I've Got the Blues...

...on my nails, that is!

China Glaze Bahamian Escape was one of the polishes my DD used last weekend when she did her nails....as I was putting it away, I thought why not do a mani in it too? This is what I came up with!



Two coats of Bahamian Escape.



Topped with one fairly thick coat of Island Girl Island Volcano. Island Girl polishes aren't available in my area but I was fortunate enough to receive a few of them from a gal who had visited Las Vegas, who cp'd them for me as part of a swap we worked out. I was really surprised how thick and goopy Island Volcano was...is this normal? I had to add quite a bit of thinner just to make it workable to put on my nails.



But I must have thought the end result was very cool as I took an awful lot of pictures of it!






Stamped with an assortment of plates using white Konad special polish...QA 17 on thumb, QA18 on index, Konad m79 on middle , Konad M79 on pinky and Big SdP F on ring finger.



Added dots in every colour under the rainbow using an assortment of polishes! Lastly, topped with a coat of SV.



When I finished this mani, I thought it looked more appropriate for spring or Easter, but oh well...I can always do something along these lines again if I feel like it then! While I did this mani a few days ago, my current NOTD is also blue...so I guess you'll be seeing another blue mani posted in the next little while!

Hope you had a great weekend...and thanks for looking!

Playing with Old Dusty Polishes

I'm sure you're tired of me commenting how I'm getting more into layering recently...and trying to combine a cool layering combination with some interesting stamping. So not too long ago, I spent a bit of time (who am I kidding...a lot of time!) in one of my local dusties riffling through the bins looking for polishes that I thought could be interesting for layering. This is the result of a few of my finds.



I'm not a terribly creative or visual person; I can't look at polishes and think, well this will look cool with that on top...my brain just doesn't see those unique layering possibilities...so I spent a couple of hours...yes, hours...at the store, picking up the polishes, shaking them up, tilting them, looking at them in different angles and lighting...I'm sure the sales ladies thought I was a little kooky! Good thing it was a place that I frequent often and they know me well as 'that polish lady'...nothing annoys me more then when I'm hurried along in my polish shopping when looking at polishes...typically the smaller beauty shop supply places that watch over me when I'm in the store like I'm a shoplifter...I hate that!

Anyway, these were a few of my purchases....blah in a bottle I tell you!




And my experimenting when I got home. Um, I guess I bought quite a few bottles, eh? Lol!





All I can say is thank goodness these look so blah in the bottle...which I'm sure is why these older polishes are so plentiful in my area...because I'm sure if everyone could visualize their gorgeousness when layered, everyone would have snatched them up already! I'm not sure how well you can see this, but if you look in the very far left hand corner, you'll see my swatch of a cool, glitter polish I found with diamond shaped glitter in it...it was terribly goopy and thick when I bought it, but came back nicely with some thinner. I've yet to use it on a mani though.

After I finished playing with them and decided which polishes to use, I started my mani using one coat of Wet n Wild Black Creme.



Did the layering using the selected dusty polishes.



Bottle pix of the polishes I used for this mani. A couple of these had more colour than the rest of the blah in a bottle ones, but they were too sheer for my liking without doing a lot of coats, which is why I picked them up for layering. These are the five bottles I used for my mani; the first one is on the middle finger (Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Lemon Lime), the second on the thumb (Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Hot Magenta), the third on the pinky (Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Nylon, Balance Fr., colour #4363-12; has a 12 on the top of the lid), fourth on index (Sally Hansen Hard as Nails New Lengths Ceramics, Sheer Glisten, colour no. 6212-01 and has a 01 on top of lid) and the last one was on the ring finger (Rimmell 60 Seconds, Pulsating)**.



Then stamped using Black Konad special polishes with QA 17.


I'm not sure if you can see this well, but the stamping polish kinda shrunk and cracked after I stamped on the middle finger, which you can see in the above pix right at the tip. But I just touched it up with a bit of polish and you can't even tell in the pix below.



So simple and cool....I can't wait to try out more of these dusty finds including seeing how they look over colours other than black!

Thanks for looking!

**Post was edited to include names of polishes on nails (Feb 24 2012).

Happy New Year's Eve!!

This is my New Year's Eve mani.



Wayyyy more exciting than my plans...sitting home with the hubs watching tv.

Started with two coats of Wet n Wild Black Creme. One coat is pretty opaque but I find for me that two evens it out a little better.



Stamped using China Glaze IDK using fauxnad image plates QA 17 (random stars on accent finger) and QA 18 (full size image of stars on rest of fingers).



I learned about these plates after either seeing KD image plates on Spellbinding's blog or getting an email from SarahLouise...can't remember now! The KD image plate seller had a few of the QA plates but when I was surfing ebay, I seen another seller more local (US) AND for a better price selling the whole set so ultimately, after asking if the seller would ship to me in Canada, I ended up buying them from here **. If you go to the bottom of the listing, you'll see better pix of all the plates. I've used these QA plates a few times since I got them (maybe five plates now) and any I've used work well. I picked up the XL K plate as well. I believe the listing indicates that there is no international shipping; however, I emailed and asked anyway...no harm in asking is always my motto! The seller agreed and for a reasonable price (under $6 I think). When I emailed back saying my order had arrived safe and sound, the seller replied indicating that international shipping will be considered if requested.



The plastic covering on these plates is a breeze to remove as well. The other great thing about this ebay seller is that they also have 20 of the A series image plates for $45. I think of how much I paid for them when they were only available from Europe...ouch!

This is how my package arrived...super cute eh? The seller even sent a couple extra image plates and stickers!





Have a fantastic New Year's Eve...regardless if you are like me and staying in or out revelling in the New Year!

All the best to you in 2012!!!

**Please note that I paid the invoiced amount in full for my plates. I do not endorse nor promote this website/etailer other than I am passing on the info of where I got them to those who may wish to know. I have no affiliation with any company and received no compensation for promotion of these products, nor am I promoting them...just letting fellow stamping addicts where they may be obtained should they be interested!