Gallimimus Greyn (Franken)

It's time to flash a franken I've been working on for a while! I wore this a few days ago, as I wanted to test the wear (and formula) before writing about it. It also proved to be incredibly hard for me to photograph, so the manicure pictures do not do it justice *sigh*.

Gallimimus Greyn

It's no secret that I love dinosaurs ♥ They are a great inspiration when I'm creative - this goes for polishes and drawings alike.

Gallimimus Greyn is another franken with dinosaur theme. This time it took me a while to find a fitting name (my ever so supporting boyfriend had to help me again LOL), I wanted the name to fit the colour and the dinosaur to fit it as well. Gallimimus might not be well known, but it's worth a google if you haven't seen it before (well, neither of us have - but you know, illustrations and the like).

Gallimimus Greyn is made with a bunch of different colours - my goal was to make a creamy khaki holo, that would also look good without sunshine. The result? A grey khaki creme, lots of shimmer with very sporadic holo particles in direct sunlight. I like it, though - this type of shimmer is my favourite :)

I had to use two coats for opacity - the formula is easy to work with, though I wish I had used another bottle with a better brush! It was terrible. I slapped on a hand drawn Galli on the bottle for the fun of it ;)

I took a lot of pictures of this polish in all sorts of lights. It's incredibly hard to capture, and I'd say the RL colour is a bit lighter than the colour in the pictures.

I made a mosaic to show you this colour in a bunch of different angles - and the last picture with with a little scotch tape (inspired by the scotchtape goddess Erika), and Catherine Arley 676, I believe. The daylight picture is the best I can show you how the polish looks most of the time - with silver shimmer. Sadly, topcoat took away the possibility of seeing even the slightest hint of holo, as you can see in the same picture.

Gallimimus Greyn - different angles and with different light sources.

This is how I like it the best - no topcoat and a heavy flash from my camera to pick up holo sparkles! I wish it looked the same in everyday light ;)

Gallimimus Greyn

Not all frankens turn out the way I want them to. Gallimimus Greyn is a bit fail, even though I like the colour, it's just not what I wanted. My quest for a good recipe to make a holo khaki is still on, LOL. Maybe I'll skip the creme part next time.

♥ Vetten

Teal Rex - doing a detailed mani, for once!

Hey there! 

I decided to wear my Teal Rex with a bit of a nail design, it's a gorgeous colour on it's own but it was crying for a bit of black ;) I went for a simple design on most fingers and doing an owl as a... stand-out nail? Is that the right word choice?

Teal Rex - natural light + camera flash, lightbox

I gave the owl wrinkles with grey underneath the eyes, not sure how great that translates into the picture. Here's a list of the polishes I used:

Nail art pen # yellow

Wet'n'Wild Black Creme

Essence Stampy Polish in black & white (these are very pigmented so fantastic for layers)

Rival de Loop (German brand) # 52

Essence I Love Berlin LE nail art pen in Green Grass

Finished it with a layer of China Glaze Fast Forward, my new TC love - it's almost as fast drying as Seche and the fumes don't make me dizzy! It doesn't contain toluene so it'll be my preffered TC from now on :)

A big thank you to all who so sweetly commented on Teal Rex - I am so thrilled you like it as much as I do! I hope you don't mind seeing it again, I just couldn't hep but try and use it as a base for something fun.

Also wanted to note that I edited my pages a bit, updating my wishlist and making an "about" page.

♥ Vetten

Teal Rex (Franken)

I've had a lot of fun doing frankens lately. It's not only fun to mix and create a polish you'd wish real companies would make, it's also lots of fun finding a name and making a bottle design that fits it. While Frankie wants to meet Galaxy's sticker was very simple in design, I decided to make a more artistic design for my latest franken :) I hope you like it!

Teal Rex - RAWR!

Teal Rex was created with a few polishes I haven't used on their own yet. While I felt they were beautiful, they were very average, and so, in an ocean of simple polishes, I decided to make one that would stand out more (at least to me. I know dark, musty colours aren't everyone's cup of tea ;) ).

I used about 1/5 clear polish, 2,5/5 Essence - Trendsetter (a teal creme I bought in Germany) and 1,5/5 of an unkown brand black crammed with silver shimmer (similar to Magic Black from H&M, only with lots more and bigger silver shimmer). I realise I should've taken a picture of the ingredients to show you, but I never got around to do it.

The bottle I used is from the same unknown brand as the black shimmer, I really need to order some clear bottles soon! Though the square bottle appealed more to my creativity ;)

The result is a very dark teal with amazing light teal / silver shimmer in it. I'm super pleased with it ♥ It reminds me of the CND duo with Urban Oasis and Teal Sparkle, a set that's been on my wantlist for a while. 

Oh, and Teal Rex is almost a one-coater! I used two since there was still a few bald spots after one coat.

Here's a few more shots of the bottle ~

Teal Rex - bottle shots

And it wouldn't be fun without a mani-shot, would it? :) Here shown with NailTek II base coat and a coat of China Glaze Fast Forward on top.

Teal Rex - natural light + camera flash

What do you think about it? :) If you don't like tacky bottles, LOL, or the result it's okay - don't be afraid to give your honest opinion! I realize it's not exactly a spring kind of colour, but I love wearing dark colours all year. I can never get enough teals (or effect polishes for that matter) in my collection ♥

♥ Vettelicious

Frankie wants to meet Galaxy (franken time)

I've been inspired by Neglenymferne and Coewless who both made such amazing frankens lately. If you haven't seen these blogs before, I suggest you take a look now, there's some really sweet girls behind them and they often update with gorgeous tempting colours and artistic manicures :)

Frankie wants to meet Galaxy

Frankie wants to meet Galaxy is a sheer grey base packed with all kinds of glitter (like I said, I was very inspired by the above mentioned). There's silver holographic sparkles, blue and dark blue glitters, silver glitters and a few large glitters here and there. 

I used many polishes to create this - Manhattan 101S, Essence - Julia, Catherine Arley 676, two nail art pens with blue glitter, and the base is a cheap clear topcoat.

I decided that it should be a polish made for layering only, so I never intended it to be able to build opaque. I also wanted to be able to use it on various base colours with a darkened effect, so that's why I mixed in the grey. While creating this, I was also thinking of Lippmann's Today was a Fairytale, a polish I hope I'll have one day. I love glitters in sheer but toned base colours.

As for the name, it might sound silly to you, but I'm a child at heart and I have another hobby I don't often speak about - collecting vintage My Little Pony toys from around the world. You might remember how MLPs had a symbol on their hips? One of my favourite ponies is called Galaxy (I've used her for a design previously), and this franken reminded me of a starry night. When I'm out at night, I always look for Big Dipper (Karlsvognen), it's my favourite constellation, always has been. And so I thought it'd be an appropriate name. :)

I knew I had to try it on immediately, so I found my Black Creme from Wet'n'Wild and started with a coat of that (after using my basecoat of course). Then I used one coat of Frankie wants to meet Galaxy, and decided I didn't need more for the effect I was going for. :) Two coats would've given a more even glitter when there's no light to catch the holo particles.

Here's the result in various light, and I'm pretty satisfied with it overall. Now I can wear the night sky with me all the time ♥

Franken wants to meet Galaxy - indoor, lightbox + flash

Franken wants to meet Galaxy - indoor, natural light

Franken wants to meet Galaxy -sunlight

I think the polish turned out okay - I wish I had more big sparkles to add, but then again it wouldn't like like a real night sky - after all I was going for the scattered glitter. The reason I don't want it to be a regular black holo without the scattered glitter? I wanted a sparkly polish that would also make a pretty indoor look. In my opinion regular black holos look so dull indoor, and a few glitters took care of that.

Sorry for the funny picture sizes, I know it looks totally silly, but I'm too tired to work with them right now. I wanted to show the different faces of this franken - personally, the indoor no light is my favourite, although it does look divine when light catches the holo sparkles.

I'm excited to hear your opinions, and don't be shy - if you think it could need some work, LMK so I can improve! Or if you just plain don't like it, I'm totally okay with that as well :)

♥ Vettelicious

(thank god I decided to make a few posts in advance - I've been sick the past two days)