Last of the Fall Leaves

I'm stuck at home today; helping my husband troubleshoot our hot tub.  We went in it for the first time in months last weekend only to discover that one of the pumps that control the jets wasn't turning on.  So took the motor in for repair on Monday only to find out it was unrepairable and had to order a new one.  It arrived and the hubs installed it; now the motor won't turn off.  After doing some internet research, we think a relay now has to be installed; in the meanwhile, I'm stuck at home listening to him vent about it.  So I thought I'd work on getting a post up of nails I did back in the fall but didn't get to sharing.

This is a mani I did back in September when it seemed every day I was wearing leaves of some sort on my nails.  So I did some stamping over glitter to change it up a little.  I really liked the base and glitter, but not so much the stamping....anyway, started with a base of two coats of Sally Hansen Earl Gray, topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

Added a layer of Shimmer Polish Alessandra**.  I love this glitter! Such an interesting colour combination of glitters that goes perfectly with so many base colours as well if you wanted to use it as a topper like I did here.  I really liked how the glitters gave an interesting pop of colour on top of the very neutral base!

In hindsight, I wish I had have left the nails like this, but decided to stamp.  Used images from MoYou Mother Nature Collection-07 and HB-21 Stamping polished used were Mundo de Unas in colours 9, 11, 32 and 48.

Topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.  

MoYou Mother Nature Collection-07

AT01; I didn't use this plate, I used HB21 but this plate has the same images except larger.

Comparison between HB-21 and AT-01.

Another size comparison.

I'm not sure what it is about this finished mani that I wasn't feeling; something to do with the stamping as I love the look of Shimmer Alessandra on top of the neutral base.  I definitely will be using Shimmer Alessandra again.

Shimmer Polishes are available here.  I seen on Shimmer Polish's FB site that they are having a Black Friday sale which ends today; the deal is buy 2 get 1 free; use code blackfriday.   

Hope you had a good weekend (better than me having to listen to the hubs grip all weekend); thanks for looking!

**polish provided for review; please see disclosure policy for information

Last of the Fall Mani's...I Think!

I spent some time over the Thanksgiving weekend simply taking in the views of the amazing scenery in cottage country and thought I'd do a mani kinda along the lines of what I seen.  At the bottom of the post are a few pix of some of the scenery too...some are spectacular IMHO.  Unfortunately, my nails are not nearly as gorgeous as some of the landscape, but none the less, here's what I came up with. 

Started with a base of two coats of OPI Don't Talk Bach To Me, shown with tc.

Using SdP 8 and with Konad Brown stamping polish, stamped in the tree trunks for the trees.

  

Using the same SdP plate and assortment of Konad stamping polishes, placed the different colour of bunches of leaves on the branches.

This is what the SdP plate looks like for an idea of what I was doing.

Then continued to individually stamp on the single bunch of leaves from the SdP plate to make the bunches of leaves look bigger.  I didn't have to be too exact for this, as you can see below.  As I went along, I also did some maple leave stampings using the same stamping polishes with plate HB21.

Started working on the other tree as you can see from this pix below.

  

I seen there was a whole lot of space at the top of the trees before it hit my cuticle, so made the bunches of trees a little fuller and taller.  After I did this, I thought the leaf area is so messy that it may have been pointless to do all that individual stamping as it was fairly time consuming and could probably have just sponged on some leaves, but none the less, I just stamped and stamped and stamped to get the leaf effect.

Then painted in the tree trunk with a paint brush to take it down to the tips using the Konad brown stamping polish.

Topped with SV to finish.  After I did the topcoat, I noticed a blue fibre that made it onto my thumb nail when I added the SV...this irked me to no end, let me tell you!  I never even noticed it IRL and didn't see it until I was previewing the shots taken.  I had posted the pix on FB AiS whining about it as well as my lack of photoshopping skills to fix it...and a kind gal there edited it for me, which is the very first pix you see in the post.  Thanks so much again, Christina!

 Here are a few pix that I took over last weekend.

The pix below isn't the most vibrant because it was overcast when it was taken. 

 This pix below, it wasn't the best of the landscaping but thought I'd share as I was fascinated by the size of the cloud in comparison to the trees.

The same general area across the lake but at a different time of day when the reflection in the water was apparent.

Somebody has some raking to do.....! That would be my husband and kids...

Have a great weekend! 

Thanks for looking!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Today is Thanksgiving here in Canada; this is what I've been wearing all long weekend!

Started with skittles of fall appropriate polishes. Going clockwise starting at thumb is L'Oreal The Perfect Trench, China Glaze Desert Sun, OPI Schnapps Out Of It, OPI Don't Talk Bach To Me, and Orly Coffee Break, all two coats.

Image plates used where Blink H50 (turkey on index), Blink H15 (cornucopia), SdP 89 (turkey on middle), HB21 (leaf on ring and thumb), T41 (acorn on index and pumpkin on ring), LLC3 (pie on thumb).

Added a few dots for some colour using assortment of Konad special polishes.

Topped with SV (no pix but first picture). 

Blink H plates can be obtained here.  Nail Art Decoration is located in Indonesia.  When I first contacted them to ask if they would ship to Canada, they responded no, that they only ship within Indonesia.  After emailing them again....begging that they make the plates available for international shipping....they agreed, however, agreed to registered mail and because of this, shipping was on the expensive side.  While I paid $29.20 shipping for 50 plates which is the rate for shipping 1kg or under, I've emailed them a couple times and asked if they would consider a less expensive option for just one plate as I know that other nail fanatics would be interested in just one or two and not necessarily all 50.  They have indicated there is a 500 g shipping option, but I don't know how much that is.  I don't know if it would be cheap enough for just a few plates. I'll update the post if/when I hear back!  The other thing to point out with the plates is that the images are fairly faint; while it is a good stampable image, you have to be quick for transferring and the images are on the smaller side.  The plates themselves weren't terribly expensive at $1.90 each (at least that is what the per plate cost was when I bought all 50 of the Blink H ones.)

Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian nail friends....hope you had a great long weekend...and thanks for looking!

More Fall Nails

This is what my corner of the world looks like now....the leaves are in full colour almost everywhere you go!



I enjoy this time of year....nothing I like better than going for a long drive with the roof down looking at the awesome colour display Mother Nature gives us this time of year. Unfortunately, the weather was terrible over the weekend...when it was sunny, it was really windy and when there was no wind, it was overcast and raining...but hopefully the leaves will stay around a couple more weeks to see the beautiful fall display.

Base colours used starting from thumb and going left to right are: Optic Lusion Pango Charms, Optic Lusion Skipper Dazzler, Sally Hansen Bronze Ruby, Dare2Wear Red Chic 2 Volcanic Lava, and Nubar Arencia.



Unfortunately, unless you've been collecting polishes for a while, I'm surmising these are pretty hard to find (with the exception of the Nubar), unless you stumble across them at a dusty like I did, or swap for them.



Stamped with CND Gold Chrome using fauxnad IP's HB 21, and SdP 14.



While this looked nice enough, I thought it was lacking something, so added a coat of CND Gold Sparkling topcoat which gave the mani just a hint of holo glitter. It's very faint in the pix and maybe next time, I'll use a second coat.



I know from reading some blogs out there that I'm not the only one who enjoys this time of year. Its a toss up to me between fall and spring which season I like best...I love the fall colours but always look at spring as a time for new beginnings....and summer means swimming, boating and other activities I love to do (just not a fan of the excessive heat some days)and winter...well, I really love the scenery after a snowfall (just don't like to drive in it!). I guess I like each season a little for different reasons but I do think fall is probably the best all around for me! Or maybe spring...or....

How do you like fall?

It's Hockey Night In Canada....

...every Saturday night at my house...and here's one for the home team!



My hubby is a huge Toronto Maple Leaf fan and our tv is turned onto the Leafs game every Saturday night...and any other night they happen to be playing!

Base colours are Misa It's Electric and OPI Bride's Bouquet.

Stamped using Beautiful Scratchers white polish and Konad blue special polish using IP fauxnad m56. (This is the same plate that has the Canada flag image on it; I just tried to be specially careful and only stamped the leaf.) I also think a similar image is on fauxnad IPH21.

And then I decided to make it girly!


On the blue, added a light coat of Savvy Touch of Glimmer and over the white, added too many coats to mention of OPI Absolutely Alice and Finger Paints Sapphire Shimmer.

Here's the polishes before stamping:

GO LEAFS GO!!!! I remember as a kid my grandpa watching the game every Saturday night, even if it was on the French channel and he couldn't understand a word-he'd also tune into the radio if it wasn't televised-he was a huge fan too!

This post is dedicated to my husband who is holding out on hopes that Toronto makes it to the playoffs this year!! GO LEAFS GO!!

(I'm sorry to anyone who may not know who the Toronto Maple Leafs are if you are following internationally....they are the local team in the National Hockey League!)

Thx for looking!

Butter London-The Full Monty and HB Plates 21-25

I spent today driving and antiquing in cottage country Ontario-seen lots of amazing fall folliage. Seen lots of forests, lots of lakes-its my favourite time of year! So it was easy to pick the image plate with the leaves on it for this fall mani!

It was a pleasant surprise a couple weeks ago when I went to Holt Renfew one day to get some Lippmann polishes that they also sell Butter London. My wallet wasn't very happy though as they are around $15 each. Anyway, in addition to some standard line polishes, I was able to get the recently released Victoriana, The Full Monty, Marrow, All Hail McQueen and a few others.

After swatching a few polishes to see what I was going to use for my fall leaf mani, I decided to use The Full Monty as the base colour. This first image is one coat and no clean up as the daylight was quickly fading and I wanted to capture a quick pix.



This next pix is two coats and then a coat of Essie Matte About You. I've tried most of the matte makers on the market; I by far like this one best as it gives the most matte! Pix isn't great as daylight was slowly fading....



Then stamped! Using fall leaves from image plate HB21! I used all Konad special polishes for stamping! And of course the red maple leaf had to be front and centre as, well, I am Canadian! A little subliminal tribute to my heritage....

This mani was a little challenging for me-a lot of cleanup of the scraper and the image plate as so many different colours were used, and so many times stamped using multiple colours. But I was happy with the end result.

Here's pix of the image plates-I'm loving all the image plates from 21-40. I so can't wait to use the coffee plates-nothing that I love more than my Tim Horton's triple triple! You know are a reguler when the ladies at the counter have your order ready before you order! And your dinner guests brings a fresh timmies instead of wine to dinner!

Feel free to click on pix for better image of plate!





(edit: I forgot to include hb24 in original post! Oops)

I want to add more pictures but I'm on the road again to see more beautiful fall folliage!

Thanks for looking!