Green Wed. #5

Hello!

First off, sorry about the lag in posting from me. I had an exam Monday, TONS of homework to do yesterday and I have another exam this evening... UGH CHEMISTRY!! *gag* This part of the semester is kicking my butt. I can't wait for school to be out... :) Summer here I come!!

Yesss, Green Wednesday is still going to continue here. :) I don't care if everyone is else doing "Pink Wednesday." I do love Mean Girls... but, I feel like I should keep this up since I've already started it.
Today's mani does have a pink element in it as well... so maybe it works for both Green and Pink Wednesday!!

First before the nail pics, I want to talk about something new I tried for taking pictures of this today. We had some white poster board in our room left over from a project so I used a piece of that and taped the top to the top of a cardboard box and the bottom to my desk so it was standing up but with a curve in it, like a light box. I didn't want to actually make a light box because space is quite limited here in the dorm room. I will probably make one this summer and then to have in our apartment next year. I also used my desk lamp to shine overhead the light box-ish thing for lighting. Then I used a technique I heard about from reading this post over at Polish or Perish which lead me to find the amazing Cilucia at Spaz & Squee who does some of the BEST swatches I've ever seen!! She uses a "diffused flash" technique to take nail pics and this was explained in the comments on the PoP post. I decided to try it out. I cut a small piece of a plastic shopping bag and taped it over my flash. I really like these results.

Here is what I used for this mani: (please excuse the polish on the caps... I need to remember to clean that off...)

SH XW White On, SH XW Green With Envy, SH XW Disco Ball, OPI A Grape Fit! and Sinful Cream Pink.

Here is what I came up with:

I started with two coats of White On and then sponged on Green With Envy. I waited for that coat to dry and then sponged it on again, heavy on the tips. Then I went over it with Disco Ball. Then I dotted the pink and purple flowers across my nail where the gradient began/ended. I topped with SV.

I really liked this at first, but as the day has gone on, I think its a little tacky... plus I would change a lot of things if I were to re-do this:

1. Put the flowers either above or below the gradient line so it actually shows and doesn't look like a weird green french tip... :P
2. Leave out the glitter. Its too much I think.
3. Use a lighter pink and lighter purple for the flowers. The pink generally looks too red in everyday lighting making this too Christmas-y for me, and as much as I LOVE Christmas, I have a thing about hating green and red together except during December...

 
Close up of detail. Sorry for the wonky "gap", I'm still practicing!! I like this because you can see a little of the gold shimmer in Cream Pink... pretty!

Overall, I'm okay with this mani. Don't hate it, don't love it. Won't do it again. No idea where the idea came from by the way, it "just came to me!" LOL!

I also love this lighting/photo situation!! I managed to get the colors accurate with the flash still on, so I didn't have to sacrifice macro crispness!! Yay!! Plus my skin looks (mostly) normal! Yes, I'm that deathly pale! Let me know what you think about the pictures!

I have a few awesome manis planned for the next few days... so look out!!

Enjoy your Green (or Pink!) Wednesday and thanks for looking!!

Fiona