Silver with Purple Dots

Sorry for the lame title. No idea what else to call this. I'm pretty excited because this idea just sorta came to me. Lately, I haven't been too creative when it comes to thinking up nail art ideas. Not that is this particularly creative, but it was fun to poke through my helmer and as I picked up polish, this idea slowly emerged. And I'm pretty happy with it!!













1 coat China Glaze Icicle
1 coat Best Topcoat (trying out a new topcoat)
Lightest purple/white dots - Sally Hansen CSM Lavender Cloud
Light Purple - Essie Nice is Nice
Dark Purple - China Glaze Spontaneous

This was just sorta fun! I started looking for coordinating purples, figured dots would be neat. Then I was debating different "background" colors. Maybe a pale green or blue. Maybe just white. Then it hit me. Silver. So I went with it!

I just used my set of dotting tools, the same size dotter for every dot. In hindsight, I wished I had positioned the dots a little differently, but I still have the idea in my head (and a fun title for the post!) so I'll try to do that another time :)

Super Bowl NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS!!

Yesterday was the Super Bowl. I live in Connecticut. If you weren't aware, "Connecticutians" have an INTENSE rivalry when it comes to sports. We are right between Boston and New York. So you can imagine how that works. Red Sox vs. Yankees. Patriots vs. Giants vs. Jets. And people are VERY passionate about their teams. So when the Patriots and Giants were both headed to the Super Bowl, it was gonna be pretty big.

Obviously the game has happened, the Giants won. I, personally, am not a huge sports fan (except hockey!) and don't really follow football. But I was cheering for the Patriots because I was raised a Patriots fan, my boyfriend is a Patriots fan, and eh, I had to choose one!

So of course my nails had to match accordingly. I actually finished these this morning, after the Pats lost :( I tried to finish them up yesterday, but I was so busy getting food ready for the game that I completely ran out of time. I wanted to post these yesterday, but obviously since they weren't done, I couldn't. So here they are!!

Camera Photos










iPhone Photos
*because it looks much better NOT in macro. This is how it looks in real life. Looks much cleaner.






White is China Glaze White on White
Blue is Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue
Red is Orly Poison Apple
Grey was Orly Mirror Mirror, then I went over it with OPI Skull & Glossbones because Mirror Mirror was too dark.

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...

Nails Inc. Magnetic Polish Houses of Parliament

So I was at Sephora with my friend who is super familiar with my polish hunting excursions. She had actually dragged me into Sephora in NYC because they sell Illamasqua polishes. But I happened to wander into Sephora with her the other day and totally forgot that they started selling the magnetic Nails Inc. polishes!! So I picked up Houses of Parliament and skipped Trafalgar Square. And of course none of the Sephoras directly around me sell other non-magnetic Nails Inc. polishes. Eh, that's ok. I'm loving this one!!

**Just as a heads up, I decided to shorten my nails a week prior to my move due to packing. I'd rather my nails get shorter on MY terms than have them break in the moving process. The heads up part is because subsequent posts will show my nails longer than this. That's because I'm kinda backlogged with my photos I've been so insanely busy!! Anyway, onto the polish...

















1 base coat Houses of Parliament let dry
1 coat House of Parliament with use of magnet
1 coat Poshe

Some other photos really quick:

Bottle




Cap with Magnet




Directions




So. I tried doing this with just one coat because the polish is fairly thick. The problem I ran into was the design just didn't come out as vibrant and didn't have the depth I knew it could. I'm thinking you might be able to use a black base or a vampy, deep purple base so as not to waste the magnetic polish (it's 10mL instead of the 15mL most other polishes are). But I figured what the heck for this time around.

The polish is very awesome in real life. It almost seems to move when you bend your fingers. It's not dull by any means. It reminds me almost of those cards or toys where you move it back and forth and it has two different designs. No idea what they're called.

The biggest problem I had was I kept bumping my nails on the magnet!! My nails are not that flat, they're fairly convex as seen here in my Newspaper Nails Tutorial. This made it kind of a pain, even with the little lip they provide on the magnetic cap.

So how this works is the magnet pulls (in this case) black pieces away from the purple to create the design. The magnetic cap is a vanity cap, so it just pulls right off. When you apply your second coat (the wet coat), make sure you're coating the nail well. This polish is thicker and while it is definitely manageable, it's not super easy. If you miss a spot, it won't be a part of the magnetic design. As soon as you apply the second coat of polish, you put the magnet to your nail. Within seconds, literally, the design is formed. I left the magnetic to each nail for about 10-20 seconds (the directions state 10-15 seconds). I think even that was a little long because there was no different between the 10 second ones and the 20 second ones. You can watch from the side and see that the pattern being formed immediately. Also, once the pattern is done, you cannot change it, meaning you can't rehold the magnet to the polish and it will move the particles again.

I had no problems with the design not forming unless I didn't put wet polish in an area on my nail.

In the photos, I had knocked my index finger on the side of my other hand when I was putting on the top coat. I was almost complete with all my nails, so I just left it. I found that when this happens, the black particles are what lifts of the nail before the purple base. Just in case you were curious. Lol.

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!

Stellar Nails

Also known as Galaxy Nails, Nebula Nails, Space Nails, you get the idea. I'm calling them Stellar nails. Why? Because I wore them to an INCUBUS concert on Wednesday!! Incubus has been my favorite band (next to Sublime) for 10 years now. I've met them twice and this was my third concert of theirs. Woulda been the fourth, but I didn't have anyone to go with last time they toured. So this will be the 4th time they've toured through my area since I've been in love with them. The point of calling them Stellar Nails is because of Incubus's song, Stellar, off their Make Yourself album. There are actually a lot of older Incubus songs referencing the galaxy, stars, space, sky, you get the idea.

Anyway, I used THIS AMAZING TUTORIAL to do these.













1 coat China Glaze Up All Night as a base
Used a makeup sponge to sponge on colors in this order:
Nubar Blue Hydrangea
China Glaze Tree Hugger
Orly Basket Case
some have China Glaze Peachy Keen
China Glaze Lemon Fizz
some have the base coat again to help shade the overall sponged areas
I also added Revlon Rendez-Blue and Orly Space Cadet randomly. Also sponged.
I used Sally Hansen White On and a dotting tool for the stars.
All topped with Poshe

Holy goodness, I have NO idea why I was like completely incapable of photographing these nails. I tried SO many times and most were blurry. I think my camera was overwhelmed with all the colors and how busy it was. They look kinda messy in the photos, but they looked much cooler in real life. You also can barely see the different shimmers in the photos. Ultimately, I was proud of 'em. I'd do it a bit differently next time, but I'm satisfied!!

And here's Incubus Stellar...

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.

Pink Syrup

So maybe you wanna call this a gradient, but I'm calling it syrup because of the method I used, but mainly because this was the STICKIEST thing ever!! I don't know if it was the polish, or that I have 10 freakin' coats of polish on my nails but holy crap!! Legit like I was painting syrup on my nails.

So I had heard mention of syrup nails and started to search around to see what this was all about. Seemed very interesting. I used the method similar to this post by Nihrida. Had my jelly been as sheer as Butter LONDON Stroppy from this post by Polish Insomniac, I think the process would have been much better.
*For the record, my cuticles aren't actually dry and gross. They look a little icky because of all the polish that kinda got on 'em.







Total of 10 layers (two nails have more because they needed one more coat at the tip to make it fade better).
Started with Essie Mademoiselle and then with Revlon Take Two in Wild Garnet, alternating the two down the nail. I'd do complete coats of mademoiselle, but kept doing shorter coats of Wild Garnet.

Every 10 minutes I repeated the process. For example, at 11:30 I painted a layer. It takes me 3 minutes to paint both hands. Then I wait 7 minutes until 11:40 and do the process again. Ultimately topped with 1 coat Poshe.

What a terribly tedious process!! Worst part about it? I'm just not that happy with the way it came out. It bothers me that the lines are visible. It looks more apparent in the photos, but it unfortunately is still noticeable when you look at my nails closely in real life. I need to practice this a bit more. Looking on the bright side, since I don't like it, I won't mind taking it off despite the fact that it took over an hour and a half to do!!

Edit 8/16
I decided to add glitter to the tips to see if that helped at all. I used an absolutely ancient Sally Hansen Hard As Nails called Glisten. I actually think it did make it look a little better. I figure if you're going to have nails like this, you might as well slap some glitter on it!! Haha.







The problem is you can really see that there is WAY too much polish on my middle finger. Look how it is so raised and kinda distorted. My middle nail is already a little different shaped than my other nails, but wow does 10-12 layers of polish accentuate that!!

Cupcake Nail

You should know my love of cupcakes. I love eating cupcakes, I love baking cupcakes, I love the smell of cupcakes, I love looking at cupcakes (they're just adorable), I love the happy feeling that comes with everything related to cupcakes, I love going to cupcakeries, I love things with cupcakes on 'em like blankets and towels and little bags. I love 'em. (That last part might have borrowed. Heehee.)

So, I obviously did not come up with this idea on my own. If you're not aware, there are various versions of these cupcakes nails. I didn't use one person as my inspiration because I've been seeing cupcake nails all over for a while. I didn't reference any one photo when I did them, I just went with what I wanted at the time.

Today is my friend's birthday. Actually, it's like 3 or 4 of my friend's birthdays, but I'm going out to dinner to celebrate with one of 'em! I went to her 21st birthday last year and did a version of this with super glittery nails and a little Bundle Monster stamped cupcake thing. I thought I was all talented when I used TWO colors on the BM plate and then I DREW on my own birthday candle and flame!! Well, I stepped it up this year!!







Base:
2 coats Nubar Blue Hydrangea
1 coat Poshe

Cupcake Wrapper:
Light Purple is OPI Rumple's Wiggin'
Darker Purple is China Glaze Spontaneous
1 coat Poshe

Cupcake Frosting:
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On
1 coat Poshe

Cupcake Sprinkles:
Pink is Orly Fancy Fuchsia
Green is OPI Gargantuan Green Grape
Yellow is China Glaze Lemon Fizz

Cupcake Cherry:
Maybelline Colorama in Cherry Pop

You don't see my index finger because I got a dig in it and I just tried to patch it because I don't have time to fix it... well, I kinda do, but I don't feel like it. It looks fine in real life, but my photos will really magnify how bad it looks.

This is the only nail I did. I used the "Angled Eyeliner Brush" from ELF (that cost like $1 at Target) for the wrapper and frosting. I used dotting tools for the cherry and sprinkles. I didn't do any other nails partly because of time, but moreso because trying to paint with my non-dominate hand is going to frustrate the goodness out of me and then I'll end up being late to dinner. So. One random nail it is. The sad part is I have to take this off by tomorrow because I haveta work. :(

**I'm using photos from flickr instead of uploading them via blogger. Please let me know how they come across on your screen (too large, too small, not centered, etc.)**