Monday Mani: Black and White with ManGlaze

This week's Monday Mani theme is Black and White Only. It worked perfectly because I recently received two new ManGlaze polishes in the mail!

I used two coats of Matte is Murder and 3 of Mayonnaise. They both have shimmer, though you can't really see it in Mayo.

Fresh and Funky

Just a quick post today! I've got a little back log of manis and this is one of them.

This is Fresh Paint Square Candy (3 coats) which is a bright green jelly polish topped with a Funky Fingers Teen Spirit.

Both polishes are from 5 Below.

Fall Owl Nail Art with Sinful Colors Nirvana

Look at how cute these owl nails are!!!

I even did a video tutorial on how to do them which is over on my Facebook page and my Instagram.

The base is Sinful Colors Nirvana topped with Hit Polish Patina, a great fall glitter with copper and teal.

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.

Born Pretty Store Review: Studs and Decals, Oh My!

I love it when Born Pretty Store/ sends stuff for me to review! They have great stuff and at a cheap price.

I received three different items this.
The first are these pearlized studs. Here's a close of just the studs. They are plenty of them and looks to be like three different sizes.

I used two of the sizes on top of Funky Fingers Kingston for this bright, fun mani. The studs have flat backs so they stick nicely to your nails.

Next I have these full size floral water decals. They apply much like other water decals so it was easy to get on. Once they dried a bit, I used acetone to gently dissolve around the edge. I applied topcoat to protect them as well. They take a bit longer to dry than other water decals likely because they are so big, hence the tiny little nick on my index. I love the image and the detail that I could in no way is freehand.
I do have to say while their are 10 decals in each sheet (one sheet per order), I had to use two for my number as they are pretty narrow. Still, they make a gorgeous accent nail like I paired up here with Sinful Colors Solar Flare.

Lastly, I have these adorable owl water decals. 

They are soooo cute and look great over my base of Button London Bumster.

Recent September manis, Part 1

Here's some more recent manis I've done.

Remember to go to my Instagram @rubytadpole for more details

Catching up: August edition

Hey all! Sorry I don't post here much anymore. I find it too difficult to keep up with everything and have sorta chosen Instagram first. I'm @rubytadple if you want to check me out there.

Anyway, here's my nails for August. Head over to Instagram for details.

Finnish fabric inspired mani

When I've for time or I'm bored, I love to browse Pinterest for new mani ideas. I don't just mean manis posted by other bloggers. I love to browse fabrics, designs, and color seeds for other inspiration. This particular mani was inspired by a Finnish fabric I found on Pinterest.

It was really easy to do too! I used Zoya Skylar plus Wet n Wild Black Creme and French White Creme. Then I just randomly placed on the polka dots and added top coat. Done!

And my poor hands are now done completely to nubs. My middle finger received some serious damage and had a low side tear. It just kept getting worse so I cut it off, hence the strange shape.

Zoya Bevin Roses

My tea bag patch just wasn't working. The corner of my nail was super weak and it just wasn't holding so I'm down to nubs. I still have a tear low on the side that I'm trying to keep patched, but that's not working well.

I love flower manis. I don't know what it is about them, but they are just so beautiful!

I decided to use Zoya Bevin for the base of this in order to continue my quest of reusing polishes.

The roses are mostly Zoya Sooki though I mixed it with white and black to add details.

I'm playing around with lighting. These photos were taken at night using direct and diffused artificial light. I gotta play more, but I still think I'm a fan of natural light.

And bonus! Here's a pedi I did. The purple and blue are Zoya Kieko and Zoya Breezi respectively.

Sinful Colors Fig line work

Hello everyone! Sorry for totally forgetting to post yesterday!

So after I took after my gel nails, I noticed my middle finger on my blogging hand looked pretty rough. I had to file it down a bit, but they was a side year pretty far down. I tee bag patched it and put a gel top coat on this mani to make it last longer. We'll see.

I've been trying to use some of the polishes I have that don't get much love. I still like them and want them in my collection; I just don't use them much.

Sinful Colors Fig is one. It's a berry purple color with a very light shimmer that doesn't come out on the nail very well.

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do, so I grabbed some black acrylic paint and a nail art brush I had trimmed down and went to town. It was really fun to play around with lines and see how well I could do. I'm pretty impressed with myself and think I'm getting better at my nail art skills.