Happy Thanksgiving!

This is the long Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada and this is the mani I've been wearing all weekend.



The base colours used were Essie Barbuda Banana layered with one coat of Savvy Femme Couture Banarama (yellow nails); D2W Red Chic 2 Volcanic Lava layer with one coat of Savvy Femme Couture Orange You Happy (orange) and Miss B Rainbow unnamed brown colour.



I searched my plate stash and couldn't believe that there are no turkey image plates so during the week, I sourced all my local supply places and finally, at one store, found a couple of old packs of water decals. Stamped with Konad special polishes in Cool Red, Deep Jungle, Pastel Orange and Yellow using SdP D20 (maple leaves), fauxnad F (other leaves) and T41 (pumpkin and leave swirl above the turkey) image plates along with the water decals.



I've been having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend...the weather all weekend has been absolutely beautiful. I had my Thanksgiving turkey dinner on Saturday as we are in the process of closing up our weekend place for the season so wanted to have Sunday and Monday free to do the things we need to do (not that we want to do it because the weather has been so awesome!). Both my parents and my in laws joined us for dinner and everyone seemed to have a wonderful time.

Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians....and hopefully you will enjoy this mani even if you aren't celebrating!

Sampling My Franken!

I frankened a stamping polish!



I've been thinking about manis I have kinda tucked in the back of my head and was looking for a stamping polish that had the glow of Nicole by OPI Give Me the 1st Dance, but a darker, more charcoal colour. I couldn't think of polish in my stash that had the look I was wanting (maybe Chanel Graphite, but do you really want to be doing a whole lot of stamping with a $30 bottle of polish? And speaking of Graphite..I'll have to check my bottle to see if I accidentally duped it...hmmmm.....) So anyway, I decided to attempt a franken. It's in the bottle I'm holding in the pix below.

I already knew I liked the sparkle of the stamping from Nicole by OPI Give Me the 1st Dance and knew it stamped well, so poured about a third of a bottle into an empty one. Then added WnW Black Creme a few drops at a time until I got the desired colour I was looking for. Voila! A franken stamping polish is born! I was pretty happy with the results. And while I was at it, I decided to attempt a red version....my first attempt looks a tad darker than I'm wanting, more raspberry than red at this point, so its still a work in progress. I bought more polishes to use for frankening to see what else I can come up with....also switched the silver base to SH Celeb City as it has the same glowy sparkle but a fraction of the price....it doesn't stamp quite as well as Nicole by OPI, but the results are decent enough...especially when you're only wearing your mani for a day or two!

Because I spent half most of my free time making the frankens, I quickly did this mani to test drive my stamping polish. Started with base coat of OPI DC Charged Up Cherry; two coats.

Stamped using Big SdP C with my charcoal franken (I'll call it Franken #1 as I'm not terribly creative!). Its a plate I've used before but was mainly just wanting to do a mani quickly to see how the franken looked for stamping.


Lastly, jazzed it up a bit with some dots using Konad black special polish.


The next morning at the crack of dawn, I took this pix. This is pretty much how it looks IRL. I love how sparkly and glowy the stamping polish is....can't wait to use it again!


I know this is pretty simplistic compared to the beautiful polishes that more serious frankeners come up with, but it seems like it will be perfect for what I have in mind for stamping...and I hope I can replicate the glowy results in other colours!

Thanks for looking!

China Glaze Velvet Bow from 2011 Let It Snow Collection

I have a swap pal in the Netherlands...we're in the middle of getting polishes together for our 4th swap. She messaged me a week or so ago saying she's been looking for a classy looking brown/red polish...not to lean too red or too brown. Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of these colours is my stash as I'm just not a fan of these dark, vampy colours on me....I made a couple suggestions like Essie Mack and Essie Masquerade Belle. Then I remembered I just picked up the China Glaze Let it Snow Collex and thought one of the polishes from it, Velvet Bow, may fit what she's looking for so I swatched it for her.



While this is appropriate for the fall weather we've been having, this isn't a colour I wear on a regular basis, especially on its own, so I started looking through my stash to see what I could layer it with....then I remembered picking up the CND 2011 Fall/Winter set that included 24K Sparkle and thought it may funky up Velvet Bow at bit. This is one coat.



It still looked kinda dark so I decided to stamp over top of it...and this is more my style of what I would wear if I had to wear a dark vampy colour!



Used CND Gold Chrome polish for stamping using fauxnad IP's SdP B10 (trailing rose and french tip roses) and SdP D19 (single rose on pinky and index). I funkied it up (is funkied a word? lol!) by placing the rose image upside down and right side up....I think if I was to redo this, I would place all images right side up like the thumb but don't mind how this looks at all. I shortened my nails recently and filed them more square than I usually do as I'm wanting to try some more funky french mani's so did a french tip with a band of roses on IP SdP B10 to practise my french tipped placement.



I so adore the old English roses feel of the cascading of the leaves on the image on the thumb. This pix you also get a better look at how the CND 24K Sparkle looks as it doesn't seem terribly noticeable in some of these pix. I wonder what it looks like on lighter colours? (Plots another mani!)



Do you think China Glaze Velvet Bow fits the description of a classy brown/red, not leaning too red or brown? If not, do you have another suggestion for my swap pal? Nothing too htf as I have to go searching for it!



Thanks in advance for your thoughts and thanks too for looking!

PS: I haven't forgotten that my Birthday Giveaway has ended....I've been busy verifying the number of eligible votes and everything else that goes along with hosting a give way and will announce the results soon!

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?

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!

Are White and Skittles OK After Labour Day?

After the last 3...or is it 4 or 5? dark manis, I thought I had better break out some brighter colours...and colourful this is!



Starting at the thumb and going left to right, colours used are: OPI Purple with a Purpose, Misa Hanging With the Girls, OPI No Room for the Blues, OPI Jade is the New Black, and OPI Don't Know...Beets Me! All are two coats. The Misa yellow polish, I could have done a third just to even it out a bit, but knew I was going to stamp over it so left it at two.



Not exactly neon skittles or anything and somewhat darker, subdued skittles for fall (except that yellow which looks really bright!)....but is there such a thing as subdued skittles? :) Maybe pastel skittles, but I don't think this would qualify as subdued lol! In fact, these skittles got a lot of attention when I was out and about doing errands this morning. Everyone loved it and I got a lot of compliments on it....and I think I may have turned a few gals onto stamping who were facinated with what was on my nails! It was kinda odd being at the teller in not one but two banks telling several ladies gathered around the booth the basic concept of what is stamping and how to do it, where to buy supplies locally and online, answering all their questions, giving them names to google, you tube etc etc. Not the first time I've done this either....my nails are a travelling billboard for stamping! lol!

Stamped with Konad white special polish using Big Sdp I plate.



After I did the stamping, I thought it lacked something.....and while I really wanted to stamp an image over top of this in a solid image in a colour like black, at 1:40 am when doing my nails last night (correction, this morning!) , I guess the creative side of my brain was already asleep so I ultimately decided to add a coat of Cover Girl Goddess which happen to be sitting out at my nail station.



Thank you to a awesome swap pal for introducing this great polish into my life as it's a perfect holo glitter when you want a little holo sparkle, but not too much.



I'm not sure if I'll have another post before my birthday giveaway ends on October 1st so last call to go here if you want to check it out! And thank you again to everyone who has commented on the form...I've been reading them all and your feedback is appreciated!

Thanks for looking!

Misa Working Hard or Hardly Working...Does it Work for You?

I just realized that my last few mani's have been on the dark side...black sparkle, grey/black matte, dark purple sparkle and now grey. When I did some of these mani's, there was some beautiful sunny weather so it's not like the weather is dictating what's on my nails. It just seems that these are the colours that my eye is gravitating to lately so I hope these dark mani's aren't boring you!



This is the mani I did a couple nights ago. Base is Misa Working Hard or Hardly Working; two coats.



While this grey is a good neutral base for stamping and I would consider using it again, I had a hard time managing the brush for the application. I'm surmising I just got a bottle with a bad brush as I've used Misa polishes several times before and never had a problem.

Stamped with Konad black and white special polishes using IP Big SdP I.


Just to be a little different, added LA Girl Glitter Addict Uninhibited on the thumb. This is one of the polishes included as part of my current giveaway here.



Just before topping the mani off with SV, added accent dots using the black and white special polish.


Here's a rare pix of my right hand. Just thought I'd share as its a slightly different look.


So does this mani work for you? lol! It does for me!

It's getting down to the wire for my giveaway which ends on October 1st. If you're interested in checking it out, please go here!

Thanks for looking!