Holly over Red

Today's challenge is "Over Red". Perfect opportunity to get in some holiday manicures that I've been slacking about. I'll be out of town over Christmas without my camera and nail stuff so I only have a couple of days to do some marathon holiday nail art.

I started off with Elmer's glue and a base of e.l.f. Smokin' Hot. China Glaze Pure Joy could be applied alone but didn't give clean edges. After several coats of NYC Grand Central Station to make the surface smooth, I stamped the holly with Wet n Wild French White Creme and painted green over the top with acrylic paint. The holly berries are glequins from the Born Pretty Store.

China Glaze - Pure Joy

e.l.f. - Smokin' Hot

Wet n Wild - French White Creme

NYC - Grand Central Station

Bundle Monster - BM14

Sinful Colors Winter Wonder

With Christmas coming up, I've been trying to avoid nail purchases due to people asking for wishlists. I made the mistake of going into Rite Aid the other day. There were a few holiday polish displays and I couldn't risk adding them to my wishlist and possibly not getting them!

One of my must haves was this one - Sinful Colors Winter Wonder. I loved the million little sparkles in the bottle and even more on my nails. I've read that it's a near match to OPI Her Majesty's Secret service from the holiday Skyfall collection. Judging from the swatches online, they're very similar.

Even though I had a nail plate extravaganza for my birthday, I went low key with just an accent finger on this one to avoid overpowering this amazing polish.

Sinful Colors - Winter Wonder

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Silver Sweep

Bundle Monster - BM12

NYC - Extra Shiny Top Coat

Glitter Snowflakes

I've been having the worst luck photographing my nails lately. It's constantly overcast during this season and all my indoor lighting has a yellow tone. I'm sorry about the weird tones, but I did my best to adjust to make the polish accurate but not so much as far as the skin tone.

This week's challenge is "over glitter". I've done a lot of glitter before, so I was hoping to make this one stand out from the rest. It's a little premature for the area I live in, but I thought I'd get the jump on snowflakes before everyone else.

The images are a combo of Shany and Bundle Monster. The polish is layers of Hard Candy, Sinful Colors, Pure Ice, L.A. Colors, and a couple of coats of Seche Vite to smooth out the uneven glitter surface.

Hard Candy - Sky

Sinful Colors - Cinderella

Pure Ice - Oh Baby!

L.A. Colors - Sparkling Diamonds

Sally Hansen - Hard to Get

Seche Vite - topcoat

Shany - SH17

BM - 323

Happy Halloween!

Although it's late, it's still Halloween! Sadly this is the last Halloween manicure of the year and somehow I avoided pumpkins all month. This one is really simple, but I think it's my favorite. To give it that extra special Halloween kick, I lowered the saturation on everything but my nails giving it that nice bright orange pop.

This was really easy. The base color is Milani Metallic Mango and the tips were sponged with Sinful Colors Black on Black. The image, which has been my favorite all fall, is BM-224 stamped with Wet n Wild Black Creme.

Milani - Metallic Mango

Sinful Colors - Black on Black

Wet n Wild - Black Creme

NYC - Extra Shiny Top Coat

BM - 224

The Fourteenth

Today's challenge is using a plate that ends in the day you were born. I was born November 14th so I used BM-314. Being all caught up in Halloween, I waited until the last minute to do this one. It didn't photograph as pretty as it looked on my nails, but I didn't have much time and the hurricane Sandy dark skies weren't on my side either. Oh well. Live and learn.

Although I like Twilight Rays, The color looks more black than green in pictures and the gold glitter is more intense in the bottle as it clings to the glass. Stamped, the Yellow Metallic turned out more gold than yellow. I still like it, but it isn't blowing me away like I had envisioned.

Maybelline Color Show - Twilight Rays

Kleancolor - Metallic Yellow

NYC - Extra Shiny Top Coat

BM - 314

Red Halloween

I'm rushing this post to get my Sunday Challenge in before the end of the day. This week was a really simple Halloween free for all. I'm still trying to avoid orange and pumpkins as much as possible so I did red. Why red? Why not?!

All the images used were from Bundle Monster. From one set to the next, their spooky house got spookier and more detailed.

I started out with a gradient of Sinful Colors Hot Hot Heat and Rich in heart. I had to get in the before stamping photo because I thought the 2 metallics looked so pretty together.

Sinful Colors - Hot Hot Heat

SInful Colors - Rich in Heart

Wet n Wild - Black Creme

Orly - Top 2 Bottom

BM - 213

BM - 224

BM - 305

Wicked Inspiration

Going through my Halloween images, I settled on the hat from plate BM-209. Using colors inspired by Wicked, I stamped the hat in black for Elphaba and in white (with a stamper to stamper transfer) on the accent finger for Galinda. 

Anything other than the hats seemed to be too much. So on the other fingers, I used a generic design from Shany SH15. On top of the green, it ended up with a Frankensteinish effect.

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Lickety-Split Lime

Sinful Colors - Black on Black

Sally Hansen Hard as Nails - Hard to Get

Wet n Wild - Black Creme
Orly - Top 2 Bottom

BM - 209

Shany - SH15

Snow White

I've been staring at the 2 Fantasy Makers polishes I got weeks ago and trying to think of something for Halloween. I got the red glitter Once Upon a Time and the purple based Rest in Pieces. The two of them together kept reminding me of Snow White's apple and the queen. So for the first attempt at Halloween this year, I went with more dress up than the tradition pumpkins or black cats.

Of course these were an impulse buy. After putting on the one coat of Once Upon a time, I realized it's exactly like Spoiled Ants in My Pants. Both have a gray base and take about 5 coats to get coverage. I'm not sure, but I think Rest in Pieces may be black with purple micro glitter. It definitely looks purple though with all those sparkles.

Fantasy Makers - Once Upon a Time

Fantasy Makers - Rest in Pieces

JLB - Immortal Gold

Seche Vite - topcoat

BM - 215

SE18

Poison Dart Frogs

Although I've been pretty slack about posting lately, it's Sunday! Which means another AIS challenge. This week: Toxic or Poisonous. The first thing that came to mind was snake, and even though I had some good snake ideas, I wanted to do something else. My thinking outside the box only got me so far as Poison Dart Frogs. They are so vibrant and of course cute. There's a bunch of different colored poisonous frogs, but red, green, blue, and yellow seem to be the basic colors. Their patterns vary too. So doing the best with what I had this is what I came up with!

I used 3 different Bundle Monster images and a Salon Express. These 2 photos are with NYC matte topcoat for the less wet frog look. The last photo is the original shiny, but I was just in love with the yellow matte finish.

The yellow pattern was my favorite, but the Salon Express full nail images are too small to fit on any other finger. I tried to add eyes, but that turned out looking really stupid.

e.l.f. - Smokin Hot

Wet n Wild - SaGreena the Teenage Witch

Pure Ice - French Kiss

L.A. Colors Art Deco - Yellow

Wet n Wild - Black Creme

NYC - Extra Shiny Top Coat

NYC - Matte me Crazy

BM-313

BM-222

BM-211

SE22

Stone Cold

There have been too many sales and bargains lately! I have so many untrieds to get to and I'm way behind on posting while the event is still ongoing. This one is a combo of the Sally's Beauty Supply half off clearance a while ago and this week's half off Sinful Colors Walgreen's sale.

The base color is China Glaze Stone Cold which I got for 50 cents. It doesn't even matter what the color looked like because I got it for 50 cents! When I tried it the other day I was pleasantly surprised it had a matte finish. I didn't actually leave it that way though because I liked the shinier finish with this manicure. The stamp is Bundle Monster with the Sinful Colors Hot Hot Heat from their new metallic collection. It's not quite metallic but it showed up decently over this dark gray.

China Glaze - Stone Cold

Sinful Colors - Hot Hot Heat

Orly - top 2 bottom

BM - 203

Lazy Man's Ombre

If I had done a true ombre, I would have used 1 pink and added white and black to achieve a seamless color change, but as indicated by the title, this is the lazy way. This was actually one of my first attempts at a previous Sunday challenge titled pulsating pink, but I wasn't happy with it after I stamped over it and I did something else last minute. Even though I didn't use it, I was thrilled about the pink and the glitter.

I had actually left this on for a day before stamping over it knowing I wouldn't like it once I stamped the purple over the top. I used some of my favorite bargain buys from Ross, the Dollar Tree, and Sinful Colors (of course).

Colors listed from left to right:

L.A. Colors - Fuel

Kleancolor - Barbie Pink

Kleancolor - Pastel Pink

JLB - Blush

Sinful Colors - Pinky Glitter (glitter)

Kleancolor - Metallic Purple (stamp)

Seche Vite - topcoat

BM - 207

Pink Phoenix

Sunday again which means another challenge! This week has a lot more freedom than typical Sundays with the challenge "something you've learnt from a.i.s." The first thing I learned was the difference between the British "learnt" and the American "learned". It's the same thing.

Now that I'm a fan of glitters thanks to the Elmer's Glue base trick, I use glitter polish as much as possible and that's why I'm doing this glitter base post for today's challenge. I learned the technique in Adventure's In Stamping.

Elmer's - Glue All (2 layers)

Wet n Wild - Black Creme (1 layer)

Revlon - Sparkle Aplenty (2 layers)

Seche Vite - (2 layers to smooth glitter)

JLB - Cherry Pop (stamp)

Orly - top 2 bottom (topcoat)

BM - 314

Glitter Explosion

I'm ashamed to admit I usually try to stay away from glitter due to the effort it takes to take it off. Being that I change my nails daily, it becomes a hassle. I saw a post by Mandy in Adventures in Stamping the other day and not only did I need to try her manicure out, I needed to buy the same brand glitter polish to do it too! Luckily with the Sally's Beauty Supply clearance deal going on right now, I picked up a teal shimmery Finger Paints polish that worked perfect as a base to fill in the bare spots under the glitter.

Here's the closeup of the finished product with BM-320 over the top.

This picture is in natural light. The rest were taken inside with a mix of lighting. It looks way toned down with the stamp over the top. Below are the pictures that show just how ridiculously packed on the glitter is!

This was 2 coats and then a lot of strategic placement of Teal Jewel FX by Milani.

I thought the glitter looked absolutely gorgeous, but I really needed the stamp because flashy blinding blue glitter isn't something I feel like I can pull off on a regular day.

Finger Paints - Late Night Rendezvous

Milani Jewel FX - Teal

Wet n Wild - Black Creme

Seche Vite - topcoat

BM - 320

Leopard Sock

So this one was inspired by my socks. The socks are actually heart leopard spots, but I gave it a shot freehand and I just didn't have the patience so I used the leopard print stamp from Bundle Monster. I'm not thrilled with this one but as far as it looking like my socks, I succeeded there.

The socks were some I'd gotten for Christmas in my stocking from the $1 sock section in Target. I just found them in the bottom of a suitcase recently and wore them for the first time. Better late than never!

NYC - Sidewalkers

Maybelline - Purple Icon

JLB - Pinkie Swear

JLB - Blush

Seche Vite - topcoat

BM - 221

Rain Storm

Wishful thinking. I'm having a lazy day with nothing to do. It would be a perfect day for rain. Although it's only succeeded in a sprinkle, at least my nails are in the spirit!

Using the Bundle Monster 2012 set, I used the cloud image and the lines from 319 to try and achieve a sheeting rain effect on my accent nail. Appropriately, I used Sinful Colors Rain Storm (one of my absolute favorites) to stamp the clouds.

Sinful Colors - Rainstorm

Sinful Colors - Snow Me White

NYC - Sidewalkers

JLB - Deep Sea

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - topcoat

BM - 312

BM - 319

Can't Wait for Fall

It's Sunday again which means another challenge in Adventures in Stamping. This week's challenge is Can't Wait for Fall. Originally I wanted to do leaves, but then I figured most people would do leaves. So to mix it up a little I went with the Bundle Monster combo of owl and vines from the pumpkin image over some glittered gradients. This was definitely some trial and error and a week of thinking, but it was so worth it because I love the way it turned out!

I think the owl is so cute. Unfortunately my nails are too small to make use of the full nail plate featuring the owls.

Wet n Wild - The Wonder Yellows

Milani - Metallic Mango

Sally Hansen - Quick Brick

Sinful Colors - All About You

e.l.f. - Chocolate

Seche Vite - topcoat

BM - 224

BM - 309

Green Spider

Today's Sunday Challenge is using 2 or more stamps. 

I was originally going to do a flower on flowers design, but when I stamped on the roses I realized I needed a pop of color and I immediately thought about this photo I had taken a while back.

At the time, this spider totally creeped me out, but he served his purpose today.

L.A. Colors - Magnetic Force

e.l.f. - Smokin' Hot

Sally Hansen - Lickety-Split Lime

Seche Vite - topcoat

BM - 323

Shany - SH09

Black and Red Butterflies

If you don't have an XL stamper, why not? I got mine in the mail yesterday from here. The biggest problem I had with stamping was my little curved nails. Not only are they curved side to side, but they also curve top to bottom and I can't roll the stamper 2 different directions at one time! Anyway I read some lengthy discussion in the Adventures in Stamping group about the XL stamper and why it was so awesome. You really just have to squish it down on your nail and it covers the whole thing! How was I stamping without this?!

I waited until after I got home from work today to take these pictures, so the lighting isn't the best since the sun had almost set at this point. I love the shimmery micro glitter in SH Red Carpet. For the accent nail, I went with the chunkier glitter in Spoiled Ants in my Pants. This polish does have a gray base, but I needed 4 coats to get it opaque. I've seen other people start with a black base to skip building up the color. I wish I had gotten a picture, but on my other hand I put it on top of Red Carpet and it gave it a red/gray duochrome effect with tons of glitter. You can't go wrong there.

Sally Hansen - Red Carpet

Spoiled - Ants in my Pants

Wet n Wild - Black Creme

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - topcoat

BM - 205

Glistening Purple

I recently discovered the best Dollar Tree ever! I've been in some that have a couple of rows of nail polish but this one had the biggest selection and each peg was crammed full of L.A. Colors nail polish. I really really love L.A. Colors and the best part is, they're only $1.00! Anyway I found a couple of glitter polishes I had to have and this is the first one I couldn't live without.

It was gorgeous alone, but I'd just gotten a bunch of new plates, and really why not stamp? The glitter is in a clear base so this is 2 coats over black.

L.A. Colors - Glistening Purple

Wet n Wild - Black Creme

Sally Hansen - Silver Sweep

BM - 322

Sunday Challenge: Gold Silver Bronze

Sunday's challenge in Adventures in Stamping: Gold, Silver, and/or Bronze. I did all 3 and because new Shany plates came in the mail after I had done my Sunday challenge manicure, I had to do another one!

I was so pleased with the gradient on my index finger, I had to do a closeup with both a stamped finger, and the index finger before stamping.

Finger Paints - Bronze Sculpture

Sally Hansen - Silver Sweep

JLB - Immortal Gold

SH01

This is the one I had originally done, but liked it less than the Shany design above.

This one was done with Bundle Monster and as you can see there was a slight bit of shadowing on the stamp.

Finger Paints - Bronze Sculpture
Sally Hansen - Silver Sweep
JLB - Immortal Gold
BM - 213