Color Club Ultra-Astral with Valentine's Stamping

I'm slowly but surely accumulating the Starry Temptress collection piece by piece, year by year.  I really thought that was a fun collection and it brought something different to the table.  I have another to show you today, Ultra-Astral.  It's a hot pink base with holo glitter, eye-catching really.

"Natural" Light

This is two coats of Ultra-Astral over CND Stickey and topped with Out the Door.  Look how bright it is! It's kind of glowy. It stands out, jumps off your fingers almost.  I'm in love with it, by the way.

"Natural" Light

I added some stamping to create a Valentine's Day feel.  I used Konad Special White polish.  The plates I used were Konad m57 and Bundle Monster BM202.

"Natural" Light

"Natural" Light

This was a fun manicure, I may create it again for the actual holiday!

My giveaway is still running! Please click HERE to read the rules and enter (= Thanks for reading!

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!

springtime safari

Out with the Christmas colors already! I have had enough!! I like the cold but I don’t like snow, so I kind of like winter when it isn’t snowing. Early spring is a favorite too because it is still cool out. I do NOT fair well in heat! My normal body temperature is around 96.9 and I don’t know if that has anything to do with it, but when everyone else is freezing, I am usually just fine! Anyways enough about me, I decided to do a spring time colored mani. (=

I used a make up sponge to sponge on China Glaze’s “For Audrey” and “Lemon Fizz” I sealed with a topcoat of Beauty Secrets and used my Art Club in Black for the konad since I am out!  Then I used another coat of topcoat and I was done!

I have to gripe about this; the oh-so-obvious smudges. Black is the only color that does that more and regardless of drying time.  If you look at my ring finger you can see smudges are less apparent and that’s because I tried a new technique.  Instead of “painting” the topcoat on, dripped on it by waiting for it to naturally drip.  Once it was on I waited for it to spread out a little and sort of helped it around.  I tried this on another nail too but it didn’t work to well and the topcoat ended up pooling on the side.  Since it did work once, I am going to try this in the future. Practice can only help!

I would love this mani so much more if there were no smudgies!!

Anyways, in some of my pictures you can see a brown ground with polish all over it.  Instead of having people think I just slop polish onto everything I own I decided to show you my surprisingly simple yet insanely convenient nail board.  It’s the backing from some kind of frame poster that was won at a carnival years ago.  Its not wood, its compressed cardboard or something but its really hard and stiff.  I use it for EVERYTHING. My room is kinda cramped so I use it as a tray, kind of like a table top.  I use it for my laptop on one side and nails on the other.  Everyone who comes over and does their nails always adds to it, its kinda quirky but cute, anyways here it is in all its glory.

Also, I just purchased 25 more fauxnad plates from amazon.com for 18$ with shipping! HERE is the link in case anyone is interested. Cannot wait to get those!

Images are clickable (=

where has this year gone?!

holy cow! time to breathe!
its been non-stop go-go-go mode since i last posted anything.

i graduated with my associates degree this month :D accepted to my first choice school and have busted my ass doing so! i got my tonsils out yesterday (ugh talk about a new level of pain) and have had spare time to snoop around the nail blogs and hopefully get back into the gist of things! to be honest, i miss blogging and i miss reading all of the blogs i follow, too.

as a graduation present, i purchased seven new china glaze polishes that should be here eventually, i guess. im assuming snail mail will be worse than usual considering all of the holiday shipping going on.

basically that last manicure i documented is on my facebook from june! i havent had the time or patience to even take a simple picture.

my unofficial recollection of this mani;
base color was hard candy
pineapple was some sort of cappucino colored nameless brand
the green was a nail art from five below, idk which!

look how shoddy my cuticles are haha. well nice nails wont further me in life so i suppose the sacrifices ive made are only worth it in the long run xD my nails are actually super cute right now but i dont have a camera to photograph with. i hope to get back into the swing of things and cant wait to show off my new polishes (=

miss you all, how have you been?!

marble swatches

ive been playing around with marbling a lot to figure out the best techniques. i still havent figured that out but i did make some cute color combinations lol.

im starting to think marbling would be a great idea for highschool girls going to a pep rally or something along those lines. i made one (not shown) of virginia tech's colors unintentionally. a lot of school colors would look nice marbled. i was thinking my own highschools colors. since i transfered my junior year i have two sets. the first was silver and navy blue and the other was gold and blue. just a thought!

heres what i think when i see these samples: halloween (spiderweb nails), cotton candy and summer! im going a pineapple mani soon, ill show pics later this week.  i love the results!! sorry though, i cannot remember which brands or names these are.. i was just mixing and matching haphazardly. enjoy regardless. click for enlarged detail! (=

valentines inspired mani

LOVE valentines day themes and colors. hearts and pinks are so pretty, so i decided to do a valentines day-esque mani. im not sure if it hits the mark but it reminds me a bit of lingerie haha.



i didnt put a topcoat over the konad because it almost always smudges it. instead, i put a topcoat over the 3 coats of good witch? and konaded over it. im happy with the outcome, its not too dramatic but still feminine.



the materials, in the order they were used;
sally hansen diamond strength in clear
china glaze "good witch?"
sally hansen insta-dri topcoat
l.a. girl "french white" (works really well with konad!)

i also used konad plate m57 as well as my dotting/stippling tool.






after i finished, i couldnt decide if 1 row of dots was enough. i added a second row of dots and im still on the fence about which i prefer! i was rushing and did the 2nd row a little sloppy. at least i didnt completely destroy my mani like i typically do with overkill!

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on a side note, i had made a post last night about the haiti relief. i think i accidentally deleted it, or didnt save it properly or something because its gone. anyways it was just providing a link & encouraging people to make a small donation towards the haitian relief. the salvation army is a reputable charity, and my typical charity of choice. no pressure. i think the telethon style fundraiser will make a world of difference.

theyre grrrrrreat?

sometime in december, i went to five below and found a two pack of sally hansen diamond strength no chip nail color for $2. it came with a clear polish and an orange-y, yellow shimmer polish.

i decided to do a mani in the "sunrise, sunset" color and i dont think im too crazy about how it looks next to my skin. i think this would suit somebody with a more natural tan or an olive skintone. anyways, here is how it turned out;



its bad enough that im naturally fair skinned, but in the dead of winter im damn near translucent! it really is a pretty color, its just a shame its not for me. i really love the formula though. three thin coats and it was mostly opaque; not entirely, but almost. its more watery than most polishes but i have a strong preference for runny over thick. it dried pretty quickly though. and i got to use my seche vite topcoat that i just bought. (i plan on doing a comparison between insta-dri and seche vite sometime in the near future)

i wanted to mask the hideousness that is "sunrise, sunset" and what better way to do that than konad :p i used plate m57, the zebra pattern with konad's special polish in black.



it definitely toned down the orange but i still dont think im too crazy about this mani all together. like i said, its not ugly, its just not for me. i suppose if youre in highschool and your mascot is the tiger, this would be purrfect for you.

speaking of kitties, my beautiful maine coon mutt of a cat was being super cute at the time of this manicure & i couldnt help snap a picture of her. although she wasnt looking at the camera for me, my friend kristi managed to get such a precious picture!



in true crazy cat lady fasion, her name is in fact athena, but we call her neener. and im pretty sure she loves it just the same (=

stomach solution

i either struck gold or completely missed with this pink hybrid. it seems nearly identical to pepto-bismol. and therefore it will be aptly titled, "stomach solution".


i used almost half of the "white on" bottle, about a 1/4 of the topcoat and 1/4 of hotpink. the strange thing about the hotpink i used is that when on the nail, its not really pink at all. its an deep orange-y red jelly (hey, i used the term jelly!) extreme sunset color. its almost too bright to even look at, and i was never too crazy about it.



its a bit lighter than a typical barbie pink, but i really do like the way it came out. i think its fun but could use some assistance.



assistance came in the form of;
-sally hansen "nail prisms ruby diamond"
-konad plate m57 [the cheetah print]
-sally hansen "diamond strength no chip nail color" [although i use it as a topcoat for swatches]
-china glaze "matte magic flat finish top coat"

i ended up liking how it looked without the matte finish better, but i think that might be a bit biased since for some reason the matte magic smudged the holo design. i thought i allowed enough time for it to dry but maybe not. well my heart was in the right place atleast!

lilac dreme

so ive been having some serious fun with a new hybrid i made. i know most people refer to them as frankens but ive taken a strong liking to calling them hybrids, so just bear with me! (=

i got my wisdom teeth out on thursday morning and had to take off my nail polish for the thing that monitors my heartrate (they were impacted so i need general anestesia). ive never felt so naked. when i came home i passed out for a good while and when i woke up, the first thing on my list was to repaint them. i decided to use one of the new hybrids i made. but i made it before i made my blog so i rigged up an image of the 3 polishes i used since i wasnt able to take a picture of it.



salley hansen "maxium growth quick dry topcoat"
sally hansen extreme wear in "white on"
funky fingers in "powerplay"

after using "white on" a couple of times i decided that it looks like i painted my nails with white out, so there was no problem parting with it. the topcoat was almost empty and a bit too goopy, and with most of the funky finger polishes, theyre a bit cheap and watered down. theyre streaky and require more coats than i have the patience for. so with those factors in mind, "lilac dreme" was born! i have an absolute love for pastels so i just added more white to tone it down. i didnt think id like it as much i do, so i really am thrilled! this is 3 coats by the way



since lighting is poor i tried to color adjust it to the truest possible. its more lilac than pink.

and as always, i cant leave well enough alone so i jazzed it up with some konad & nail art! i used konad white special nail polish



this is on konad image plate m57 and for the record i LOVE using it on my tips. i have a few other image plates that are intended for french tips but i cannot seem to get it down yet! oh well, practice makes perfect, right?



i added one more element to this mani with color clubs "orchistra" i think it all flows together nicely!