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?