Light Over Dark

This weeks FB Adventures in Stamping challenge was light stamping over dark.  Here's what I came up with.



Started with a base coat of New York Summer Hot Purple, three coats, no topcoat.



This is two coats for comparison.  I probably could have left at two coats if I wasn't taking pix as it did have pretty good coverage IRL and the VNL wasn't as obvious.



Topped with a coat of KBShimmer Hex Appeal.



This is Hex Appeal bottle pix.



Stamped with light gray Konad special polish using VL 001.  I chose this image specifically so the glitter from Hex Appeal would be visible underneath.



While I didn't mind the look of this, I decided to add random flowers on top using pink Beautiful Scratchers special polish using XL F; topped with SV.  Even with the additional flowers, you can still see the glitter underneath which was cool!



I got my bottle of KBShimmer from Harlow & Co. as KBShimmer does not offer international shipping of nail polish.

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

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!

Top o' the mornin' to ya!

This is the last St. Patrick's Day mani I'm going to share until next year!



Started with a base of Zoya Veruschka.



Added Icing Evergreen to start a gradient.



Then Midie No. 4, which is a lighter green glitter with various sizes of glitter versus the fine, darker glitter of Evergreen.



Here's a bottle shot of Midie No. 4. I'm glad I stumbled across these at a little shop not too far from my house....pretty, but they are certainly on the smelly side.



Stamped using CND Gold Chrome using the various size of clovers on XL F and BM03 for the accent middle finger. (It seems I forgot to upload a pix of the mani at this point and I've already deleted the pix from my camera so no shot of the mani in progress here!)

With all this glitter action, I knew I had to matte this mani...so a coat of Essie Matte About You was added.



Then I remembered how chippy matte mani's are.....so added a topcoat of SV. This is how I wore my nails when I was out and about...but I much prefer the matte look.



Have a fantastic St. Patrick's Day! Thanks for looking!

Pot of Gold At the end of the Rainbow

Green isn't one of my favourite colours...so I had to be a little creative coming up with a St. Patrick's Day mani without painting green on every nail. I thought of a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow would be a little colourful...here's what I came up with.



Base polishes used starting at thumb are OPI What's Dune? over two coats of OPI Bride's Bouquet, then Catherine Arley 803, Catherine Arley 674, Catherine Arley 673 and Catherine Arley 800, all two coats except 674 which was three. Finally cracked open my Catherine Arley's after all this time.



Stamped rainbows onto the nails using KleanColor black with plate Big SdP A.



My stamping failed me at the top of the middle finger plus a few other spots so I took a fine brush and hand painted in the lines. Not a fantastic job, but passable....from a distance!



Then I hand painted the cauldron for the pot of gold....this is why I don't do free hand art! lol! I stamped a shamrock too using XL F using A-England Saint George but it stamped fainter than I wanted so I did hand painted another coat of the polish over the design freehand.



Added a dab of Color Club Gingerbread Man for the gold.



Then decided a wanted some gold coins; used Nubar gold glitters and put them in the pot.



To prevent the faint holo from fading even more, I used a light coat of Sally Hansen Clear Hardener which is suppose to not kill the holo...not that it mattered in this case as the scattered holo is so faint to begin with. It was interesting to see that I had a little drag on the areas I hand painted....not sure why as the coat of SH was thin plus a good amount of time had passed since I had drawn in the lines.




Thanks for looking!

More Layering

I've been experimenting with layering for the last little while. Just here and there, adding a topcoat or some glitter or the like.....no super fantastic layering combinations like I've seen out there on the blogesphere as I'm just not that creative to envision this...but more so, just a little accent to give a little umph to the base polish...and trying to pair it with a stamping image that you can still see the results! Sometimes that's more of a challenge than the layering of the polishes; while I have lots of plates to chose from, my time is sometimes limited to pick out an interesting or appropriate image that will still highlight the polish combinations. Anyway, here's what I came up with last night.



Started with a base of Misa Pay Days are Happy Days; two coats.



Layered with a coat of LA Girl Rock Star Double Platinum. I've been itching to try this polish out; so happy I did! Glitter and Holo = win/win!



Using Big SdP H plate, added french tips using Konad Black special polish and Big SdP N for the full plate accent nail. Both the tip and full plate image of these designs are available filled in or outlined.... I'm sure there's a technical name for this! But it is neat that there are both options for both the french and full plate designs in this design.



Decided to add another image for nail filler; stamped with Konad black special polish using an image from plate XL F.



Topped with SV.



Hope you're having a great week! Thanks for looking!

Minnie Mouse

I've had the idea of this mani in my mind for a while now...along with a lot of other ones!....but sometimes I just have to be in the mood for a certain mani....sometimes its just a matter that I don't have much time to put what I'm thinking about together (actually, this happens more often than not!) or my nails aren't long enough....or they are too long....or I want to wear holo but it's not calling for sunshine....sometimes I have a work function that dictates more tame nails versus whimsical or colourful (although I am pretty lucky that I can pretty much wear anything 99.9% of the time).....in any event, I decided to put together a Minnie Mouse themed mani a couple nights ago and this is what I came up with.



Base colours used are WetnWild Black Creme (1 coat), OPI Red My Fortunate Cookie (red-2 coats) and OPI Kiss on the Chic (pale pink-4 or 5 coats; I lost track!). While I was looking for the pale blush hint of pink for this mani, if I had have known it would take so many coats to be opaque, I would have picked another polish or put a base of a nude neutral on for underwears....and in hindsight after seeing the end result, I would have chosen a white base on these fingers just to keep it with three colours versus four...oh, well...there's always next time!



Stamped using Konad white and black special polishes using IP's SdP 16 (Minnie Mouse face), XL F (flowers in variety of sizes) and CG 06 (full length Minnie).



Added a few dots using Konad white, black and red special polishes. I was pleasantly surprised that the red dot showed up so well on the black base. I'm really digging the look of the nails with red and black bases...the bold look of the red, black and white together...I'm sure will be used for another mani in the future!



As some of the dots were pretty heavy, I waited about 15 minutes to allow them to dry before topping the mani off with a coat of SV as I didn't want to have SV drag. Nothing more disappointing than having polish drag on your newly finished mani because of this...unfortunately, I've been there many times :(



I'm not sure if you can tell from these last two pix, but topping the mani off with a top coat really makes the stamping *pop* (just look at the two Minnie faces on each pix to see the difference with and without SV) as well as smooths out the stamping image. Topcoat also makes the image stamping last longer...I am only pointing this out in case you don't already top your stamping as I never when I first started out!

Tonight at midnight is the end of my current giveaway.....if you have not already checked it out and want to, please do so here!

Hope you have a fabulous weekend....and thx for dropping by!

Essie Bungle Jungle

I don't know about you, but I have a hard time picking out what polish to wear most days. Hard to believe when I have so many polishes but still feel that I can't find something to put on. And as I seem to favour pinks and purples, I try to mix it up or otherwise, I'd be wearing them every day!



Anyway, my last mani, I picked out Essie Bungle Jungle for no other reason that it seemed to go with the dress I had planned on wearing to work the following day. Then stamped using fauxnad XL F using white Konad special polish.



Lately, I can't see to leave my mani's alone without adding some glitter, so I added some dots and glitter. Here's with just the dots.



Essie Bungle Jungle by itself; two coats.



I hope to have a chance to finish getting everything together to announce the winners of the giveaway, which should be included in my next post! Thx for your patience...and for looking!

Ode to A Beautiful Day!

What beautiful weather we had today! I woke up to the sound of birds singing in the tree outside by bedroom window, it was sunny, beautiful and bright and to top it off, I seen my first robin of the year when I walked out the front door!

The beautiful spring weather was the inspiration of this mani; wanted bright and fun and it to scream: SPRING IS FINALLY HERE!!!!

Two coats of Paints Chrysanthe-Mum's The Word stamped using IP XL F, and Konad m57, using Konad special polishes in psyche pink and white.

Here's mani in progress: FingerPaint Chrysanthe-Mum's The Word by itself.

Then the stamping.

I was going to leave it at this but decided to try my hand at dotting....haven't done a whole lot and kudos to anyone who does manis with a lot of dots as its not as easy as it looks! At least, it wasn't for me!!

I hope you are having a fantastic weekend and are seeing some nice weather like me!

Thanks for looking!

So Many Coats of Polish!

I cannot believe that by the time I finished this mani this morning, I had so many coats of polish/basecoat topcoat, on! 10 on most fingers; 11 on the one with the stamp. Started with a quick coat of SH Nail Quencher as I wanted to see if there is any nail improvement using it; then my usual coat of Instant Artificials, then an unbelieveable 4 coats of New York Summer Hot Sky Blue polish-this is so sheer! I would have used underwears had I known! Next time will do nude underwears for sure...then a coat of SH QD in red bottle, then one coat of Revlon Galaxy. Wasn't happy with one coat as some fingers had no hex glitter so second coat just to get a few. Topped with another coat of QD. Here's what it looked like when I was done.

Here's a couple different images. This is four coats the four coats of NYS Hot Sky Blue by itself. It dries kinda matte.

Then added a coat of QD to give a bit of shine.

Two coats of Revlon Galaxy. I really only wanted a little glitter as I planned on stamping it afterwards but didn't get any hex glitter on some nails the first time so had to do a second coat. I'm pretty sure this is when my nails got really thick. Look there-its like I got acrylics!! I had to laugh at myself. Added one last coat of QD and then off to bed.

Thats some serious layerage! LOL!!

This morning, I stamped before heading out the door. I was amazed how much shrinkage I had, given I used the red bottle of SH QD and didn't use SV at all! I've been using SH QD for a few manis now and haven't had any shrinkage so was really surpirsed. Still kinda disappointing when you see this when you wake up. Anyway, quickly did a stamp on accent finger with Nicole by OPI Postive Energy using IP XL F.

I really liked the NYS polish with the jelly finish but would use underwears for sure as I'm not too fond of VNL plus don't have time for four coats of polish for a mani. But all in all, I don't mind the look of it-really like the tealish blue of the polish with the glitter-just wish there wasn't so much shrinkage. Oh well, just an excuse to redo my nails tonight!

Thx for looking!

Happy St. Patrick's Day Eve!

Yes, here's yet another St. Patrick's Day mani...



Two coats of Essie Going Incognito on all fingers but ring finger, which has one coat, then topped with one coat Jade Emerald Sparkle. The above pix was taken in late afternoon sunlight just a few minutes ago.


This pix was taken last night after I finished mani.

Stamped using IP XL F (again, I know!) using China Glaze L8R G8R for the stamp. I really liked the subtle look of the stamping against the Essie polish and in hindsight, wished I had have done all five fingers in Going Incognito, or used my thumb as the accent nail. Oh well, maybe for next year!

Here's before stamping....



I'm sure everyone is tired of the re-creation of the shamrock on the XL F plate-I hope to do one more mani, hopefully something different!

Thx for looking!

OPI Aragon Suede for St. Paddy's Day Mani..

THIS was the polish I was searching for last time for a St. Patricks Day mani. After some stash searching, it was in my hands.



After two coats of the polish, stamped with China Glaze Cheers to You and Nicole by OPI Positive Energy. I was fooling around with some polishes to see hwo they stamped and discovered Cheers to You worked not bad for stamping...and so did Midnight Kiss...they were slightly glittery; different that the sharp silver contract with my prefered go-to silver, Positive Energy.



Image plates used were XL F and BM03...unfortunately, there aren't a great deal of St. Paddy's image plates out there to chose from, so these were used again!

Here's OPI Aragan Suede by itself....


Lastly, as I didn't want to have to deal with a chipped, matte mani, decided to add a quick topcoat of CND Silver sparkle.


In real life, the silver sparkle isn't so obvious and you can still see the stamping but this doesn't relay in the pix!



I guess St. Patrick's Day is coming up! I'm not Irish, but love themed manis so thats why I've been doing them...do you have one planned? I know I've seen some great ones in the blogesphere....and its always so interesting to see everyone's interpretation of the day!

Thanks for looking!