Happy 2016!

Happy New Year!  I kept it pretty simple again for New Year's.  Just a quick stamping mani using images all from MoYou London Festive Plate 05.

The base color is KBShimmer Black Pearl, from their new Birthstone Collection, available today.  Black Pearl was provided for review, regular swatches coming soon.  All the birthstone polishes are a combination of flakies and holo.  This is 2 coats of Black Pearl, which went on very smoothly.  It wasn't thick or lumpy, and dried to a fairly smooth finish that needed very little top coat to be perfectly smooth.  The flakies in Black Pearl give off a gold look, so I thought it would pair perfectly with Essie Good As Gold for the stamping.

Starting at the index nail, I used a fireworks design, then a clock striking midnight on my middle finger, champagne flutes on my ring finger nail, and a streamers/confetti design for my pinkie nail.

I also used a different design for my thumbs, which I just now realized I don't have any pictures of.  The design I used though is sort of a fireworks burst/shooting stars type look.  On Festive Plate 05, it's the design to the immediate left of the clock design.  I kind of slapped it on my thumbs, not sure of which design to put on them, and I was really surprised with how much I liked it.  I want to do a full nail look now with just that one image.  I think it would work well as an abstract, everyday look.

*Some polishes were provided for honest review.  Review contains only my personal opinions.*

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!

Zoya India and Pueen Stamping

Winter has not been kind to my nails.  I think I've had more cracks and breaks in the past few months than I've had all year long.  One of the looks I've worn recently though, in between battling the effects of the cold, was this design from Pueen plate PUEEN26, stamped with China Glaze Passion over 2 coats of Zoya India.

Zoya India has a great formula and is a great vampy shade for this time of the year.  I liked it a lot on its own, but stamping over it with Passion really complemented the shimmer in this polish.

I really enjoyed this combination.  It's a nice look just for the Winter time in general, but I could also see myself wearing this if I wanted something a little more elegant for a fancy holiday party.

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!  ;-)

Animal Print and Liquid Sand

I've been wanting to try some stamping onto texture polishes for a while now.  I see it online quite a bit and the texture always makes the stamped designs looks so interesting.  A few of the polishes from the OPI Bond Girls collection were still in my untried pile and they ended up being great bases for some designs I don't really do often...animal print.

I decided to start by wearing OPI Solitaire.  Once I had it on, zebra print immediately popped into my head.  The design used is off of one of the large Cheeky plates, Jumbo Plate 12, and I stamped using Konad Special Polish in black.  Solitaire went on very smoothly.  I used three coats total.  It took a little while to finish all three coats, but that's only because I waited as long as I could stand to wait between coats, to make sure the polish had dried as much as possible and that the texture was really set in.

Not only did the texture of the polish make the zebra print look pretty damn cool, I think the color was perfect for this.  Solitaire is white but not so in-your-face as a pure white polish.  It seemed to make the zebra print look more realistic.

I wore this mani for a week and then I decided to follow it up with leopard print, of course.  This time, the base color was OPI Honey Ryder.  3 coats total for Honey Ryder as well, but it dried much faster for me than Solitaire did.  The leopard print was from Konad plate m57.  I did a few test stamps first and thought stamping with black polish looked like too much of a contrast, and not really the look I was going for.  The Konad Special Polish in brown, however, stamped way too light over Honey Ryder and I didn't have any other brown polishes that would have worked well to stamp with.  I ended up experimenting and plopped a blob of brown Konad polish down next to the leopard design and then, mixing it with a toothpick, I added just a tiny drop of the black Konad polish.  Once they were mixed well, I used my scraper to push the polish to the edge of the leopard design and then scraped across like normal.  To finish the look, I filled in about half of the leopard spots with a little bit of OPI San Tan-Tonio.

It sounds a little time consuming...ok, really time consuming...but it honestly didn't add much time at all to my normal stamping routine.  And it was completely worth, because it was turned out exactly the way I had pictured it in my head.

I can't believe it took me so long to try zebra and leopard nails.  Actually, I did attempt leopard print nails once before, but it was this awkward combination of a sage green polish and black and brown leopard print that looked more camouflage than leopard in the end and...ya, let's just not go there.  This gold leopard print totally kicked that green leopard's ass.  ;)

Love Stinks

No, this isn't an anti-Valentine's Day post. Well, for the more part it's not...ha ha.  But Love Stinks is an anti-Valentine's Day polish from Amy's Nail Boutique on Etsy.  If you haven't checked out Amy's polishes yet, you must.  Like now.  Did you go yet?  I'm serious.  Stop reading my blog and go already!  Ok, you're back?  Good.  So, I don't buy a ton of indie polish, but Amy's shop is usually at the top of my list.  I was in a Facebook group with Amy when she first opened her shop on Etsy about a year ago and she's been making some really awesome polishes ever since opening up.  I can't say I'm really much of a "hearts" type person (said the girl who has two more Valentine's Day designs to post about), but when Amy first released this one with black hearts in it, I had to resist the urge to buy every single bottle.

Love Stinks is a clear base glitter polish containing shards in black and berry pink/fuchsia, different sizes of holo hex glitters in both silver and gold, and of course my favorite part, black glitter hearts!

There's so many colors I want to try to layer this over, but when I first was playing around with swatches, I thought it looked really great over L'Oreal Amazon's Flash.  Although to be honest with you, the pictures don't do it justice.  This might be a combo I need to redo if I ever get around to buying a new camera.  The pictures are good, but I loved this so much more in real life.

I've got another one of Amy's polishes coming up but first I'll be posting two Valentine's Day designs I wore this past week.  Nothing like posting Valentine manis after the holiday!  Oh well, better late than never I guess.  :)

Peanut Butter and Jelly

When I received my order from Whimsical Ideas by Pam, it was the most excited I think I have ever been about new polish.  I looked at the bottles and thought, "I need at least one of these on my nails IMMEDIATELY!"  I decided to start with Peanut Butter and Jelly, a purple/raspberry jelly polish packed with gold micro glitter and larger hex glitter.

I wore Peanut Butter and Jelly by itself, three coats total, and I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite.  There's not really much else that needs to be said, the pictures tell it all.  It's simply a great polish...great color combination and the name is just genius.

I'm so glad I finally bought this polish.  I loved looking at the glitter and how it was layered in between all that jelly polish.  And let's not even discuss how dorky I was acting at work when I realized I was wearing Peanut Butter and Jelly while eating lunch, which was...yup, you guessed it, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!  It took all I had to refrain myself from taking a picture on my cell phone.   Maybe next time...!

Glitter Sammy Mattified

Just a quick post before I head to bed.  Last week, I wore the the OPI Big Hair...Big Nails glitter sandwich from the challenge for a few days but then I started to get bored with it.  I still didn't have any new ideas for the next part of the challenge, April Showers, and I wasn't in the mood after work for removing all that glitter, so the next best thing was to slap some Essie Matte About You on top of it.  I really liked the way it looked with the matte top coat added.  I never used to be into matte polishes but, especially with glitters, I'm really starting to love experimenting with matte finishes.

I have a small haul post I'm working on and some swatches of one of the polishes from my most recent nail mail, so I hope to have those two posts up within the next day or so.  And if the weather decides to cooperate tomorrow, I'll be able to take some pictures of my April Showers mani that I finally got around to doing today.

Spring ASBMF Challenge #3: Glitter Sammy

Part 3 of the Spring Challenge is a glitter sandwich.  I wasn't completely sure what I was going to do.  I had a few ideas in mind, but I don't have a ton of jelly polishes.  Most of them are from the OPI Texas Collection, which are great, but they are all pretty similar.  I definitely need to add some jellies to my stash in some other colors, like greens or yellows.  I finally decided to start out with three coats of OPI Big Hair...Big Nails.  I've seen it described as a mix between a reddish coral and a light cherry red.  To me, it seems more like "cherry tomato" red, if that makes sense.  Once I had it on, it leaned more coral/orange to me.  The idea I originally had would work better with a much redder jelly, so I decided to save my original idea for another day and started looking through my glitters for something else.  That was when I came across China Glaze Electrify, which I immediately thought would be perfect to use.  The only drawback with Electrify is that it's all tiny glitter and I wanted to have some larger glitters in this as well, so I grabbed Synergy from my collection of L.A. Girl Glitter Addict polishes.  I saw Purge sitting next to Synergy and, for a second, thought it might be interesting to add large green glitter to contrast the colors in Electrify, rather than using gold glitter.  But in the end, Synergy won out because it's not just gold glitter, it's holographic!

So after the three coats of Big Hair...Big Nails, I put on one coat of Electrify and one coat of Synergy.  Then I ended up putting on three more coats of Big Hair...Big Nails.  I started with one coat and then added a second, but I wasn't really satisfied with its "squishyness" until I put on the third coat.  My only regret is that I wish I added a second coat of Synergy.  It could have used some more of the larger hex glitters, but I'm still happy with the final outcome.

Here's a list of some of the other ladies in the challenge:

Hannah from Polished Prisms
Amanda from Mandy's Polish
Heidi from DIY Polish & More
Katee from A Girl and Her Polish
Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails
Tess from Football and Fingernails
Karine from Karinea0a
Victoria from Manicurator
Sharon from What Color is My Coat?
Ashley from One Nail To Another
Dani from Rustic Comfort
Sue from Creative Design by Sue
Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss
Kayono from Neues vom Kellerkind
April from Munia's Nails
Sharra from The Blahg
Jess from Nearly Natural Nails
CR from Color Me Silly
T from Mami Blogs
Alyson from Beads. Nails. Food.

Hopefully I'm not missing anyone.  Please tell me if I am!  There is also a number of ladies with great designs but who don't have blogs to link to.  So instead, you can always check out everyone's pictures and links by heading over to the Facebook page.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Even though it turned out that my favorite St. Patrick's Day themed manicure was the plaid shamrocks I wore last week, I still made sure to rock some green all this past week up until today for St. Patrick's Day.  I have to say though, I just wasn't up for elaborate designs.  Am I the only one who was hit hard by the time change last weekend?  It never bothered me in the past, but this year it just threw me completely off and I was just tired and lifeless all week long.  I hope that's over with now and I'll get back on track this weekend.

For the first few days of the week, I had on a striped manicure using three different shades of green.  I started with three coats of China Glaze Gaga For Green.   I probably could have stopped at two coats, but there were a few thin spots on a couple of nails where Gaga For Green was going to be showing, so I went for a third coat to even it out.

Once that was done and dried completely, I scotch taped my nails and put on a thick coat of Zoya Shawn.  When Shawn was dry, I repeated the scotch tape closer to the tips and put on a thick coat of China Glaze Holly-Day.

I wish it had looked as nice in real life as it does in the picture.  In the picture, you can easily spot the difference between Zoya Shawn and China Glaze Holly-Day, but in real life you couldn't tell them apart in most light and so it looked like a weird two-tone off center pattern.  It wasn't horrible like that, but it bugged me so I ending up wearing it like this only on Monday and then Monday night I took Zoya Goldie and attempted (key word: attempted) to freehand some straight lines to separate the three greens.

That just made it worse!  If I could have done super thin lines, I think it would have worked better or if I had some thin gold nail art striping tape, that would have been perfect for this.  This only lasted another day and then I put myself out of my misery with an Irish flag design with a twist.  I started with three coats of Wet n Wild White Creme.  Then using China Glaze Four Leaf Clover and Orly Crush On You, I made the horizontal stripes.  I wore that plain for one day before deciding to take my red Konad Special Polish and Bundle Monster plate BM02 and stamp the lips design on as an accent on my ring and thumbnails, as a take on "Kiss Me, I'm Irish."