Colourful Valentines!

I thought a bunch of colourful skittles would look cool for a bright Valentine's Day mani, and like that it's not the typical pink and reds either!  Here's what I came up with!

Started with a base of skittles; starting from thumb and going clockwise, Pretty Serious Hootenanny, Rave, All-Nighter, Sugar Cakes and Morgan Taylor Go for The Glow; all two coats, no top coat.

Added a coat of Black Dahlia Lacquer Double Kill, no top coat.

Topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

Different lighting; you see the colours in the flakies a bit more.

Stamped using Born Pretty - Valentine's Day - S001 using Painted Polish Blanc Slate.

Born Pretty Valentine's Day S001

Topped with a coat of KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.

 Thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen Does Vampy; Day 3

When my recent Pahlish order arrived, a trio of polishes looked like they might be a pretty cool base for Day 4 of the Digit-al Dozen Vampy challenge; here's what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of Pahlish Cinnamon Apples, no top coat.

(Disregard the fugly nails in these next couple of pictures!)  I tried to do a sponged gradient using Pahlish Cinnamon Apples, Pumpkin Patch and Hoodies, Leaves and S'Mores but the base colours weren't really picking up; just the glitter and flakies.  So I brush applied bands of polish width wise the same polishes on each nail.  Not pretty at all but had to do fairly thick coats to  get some colour over the base polish.

Applied KBShimmer Clearly on Top before stamping.



At this point, I didn't know what to think.  The colours didn't seem to go well and they looked way too thick to be useable.  I was just going to remove the blobs of polish and go with something different, but decided to just use what I had already done even though it looked like a fail at this point.  So added leaves using an image from Born Pretty BP-19 using CND Gold Chrome.



Born Pretty BP-19



I actually didn't mind this mani once it had stamping on it; kinda covered up all the polish fail lol!  So decided to keep it on my nails; topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.



Different lighting but you can see the mani a little less vampy!




Here's the other ladies Day 3 vampy mani's!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking!

Jade Diamond Exuberant

When I sat down to do my nails the night I did these, I was looking for something pretty simple and easy to do as I didn't have a whole lot of time to do my nails (which is about 90% of the time lol).  Howeverrrr, thanks to some very uncooperative clear jelly stampers (aka, any brand I tried and it was a few), these nails took way longer than I wanted and eventually, I ended up using my regular semi squishy stamper and hoped for the best placement wise.  Here's what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of Jade Diamond Exuberant, shown below with no top coat.  Application and cleanup was great! So sad that Jade polishes are no longer around.

Topped with a coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC before stamping.

Not colour accurate but love this colour lol!

I had picked an image from Born Pretty BP-L024 for some simple stamping, which would provide contrast and interest as well as shown the base nicely through.  However, this image was a PITA to pick up with any jelly stamper.  So, so, so many attempts as picking up that resulted in either part images or no image no matter what brand of jelly stamper I went with.  I fooled around with the jelly stampers for my right hand (which I usually do first as my test hand) but for these nails, I eventually went with my regular FAB semi squishy stamper and hoped for the best placement wise.  They didn't turn out that bad!  There were a couple places that I had to fill in with a brush but all in all, pretty happy how these worked out placement wise.

This is different lighting and the polish isn't that accurate colour wise but you can see in a couple places on the index and thumb that I painted in the void with a brush.  On the positive, the interest of the base shows through in these pix so its a good image to use if you are looking for this but too bad not more colour accurate!

Topped with a coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC to finish.  I'm always leery of purples and greens and even some blues that the polish bleeds through when the top coat is applied turning the white stamping light purple, but happy to report that this is not one of them!

Thanks for looking!

Happy Mother's Day!!

Happy Mother's Day!

Started with a base of two coats of Arcane Lacquer Residuum, no top coat.

Added a coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC before stamping.

Stamped using Colors by llarowe Hey Romeo using images from Born Pretty BP-11 and BP-70.

Born Pretty BP-70

Topped with a coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC to finish.



Hope you had a fabulous Mother's Day however you spent it!

For those who haven't seen, I'm have a giveaway of Girly Bits Give Me One Good Raisin on both my FB and IG page; the direct links are at the bottom of this page.

Thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen Does NEW & Improved; Day 4

It's Day 4 of Digit-al Dozen new and improved challenge; here's another mani with a new to me technique being the straw splatter method.  I know now why I've never tried this....far too messy for my liking! I didn't mind the end result so who knows, it might make a reappearance some day.  Here's what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of Barry M Gelly Blueberry, no top coat.

I picked out a bunch of complementary colours for the splatter.  My thought was do a dark over the light, then build up a little lighter as I went.  This was me getting ready.  I had seen a tutorial where you dip the straw into the bottle of polish but my straw was larger then the bottle opening.  So thought I would blob some down and use it.  However, in actual fact, you need a whole lot more of polish in a blob then what I've shown here to get enough to splatter.  Wayyyy more than this because you need a good amount across the void opening on the straw to get it to whoosh everywhere.  There were soooo many times I blew with no results!  After I did these nails, I seen a gal who just brushed some on the straw directly from the bottle and I will try this next time.  I think; if I ever do again lol!

So this was the disastrous mess I came up with after blowing so much I was light headed.  I have no idea how many times this was but this seems like many times that made it to the nail never mind the many times I blew and nothing came out or it went everyplace but on my nails.  I think the really big blobs were blow fails but had to live with them as really, no way of fixing them but to just do another blow on top of the first blow. Anyway, I eventually thought I had enough coverage and just decided to live with it.  I used Girly Bits Border Patrol as barrier and even though I did what I thought was a good distance, I still blew polish all over my nails.  And other places too.  What a mess!  The polishes I used were all Barry M Gellies; Prickly Pear, Blue Grape, Blue Plum and Blackberry.

This was after cleanup as best as I could do anyway.  

Topped with Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC before stamping.

I thought this might be a cool base for the water marble image that ironically I have never used before either. Used the image from Born Pretty BP-41.

Stamped using Funky Fingers Gesso.

Top coated with Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC to finish.

All in all, I think the end result was pretty cool but man, what a lot of blowing, polish, mess and clean up.  If I try this again, I'll try a shorter straw (hoping I will get more hits as I had a lot of misses where nothing came out or it missed my nails entirely), and putting the polish directly across the bottom of the straw with a brush versus dabbing the straw into the polish.  I am positive I will never dip into the polish unless it is some old random polish that I can easily replace or don't need to as I think it would use a lot of polish unnecessarily.  

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

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking! 

Stamped Multicoloured Stripes

If you've seen the past mani's I've done using nail vinyls, you''ll know what my use of them is still a work in progress to say the least!.  I love the look of them though especially with multicolours, so thought I might be able to stamp on some lines using image plates better and faster.  To be honest, I but can't say for sure I accomplished either one of those things with these nails!   This is what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of Polish II Come Later.  This pix has no topcoat.  I found this polish at my local beauty supply for $2 and you can bet I picked up all my favourite colours!  They are a little on the thin side for application but I prefer that; but they build well and cleanup is a breeze!



Top coated.



For the stamping, used the lines from BP-L009 but turned them sideways to stamp.  I used three Mundo de Unas polishes, #1, #2 and #33.




These straight lines can be troublesome with squishy stampers; I didn't do too bad except on the middle finger.  Because I did these nails before work one morning, I decided I could live with them but if I had time, I would have removed the middle nail stamping and stamped again.



Top coated to finish.  I should add that while I found these easier to do then nail vinyls, they still aren't perfect, and on a hardness scale from 1 to 10, these would be an 11. There's just so much that can go wrong; applying the polish so that it intermingles onto another line, scraping is straight, picking it up then transferring it onto the nail straight AND  with the lines straight, not all over the place.  That being said, I might be giving nail vinyls another go lol!



I do like how these turned out thought; the imperfections aren't that noticeable in real life.

Thanks for looking!

Val About Town by CANVAS lacquer

More sweater nails as the temperatures are dropping and snow is in the forecast!  Today's mani features Val About Town by CANVAS lacquer**.

Val About Town by CANVAS lacquer is a gorgeous salmon with a delicate hint of gold shimmer, shown with two coats, no topcoat.  

While I have a lot of peach and coral polishes, I don't have a colour like this in my stash. Application and coverage was good; no issues to report.

A rare macro to see the gold shimmer better!

Topped with a coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC before stamping.

Stamped using Mundo de Unas 33 using MoYou Festive Collection-06 with an accent of Born Pretty BP-L018.  I love how the grey and salmon look together!  

Topped with Girly Bits What a Rush QD TC to finish.

Born Pretty BP-L018.

Not your typical colours for sweater nails but if you know me, you know I try to think outside of the box every now and then!  I love how this turned out!  

CANVAS lacquer is available via their Etsy shop here.  Based out of Toronto, Ontario, they offer international shipping to select countries.

Thanks for looking!

**item send for review; please see disclosure policy.