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

Emily de Molly LE5

When I sat down to do my nails one night a month or so ago, I wanted a pretty base that I could do some quick stamping on for a quick mani change (aka, holo and a full size image is a nice, quick mani change when pressed for time as I've stated many times before!) Goodness knows, I have enough blue mani's in archives to do another month of blue manis, but my eye gravitated towards this stunner, Emily de Molly LE5.  So even though I had told myself no more wearing blue for a while, I still picked it up; here's what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of Emily de Molly LE5.  Holy moly; such gorgeousness!

Different lighting.

Stamped using Funky Fingers Gesso using an image from Marianne Nails n15.

Topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top before stamping. 

Marianne Nails n15

Added a few studs for interest then topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.

Different lighting; you can see the holo under the stamping a bit better!

Tomorrow starts Digit-al Dozen Week!  I've already seen a few of the Day 1 mani's posted by a couple ladies; they are awesome as always!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend; thanks for looking!

Hold Onto Your Seat If You're A Purple Lover!

Purple lovers rejoice!  This one's for you!

I picked these polishes no no other reason that I hadn't worn purple for a while and thought they would go nicely together!  I started by choosing Emily de Molly Cosmic Forces, this is three coats.  Then picked a purple creme that I thought would go well with it; FingerPaints Picturesque Purple, two coats then top coated with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.  I would have liked more of the big circle glitters on my nails but only one came out in six coats total.  

Stamped using Mundo de Unas #1 (white) with an image from UberChic 1-03.  I had a hard time getting this image to stamp; I tried Funky Fingers Gesso and it would not stamp at all so I had to switch to Mundo de Unas.  Even with Mundo de Unas, the plate had to be wiped each and every time after stamping or the image would not pick up at all.  I'm surmising this is because the etching depth and image lines are fine.  I'm not sure if the plates are just finicky by nature or if I got poorly etched plates because I've used four images from these as I write this post and all are the same.  What is also odd is that everyone else is giving these plates such glowing reviews but no one is saying if they are wiping their plate after each image and if they will only work with certain polishes.  Yes, they do stamp but if you have to wipe after each and every stamp and they work with only certain polishes, they are more finicky that I like myself.  Has anyone else experienced this?  Maybe I just got poor plates or could be that I have higher expectations from a plate.  ??  (Edited Feb 22, 2015:  I tried numerous stampers, scrapers and polishes last night on this image; Magno, squishy from Messy Mansion, firm rectangular from Messy Mansion, FAB, MoYou squishy) and they are all the same; the etching is so fine/shallow that you can only get one stamp and you have to clean up or it will not pick up. Not one stamper would pick it up a second time and some wouldn't pick it up the fully the first).   

UberChic 1-03

While the stamping on itself was nice enough, I like a little more interest.  Added NYX Silver to the centers of the flowers.  I love the look of the glitter in the jelly polishes so purposely didn't want to do much stamping on them and opted to leave the ring finger with the base alone.

Hmm, again didn't mind the look of this, but thought the ring just looked too bare.  I made a wavy line using tape and wave scissors; I really wants several rows of waves and then the silver glitter on top but the tape wasn't the best for making these waves and I don't have waves nail vinyls at the time I did these (I do have some now thanks to the package I received for a Canuck Swap I was in!).  So just left the silver glitter at the tips for interest and to tie in that finger with the rest.  Then top coated to finish to KBShimmer Clearly on Top.  

Some of the silver glitter spread on the ring finger but I actually think it added to the look!  Sometimes oops works!

You can also see that this particular image is way too big for my nails.  So I stamped it in an assortment of ways to compensate for this; I myself really like the partial whimsy images on the pinky and index.  Thank goodness or otherwise a useless image for anyone with smaller nails!

I love the look of this; probably one of my favourite mani's in a while!  You can probably tell by the number of pictures I've posted of it

Have a great weekend and thanks for looking!

And if you have these UberChic plates, are yours finicky too?  Please let me know!

Guest Post for The Dalai Lama's Nails

I did a guest post for Hannah at the Dalai Lama's Nails for her Blogiversary Celebration!  Please go here to check it out!



Happy Blogiversary, Hannah!

Thanks for looking!

Blue Holo Skittles!

Alllllll these stunning holo polishes arrived in the mail on the same day (back in March  2014!); I couldn't wait to do mani's with them and knew I couldn't do them all the same day so I decided to do skittles with them; here's what I came up with!

Polishes used starting at the thumb are Too Fancy Moody Blue, Too Fancy The Shifty Chameleon, Too Fancy Set Fire to the Rain, Emily de Molly LE5 and Too Fancy Bejewelled.  These are all one coat, no topcoat.

Different lighting.  

Stamped using white Konad special polish using Lila Anna 10.

Can I just say how much I love these Lily Anna plates....BUT....centering an image on your nails is hard enough without the image being centered on the plate as you can see below.  Now, I was able to center the center image (half) decent but my nails aren't terribly long or big so there was enough of the top and bottom images that it worked.  But if you have reallyyy long nails the centre design would have to shift on nail placement to use the bottom part of the plate to make sure your nail is fully stamped and THAT would cause the middle image not to be centered on the nail and I'm sure this would drive some batty.  (Or maybe I just over think these things, not sure!)   *end rant*

Topped with SV to finish.

Different lighting.

Thanks for looking!

Butterflies and Dragonflies...and Guessing the SH Prism!

This weeks FB Adventures in Stamping challenge was Butterflies and Dragonflies.  I must confess; I did this mani back in April, just hadn't gotten around to posting it.  As luck would have it, it fit the theme of Butterflies and Dragonflies so it was the mani I shared for the challenge....which worked out well all around!

Started with a base of two coats of two coats of Sally Hansen Prism unnamed polish that says 06 on the cap. 

These polishes may be old but have some very pretty holo!

Added a funky french gradient at the tips using Emily de Molly Super Vixen.

Stamped using a variety of images from unnamed OMG XL plate using white Konad special polish.

Topped with SV.

It was kind of bugging me that I didn't know the name of this Sally Hansen polish.  It had a number on the back label, x224674000, which I Googled, but unfortunately, it didn't really help pinpoint which polish it was as its a generic number on a few of these old Prisms.  So I thought I would check through my stash of SH Prisms to see if I have one that has an actual name on it, that it matched.

These were the ones that were the closest; the bottle on the left is Blush Diamond; no. 6 is middle, and on the right is Ruby Presents, which is no. 5399-08.

I also know from Googling, that 4674-06 on various Sally Hansen Prism guides is Ruby Sapphire; however, I do know that this one isn't it Ruby Sapphire as I have a bottle of it and they aren't even close. 

I'm saying these two are prettyyyyy close; the unnamed SH 06 and SH Ruby Presents...I don't know why it dawned on me until now that I should have swatched these two to see how close they are on the nail rather than just a bottle comparisons as sometimes that is more telling...d'oh! But these two look pretty close in the bottle comparison, maybe even the same, none the less.  

What do you think?  Do you think they a match or do you think it's another Prism?  And if another one, which one do you think it may be?

Thanks for looking!

Previewing Big SdP Z

My order of the newly released Dashica plates arrived not too long ago; this is the first mani that I came up with using one of them, Big SdP Z.

After doing my regular base routine which also included two coats of NPB Glitter A-Peel (as I knew I'd be layering with glitter) started with two coats of Essie Bermuda Shorts.  This pix isn't accurate in colour; it is much brighter than shown here.  I've never used Bermuda Shorts before; I was surprised it dries matte...for some reason, I was expecting it to be a vibrant jelly!  No worries, thought, as I knew I was layering on top of it.

Added a coat of Emily de Molly Super Vixen; then layer of tc.  The pix is more accurate of the base of Bermuda Shorts as the glitter added is in a clear base; this was super bright....aka my kinda nails!

Stamped using white Konad special polish using Big SdP Z.

A few pix of Big SdP Z.

Love that this plate has so many inverted plate images like those squiggly lines; makes for some interesting mani's with accent nails!





The circled image is the one I used for this mani.  The image is a great size; I was able to place a portion of the design on each nail a little differently so each nail was unique which I did intentionally for a little interest.  On the ring finger, I even turned the design sideways and it still fit on my nail....lots of options which designs this large!

To finish the mani, topped with QD TC; used HongKong Girl this time.



When it came time to remove the mani, just peeled the nails off with an orange stick as I've shown before as I had used NPB Glitter A-Peel.

Dashica Beauty Shop products are available here.   

Thanks for looking!