HPB Presents Surely There's Beach in IKEA Somewhere

I had such fun doing last month's Hobby Polish Bloggers challenge, May Flowers, I decided to do this month's beach theme, too. I thought about using Zoya Tomoko or Zoya Godiva to mimic sand on my tips, or a jelly sandwich of some sort that would be like looking down through the water to fish or seaweed or something, but in the end I found my inspiration in a shirt and some stickers and created this bright dotted and decaled Skittles mani.



It was a full mani, too; here's my reclusive right hand:



I took the color scheme and dots idea from this shirt I got at Rainbow, a store where it feels like at least 90% of the merchandise is aimed at people who are not me but I still go into because sometimes they have very fun stuff in my size, like this shirt.



I'd originally planned to just copy the dotticure outright, wear it and the shirt to meet up with some of my nail polish friends at IKEA and do my beach mani later, but then I noticed the palm trees on the shirt and remembered some nail stickers I'd gotten at Five Below, the Tropical Smoothie set.



To pick the base colors, I took the shirt over to the Helmers that have the creme polishes sorted and waiting to be put on nail wheels and just pulled bottles out until I found shades that looked close to the ones on the shirt. The final product lineup for this mani (even without the stickers) was too big to fit into my lightbox comfortably. Left to right: Qtica Natural Nail Growth Stimulator (which I found on clearance and have been alternating with Duri Rejuvacote), my old favorite Salon Sciences Instant Artificials, Funky Fingers Alex's Lemonade (2014 version), Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Red Rebel (it's a rebel because it's actually orange), L'Oreal Red Robin (oh how I love my old L'Oreals), Sally Hansen Triple Shine Dive In, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pink of Punch, and Diamond Dry (which has become my go to quick dry topcoat, so that's probably why Sally Hansen hasn't yet discontinued the Insta Dri one in the red bottle—they know I won't be sad like I was when they yanked the Age Correct base before I'd found something I liked better).



I was so excited to get to the arty part that I completely failed to write down any notes about how many coats of the creme base colors I used. I think it was three for the orange and red and two for the others, but I've really no idea.



And here's how much I love my sensitive-nosed husband: I painted this mani standing up on our back patio, using our electric meter as a shelf for my bottles.



The stickers went on next. I really should have waited a bit longer for the base to dry; I slicked on a layer of Diamond Dry to speed the process but even that wasn't fast enough for me. Some of the decals wrinkled ever so slightly as the layers underneath completely dried, but it wasn't too noticeable.



Some dots with Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme and another layer of topcoat and I had a mani to match my shirt.



One last check in the car before I headed in to meet up with the ladies at IKEA—looks like I need some cuticle cream:



The ladies and I (and two patient husbands and one adorable little daughter) gathered in the IKEA cafe for some sustenance before we headed out to trek through the store inspecting items for their suitability for use in our nail polish hobby. I'd brought one of my tallest bottles (Bourjois 1 seconde) and a standard size (Orly, same height as OPI and China Glaze and so many others) to try out in various drawers and such.



Along the way, we looked at Helmers (they come in orange and green now!) and Alexes in all their many configurations and carts and shelves and cabinets whose names I do not know. We looked at lamps and mats and containers and chairs. We took a wrong turn and missed a whole section and had to backtrack. We temporarily lost one of the husbands near the end of the maze before the cash registers. After all that, we posed for a group shot with the cinnamon rolls that they stragetically place by the exit to snare tired and hungry shoppers. Clockwise starting from my hand in the lower right, it's @jamylyn_nails (who has just moved to Michigan and doesn't have her stash yet, so she can't do the all the crazy great manis she usually does, which is why I've given her MS Paint star Skittles), @traceyloveslacquer, @honeybee_nails, and @paintmewithpolish.



I had such fun hanging out with these ladies, and also fun doing the HPB challenge again. Click through the links at the bottom of this post to see what the other bloggers participated did for their beach/ocean manis (links will continue to be added for the next week).

An InLinkz Link-up

HPB Presents May Flowers

Starting the week with something new: a blog link-up challenge. Seems like in five years doing this, I would have done one before, but no, just getting to it now, under the banner of the Hobby Polish Bloggers group on Facebook. The mani theme for this month's event is flowers, which opened up so many possibilities. I pondered freehand art and stamping and real dried flowers before deciding on glitter placement to make my nail bouquet.

I started with a base of Catrice Hugo Moss, a deep green creme, then used one of my dotting tools to pick and place glitter out of Salon Perfect Flower Power and Mad About Mod before finishing with Gelous, Beauty Secrets Top Coat, and OPI Matte Top Coat.





And here's how I built up this look, starting with my key raw materials—

Salon Perfect Flower Power:



Salon Perfect Mad About Mod:



Trying out some ideas on a black base:



Before matte topcoat:



Mattified:



Experimenting before taking it off with adding dotting tool dots of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Teesta Turquoise; the blobby nature of some of my dots shows why I didn't try to do this whole design with a dotting tool:



I think I want to revisit this look sometime, maybe on a slightly lighter green base, and definitely taking more care to get the glitters exactly where I want them (with no stragglers hitching a ride on the larger glitters, either) and experimenting first to find just the right topcoat layers to smooth with no bubbles or other issues. Despite the flaws I see when I study the macro shots, I had fun doing this and was definitely tempted to cancel my planned swatching session the next day so I could wear this longer.



Click through the links at the bottom to see what other bloggers did for this challenge.

An InLinkz Link-up