St. Patrick's Day 2015

Happy St Paddy's Day!!!  St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite holidays, and I'm really not sure why.  I'm not even Irish.  But I do love green and, thanks to the influence of my older sister, I've always had a love of Ireland while growing up.  For St. Patrick's Day this year, I finally busted out my bottle of the Extra Fine version of Lacquistry Amazeballz, and combined it with a little stamping on my other nails.

I love the extra fine version of Amazeballz even more than the original.  The formula is incredibly smooth, and you could almost get away with a single coat.  I did apply a second coat just to even up the coverage though.  For my other nails, I applied 2 coats of KBShimmer Eyes White Open and topped that with 1 coat of Sephora by OPI It's Real 18K Gold top coat.  Over that I stamped a shamrock and clover pattern from Bundle Monster plate BM-723 using Konad Special Polish in green.  I topped everything with one coat of Seche Vite.

I only wish that I had applied 2 coats of the It's Real 18K Gold top coat on my index and pinky nails, instead of just 1 coat.  With a close-up view like in the blog pics, it's pretty easy to see it on the nails.  But in real life, it's hard to spot that the gold flakes are even there.  I think a second coat would have made them much more noticeable, but I still love how it turned out.  Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great St. Patrick's Day!

Christmas Nails 2013 - Better late than never!

I realize I never did put together a post about the designs I made this past Christmas.  So this may be a little backwards since I just recently posted my New Year's design, but today is Russian Christmas after all, so I guess it's as good a day as any to finally put these up!  So, to those who are celebrating, Christos Razdajetsja!  Slavite Jeho!

Ever since I picked up the 2013 holiday collection of the JulieG Gum Drops polishes, I've been wanting to use Mistletoe to finally try out Nailside's abstract Christmas tree design.

First I painted my nails with a polish combo I've managed to use in some way for at least one holiday manicure each year since they first were released in 2011: 2 coats of China Glaze Poinsettia topped with one coat of China Glaze Ring In The Red.  I also added a layer of topcoat to my ring finger before starting on the tree itself.  For my tree, I started off a little different by first taping off a tree shape on my nail, then filling it in with one thick coat of Orly Dazzle and quickly removing the scotch tape.  Once that was dry, I taped off the same tree shape and then crisscrossed striping tape over the tree and painted on one coat of Mistletoe.  When I pulled off the tape, it gave the impression of having silver garland draped on my little tree.  I finished off the tree with a piece of diamond shaped holographic glitter I fished out of Cirque XX.  I had originally wanted to use a star glitter but the only stars I had available were too large.

I finished off the rest of my nails by stamping on an ornament pattern from Bundle Monster plate BM-H03 using China Glaze Millennium, then top coated the stamped nails.

For Christmas Eve and Christmas day, I kept it pretty simple by just stamping some holly leaves on all my nails.  Considering I started with a base of Amazeballz by Lacquistry, it really didn't need much else to be sparkle worthy for Christmas.

I had finally snagged myself a bottle of Amazeballz in an early morning restock earlier in the month and it arrived just in time to to use for Christmas.  I used 3 coats to get full coverage, but it was already almost completely opaque by the 2nd coat.  Once I had it on, I knew I couldn't bring myself to cover it up, so a simple holly leaf design stamped on each nail near my cuticle was enough to make me happy.  The holly leaf design was from Bundle Monster plate BM14, from the original 2010 set, stamped with Konad Special Polishes in red and green.

Besides being a belated Christmas post, this was also a little flashback to my nails prior to my recent New Year's chop, ha ha.  You'll probably be seeing some more flashbacks to longer nails coming up, as I have a few generic/non-seasonal designs from the past month or two that I never got around to posting yet.  Thanks for stopping by and Merry Christmas!  ;-)