Valentine's 2013

Last week I wore two different designs during the week for Valentine's Day.  The first design was my first attempt at using striping tape and the second design was straight out of my good ol' comfort zone...plaid stamping.

For the first design, I started with a coat of Milani's one coat glitter in Red Sparkle.  Once that dried, I taped off 4 lines at random on most of my nails with striping tape.  Then, one nail at a time, I painted on one coat of Finger Paints Black Expressionism and immediately peeled off the striping tape to reveal the red glitter beneath.  On my ring finger, I stamped a hearts design from Bundle Monster plate BM-317 using Konad Special Polish in black.  Then I finished all the nails off with a coat of Seche Vite top coat.

The only thing I don't really like about the Milani one coat glitters is that when they dry, there always seems to be a few dull looking spots that top coat doesn't even seem to help.  I still loved the look but I kept thinking it might have turned out better if I had used Nubar Fire Sparkle like I did for Valentine's Day last year.

For the second design, I started with two coats of OPI Mod About You.  The plaid design is from Konad m60, stamped first with Konad Special Polish in black, then again with Konad white.  I was planing to stamp a single heart on each tip, but I could see the black lines showing through the first heart I stamped.  So I quickly scrapped that idea and grabbed the first red polish at hand, China Glaze Red Satin, and my dotting tools.  I used the largest dotting tool to dot one heart on each nail.  Then I re-dotted over the hearts using China Glaze Ring in the Red to add some glitter and also because Red Satin was a bit jelly and not quite opaque enough by itself.

I loved both of these designs but of course, big shocker, I loved the plaid more!

December Snowflakes on Plaid

When December rolled around, I wanted to do something winter themed but without diving right into all the Christmas designs just yet.  We haven't had any major snowstorms so far this winter but the weekend I painted this design we did have a few small flurries, so I guess I had snowflakes on the brain.  I decided to stamp some snowflakes over a plaid design.  (Yes, more plaid from me.  I love plaid.  Be warned...'cause there's more coming.)  The chilly weather makes me think of wrapping up in a warm flannel blanket.

It turned out even better than I had pictured it in my head.  I didn't want to take this off at the end of the week.  I started with three coats of China Glaze Recycle.  Then I stamped the plaid design from Konad plate m60 with Konad Special Polish in red, then the same plaid design again using Konad Special Polish in black.  The snowflakes are both Bundle Monster designs.  The spiky looking snowflake is from plate BM14 and the more lace-like snowflake is from plate BM-319.  I just alternated their placement on each nail and stamped them with Konad Special Polish in white, then used a dotting tool and the same white polish to add some dots to fill in the empty space.

I loved the end result.  Loved it hard.  This might be my favorite manicure of 2012 actually.  I can see myself repeating this at some point this winter, with a different plaid under the flakes or maybe even with the exact same colors.  I loved the look of the grey plaid so much.

St. Patty's Plaid

If I had any idea how much I was going to end up loving this, I would have saved it for next week instead of doing it the week before St. Patrick's Day.  But, like most of my manicures, it wasn't planned.  It just kind of happened.

First off, I was wrong about the Super Bass Shatter/Rumble's Wiggin' combo.  I didn't get bored with it.  In fact, I ended up keeping it on all week.  Although, around Wednesday or so, I decided to put a coat of Essie Matte About You on top.  I wish I could have gotten a good picture of that.  I tried.  I failed.  I took a couple, but it was late at night and I couldn't get the artificial light to cooperate.  By the time a day rolled along that the weather didn't suck and the sun was out, there was so much wear and tear on the polish, it just wasn't worth photographing any longer.  A matte top coat over shatter or crackle is mesmerizing.  At least to me it is.  There's something about the matte top coat that makes the ridges from the shatter just vanish.  Even with a decent layer of Seche Vite, you usually can still see the edges of the shatter raised up, where the shatter lays over the base color.  But with the matte coat on top, it practically melts into the base color.  It's perfectly smooth and almost looks like it would have been a Sally Hansen polish strip rather than something you did yourself.  It's bizarre.  But awesome.  I couldn't stop staring and examining it.

Anyway...back to the current manicure.  When I took off the Super Bass Shatter mani on Saturday, I was trying to decide what to put on next and I kept going back to butter LONDON's Bossy Boots.  I just bought it last weekend and wanted to try it out.  This is 3 thin coats of Bossy Boots.

I wanted to do more than one St. Patrick's Day themed manicures this month and after I put on Bossy Boots, I thought it would work great as a background color for one of them.  There's a shamrock design on one of the Red Angel plates that I decided to use, but I thought the shamrock alone would be too plain.  So I took the plaid looking pattern from Konad plate m60 and stamped my nails once with Konad Special Polish in brown.  Then to really make it look more like plaid, I stamped the same pattern again but with Konad Special Polish in white.

I love the plaid design by itself.  But then I took Red Angel plate RA-116 and Konad Special Polish in green and added one shamrock to each nail.  I finished it off with a coat of Seche Vite top coat.

Holy cow, I love this!  I love plaid.  I love green.  I love St. Patrick's Day, even though I'm not even remotely Irish.  So this is the trifecta of nail art for me!  The plaid pattern shows through the shamrocks a little bit, but I don't even care.

Now I'm just a little worried I won't be able to think of anything else for St. Patty's Day.  At least nothing that I'll like as much as this.