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?