Nail Polish + Jewelry

And now for something completely different!  This is what I did last night:

Incidentally, I give UP on the camera on this new phone.  The focus and quality are for CRAP, and there's no damned macro focus!!  I love 99.999% of this new phone, but fuck the camera.
So anyway, I had the bracelet on the upper left already - a gold chain with an oversized gold lobster clasp and ring closure, and a single clay scarab bead.  I wanted more stuff to go with it.

Using remnants of the same chain I used for the bracelet, I made the choker next to it, and the pair of earrings.

I wanted big, chunky, blue stones, but I didn't have any.  What I did have were some big, chunky green stones that I didn't like.

I made this a while back, but only wore it once, because I hated it.  The stones were far too heavy for the chain, and I just don't like that shade of green directly on my skin.

So I painted them with teal nail polish!  The result was a set of stones that look like slightly-iridescent sea glass.  I really wish I had a better picture for you, they look REALLY cool.

The earrings were made in the same way, but with two old pieces of rainbow fluorite painted with the same polish.

And because I know at least one person is going to ask:  yes, I painted natural stones with nail polish.  In addition to the serpentines being the wrong color for me, they were also old and chipped and had strange inclusions that marred the look of the stones - I only used my crappy ones for this.  Ditto on the fluorites.  :)

  The black bracelet on the left is where the gold nail polish came in.  The elastic connecting the four metal pieces was shot, and I couldn't wear the bracelet anymore.  Also, the gold paint was coming off and the copper underneath was starting to show through.
And so I painted it gold.  It's not the same yellowy gold as the other pieces, but I like it a lot.  Re-stringing this thing was a major pain in the bitch.







Nail Polish colors used:  

Sinful Colors "Gorgeous"

Nina Ultra Pro by Sally Beauty Supply "Big Spender"

Better pics, and pics of the outfit all of this was specifically made to go with, very soon.  :)


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The Right Blue, x2

As I contemplate painting the trim in the guest bathroom (which is what you do while you're sitting around on your ass not getting started), I'm also contemplating repainting the master bathroom walls and ceiling...and possibly changing the color in the guest bath.

This is [part of] the master bath.  The color is lovely.  In fact, I've loved it so much that while I seem to paint every room in the house like every two years, this room has been the same color for nearly eight!  It's a bit too intense a blue for me anymore, though, as I've grown towards softer colors;  and the ceiling and trim and doors are all painted the same color, for a mostly-monochromatic effect.  Which I actually still like, but the paint on the trim and doors is getting pretty grubby, and it's time to freshen the paint anyway.   I figure if I'm going to do that, I may as well update the whole bathroom.

via In the Hushed Hours

I'm thinking something more like this.  A bit more green, and a bit more grey, but still some very soft, muted blue.

This is Benjamin Moore's "Grey Horse"

(For comparison, the current color in the master bath is pretty close to this color  (I mixed it myself, sorry) , and my bedroom is pretty much the same color as Sherwin Williams' "Rainwashed" (also mixed by me).

via Houzz

This is also lovely, but I think it might be a bit too dark.  The source doesn't name the wall color; but I think it's probably pretty close to Sherwin Williams' "Mineral Deposit."

This is my guest bathroom as it stands right now.  I only just did this gray/white thing last Fall, and I'm already bored with it.  It's soft, but it's kinda...blah.  I love the gray in my living room, but in here it's just not doing it for me.  I already have to prime and re-paint the trim and doors in here;  I was thinking I might try a very pale blue in here as well as in the master bathroom.







Meanwhile, I've also been searching for the perfect blue nail polish - in a similar color, actually.   I haven't been able to find one anywhere.  Everything is a bright Tiffany Blue, electric turquoise, or very pale baby blue, and none of them work on me.  I found the right color in a Sally Hansen, but it was all sparkly and glittery - while I love glittery on my toes, my fingernails are so short that glittery polishes just make it look like I have no nails at all.  (I keep them very short for guitar purposes).

So, I tried Finger Paints' "Hue Gotta Be Kidding Me"  (wall paint should have such exciting names).  It's really pretty, but it was SCREAMING! FREAKING! TURQUOISE!

* please excuse all the hastily- and badly-applied nail polish in this post.  I was just basically throwing the stuff at my nails to check out the color.  At least I didn't post pics from last night when I was testing it out on my knee. 

I tried mixing some of it into a bottle of white I had, to lighten it waaaay up...and it was waaaaay too light.  It looked like blue-tinted correction fluid. 

* also please excuse that one horribly-bitten nail.  That's my Throwdown Nail.  I can bite that one all I want, and it keeps me from biting the others!

And finally, I got it just right, with the addition (to the white-based mixture above)  of a bit of a deep teal I had but never wear, to make it darker but not more intense,  and a whole bunch of China Glaze "Nude" to mute the color - a trick I learned mixing the bathroom paint color, as a matter of fact.  You can mute a color by mixing in its opposite - in this case, a light blue muted with what basically amounts to a peach or a pastel orange.   
















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