Jessica Disco Diva & Valentine's Stamping

With the lover's holiday approaching, I thought it'd be cute to add some themed stamping to my dazzling previous manicure.  I seriously can't get enough of Disco Diva, the linear holo is so incredibly strong!

"Natural" Light

I used Funky Fingers Monster Ballad for stamping and Klean Color Metallic Blue for the dots as well as Monster Ballad.  The finishes of the colors (foils) played so nicely with the base (holo).

"Natural" Light

For anyone wondering, the rose is from plate BM09 and the kissy lips are from plate BM02.  I used a dotting tool for the dots, of course!

Orly Fowl Play & Gold Stamping

I decided to break out the Fowl Play again and spice it up with some gold stamping.  It played very nicely with the design and color I chose.  The combination was also forgiving and hid stamping errors as well.

"Natural" Light

This is 2 coats of Fowl Play with Funky Fingers Platinum Record stamped from BM225.  I'm not sure if it was the grittiness of the polish that prevented the full image from being picked up or my fault from lack of practice, but as I said before the busyness of Fowl Play sort of hid the errors, especially to the naked eye.

"Natural" Light

It was weird for me to be wearing a dark polish after months of bright ones, but this color is pretty spectacular, you can't go wrong with flakies, either!

Brucci French Petal & a Jelly Sandwich

I only have two Brucci polishes, but I really like the two that I do own.  I got one a while back in a ROAK kind of thing, and I recently got this one from ImageBeauty.  French Petal was $2.35 on ImageBeauty and I believe they're also sold at Rite Aid.  For as cheap as they are, they really are impressive. French Petal is a new favorite, a yummy baby pink jelly!

Three Coats of French Petal

This is three coats of French Petal over CND Stickey sealed with a coat of OTD.  This worn like IRON!  French Petal is the perfect palette cleanser if you've been wearing lots of crazy colors.  I really enjoyed how
it looked on my hands, it's super soft and feminine and not many colors I've been wearing lately are.

I jazzed it up with some stamping with BM201 plate.  The full images on the new Bundle Monster plates are really great.  I have normal sized nails for the most part, but my thumb nails are wider than most.  The stamping covered my thumbs IF I turned the design sideways.  For this particular design, it didn't affect the direction of the image.

I also used Konad Special White for the stamping.  That was a wise investment.  Many metallics and foils work well for stamping, but I have not come across a white that works as well as Konad Special White Polish.  The only other Konad polish I would consider buying is possibly the yellow, as many yellows are far too sheer for stamping.  They run about $8 or so, so I'm really not jumping to buy any except for white.

This is actually a "jelly sandwich" except instead of glitter, I used stamping.  There are two additional coats of French Petal over the stamping plus another coat of OTD.  This, again, wore like iron!  Brucci seems to wear really well for me personally and that's always a good thing!

China Glaze Glittering Garland & Christmas Stamping

I've said it 100 times, but I'm really not a fan of green nail polish.  I've never found it astoundingly beautiful on my hands.  That again being said, I found China Glaze Glittering Garland somewhat an exception to the rule.  I like what it brought to the table!  I wanted to add some nail art to it, too.  This was the final product:

My thumb is stained a bit, that drives me nuts when I don't realize it until a day or so later while cropping pictures after the manicure is long gone.  I apologize for the sloppiness! Allow me to walk you through how I got to the previous photo though. (=

Three coats of Glittering Garland.

I started with 3 coats of Glittering Garland.  Two would've been enough if I had been more consistent in my application.

"Natural" Light

Flash

Depending on the lighting, they look like two totally different polishes!  I guess that goes with most polishes, though.  It sparkles more with flash but looks much darker.  The flash pictures are more true-to-life.

I used fauxnad plate M03 and Konad Special White for the snowflake design seen below.

It was pretty just like this but I can't ever leave well enough alone, so of course I added more and more.

As you can see, I didn't stamp the snowflakes with a green polish.  I used some cheapo dollar store brand called b.s.n in Ivy, its a bright green jelly, over top of the snowflakes.  I then used BM plates 205 and 225 for the Christmas designs.  After they tried I put one coat of Confetti Tiara over and then sealed with OTD.

Let me just tell you that the b.s.n. polishes are the most vile scented things I've encountered in my entire life.  It doesn't smell like nail polish, or that chemical Klean Color smell.  It smells like hell. OK, so it does smell chemically, but it's beyond explanation.. sooo I guess that ends my post. LOL.

Revlon Facets of Fucshia and a FAIL

This manicure started of so unsuspecting!  It was pretty and had depth, it was fun to look at. Sometimes my creative juices get flowing in the wrong direction.  I have a wonderfully fabulous "WTFAIL" manicure for you a little further down.

Three Coats of FoF

I'm pretty sure it's three coats, at least!  If it's not three, its two.  I cant remember as I did it about a week ago.  I need to take notes when doing them, because I never remember )=

Lovely!

It's a much less obvious Halloween polish.  Black and purple certainly can create an eerie feel.  I didn't like this one and had passed on it a ton.  Finally I saw it and just couldn't resist.  I've seen hundreds of wonderful swatches and I caved. They're all enablers. YOU HEAR THAT? YOU'RE AN ENABLER.

It only cost me $3.59 at Harmon so, I didn't pay full drugstore price (around $6) for it. Application was surprisingly easy.  Love this one, definitely recommend.  This one is from the same collection as Starry Pink.  They're both in the Expressionist Collection.  There is one more I need to wear, Blue Mosaic. Oh its gorgeous, too.

ANYWAYS.. ONTO THE ANOMALY.

What's that kitty? You sense fail? OH NOOOOO.

Let me start by explaining what I wanted to do, what my vision was.  I wanted to make a jelly sandwich sorta. I wanted FoF to be on the bottom, and then use a different jelly over top. But I wanted to sanwich some konading in between the layers. Well, it didn't work so well. And it didn't look so hot. But here it is:

Started off by stamping.

Then I put 2 coats of a blue franken jelly. And one coat of
a GitD Pumpkin glitter polish. It got ugly fast, didn't it?

Blarghork.

Happy Halloween time!

China Glaze Frosty & Halloween Stamping

I am most definitely a little late on the Frosty boat, considering it's from last winter's collection and uh, I just got it for my birthday.  I didn't like it at first, but my tastes have changed and now I love it. I jazzed it up with some stamping, too.

Frosty is almost eerily white, so it was screaming for some decoration.  It really almost glows!

This is 3 coats of Frosty.  You could probably get away with 2 if you don't mind some VNL.  I just wanted to see what it looked like all opaque and such.  I really love it.

I used multiple plates from multiple collections for the Halloweeny feel.  I used WnW Black Creme for the stamps and Essence Sundancer for the little moon.  I also dotted some China Glaze Ghoulish Glow around the designs but you can barely see it. Hmph.  My Ghoulish Glow does not glow very much either.

Swampy Halloween Mani

I have a swampy Halloween themed manicure for you today.  I felt a little bit inspired, swampy greens stuck out to me today.  I must say that I do really love China Glaze It's Alive.  It's my only mossy green glitter, it dries quite fast.  I didn't put a topcoat on it though, I don't mind the gritty.

This is two coats of It's Alive over Orly Nail Armor.  I really love this glitter.

This is 3 coats of Ulta Army of 1.  I used WnW Black Creme for the swirls and Konad Special White for the skull.  The dots are OPI A Good Man-darin is Hard to Find.  I used BM plates 211 and 224 for the skulls and swirls.  PSA: Army of 1 stains.

Just lovely!

WnW "Behind Closed Doors" + accent nail

HALLO LADIES.

I wore this mani this weekend and looooved it.  I shy away from vampy dark colors because they do nothing for my hands but I couldn't resist after swatching them for you.  I used WnW "Behind Closed Doors" from the On the Prowl Halloween collection.  I also work at a daycare and we're not supposed to wear black nail polish (or lipstick...LOL) so I tend to obey that rule since I always get yelled at for wearing flip flops.  Just choosing my battles haha.

4 Coats of WnW "Behind Closed Doors"
1 Coat of WnW "Red Red" on the accent nail.

For the stamping I used my new BM plate 224 and used WnW Black Creme.  It was monsooning all weekend here so outside pictures was not an option.  We've gotten like 6 inches of rain in the past few days which is a lot for us, even our basement got some water -_-

Oh my rhinestones!

I've always always wanted a wheel of these but couldn't bring myself to pay the Amazon or craft store prices.  I got these from the bornprettystore for a sweet price.  They have a flat back which is perfect for nails and I secured these with a tiny drop of clear TC by using my dotting tool.

The tiny glitters were SO HARD to clean up I finally said screw it and just left them.  I mean really, how many times are you supposed to attempt clean up before giving up?  All the acetone was doing was turning the red glitter into silver glitter.

jelly sandwich mani with stamping

Hello everyone! I have a super fun mani for you to look at today. I hope it excites you as much as it does me.  A popular recent trend all over the Nail Board over at MUA is the "Jelly Sandwich" manicure.  This is one fad I will certainly indulge in as it produces beautiful results that last!

This is what I did, details further down (=

A "jelly sandwich" is a paint-job done by doing a few coats of a jelly, followed by a coat or two of a complimentary glitter and then that is sandwiched with another coat or two of the same jelly.  It makes your nails look like they've got a thick layer of delicious sparkles all over them.  My first attempt was a pleasant surprise.  This style of manicure is pretty goof-proof.

I used the second one from the left, "The Berry Minimum"

An adorable little set of jellies from Ulta made choosing my colors difficult because I wanted them all, but I finally decided on "The Berry Minimum" which is a bright magenta-y berry jelly.  After two coats of that, I put one coat of China Glaze "Bad Kitty", then one more coat of jelly followed by one coat of Out the Door.

It was more difficult for me to photograph this than a neon!  I haven't been able to take pictures in daylight so I have to work with what I've got.  This is pretty true-to-life.  If you click to enlarge you can see how the glitter is buried, or "sandwiched" under the jelly.  Such a pretty effect!

I wanted to add something else after wearing this for a full day so I decided to use my new Bundle Monster plates.  I used plate BM-225 and WnW Black Creme for the stamping.

I didn't do a perfect stamping job, and the bare spots really
showed, so I used my dotting tool to add some dots in the
areas that needed a little "something".

Please click to enlarge, the detail is amazing. The BM plates
are so crisp!

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did - What do you think?!

yellow rainbow and ladybug mani

LOOOOOOOOOOOOVE yellow.  I was fiddling with my yellows and thought I would show them to you.

Bundle Monster plate 13

 Eek dry skin! Sorry, I took this right after I got out of the shower and removed it before I checked the photos, so this is the best I could do given those circumstances.  The cuteness factor should totally override the dryness factor though.  I used Wet N Wild "Black Creme" and "Red Red" for stamping.  An impatient me evidently applied the topcoat too soon.  There was some streaking which I should have known better to avoid. sadsad.

My yellow skittles (=

3 coats of each.

 I can't decide what I like best.  Warm golden tones like "Sundancer" are always enticing to me, but the brightness of "Lightening" is really summery and fun.  "Unicorn" and "Yellow Kitty" are softer which remind me more of springtime and as mentioned a few posts before, "Cayman Island" is pretty (to me) only under specific lighting.

Anyways, which is your favorite yellow swatched here?  What about your all time favorite yellow?

Saint Patrick's Day Mani

Alright, I braved the green for this mani.  Not a fan of full green manicures.  I don't like it on my hands.  Teals and such, OK, but green green makes me squirm.  Even though this isn't 100% green.. well I don't know.  I only did one hand and removed it ASAP. :D

Actually kind of cute right? Please ignore pinky smudge :D

Ingredients:

Funky Fingers "Mint Monatauk" - base color
China Glaze "DV8" - triple shamrock
Funky Fingers "Tribal" - individual shamrock
Wet n Wild "Sunny Side Up" - dots
Art Deco "White" - dots
BM03

3 coats of "Mint Monatauk" No BC or TC.
What a bright, beautiful color! A minty neon.

Little darker image here so you can see the details.
I couldn't get a picture without a glare )=

I thought it looked pretty decent considering I went into this mani with NO idea of what I was doing.  The single shamrocks are sort of in the "background" and can be seen very faintly if you click to enlarge.  They were more noticeable in person.