Another Mani with OPI What's Dune?

Man, I wish I could think of more creative titles!

I did another mani using OPI What's Dune? last night as I did say that I'd try to do a few more showcasing the polishes from my giveaway here.



This is two coats of OPI Mermaid Tears. I wish I had have added a little thinner before I did my mani as it was on the thicker side to apply.

Then added a coat of OPI What's Dune? The overall affect is much cooler than these pictures look.

Then stamped using Konad special polish in royal purple using fauxnad IP A31.



Thanks for looking!

This Polish is So Me....

After my first coat of this polish, I knew I had to get a backup...this polish is just so me! I love brights, love pinks, and love shimmer....and this polish is this all in one!

SpaRitual Imaginarium is a neon pink polish. These pix aren't 100% accurate as the polish is more hot pink that this in real life. These two pictures were taken outside in sunlight.

As I was away for the weekend, I only had a handful of image plates and stamping polishes with me to chose from, and decided upon BM-218 and BM-225 with Konad black special polish.

The new BundleMonster plates have a lot of french tip designs...they are little thick for my little nails but I don't think I did too bad of a job lining them up....french tip designs are so hard for me to get on straight!

I tried to leave messages on some fellow bloggers tonight and Blogger STILL won't let me comment and acknowledge that I'm not anonymous! But I figured a way around it as I forgot I have a LiveJournal account...so there (sticks out tongue!) Blogger!

Thx for looking....and remember to enter my 300+ giveaway here if you haven't already! I'm sorry blogger took away my follower button for a few days, but I see its up and working now. Sorry....its out of my control!

Chanel Mimosa

I was looking through my polishes trying to decide my next mani and remembered I had picked up Chanel Mimosa recently....bright and summery....even though technically summer hasn't arrived yet! When I was at Murale getting it, I was told that this was a popular colour this season; in fact, I got the last bottle.

Two coats of Mimosa, with Essie Fair Game as stamping polish using Konad IP m73. As you probably have seen from my last few posts, stripers is my new obsession, so added a few accent lines with a light green sparkly striper and a couple teal blue dots.



After two coats of Mimosa, I stamped using Essie Fair Game using Konad IP m73.



Here's Chanel Mimosa by itself. While there is a very pretty shimmer in the bottle...which you can see in the pictures of the bottle, I was disappointed to see that it wasn't visible on the nail. Real shame for such an expensive bottle of polish. But pretty and summery none the less!



If my internet connection wasn't so touch and go, I'd go to photobucket and cut and past the shimmer in the bottle so you have a better idea what I'm talking about, but my internet keeps disconnecting and this post has taken almost an hour to publish...but this pix may be a little better to show you the shimmer I'm talking about.



Blogger is still acting wonky....I still can't post comments on my blog or the others that I follow. Apparently Blogger/Google is aware of it and working on it, but its been dayyyyysssss now. You'd think with all the technology and their computer wizardry that they have, that it would be fixed by now? Soooo annoying.

Thanks for looking!

An Awesome Swap!

A few weeks ago, KarenD over at Frazzle and Aniploish contacted me and graciously extended an offer for me to pick out some Zoya's as part of the Zoya Nail Polish Exchange. This was amazing to me as the Zoya exchange isn't available unless you live in the US. Trade Secrets is the only retail that sells Zoya's in my area (that I know of). Even then, they are quite expensive and not every location gets in the new collections. I picked out mainly polishes from the new Summer 2011 Sunshine Collection and all three of the Mod-Mattes.

A swap was organized and the Zoya's arrived last night. While it was difficult to decide upon which pretty colour to try first, I ultimately decided upon Zoya Mitzi...not really a 'pretty' colour as it kinda looks like OPI Shrek's matte cousin...but chose it for no other reason than it would go nicely with the outfit I had planned on wearing today. Stamped using Konad White Special Polish, using fauxnad IP m74.

Decided to add a little glitter and stripes using a few different stripers. This is what it ended up looking like:

Zoya Mitzi, three coats before stamping.

I can't wait to try out a few more of these Zoya's. The colours look perfect for summer! Thanks so much again KarenD for the awesome swap! I hope you enjoy your...um....fuglies!

Thanks for looking!

Edit: I don't know if I'm the only one having problems, but I can't seem to log into blogger to leave comments on my blog or many of yours....so its not like I'm ignoring everyone, its just for some reason, it keeps saying I'm anonymous even though I'm signing in! If anyone knows how to fix this, I'd appreciate it as it sure is annoying!!!

Summer Fun!

Murale had a 20x the points event so I dropped by on Friday and picked up a couple of the new Lippmann's. Finally, my polish shopping paid off! Not only did I get 20x the points (which I always redeem for more polishes (sometimes perfume) at the extra money events), when I checked out, they said because I had bought so many polishes, I got some free so was able to get two free ones. I had five Lippmann's to chose from and picked out Across the Universe and Red Ruby Slippers. They were testers but looked 99% full so I couldn't complain. Free is always good!

Lippmann Girls Just Want to Have Fun stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dry polish in unnamed yellow using BundleMonster IP BM-224.



Lastly, did a couple dots with dotting tool.



Here's Girls Just Want to Have Fun by itself.



Does this say summer fun to you? I think it does...either that or Grandma's old wallpaper...not sure which one....

Hope you're having a fantastic weekend...maybe even enjoying a long weekend like me as its the long Victoria Day weekend here in Ontario.

Thanks for looking!

Layering with OPI What's Dune? + Finally Got Giveaway Organized!

***GIVEAWAY CLOSED****
I don't know about you, but I love duochromes...well, to be really honest, there aren't many polishes I don't like! I find day to day or even week to week, what I'm liking at the moment may change. There's been plenty of times I've passed over a polish in the store, only to see it again a few weeks later and fall in love with it. I guess it depends on my mood, how much money is in my pocket.....but I do like duochromes. The only problem with polishes like duochromes, glitter, holo, etc. is what to stamp on them so as to not take away from the finish, because as much as I like polishes, I love stamping! There aren't too many days that I don't have some type of stamp on my nails!

Anyhoo, my mani today is OPI Glacier Bay Blues topped with OPI What's Dune?, then just a little BM stamp.

Here's Glacier Bay Blues by itself.



Glacier Bay Blues is pretty sheer; you're looking at three coats without topcoat.



Sorry for so many pix....its just each one shows just a little different facet of the polish so I wanted to share!



Then I added one coat of OPI What's Dune?




This polish is great to add a slight hint of scattered holo.



I've seen What's Dune? layered on top of light polishes and it looks great as well. I'm sure if you google it, you'll see some other fantastic combinations.



And because I was really into this finish, just a small stamp using the new BundleMonster plates so as to not hide the colour. This is BM-211 stamped using Nicole by OPI Positive Energy.



Added a couple star rhinestones to funky it up a bit.



So what do you think? Are you liking Glacier Bay Blues? Or What's Dune? I hope so, because.......... they are part of my 300+ follower Giveaway...the details are below!!!!!!

I had decided to have a 300 follower giveaway and while I'm a few followers above it (309 today), its taken me a few days to get around to posting the giveaway, and I hope it was worth the wait! It took me a little while to think of a giveaway that hopefully has appeal to nail gals, so I hope you like what I've come up with.!

When I was thinking it out, I thought....what polishes do I get the most requests for swap (that I still can get anyway!) and realized that there's interest in OPI What's Dune?, OPI Coral Reef, OPI Merry Midnight and OPI Glacier Bay Blues. I was also able to get the new OPI Shatters and thought not everyone may have picked them up yet, so the giveaway is going to look like this:

#1: One set of OPI Serena Glam Slam in Spark de Triomphe & White Shatter, OPI What's Dune?, OPI Coral Reef, OPI Merry Midnight and OPI Glacier Bay Blues.



#2: One set of OPI Serena Glam Slam in Rally Pretty Pink & Red Shatter, OPI What's Dune?, OPI Coral Reef, OPI Merry Midnight and OPI Glacier Bay Blues.



#3: OPI What's Dune?, OPI Coral Reef, OPI Merry Midnight and OPI Glacier Bay Blues.



Here's the polishes all together.....



So three prizes...for 300 follower giveaway! Hopefully this will appeal to the nail gals out in the blogeshpere....I know these are fairly well sought after and for anyone who already has them, maybe they can be a backup in case you can't get them any more and are wanting a second bottle! (Note: while the boxes have been shown for the OPI shatter duo for picture purposes, they will not be sent.)
The giveaway rules are pretty simple.... just be a follower and follow these instructions!

To receive one entry, leave a comment below with the name as you follow as well as your email address so I may contact you.

To receive a second entry to the giveaway, comment about the giveaway on your blog or note on the sidebar and provide the link in the comments.

The giveaway is open internationally. I will email the three winners; the first drawn entry will receive #1 giveaway, the second, #2 and third, #3. Winners will have 48 hours to respond and should no response be received, another name for the appropriate item will be drawn.

That's it! The giveaway will be open until June 19, 2011 and between now and then, I hope to do a little more swatching with these polishes and will add them to this post. (By the way, my mani today is with my bottles of these polishes-the ones shown were bought a few days ago specifically for the giveaway and are all brand new!)

Thanks for looking!

June 27th: Please note the giveaway is closed! Those whose names were drawn were contacted and replied within the 48 hours! I'll be having another giveaway in the near future so please check back!

Playing with Nail Art Stripers

I knew as soon as I picked up Essie Smooth Sailing, I knew that it would be my next mani. Love this colour and love the shimmer in it! Perfect for summer...or anytime of the year in my opinion!

Decided to stamp it with Nicole by OPI Positive Energy, using IP T18. After I stamped it, I got looking at it and thought it looked a little hum drum *yawn*.



So decided to get out a few nail stripers; and started striping away (that's striping away, not stripping, ahem!) . I've only used these once or twice...can't you tell! but thought it jazzed it up enough. Better than hum drum anyway!





I really liked the way my thumb turned out....my only wish is that all the fingers would had have turned out looking like this!...but just another excuse to redo my nails tonight!



Here's Smooth Sailing by itself. I seen that Shoppers Drug Mart has this out now...if you want to pay an arm and a leg or your first born for the priviledge of owning it! I think they retail for $11.99 or something crazy. I got mine at a beauty supply place for about half....but they only had Smooth Sailing from the Brazilliant collex. SDM has the whole collex if you are looking for it. There's a couple more I'd like to pick up, but will wait for them to go on sale at SDM or for another place to have them in stock.



And if you're looking to expand your image plate stash, please check out the awesome giveaway over at SpellBinding Nails. While I'd love to expand my Models Own polishes, there's no plates from Chez Delaney I don't already have (and already have those other two plates as I ordered them when SarahLouise had blogged about them a while back), so I'm not entering, which will increase the odds for you to enter if you wish (by 1 at least!!). Just thought I'd pass on the link if you want to check it out. SarahLouise is just super sweet so I don't mind giving out a shout out for her giveaway! Good luck everyone!

Thanks for looking!

Catrice Hot or Not?

I'd been eyeing this hot pink for a few mani's now and after my subdued nails, wanted something bright so decided upon this, Catrice Hot or Not?



The next day, I couldn't decided on a colour or image plate to stamp it with (how is that possible? but couldn't), then I had remembered a couple weeks ago I had picked up the OPI silver shatter and hadn't used it, so decided to add it. This was a thin coat but I should have added a thick coat so that the crack would have been greater and more of the hot pink would show through.



And here's the shatter with topcoat. While I actually like it more than the matte version without topcoat, it looks better in real life than these pictures show.



I've wore this mani for four days now and its just starting to show a bit of tip wear. Next time, I'll add a thicker coat for sure so that more colour will peek through.

Edit: I just remembered that my friend over at Frazzle and Aniploish is having a absolutely fantastic one year anniversary giveaway here. Please take a few minutes to check out the giveaway....and the rest of her awesome blog. There's always informative posts about what's available at local stores as well as great polish comparisons!

Hope everyone is having a great weekend...rain rain go away!... here in Southern Ontario....thanks for looking!

A Long, Rambling, Personal Post...

(**Warning....long, personal post...may be too boring so I won't be offended if you just skip the words and look at the pictures!!)

Unfortunately, I haven't posted in a day or five...about two hours after my last post on Saturday, I received a call that my Grandmother had passed away so I immediately headed to my hometown which was a few hours away. I didn't return home until Monday so I wasn't even home for Mother's Day to spend with my kids but was with my parents instead. My parents and I went for dinner on Sunday and my mom and I exchanged Mother's Day gifts, which was nice. I did speak to my kids on the telephone on Mother's Day and they texted Mother's Day wishes as well. I returned home Monday and spent the evening with my family; we went out for dinner for our Mother's Day and was pleasantly surprised to find my husband and kids had included a gift card amoungst their 4 cards (one from each of them and one from hubby) to a local salon for Mother's Day. (I guess all my not-so-subtle hints had been heard!) This was put to good use on Tuesday morning as I treated myself to highlights and a cut which was long overdue.



Monday evening I did my nails with the thought that I'd be attending visitations and the funeral service over the upcoming days and while my first thought was do go with neutral nails, I remembered that the last three times I had visited my Grandma, each time she noticed and had complimented my nails so I knew that regardless what I did, she'd be OK with it. In fact, my last visit with her on Easter Sunday, I hadn't been in the room at the nursing home more than a couple minutes and she had noticed my mani which was this one and we were talking nail polishes and doing our nails. She had been commenting how some of the other ladies at the nursing home paint their nails in bright red and she was amazed how some of them had reallllly long nails and didn't know how they could live with them! I also wanted to stamp with some flowers as she did love gardening and ultimately decided on nails that were relatively subdued with some muted stamping.



This is SpaRitual Solitude, stamped with Konad special polish in light grey using IP Konad m67. The picture below is the most colour accurate but the lighting still makes the polish and stamping brighter than it is in real life. In fact, the stamping was barely visible.



Solitude before stamping...its not really this bright at all; certainly not like the second pix, in fact, many of my friends who noticed my mani thought the polish was black.





I was very close to my Grandma...learned how to bake in her kitchen and spent many a Saturday morning making cookies, learned to make homemade pickles and pickled beets and the like as well as doing vegetable canning; learned to plant and grow a vegetable garden and tons of info about flowers and gardening (my grandparents composted well before composting and being green was "in"), lots of time playing cards, etc etc. I was fortunate to be able to have spent a whole bunch of time with my Grandparents when I was a child and teen and even as I got older when I had my own house, I'd collect my grandma from her house and she'd spend the night with my family. My grandmother lived to 85 and actually lived on her own up til January 2011; it amazes me quite frankly that she lived as long as she did considering that life for her was not easy as a child or even as an adult. I try to remember that as difficult as my life may seem, the reality is that I have never lived through the depression nor walked for miles to go to school like she did and many other childhood traumas that could not be fathomed today. The changes in technology that she has lived thru is staggering....she never rode in a car until after she was married and having a telephone put in was a luxury indulged in after she had been married many many years. And even then, it was a party line (in fact, I remember my parents phone having a party line....a destinctive ring meant the call was for your house; another distrinctive ring was for a neighbourning house....makes me feel really old now!) She never owned or used a computer or cell phone or even a calculator...never had lasagne or pizza in her life (which is just so hard for me to believe), nor traveled more than 5 hours from her place of birth her entire life. When I was in my early 20's, I had offered to take her travelling (at my cost even!) but she declined saying she never had any desire to travel or see parts of the world other than where she grew up and what she was familiar with. My mother and uncle were born on the family farm and just hours before they were born, she had been in the fields on the tractor plowing. She never owned a credit card in her life; if it wasn't paid for in cash, it wasn't purchased. She never forgot the hardships she endured as a child in the depression and often laminated about the foods she couldn't stomach as an adult as there were some foods that they ate day after day after day, when they even had food, and it was only what they were able to grow or raise or found wild. But she was blessed with good health up to the last few days of her life and a lot of it I believe was attributed to her healthy eating.

I was very fortunate to have spent so much time with her and have her in my life as long as I did as well as heard of a life in a different era that I was lucky to have never endured; as my three kids were able to spent good quality time with their Great-Grandma so those memories will not be forgotten. (I'm sorry to have gotten so personal but at the end of the day, this is my blog and the point of starting it was to keep track of my mani's as I did them so I'm sorry for anyone who thinks this is over sharing.)
On a more positive note, I noticed that while I was MIA, my followers surpassed 300 and I sincerely thank you so much for checking out my little blog! I'll be putting together another giveaway in the next little while when I have a bit of time to get my life together again!

Dear Husband....

.....tomorrow is Mother's Day.

Here's a couple gift ideas to make it easy for you so that I don't get a vacuum like I got last year, or the weed puller like the year before that:



- flowers of any sort....real, potted, hanging baskets, bouquet, any always work.
- Tim Horton's gift card.
- dinner with the family; breakfast in bed. Either or.
- jewellery...bonus points if it involves diamonds....
- a new purse...doesn't have to be Chanel...any would be fantastic
- shoes (I need new running shoes by the way)
- trip...again, doesn't have to be to Paris but any location would be a dream
- and of course, when in a pinch, nail polish. Nail polish is ALWAYS appreciated.

Love, your wife.



For this mani, used Orly Fancy Fuchsia, white Konad special polish and IP's MW59, BM09, Konad m77 and two unmarked.

Here's Orly Fancy Fuchsia by itself. Unfortunately, this pix isn't colour accurate but the best I could get with the lighting I had. In this case, fast fading sunlight.





The really funny thing about the weed puller, is I don't even do the gardening at our house....my HUSBAND does. So my Mother's Day gift wasn't even for me....how's that for 52 hours labour for three kids? (And to anyone who thinks I'm joking about the weed puller...or the vacuum....unfortunately, I'm not. We really did need the vacuum tho...lol. And if I'm being really honest...none of this is really a big deal cause I'm blessed with a husband who doesn't question the number of polishes I own, nor the number of image plates, special polishes, accessories such as rhinestones, money spent on swapping polishes, etc etc. so I guess there are things worse than getting a weed puller for Mother's Day!!!)

To anyone who is a mother, have a fantastic day! I hope that you enjoy your special day with your family and are able to enjoy a little RnR! To anyone who isn't, please make sure to visit or call your mother on this day honouring all mothers! Or honour them in another way that may be special for you and your mother...anything except by gifting them a weed puller!

Happy Mother's Day!!!

Trial and Error....Stamping with Foil!

I seen a post over at Madam Luck where she just received her order from Dollar Nail Art ** which got me to thinking that I should try stamping with nail foils again. The last time I ordered at Nailart und Mehr **, they were good enough to include a few foil samples for me to try out but despite my best efforts, I couldn't get any to transfer. So I fiddled a bit with it again last night and somewhat got them to work... here's how it turned out.....



Some are perfect....and others, not so much! The foil is actually hot pink/magenta but the mirror of the foil kept on picking up the blue from my shirt so that's why you see a hint of blue!

Not the best but I think its just like the first time I started stamping...the first few times weren't the best....but eventually got the hang of it. Same with using the rubber stamping plates....couldn't get them to work at all the first few times, but have gotten the hang of it now.

I think stamping with nail foils has a lot of possibilities and will give us stampers a few more options when doing stamping and opportunity to come up with some really cool stamping designs...I know I have a few mani's in mind....if I can ever get the hang of it!

Here's how I did it if you want to try it out. Cut a square of of your foil and have it ready at your fingertips as you have to be fast! Stamp polish as normal (I used Konad white in this instance), immediately after stamping, place foil on polish and rub and press hard 5-10 seconds. Then peel away foil. When you're placing the foil, the shiny side goes up (this may be common sense to you but for someone who never used foil before and when no one told me, I never knew which side to put down so I'm spelling it out for anyone who may not know!! Like I never!!) If the stamping polish has already dried, no image will transfer and if you have too much polish, it will smudge. I tried large full size images and smaller ones, and found smaller ones worked well...I'm guessing because the polish dries so fast and you need to press and rub fast....but I'm going to keep on trying to see if I can get the hang of it.

I know this isn't the best but thought I'd share anyway for anyone who wants to try it out. If anyone has already had good results with stamping with foil and has any more tips, please let me know...I'd love to hear from you!

Base polish is Orly Polo Princess using Konad IP m60. Here's before stamping:


Thanks for looking!

**I do not endorse nor promote this website/etailer other than I am passing on the info of where I got them to those who may wish to know. I have no affiliation with any company and received no compensation for promotion of these products, nor am I promoting them...just letting fellow bloggers where they may be obtained should they be interested!

I'm With The Band...

Not!

Never played a musical instrument in my life...unless you count Chopsticks on the piano...or spoons if they are classified as an instrument (lol)....



OPI La Paz-itively Hot Matte with accent thumb of Manglaze Fuggen Ugly. Stamped using OPI Positive Energy and Revlon Chrome Punch using Konad plates m58and m73, one of the hot topic IP's, and fauxnads T37 and A27.

I have to admit that the music notes with skulls is one of my most favourite images on the hot topic plates, and it drove me absolutely crazy looking for them....hard to believe tho that I've had the plates for a couple months and first time using the music note image.....but the image is just so cool! (Thanks Brooke!!! Can't thank you enough! You're the best!!)

Here's mani before stamping....



This is mani in progress...I actually thought I was finished and then got thinking that the nail with the drum looks a little bare...so risked putting a star in the middle of it...I was pleased to see it was centred well as there was no way I could remove and restamp using a matte polish. Once its in place, that's where it stays or the whole nail has to be removed. Didn't get the sheet music too straight but couldn't do too much about it or would have to redo...I'm sure some would have redone but it just give me another excuse to redo my nails tonight...plus they are already chippy as I didn't topcoat....*sigh*....




Thanks for looking!