Happy Christmas Eve!

It's Christmas Eve!  I'm spending a low key evening, mainly waiting for Santa to put the gifts under the tree and fill the stockings!  Uhum, guess who is Santa? lol.  I did these nails a couple nights ago; they are kind out of my wheelhouse but I had a thought about trying the Hit the Bottle jelly polishes and thought I would give it a try!  First time using the Hit the Bottles jellies but they worked out really well and are really pigmented; I could see myself reaching for them on a regular basis, that's for sure!  I love how vibrant they are against the black! 

Started with a base of two coats of OPI Black Onyx (no pix, as have shared before).  Stamped with images from Marianne Nails n.118 (index and middle), UberChic Christmas-01 (ring), UberChic Merry Christmas (words on thumb), W232 (wreath on thumb), and Delaney Noel A001 (pinky) using Painted Polish Blanc Slate.

UberChic Merry Christmas

I'm not entirely sure if you are suppose to top coat first or just paint on top of the white base but I just waited a good amount of time to make sure the white stamping polish was dry, then applied Hit the Bottle polishes in Fireball, Shamrock and Bumble Bee.  I love how pigmented they are; they are a bright pop of colour against the dark base!

Top coated with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.

Have a wonderful Christmas Eve and thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen Does Spring; Day 2

For day 2 of the spring challenge, I did these cute bluebells which are one of the earlier blooming plants in spring!  Here's what I came up with!

Instead of going with my go to white creme base, I decided to change it up with texture for a little something different. Started with a base of two coats of Sally Hansen Sugar Coat Sugar Fix, shown with no top coat to preserve the texture look.  I made the second coat a little too thick resulting in the texture not being as evident as I would have liked but its not bad.  

After it was dry, stamped using BC15 using MdU 3 and 39.

BC15

Did some lead lighting directly on the nail using L'Oreal Jolly Lolly .  I did the lady bug by itself first just for the bright pop of colour.

Did more lead lighting and shading with a couple of the OPI Sheer Tints.  No top coat to preserve the texture.

Here's the other ladies Day 2 spring mani's!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking!

40 Great Nail Art Ideas Does Grey + Colour

I've been good at getting my nails done for these Friday challenges but haven't been that successful in getting them posted on time; hopefully this will change soon!  This weeks 40 Great Nail Art Ideas theme is Grey and a colour; my added prompt was Ikat.  This is what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of YSL Gris Underground, no topcoat.



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



(Most awkward bottle pose everrrrrr!)



Stamped with an image from VL-04 using Funky Fingers Gesso. (You may notice I switched from using the YSL bottle; just doesn't work for bottle hand posing lol.)



Did lead lighting with 10.1 Polish Lemon Cupcake.



I have never done Ikat before; so had to Google it; this was the mani used for my inspiration; photo credit to shutterstock.com



Finished it off with a final coat of Girly Bits What A Rush QD TC.

Here's the other ladies Grey + Colour mani's with all the different prompts!  (They have it as "Grey + Color" but to me, it should be "Gray + Colour"; while I can live with the Grey, I can't live with Color! Maybe I should have reworded it "Gray + Colour; the Canadian version lol.

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking!

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!

Easter Nails

When I sat down to do my nails last night, I thought I hadn't done many Easter nails, so decided to do one; this is what I came up with!

Started with a base of two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls; topped with two coats of KBShimmer on top (no pix).  Stamped using images from Infinity 54 (thumb) and Infinity 35 (middle), then top coated again in prep for lead lighting.



Used assortment of 10.1 Polish jellies for lead lighting, except the palette which is a Zoya.



Infinity 54




Added assortment of images from Messy Mansion MM08 (peep on ring), Nailways Spring Time Easter Bunny (bunny on index), MoYou Festive Collection-14 (ring), MoYou Festive Collection-09 (pinky) and Infinity 76 (Easter wording on ring).  Used assortment of Mundo de Unas stamping polishes.



Added dots, dots and more dots for filler and interest then top coated to finish with KBShimmer Clearly ton top.



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

Digit-al Dozen Does Nature; Day 5

Here we are at Day 5 already for Digit-al Dozen nature week!  I always enjoy the challenges; they ARE a challenge, but I find it makes me be more creative in my manis or forces me to do techniques I don't do terribly often!  Like the leadlight technique; haven't done it in forevvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrr but decided to use it for this Day 5 mani!

Started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls; two coats, top coated with KBShimmer Clearly on top (no pix as have shown before).  Stamped using Funky Fingers Dark Knight using image from LS-120.

LS-120

Top coated with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.  If you top coat at this stage, I find there's less streaks and drag when you are lead lighting directly onto the nail, plus you can use a brush and remover if you make a mistake and it won't effect the base if you use a light enough hand.  I also made sure to take pix at this point in case I really messed up the hand painting; this would have been the end result of my mani!

Filled in the voids using assortment of 10.1 Polish Frosted Sheers.

Continued to fill in using the 10.1 Polish Frosted Sheers.  I see in these pix that even though I used the finest brush I own as some of these spots are crazy small to fill in, I still went outside of the lines.  I guess I'm going to have to start using magnifying glasses to check my nails; these out of the line colouring isn't noticeable to my eye but very obvious in macro!  There was a couple I could see that I cleaned up but I see even more now!  

Top coated to finish using KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

Here's what the other ladies came up with for Day 5 of the nature challenge!

An InLinkz Link-up

Thanks for looking!

Can't Decide What To Do!

With the recent presale of ILNP ultra chrome flakies that the nail community is all in a tizzy for right now, as well as other makers who soon will be releasing versions too, flakies seem to be the hot topic right now!  I'm still on the fence if I'm going to order by the end of ILNP's presale which ends today, but it did make me check my stash to look at the flakies I do have on hand (recognizing that the ultra chromes are nothing like have been released so far!).  One of the flakies I came across Dance Legend Candy Flakes 612 Tinsel. While I initially wanted to do some gold stamping on top of the flakies, I decided to make an accent of leadlight stamping to tie it into the Sunday AiS challenge; here's what I came up with.

Started with a base of OPI Don't Mess With OPI, with an accent of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  Both two coats, topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.  

Added two layers of Dance Legend Candy Flakes Tinsel on top.

While there was good coverage, I decided on a third layer of flakies, then top coated.

Added an image from Infinity 07 using black Konad special polish, then top coated in preparation of leadlighting. 

Filled in the image on accent using assortment of jellies including adding dabs of the flaky polish on the leaves to tie in.  Top coated the leadlighting to finish.

The next morning in overcast skies, I noticed that the flakies popped so much better; which is the very first pix.  

Anyone out there preordered any of the ILNP ultra flakies?  I'm really on the fence right now; I have quite a few flaky polishes but don't reach for them that often which is one reason why I haven't ordered yet.  The other is that I think a lot more brands will be releasing them soon so no big rush as I know more are yet to come.  The final reason is I can't decide which ones to pick!  A lot of them seem the same...yet so different; I don't know what to do!  I may hold off until I see more swatches in the upcoming weeks....plus see what other makers are releasing as I know quite a few out there have plans to release them too.  Decisions, decisions!

Thanks for looking!