Stamped on Tuesday

I have been doing a lot of stamped manis lately. I'm not sure why except I have all these plates and I want to try them all!

I used a frankenpolish as the base. 

Then I stamped over that with Julep Aisha. 

I really like the result. It was more feminine that I thought. I ended up wearing this manicure until it started chipping. That is something I rarely do anymore. 

Galaxy Nails

Confession time! This is not the first time I've tried a galaxy nail manicure. It's just the first time I liked it enough to post. I would have fixed a couple issues, but we decided to go to dinner so I had to hurry a bit.

Items Used:

• Orly Bonder
• China Glaze Scandalous Shenanigans
• Orly Androgynie 
• Sinful Colors Snow Me White
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Melly Yellow
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Green With Envy
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Violet Voltage
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away!
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Crushed
• Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat "Gold"
• Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

I'm not sure what I did on my middle finger of my right hand. There is a weird spot on it. If we hadn't gone to dinner, I might have filled that in. And I don't know how the black hole on the ring finger happened, but I kind of like it.

I actually like my left hand better especially the ring finger. It's kind of strange that it looks better to me since I'm left handed and did this with my non-dominant hand.

My Halloween Week Nails

Was your Halloween week as crazy as ours?! I know this is a week late but wanted to share anyway. Here are two of the manicures I wore last week. There was a third, but it was a simple black mani with orange crackle polish on top. I didn't even take pics of that.

This first manicure was stamptastic! I so many different polishes here that I didn't even make a list.

The second manicure was my first real attempt at using acrylic paint on a couple nails. I like the outcome with the ghosts. I also used a Frankenpolish on this manicure. The green is a result of mixing neon green, a couple drops of black and a couple drops of yellow. It looks really disgusting in the bottle, but a perfect color for Halloween.

Sorry for being late, but Halloween is always busy around here!

Catching Up...

I haven't posted in a while. Life happens and I procrastinate.

I was unhappy with the state of my cuticles (which look awful in the pics below) so I've been working on that some. While they are never going to be perfect, I think they are better.

Also, I've been messing with the length of my nails as well as their shape. In the next few posts, it will be clear that I have had to shorten them quite a bit because I'm going to be taking a class that necessitates shorter nails. I do not want to accidentally poke someone in the eye!

Here are a couple manicures from the last few weeks. I don't have a list of products used, but I will get back to normal posting soon.

This was my attempt at a Breast Cancer Awareness watermarble mani. I used a glitter polish as the base which I think showed through pretty well.

This was supposed to be a variation of a Steampunk manicure. I added some liquid leather tips. I still haven't decided if I like it or not.

Monday Mani - Steampunk Inspired

I have been thinking of doing this manicure for a while now. It's not exactly as I planned, but it turned out better than I hoped too.

Here's what I did:

• Started with Seche Vite Ridge Filling Basecoat
• On all nails except ring fingers, I used 2 coats of L'Oreal Smell the Roses (it's sort of pink in honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness)
• On my ring fingers, I used 2 coats of Julep Winona
• Once that was dry, I stamped using Milani Dark Coffee. For ring fingers, I used Bundle Monster plate H14 for the stop watch. On all other nails, I used Bundle Monster plate 415 (gears).
• To give it some subtle shine, I brushed on a coat of Orly Fifty-Four.
• Next I applied some tiny copper stones at random in the gears and a couple on the stopwatch designs.
• Finished up with Seche Vite Fast Dry Top Coat.

I thought about adding some liquid leather in dark brown to all of the nails, but I thought that might be a little too much. Maybe I'll try that before I change manis again just to see what it looks like.

Friday Mani

I decided to try a black matte mani this weekend. I like it!  I used polishes from the latest Julep box. The hardest thing was cleaning up

Two Mani's in One?

Over the weekend, I fell in love with China Glaze Ruby Pumps. I wore it for date night on Saturday and didn't want to take it off on Sunday so I just made a little change.

Saturday night, we went to this tiny little French restaurant. It was almost like being back in Paris. Here is the mani I wore that night.

On Sunday, I was thinking of what manicure to do for an entry today and decided that I liked the color so much I didn't want to change it yet. So I changed the accent nail and stamped over the rest with Konad Gold. Loving the gold on red!

Friday Fall Mani

I saw this manicure on Pinterest by SaltyStyle Nails and had to try it. I didn't have a solid fall leaf on any of my plates, but I found something close. I like it better with the solid leaf though. Gives me a good reason to get more image plates, right?!

I used

• Seche Vite Ridge Filling Base Coat
• Nina Ultra Pro Evening Sun as base color
• Milani Dark Coffee (for stamping)
• Konad Special Polish White (for stamping)
• Seche Vite Fast Dry Top Coat

I'm really liking this "stampwich" technique.

Water Marble Wednesday...Gone Wrong

I wasn't sure I was going to post this manicure. I'm not happy with the results, but there are some funny nails so I figured why not?

I used

• Seche Vite Ridge Filling Base Coat
• Julep Catrina
• Essie Wrapped in Rubies
• Essie Licorice
• Essie Armed and Ready (only on one nail - pinkie of right hand)
• Seche Vite Fast Dry Top Coat

I ended up with 2 Eye of Sauron nails on my left hand. Just need to add flames around the edges.

This is the right hand. I didn't do a great job on the clean up on my index finger. I wanted to see what Essie Armed and Ready would look like but ruled it out after seeing it on the pinkie. The black was more prominent even though it did muddy the yellow of Julep Catrina on the middle nail.

This is the Eye of Sauron hand. I actually really like the design on the thumb nail. If the polish had dried a little slower, I might have done better with the designs on this manicure. I think I'll have to find a new place to do water marble since air was blowing from a vent right above me. I was most of the way through when I realized this and didn't want to start over. I know I should have though.

Chaos on Monday

Last Monday, I thought frivolous was the way to go. Today, I decided to try to embrace the chaos of Monday in my manicure. We'll see if it works.

I used...

• Seche Vite Ridge Filling Base Coat
• Julep Bunny as the base color (2 coats)
• Julep Daria (used saran wrap to apply)
• Julep Stefani (used saran wrap to apply)
• Julep Josephine for dark splatter

It's pretty abstract. Maybe a pop of color next time?