I-Don't-Know-What-This-Stamp-Even-Is Konad Gradient Nails

Hi ladies! Hope you all had a fabulous weekend. They go way too fast, don't they? :(

I wanted to try and see if I could do a more successful gradient, so this weekend I sat down and tried the Sammy technique and what do you know -- it actually worked!! I do have to say though, that I tried to do it with 3 colors at first and couldn't get it to look like an even, gradual gradient. So if anyone has any tips on that besides the usual just sponging two colors, one on top of the next method, let me know.

The two colors in the gradient are Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud and Essie Knockout Pout. I thought I got pictures of the plain gradient, but alas, I didn't. And I didn't realize until I'd already stamped and taken pictures of the final mani. Shucks.

I topped the gradient with a coat of Fairy Dust (my bottle is about as thick as Elmer's glue these days...) and stamped over with Sinful black polish and plate RA-112. I don't even KNOW what this pattern is supposed to be, so I don't know what to call these nails! Anyone have any ideas for what the pattern actually IS? Haha. Oh well, they turned out pretty well I think. Maybe I'm getting back into the groove of things!

Think I'm going to head over to Ulta today to pick up some CG On Safari polishes, so look out for some manis with those! Have a lovely day :)

Gradient tiger

Hello readers!  Did you think that Amanda and I fell off the planet?  Well I'm back today with a fierce tiger mani for you.

You have probably noticed our lack of posts.  Both Amanda and I are struggling right now with a little blogger burnout, but trying to post at least once a week to keep things going.  We had a death in the family last week.  A cousin of ours who has been very sick for about a year died at age 47 to brain cancer.  We were both devestated and will miss her very much. 

Amanda is working a full time job during the week and has a long-distance boyfriend that keeps her traveling on the weekends.  I'm also working a 30 hour week, but try to do my nails in the mornings before work.  The last 2 manicures I've done I hated, and removed right away without taking pictures.  Plus, I admit that Diablo 3 is taking up quite a bit of my free time.  Grr it's so addicting!  If you play - look me up (Zoya#1115)!

So enough with personal stuff and on to the mani.  I actually really like this one.  I've been trying to master the art of the gradient mani, but apparently am a slow learner :)  Here we have a base coat of Sally Hansen Kook-A-Mango with Zoya Jancyn and Sinful Colors Pull Over to make the grade-IENT.  (haha).  Then I stamped it with Konad black polish and plate m57.  Please forgive the tiny bit of streaking as I was rushing out the door to make it to work in time! 

Hope you enjoy!

Memorial Day Water Marble

Guys. GUYS.

It's an exciting day in the Brown household. Why, you ask? Wellll..... I FINALLY managed to do a half-way decent water marble. HUZZAH! AND...

Wait for it....

I got a BRAAAAND NEWWW CAAAAR!! (I hope you said that in a "Price is Right" voice....because I did...) I know right?! DOUBLE HUZZAH!! I'M SO FLIPPING EXCITED!!

I'd been driving an old 2001 Sunfire since high school, and well, suffice it to say... poor little Sunfire was on his dying bed. And since I just recently got a job with my degree, I figured now's as good a time as any. Pardon my excitement, I just had to share with someone :)

Look at that sweet pimp-mobile...

Ok, I suppose you guys came here for a mani. Right?

For whatever reason, I decided I really wanted to do a [successful] water marble. If you guys have been following this blog for some time, you'll know that we both SUCK at water marbling. It's just..... not something that comes easily to me. But this time... I was on a mission! I sat down with my colors and experimented. And guess what? It only took me....

TWO FREAKING HOURS TO DO. I kept having to redo fingers and the whole freaking process is just way too time consuming and WAY too messy. But it came out....decent...so I guess that's okay. Props to you guys who make awesome water marbles because... I just don't get it. It seemed like sometimes the polish dried WAY quicker than other times. And I couldn't get any decent designs carved into the polish and ugh..... it was so frustrating. The colors in this are Sally Hansen Lavender Cloud, Sinful Colors GoGo Girl, and China Glaze First Mate. Topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust. (DUH.)

/le sigh. I'm hopeless at water marbling.

Do you ladies in the States have any plans for Memorial Day? I do I do! I finally get a day off so we're having a little cookout with family :)

I hope you all have a safe and fun holiday!

Essie French Affair Accent Nail Mani

Hello ladies! Hope you all had a good weekend.

This mani is something I saw whilst perusing around on Pinterest. Sadly, I didn't repin the mani (because the iPhone app for Pinterest sucks) so I don't have the original source or picture of it. SO! If you've seen it floating around, lemme know and I'll add in credit where credit is do. 'Cause that's the cool thing to do, yo.

Edit: THIS is the original post!

This is 3 coats of Essie French Affair (do I even need to talk about me and my relationship with Essie or are you guys aware of that by now? You're probably aware... I mention it every time I use an Essie polish. But I digress...). The silver accent fingers are two coats of China Glaze Midnight Kiss topped with one coat of OPI DS Coronation and one coat of Sinful Queen of Beauty.

Blingy!

I just love the look of accent nail manis. They are so so simple to do, and I always get compliments on my nails when I do them. What do you guys think of the bling-tastic accent nail manis?

Have a great night!

Sinful Colors Cinderella faux nad

Surely by now you've read all the hype surrounding this new polish from Sinful Colors.  It's been swatched numerous times on various blogs with differing opinions on whether it's worthy of all the hubbub.

Is it worth it?  In my opinion - yes.  I LOVED this shade.  Originally I was planning Cinderella as the base for a half moon mani, but once I got it on my nails it was so lovely I couldn't bear to cover it up.  So I wore it plain for 2 days before I stamped over it right before removal on day 4.

Cinderella is a soft pale springy blue with something special - a slight pink shimmer!  It really did remind me of the shimmery gown Cinderelly wore to the ball.  I knew it was quite sheer, so I started with white underwear of Sinful Colors Snow Me White.   Then I applied 2 coats of this gorgeous shimmery goodness.  The formula was actually excellent (Sinful is really hit or miss with me on quality).  It went on smooth and even and dried fast. Try as I may I just could not coax that pink shimmer out in my photos - either in sunlight or artificial.  You'll have to trust me on this one, the pink is there!

After Cinderella was fully dry, I applied a top coat of Out the Door.  Now - this is a new topcoat for me.  The sales clerk at Sally's swears she likes it better than SV, because it doesn't thicken up in the bottle.  I bought the large jumbo size bottle at 2.5 ounces (73 ml); which is 5x the size of the SV bottle at almost the same price.  SV = $8-9, OtD = $10.  I am still undecided on the quality of the product and need to do more testing.  Here's why...

After I applied the OtD, I waited a half hour or so then applied Color Club Copycoats scented topcoat in Duplicity (this is the turquoise tinted one).  Approximately 3 hours later, I reached into my makeup drawer and dented my mani in 3 places. I can't tell you whether this is due to the initial topcoat not drying thoroughly (it's suppoed to be super fast dry) or the Copycoats (which is not a fast dry topcoat).  Still - it had been THREE hours.   So I will do an independent test on my next mani of SV vs OtD and let you know the results.  Incidentally, I did not think the fragrance on Duplicity was as strong as the last one I tried (Mimic) and I think so far I like Mimic better.  I could still smell Mimic even after applying a regular fast dry topcoat over it but Duplicity was barely noticeable with nothing over it.

Here's the mani after I stamped over it with plate M64 and Sally Hansen Color Quick pen in Turquoise Chrome.  If you haven't tried these pens yet for stamping - what are you waiting for?  They are awesome for stamping - easy to control with super pigmented opaque color.  I was lucky enough to pick up 6 of them at Dollar Tree for a buck apiece.  In hindsight I wish I'd gotten more!  Oh, and my fubared pinky finger?  That is the result of attempting a plaid stamp with 2 different colors before finally settling on this design instead.  I don't know if I have a faulty stamp on that plaid image or what because it was blurry even using 2 different polishes.  And I'm pretty sure it wasn't my technique.  Anyway- thank God for top coat, although I did bork up a little bit of the cuticle line from removing the 2 botched stamps! If you like the chrome pens for stamping head over to Lyndsey's blog at http://pixiepolish.blogspot.com/ and check out her gorgeous use of this pen!

Junior High Doodles Nails

Hello!

Goofy title for this one, eh? I'm not quite sure where this idea came from, but I do think I've seen some people in the nail blogosphere do something like this before. However, I don't know WHO so if you know who originated this idea, please let me know and I will give credit where credit is due :)

(edit: here's some of the originals! iiamjelly, Emerald Sparkled, Victoria7)

For this one, I started with a base of Sinful Snow Me White -- the ONE color in my collection that's close to being completely empty. And also one of the worst whites in the history of the world. I added a top coat of Seche Vite and drew on all the details with a fine tip Sharpie. BTW -- thanks to those of you that suggested Sharpies for writing text! It was MUCH easier than painting. I definitely suggest it if you're not as nimble with a nail art brush as you'd like to be. One thing I did notice is to wait until your mani is completely dry. I tried to draw the blue lines on my pinky 5-10 minutes after the SV and it ended up squishing/denting it a little bit. I also had to rotate my nail for the blue lines as opposed to just drawing them by moving my other hand. Do you guys get what I"m trying to say?

Anyway, I think these came out pretty cute. I used to draw doodles like this on my notes all the time during school. Sssh, don't tell my professors that I wasn't paying attention :)

Day 30: Inspired by a tutorial

Hello all! I've wanted to try this for a long time now and figured now's a better time than any!

They're cute little pandas! This tutorial is one that CutePolish made. Watch the video here!

What's a better for me to do than pandas?! Get it? Amanda Panda?? :D

I used a base of China Glaze Innocence to make a nice canvas for my little pandas......and to cover up my horrible stained nails. Then I just drew the white panda face with a white polish and used acrylic paints and dotting tools for the eyes, ears and pupils. One of the simplest nail art designs I've ever done!

 

Voila! Tomorrow's the end of the challenge.... kinda bittersweet! Ok...not really. I am tired and my cuticles are crying for some rest.

See ya tomorrow! :)

Day 28: Inspired by a flag

For Day 28, I decided to do the country flag of the Netherlands!

This mani was very simple -- two coats of Sally Hansen All Fired Up as the base. AFU is a perfect red creme -- opaque in just two coats. I didn't even mind the super wide chunky brush with this one!

The stripes are made from a white striper and the blue polish is Sinful Midnight Blue. The stripes could've been much neater, but let's face it -- I don't have the patience for taping right now. Mom's getting ready for a big move so it's been chaotic around here!

See you tomorrow for supernatural day! :)

Day 25: Inspired by fashion

Nobody ever said this prompt meant "inspired by good fashion" ... and that's exactly where I took this one!

I was inspired by tacky Christmas sweaters! (Thanks to Steph for suggesting this idea) They are totally not fashionable in the slightest, but I think this mani turned out SO CUTE!

I used a base of Sinful GoGo Girl and drew the little snowmen with acrylic paint. The snowflakes were done using a small Konad stamp and white Sinful polish.

Here's my inspiration for this mani:

What do you think of these tacky snowmen nails? Appropriate for the holidays?

Day 24: Inspired by a movie

Hello ladies! For my inspired by a movie day I decided to do Wizard of Oz nails!

On my pointer finger, I have the wicked witch of the west. I know that this is technically an image from Wicked, but I still thought it was appropriate and I didn't know how else to draw an evil witch :) Base color for this is China Glaze Entourage.

My middle finger is the yellow brick road! The grass is made with a base coat of China Glaze Starboard and sponged with China Glaze Cha Cha Cha. The yellow is acrylic paint.

The ring finger is none other than Dorothy's dress! I realize in the movie her dress was actually checkered....but I'm a rebel and don't like to play by the rules. Base color is Sinful White on White and the blue stripes are acrylic paint.

Lastly, the pinky is Dorothy's slippers! Base color is Zoya Sooki with two coats of Sally Hansen Downtown Rubies -- the perfect Dorothy shoes color!

We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of oz!!

Day 13: Animal Print

Hello ladies!

I struggled with what to do for animal print for a long time. I didn't really want to do one of your traditional animal prints (zebra, leopard, giraffe etc) but I couldn't find any inspiration for anything else. So today's post won't be as exciting as some ;)

I started with a base of Sinful Mint Apple which is a beautiful ... mint color. You guys should know by now that I suck at describing colors. Just trust me. ANYWAY, color is beautiful, but if you guys have seen my first post about it (I won't link it because it was one of my very first posts and it's horrible), my bottle of this has a HORRIBLY wonky brush on it. I took out the brush of a Sinful top coat I have and used that instead, but it made the consistency kind of weird on the first couple coats of color. Oh well, I got it evened out eventually :) My rant on this color chipping on me after 12 hours is a whole 'nother post.

Then I sponged on Essie French Affair lightly to give it some KAPOW! Stamped with Sinful White on White and plate m78. Then.....yes, I added some China Glaze Fairy Dust. (Hi, my name is Amanda and I'm addicted to Fairy Dust.)

Ta-da!

Another BCA Mani

Hi all! Today I'm deviating from my Halloween nail art mode and showing you a Breast Cancer Awareness mani I did last night.

I know this is late in the month, but I at least wanted to get one in before October is over. I especially wanted to do this mani to pay tribute to my boyfriend's mother -- she beat breast cancer about 5 years ago. :)

I used Sinful Beautiful Girl and Wet 'n Wild How I Met Your Magenta for the base colors. I topped my ring finger with OPI I Lilly Love You and my pointer finger with OPI Teenage Dream (which I will never get tired of, EVER). On my other fingers I drew little ribbons. My dumb self wasn't thinking before I did my nails and I forgot that the BCA ribbon is pink... so I was forced to do it in a darker pink and it's kind of hard to see, but I still like it.

That's all for today ladies. Happy Friday!

Simple Halloween Gravestones

Hi all! Today I have a Halloween design I've been wanting to do for a while -- little Halloween gravestones!

I started with a base of Ulta Little Black Dress to represent a spooky night sky. LBD is a black polish with small silver glitter in it. Here is a swatch:

Next I painted the gravestones with OPI French Quarter For Your Thoughts (the PERFECT gravestone color!). I just painted the gravestones straight with the polish brush. Paint like you would if you were doing a ruffian mani.

To make the gravestones look old and aged, I sponged a tiny bit of Sinful Colors Secret Admirer. I really like the way it made the gravestones look!

I used a small brush and black acrylic paint to draw on "RIP" on all of my nails.

Finish with some grass at the bottom (I used a green Sinful striper). Seal it with Seche Vite and voila! You're done :)

What do you ladies think of these simple gravestone nails? They were one of my most simple Halloween designs and they're at the top of my list! I guess intricate doesn't always mean better :)

Oh also, if you're arachnophobic, might want to turn away in 3...






2.......







1.....



I present to you, the rare Hoosier man-eating spider!

Happy almost weekend!

Creepy Halloween Skittles Nails

Hello all! Today I have some creepy skittles nails to show you!

I was trying to think of what I wanted to do for today's mani. I knew I wanted to do something festive for Halloween but I couldn't narrow down my choices. So what better way than to use ALL of my ideas in one mani!

I really like how this one turned out.

On my pinky, I did a creepy eye. The base color is Wet 'n' Wild Burgundy Frost and the eyeball is made with black, white and red acrylic paint. On my ring finger is a bloody handprint. The base color is Sinful Snow Me White and the bloody handprint is made with red acrylic paint. The middle finger is a Scream mask -- base color Sinful Black on Black and white acrylic paint. My pointer finger is a voodoo doll. Made with, you guessed it, acrylic paint. My thumb nail, a creepy clown, (my favorite!) was also made with a white base and all acrylic paint.

I am surprisingly pleased with how this turned out! I think I'm most excited about the creepy clown nail and it was the hardest to do!

Here is another picture where you can see all the nails more clearly. I should've made the design on my thumb nail upside down because when I took pictures they weren't all facing the same way so you'll just have to cock your head to see them. Haha

What do you think of these creeptastic skittles nails? Hope you all have a fabulous Wednesday!

Color Club Backstage Pass collection swatches

Here it is folks!  The long awaited and highly sought after Backstage Pass collection!  I picked up 4 polishes from the collection (we passed on the silver and gold) and they were purchased from Victoria Nail Supply and 8ty8 beauty.

Enlarge for sparkly goodness!

First up we have Fame and Fortune.  FaF is a dark pink base with silver holographic flakies of various sizes.  I swatched it over the top of Sally Hansen CSM in Feelin' Saucy. The polish is very thick, so flakie placement can be an issue - but they are awesome so I don't care!  This polish is similar to OPI I Lily Love you but FaF doesn't have the holographic glitter in it and the base is a little darker.  Here is 2 coats of Fame and Fortune.

Next is Backstage Pass.  This one boasts a clear base with small silver glitter and humongous silver and magenta hex glitters.  The glitter particles are so large they almost give the appearance of curling up on the edges, but I believe that is just an optical illusion.  Again, the polish is somewhat thick and you will have to be careful with placement of the glitter.  Let the first coat dry thoroughly before applying the second.  I have used a base coat of Zoya Anja and applied 2 coats of Backstage Pass over the top.  BP is not really dense enough to wear on its own without multiple coats.

On deck we have It's a Hit!  It's a Hit! is a clear base with ginormous lavender/pink hex glitters.  Very similar to Backstage Pass, but a single color glitter. Again, its not really opaque enough to wear on its own without multiple coats.  I have layered 2 coats over the top of Sinful Verbena.  Just look at that glittery goodness!

And last but not least we have Wish Upon A Rockstar.  As with the previous 2, it is a clear base with small green, gold, blue, silver and red glitter and large pink hex glitter.  It looks to be similar to DL Happy Birthday, Milani Gems and Ulta Pinata Yada Yada.  Upon close examination, I see that the density of Gems and WUAR is similar, but while Gems has large multicolored hex glitter, WUAR has a higher density of small multicolored glitter.  PYY is much more loosely packed than both WUAR and Gems.  No dupes here.  WUAR is layered over Orly Halley's Comet for an amazing glitter bomb mani.

One thing worth noting about these polishes (especially It's A Hit! and Backstage Pass) is that they're VERY thick and bumpy. If you have a problem with really bumpy glitters, I'm not sure how you'll feel about these because it feels like I just stacked tons of rhinestones on top of my nails. You'd need several coats of Seche Vite to get these smooth as glass... so take that with a grain of salt. You might be able to get away with some Gelous and Seche Vite together. Also, these leave MASSIVE GLITTER HERPES upon removal!!! Ahhh.

Overall we both really like this collection! I definitely recommend layering them though, because they're definitely not opaque enough to wear alone. Plus I don't think they'd look very good alone. I can't pick a favorite!

What do you all think? Will you be picking any of these up?