Sunday Simulacra - Version 6.37

Paul Lane is a BIG skull hunter.  He's made use of satellite imagery to  bring us today's submission.  He sent this screen capture and this note, " Just heard you discussing your skull project on Radio National Australia.  This is one of my favourite skulls in the landscape.  Unfortunately the chin has changed and lost clarity since I first found it but you can still pick out the skull shape.  It is about 1km north of Augusta in SW Western Australia."

It's amazing to see what we can find on our planet using the satellite imagery that is available today. I'm glad Paul kept us in mind when he made his discovery. Maybe you've seen one, too? Be sure to submit it to us if you do. Thanks for sharing your skull, Paul!

China Glaze Creative Fantasy Swatches

After I finished my smooch mani tonight, the boyfriend disappeared again into the depths of the garage, only to reappear holding what is apparently another part of my Valentine's gift. Can it be the 14th yet so I can see whatever else he has hiding back there!?! He was pretty excited to give me China Glaze's Creative Fantasy and I was even more excited to receive it! It is such an incredible royal purple that has a very unique formula. I was going to try and hold off on swatching this since I JUST did my previous mani, but I honestly couldn't wait to try this out. It took me 3-ish coats to get to this opacity, and though in the pictures it still looks a bit sheer, in person it's hard to tell. This is definitely more jelly than opaque. I added a top coat to this because I'm impatient, but it has a really neat rubbery finish that is very unique. I'm just incredibly excited about this purple!! :D

Happy Polishing!! :D

February Nail Art Challenge - Day: Smooch!

Of all the themes for this month's nail art challenge, I was least excited for this one. I'm not really one to want lips...on my finger nails. I did, however, decide to give it a go and dug around in my nail stamping plates to see if I could find something suitable that could work for this one. Well, not only did I find one lip stamp, I found out that I apparently have an ENTIRE plate of lips. That's 6 different designs! Of lips! Who ever would need that many types of lips stamps is beyond me...although, I did use 4 of them for this design...but that's beside the point! I actually really love this purple by SOPI called Ms. Can't Be Wrong. It's got some really pretty holo/shimmery-ness happening that I love. I let that color lead the way and ended up with these!  

Happy Polishing :)

Tiny Skull Carvings

Save your pennies so that you might have a chance to trade them in for a nickel's worth of awesomeness from Mark Knoll.  Mark carves skulls, by hand, out of cow bone, antlers, wood, and even Indian head hobo skull nickels.   These tiny carvings are impressive to say the least.

These tiny skulls are carved from cow bone are only 7.62 mm tall

You must have an eye for detail when you're able to create such miniscule works of art.  That or a really good set of glasses.  Mark has been here before, and now he's back with an Etsy store in hand so you can get a nickel of your own.  Thanks again for sharing the great work, Mark!

Pepper Skull

Parade float artist, and past contributor, Marcus Pollitz in Pomona, California created this skull using natural materials.  He wrote: " This is 1 of 12 skulls made for Dia de Los Muertos at the Autry National Center.  The display '12 Tribes of Seed' are all sculpted and decorated in natural materials. This pepper skull is made up of several different chiles, peppercorns, pepper seeds, and crush sweet rice."

 Spicy C says:

It is truly amazing how the natural world provides us with such wonderful items that we can create with. I really like the look of the fire that seems to be erupting from the top it captures the look that one may expect to experience if one were to mistakenly eat a spoonful of habenero relish not realizing that a spoonful was way too much.  Thank you for sharing once again some of your interesting skull related work with us.

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31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 5: Blue

Grrr!

I have been so completely stuck on an idea for a blue mani. You would think that because it's my favorite color for nails lately I would have ideas up the wazoo, but alas, I struggled over the past week trying desperately to come up with something to do. I finally complained to my boyfriend about my horrendous first world problem and got a sarcastic "I'm sorry, babe". However, he soon after disappeared into the garage and returned with his hands behind his back...and he produced two new BLUE China Glaze's that are apparently part of my Valentine's Day gift!?! How great is he!? Now to restrain my urge to go in search of my gift that is living in the garage. I was so incredibly excited to have new colors to play with but...I realized that I was STILL stumped. Ugh. I ended up just painting and seeing what happened and this is what I came up with. I'm not even close to in love with it (boo!) but I guess I can't have that with every thing I create. Anywho, my man is basically excellent :D

Happy Polishing :)