Friday, September 18, 2009

Bark, flower, fruit

Hello ladies,

This is my Thursday manicure with Nubar Tiger's Eye from the Royal Gems Collection. The light was variable with clouds moving across the sun for much of the day. I did capture a few sunbeams on my nails. I accomplished more painting and photography today. I am a little behind on commenting and posting because I am recovering from a cold. Saturday is my birthday. I have a lovely day planned beginning with brunch with my girlfriends and ending with seeing fireworks at Longwood Gardens with my friend David. I'm really excited for the day. 

I was feeling nostalgic when I chose Konad plate M20 and green special polish for stamping. The design had me contemplating ginkgo leaves. If I squint and round out the edges into two distinct parts, it could be transformed into a ginkgo. The proportion of stem to leaf is correct. The rest of it is clearly a bit of fancy. I really love ginkgo trees. When I lived on Pine Street, there was a row of female trees shedding spheres of golden orange fruit to the pavement. Women would come from Chinatown and sit on the sidewalk with baskets, sorting the ginkgo fruit and chatting together.  I always looked forward to walking outside and catching sight of them at harvest time. Nubar Tiger's Eye makes me think of stained wood or bark. I added some rhinestones to represent the fruit. 




I have a handful of red tiger's eye stones from the store. Nubar did wonderful color matching. 

Coming down the steps from the canal, I spied this starry trumpet. It's a Milky Way Morning Glory. How fetching!

Nubar Tiger's Eye is beautiful on it's own. I wanted to try it with the Konad to see how the stamping would appear with such a strong shimmer. I am happy with the embellishment. The leaves were subtle, but they added some charm. Unlike the rest of the Royal Gems collection, Tiger's Eye doesn't contain micro glitter. I wish Emerald shared the same formula. Tiger's Eye is a stunning brown. It makes me think of mahogany. 

The application was atypical. The polish felt like it had a drier consistency than usual. There were some brushstrokes that disappeared after drying. My advice is don't try to correct what appears to be a mistake if the polish doesn't look quite level. It evened itself out for me and dried smoothly with Diamont topcoat. Tiger's Eye required careful application, but I love the resulting look on the nail. It's definitely worth purchasing.

I hope you ladies enjoyed the manicure, the gemstones and the flower. I will be back on Sunday with some pictures from my birthday outing. 

Happy painting, ladies! 




20 comments:

  1. it's magnificent that you happened to have a pile of tiger's eye stones!

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is so pretty, I love the picture of the bottle with the tiger's eye!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy Birthday sweetie. I hope you have a wonderful day. It sounds like it will be fun. I love the manicure. Someone else used that stamp and I thought it was a Ginko leaf. I just love the color and the jewel. Tiger Eye stones are beautiful. I just to have a tiger eye pendant. I don't even know if I still do. The stone was beautiful but the setting was kind of hideous. It was the first time my Dad actually bought me a gift himself. Usually my Mother bought everything. I always meant to have it reset. I hope I didn't give it away. You do so many stupid things when your younger. I think I was around 17 or so when I got it. Lovely Morning Glory. I'm so glad the flowers are still hanging on.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Happy happy happy happy BIRTHDAYYYY w0ot w0ot hope u have a great day hun,and get lots of great presents hehehehe and im loving this mani veryy nice

    ReplyDelete
  5. Happy Birthday Diana! Good thoughts and wishes for blue skies and a wonderful day! Nubar Tiger eye is such a gorgeous shade on you and just a beautiful colour. I love, as always xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  6. Happy birthday! I hope your day is even better than you anticipated! I have been a lurker around your blog for a while and have started to love it. I adore your posts and the bits of nature you work into it. Tiger's eye is one of my favourite stones too. In the Northern Cape in South Africa one can pick up stones on the farms around there. My grandmother lived there and we collected some stones during visits.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Diana~sending you Happy Birthday wishes and I hope you have a wonderful day and evening! I think that color is lovely and I love that you even had matching stones on hand :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. happy birthday! i absolutely love this! great great job :)

    ReplyDelete
  9. Happy birthday Diana!!! I hope you're having a blast today! I'm so sorry you're getting over being sick! Can't wait to see pics from your day! This polish IS gorgeous.

    ReplyDelete
  10. I am a little late but still, happy birthday Diana!

    ReplyDelete
  11. I love the earthy shade, looks so lovely.

    Have a wonderful birthday!

    ReplyDelete
  12. artbysarada: I wandered out to the canal behind the store with an entire wire basket full of tiger's eye. :)

    thriszha: Thanks so much, sweetie.

    gildedangel: Thank you. I had fun setting up that shot. :)

    Lucy: I had a great birthday, thank you. I have many pictures of my birthday manicure to select from and crop before posting. I have delightful stories too. If your Tiger's Eye pendant doesn't make an appearance, go shopping and treat yourself. I am particular about settings too, but the gift was indeed a sweet memory.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I'm late, hopefully you will forgive me! I hope your birthday was wonderful, it sounds like you had some lovely activities planned.
    I absolutely love Tiger's Eyes, my very first pair of earrings were that particular stone. I thought this polish was so much like the stone, I was quite impressed. It's very lovely on you, and the stamp and the gem completely enhance it!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Skye: I had a great time yesterday. Thank you. I try to keep the celebration going as long as possible. I went out for a Thai dinner with a friend tonight too. I am glad you liked the manicure. :)

    Danielle: The weather was gorgeous here. If I could command the four elements for perfect weather, I couldn't have invoked a better day. Your wish obviously did the job! Thank you. I am glad you like the polish too.

    Avroys: Welcome! Thank you for sharing about searching for tiger's eye on the farm. How enchanting. I had a lovely birthday. I appreciate your comment and good wishes.

    Mary: My birthday was wonderful start to finish, though the celebration continues, as I still have friends to visit. Shame I didn't have a pile of rubies to go with the next manicure. ;)

    kelliegonzo: Thanks sweetie! I had a great day. I am so glad you like the look I created with Tiger's Eye. :)

    beautyjudy: I had a wonderful time! Thank you. There were people around me who got sick a day before I did. I tend to get sick around transition times, so I think I was due. I am healing up just fine though. I will be doing a birthday post tomorrow. I took so many photos! I hope you are having a good week.

    Kirsten: Yay! I am glad the post mechanism is working for you again. I did get your well wishes on the night of my birthday. Many thanks!

    Kae: Thank you, lady! I am so glad you liked the color. I should venture into the earthy browns more often.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Nicole: Thank you for your sweet comment. I try to make my birthday last as long as possible, so thank you for helping to extend the duration. Yay! I am glad you liked Tiger's Eye and my embellishments. :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. That color is gorgeous! It really does look like Tiger's Eye stones. Unrelated to nail polish but ginko berries STINK!! They are seriously one of the most foul smelling plants.
    -Lisa

    ReplyDelete
  17. wow - they really got that tiger's eye dead on! soooooo nice!

    Happy Belated B-day - Thank you for adding all these lovely polish photos and konad mani's for us to drool over!

    ReplyDelete
  18. I was so thrilled yesterday. I found my tigers eye pendant! I had my apartment painted and I packed everything away. While putting everything back I spotted the pendant in my clear plastic boxes. I have a large collection of pins which I put in those craft boxes with all the spaces in them. I can fit large pins and jewellry in them. So there was my pendant!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Lisa: The color is indeed lovely. I think we will forever be on opposite sides of feeling for ginkgo fruit. At least we can both support the rhinestones as worthy, unscented stand ins. :)

    Deez Nails: Thanks so much for the birthday wishes! I am so glad you are enjoying my posts.

    Lucy: Hooray! I am so glad my Nubar Tiger's Eye manicure had you searching for your pendant with favorable results. That's wonderful! You must have been so happy to see your pendant again. :)

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for stopping by! I do my best to answer comments. I read every single comment. If you have any questions or links that are unrelated to the post, please e-mail me.

Please be respectful and avoid leaving your blog link in the comments unless requested. Refer to the FAQ if needed.