Dollish Polish Expecto Patronum Black Roses

I love contrast in nail looks. It's fun to do and fun to look at.

For today, I took the delicateness of Dollish Polish Expecto Patronum and switched it up a bit by stamping a black rose design over top.

I have owned my bottle of Expecto Patronum since 2012! The formula is still great though, and fortunately for you Dolly still makes this polish.

Penguins | Tonic Polish Santa Baby

When I saw photos of Tonic Polish Santa Baby in the Tonic FB fan group, I immediately knew that I needed it. Luckily for me, it was still in stock (it's available as of writing this post as well!) 

I ordered it with plenty of time to arrive before Christmas, but USPS "lost" it for a bit so I didn't get it until Christmas Eve. Fortunately, the color is so gorgeous that I didn't mind using it after the holidays :)

 Santa Baby is a stunning red holographic. The formula is amazing and applied so well. I needed two coats, but didn't have to do any clean up.

I added some adorable penguins using the advanced stamping technique and plate BP-137.

Egyptian Style | Zoya Leighton

Hello all! 2019 hasn't had a great start.
I'm once again behind on posting, but I'm scheduling a bunch today so I should be able to catchup.

For today's mani, I started with Zoya Leighton. It's a gorgeous dark dark purple creme. It's not a one coater, but I think it could be when the bottle gets older.

I added some Egyptian themed stamping using MoYou Explorer 17

Winter/Christmas Nails 2018: Santa Cats

Today's manicure is featuring this super adorable stamp from MoYou London. There's tons of cute images on there, but I decided to use this and keep the mani simple in order to keep it in the spotlight.

For the stamping, I used a base of Sally Hansen White On and stamped using Girly Bits Fire Engine Red. I painted my other nails Zoya Merida.

Halloween Nails 2018: Pastel Bat Nail Art

As much as I love to use traditional colors for holidays or certain times of the year, I also find it fun to use something unexpected!

For this Halloween manicure, I stuck to traditional black and purple. Except to change it up, I used a pastel purple! That purple combined with the adorable bat image makes this such a sweet manicure.

The products used are Glisten & Glow Mother Flora and Little Black Dress plus MoYou London Festive 53 which has a ton of adorable images for Halloween.

Matte and Shiny Nail Art

Hello all! Sorry it's been a minute :) We've been super busy with back to school prep, appointments, car troubles, and fall craft fair prep for me. I will have some back logged posts coming at you today and the next few days.

For today's manicure, I did a mixed finish manicure. I really like how this turned out.

After applying Zoya Lidia (purple), I applied a fast dry top coat and then added Zoya's matte top coat on that. Then I stamped on top using Barry M Razzle Dazzle and the stamping plate below. To keep the mixed finish effect, I left the manicure as that.
I will note that the stamping did flake off a bit since it wasn't protected with top coat, but the overall look was totally worth it.

On my pinkie finger, I just applied Barry M Razzle Dazzle and top coat.

Matte Lace Nail Art Design

For today's manicure, I went with a lace design. I love the look of lace manicures, but I rarely do them. I debated going traditional using a nude base with the black stamping, but I thought a colored base would be really cool.

For the base, I used Wet n Wild Through the Grapevine. It's much more of a pinkish leaning purple than it shows here. This polish is from the Megalast line so it has a huge curved brush. I have smaller nails so I'm not a huge fan of the big brush.

After applying the stamping image, I added a fast dry topcoat to seal in the design. After that was dry, I added Zoya matte topcoat. I haven't used matte top coat in a while, and I love how it looks over lace nail designs.

The plate I used is from Born Pretty Story, and is BP-L020. It's full of a ton of different lace designs.

Sparkly Simple Zoo Nail Art

On Tuesday, we took a sort of last minute trip to the zoo. It was pretty nice out for July (I hate summer lol), and the animals were nice and active :)

Since I was changing my mani, the night before I decided to do a simple, cute zoo themed manicure.

I started with a base of Glisten & Glow Fairy's Tryst plus an accent finger of Painted Polish Stamped in Greenery 2.0

Using Stamped in Greenery 2.0 as well as Stamped in Guava from Painted Polish, I added some images from MoYou London Plate Tropical 06

Simple manis are some of my favorites, and this one was no exception :)

Painted Polish Stamped in Cinderelly

Today I'm featuring Painted Polish Stamped in Cinderelly. Painted Polish makes amazing creme polishes! Most of them are one coaters. They stamp well over white and black as well! I have several :)

Stamped in Cinderelly in a sky blue creme that applies in just one coat. The formula was really great for application and not too thick or thin. It was nice for stamping as well. I find some stamping polishes dry too fast, and this one didn't which was nice.

I applied it on its own as well as used it for stamping on my ring finger with Born Pretty Store plate BPL-024.

Black, White, and Red Outline Mani with Tutorial!

The inspiration for today's manicure comes from MaagsDinwiddie. She did hers for Valentine's Day, and it certainly would be beautiful for that! I should try to remember that for next year.
For my manicure, I switched the color combos as I wanted to use a red stamping I have that I haven't used often.

I used to do video tutorials and post them on YouTube and Instagram. I enjoyed doing them, but my setup wasn't the greatest plus they take a ton of time! It takes longer to do your mani plus the video editing. However, picture tutorials don't take as much time so I've decided to do them. I'm not sure that I will do them for every mani, but I'm excited to expand my content!

Anyway, here are the steps for this mani.

1. Apply base coat to clean nails. I use Glisten & Glow base coat for all my nails.

2. Apply white polish. I'm using Funky Fingers Gesso.

3. Apply a latex barrier around your nails. I just purchase a big tub on Amazon and pour it into a clean, empty nail polish bottle. I don't always use liquid latex for stamping, but it's definitely needed when stamping with a red polish!

4. Stamp on your image. I'm using Girly Bits Fire Engine Red and a plate I bought from eBay.

5. Remove the liquid latex, and cleanup any extra polish.

6. Add the black outline. I used black acrylic paint for easier control.

To finish: I left this mani dry for quite a while. Red and black polishes tend to smear for me when applying top coat. I used Seche Vite and gently floated it on so as to not smear my stamping (which I actually kind of did on my pinkie).

Radial Gradient: First Attempt!

I've been sticking to mostly easy nail art lately, but I am trying to more advanced stuff! I used to do more complicated nail art.

For today's mani, I did my first attempt at a radial gradient mani. For a radial gradient, the color blends from the outside in instead of in stripes. I have small nails so doing 3 colors was a bit difficult as I had a hard time getting all 3 to show. Next time, I'll try with 2.

For the gradient, I used Zoya Malia (purple), China Glaze DJ Blue My Mind (blue), and Fresh Paint Honeydew (mint green). On top, I stamped using a black polish and stamping plate Qgirl-035.

On my right hand, I decided to skip the stamping and add China Glaze Fairy Dust on top. I think I prefer the mani with fairy dust, but which do you like better?

Zoya Ryan Mixed Metal Nail Art

Today I have a simple nail art design.

For the base, I chose Zoya Ryan. It is a super dark navy blue that applies in one coat! I was able to clean up around the cuticle area easily with no staining. I'm currently wearing it so I'm not sure about removal. 

On my ring and pinkie nails, I stamped using Barry M Gold and Silver Foil. Those polishes are discontinued, but any gold or silver polishes will work. The design is from Bundle Monster Plate BM-314.

Green March Mani: Day 9

This is a simple mani, but I really love how it turned out!

I started with a base with ManGlaze Nawsome Sauce. Then I stamped on a floral design from Born Pretty Store plate BPL-024. I didn't add top coat to keep the design matte.

Despite no top coat, it lasted surprisingly long!

Green March Mani: Day 7

Hello! I had planned to post over this weekend, but this weekend was pretty rough for me emotionally so I was basically in survial mode. But I'm feeling tons better today, and I'm here with a new green mani for March.

Today's mani is my St. Patrick's Day mani. I went all out with the green polishes here.

I started with a base of Zoya Jace.

On my index and pinkie nails, I did a gradient using NYX Girls Emerald Forest.

On my ring finger, I used a black and a gold polish to freehand a belt design for a leprechaun costume. 

On my middle finger, I stamped some shamrocks using Zoya Wyatt and Bundle Monster plate BM-XL27.

NOPI Khloe Had A Lam-Lam skittle mani

One of my favorite polishes of all time is Nicole by OPI Khloe Had A Lam-Lam. I'm not a huge Kardashian fan, but this darkened teal color is so great. I'm almost 1/2 way through one bottle so I'm gonna have to find another soon.

For today's mani, I added a holo topper of Hits Hefesto (the original!) then stamped using Konad Black and Bundle Monster BM305.

Space-y Blue Skittles with MoYou London

What's that? Skittles in the title again! Well, at least I tried to get creative with the first half ;)

This mani is sort of a combination of a few different things: wanting to use and feature Dollish Polish Expecto Patronum again as well as wanting to use some more of my new MoYou London images.

 

I started with a base of Dollish Polish Expecto Pantronum first. I used 2-3 coats.

To jazz it up a bit, I freehanded some tips using Barry M Silver Foil and added on some square blue rhinestones.

The images are stamped with Barry M Silver Foil as well and are from MoYou Sci-Fi 03. It's such a cute plate!!!! See????

(Image courtesy of MoYou London)

I love all of the images on there and need to find some time to play around with them. Advanced stamping, on top of galaxy nails, oh the possibilities!!!!

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 28: Destinations

A day late in blogging this, but I was able to get it up on Instagram in time! It's a Instagram challenge, so that's what counts, right?

Anyway, I bought Cheeky Jumbo Plate 3 (European Romance) a while ago because of the beautiful images on it. It's got some great full nail images that I really like. But it's also got some super cute smaller images that I haven't gotten around to using yet. So this challenge theme was a perfect excuse!

I chose to go with Italy as the theme simply because I have spent time there.

I chose the airplane to represent travel in general. The other images are for 3 of the cities in Italy I was able to travel to: Pisa, Rome, and Venice. The little gondola driver is so cute!

The base of this two coats of Milani Fresh Teal which I found at Dollare Tree. Score! I stamped the images using Konad Black.

June Nail Art Challenge, Day 22: Tropical

How was everyone's weekend? We went to Greek Festival yesterday and ate some yummy food. Also picked up some delicious frozen custard at a place we don't get to very often since it's far away.

Today my husband and I got some time away while my parents watched T. We hit up some sushi :) It was very yum!!

Today's theme is tropical, and I tried to not be super traditional (sunset with palm tree which I've done anyway).

For this mani, I first painted one coat of Wet n Wild French White Creme. You need 2 for it to be opaque, but I just needed a base for my gradient to pop.

Then I sponged on Sinful Colors Dream On and Rise and Shine. Next I added a thin layer of China Glaze Fairy Dust.

Then I stamped a flower from Bundle Monster BM318 using Konad White.