Sweet Baby Octopolish!

 I've blogged a couple of times before about my birdwatching and nature nerdery, but this weekend's amazing sights truly inspired me to create some art on my fingernail canvases. outdoor, shady/overcast daylight for all While out in the woods this weekend, my birding buddies and I came across this utterly magical grey-morph Eastern Screech Owl.  S/he's been seen in the area for a few weeks now, and we were beyond lucky to catch a glimpse of this creature emerging into the twilight I was struck by the pale green eyes, and the earthy grey-and-brown camouflaged colors, and wanted to recreate that look with my nail art. I'm using the owl eye image and the feathers from Creative Shop 50, stamped in a chocolate brown crème over Aliquid Make a Wish.  The plate only comes with one eye, though, so I attempted to reverse the image by immediately rolling it off onto another stamper as soon as I'd lifted it from the plate.  Success!  The outline of the eye and iris were ove...

 Again this week, I needed a specific base color for a planned stamping look... and when I found the ideal soft grey, it turned out I'd never gotten around to wearing this one! indoor, bright CF lighting Aliquid Lacquer released Make a Wish waaaay back in 2013 - it's sat around untried long enough to have developed a bit of ugly bottle syndrome (the chalky white clings to the inside bottom of the bottle, but doesn't impact the color. indoor, bright CF lighting Wish is a lighter grey, ever so slightly blue-leaning, with a dusting of tiny copper-colored microflakies and a ghostly green contrast shimmer.  I'm showing 2 smooth coats here, and despite the age of this bottle I had no problems with formula or application. indoor, CF lighting Rating:  a solid 3 of 5 stars, a modern neutral with a little something extra sprinkled in there.   Where to buy:  though she flies under the radar, Aliquid is still open, and you can purchase directly . ~Michelle 

The man picked dark blue for this round of "hundreds of untrieds can't make a decision," so I pulled out this one from Aliquid Lacquer... which I bought along with a couple of her friends well over a year ago and yet STILL haven't tried out this brand.  Here goes! indoor, bright CF lighting Mercy, Mastery, Mystery (which is a total mouthful!) was one of my attempts to quash my lemming for Finnnally it's Hoodie Time , though it of course ended up being nothing much at all like that one.  What it actually is, is a slatey grey-blue with a beautiful scarlet red shimmer overlay and a scattering of warm orange multichrome flakes, overall giving the look of a subtle ember burning through smoke. window-filtered morning daylight The creamy finish hid some of the flakies and went on a bit thick for my taste (there's a little chip in my ring finger here after only about 48h of wear, and I don't see much flakies at all on  my pinky), but one layer of topc...