Sinful Colors Neptune Baby Shower mani and I'm on Facebook!!!

Hi everyone! Another long week where the days just flew by! So much so that I am only now finding the time to post this mani. 

First and foremost, I'm on Facebook!! You can find the link to my page in the row of buttons on the right side of this page ----->. If you like to be on Facebook, please "like" my page and you can follow along with the posts through that as well.

As promised, I am showing you guys the mani I wore for my baby shower. The main colors used are Sinful Colors Neptune and Orly Powder Puff. I've used the Orly in other manis before when I just want a slightly off white base. It works well to wear in two to three coats. Dries in a decent time and with careful application, doesn't have any annoying bald spots. 

The accent nails are done with a combination of stamping, dots and glitter...oh my! After stamping, I added little colored dots with SC Neptune and Revlon Wind Fall. The glitters were hand placed after fishing them out of the different glitter polishes listed below. Sounds more time consuming than it actually was! The glitter pieces looked like little flat jewels on my nails.

A sunlight picture.

The colors I used for these are:

         Sinful Colors Neptune

         Orly Powder Puff

         Revlon Wind Fall

         WnW Black for stamping

         Glitters from:

                  Jordana Cosmic

                  Love & Beauty Crystal/Multi

                  Love & Beauty Dark Blue

Stamping Plate Cheeky XL B

My invitation was the inspiration for the mani.

Hubby rating: 10/10. He loved it :-)

Blue Rays: Update of my Revlon Royal franken mani

Hi everybody! Well, it's coming down to the wire and if you're still a Google Reader user, you have just a couple of days to transfer your blogs over to another reader before it shuts down on July 1st. There are plenty of options available. My blog is available on Bloglovin, which is a popular site but I just switched mine over to Feedly. The transfer process was painless and so far, I do like the layout as well.

Today's post is just a quick update on my last mani, the Revlon Royal and Jessica Iridescent Eye franken. I decided to stamp over it and then fill in some of the gaps with glitter. The inspiration for this mani came from this manicure by Dagadelic and this mani by In Jeeb We Trust.

The polishes used were China Glaze Adore for the stamping and the glitter used is Pure Ice Watch me Go. I filled that in with a small nail art brush.

This is the same mani in the sunlight. And since I loved this mani when viewing it at different angles due to the jelly like quality of Revlon Royal, here are a few pictures of just that!

What do you think of the update? I love Revlon Royal. 

Franken Fun Friday: Revlon Royal and Jessica Iridescent Eye

Hi all!

Remember when I did my insta-franken tutorial post a little while ago? I decided that I get ideas to have crazy mixes of my various polishes so many times that I should just start doing them as full manicures and post the results here as part of a little experimental series.

This one was one of the creations from that particular post. I saw my bottles of Revlon Royal and Jessica Iridescent Eye sitting next to each other and I just started mixing them! For details on how I franken without wasting any polish, read my tutorial!

To do this particular mani, I painted two coats of Revlon Royal and then finished up with a third coat of a mix of Royal and Iridescent Eye. I wonder if I had painted two coats of the mix, how much different it would have looked. Maybe another time!

Here it is showing the green shift that comes from Iridescent Eye.

And here it is in the sunlight, in my car.

Cool, huh? I love how the combo is so different from each of them by itself. The possibilities are endless!! What do you guys think of this new series? Can you get behind it?

Wet n Wild Don't Break the Circuit (topcoat fail)

Hi everyone! This is the last of the blue manis from my blue week. This one I'm not so proud of. It looked good for maybe 20 minutes and then I ruined it :-( This is Wet n' Wild Magnetic Don't Break the Circuit.

It looks nice right? Beautiful blue color, strong magnetic stripes. The magnet itself doesn't have a finger rest on it so I accidentally bumped my index finger nail on it but no big deal. It was a small mistake compared to all the trouble I've had with it in the past. The one disappointment I did have was that when I first bought it, the polish looked like it actually had holographic particles in it. But when I worse, I didn't see a one, not in the bottle or my nails. Rite Aid lights fooled me!!

I usually don't take pictures of my nails if the next step is to just topcoat it. If I'm going to be doing more nail art, I might not bother. Something was nagging me about the topcoat step, though, so I decided to heck with it, I'll take pictures! I'm glad I did. My next step was to use Diamond Dry topcoat and this is what happened...

Whaa...? I lost my crisp lines! Maybe it's because I used the topcoat I did, maybe it's because I used a topcoat at all. But I didn't like it. I ended up putting some Revlon Blue Mosaic on the tips as a gradient but I still didn't like it. It came off the next day.

Has this happened to anyone using topcoats and magnetic polishes? I haven't used many magnetics but this was a new one for me.

Revlon Perplex with CG Glitter All The Way

Hello everyone! I'm back again with another mani I did sometime in January. I'm slowly catching up with manis I did but did have any energy to post about. It does have less than perfect attention to the finishing touches but I still love it! I just needs another layer of topcoat.

For this mani I used Revlon Perplex, now renamed under Revlon Naughty. The glitter gradient from cuticle is done with China Glaze Glitter All the Way. I love this glitter. It's becoming one of my favorite multi-colored glitters. It just has the right blend of colors for me. 

I think you guys would agree that another layer of topcoat and this mani wouldn't be half bad! This was the first time used Perplex and I love the taupe-y with a hint of purple that it is. I think it went well with my skin and I'll have to try different looks with it. Application was nice. I believe this was two coats.

Flowers For Audrey - Skittlette contest runner up #2

Hello everyone! I don't know what happened since I got back from vacation but my nail mojo is all gone. Bad nail breaks, brilliant ideas with horrible execution, bad application, bubbles, smudges, chips all happening so much more than they used to last year! Not to mention I've inexplicably developed nausea every time I paint or even think about painting my nails. Sometimes it's worse than other times and I power through but I really hope it goes away soon. Good thing I have some pictures stored away for you guys for a rainy day!

This is the second of the three runner ups for the skittlette contest entry.

For this polish I used China Glaze For Audrey, Sinful Colors Rich in Heart and on the accent nail, the leaves are a combination of Revlon Emerald City and L'Oreal Tea and Crumpets. I did the flowers and leaves with a toothpick. I'm really a fan of these tiny flowers now. I think I've improved on my skills on those flowers even since this mani.

I definitely think this one is simpler than the other two, but I really like the way it looks. I love the color combination for some reason.

China Glaze Creative Fantasy Skittlette

Hi everyone! Ok, I am starting to feel a bit more normal and more like myself. I think I'm finally done showing you some of my oldies and I'm excited for the next few posts. When Marta from Chit Chat Nails was hosting her Skittlette contest, I got excited and I did a few looks before I settled on the one that I finally submitted. In the next three posts, I'm going to show you the "rejects". Actually, I love all of these so it was quite difficult picking out one for the contest.

In this post, I'm showing you the skittlette featuring China Glaze Creative Fantasy from their most recent Cirque du Soleil collection. I used three coats for this mani. I do understand where people come from when they complain of the application. It wasn't horrible but maybe I had low expectations. I used a very careful application and tried not to go over the same place twice.

For the leopard print accent nail, I used a base of Revlon Metallic, and stamped with Wet n Wild Black Creme and the image from the Bundle Monster plate BM 221.  The glitter gradient was done with Revlon Stunning.

I love that holographic sparkle that can be seen with Stunning. What a pretty glitter! It's just simple enough that I can see a lot of different ways it can be used with other polishes.

Mint Fizz and Flowers

Hi everyone! I hope December has been treating everyone well so far! It's a Monday but I can't help but be happy that this week is here. It's my birthday at the end of this week and I am that much closer to my vacation at the end of this month!! I always tend to be a little bit down around my birthday but I'm not going to let that happen this year. Anyone else get like that? I can't really explain the phenomenon.

Oh, did you notice my new blog header? I've been wanting to do that forever but I had to wait till I had accumulated enough posts so that I had a few good manis to choose from. Anyway, I am now posting the update to my Ulta Whatever Floats Your Moat mani that I posted last time. I added a coat of Revlon Mint Fizz, a semi sheer electric blue mint scented polish with blue microflakes in it. It seemed to go with Whatever Float Your Moat so well! It toned down the power of the blue just a bit but added this amazing shimmer and sparkle to it!

Next I added some roses on the ring finger with Love and Beauty Aqua. I've featured this polish a few times before. I think I love it! The flowers were inspired by Raggio di Luna. She does so many freehand flower manis that I just finally had to try my own! I think she does hers with acrylic paints and a nail art brush but I did these by plopping a drop of polish on the nail and drawing into it with a toothpick to take away polish along those lines. Once I get some brushes, I plan on using those to expand my drawing repertoire. So, should I do more flowers in the future? I think I will.

I've been lately getting into taking pictures with my phone and using various programs on the phone to touch it up a bit. I have a separate Instagram account where I usually post those but I thought I'd post a few of them here and there on this blog for your viewing pleasure. This is a willow tree in front of my parent's house. Eerie, isn't it?

Pacific Blue Watermarble with Revlon Stunning

Yay, I'm very happy with this post because I got back to watermarbling! I love this technique when it works right. It is such a stunning look and for me somewhat unpredictable. Even when I've made the design I want on the water and aim for it, I still don't know what it's going to look like until my finger is out of the water. This look was insprired by the first snow of the season! I didn't feel like stamping for the literal snowflake pattern so I just thought I'd go for the overall feel of the snowy winter season.

For this mani, I used Sally Hansen Pacific Blue and Sally Hansen White On. Those X-treme Wear polishes do seem to marble quite nicely. The white did like to spread out a bit more than the blue but I still like the effect. For the glittery snow like effect, I layered one coat of Revlon Stunning over it. It's a mix of smaller glitter with larger holographic hexagons. I think it was a good choice for this mani. 

I wore it plain for about a day before putting the glitter on. I just love how blue this blue is! It kind of changes character in different lighting but no matter what, it stands out. I've had so many nice comments on this mani because people just have to take a second look at this color. 

Borghese Sonata Berry with accents

Okay!! The mani I'm going to show you today is simple but has easily become my favorite of the month. And to make up for the somewhat crappy pictures of the last post, I have included way more pictures than necessary in this one!

The polishes I used in this mani are Borghese Sonata Berry, Revlon Gold Coin and China Glaze Glitter All The Way. 

I adore Glitter All The Way. There are really small and slightly less small glitter pieces and the different colors I was able to pick out are gold, green, purple and red. The picture makes it look like there's blue but I can't see it in real life. 

As I said in my previous post, I did the accent nail by first painting two coats of Revlon Gold Coin and then using craft scissors to cut out two strips of painters tape, being careful to line up the zigzags with each cut. Then I applied them on the nail and painted two coats of Sonata Berry before taking off the tape with the polish still wet. Prior to doing the zigzag accent though, I went around for a day with just a plain gold nail. This is what that looked like...

In real life, I was a huge fan of the zigzag accent but in the pictures I'm loving the plain nail. What do you guys like better?

CQ Slate Glitzy Camouflage Saran Wrap Mani

Hi all! As I thought I would, I had to modify the mani I posted in my last post with CQ Slate. I decided to again tackle a nail art technique that I had never tried before. This is the saran wrap or plastic film technique.

The polishes I used in this are Revlon Gold Coin and Funky Fingers Mrs. Mint. There are different ways of doing this technique. I opted to scrunch up a piece of plastic cling warp and dab some paint on the folds of the plastic. Then I dabbed the plastic on my nails with a light hand until I achieved the right density with that color. Then I repeated the process with the second color and then I was done! It is the easiest nail art I have attempted yet. I have some ideas on how to repeat it again.  The other way I've seen it being done is to paint the second color on the nail itself and then use the scrunched up plastic to take the wet color off revealing the first color underneath.

I remembered to include a further away picture for this one. Kinda has a blingy camouflage look, doesn't it?