Pretty Valentine's Day Stamping

So I had been wearing Rica and decided I loved it SO much I wasn't ready to take it off. But I hate wearing the same color on its own for a long time. Long time is relevant. For me, a long time is 2 days. Then it hit me! Duh! Valentine's Day!! And stamping is so quick and easy, so out came my plates, and here is the end result...










I've decided to start doing farther away hand photos of my nails like Nailtastic because I think it gives a much more realistic view of how the polish looks. More on that later, but here ya go!




2 coats Zoya Rica
1 coat Poshe
Stamping with Konad White and Bundle Monster plates BM17 and BM-209
1 coat Poshe (though I think I took the close up photos before putting this one)

I LOVE the way this came out. The foily-ness of Rica with the basic white. The lacy, delicate design and simple accent nails. I wore this mani for... THREE DAYS!! I had Rica on for two days on its own, then this for three days! That totals FIVE DAYS!! I think this might be a record, legit.

Speaking of which, I usually never discuss wear of polish because I never wear it long enough to comment. But as I type this, it's the fifth day and I have no signs of wear or chipping at all. I know people tend to have wear problems with Zoya. Honestly, I never wore a Zoya polish long enough to determine if I had that problem, too. But apparently I don't. Five days going strong! So if you're curious of my base and top coat combo, I used Nail Tek Intensive Therapy II as my base coat and Poshe as my top. Obviously I have two coats Poshe because of the stamping. Sometimes I have problems with a second coat of Poshe causing my polish to peel up pretty quickly. I don't know if this worked out so well because it's not a creme polish, or because it's just a really harmonious combination.
Also, I actually wore this for SEVEN days because I had no time to change or take off my polish, so I painted another color on top of Rica with another coat of polish. No chips with that, either!

Snowflake with Bundle Monster

I wore this back in December. My boyfriend suggested it to me, so I went with it. I'm finally posting it because I am trying to be more diligent about posting, and because we finally have some decent snow!! I wanted to post more snow-y nails when it started snowing, but we are clearly getting a much later than usual start on snow. So anyway, onto the nails!!








SNOW!!



2 coats Orly Royal Navy
1 coat Poshe
Snowflake stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM14 and Konad White

Royal Navy is such a fall back blue for me. I love wear this color!! It's so versatile, so unique, so just gorgeous! Shawn (the boyfriend) was a little specific about the color blue for this, so I immediately pulled Royal Navy.

I like this nail. It's simple, wintery, and quick enough to do. Plus I'm a big fan of that snowflake stamp. I wore it once earlier this year and I can't say you won't see it again before the year is up!

Gold Holly Stamping

I'm kinda obsessed with Gilty Pleasure for Christmas. It's just such a gorgeous, real gold, I hope I have enough time to use it again in another Christmas design as well. But here is just a quick, simple stamp with Gilty Pleasure.









iPhone photo that I think shows that the stamp was much more opaque than the other photos make it seem




2 coats Sally Hansen Gilty Pleasure
1 coat Poshe
Holly from Bundle Monster plate BM14 with Orly Enchanted Forest for the leaves and Orly Poison Apple for the berries.

I had intentions of putting a tiny red rhinestone in place of the berries. But I realized that I didn't have any and wasn't in a position to be able to go get some. So it stayed as is. Wish I had gotten a chance to do that, though.

Poison Apple Snowy Scene

This was not initially what I had planned. I wanted to do more realistic colors (e.g. green tree with brown stump), but none of the greens I wanted to use would stamp well over the red, it just wasn't happening. So I ended up just using white. I'll have to try my other idea again with a different base. But this is ok for now.









1 coat Orly Poison Apple
1 coat Poshe
Tree from bundle monster plate BM-205 with Konad White
Snowflake from bundle monster plate BM14 with Konad White
All "snow" is China Glaze White on White and a dotting tool
1 coat Poshe

Not exactly what I wanted. I didn't want to use a dotting tool for the snow on the "ground", but I could not for the life of me find my brush. I think the whole thing looks a little too puffy. I wanted it to be more elegant, and I think it kinda missed that mark. Eh, oh well. 12 more days until Christmas... which means 12 more opportunities to do it better!!

Side note, I'm in LOVE with bundle monster Christmas/winter/holiday themed stamps. They're so just awesome!!

Swirly Stamped Mirror Mirror

I was going to just do a fun top coat over Orly Mirror Mirror for something fun. Then I decided stamping with black would be PERFECT! I found the designs I wanted to use, then went from there! Here's what I came up with.















2 coats Orly Mirror Mirror
1 coat Poshe
Swirl stamping with bundle monster plate BM-201
-Black is Sinful Black on Black
-Silver is Pure Ice Silver Mercedes
Stamping on ring finger with Essence stamping plate
-Black is Sinful Black on Black
1 coat Poshe

Yup! I top coated it... well, some of the photos have a top coat. I took photos beforehand in case the top coat smudged the design. But it didn't! So I retook a few more photos with the top coat.

My initial intention was to make this kinda subtle. Obviously that went in a different direction! The silver didn't contrast the way I wanted it to, so I decided to do the rest of the swirls in black because I didn't want to bring a vibrant color into the design. I left the silver on my ring finger and decided you couldn't see the silver well enough and it looked like I forgot to stamp a nail. I had my Essence stamping plate right next to me, picked a design off of it, and went with it!

I think it looks really pretty. I'm a sucker for whimsical, swirly designs (obviously) so I really like it! What do you think? Should I have gone with a pop of color? Is there just too much going on? Lemme know!!

Choose Me! Stamped

I couldn't think of what to do with Choose Me! but I knew I had to do something because it's so gorgeous. After flipping through BM plates and considering other options, I made my boyfriend choose. So this was his idea :)



















2 coats Essence Choose Me!
1 coat Poshe
Bundle Monster plate BM-208 with Konad White

I think this looks so neat, almost like stained glass.

Halloween Mani 2011 (and SNOW!?)

Thank you New England for merging together fall and winter. I had always wanted to enjoy my Halloween complete with snow covered... leaves. Well anyway, if you're not from New England and you hadn't heard, we got snow 2 days ago. Some places SIGNIFICANTLY more than others. We just got a few inches, but other parts of the state got like 10!? I was working in the northern part of the state when it was snowing on Saturday and there were a TON of car accidents. Nothing serious, just people getting adjusted to driving in the snow again. But it was non-stop!! My house had less snow, but I threw in a photo of my yard today (2 days after snowfall) anyway.

More importantly, HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!! I did nothing due to packing and moving (which happens tomorrow!!) But I obviously had to do my nails! Wanna see 'em?











Black nails are 1 coat Sinful Black on Black (I'll stick to my Wet N Wild Black Creme from now on)
1 coat Poshe
Stamped with Pure Ice Silver Mercedes, both the spider and spiderweb came from Bundle Monster plate BM13 (ironially plate 13 lol)
1 coat Poshe

The candy corn ring finger is one coat China Glaze White On White then 1 coat Poshe, taped off to do the middle orange stripe with Petites Mango and another coat Poshe, and taped off again to add the yellow stripe with China Glaze Solar Power and finally 1 more coat Poshe. You may notice my shortened look. This is my nails shortened for the move tomorrow. I had mentioned in earlier posts that I wanted my nails to shorten on MY terms and not by snapping them off while moving.

I love this. I was almost going to tape off my nail to make a triangular shaped candy corn, then I decided I would like it better this way. The idea for the candy corn came after seeing LOTS of other people do it. I just thought it was so freakin' cute.

In my planning for my Halloween mani weeks in advance, I was flipping through my BM plates, I came across the spider web and spider on the old plates, despite the new plates having tons of Halloween-themed stamps. Then, after I knew what I wanted to do, I noticed Scrangie did a similar thing with the spider webs and spider. I was kinda bummed because I really thought at least a part of my mani wasn't going to look just like someone elses, but this someone else happens to be one of the most well known nail bloggers out there!! But I figured eh, it's what I had planned in my head and I really wanted to do it, so I did it anyway.

And my backyard on Halloween...

Stampin' Some Pumpkin Halloween Nails!!

My first Halloween mani of 2011!! Taking a brief break from the Once Upon A Time collection, this new set of Bundle Monster plates has a TON of holiday designs including a BUNCH of Halloween ones. This is the time of year to use 'em so I'm gonna take advantage!!











On my right hand






2 coats Orly Enchanted Forest
2 coats Illamasqua Load on ring finger
Stamping with Bundle Monster plate BM-224
Orange Pumpkin with Petites Mango
Black Vines with Konad Black Pearl
1 coat Poshe

Kinda bummed the vines smudged after adding the Poshe. I waited a while before putting it on, too, but I think that the Konad polish was just so thick and took so long to dry. The orange pumpkin didn't smudge at all, luckily. And even though it looks very smudged in the photos, it's DEFINITELY not that bad in real life. The macro photos just accentuate it.

I love Load in this mani. It is just a fun bone white color that it totally fits the Halloween theme. And this nail straight up looked like white chocolate. So cool.

I'm not counting this Enchanted Forest as a part of my Once Upon A Time posts because I have other ideas for this polish. I'll post about it again later :) But I wanted to use something besides black because I know I'll be using black for other Halloween nails. I think this fits great!

Whimsical Happily Ever After

Going along with my plan to wear all of the Once Upon A Time collection (and many more fall polishes to follow), I decided to try and make sure I always add a little something extra to each one. So here's what I did for Happily Ever After...

Direct Sunlight








Indirect Sunlight






2 coats Orly Happily Ever After
1 coat Poshe
Bundle Monster plate BM-224 with Konad white
Dotting with dotting tool and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes
**Side Note**
If you do stamping, whether it's Konad, BM, or some other type of Fauxnad, you NEED to own Pure Ice Silver Mercedes. I know I didn't stamp with it, but I have in the past and it's absolutely amazing for stamping.

So I almost used Silver Shatter over this, but I decided not to because I just don't like crackles. That and I think HEA is so pretty that SS woulda killed it.

I flipped through my BM plates and found those pretty swirls and decided to do them in white. I have a thing about adding silver to darker, fall colors like this, so I just had to. I knew I didn't want to make everything silver (swirls and dots), but I did not want heavily contrasting colors for each. So white and silver it was. I LOVE this, by the way. Lately I've been hating a lot of my attempts at "nail art", but I actually think this is awesome.

Guest Nails: Lisa Frank Leopard Print

My sister Rachel always tries to con me into doing her nails. I generally don’t mind, but not gonna lie, she works with her hands SO much that they chip like the next day inevitably. I hate seeing my laborious efforts ruined in less than 24 hours (love you, though, Rae!!). Most of the time she just reads through my blog, finds something I’ve done that she likes, digs through my Helmer to find what I used, and recreates what I did. I love that she does that!!

Well, during the aftermath of the hurricane, we had NOTHING to do, so I did her nails. And spent quite a bit of time on ‘em. After flipping through all my Bundle Monster plates, picking colors for a few different designs to try, hating everything we came up with, then prepping for water marbling, then deciding no to water marbling, then choosing a leopard print design (she wanted to mimic these nails), but taking a different approach, then doing several failed attempts at getting the kind of rainbow effect I wanted, we finally got it!! And here it is…







Here’s the pre-stamped version of the rainbows. This was also pre-Poshe so it is not leveled at all:



White Base (intended for water marbling but it stayed) - Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On
Pink - Orly Fancy Fuchsia
Orange - China Glaze Peachy Keen
Yellow - China Glaze Lemon Fizz
Green - China Glaze Tree Hugger
Blue - Orly Snowcone
Purple - China Glaze Spontaneous
1 coat Poshe
Bundle Monster plate BM-221 stamped with Sinful Black on Black
1 coat Poshe

I used an ELF angled eyeliner brush I picked up at Target for $1 to do each line of color. I started with Fancy Fuchsia and started the rainbow in all different areas of the nail so they weren’t identical. I then did all the Peachy Keen, then all the Lemon Fizz, etc. I wasn’t too concerned about them being uneven, in fact, I didn’t want them perfect. The Poshe was going to even out the colors, and once stamped, you wouldn’t be able to notice any imperfections. Everything blended together.

I totally had fun doing this for her. As soon as my mom (who is all about my nail obsession and I’m pretty sure I’ve got her hooked, too! HI MOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) saw them, she immediately thought of Lisa Frank, so that’s where the title came from. By the way, I was definitely a Lisa Frank lil’ girl. My favorite Lisa Frank “characters” (this was the original Lisa Frank, not the new one with the girls. There were only animals back in the day) were the Kitten Bubbles. Here’s a photo of them:


[Source]
I think I had a folder with them. And probably numerous pens and pencils. And of course I had the white unicorn with the rainbow accents (mane, tail, hooves), the golden retriever/yellow lab puppy, more kitties, oh! the seal and the penguins… and probably others. But those are the ones that first come to mind. Lol.