Monday Mani: Water Marble or Happy Birthday (to our fearless leader)

At Polish-aholics Anonymous this week's Monday Mani theme is Water Marble or Happy Birthday (to our fearless leader Krissi!).  I totally voted for the Happy Birthday theme even though Krissi posted it as a joke. In fact, lots of people voted for it! I've never water marbled before and really wanted to do cupcakes so I decided to go with the theme that I voted for!

I really love the way these turned out. They're super girly which is not really me, but I loved them all the same.

Here's a list of all the polishes I used.
Index, middle, and pinkie fingers: base coat is 2 coats of Disney Villains #40 Urusula, pink dots with Ulta Encore Pink, white dots with Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner, and silver dots with Wet N Wild Metallica

Ring finger: base coat of 2 coats ELF Light Pink, cupcake liner with Disney Villains #40, pink stripes with Ulta Encore Pink, white frosting with Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner, sprinkles with Wet N Wild Party of Five.


And believe it or not, all I used was a dotting tool! No brushes here!

Dotted flowers

So I meant to post this earlier in the week but time really just ran away from me.

I created this design for Chalkboard Nails dotting tool nail art contest.

I actually took photos of my right hand instead of my left hand since the top coat left tons of bubbles.

For the base coat, I used 2 coats of Zoya Bevin.  The flowers/dots are done with OPI Fly, Orly Purple Pleather, and Ulta Encore Pink.

Mermaid-esque

I started off with a new polish, layered on another new polish, and was inspired! So this look was born.

I started off with this new color that I picked up at Walgreens during their 99¢ sale last week. It's Sinful Colors Rise and Shine.  It's the beautiful sort of neon green with hints of blue to tame it and lots of shimmer.

This picture was taken at night so I had to use a flash, but it's pretty true to color.  I needed to use 2 coats of polish.

Next I layered on 2 coats of Sinful Colors Nail Junkie. At this point, I was really reminded of mermaid nails. The sheer base of Nail Junkie turned Rise and Shine into this beautiful teal color and all of the glitter reminded me of mermaid scales.

So I added on some Milani Jewel FX Gold onto just the tips. I sort of blobbed it on to get the look that I wanted.  All told I used 9 coats of polish  for this mani! (2 of OPI Nail Envy, 2 of Rise and Shine, 1 coat of Seche Vite, 2 coats of Nail Junkie, 1 blobbed coat of Gold, and 1 more coat of Seche Vite) Yowza!

Also, you may notice that my nails are shorter. Well, I've been having tons of breakage so I spent a good amount of time taking off length and filing down my nails. I've been using OPI Nail Envy for about a month now. I do notice that my nails grow longer and stronger, but I still have about 3 more months of damage to grow out.  I don't mine my shorties though. I think this color combo looks really good on them!

Monday Mani: Dreaming of Spring

I live in Wisconsin so when I think of spring, I think of clouds, rain, and mud. We don't get pretty flowers here until summer.  I also really wanted to use my new Nerd Lacquer Don't Blink so that was a big inspiration for this manicure.

I started with one coat of Rimmel Grey Matter for base coat. Then I added a coat of Nerd Lacquer Don't Blink (I really should have taken a picture at this point but I forgot!).

Here's the rest of the colors that I used:
Clouds: Nina Ultra Pro Ink-Ling
Lightening: mixed Maybelline Sunshine and Sinful Colors Let's Meet
Raindrops: OPI Fly
Umbrella: OPI Don't Mess with OPI and mixed with white for details

Stamping Sunday: Plate ending in 3

I decided to add on to my Nerd Lacquer All of Time and Space. I saw this cute little ladybug on BM 113 and thought it would be perfect to add to the sort of grassy feel of All of Time and Space.

I also added some rhinestones to my middle and thumb lady bugs as well as some flower decals.

I really liked this look as soon as I was done, but then I didn't like it 2 hours later and took it off. Looking at the pictures again, I do like it! I'm fickle sometimes!

Nerd Lacquer All of Time and Space

I finally fulfilled one of my major lemmings! I just got Nerd Lacquer All of Time and Space in the mail the other day (along with another I'll show you later!).

This is three coats. Next time, I think I'll layer it over something like Sinful Colors Mint Apple (which is pretty much the exact color of this) to conserve this beauty.

You can see more of the awesome glitter here.

Tomorrow, I'm going to show what I did with this since I can never leave anything alone!

Nabi Magnetic Nail Polish

I saw this polish at Walgreens the other day and decided to try it since it was only $4.99. Ugh. It doesn't work!

I put down a base of the color, and it was completely opaque so I magnetized it right away. I held the magnet for 60 seconds and barely anything appeared.

So then I decided to put down a base coat of the color, wait for it to dry, and try again. Same result.

Sorry for the chipping, but I didn't bother top coating this mess.

See? You can barely see anything! I went back to Walgreens the very next day and returned it. I rather pay $16 and have a Nails Inc polish that works really well than only pay $5 for this crappy one.

Monday Mani: Love me, love me not

At Polish-aholics Anonymous this week's Monday Mani theme is Love me, love me not.

I used 2 coats of Savvy Ruby Slippers for the base coat.  The Xs and Os were Rimmel White Nail Tip Liner and the hearts were Pure Ice Peony.

Stamping Sunday: Valentine's Day

Over at Adventures in Stamping, we chose Valentine's Day as our theme for Stamping Sunday.

The base coat is 2 coats China Glaze Light as Air followed by 1 thick coat Kleancolor Midnight Seduction.

I stamped using BM 202 and Rimmel Wild Orchid (the big heart) and Mash 17 and Sinful Colors Amethyst (the heart trio).

This mani didn't really dry despite using Seche Vite plus I didn't like it too much so I just wiped it off after I took pictures. Looking at these pictures though, I like it a lot better.

Lack of posting :(

My husband is currently in the hospital right now. He's got a bunch of stuff going on, and tonight's our 2nd night here with  probably 2 more nights coming. I had some great ideas for upcoming manis, but they will not be happening.

Whenever my husband is feeling better, I guarantee I'll be posting again! My nails are naked right now, and I just can't stand it!

Monday Mani: Glitter Sandwich

At Polish-aholics Anonymous this week's Monday Mani theme is Glitter Sandwich.

The base coat is Sinful Colors Easy Going in 2 coats. If I wasn't layering, I would have gone with a third coat. Then I sorta blobbed on Wet N Wild Party of 5 since the glitter is not very dense. Since I really only have 1 jelly nail polish, I mixed some of Easy Going with clear polish and put that on top.

I love this look! It worked very well even though I had tons of polish on my nails.

Stamping Sunday: Only Blue

Over at Adventures in Stamping, we chose Only Blue as our theme for Stamping Sunday.

I'm kinda excited about how this turned about. I tried a new stamping technique than what I was doing before. This time I pressed the stamper onto the plate and rolled the image onto the nail instead of rolling onto the plate and on the nail. It worked so much better!!!

The base coat is 2 coats of Revlon Blue Lagoon.  I love this color but have such a hard time with its dry time, even when using Seche Vite.

Next I stamped using Bundle Monster 206 and Sinful Colors Why Not. My Sinful Colors is thick now so it works great for stamping.

Finally I added some blue rhinestones. I'm not sure I like them though. I wish I would have used the light blue ones or none at all.

What do you think? Better with the rhinestones or without?

ELF Metal Madness and neon pink hearts

My husband and I are headed out tonight for an early Valentine's dinner so of course I had to do my nails!

I've been trying to use my untried polish first so I choose 2 colors I haven't used yet.

For the base coat, I used ELF Metal Madness.

This picture was taken at night using flash. It's a dark grey color with this beautiful, almost holographic glitter, spread throughout. The polish went on wonderfully. I had almost no cleanup to do.

For the hearts, I used Cosmo Wild Thing. It is a neon pink polish that was offered as a summer giveaway through Cosmopolitan magazine.  The color is more of a true neon pink in the bottle, but layered it over the grey lends this sort of reddish-orange quality to it.

Well, I've gotta run! Have to get ready for our date!

Nfu-Oh 66

OMG! Sorry, but I'm super excited. I got this polish in the mail the other day. I am so in love. I'm not gonna say much because the pictures really do speak for themselves.

Nfu-Oh is a amazing linear green holo. I think holographic polishes are pretty cool, bu this one is the best because it's green! I used OPI Nail Envy for the base so it did drag a bit (apparently, with holographic polishes no base coat are best to minimize dragging), but I was able to fix it.

Just look at this! Drools.