Crows Toes Merope Tape Mani

Happy Friday everyone!!!! I love Fridays, I think they might be the best day of the week, the whole weekend is stretched out ahead of us.......

 

So yesterday I decided to do a tape mani. Well actually I wanted to do some stamping but I just couldn't stamp. I don't know why, first I was scraping off too much polish, then the image wouldn't transfer properly, then only bits of it came onto my nail. I got fed up and gave up so I thought I'd try something different. I'll come back to stamping another day when I have more time and patience. I think I need to only try using my Konad polishes, and this means I need to get some more of them when I go to the US next month.

 

OK, so what I did do was start with 2 coats of Zoya Kendall which is a pale lilac creme. I really like this, it's a great base colour. Then I applied some striping tape and used Crows Toes Merope over the top. Did it turn out OK? Well sort of. The lines are not as crisp as I would like and I think I kinda messed up in the ring finger, I know you are supposed to take the tape off when the polish is wet but I think I did that a little too early and that's why I got some blurred edges. Oh well, the overall effect was nice, I just need more practise.

 

Crows Toes Merope is part of the pleiades collection. As described by Crows Toes, in greek mythology the pleiades were seven sisters: maia, electra, alcyone, taygete, aterope, celaeno and merope. their parents were atlas, a titan who held up the sky, and the oceanid pleione, the protectress of sailing. After a chance meeting with the hunter orion, the pleiades and their mother became the object of his relentless pursuit. enamoured with the young women, he pursued them over the face of the earth. in pity for their plight, zeus changed them into a flock of doves, which he set in the heavens. This collection are their namesakes.

 

Merope is really very pretty, it's the only one I own so far but it certainly won't be the last. I looked for a description but couldn't find one so I would say it's a multichrome with flashes of blue, grey, green and purple. I can see orange in the bottle but it wasn't evident on the nail. I want to wear it plain next time so you can see the whole effect, I might wait for some sunshine so I can hopefully get all the multchrome goodness out of it.

 

So more practise for me with the nail art. Anyone have any tips on getting really crisp lines with the striping tape?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh and because I have been asked by one of my lovely readers to show you more of Miagi here he is. He was lucky to be sent a toy in one of my birthday packages from my nail birthday group this morning, here he is sitting on his favourite blankets on top of the couch. He's there as I write this snoring away!  

Crows Toes Hell Hath No Fury

Happy mid week! I'm always so relieved to get to this point!

Today I have a mani I wore before Christmas. I initially saw Crows Toes Hell Hath No Fury posted on the Crumpet and it was such a fabulous swatch I knew I needed it! You can see the blog post here.

Well, as it was Christmas I wanted to wear red. You might have noticed red is a colour I hardly wear at all. I really like it, I just don't wear it much, however I had just got my OPI Bond collection and so needed to try them out.

Crows Toes Hell Hath No Fury is from the Crows Toes Halloween collection and is described as a bright mix of fire and orange glitters with a red/orange/gold colourshifting shimmer. For this mani I wore 2 coats of OPI The Spy Who Loved Me and 2 coats of Crows Toes Hell Hath No Fury. Look at the purple irridescent sparkles, it's beautiful.

In fact I think I like The Crumpet's version more because all the glitters from Hell Hath No Fury really had a chance to pop, but still, this is one awesome polish. The formula was fine, Crows Toes always tends to run a bit thick but really it's not a problem.

This polish is still in stock at Llarowe, which considering it isn't Halloween anymore is pretty lucky. If you haven't got a bottle I'd strongly suggest you grab one while you can.

 

 

 

x

Crows Toes Jingle Balls

I love Christmas and for me it really starts when we go and get our tree. Through the years I have collected some very special Christmas ornaments and I absolutely love getting them out of their boxes and remembering when I bought them or who I got them from, for me it's such a special way to start the season.

So in honor of getting our tree I had to wear something green and sparkly and I chose one of the first holiday polishes I bought from Llarowe, Crows Toes Jingle Balls. For undies I used 2 coats of Color Club Holiday Splendour which is a stunning green holographic glitter polish from last years Color Club Beyond The Mistletoe collection. I didn't have my light box then so didn't manage to get a good picture of that by itself so I will post that another day, but believe me it is beautiful!

I topped this mani off with a coat of Crows Toes Jingle Balls. There are lots of holiday polishes like this one this year, I bought this one because I hadn't seen the others yet and although I would have liked some stars I'm glad I bought it because it has a clear base which makes it more adaptable. Topcoat wise it took 2 layers to get this perfect so it wasn't too bad and it lasted for 3 days with no chips and minimal wear.

It was super sparkly but I didn't manage to capture that as much as I wanted to, I'm so looking forward to trying all these polishes now without taking them everywhere with me just in case it stops raining or there is a little bit of light I need to capture!

And here's my sweet husband trying to navigate us home! It reminds me of National Lampoons Christmas Vacation - my favourite Christmas movie ever!

x

Crows Toes A Christmas Crow and OPI The Man With The Golden Gun

Do you ever see a polish and know that you want it but don't really know why? For me that polish is Crows Toes, A Christmas Crow. It's not my usual polish choice but I knew it would be awesome!

When I saw this planned for release on Llarowe I knew I needed this and Jingle Balls. I had to go out for dinner with my husband and I was frantically trying to purchase it on my iPhone but paypal wasn't cooperating so I lost them. Low and behold there was another restock that same day and when I woke up I was able to get them.

Today I have Crows Toes, A Christmas Crow. Personally I wouldn't have thought this to be a Christmas polish, first off it's brown but it does have tiny little sparkling gold glitters which do make it a bit Christmassy. It doesn't really matter to me because it is really pretty and such a rich and unusual polish.

I used 3 coats for these photos. The formula is very jelly like but it does give good coverage without being too thick or sticky. I decided to add a layer of OPI The Man With A Golden Gun 18 K gold topcoat. I think these complimented eachother perfectly!

This is a keeper for me, it's unique in my collection and would look great with flakies or a glitter topper.

On it's own, still a very pretty polish and unique in my collection.

x

No H8 - Crows Toes Cheshire and Catrice Heavy Metallic

Bullying is not funny. It is not cool. It is not right. And more importantly, it is not okay.
Most of us are, thankfully, residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason. Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet.

As members of the nail polish blogging community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer. Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color...even to our polish application techniques. To marginalize anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that. I refuse to allow other people's view of "normal" dictate how I behave, believe, and blog.

In solidarity with a multitude of bloggers linked below, my purple manicure represents my proud commitment to the No H8 movement. Today, November 8, I dedicate my post to ending bullying of any kind and to encouraging diversity and imperfection among our colorful community.


For this mani I started off with 2 coats of Catrice Heavy Metallic topped with a glitter gradient with the gorgeous Crows Toes Cheshire. I chose these polishes because they represent 2 things that make me happy - the Catrice came from a dear friend in my birthday club group and Cheshire, well that's the cat so what's not to love. The are both beautiful polishes although the Catrice was very apt for this mani as it had the biggest brush I have ever seen in my life so I had a lot of cleaning up to do!!

Next time I'm wearing Cheshire over a dark purple or black or maybe even a bright turquoise.

And just to remind ourselves of how far we've come here is a comparison picture of one of the first mani's I took photo's of and one I blogged the other week. I think I've progressed!

This is such a lovely hobby and I have met so many lovely people and made great friends, let's be kind to eachother. x