Manicure Monday (53): Scent of Magic

Hello! Manicure Monday is a weekly feature where I mash up my love of nail polish and reading together to showcase one of my current reads along with a matching manicure. Enjoy! 

I didn't start any new books this week. My commute was terrible last week and I was just too tired to read much, Luckily I still have a couple of manicures left in the wings from my Maria V. Snyder feature done for the release of her last book. Today I am showing you the manicure I did for Scent of Magic. 

I wasn't going to draw the guy or girl from the cover so I decided to focus on the colors and the forest in the background. First, I used one coat of American Apparel The Valley, a beautiful sky blue with a hint of green, on all of my nails. Next I created clouds by using a makeup sponge and Cult Nails Tempest (white), patting it on to create a mottled sky.

I sealed it all with top coat and then went back in with acrylic paint and painted tiny trees on my nails. I wanted to incorporate the yellow from the ribbon on the cover and added yellow accents to the trees.

This was a fun look to do. It matches only subtly but I liked how it turned out. If you haven't checked out Maria's books, you really should, because they are pretty great. Hopefully I'll be back next week with a new manicure. Happy reading!

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Manicure Monday (48): Sea Glass

Manicure Monday is a weekly feature that combines my love of nail polish and reading. Each week I'll show you one of my current reads along with what's on my nails.

Well it looks like Monday has come around again. It seems to do that quite often. :) Today's Manicure Monday is Sea Glass by Maria V. Snyder. This was a part of the series of manicures I did to celebrate the release of Snyder's new book Taste of Darkness. I am currently reading an ARC that doesn't have a cover so I thought I'd show you guys this one. It was pretty simple to do with fun results.

First, I painted 2 coats of Sephora by OPI Mermaid to Order on all of my nails. Mermaid to Order is a very pretty metallic blue-green shade that reminds me of, you guessed it, the ocean. 

Then, using a small nail brush, I painted a starfish on my middle finger with CND Silver Chrome. To create the bumpy, sand-like texture I wanted to go for, I used two textured polishes. (Side note: In case you don't know, textured polishes are a somewhat recent trend in nail polishes and refers to polishes that are meant to be work without top coat and dry to a gritty, sand-like texture).. The two polishes I used were Julie G Sleigh Ride (blue texture) and Julie G Silver Bells (silver texture). I used a makeup sponge to sponge the blue and silver onto my nails to create a textured surface that I hope mimicked the look of sand and ocean. I used a nail brush with the same textured polishes to create texture and depth on the starfish.

This is the finished look. I am not sure why my fingers looks so skinny here, but they do. This was a super easy look to do and it would be really easy to re-create on your non-dominant hand as well.

I hope you all liked today's manicure. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Have a fantastic week!

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Manicure Monday (45): Taste of Darkness

Hi and thanks for stopping by Manicure Monday, a weekly post where I who you what I've been reading along with a matching book manicure. 

This week we have a special Manicure Monday for you. To help our friends at Read Now Sleep Later kick off the Maria V. Snyder Taste of Darkness blog tour, I created a manicure inspired by the cover. Be sure to hope on over to Read Now Sleep Later to read the interview with Maria and wish her a happy book birthday. 

Please excuse the crappy quality of this picture. Since ToD has not come out yet, I could not pose with the actual book and instead pulled up the cover on my mom's iPad. I like this in theory but in real life it was hard not to get glare and reflection while taking this pic and the colors are off because of it.

I really liked the mix of green and purple in this cover and decided to use those colors as the basis of my manicure. First I put two coats of Zoya Belinda, a great shimmery purple from their most recent winter collection, onto my middle, ring and pinkie fingers. For my other two fingers, I decided to do a gradient of greens to match the way that the cape on the cover gradually gets lighter at the top. This was with OPI Jade is the New Black mixed with Cult Nails Tempest (white) to create lighter shades. 

I painted lilies onto the purple nails using acrylic paint and a small brush. It was pretty hard drawing the flowers and not having them just look like white blobs. They're a bit like a Monet painting - good from far away but kind of a mess up close. 

The green nails were pretty boring so I decided to spruce it up a little bit and used a dotting too to create the  pattern of the belt of the cloaked figure onto my nail. That came out pretty well and made the manicure a little more interesting. 

Here is the whole look. I am glad that I challenged myself to create something that's outside of my comfort zone. The flowers were difficult but I like the outcome. . I did a few other manicures based on Maria V. Snyder books, which I'll be featuring down the road. 

Congrats to Maria on her new book. Don't forget to check out Read Now Sleep Later's interview and blog tour stop with Maria.

Thanks and have a fun week!

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