Queen of Hearts

I am starting this post off by stating just how much I love the Alice in Wonderland directed by Tim Burton. In fact I just got done watching it again <3

For this mani I started off with one of OPI's newest Designer Series polishes, DS Indulgence. I absolutely love the golden sparkle in this polish. It is so unbelievably jewel-like and pictures do not do it any justice whatsoever.

If you are wondering why you cannot see my pinky nail here it is because I stamped on it and then realized that I hadn't taken swatch photos yet. Silly me. Here is a photo of the first layer of stamping on my nails done with Wet'n'Wild Black Creme and Mash plate 12.

I then stamped with Cheeky plate CH3 in Black Creme on my ring finger and my franken Sugar & Spice on my index and middle fingers as well as my thumb. I then used Sugar & Spice and Mash plate 19 on my pinkies and used Sally Hansen XtremeWear White On and a striping brush to put a line delineating the stamped/non-stamped portions of the three nails with partial stamping.

I had the hardest time getting my extra-large stamper to pick up those blasted hearts. I ended up having to go back to my original stamper in order to get the polish to transfer.

Fashion's Night Out Nails

How many of you attended Fashion's Night Out? Did you know that the event isn't only located in NYC? That's right! There are 16+ countries with cities and towns that hold FNO events all over the world! And I'm lucky enough to live in one of those towns! Ok, so it wasn't anything near the extravaganza of NYC but it was still fun and who doesn't love an excuse to dress up?

And of course I had to do something special with my nails! Luckily I had gotten my BOGO promo order from Zoya the week before so I had some new pretties to play around with. I chose Zoya Dakota as a base color. I love how glossy this polish is even without topcoat!

Taken indoors, no flash. 2 coats of polish, no topcoat.

Taken outdoors, 2 coats of polish with topcoat.

Then I used Essie As Good as Gold for a funky french tip:

Taken indoors with flash

And stamped with the same using Cheeky Jumbo Plate H:

 Taken indoors with flash.

Taken in full sun

I kind of wish I had stopped there but I had really wanted to use Zoya Katherine also since, you know NYFW 2012 collection, it was FNO, yada yada yada. Oh well, here's what my nails looked like layered with one coat of Katherine:

Still pretty, but not as blingy as before. So when you make a boo boo what do you do? Add glitter! I used Sonoma Polish Clockwork on the tips to bring that bling feel back:

Ahhhhh! Much better! 

And what is FNO without some swag? There were no freebies in town but I did find a store with butter London polishes and 20% off everything in the store!

 From Evergreen Pottery

 Tramp Stamp and Dodgy Barnett from Macey's

Facinator, scarf and a back-up tin of Smith's Rosebud Salve from The Village Emporium

So how about you? Did any of you have fun during FNO? Tell me all about it!

Where holo you been all my life?

So you know how I mentioned the Jade holos in my last post? Yeah, well, I kinda went and bought two of them not long after. LOL! I bought Magia Negra and Vermehlo Surreal from the lovely ladies at Ninja Polish and let me tell you, these two polishes are GORGEOUS! Better yet, I'll even SHOW you!

First up is Vermehlo Surreal, two coats with top coat, in full sun:

And with a gradient of OPI DS Extravagance on the tips, also full sun:

And Magia Negra, two coats with top coat, taken indoors in full sun:

Some people have said the Jade holos don't play well with base coat or top coat but I had no issues applying them over my usual base of OPI Nail Envy nor any loss of the holographic effect when I put Out the Door top coat over it.

You might be wondering what I did for my second day wearing Magia Negra since, if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know I can never leave a mani alone for the second day.

I decided to layer the two Jades.

That's right, I layered a coat of Vermehlo Surreal over my existing mani of Magia Negra. Then I stamped a small design with Wet'n'Wild Black Creme. Is it as spectacular as it sounds? I'll let you be the judge ;)

And it even matched the dress I wore that day! What a stroke of luck!

Bridal White

Summer is just around the corner and we are smack dab in the middle of wedding season! In fact my own wedding anniversary is in just a few days! This mani I'm showing you today is also inspired by one of my spa clients last week who requested white polish for both her fingernails and her toenails. It looked so fabulous with her skin tone also!

I started with the only white I have, NYC French Tip White. Nothing fancy but I got full coverage with two coats.

Then I stamped with two frankens I had just made: Rooibos, a delicious orange-red, and Sugar & Spice, a frosty gold with hidden flecks of copper. With Sugar & Spice I stamped a lacy curve at the base of my nails using Cheeky plate CH23 and then used Mash-25 for the ring finger. Using Rooibos I stamped a key on my ring finger and a lock on my thumb using this plate, and two tiny roses, also on my thumb, from Cheeky CH14.

And if you think these two frankens look good stamped just wait until my next post when I show you swatches!

Just Spotted a Gradient

Last year so many people were going gaga over Chanel Peridot that my anti-popularity filter went into overdrive. I hate feeling like part of a mob when something gets popular, thus my dislike of Brittany Spears, the Backstreet Boys, and why it took me so many years before I finally broke down and read the Harry Potter books. The price tag was a big contributor to my antipathy towards the color as well. I mean, really, $26?

Fortunately there are a few companies now that have come out with duplicates, the latest of these being OPI with Just Spotted the Lizard from the company's newly released Spiderman collection. Obviously I don't own Chanel Peridot myself but I've seen some rather convincing comparison photos.

I think you've probably figured out by now that my mani for today's post has to do with OPI Just Spotted the Lizard. I was fortunate enough to snag a bottle this weekend before the OPI booth sold out of it.

 Two coats, full sun

Two coats, shade

It really is a lovely duochrome. I'm just glad I didn't have to spend anywhere near $26 for it! Rather wishing I hadn't filed my nails quite so far down for work however. Oh well, they'll grow back. Now at some point with this mani I knew I wanted to add a gradient but I decided to do a little stamping first to add a bit more visual interest.

 Stamping with Chameleon Waltz, artificial light and flash

Indirect lighting

And then I added the gradient with the same polish as the stamping, Chameleon Waltz.

 With flash

Indirect lighting

Such a pity there's no sun today, I'd love to get a better photo of the lovely blue-purple duochrome of Waltz. Unfortunately it just doesn't seem to photograph well in indirect lighting.

Berry Sweet

Wow, life sure got busy for a bit there! BUT, I am back and ready for some more posting! I have also realized something that makes me very excited: the OPI Nail Envy I have been using has really been working! What used to be nubbins on my index and middle fingers have now finally grown past my fingertips and beyond! I now promise to do my best to keep all my nails to the same length unless a) I break a nail - I refuse to sacrifice hard won length for an accident, and b) with the exception of my pinky nail which I have always preferred to keep longer than my other nails anyway.

So, now that we have that established on to something a bit more fun for the rest of you: nail art! A couple weeks ago BerryPolished had a nail art contest over on her facebook page with a theme of, what else, berries. I had a couple ideas that ended up not working out due to malfunctioning stamping plates but I really like the idea I ended up going with (that I totally cam up with on the fly the day before the end of the contest).

I started with two coats of L'Oreal How Romantic:

I then stamped over that with Zoya Kate using Cheeky plate CH3. And yes, the unfinished look is deliberate . . . mostly.

Then I used L'Oreal Haute Couture Red and Cheeky plate CH13 to add strawberries, and Zoya Yara with CH26 to add a bit of contrast while keeping with the country garden look.

And that is what I was GOING to submit to the contest until the second day of wearing the design. You should know me well enough by now, if you've been following along for a bit, that I can't leave anything alone. Almost any design can be improved upon and this was no exception. Well I went and added a coat of Wet n Wild Hallucinate over top of it all and loved it so much that I just had to submit that version instead.

Isn't it just so cute! I absolutely love how this turned out and I also love that my nails are now long enough to really show off cute designs like this <3

Blue, Bronze, and Read all Over

For some reason I've been really attracted to dusty blues and greens this season, so when I saw Zoya Bevin I just knew I had to get her. Such a lovely shade of dusty turquoise <3 And of course application was a breeze as I've come to expect from Zoya. The photo below is two coats with top coat and taken in indirect lighting.

Just a couple weeks ago I realized that I had never posted a newsprint mani on my blog, nor had I worn one in quite some time so I decided that was just what I was going to do with Bevin. Now you might be thinking that this color is too dark for a newsprint mani, and to be honest I was a little nervous about that myself, but it turns out that Bevin is perfect! I also decided to put a different twist on the usual newsprint mani and applied the newspaper to my nails so the the words went down the length of them rather than across.

Then I used Mash plate 09 with Borghese Riviera Sunset. I wanted to put the stamp right up next to my cuticle but it didn't work out very well so I decided to just go crazy and put the stamp everywhere and anywhere all over my nails. I rather like how it turned out actually.

 before cleanup

If you've never done a newsprint mani before I recommend trying one, they're super easy! All you need is newspaper (I used an article about chocolate deserts, you can see the word "chocolate" on one of my nails above), a shallow dish with alcohol (rubbing alcohol works just fine but some people like using vodka), and fingernails with a medium to light creme-finish polish.

Cut the newspaper into pieces just larger than your nails. Then dip the paper into the alcohol, position it on a nail, and press evenly across the paper for 10-30 seconds. Peel the paper off and voila! Remember to put a top coat on or the ink will rub right off.

Treasure Box Nails

Here's a post I've been sitting on for a while. And guess what, it features yet another franken! I hope you aren't getting sick of the franken posts quite yet, I'm just starting to discover how much fun frankening can be with pigments, not just polishes. But this particular franken was made just from other polishes (nameless blue-grey, WnW red creme, CG Nailslicks Dark Denim). I call it Look East at Sunset.

Two coats and top coat, full sun

Apologies for the lack of clean up here but I was intending on stamping immediately after and didn't want to waste time and energy doing clean up twice. I chose Zoya Trixie for stamping and let me tell you, that is an EXCELLENT stamping polish! Since all I have for stamping plates is the MASH set I didn't have any true full-coverage designs so I chose to double stamp. I used Mash-02 for the upper part of the nail and Mash-08 for the rest.

I then layered two coats of Finger Paints Twisted over the top:

Wow! Look at that sparkle! I absolutely loved this combination. My only regret is that I couldn't have kept this on longer!

Party Nails

A couple weeks ago I got to do a set of party nails at school on one of my friends (her nails have been featured on this blog before, in the Holiday Nail Art post). Party nails are basically quickie acrylics using nail tips, nail glue, and the acrylic polymer powder.

For the ring fingers I used some tips meant for use with gel nails as an accent and filled the remaining area with the acrylic. The remaining nails got two coats of Milani Ruby Jewels with a coat of Wet n Wild Hallucinate on the ring fingers and thumbs. Also on the thumbs I stamped Wet n Wild Black Creme with Mash plate M-16.

Anyone else up for a set? :)

Julep NOTD Contest

This weekend I decided to try out the two Julep polishes I hadn't used yet since I got an email saying my February Maven box is on it's way. I also figured it would be a great excuse to make a mani to enter Julep's NOTD contest on Facebook. I decided to use Julep Anne as the base color. I really like the bright blue-purple of it but it was quite thick making application a bit difficult. I think I might put some thinner in there before I use it again. I really liked the semi-matte finish and was going to leave it without top coat but then I noticed little bubbles forming so I quickly got my OTD top coat on there to force the polish to dry faster. Still a bit sad about that.

Next I took Julep Heather and, using my french tip guides (haven't used those in a while!), I created a Ruffian (yes I know, I did it backwards) then stamped the chain design from Mash plate M-08 lengthwise down each nail.

I really like how the mani turned out but I do wish my camera would take better photos of the color purple. I had to do some serious color adjusting on these (thank goodness for DSLR cameras and Photoshop). Oh and before you go, feel free to stop on over and vote for my entry in Julep's NOTD contest! You can vote once every hour if you feel inclined to. And also, don't forget to "like" my new page over on Facebook!

Team Dyan Manicure

Hooray for snow days! That means I get to post this mani a day earlier than I was originally planning :D I'm especially happy because this mani is in honor of a very special young lady named Dyan. Late last year Dyan had a serious medical emergency but every day she is getting better and stronger. Her and her mother have an incredible determination to overcome the obstacles that have been placed before them that I have found very inspiring. And so, when a group of polish lovers, bloggers and non-bloggers alike, came up with the idea of doing special manis in honor of her I immediately started brainstorming ideas.

When I found out that Dyan loves the color blue I decided this would be the perfect opportunity to use my bottle of Sinful Colors Ciao Bella that I bought for my 4th of July mani last year. This is two coats, no top coat:

Please excuse my lack of cleanup here, there's a bit of layering to come yet.

I love this shade of blue but I'm not sure it really works well on me so I grabbed my bottle of Liquid Euphoria Euphoric and layered one coat over Ciao Bella:

Unfortunately my camera just couldn't capture the true beauty of this polish. Such a magnificent blue/green/teal shift! Next I created a gradient with Jesse's Girl Glee:

At certain angles you couldn't even tell the difference between the areas with the gradient and those without but I managed to get a photo at the right angle to see it. At this point I finally put a topcoat on so I could start with the stamping. I used one of my newest frankens, Orchid Wine, to stamp with Mash plate M-25, then I layered Mash plate M23 over it with OPI DS Classic.

Best shot of the DS Classic stamping I could get

I love how the final results of this mani turned out and I hope Dyan likes it as well. May you have a swift road to recovery, Dyan!

In case you haven't seen them, here are a few more Team Dyan manis:

On Pretty and Polished

On Rebecca Likes Nails

On Sonoma Nail Art

On Polish Ninja

On Dressed up Digits

On Good Lack, Nail!