I first saw her "divergence"manicure I fell in love. It's so bold and crisp, with an excellent name (I love me some good vocabulary) When she posted this second version my heart skipped a beat again. Here's my St. Patrick's Divergence.

I used Enchanted Polish - Mean Mr. Mustard, Nubar - Forest & Zoya - Vespa

and good old fashioned scotch tape

Mean Mr Mustard is a beautiful green/gold duochrome with tiny scattered holographic particles

Forest is a super glossy deep green. It's always makes me think of classic cars.

And Vespa's texture makes a great contrast.

I really like how it turned out. Very dramatic and luxurious.

What do you think? Would you try a divergence manicure?

Nail art wasn't the only kind of art I got up to this weekend. 

Lucas and I did some excellent jewelry crafting. Not only that, but nail polish jewelry! :O

We went a little crazy with glass cabochons and made a bunch of stud earrings and one necklace.

The necklace was Lucas' design. It was his idea to stamp on the glass, I hadn't even thought about it.

 But what a brilliant idea indeed. I executed the stamping and painting, and he set it. Go team!

I'm really excited to make more. It was a great activity to get me thinking about polish in a different light.

And I ended up making earrings out of combos I never thought to put together before.

You can expect a manicure inspired by a set very soon! :)

How was your weekend? Any crafts? Art? Movies? Books?

I'd love to know what's inspiring you at the moment. 

Well that's all for now. Time to dive back into my book! I feel bad, I've been ignoring  my crochet. :P

Have a great night and an awesome manicure!

jeebjeeb

Blu Skies

Hey all,

How's your week going? I started my week well. I finished reading the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It was a fun book. If you enjoy violent mysteries, I definitely recommend it. I liked it so much I had to keep going and started the second book. I meant to post yesterday actually, but I just couldn't tear myself away. It feels good to voraciously read again. I used to constantly digest fiction when I was younger. But then it petered off to one or two books a year :S Hopefully the tide has changed and I will return to my bibliophilia.

What also made the beginning of the week great was two beautiful days of sunshine! Exactly what I had wished for. On Sunday I sat in my window and painted my nails to match the sky.

I used Zoya - Blu as my base. It is the most fantastic and delicate robin's egg blue.

And I'm not usually into baby blues. But this one has sophistication.

For the accent finger I used one thick layer of Zoya - Nyx

and my handy dandy stripping tape

I love the textures. It feels so cool!

And looks super awesome, I think.

What do you think?

The PixieDust & Lovely Collections are made for each other <3

I can't wait to put more combinations together. 

Kit-Kat also got to enjoy her first day on the patio this year. Trolling for spiderwebs may resume! She loves spiderwebs. They're candy to her.
I hope everyone has a great week and an awesome manicure.
jeebjeeb

Zoya PixieDust Gradient

Hey all,

How are you doing? I'm slowly getting over this cold. One more day of doing nothing but reading and pigging out on oranges should make me right as rain. 

Rain. It's been nothing but rain for days. It permeates everything. Even my manicure.

On Friday I finally received the Zoya PixieDust collection! So excited. I've been anticipating this one for a long time. And I'm happy to say they do not disappoint. The first thing I had to try out was a PixieDust gradient. I didn't realize until later how much the colour combo reflected the gloomy scenery.

These polishes are fricken amazing. Looks so interesting and feels so cool. Like a smooth pumice stone.

Sounds bizarre, but I like it. What's not to love about an added dimension to play with?

And you can't argue with that sparkle! It's like wearing crushed gems on your nails. I feel so regal. 

This is actually a 3 colour gradient, but the periwinkle was quite subtle and consequently camera shy. 

I used Dahlia, London and Nyx.

The application was a dream and dry time was average. 

I used London as my base and used the sponge method to create the gradient.

And as Zoya suggests, I did not use any base coat.

I'm loving the PixieDust gradient and can't wait to experiment more! What do you think?

This is the first ever full collection I've purchased so you can expect tons of experiments. 

I have so many ideas I don't know what to try first! 

I like that kind of problem :)

Muse-ic

Last post I shared Nina Hagen with you. So today I have to share who I believe is a perfect bookend to Nina, Klaus Nomi. If you could pick any two musicians to be your parents, who would you pick? Well, since I was a teenager I believed it would be the most amazing thing to have Nina Hagen and Klaus Nomi as parents. And yes, Klaus is gay. I have a belief that society has got it all wrong. Little girls should be taught to be tough and self reliant. And little boys should be taught to be sensitive and emotionally aware. Hormones drag us in the opposite direction anyway. Why shouldn't we try to counteract that? Every person I know would have benefited from such encouragement as a child. 

And I guess it's the German in me that loves operatically trained new wave German weirdos. Klaus' stage persona came from his feelings of alienation, truly feeling like he was an alien. And Nina, well she claimed to have seen a UFO while pregnant and so named her daughter "Cosma Shiva". What does this have to do with anything? Nothing. I just love them so much.

Enjoy this live performance of Klaus. He is amazing. And if you like him, let me know. :)

I hope everyone has a great Sunday. If you have nothing to do, watch a movie! And if you don't know what to watch, watch Winter's Bone. It's a much better movie than the one Jennifer Lawrence won the oscar for. (But I am happy she won it.)
Have a great night and an awesome manicure!
jeebjeeb