Be gone snow! Cleveland, like much of the east side of the United States, has been in a constant state of TERRIBLE WINTER WEATHER. Have Disney and Mother Nature decided to partner up and play a sick joke on us all? Are we living in the real life version of Frozen? I mean, Snow, you're pretty for about a week around the holidays - No I take that back - You are pretty for exactly one day around the holidays, and then I think you should just pack up and leave. You are overstaying your welcome, and it's time to go home!
I am so over Winter, I think it's time to bust out a spring shade!
So when I sat down to paint my nails last night, I forced myself to only look at Spring time shades - pastels, pinks, purples, the whole bit. I wanted to do a half moon mani, using a base shade with a silver glitter polish for the half moon. I settled on a pretty new periwinkle, Babe Blue from the Sally Hansen Extreme Wear line, that I just picked up during my Valentine's Day shopping spree. Writing up this post now, I'm realizing that this combination with the periwinkle and silver sort of looks wintery...Uhhh, let's just forget about that. The inspiration was Spring, I promise!
Time for a walkthrough on how I got this look. If you saw beer in the title, and are here for that, hold your horses! We need to get our nails looking snazzy first. I promise, the beer is coming! I started out with two coats of Babe Blue. This shade looks beautiful on it's own! It's sort of a cross between a baby blue and a periwinkle. It definitely felt more periwinkle to me, but in certain lights the blue undertone pulls a little stronger than the purple undertone giving it a baby blue effect. The formula is great, and I had no issues with the application of this polish.
I used a rounded nail vinyl and placed it about 1/3 of the way up my nail from my cuticle. It's important to make sure that your mani is completely dry before starting this step. I actually top coated my two coats of Babe Blue and let it dry for a half hour before starting the silver part of the manicure. This may be longer than necessary, but I had a bad experience with my last attempt at using nail vinyls, so I was extra careful with the drying time this go around.
TIP: I "half-mooned" one nail at a time, and top coated each nail before starting the next one. I wanted to avoid accidentally smudging one nail while working on the others. I used Seche Vite as my top coat, and only waited a few seconds before applying my topcoat. Next time, I would probably wait a little bit longer because the top coat smudged and dragged the silver slightly on a few of the nails.
Next, I filled in the nail near my cuticle using a silver nail striper. I found it to be a lot easier to use a nail striper for this part since the part of my nail that I was attempting to fill in was such a small area, and I had more control with this type of a brush over a typical nail polish brush. I first outlined the area along my cuticle and then filled in the rest. I then slowly pulled off the nail vinyl while the silver polish was still wet. It's important to do this very slowly so that you get a nice clean line. Then, I used my quick dry top coat one more time to seal in the entire design.
Beer here! I enjoyed a fantastic drink while creating this mani. If you saw my Essie Matte Cashmere post, you'll remember that I like fruity beers! What's even better than a blueberry beer? An apricot one! I love apricots, and if you do, too, you MUST try Pyramid's Apricot Ale! This is a traditional unfiltered wheat ale infused with fresh apricots - and YUM! I'm a sucker for anything apricot - it's one of my favorite flavors! I picked this up on a whim a while back, and I'm glad I did. It's now one of my favorites! It recently won the Gold Medal in the 2014 Great American Beer Festival in the Fruit, Vegetable Beer category, and I think it's well deserved!
Pyramid has breweries in Seattle, Washington; Portland, Oregon; and Berkeley and Walnut Creek in California. This beer is pretty widely available (for a craft beer), and is available everywhere in the U.S. except...Michigan, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida. (This one is even available in Hawaii & Alaska!)
You'll probably love this one, or hate it. There's usually no in between, but if you like fruity beers, I think you're gonna love it!
You'll probably love this one, or hate it. There's usually no in between, but if you like fruity beers, I think you're gonna love it!
Are you ready to bring out your Spring shades? What is your favorite Spring time nail polish?
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you stop by often!
Katey
Thanks for stopping by. I hope you stop by often!
Katey