New York Fashion Week: Fashion's Night Out with Deborah Lippmann

Some days I'd like to be anywhere but here. I'd love to leave my boring life here and do something glamorous- visit New York during Fashion Week, hit up the shows of the hottest designers. I can see it all in my mind, my sleek hair and towering Christian Louboutins, the people, the shows...

Of course, then I remember I'm actually me, and those towering Louboutins would KILL me. I much prefer a pair of Docs, a ponytail, and some jeans. Still, wouldn't fashion week be something? Then I get this in my email...

New York Fashion Week is just around the corner. Can you believe it?! Kick off the week at Fashion’s Night Out on September 10, 2010 at Barney’s New York from 6-10 pm with fashion manicurist Deborah Lippmann.

Stop by New York City’s iconic department store on Madison Avenue (at East 59^th Street) and receive personal nail consultations with Deborah Lippmann. She can help select which colors are best for your skin tone and pick out shades for any occasion. She can also provide tips and tricks on how to find the right nail shape for you and how to give yourself a professional quality manicure at home.

Her new fall colors – Bad Romance, a GaGa blackened fuchsia, and Across The Universe, a blazing blue and metallic green glam in sheerest navy – will be on display for sampling and for purchase.

Wow. Would it be amazing to get to meet Deborah Lippman or what? Ahhh, excuse me while I get lost in my dreams of Fashion Week one  more time...

*Images and press release courtesy of Deborah Lippmann's PR firm.

Nail Art Mockups In My Sketchbook

Eek! This was supposed to post and didn't. I'm going to backdate it and put it up anyway. Sorry for the weirdness you may have to deal with!

I've kept a sketchbook for years. It goes back to when I was in art school. Those teachers made us buy a sketchbook every semester, the fancy hard-back kind with the special paper inside. I was always so intimidated by those books that it was too hard to let go and let myself doodle in them. We didn't have a lot of money back then, so the idea of spending $25 on a sketchbook to doodle in and goof off? It felt like sacrilege! Hardback sketchbooks deserved actual art on their pages, things that were more finished. My poor doodles and scribbles felt as if I was defacing the pages instead of building my skills!

Even now, 12 years later, most of those books are mostly empty. I still feel weird putting my strange rambles and doodles into them, because it feels like my scribblings aren't worthy of such a quality book. The good news is that I've found a way around that idea. Instead of using the giant, expensive sketchbooks I go to Office Depot or one of the big-box stores and get cheap notebooks. Some have unlined paper, some have lined paper, some even have graph paper! Because they're so inexpensive, I can write grocery lists or poetry on them, I can sketch things that are bizarre and silly. They're my sketchbooks, and I'd be lost without them.

I don't just sketch in them. There are lists of things to do, ideas for stories, ideas for nail art,  character studies. I'll list quotes from the moment, observations from daily life, descriptions of events that made me laugh. Sometimes I'll jot down funny things that happened to me along with a sketch to convey information. It's a small, working record of my life, both creative and not, that I can flip through for inspiration for for reminders to do things I need to do.

One thing I've recently started doing is creating mock-ups of nail art designs. My sketchbook works perfectly for this, since the nail polish doesn't seep through the page. It sits nicely on top, dries quickly, and creates a permanent record of nail art inspiration for me! I'll also jot down where the idea came from, like in this picture to the right. Luxuriousnails on youtube does wonderful nail art. Check her out!

Not all of my nail art mock-ups are done with nail polish, though. Sometimes I'll be sitting and doodling, playing with variations on a theme. In this photo, I was playing with variations on bold graphic visual elements, like concentric squares and varying sizes of circles. I very much enjoy bold elements like these, although repeating them with nail polish can be quite a chore. I have plans to try out my gel pens with a pale polish, or my opaque gel pens with a darker polish. I love the idea of neons on black... I think neon bubbles on black could be lots of fun!

I have more pics after the jump...

Adding Some Fun To My Mani- Custom-Mixed Pink Dots!

I have such a short attention span. After wearing my grownup manicure for all of 6 hours, I realized I was bored to death with it. I also was dealing with a bit of anxiety from a morning meeting (LONG story), so I decided to do a bit of modification to my manicure. Those of you who follow me on Twitter got a sneak peek of this one. (Hint hint- you can follow me too!)

I thought for a while, and decided that baby pink goes well with cocoa brown. The problem? I have no pink that I felt was appropriate. That's ok, I can mix colors! I pulled out my polishes and started looking. I seem to have mainly one type of pink in my collection- HOT. That wouldn't do.

However, then I realized that if I mixed my pink Kiss Nail Art Nail Paint with my Milani Bare With Me, I'd end up with a pink very close to what I had in mind. Looking back, I'd probably want to warm it up a bit, but I'm pretty happy with it as it is.

I ended up using some recycled plastic cups to mix polish in. My step-grandmother is in a nursing home, and they bring her medications to her in a little plastic cup. Since she gets them 2-3 times a day, that's a lot of cups. She saves them because she thinks they're so cute, and doesn't want to see them thrown away. When she heard I use them for nail art, she wanted my step-mother to bring them to me. That made my day, you know? Just a little peek into my life.

Now, one problem I ran into is that while I mixed enough to do all my nails, it ended up starting to dry out and be unusable by nail 3 or 4. That's easy enough to fix, though. I put a single drop of Orly Nail Lacquer Thinner into the mix, stirred it well with my dotter, and the polish was back to new again. I ended up doing that three times total, and had no problems with getting the dots done.

A quick note about nail polish thinner: it's a must have if you paint your nails often at all. There are lots of brands to choose from, of varying costs. It will totally rescue your thickened, goopy polishes and return them to brand-new consistency without affecting their drying time. Some people will say you can use nail polish remover for this, but don't: it will ruin your polish instead of fixing it. Thinner is inexpensive and fairly easy to find, and it's worth the effort.

Back to the nails, already! So, once I had my pink mixed, I used a homemade dotting tool to put teeny little dots on my nails in a semi-regular pattern. It was simple enough- put a dot in the center of my nail, put one a bit higher up, then a bit higher up. Put a dot under it, then another... all about the same distance apart. It's so much easier to explain with an animated .gif!

Yes, some of the dots went over onto my skin. I did that so that the dot would look like it was continuing off the nail. Once they're dry, it's very easy to clean up the few dots over the edge using a brush and acetone. It makes the whole thing look more consistent, in my opinion.

Once the dots were dry, I applied my topcoat, then used the brush and acetone to clean up all my edges. I am loving using the brush for cleanup, now that I've figured out how to do it. It took a bit of practice to get the hang of it, but I think it's working well now.All I have left to figure out is exactly how much to clean off around the cuticles to get that amazing look I see on so many blogs. But that will come with practice.

And there we go- I went from a very plain, neutral manicure to a fun dotted girlie one! You could even add a pink rhinestone in here and there, or do a pink french tip- that would be adorable if my nails were long enough!

 Polishes were provided by PR for evaluation.

Giveaway Roundup for September 4, 2010

Wow, it's been almost two weeks since my last giveaway roundup! I think that means I need to get off my tush and show you some giveaways! You know the drill, they're all under the jump...

Maybelline Cocoa Motion- What I Wore When I Had To Pretend I Was A Grown Up

I had a meeting with my son's school today. He's a good student, but has been having horrible health issues for the last two years, and as a result, we're all ready to pull our hair out- parents, teachers, administrators, and kiddo himself. Today we met to see what we can do to help him get the education he needs. It was very stressful just planning for it, and I realized an hour and a half before we had to leave that the near-fluorescent red I was wearing might not actually be appropriate for the meeting.

I wanted to appear professional, responsible, and as someone to be taken seriously. Neon just would not do. I dug through my untried polishes box and found this lovely creme polish I won from the Dainty Darling Digits Go Green giveaway. Yes, this would absolutely do.

Since I didn't have much time, I skipped base coat. I did two very thin coats of Cocoa Motion and was struck by what a pretty, creamy cocoa brown this was. It went on like a dream, too, with very little need for cleanup. Maybe it's the brush, but this polish was a joy to apply. The two coats were also nicely opaque, and dried quickly. I was very pleased with this color, especially with how it looked against my skin tone.

Thankfully, today's meeting went well. It was stressful, but we all had the same goals in mind, and I think we made a good decision for my son. Is it because of this nail polish?

Probably not, but it sure made me feel more secure!

NAIL ART TUTORIAL:How to Do a Sponged Gradient

So you want to do a gradient on your nails, but you're not quite sure how to go about it. I've heard people say it's intimidating, they're worried the polish will dry or they'll mess it up. They're afraid they won't have the skills required to do it correctly, or that something bad will happen. Well, let me tell you this- it won't.

There's a very important fact to keep in mind- it's only nail polish. As long as you make a few preparations, the worst you'll have to deal with is cleaning the polish off your fingers. It comes off. It's really ok! The next time you try, it'll go a little better, and before you know it you'll be doing gradients with the best of them!

Supplies needed:

• base coat
• polishes (2 minimum)
• top coat
• a makeup sponge or two
• nail polish remover or acetone
• cotton buds or a brush
• cotton balls or rounds

Optional Supplies:

• newspaper (to protect surfaces)
• petroleum jelly (for easier cleanup)
• scissors (to cut sponge)
• a pantyliner (for sponge cleaning)

When you choose your polishes for a gradient, it helps to pick colors that are analogous, or next to each other on the color wheel. If you try to blend colors that are too far apart, they tend to look muddy. This is an entire lesson on its own, and I can go into that later if you're interested. For now, just remember to look for colors that blend into each other. I'm using red, orange, and yellow. You can see they're next to each other on the color wheel.

If you were to try to make gradient from colors across from each other on the color wheel, like blue and orange, they would make a muddy grey/brown in the center where they meet. It's not terribly pretty, although understanding the color wheel can come in very handy when you're mixing your own colors! But for now, back to gradients!

The first thing I would suggest is to put down a layer of newspaper on the surface you're going to be working on. You're working with lots of polishes and sponges and things, and if you're anything like me it's safest to put something down between you and your antique coffee table. Nail polish on furniture can be bad, but nail polish remover on furniture is even worse! Then make sure you've got everything you'll need for a while, because this can take a bit of time. Grab a soda or a bottle of water, the phone, the TV remote- whatever you need so that you don't have to go digging for it with wet nails. Also, visit the restroom- wet nails are not compatible with potty breaks!

Now, you need to prep your nails. I've been experimenting with using petroleum jelly on my cuticles and the skin around my nails, just to make cleanup a bit easier. I'm not sure if it helps, but it can't hurt, right?

You'll also want to wipe your nails down with nail polish remover on a cotton ball or round. This helps remove oils and things that can make your polish come off, and helps dry out your nail so that your base coat can really adhere. Then you need to apply 2-3 coats of your base color, depending on how much coverage you want.

Before you start stamping, it helps to decide where you want your polishes to be on your nail.
I'm basically using yellow, orange and red for this gradient, but I also have two pinks I want to use for sparkle and easing the gradient. (Pink + yellow = orange too!) So, looking at my nail, I decided I wanted to put the pale pink down over most of my nail, then put the orange polish over about half of my nail, and put the red just on the tip of my nail.

You can draw it out if it helps you, or you can just eyeball it and estimate in your mind. Either way, it does help to get an idea of just where you want each color to start and end. If you use fewer colors, you'll have larger sections, and vice versa. Remember- it's all up to you, and you really can do whatever you want. There are no hard and fast rules!

Before I started sponging, I decided to cut my sponges down so I'd have more control. You can make them as large or small as you like- mine ended up around the size of a pencil eraser. It would cover a little over half my nail.

Loading the sponge is easy. You simply paint on the polish, just like painting your nail! However, I found that for the yellow and orange, it helped to paint them both onto the sponge like in the photo to the right. This helped the colors blend a bit more, and made a much smoother gradient. You don't have to do this, but it's an option.

To sponge the color on, you simply put the sponge over where you want the color to be, then pat it onto the nail. You don't need a lot of pressure... just pat pat pat the color onto the nail. It will build up fast enough, and you'll still have a bit of control over it. Yes, this will get all over your fingers. That's why we have the polish remover, so we can clean up afterwards.

Then it's simply a process of patting the color where you want it. You can see how it progressed for me. The camera really struggled to pick up the contrast between the red and the orange. I probably should have chosen different colors, but hey... you live and learn, right? I still think it turned out cute!

If you find that your red has gone up too far, just put some orange back onto the sponge and pat it over the red. You can really make a smooth gradient if you take your time with this. Just try to be patient, and work with it. Small pats of color really give you more control over the gradient.

You may end up feeling like you've got too much polish in the sponge. I know I did! This is when that pantyliner comes in handy. Just firmly press the sponge into the pantyliner a couple of times and it'll be clean enough to use with another color. It will be discolored, but it won't affect your polish as long as you're working from light to dark. I even used it with yellow after this and it was fine!

And finally, after patpatpating your nails until you're probably ready to beatbeatbeat your head into the wall, you'll end up with nails that look like this. If you're like me, you'll be too tired to consider cleanup, throw some quickdry on top and call it a night. But the better thing to do would be to grab those cotton buds and wipe away the stray polish on your fingers with some nail polish remover. That shouldn't take too long, and then you'll have an adorable gradient manicure. It looks great on its own, or you can do nail art on top of it! You could mask off part of the nail and do a partial gradient. Flower stickers would look good on this, as would stripes or dots or... well, lots of things! It's all up to you...

I hope this helps. It's less tutorial and more of high points, but I couldn't really figure out how to write "pat pat pat the orange down. Then pat pat pat some red on top of the orange. If it's too much red, pat pat pat some orange on top." I think you guys can figure that part out on your own! :D

I hope this gives you the courage to try it. Remember, it's just nail polish, and you can always fix it if it's awful. If you do decide to do it, take a picture, I'd love to see it!

Til next time!
     <3 Laynie

What Did I Name My Pinky-Purple Franken? FRANKENBERRY, Of Course!

I know, I know... naming a berry-colored frankened polish FrankenBerry is just begging people to groan. It's so horrible, and I know better. But I was sitting and thinking, and as soon as it hit me I began to giggle, and I just couldn't stop. So now you get to see a frankened polish with the worst name in polish history. Or maybe for this week, I'm not sure.

Anyway, I broke this one down into steps. I was going for a Lippmann-esque glitter in a jelly base. I started out with some polishes I love. I used several clear, inexpensive glitter polishes from Love My Nails along with Sinful Colors Dream On, a vibrant, almost neon purple. I also used a little plastic cup to mix in, as well as a bamboo skewer for mixing. I like those better than toothpicks because I can get a better grip on them.

The thing to remember is start small- you can always add more polish, but removing polish from the mix is impossible. I started out with a small blob of Love My Nails Dazzling. I used this because it's got an absolutely beautiful shimmer to it, almost as if it were filled with diamond dust. I wanted my Franken to have shimmer galore, so this was a perfect start to it!

Then I went for the glitter- a mix of sizes of iridescent glitters in a clear base, Love My Nails Angel Baby. This one would give that mix of glitter sizes I was hoping to have. It also gave the rainbow touch that I seem so fascinated with these days.

Angel Baby has a variety of round glitter in various sizes. It's a great topcoat for layering, but it also works really well for frankening. I really like the way it plays with other colors.

Next I added in the Sinful Colors Dream On. I could have used any color, but I wanted a bright berry-type color. Dream On is a very densely-saturated purple that gives almost complete coverage in one stroke. It also tends to dry to an almost-matte finish, which does play a role in how this looks later. It's an interesting thing to keep in mind.

If I were to make this mix again, I might use a different purple, just to see if it would play better with the mix.

Now I grabbed my bamboo skewer and mixed this thoroughly. It doesn't take long, and soon enough I had a lovely, bright, sheer pinky-purple mix with tons of glitter. I really liked how this looked in the cup. The glitter showed through the polish nicely and the color was still vibrant, but incredibly sheer.

I wonder what it would have come out with had I kept the mix like this...

Time to test! I applied one coat of the mix to my thumb only to find that it was incredibly sheer- much more sheer than I'd intended. However, looking back I wish I'd tried more than one coat of the polish, just to see how well it would build.

Ah well, it's a learning experiment, and I certainly learned a lot while making it! Glitter is good, neons dry funny, and never be afraid to experiment!

I went back for more polish and added a bit more of the purple and mixed well again. This looked much better to me. While I wanted sheer color, I wanted it to be opaque enough to hide the nail line. I wanted it sheer enough to see various glitters peeking through the layers of polish. This looked like it just might do what I wanted...

Also, I really love the size of this plastic cup. It's perfect for mixing a small batch of polish and bit enough to get your brush into. It's also easy to clean, as I'll show soon enough.

One more test and I was satisfied with the color. I went ahead and painted all my nails with the mix. You can see it's still sheer, but deep enough to build to opacity. One coat was much too sheer, but 2 coats built to a lovely, almost-opaque color. I eventually put on 3 coat of polish, and really enjoyed the process. Next up- more colors like this!

Finally I had a lovely finished manicure (except for cleaning up, which I totally forgot to do for these photos). I love the color, and it applied nicely. I was surprised at how matte the polish dried, although it's not a bad thing. I think it dried matte because of the Dream On. It was easy enough to fix by adding a coat of topcoat, and it would have been just fine as a satin as well.

I used a brush from a clear strengthener to apply the polish, then cleaned it on my polish pad before I put it back into the bottle. It worked really well!

Finally, I've got a picture of the bottom of the polish cup, just to show the types of glitter involved in this polish. Isn't it yummy?
I love the combination of colors, and the blue glitter that shows up really is blueish.

I don't know why it took me so long to start mixing colors, but I'll definitely be doing more of it! This was FUN! I'm already looking at polish box, thinking about what colors I could combine for what effects!

So tell me, do you think you'll be likely to experiment with frankening? Are you brave enough to play, or do you prefer to watch other people mix up new colors? If you do mix up a new color, show me, I'd love to see!