Happy Halloween 2015!

Happy Halloween!  Just one mani for me this Halloween.  The orange polish is Zoya Arizona, and the gradient is Pansy-Monium and My Life's Porpoise, both from KBShimmer.  Everything was stamped using Rica Blackout stamping polish.  The skulls is a design from MoYou London Biker Collection plate 08, while everything else is from Bundle Monster.  The bats design is off of plate BM-H08, both the text design on my ring finger nail and the spider web on my pinky nail are from plate BM-H07.

Going into it, I was originally planning to have all my nails be different base colors.  It wasn't until after I finished the two middle nails that I decided to scrap that idea and throw down a few coats of orange on my index and pinky nails too.  Otherwise, I would have most likely put the gradient on my ring finger nail as an accent, instead of my middle finger.  But really, there's no rules when it comes to accent nails, and I really like the overall look with the accent nail just where it is.  The gradient with bats stamp also went on my camera shy thumb nails.  I really love the look of the purple to grey gradient, I think I may need to use it for a full mani someday.

Have a fun and safe Halloween weekend!

China Glaze Metro Pollen-tin

Here's another look with my nails still a bit shorter than usual, thanks to a broken index nail.  This mani is about a month old.  Posting a manicure from Mother's Day a few days before Father's Day makes total sense, right?  Ha, well really it wasn't meant to be a Mother's Day look, except that I put this together during Mother's Day weekend and my mom ended up asking me to repeat it on her for Mother's Day itself.

I started out with 3 thin coats of Metro Pollen-tin, another polish I picked up from the China Glaze City Flourish Collection.  The first coat was a little streaky, but it was almost completely even by the second coat.  I ended up applying a third coat just to get it perfectly even.  After that dried, I stamped a floral pattern from Pueen plate PUEEN25 using Konad Special Polish in pastel orange (which isn't really pastel to me, but that's what Konad calls it).  I added an orange rhinestone to the nail on my ring finger as an accent, and topped everything with Seche Vite.

St. Patrick's Day Skittles

I'm always jealous of skittle manicures.  I love them when I see them, but my brain goes completely blank if I try to create one of my own.  I can never think of designs that will be cohesive and so I usually scrap the whole idea and do something else.  But I was determined to do skittle nails for St. Patrick's Day this year, and I think I actually pulled it off.

I'm really happy with them, I think they turned out pretty damn cute!  I already had a basic idea in my head for what to put on 2 or 3 of my nails, so I started there and came up with the rest as I went along.

I started with 2 coats of China Glaze White On White on every nail.  On my index finger, I stamped an argyle pattern from Konad plate m60, using Konad Special Polish in pastel orange.  For the Irish flag, I used striping tape to mark off the nail into thirds, then used OPI Don't Mess With OPI for the green stripe, and OPI Where Did Suzi's Man-Go? for the orange stripe.

For the nail on my ring finger, I used Konad Special Polish in green to stamp the larger shamrock from Winstonia plate W105.  Then I used the two tiny shamrocks from the shamrock design on Bundle Monster plate BM03 and randomly stamped them around the rest of the nail.  And on my pinky nail, I used dotting tools to randomly dot Don't Mess With OPI and Where Did Suzi's Man-Go? around the nail in 3 different sizes.

Finally, on my thumb, I double stamped the plaid pattern from Konad plate m60, first using the Konad green Special Polish and then the Konad pastel orange.  The plaid is a little wonky but the Konad full nail patterns are a little small for my thumbnail, so it was a bit hard to stamp it smoothly while trying to make sure I had it lined up on my nail just right.  In retrospect, I probably should have put the plaid on another nail, like my pinky, and dotted my thumb instead.  But by the time I decided on doing the plaid design, all my other nails were already finished.

In real life though, looking at it from a distance, the plaid looks much better.  And I'm not expecting anyone to be grabbing my hand to get in nice and close like how it's zoomed in tight in the above picture, so I'm satisfied with it.  And I absolutely love the overall look of all 5 designs together.  If I had to choose though, I think the dots would be my favorite.

Autumn Pumpkins

Have you ever had an idea for a design but it didn't work out the way you had wanted it to?  That's what happened with this manicure.  Except that what I thought was a problem at first, ended up making the final design even better than my original idea.

The plan was to take a design from Bundle Monster plate BM-H11 and place green polish over the leaves, two different shades of orange over the pumpkins and scrape, then stamp.  I've mixed colors when scraping on other designs, so easy, right?  Well...not so much.  At first, the colors kept mixing each time I scraped off the excess polish.  It was annoying me in the beginning, but after a few test stamps on a piece of paper, I started to like the way that each pumpkin looked a little different.  So I decided to just go with it and try it on my nails that way.

When I was stamping my right hand, I played around a bit starting in the middle of the design instead and scraping from the middle of the design outward to the edges.  It took about 2 to 3 scrapes in different directions, but it did prevent the colors from mixing so much.  But as it turned out, I really liked the pumpkins with the mixed polishes more.  The pumpkins where the polish mixed looked more natural.  They reminded me of real pumpkins that still were in the process of ripening.  Some had a few green spots, some were mostly orange and "ripe" and some were almost completely green.  I think my favorite pumpkin turned out to be one on my middle finger, which was almost all green with just a hint of orange running horizontally through the center.

It was a reminder to me that not everything has to be perfect.  I was getting frustrated in the beginning when the green was bleeding into the pumpkins each time I scraped the plate.  But the blending of the orange and green polishes is actually what made me love this manicure in the end.

For the stamping, I used Konad Special Polishes in green, dark orange and pastel orange.  The base color used for this look was Color Club Mod In Manhattan, from the Birchbox exclusive Wanderlust Collection, which I purchased this past summer.  I have a design from back in September, using the whole collection, that I have yet to post.  But you can expect to see that uploaded soon, along with a few other designs from Sept/Oct that I had skipped over.

Halloween 2013 - Spooky Silhouettes

I wanted to do something kind of cool for Halloween this year, because I pretty much flaked on Halloween last year.  I was coming up short on ideas though, so I did a simple Google Images search on "Halloween" to see if I could get inspired.  A bunch of the results were wallpapers or clip art with some type of silhouettes in front of a roundish, full moon looking orange glow.  I decided to try and translate that look to my nails and here's what I came up with!

I started with a coat of China Glaze Lemon Fizz as a base.  Then I sponged on Lemon Fizz and China Glaze Sun Worshipper to create a gradient, and applied some top coat to smooth it out.

Before stamping, I also applied one coat of China Glaze Ghoulish Glow.  I've had it for so long and I kept forgetting to use it every Halloween.  This seemed like a perfect design to finally wear it.  For the stamping, I used designs from the following plates:

Thumb - jack o'lanterns from Bundle Monster BM-H06
Index - black cat from Bundle Monster BM-H08
Middle - bats from Winstonia W116
Ring - tombstone from Bundle Monster BM-H08
Pinkie - spooky church from Bundle Monster BM-305

My thumb is a nub again by the way.  Broken off in its prime.  But I wasn't in the mood to cut down all my other nails just because my thumb decided not to cooperate with the rest of my hand.

All of the designs were stamped using Konad Special Polish in black.  Then I cut a narrow strip off of a makeup wedge and used it to sponge on Sinful Colors Black Expressionism around the designs.  I was a bit on the fence about the final look until I added top coat.  The top coat really made it come to life.  It turned out almost exactly how I had originally imagined it in my mind.

And after some trial and error with my camera, I even managed to get a semi-decent picture of it glowing in the dark!

Definitely one of my favorite Halloween designs that I've ever done.  And not as hard to do as it might look.  Which is a good thing since my mom decided she wanted me to repeat it on her nails a few nights later, lol.  Happy Halloween!!!

Spun Sugar Sparkle

Today I have my second run at the spun sugar manicure.  This one actually looked much nicer in person than in the pictures.  I didn't really like it as much as the first one I did.  I'm not sure why but I think it's because I liked the final look more when I used creams than with the sparkle/glass fleck polishes I used here.  I still liked it a lot, but it didn't have quite the same spun sugar look to it as my first.

I had recently received the mother load of a swap from Jen from The Polished Zombie.  Seriously, it rocked my socks off.  Which was convenient since she also sent me a pair of socks...monkey socks!

Cell phone pic...I was too excited to get my camera out and set up for a nicer shot.

I was anxious to try out the polishes from the Color Club Take Wing collection she sent me, I've been wanting them for a while now.  I started with two coats of Color Club Fly With Me.  I wanted to use more than two colors for the spun sugar part so besides the other two Color Club polishes, Daisy Does It (yellow-hard to see, but it's there, trust me) and Sparkle and Soar (orange), I also used two Zoya's...Charla (blue/green) and Kym (red).

The sparkle/glass fleck polishes gave me a bit of a hard time trying to get consistent polish strings.  You can see where a string of Charla sort of broke half way across my middle finger when I was applying it.  It took a while for the polish to thicken up, and then when they finally did get thick enough to create strings, it suddenly would become too thick super fast.  I can't say for sure if that means that creams work best for this technique, or if there were other factors involved like humidity that could have affected it, but it seemed like I had a much easier time when I used cream polishes for this.

In the end, I was feeling about 50/50 on this manicure.  The Color Club polishes are gorgeous though!  I think next time I'll use one of them as a base for a stamping instead.

KBShimmer Orange-A-Peel

Recently, KBShimmer moved the sale of their nail polishes to their regular retail web site, KBShimmer.com.  Even though the polishes are going to be listed online at all times for ordering, rather than dealing with the Etsy free-for-all, you better believe I was there to place my order the second the polish went live!  I could have easily bought a mountain of polish, but I decided to limit myself to the two I wanted most.  I ordered Proud Peacock, which I was too slow to grab on the last Etsy-go-round, and Orange-A-Peel, which is part of the new neon collection.  I was a little torn between Orange-A-Peel and Orange Pop, but after comparing swatches of the two online, I went with Orange-A-Peel because I found the glitter combination in Orange-A-Peel more interesting.  A few days later when my order arrived, I knew I had made the right choice!

Orange-A-Peel is kind of a deceiving polish.  When I was looking at the bottle in person, I was thinking it didn't seem as neon as I had expected.  It almost looked like it was leaning more towards pastel orange.  But then I put it on my nails and the color really started to pop.  It's a super bright neon and I don't think the pictures really can capture the glow that comes off your nails wearing this.  I'm not sure if it's the POUNDS of glitter packed into the polish that makes the color look more washed out in the bottle, but even in a dim light, the neon on your nails is really strong and noticeable!  As stupid as it may sound, if I was anywhere near a mirror while wearing it, I would catch glimpses of my nails reflected in the mirror out of the corner of my eye and totally distracted.  All pictures are of 3 coats of Orange-A-Peel, 1 coat of Gelous and 1 coat Seche Vite.

I'm really loving KBShimmer's polishes.  I've worn two so far and cannot wait to try out the other two I own.  Be sure to check out all the polishes currently on their site as well as all the handmade soaps, lotions and other goodies they have available.  Besides the polish, this time I made sure to buy one of the soap samplers.  I hadn't even unwrapped the soaps yet and I could smell them throughout my house.  They are awesome.  They currently have 23 different scents available and will be adding several more soon.  So if you're at all like me and hate trying to just pick one of anything, the sampler is a great and inexpensive way to test out 6 different scents at a time before you decide to order any in the full size bars.

Zoya Blogger Collection

So this post is a little overdue.  I received my Zoya Blogger Collection about 9 days ago, but it took me three attempts at pictures over the past week and a half to get the lighting right for these bottle shots to even come close to showing the beauty of these colors.  The Blogger Collection is a collaboration between Zoya and Birchbox, both of which I've mentioned several times on my blog.  I don't remember exactly how long ago it was, but I did participate in voting on the mood boards, created by bloggers, in order to choose the colors for this collection.  When the winners were chosen and the collection came out, I almost didn't order it.  But I quickly realized the colors were all jellies and two out of the three are like nothing I already have.  So then it didn't take long for me to place my order.  The set is $22, which is actually a couple dollars less than what you would normally pay for 3 bottles of Zoya, and Birchbox is offering free shipping on this collection.  Plus, I had some Birchbox points saved up on my account, so when I applied them to my order, it took 10 dollars off and this little set of lovelies became mine for just 12 bucks!

The blogs whose mood boards won are blogs I'm sorry to say I'm not familiar with.  All three blogs are full-on beauty blogs and I tend to lean more towards nail polish specific blogs.  But if you're an avid beauty blog reader, I would be sure to check out the three blogs behind these polish creations.  Coraline is a "warm juicy tangerine" inspired by the mood board designed by Eleventh Gorgeous.  I don't have any true orange jellies, so I'm happy to own this one.  Kate is a "pinkish grapefruit" based on the mood board designed by The Small Things.  This reminds me of a few of the OPI Texas sorbets but I haven't compared them yet.  Regardless, it's a gorgeous color!  And Belle is a "a coppery pink which features microscopic bits of iridescent glitter" created from the mood board designed by Captiol Hill Style.  That's right, it's a jelly with shimmer!  I'm most excited about this one!  Belle is definitely unique compared to any jellies I currently own.

I can't wait to try these out.  I wanted to try them as soon as I got them, but I was in the middle of working on ideas for my Rainbow After the Rain manicure and these didn't fit in with that.  But after I do my ombre for part 6, I'm thinking I might try to incorporate one of these in the glitter tips part of the ASBMF Challenge.

One of the other great things about this set was that once I ordered, I was able to forward a copy of the confirmation email to Zoya and I received 200 points towards my Zoya Share the Love points total.  The Zoya Blogger Collection is still available for purchase through Birchbox but I'm not sure if the Share the Love points are still available for redemption on this collection.  They had posted on Facebook on April 27th, that you had until midnight that night to set up an account with Zoya, if you didn't already have one, in order to redeem the 200 points.

If you're not familiar with the Share the Love Program, it's basically a system where you can get rewarded by Zoya for referring your friends and family to sign up with Zoya.  Speaking of which, if any of you do not already have an account with Zoya, but have been thinking about it, now is a great time to sign up.  If you click on my personal link and set up an online account (click "create an account" at the very top once you follow my link), a coupon for a FREE Bottle of Zoya Nail Polish will automatically be placed in your new account and can be used immediately on a current order.  TIP: If you use this coupon and add 2 more polishes to your order, you get free shipping too!  The coupon will appear in the "My Coupons/ Promos" section of your "My Account" Page.

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."