Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Blue Awareness Ribbons

Here's the last of the wear blue in support of Autism Awareness mani's for the month of April.   I've been saving this one for the very last as it was one of my favourites.

Started with a base of one coat of American Apparel American Denim, no top coat (index has two coats only because I nicked it). 

For the gradient at the tips, added a coat of Icing Starlight.  Starlight is lightly tinted which was a bonus as it added nicely to the gradient.

Added a layer of Icing All Night Long at the tips.

Stamped using white Konad special polish using BM321 with an accent of BM324.  I'll be very honest; I had wanted to do the image on the accent on all the fingers, but I didn't think I'd be able to line them up well as french tipped images are my nemesis!  When I did the accent first and it turned out OK, I thought I had better not press my luck so decided on the larger full size ribbon for the majority of the fingers or risk wrecking them all! 

I usually don't do my mani's facing towards me, but had to do it because of the way the accent stamped.  So I took a few pix so they weren't upside down!

I was really surprised that no Autism Awareness puzzle ribbon exists; I made a note of it in my ongoing list of image wants and hopefully one of the plate makers will add an puzzle ribbon image in the future. 

Topped with SV to finish.




I hope that there wasn't too much blue for the month; I tried to vary the blues up a bit...and even though I thought I shared a fair number of blues during the course of the month.....there are oh, so many more blue polishes in my stash that I never used ...I didn't even get all the finished blue mani's posted that I wore .....another time for sure!

Thanks for looking!



Monday, April 29, 2013

Blue Sands

Continuing with blue manis and mixing it up with some different finishes, I decided to do a mani with one of the OPI Liquid Sands.


I'll be honest, I'm not quite sure what the nail prep is on these liquid sands; I seem to think with the Zoya's that they are best applied directly on the nail but even though I wasn't entirely sure, I just applied the polish after doing my regular routine of base coats.  This is two coats of OPI Get Your Number, no topcoat.


Two coats didn't give quite the coverage I was looking for, so added a third coat; this pix again is with no topcoat.


Bottle pix of OPI Get Your Number.


Because I had six layers of polish/base treatments on my nails at this point with no fast dry topcoat to speed up the drying process, I waited about half an hour or so before stamping.  For stamping decided to use an image from Big SdP V using white Konad special polish. 


There's a lot of different pictures as they look a little different in the lighting (not to mention that I have such a hard time picking out just one!)   


The images seen here are the same image from Big SdP V that is mirrored.  Because the image is fairly large, in fact, the images on the Big SdP V are some of the longest out there, I was able to use various parts of it for a slightly different look on each nail which made them kinda interesting and unique (to me anyway!).


While I know that these traditionally would not be topped with topcoat, its hard for me not to do this, so I decided to topcoat it to finish.  This is when the mani really sparkled and I was happy that I had put top coat on it!


I only did one coat of SV and while it wasn't entirely smooth, it was smooth enough that it wasn't rough to be annoying.  I could live with it anyway.


While this pix was blurry, the benefit was that so many sparkles can be seen through the stamping.


Again, far too many pix because I just couldn't pick one....or two for that matter.






I thought these OPI Sands from the Mariah collex were pretty cool....enough that I knew I wanted all the OPI Bond Girl Liquid Sands and went to my local supply place several times eagerly anticipating their arrival until I finally able to snag them earlier this week.  I think they are an interesting base for stamping.


Hope you had a great weekend...thanks for looking!


Saturday, April 27, 2013

Stars

I've had this mani in archives for almost two months so thought I'd share as part of the blues-posting-fest in support of Autism Awareness for April.  I have enough mani's archived now to do a blue mani post every day between now and the 30th but the kicker will be if I have enough time to do type up the posts to go along with them!  I guess if I don't get around to getting them posted before the 30th, they'll show up at some point!  (I already know I won't get them all posted because I started to type this Wednesday and it's late Friday night by the time I'm finally finishing this post and already know a busy weekend is planned, so the rest of the blues will be posted at a later time.)

Started with a base of two coats of Glitter Gal Marine Blue.  This has no topcoat.

Stamped using white Konad special polish using MJ IV (thumb and middle), Apipila 01 (index), Big SdP B (pinky) and XXL Big SdP-01 (ring).

Topped with Sally Hansen Diamond Flash Fast Dry top coat.


I'm now sporting other colours on my nails even thought I'll still be sharing blue mani's until the end of the month.  As much as I love blues...and it certainly is a good cause....it is nice to see another colour on my nails other than blue! They too will show up at another time lol!

Have a great weekend....we are finally going to be getting some nice weather...time for some yard work....thanks for looking!

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Blue Holo Zippers

It's getting towards the end of the month-long posts of blues in support of Autism Awareness.  To try to mix the blues up a bit, I did a few mani's with different finishes; this is what I did using holo!

Started with a base of one coat of Color Club Over the Moon, no topcoat. 

I still cannot believe how holo these Color Club's are...I find myself reaching for them time and time again for a little pick me up or when I'm pressed for time and want to change my mani because one coat gives such great coverage and it takes no time at all to do a quick mani plus....that holo!!!!  Based on these pix, I probably could have done a second coat as a couple fingers look a little brush strokey, but only evident in macro ....and XL size!

Stamped using white Konad special polish using XXL Big SdP-01.  This image is mirrored and I used both of them for this mani.

Loved how the thumb turned out!

The stamping on my left hand wasn't that good; I'm not sure if this was because of the image or the stamp slipping from the moisturizer on my cuticles which sometimes happens. Here's a rare glimpse at my right where the stamping is shown a little better.

Because this is such a busy mani with so much stamping and the holographic glare, I took a pix outside but kind of shaded my hands; you can see the stamping a little better.

Hope you're having a great week; thanks for looking!


Monday, April 22, 2013

Earth Day Mani!

Yesterday's FB Adventures in Stamping challenge was Earth Day.  This is the mani I did for the challenge, which I thought I'd post today as it is Earth Day!

Started with a base of two coats of OPI Bride's Bouquet and Generation Baby Blue, topped with SV.

Stamped using assortment of plates; MJ III (recycle images on thumb using green Konad special polish), FUN 2 (world on thumb using blue Konad special polish), RA-115 (tree on index using green Konad and Kiko), W104 (middle image using blue, yellow and red Konad special polishes), SdP 75 (ring using blue Konad special polish) and CH33 (pinky, using Dashica green stamping polish).

Added a few images for filler; D15 (sun and clouds on  index), D16 (moon and stars on middle), T28 (butterfly on index and ring), SdP 74 (ladybug and bee on ring), W104 (butterflies on ring) all using assortment of Konad special polishes.  Also stamped in small flowers at bottom of tree on index using Mash-08.

Topped with SV.

Just to give you an idea of how many times this mani was stamped, there are nine individual stamps on the index finger, seven on the thumb, six on the index, and six on the middle.  The pinky was stamped once and if this is all added up, this mani was stamped a total of 29 times to create this look! 

Thanks for looking!


Friday, April 19, 2013

Blue Matte Autism Awareness Mani

I hope you're not tired of  blue mani's yet!  After wearing a few lighter shades of blues, I decided upon a darker shade to mix it up a bit; this is what I came up with!


Started with a base of one coat of Lioele M04, which is a matte polish.


Stamped using Nicole by OPI Positive Energy using Dash 20 (ring and pinky), SdP C-11 (thumb), Big SdP F (middle), and Apipila P.01 (index). 


Topped with SV.


When I was sizing my pix while drafting this post, I hit X-Large by mistake and after looking at it for a bit, didn't mind how it looked as the larger size made it a little easier for the stamping to be seen; I'm not sure if this trend in posting larger pix will continue (I'd say it will depend on how well the cleanup is and how many hang nails I have!) but for now, I'm going to keep at this size; hopefully they aren't too offensive!

Hope you're having a great week; thanks for looking!