Tax Time!

Sharing a Polish Previously Received for Review!

I'm late getting this post up but as today is the usual deadline for filing your taxes in Canada (except this year, due to a notice distributed earlier in the week by CRA stating the deadline is May 5, which was an error, they have now officially extended it to 3:00 am May 5th), I thought I would do a tax related mani!  Of course, it's blue being that I've been sharing blue mani's for the month of April in support of Autism Awareness.  This is what I came up with!

Started with a base of a coat of Nubar Fan Club; one coat gave pretty good coverage and I knew I would be adding glitter and stamping.

Layered a thin coat of Shimmer Sarah on all fingers except accent, which got a second coat of Nubar Fan Club.

Topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.  

Close up of Shimmer Polish Sarah**.

Stamped using Funky Fingers Gesso using Bundle Monster BM-311 on all fingers except accent.  Accent is stamped with Apipila 03 and VL011.

Close up of Vivid Lacquer VL011.

Top coated with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.

I haven't really shared this before, but I've been trying out a new glitter removal base; NYC Strip Me Off Base Coat.  I used it on all fingers here and it worked well even on the non glitter polish!  So far, used it about half a dozen times and it has worked well every time.  Can't beat the price either for under $2 here in Canada!

Hopefully you've enjoyed all the blue mani's this month...and have filed your taxes lol!  Myself, I pay someone to do mine so I don't actually have to pull my hair out and swear while doing them....good luck to you if you do yours!

Thanks for looking!

**item received for review; has been previously reviewed here! See disclosure policy.

Digit-al Dozen Does Monochrome; Day 4

Have you been enjoying DD Monochrome week?  It always amazes me how creative the ladies can be when doing the themed challenge mani's (or anytime, to be honest!!)!  It's hard to believe it's nearing the end of the challenges but here we are on Day 4 already! Black and white fit the theme of monochrome; this is a quick mani I came up with last night.  

For this mani, did two coats of OPI 4 in the Morning, which is part of the Gwen Stefani collex.  No topcoat. In hindsight, I could have probably passed on this as it's not terribly unique and similar results can easily be achieved with other black polish and matte coats.  

 

I was trying to mimic chalkboard nails, so purposely didn't want a bold, bright white stamping polish as usually chalk on a chalkboard isn't stark white but kind of faded and chalky looking.  So used Mash white for stamping.  Stamped with assortment of plates; VL017 (thumb and index), Apipila 03 (ring), BM-H23 (pinky) and MoYou Princess Collection-12 (middle).  

Here's a closer look at a few of the plates used.

VL 017

BM-H23

MoYou Princess Collection 12

I didn't topcoat this mani even thought I usually have a need to top all mani's....just wasn't in to it at all and didn't want to waste the topcoat!  I finished around 2 am last night and took it off this morning only after it being on my nails a short 6.5 hours.



Please remember that the Digit-al Dozen is currently running an absolutely fantastic giveaway with hundreds of dollars in prizes.  If you haven't entered yet, please do so here!

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


Thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen DOES It Again; Day 8, Animals

I was looking through my plates recently to get ideas for the animal challenge and discovered a super cute animal image.  While I've looked at this plate a dozen times at least, I never noticed this particular image before but as soon as I seen it, I knew I wanted to do my animal challenge mani around it; this is what I came up with!

Started with a base of one coat of Sinful Colors Cool Gray and two coats each of Sation Drama Doll (pink), Maybelline Sweet Clementine (orange) and Sinful Colors Pull Over (yellow), topped with SV.

Stamped using Apipila 03 (pig and tiger), Cheeky Jumbo Plate 9 Wild at Heart (giraffe) and the super cute animals is from MJ XII replacement plate using black Konad special polish.

Added a few random dots using same base colours to accent throughout; topped with SV.

Unfortunately, my little nails don't show a whole lot of the animals so I took a pix of it...and they still don't all show up because the image is larger than the stamper ( I couldn't get it to pick up on any of my XL squishy stampers for some reason). This would be an amazingggggg image to make a stamper decal with, don't you think?  Those little giraffe's are adorable! 

Here's a closer look at MJ XII replacement plate. For those not familiar, the originally shipped MJ XII plate had a couple of misetched designs and MyOnLine Shop sent replacement plates out; the replacement plate had a few slightly different designs.

Here's the other ladies animal mani's.

Thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen, Books; Day 4

Another mani based upon a book I finished not too long ago....can you guess which book this mani is based upon?

It's a book I've had for a while even thought I just finished reading it recently.  I also have the DVD that was based upon the book too, but haven't watched it yet.  I'm kinda funny when it comes to movies that have been based upon books in that I won't watch the movie until I've read the book.  This is for a couple reasons but mainly because I find the book more entertaining than the movie so I want to read the book first so I'm not privy to any spoilers by watching the movie first.  Another reason is there are so many times I've watched a movie and then read the book only to find so many liberties have been taken in the movie that I'm disappointed when I read the book because I'm expecting something else to happen...or maybe this means I'm disappointed in the movie.....if that makes sense!  Sometimes too I have great expectations in the movie as I loved the book and then, the movie is a let down.....looking at you, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown...loved the book...the movie was just so so.  So if I know that a book has a movie based upon it, I generally always read the book first and then watch the movie/DVD.  So this means that I've never watched the Twilight movies (I have the books, just haven't read them yet), Harry Potter series (same...but I have to admit I've seen snippets of the movies here and there while my kids have watched the DVD's), I just finished Time Traveler's Wife last month and while I've had the DVD for ages, just haven't watched it...as I wanted to read the book first!!! lol (makes me sound nuts even typing this!).  In the case of the Time Traveler's Wife; I hope the movie is better than the book! 

So....did you guess......

Started with a base of OPI Bride's Bouquet (two coats) and FingerPaints Black Expressionism (one coat); topped with SV.

Stamped using black and white Konad special polishes using Apipila 03 (ring and thumb) MJ II (pinky), FUN2 (index) and MJ VI (middle).

Topped with SV.

I plan on watching the DVD of The Help over the weekend now that I've finished the book...I hear its pretty good!

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

Thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen, Bling; Day 4

Does this look blingy?  Struggling with the theme of bling, I googled bling to see the definition and to make sure I'm following the theme; in the process, seen bling means flashy too; I think the holo in this mani is pretty flashy...so decided to post this mani as part of bling week!

Started with a base of Jade Holografico Uau! two coats, no topcoat.  This is a polish I lemmed for so long!  I missed a couple restocks on llarowe and I thought I'd never have it in my stash but was able to snag it eventually one of them!  I adore this polish; can't wait to do some Halloween/fall mani's with it several months from now too! I've since picked up a few other orange holo polishes; I could do a comparison some time but don't think I'd have anything to add from what The Crumpet mentioned/compared here.

The first mani that came to mind when I had this polish on was the stamped butterfly wing design.  I'd never used this design before and going over my stamping plates, there are a few different butterfly wing options. 

Apipila 03

NailCraze 01

Vivid Lacquer 002 and 004.

I looked at them all and was trying to figure out what plate(s) would work best for my nails as well as trying to figure out how best they should be placed.  It was a bit of a challenge to be honest; some of the large designs looked too big even for my largest nails but the smaller images, too small for the larger nails like the thumb and middle. After some analysis, I ultimately decided to use the NailCraze plate.  Even when it was stamped, it seemed a little on the large size for my nails or I lined it up wrong, who knows.  Anyway, here's what it looked like after stamping.

Not perfect by any means.  But no worries!  Grabbed a fine brush and just painted in the lines and filled where I thought it should be!

Another pix with different lighting.

Added assortment of white dots with a dotting tool using white Konad special polish. 

I had been given a bottle of HongKong Girl topcoat by one of my local supply places.  It was mentioned by a gal on one of the boards that it dries pretty fast, has high gloss finish, no shrinkage or image smear issues with stamping, so I thought I'd try it.  I must say that I've been sampling it for a few mani's since and haven't had any smear issues nor any shrinkage that I can recall.  But I rarely do anymore with SV either.  I don't think it dries quite as fast as SV but any difference was minimal.

I wore this mani for a few days; here's a pix later when I was outside. These pix look a little better as less black stamping polish at the cuticles lol!

A rare pix of my right hand; for this hand, I used the Apipila plate.

I must say that this mani was very eye catching and flashy; I got a lot of compliments during the time I was sporting these butterfly wings.  This is sure to be a mani I'll be doing again; and maybe then, I'll have figured out how to place the wing stamping a little better...or I'll be filling in with a brush again!

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

Thanks for looking!