Shore Bright Crackle Nail Art

For today's manicure, I decided to do a throwback to crackle polish. It's not trendy these days, but it's still fun to use :)

I love a bright color under black crackle so I went with KBShimmer Shore Thing as my base and topped it with a black crackle.

Rainbow Tie Dye

I've had the concept for this mani in my head for a bit and decided to go ahead and do it finally!

So I used the Saran Wrap water color technique for this where you put a few blobs on color on your base and then smoosh it with a piece of plastic wrap or plastic storage bag. I've seen this technique around a lot, and I'm not sure who is the original creator of it.

My idea was to create rainbow tie dye effect with this technique. And it worked!

I started with my white gel base coat from the other day. Then I did blobs of all the rainbows colors and smooshed! The heart and peace sign were added in with acrylic paint. I wish I hadn't added Pure Ice Black Crackle on top because I laid it on a bit too heavy and the tie dye doesn't show through quite as well.

I topped the whole thing off with China Glaze Fairy Dust.

The watercolor technique was really easy and I can't wait to try it again.

Happy New Year!

I don't have anything special going on this year for New Year's Eve. We're not really party people (like going out), and with a one year old it's not so easy to have people over that late or to go to someone else's house. My husband is working until 9pm today as well. I think when he gets home, I'll make a ginormous batch of stove top popcorn and we'll watch some Doctor Who (I'm all caught up; he's on Series 5 still).

Anyway! I still did some simple New Year's Eve nails just for fun :)

Colors used: Barry M Gold Foil and Pure Ice Black Crackle

Pure Ice Vinyl Remix

It's been a bit since I posted, but I took a much needed mini-break from blogging. I'm going to start blogging again, but still stick to my schedule before the 31 Day Challenge so expect to see posts from me every 2-3 days.

For today's mani, I was finally able to play with the Pure Ice Vinyl Remix crackle colors. I have Rock Star and Vintage Remix (or the purple and teal ones). For these, first you need to paint your nails using the white base coat. I used 2 for mine and stopped there even though it was still patchy.  You don't need to worry about mixing up your white base coats because the magic is in the crackle coats.

Next, use whatever crackle polishes to make a design. 2 things to remember: the pattern follows your brush strokes, and the color appears underneath the black crackle.

Here's what I came up with.

OPI Shatter the Scales

I apologize for not posting (again!), but life has a way of sneaking up on you. A friend from New Mexico is back in town so I've been spending some time with her which is awesome! This is the last week of school so I've been busy dealing with lessons/grading/crazy discipline issues. Next week I'll be off the whole week, and this summer I'm only babysitting 1-2 days a week and teaching a short summer school class in July so I'll be plenty free to do my nails/nail art and share it with all of you!

On to today's post. I wasn't originally going to get OPI Shatter the Scales, but I came across a Bloom.com deal so I decided to go for it!  I layered it over Rimmel Grey Matter.  On my pinkie and ring finger, I used a thin layer and did a thicker one on my middle and index fingers.

Shatter the Scales dries sort of matte looking just like all other crackles, and it doesn't look like much then. But add a top coat, and BAM! The teal color pops along with all the gorgeous glitter.  This is one unique crackle.

Monday Mani: Crackle

At Polish-aholics Anonymous this week's Monday Mani is Crackle. A lot of the girls over there wanted to bring it back since they have so many crackles. Personally, I wasn't really into polish big time until after the trend so I'm not over it yet!

I've seen this idea several places and really wanted to try it so I thought now would be the perfect time!

This look is fairly easy and actually took less time that I thought! I simply painted rainbow stripes using my polish choices and a small paintbrush, let it dry, put on my crackle,. and tada! I choose to do the whole rainbow from my cuticle and use horizontal stripes, but you could pick just a few colors or do vertical stripes. What's even better is that you don't have to be perfect with the lines. The crackle covers it up!

You could use any colors you want, but in case you are wondering here are the ones I used:

Pure Ice Siren (red), Wet N Wild Sunny Side Up (orange), Maybelline Sunshine (yellow), OPI Don't Mess with OPI (green), Sinful Colors Why Not (blue), and Rimmel Wild Orchid (purple).The crackle is Pure Ice Black Crackle, and I added some glitter on top using INM Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat Silver.

What about you all? Are you tired of the crackle trend yet, or do you still love it?