Old Glory

So I did end up doing a second July 4th manicure on Friday afternoon, to wear for the rest of this weekend.  I posted a quick cell phone shot on Instagram Friday after it was done, but Saturday morning I was able to get some better shots in natural light with my Canon.  I wanted to break out a few Zoya PixieDust polishes because I thought they would work well for another flag design.  I'm so glad I did because I'm pretty sure this is now my new favorite July 4th manicure.

Initially, I was a little worried that the stars and stripes wouldn't show up that well over the darker colors, but the stamping actually came out more opaque than I expected.  I really like the way the white has just a slightly faded look to it.  Mixed with the texture of the PixieDust bases, it really reminds me of pictures of historic, vintage looking flags.

All stamping was done using Konad Special Polish in white.  For the blue base, I used 2 coats of Zoya Sunshine.  The red base is 3 coats of Zoya Chyna.  The stars design is off of Nailz Craze plate NC05 and the stripes are from Winstonia plate W107.

I can definitely see this being my go-to design for any patriotic holidays anytime I might have trouble coming up with something new to wear instead.

OPI My Vampire Is Buff Hidden Dotticure

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen I had a little trim about 3 weeks back due to a crack on my index nail.  But a little while before that, when my nails still had some length to them, I wore this Spring-like (maybe, sorta) design over OPI My Vampire Is Buff.  However you may categorize it, I was happy with the final look.

It started as a dotticure, in my head anyway, but on the nail it wasn't quite what I had originally pictured.  So I decided to stamp over it to try and hide/salvage it.  The final mix of designs and colors really worked well together, and I liked the end result so much more than I thought I was going to.  The dots were made using two China Glaze City Flourish Collection polishes, Grass Is Lime Greener and Metro Pollen-tin.  The swirl design was stamped using Konad Special Polish in pastel violet and an image from Nailz Craze plate NC02.

Winter Wonderland

A few weeks ago, OPI Ink & OPI Ink Suede had come up in a conversation and it reminded me that it had been a while since I'd worn any of the OPI Suede shades.  So I pulled out OPI Ink Suede from the drawer and used it as a background for a snowy, winter design.  And yes, I know it's meant to have a suede/matte finish, but I also love the way all the OPI Suedes look when top coated.  I think the way that top coat brings out the sparkle in the OPI Suede shades was perfect for this design.

I didn't want too much empty space between the snowflakes, so I first stamped a scattered sparkles design from Nailz Craze plate NC02, using Konad Special Polish in pastel blue.  For the snowflakes, I stamped with Konad Special Polish in white and used a mix of snowflakes from several different Bundle Monster plates (BM14, BM-319 and BM-H01) along with several snowflake designs from Winstonia plate W120.

When I finished stamping, I felt like it was missing something.  I ended up adding just a little bit of Sonnetarium Snowfall.  Instead of brushing the glitter over the entire nail, I used the tip of the brush to dab on just a little glitter in the spots between the snowflakes that seemed a bit bare.  Then I top coated the whole thing with Seche Vite.  

The light blue sparkles in the background didn't turn out as noticeable as I had originally thought they would, but I still loved the little touch of light blue to contrast the dark blue of the OPI Ink Suede and the bright white snowflakes.

Zoya Sarah

I've actually owned my namesake from Zoya for a long time now, but I've only ever worn it on my toes before.  The theme was "My Favorite Red" this past week in my favorite Facebook group and I thought it was a good time to break Zoya Sarah out from pile.  I also had just received two new stamping plates on Monday, that I had purchased myself from Nailz Craze, so I was anxious to use them.  This was 3 coats of Sarah, stamped with plate NC03 and Konad Special Polish in white.

I will say that I probably have other red polishes that I like a little more than Zoya Sarah, but Sarah is definitely near the top of the list.  I like the darker, ruby tone of it and the subtle flaky sparkle it has.  I think the sparkle is a bit more noticeable in the bottle than on the nails, but it's still pretty darn gorgeous.  Like most Zoya polishes I've used, it had a great application.  I might have been able to get away with 2 coats, especially since I was stamping over it, but I went with 3 just to even everything out.

The Nailz Craze plate, by the way, worked great.  I've been wanting to buy a few of these plates for a while.  I finally ordered them and I was not disappointed.  The designs are a great size for all different nail lengths and quality of the plates is definitely high.  I had no issues with stamping at all with this design.  The design stamped clean and crisp each time.

I will say I had a tiny bit of staining when I took Zoya Sarah off.  More staining on my skin actually than on my nails, but I think I can actually blame that on not taking my time removing the polish.  I kind of rushed it and had too much remover on my cotton pads so I ended up with some excess remover running down my fingers leaving little trails of polish with it.  It wore off with washing quickly though, so no real complaints.  I'll just make to sure to be more careful the next time I wear this color!