Fall Nails!

I've resisting wearing fall colours for a while now, even though fall has now officially arrived.  The brights lover in me wants doesn't want to wear the darker shades!  Especially when the weather has been so nice! The only good thing about the cool nights is that the leaves are now starting to change and use of the hot tub resumes! Anyway, this is my first fall mani to share!

Started with a base of two coats of Glam Polish Mauna Loa with brown accents of L'Oreal Brownie Points; both two coats, no top coat.  I never would have thought of Glam Polish Mauna Loa as a fall shade but the burnt orange colour works as one for me!  Can I just say that I've reached for L'Oreal Brownie Points time and time again for a few fall manis already!  The rich hue of the deep chocolate brown has been the perfect shade for what I've been wanting to do....and as an added bonus, it looks fantastic with gold!

Topped with KBShimmer before stamping. 

Using CND Gold Chrome, stamped using an image from B. Loves Plates B.01 Geometry is Perfect. I wish there weren't so many polish voids in the stamping; not that noticeable IRL but magnified in macro, unfortunately.  

B. Loves Plates B.01 Geometry is Perfect

Added a few gold studs on Glam Mauna Loa, then topped it all off with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.




In hindsight, I wished I had have reversed the colours on the fingers; I think it would have flowed a little better. But all in all, I didn't mind this look. I love the look of the gold on the L'Oreal Brownie Points; in fact, have done a few other mani's since them with this colour scheme.

Thanks for looking!

Dots!

This is a simple bright and fun mani I created during the summer!

Started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales walls with accent of Funky Fingers Dark Knight (no pix as have shown before). Stamped using Funky Fingers Gesso and Dark Knight using an image from Cici & Sisi 12.

Added a few primary dots for colour interest.

Finished it off with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

This is what I love about stamping; a quick mani can look this cool in no time.  Well, cool to me anyway!

Pansies!

One of my favourite types of glitter is micro glitter.  Also, really love big circular glitter!  Really big or really small; love them both!  Heck, who am I kidding; I love all the glitters!!!  But I do have a special fondness for micro glitter.  With it being so densely packed, it makes for an interesting stamping base (even though I didn't stamp on it here lol)   The use of peel off bases means that I've been wearing glitter more then ever!  So after buying a few of the Love, Angeline Harmonious Gemstones from Harlow & Co. earlier this summer....then buying a few more direct from Love, Angeline, has had me wearing quite a few mani's with microglitter of some sort in them!  For some reason, I have neglected to share any yet so thought I would now; here's what I came up with!   

Started with a base of two coats of Elevation Polish Grand Teton Station with an accent of two coats Love, Angeline Orchestrated Amethyst; both have no top coat.  I really liked that two coats of the microglitter had great coverage, no bald spots at all.  I have been using UNT peel off base for glitter lately (bought direct from UNT; they ship internationally and had free shipping but don't be fooled by that video; my experience has been that it only peels off like that when its still tacky which results in goopy, intermingling of polish and base coat, fyi).  You have to pop it off other products but it is the easiest product that pops off yet that I've found fyi.).  The only thing I would caution is that you wait a good 10 minutes for it to be good and dry. Otherwise, the glitter intermingles with the peel off base and then you got a goopy, bumpy, uneven mess. Which I have done more than once because I hate waiting for base or quick dry or glitter peel off or cuticle guard or whatever to dry.  

Topped all but the accent with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.  The Elevation Polish, which has the formula with the top coat already built into it,  is one of those colour changers that will change slightly when you use your regular top coat on it.  I always do this even though it has built in top coat, so it  made the polish slightly darker (in fact, if you look closely, you can see where I applied top coat and where I missed the polish and the difference).



Stamped using and image from SdP 98 using FunkyFingers Gesso.


SdP 98


Applied top coat....and had top coat altering event when the polish base leeches into the stamping polish which is one of my stamping pet peeves. Grrrr! While I had no plans other than leaving the stamping white and maybe a stud to accent, I thought I would add to the pansies a little more just to see how it turned out.



I did some "lead lighting" for back of better words, using 10.1 Kiwi Delight and Plum-tastic.



Added a bit of the Love, Angeline Orchestrated Amethyst to the pansies for interest.



Added a few dots (in hindsight, wished dots were smaller and closer together, but hindsight is wonderful as the saying goes!)


Added gold stud to accent.  Complimented the gold in the microglitter nicely, I think!



While I prefer the matte look usually of the microglitter, I have a terrible issue with losing studs if I don't top coat them, so finished with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.




I wore mani, after mani, after mani of microglitter (I do this will all things that hold my interest for a few days lol!) but it makes for not so interesting blogging so they will be shared at some time!  So far, I've been using the microglitter mainly as accents but I'm sure that will change over the next little while too!

Love, Angeline is available via Harlow & Co. or their estore here.  They do ship to Canada; the shop also has a wide arrangements of other nail items such vinyls and cuticle oils; they also have Mani Crush Fizzies which I have bought and like to use too.  As the Mani Crush Fizzies comes in a crushed state, I can control the amount of product I use; even when I've bought the mani bombs, I always crush them up to extend them (being the thrifter, that I am lol - hey, it all goes towards more plates and polish so worth it!)

Thanks for looking!

Green Matchy Marble

When I sat down to do my nails one afternoon a couple weekends ago, I noted that a newly purchase polish matched pretty well with a stamping polish that I had with me brought with me.  Hey, the mani inspiration is just that simple sometimes lol.  So I sat down to do my nails solely with the purpose to use them both in the mani; here's what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls; no top coat (no pix as have shown before).  Did a gradient sponge with Cosmetic Arts Spiked Punch.  This was a great find at $1.99 from Giant Tiger.

Sunlight.

Added a couple coats of Essie As Gold As It Gets (Another deal of $3 at Dollerama!)

Sunlight.


Stamped using Mundo de Unas 61 Figi using an image from Apipila p6.



Topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.



You can tell I was on vacation by the state of my nails in these pix; this was the last of five days that I had been away over the Labour Day long weekend.  Oh well; nothing stops me from doing my nails!

Hope you had a great weekend; thank for looking!

Digit-al Dozen Does Re-creation of Digit-al Dozen; Day 4

What do you do when business meeting coincides having to do a mani for Digit-al Dozen challenge week? Something neutral but still following the theme, of course!  When I sat down to do my nails a couple nights ago, I knew I had this meeting planned but was still in the midst of doing my challenge nails as I'm not nearly as organized as some of the other ladies in having them done in advance. So went with some neutral lace stamping!

Several ladies have done versions of lace nails for various themes for Digit-al Dozen challenges (one of which I ironically have already copied, ahem, re-created) but because I'm not recreating any stamped mani's this week, my inspiration was from Vic and her Nails; this was her mani.  

I had already done lace and roses before in this mani....

.....which ironically was inspired from another Digit-al Dozen member, Sassy Shelly here .....

......so I took some artistic freedoms and went with a slightly different lace and floral pattern.   I had received Dance Legend Melange earlier in the week and thought it would be a neutral base for the meeting and thought lace stamping would work.  This is two coats of Dance Legend Melange 280, no top coat.

Added coat of GirlyBits What A Rush QD Top Coat before stamping.  If you've read my blog (actually read it, and not looked at the pictures; I know it happens!), I've been a long time user of KBShimmer Clearly on Top.  It's been my go to quick dry top coat for some time.  But I decided to add a bottle of GirlyBits What A Rush QD TC (aka GBWARQDTC) to my last Girly Bits order for a couple reasons:  KBShimmer doesn't ship to Canada and it's not always in stock when I need it at Harlow & Co.  Even though I try to hoard it, with the 5 bottle maximum order, there are times that my fingers get twitchy when I'm down to my last bottle and wonder if it will be stocked in time before I need it.  The other reason, and I realize this is no fault of Harlow & Co., is the recent price increase due to the falling dollar.  But with GB QD selling at $6.50 a bottle versus KBShimmer at Harlow, selling for $9, there's quite a bit of savings with the GirlyBits QD.  

In terms of use, my first impression of using GBWARQDTC is favourable; it dried comparable to KBShimmer in that I applied it, took a few pix for the blog and it was dry to stamp.  As I do my nails late at night before heading to sleep, I applied last coat of top coat, then essentially brush my teeth and went to bed and am happy to report that there were no sheet marks the next morning so it was good and dry. It provided good shine, didn't smear the stamping and there was no shrinkage.  I'll be continuing with my testing of GBWARQDTC over the next little while and report back in case any one is interested. I want to stress that this change is strictly due to supply and money; I have no issue with KBShimmer product or Harlow & Co. (having just placed an order of mainly KBShimmer products at Tuesday's restock from Harlow including a couple bottles of Clearly on Top) but I do go through quite of bit of QD TC doing my nails 5+ times a week and every little bit helps (towards buying more plates and polish lol!) 

Stamped image from EDM13 using Funky Fingers Dark Knight.

Emily de Molly EDM13

Added coat of GirlyBits What A Rush QD Top Coat.  Decided to add a few studs to accent and finish, which is in first pix; I'd gladly show another pix but my posts are too long as it is!

Here's the other ladies Day 4 mani's!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking!

*edited original post to correct polish name

Digit-al Dozen Does Re-creation of Digit-al Dozen; Day 3

It's still Digit-al Dozen week and we are still on recreating past mani's!  Here's my Day 3 recreation!



My nails are my attempt at the recreation here at Bee Polished.  I just realized I didn't do them in the same order which would have been better.  The placement of mine where decided upon by the stamp size and nail size; trying to figure out mainly what image would fit on the pinky.

.
Started with a base of OPI Tiramisu, two coats.

Stamped with MJ XXIII using Funky Fingers Dark Knight and MdU 22 and 23.  Sometimes I used them on their own, sometimes, I mixed the colours up if I wanted something a little different.

MJ XXIII

Added words on middle using MJ XXIII test plate.  The same words are on the MJ XXIII plate but they are bigger.

Added one last image on the thumb from the same MJ XIII test plate.

Top coated with KBShimmer to finish.  I did have plans to add random yellow dots; one, for colour interest and two, as tribute to Yellow Submarine, but ultimately left it as is.

I was kind of peeved at myself after I finished this as I found a more similar image to Bee's nails a day or so after when I was looking through my plates which would have been more true to the original mani.  Sorry, Bee!

Here's the other Day 3 recreated mani's of the other ladies!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking!