All I want For Christmas

All I want for Christmas is some more Butter London polishes!!! JK but I do love them! Everyone I have tried has gone on so nice. Thank goodness Coterie occasionally puts them on sale or I would never be able to afford them. Hope everyone is starting to feel the Holiday Spirit. I know I am, and I needed a manicure to prove it!

For this manicure I used three coats of Butter's Saucy Jack on all my fingers except my ring and attached a silver rhinestone to the top center. 

On my ring finger I have 3 coats of OPI's I Don't Give a Rotterdam. I really loved this shimmery gray/blue. Then I used skinny red striping tape going both horizontally and vertically to look like ribbon on a present. Then I used 3 red rhinestones to recreate berries. I hand painted the leaves using OPI's Skip the Gift Wrap as the final touch. What do you guys think Christmasy enough? After seeing how cute my ring finger turned out I kind of wished I did them all that way!

A Christmas French

Hi bloggers! I know it has been a super long time since my last post but I swear the holidays got here and I just don't know what happened to time. I think it just evaporated. I'm sure it didn't help that I decided to pick up a Holiday job at Sephora in JCP and a couple of math tutoring jobs. Thank goodness I did because the extra money has been great this Holiday. The extra discount at JCP and Sephora products doesn't hurt either :)

Now on to the manicure. I owed my boyfriend's sister Kelly for a fabulous favor she did for me so in return I did her gel nails and a beautiful Christmas French. I loved how it turned out.

For this manicure I used a brand new Holiday OPI, that I got free from Ulta with a purchase of 2 other OPI polishes. It's called Skip the Gift Wrap. I used this for the french tip and the leaves. Then I used Silver striping tape I got for mere cents off of EBAY. Then the berries were just three red rhinestones. Hope you like them! They definitely put me in more of a Christmas mood! 

Another Pink Wednesday in Support for Breast Cancer

Hello blog-o-sphere!!!! Today I have another Pink manicure to show support for Breast Cancer awareness month. I was so excited for all these pink manicures, but it quickly made me realize I didn't have a whole lot of pink polishes. Totally strange considering I love the color so much. Thankfully, Ulta had their Orly and China Glaze on sale buy 2 get 1 free plus I had a coupon for $5 off so I was able get some gorgeous new pinks!!

Here is the overall manicure when I finished. 

First I started with 2 coats of Orly Preamp. I absolutely love this polish it has some gorgeous but super subtle shimmering pink glitter undertones.

Not sure I really captured it in either of these photos too well, but you get the idea LOL.

For the stamping I used Konad's special red stamping polish and Bundle Monster plate BM02 for the kisses and BM16 for the zebra print. For the polka dots I used Sally Hansen's Diamond Strength polish in Diamond & Rubies and my dotting tool. I won the bows on EBAY last month and have been totally obsessed with them ever since! Can you blame me though?!

 

I wasn't too sure of using the red polish because I didn't want it to look too much like Valentines Day, but sweetest day is coming up this month. 

Everything that Glitters is Gold

Hey! Today I am so excited to show you a couple of the new Butter London polishes I got from Coterie. (If you want to check it out feel free to message me your email and I will be happy to refer you!) I was so excited to be able to get these Butter Polishes for such a great price. I got three polishes for about $16 including shipping which was awesome, because they normally retail for $14 each, which I could never afford, unless I only bought like one polish a year or something LOL

This is what my finished manicure looked like. but I think I loved it at almost every step of the way too!

I first started with two coats of All Hail the Queen. This polish went on gorgeous even in one coat, and dried really fast. The formula was a dream to work with so I can kinda see why they charge $14 for it. I could ALMOST justify it, it went on that nice! Plus all the holographic shimmering undertones made it so pretty and multi-dimensional. Needless to say, I left this on alone for a few days because I was so enamored with it! 

Next I applied a coat of Butter London's West End Wonderland which is the gorgeous gold glitter you see here . What I really loved about this polish was how fine the gold glitter was so it only took one layer of top coat. Unlike some of the other glitters I own, which even after 3 coats seem to be begging for more. Then I put a little bit of Sinful Colors teal glitter polish called (how fitting) Nail Junkie to add a little accent nail. I ended up really loving these two together. 

Overall, I really just can not say enough good things about the Butter polishes. If you have the budget for it, they are totally worth it and if your like me and you don't, here's to hoping for another great sale. :D

Power of the Pink

Since it's October and Breast Cancer Awareness month I decided to do a pink manicure. I couldn't decide on just one design or polish or glitter... LOL So i guess I went a bit pink crazy but I ended up loving the finished product. Hope you guys do too!!!

For this design I used the polishes pictured below

L --> R : Sinful Colors Glass Pink, Sally Hansen Extreme Wear  Strobe Light, Essie Your Hut or Mine, Essie A Cut Above
 

Oddly enough I still felt like something was missing and decided to make my ring finger a glitter gradient. 

There much better LOL. You don't even want to know how long this all took me and how many layers of polish this all took! I will say that the Glass Pink polish by Sinful Colors was VERY sheer and thus took like 3 layers over a base whitish base coat polish. I did my nails while over at my friend Kristine's house so sadly I did not have my dotting tool to make the polka dots perfect and just had to free hand them.

Here's the polish I used for the darker gradient with Strobe Light.

Rockstar Pink by Sally Hansen

What pink manicures are you gals rocking this month????

Purple Rhapsody

Well looks like whether I was ready or not, it's in with the fall. Not only has the change in the weather come but there is definitely a change in the colors too! What do you guys think of all the new fall polishes... I like them but I feel like every brand coming out with a new fall line consists of basically all the same colors! Just about everyone has a bright blue, a creme teal, and a creme purple. Maybe it's just me and my reluctance to embrace fall this year LOL. Done with the musings and now on to the star of the show, my mani!

Isn't it adorable! Sorry for some reason even though it is horizontal from my camera it is not cooperating with my computer today LOL.

I started with 2 coats of China Glaze Jungle Queen. This is a really pretty eggplant creme with a slight iridescence. Can you believe I only paid like $1.30 for this beauty thanks to 50% off clearance at Sally's?!

Next I added a layer of purple glitter I got at my local craft store to my thumbs. I also added purple striping tape to  my middle finger, and purple and white hearts and lavender rhinestones to my ring finger which I won off of Ebay. 

The last step was adding the rhinestone bow to my pointer finger and the dots. I used a dotting tool and OPI Pink Panda-monion to make the tiny buttons/ dots. I topped everything with 2 coats of Out the Door quick dry top coat. What do you guys think??? I loved it! Probably one of my favorites so far. The only bad thing is that those adorable hearts keep snagging on everything :/

Totally in Love with my Bow!!!

Hi all! Just a quick little post to show you my new love. I recently bough a package of assorted rhinestone bows off of Ebay for about $3-4. I had my doubts on whether or not these would really stay put. 

This was 2 coats of a gel polish I bought for only $3 from Maytheps. I have never tried a gel polish before, but not only is it super durable but the shine was gorgeous. This polish didn't have a name but the number on the bottle was #079. It is kind of a light gray metallic polish with rainbow glitter of miscellaneous sizes. It is so pretty in the light. This picture didn't really capture it at its best. 

Since there was a bluish tinge to the polish, I decided to go with a Tiffany blue rhinestone bow. Isn't it so cute! I loved it! It was a little hard to get it to stick though. The first time I tried it, it came off as I was trying to move my visor in my car to block the sun. I was much more successful my second attempt. Here's how I got it to stay. 

*I first put a dot of nail glue directly onto the nail. This works much better than putting the dot on the bow for some reason. 

*Next, I waited about 20 - 30 seconds for the glue to get kinda tacky.

*Then I held the bow in place about 15 seconds to where I could tell that it was on there. Then I swiped a second coat of glue all the way around underneath and let if fully dry. It worked, cause I have done dishes, showered and went about all my daily activities for several days now and that sucker is not coming off.

Over all I would say not very practical, but totally worth it LOL

I Don't Want to Put My Neon Polish Away Just Yet!

Hiya!!!! So I wanted to make sure my summer manicures ended with a bang.... Not only did I want to use my favorite colors from this season, but I also wanted to incorporate some of the  new techniques I had learned too. So I decided to go with Neon oranges, sponging, and stamping! 

with flash

natural light with out flash

 I started with 2 coats of a fluorescent nail polish from Dots called Light Orange. Then I used a piece of make up sponge to sponge on a darker neon orange by Ruby Kisses HD called Orange you Jealous. This took a lot more sponge coats than I thought it would especially towards the end of the tip where I wanted it more intense in color. 

No flash natural light

Flash

I thought this two tone gradient kinda reminded me of tye dye so I decided to go with Peace sign and Love stamping. They are both from the first Bundle Monster set the LOVE is BM09 and the Peace sign is BM07. I used the Konad special white stamping polish for this. 

No flash

Flash (Sorry hadn't cleaned off the excess polish yet)

I loved the way the two tone makes me think of the Baywatch title screen LOL. I think if I would have used black stamping polish then it would have even more so. Unfortunately, my poor black special stamping polish has come to a bad end :( but from what I have read on other blogs a lot of other black polishes with work too, so I will have to test that theory out soon! 

Natural light, no flash.

Flash

What do you guys think of the finished product?! I loved it! Makes me wish summer wasn't coming to an end; I don't want to put my neon polishes away just yet! 

Sun Kissed Yellow

So as the final days of summer draw near I figured I would hurry up and get some neon mani's in before it's too late to wear them LOL. I found this gorgeous yellow on clearance at Sally's that I just had to try! I have normally always hated yellow, but this year it has really seemed to grow on me! 

For this look I started out with one coat of a really light pearly white polish that is super old so of course it didn't have a label with a name or anything on it. Then I used the Konad special black polish and stamped on this design... Apparently I did not take very good notes on this because I don't have the stamping plate number either... SORRY!

Then I took China Glaze Sun Kissed and painted around the stamping... This was a bit tedious and I wasn't really sure I could even do it, but then it ended up turning out better than I thought minus the crooked stamping LOL

Then for some accent I used black rhinestones to make a kind of polka dot effect on my ring finger. Sorry the pictures don't really do this justice. It looked a lot better in person I promise! I like the effect of the stamping over white and then painted around with another color. I felt like it looked like a lace effect, which was really nice in contrast to the bright yellow... Hmmm now if only I could find a shirt like this !!!

Spellbinding Nails My 2000 Giveaway

Just a quick post to share this link for the Spellbinding Nails My 2000 Giveaway. Looks like some awesome prizes!!!! Hope I win!

Grid and Hot Pink & OTD top coat trial

Dare I say it... Four blogging days in a row!!! Woo hoo! Today I just have simple manicure but I just love the colors so much. I had some striping tape that I won off of Ebay that I was dying to try out too.

This is two coats of an old Sinful Colors Hot Pink polish (sorry it's so old the sticker came off with the name. It is in the old bottle styles.) on all my fingers except the ring finger which has two coats of Sally Hansen's Extreme Wear in Blackout. 

Then I used the white striping tape to make a grid pattern. I love hot pink with black and white! I just wish I had gotten a wider width striping tape though... Oh well maybe on my next Ebay hunt LOL. For the top coat I actually put aside my Seche Vite and tried a new one I found at Meijer, but I know they also sell at Sally's Beauty Supply. It's called INM Out The Door super fast drying top coat.

Now, how did it compare to my favorite SV, you may be asking yourself??? I actually found it pretty comparable as far as speed of drying, with SV drying just a teensy bit faster. I did like the consistency of OTD much better than SV. SV is a lot thicker and halfway through the bottle I have to add it to another bottle of SV otherwise it gets too thick to use. With OTD this does not happen because it is much thinner. I did find that I got less bubbling and no shrinking with OTD also. The only con was that it takes longer to dry all the way through the nail polish with OTD than with SV. I would say the shine was definitely comparable between the two. Price wise  OTD was only $1 cheaper for the regular size bottle.

So overall I would have to say that really I would use both depending on how much time I had to have my manicure dry all the way through and how thick I wanted my polish to turn out when finished. Which do you guys like best??? Do you have any recommendations for even better top coats ??

Purple Gradient and Stamping

Wow three days in a row!!! That must be like a blogging record for me or something! LOL. I really wanted to try a gradient again since I have only tried it one other time. This time  using three different purples. My nails weren't that long at the time, so I probably could have just stuck with two different colors.  

I put two coats of Orly's Decades of Dysfunction as the base. Then I used an unnamed Cynthia Rowley polish as the second color. It was kind of a dark lavender. Then the third color I sponged on was a Nicole by OPI polish called Sleigh that Again, which was a dark Berry Purple. 

Next I used another no name Cynthia Rowley polish, in silver to stamp with. This is a Red Angel plate # 120. Normally I stick to using the special Konad stamping polishes, but I have to say, this polish worked great as a stamping polish. It transferred great and was highly visible. Then I added 3 lavender rhinestones to my ring finger for a little accent. Overall it ended up reminding me of something out of Bollywood between the colors and the print and the rhinestones LOL. What do you think???

Star Stamping Fun

Hi all!!! I've really been enjoying checking out all the pictures on everyone's nail blogs lately. It seems there are quite a few different challenges going on and I must say they are producing some gorgeous results! I really contemplated joining to, but being the commitment-phobe (I think I just made that word up but I'm sure you know what I mean) I am, I know I just would not be able to do a post every single day. In the mean time I hit up the $.99 Sinful Colors polish sale at Walgreens and found a pinkish nude called Easy Going that I decided to stamp over. 

3 Coats of Sinful's Easy Going

The polish was fine after the third coat, but the first two were pretty streaky and I really had my doubts whether I could ever get it even. 

I used Konad Special Polish in Black and Bundle Monster plate # BM21 to stamp the star pattern.

I think this might be the best that stamping has ever turned out for me (as I a little victory dance) !!! I then added some black rhinestones to all my nails except for the ring finger on which I added the normal silver rhinestones . Then to make my ring finger sparkle a bit more I loosely dabbed on a few swipes of glitter using Color Club's ornaminty. 

I really loved how these nails came out! They are definitely the longest nails I have ever had. I seriously had my doubts whether or not I would even be able to type with them at this length. (Based on the fact that I am still posting it appears unaffected LOL)  I also decided to go with a more rounded tip versus a square tip that I normally love, at the request of my boyfriend. I think he was staring a little too closely at Fergie's nails from all her new commercials. LOL

DIY Polish Rack

Just a super quick little post today... I have been wanting some nail polish racks for forever  but they just seem so expensive to buy. If I was handy I would try making them, but since I'm extra clumsy no one really trusts me around power tools unfortunately.  So I decided to try something I saw on Pinterest. I found a spice rack at Goodwill for $2 and then bought some spray paint from Meijer for about $3.44 (LOL way more than the rack but I can spray a lot more racks with it!). I think it turned out pretty cute! Too bad it only holds like 18 polishes... Guess I will have to go looking for a lot more racks!

Double the stamping fun!

Hope everyone had an awesome Labor Day! I know I had a very fun three days! I haven't blogged in awhile so I have got a stock pile of posts to put up hopefully in the next few days. I was inspired to try layering different stamps after seeing so many creative manicures on some of the blogs I have been following. 

I started with 2 coats of an unnamed silver polish by Cynthia Rowley. This was the first time I had tried this polish and overall I really liked it. It went on really smoothly for a metallic and dried very quickly. As you can see, the shine was impeccable.

Then I used my RA #107 stamping plate with Sinful Colors Folly. This kinda looked like a cow print pattern on my nail even though I didn't feel like it did on the plate.

 Then I used Konad special black stamping polish and stamping plate BM207 to make the second design.

 Tada! What do you guys think?