Hi Readers! I guess I'm not really using the word frugal correctly here but I didn't want to say lazy lol! Sundays we stamp in our facebook group Adventures In Stamping. The challenge for Sunday was to use an image plate ending in the number 7. I have a few sets of plates but was loving my Magnetix raspberry polish so much I couldn't part with it SO I pulled out my trusty M57 and went with the zebra print over my Magnetix!!!! OMG LOVE!
What I love about it is you can still the magnetic design through the stamping!
I love holding them up like this and looking at them
Here's a flash close up!
I am just loving these Magnetix by Icing! Right now I feel like I need every single magnetic polish in the world!
So another two for the price of one today--gorgeous underwear with cool stamping AND a plate ending in 7! Win Win!!!!
Have you ever extended the wear on your current mani but adding something to it readers?? If yes what did you do to give it new life?
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! I'm here today with a humble apology to magnetic nail polish. A few months ago when it was first hitting the shelves I had a few friends saying oooh these are so cool you should try these--do you want me to get you a couple? And I said no they don't really do anything for me. Then a few months went by and I hear China Glaze is coming up with magnetics and I start to feel like I'm getting sucked in AND then I see this post from nailXchange and BAM I'm blown out of the water! I say to myself stamping and magnetic polish are you kidding me???! I've admired her a long time but I sort of wanted to marry her after that post. So here I am today with a humble apology to magnetic nail polish. I'm sorry for ever doubting you!
My wonderful friend Lori gets me stuff all the time--I'll get texts from her saying I'm at so and so and do you want me to pick this up for you? Icing is one of those stores I just don't want to go to. I'm sorry readers but it's a 40 minute drive to the Icing store and then I'm fighting mall traffic and I just do not want to do it. Lucky for me Lori doesn't feel the same way lol! She picked me up the raspberry and olive green Magnetix polishes from there and I LOVE THEM! I had 100 percent planned to stamp on this one but nope I just couldn't do it. The first one I decided to try is the raspberry colored one. Check it out!
This is a shot I actually took in bed last night lol! The low light from the lamp beside my bed really lit up the polish so I took a few pics--this is just so gorgeous to me!
Here's another one look at all that sparkle!
I just cannot get enough of the this polish!
I feel SO bad for ever doubting it, I really hope it can forgive me.
This is what I love about it--it looks like nail art on your nails but you don't even have to do anything! You simply hold the magnet above the polish and the design forms--I even went as far as to say I may never stamp again lol! Don't worry I'm sure by tomorrow I won't be feeling that way lol!
Here's the only pic I got of it in natural light indoor light--harder to see the shimmer but still really pretty
Here's ring I made with the gold/olive green one. It turned out great!
How are you feeling about this magnetic polishes readers?? Are you on board with them, definitely not into them, or owing them an apology???
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! The first blogger I ever followed was Rebecca over at Rebecca Likes Nails. She makes a FANTASTIC franken called Rebecca Likes Cupcakes so one of her nicknames is Cupcakes! I'm sure you all know her, but just in case you don't you can visit her here. I think Rebecca is the queen of the gradient nails and try as I might I just never was as good at it as she is. My friend Claudia did a way cool mani the other day using her favorite purples and then she holo'd the tips! I hope you can see her cool mani from pinterest here. My friend Rhonni is what I like to call a polish ninja--if you're looking for something she can find it for you! She's doing an awesome giveaway right now on her blog for the Clarins dupe--visit her here. Getting back to Rhonni's ninja ability I'll tell you I had been looking for China Glaze's On Your Knees for what seemed like forever and one day completely out of the blue and by surprise it arrived on my doorstop courtesy of the polish ninja! I'm not sure if you've figured this out yet but I love dark colors on my nails! Spring and Summer basically kill me readers! On Your Knees is a gorgeous deep burgundy shimmer. A few weeks later another incredible China Glaze wound up on my door step, once again, courtesy of the polish ninja! This time is was the glowing red Long Kiss. I really wanted to use these two together and after I saw Claudia's purple gradient with holo tips I decided to try it with these polishes. I did 2 coats of On Your Knees First then sponged Long Kiss on from middle of nail to tip then to bling it out with holo goodness I did a kiss of OPI DS Signature on the tips. BAM gorgeousness at it's finest. I fell in love with this mani--FELL IN LOVE WITH IT READERS! Therefore absolutely no stamping on this one!
Here it is under the kitchen light (hence the frig in the background lol)
Still in the kitchen but directly under the light
Isn't this beautiful????
Here is shot with the low light of the hallway lamp I feel like you can really see the subtle stamping of Long Kiss over On Your Knees here
To me this pic shows their true colors best
Here's a close up with flash
It's so rare for me to love a mani enough to go without stamping on it but that's exactly what I did with this one. Rebecca gave it her stamp of approval too, which made me very happy!
Here is a picture of On Your Knees and Long Kiss--On Your Knees is well loved, I really hope to get full bottle of it someday I love it that much
On Your Knees is on the left and Long Kiss on the right.
Have you done gradients before readers? How do you think you are at doing them? I think I'm getting better!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! Today I have a gorgeous mani featuring Gold Old Buffy from Essence's Vampire's Love line. Way before Twilight and The Vampire Diaries there was Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I loved that show--not as much as my friend Destany though! She knows the names of every single episode! I was lucky enough to get this entire set from my polish "wifey" Lori. I think we became friends because we have the same name lol. I really love her though she is a fantastic friend to me and I'm grateful every day something as trivial as nail polish brought her into my life. Actually I've met the nicest people from my love of both nail polish and chinchillas. Yes readers I said chinchillas lol! I have 10 of them as pets and I've met the best people there are in the chinchilla world too! Maybe someday I'll show you some pics of my crew!
Now back to the nails lol! Gold Old Buffy is so far my favorite polish of 2012. It's what I like to call a pretty "ugly" color. To me I say it's a blackened olive green glass fleck with gold shimmer. It's really stunning!
See what I mean by a pretty "ugly" color??? Man this is gorgeous!
But because it's me you know I don't leave well enough alone so I stamped on it lol! It was an easy stamping of Sally Hansen Gold Chrome Pen on BM21
Lovely isn't it???
Here's another shot
And one with flash
It's so sparkly it was hard for me to keep the glare off!
Flash close up!
Now let me just tell you this mani wasn't the first design I tried on Gold Old Buffy. I did another one that just completely ate up the gorgeous beauty so I covered it up and stamped again. Check out this before and after pic
I like the after so much better than the before! I really think with the lace design it looks like an old tapestry--a perfect look for a polish inspired by vampires wouldn't you say?
Speaking of Vampire's who's your favorite? For me it's no question--the super hot and gorgeous vampire private detective Mick St. John. I still cannot believe CBS cancelled that show! I mean look at him! He is SO hot!
Lucky for me I can still see the hunky Alex O'Loughlin on Hawaii 5-0! I miss his long hair though lol!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! Welcome to another Franken Friday post! In September I made up a franken using Sally Hansen's Pumpkin Spice. I ended up getting a few of these from people because they thought I needed alot of them when in fact I didn't. So here I am with a surplus of orange glitter in a black jelly and it's not even Halloween! So what did I do? I frankened of course! I added some glitter from Sally's and a Martha Stewart to my Pumpkin Spice to give it a new look. The Sally's glitters were Mother Nature (a medium olive green) and Sun Kissed (copper). The Martha Stewart I used was Peridot a green and gold glitter. I have to say I didn't really measure I just added scoops of the various colors until I got what I liked. I loved the outcome of it and felt it leaned toward green rather than the orange so I added a few drops of Revlon Emerald City to it. The result is a very glittery polish with a dark murky green base. It really reminded me of Scotland for some reason why I don't know since I've never been there lol! Recalling my favorite historical taking place in Scotland I named it The Secret after one of my favorite Julie Garwood books. Since I had received Here Today Aragon Tomorrow and had swatched it I decided to layer The Secret over Aragon and WOW!!!
Here's a bottle shot sorry it's not that clear this was made at 2am lol!
Here it is layered over Here Today Aragon Tomorrow
I just really fell in love with this! But knowing me I HAD to stamp over it lol! I had planned on filling in some of this design with orange but after I saw how great just the gold turned out I left it as is. Here I stamped using Sally Hansen Gold Chrome pen using BM208
Did you see that????? It's gorgeous! It's like an elven forrest!
Can you see the glitters in the polish?
How bout now?????
Man I love this color! So here I took a sort of boring orange glitter in black (sorry Sally Hansen Pumpkin Spice, I still love you though) and turned it into something really gorgeous!
I honestly think the key was layering it over a dark green. I'm going to try layering it over black and a lighter green as well and possibly even an orange to see how it looks.
What do you think readers? Are you loving this green, gold and orange glitter or is it too Halloweeny for you?
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! Today I have another Throw Back Thursday mani. One of my favorite bloggers for stamping inspiration is Cris over at Let Them Have Polish. I got a lot of ideas from her and looking at her blog when I first started really taught me how to match up base colors and stamping Colors. One of my favorite mani's by Cris can be seen here. After I saw hers I tried to recreate it using some of my own Zoyas.
Check it out!
This was my first time using Zoya Jules and I feel in love with it!
Here's a pic with flash
I really love this look! I tried to make it my own by adding the colored rhinestones to it.
To do this mani I did two coats of Zoya Jules and then stamped with Zoya Cynthia using BM222
I think this looks like marble tile or perhaps a Greek vase how about you readers?? Does it remind you of anything?
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! Today I offer no stamping! You heard me NO STAMPING! What is wrong with me, right??? Well this mani is just so pretty no stamping was needed. I'm not going to lie though I did think about it lol! I had my Illamasqua's out the other day and I thought wow I wonder if I can wear all of these in one mani? I had seen a mani on Pinterest the other day which led me to this blogger with the neatest ideas and remembered a Ruffian she had done. I felt I could make it work with my Illamasquas. Check her's out here. Since I only have three Illamasqua's--Viridian, Baptiste and Phallic I felt it was unbalanced so I whipped in my little Sally Girl, Phat.
The mani is simple I just did a different color polish on each nail but doubled up my Baptiste on my thumbs. I topped them with China Glaze It's My Turn gold holo and hallelujah it's beautiful!
Index is Phallic, Middle is Viridian, Ring is Baptiste and Pinkie is Phat
Here it is with flash!!! Gore Ore Jus!!
Close Up!!!
All I can say is WOW! Sometimes no stamping is needed lol!
Here are the polishes I used for this mani
Have you tried one of these Ruffian crescent moon mani's yet readers? If you haven't you should! They look so nice.
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! I'm going to show you something today that might make your skin crawl! The weak of stomach need to turn away. This is a post on (yes you guessed it) when mani's attack!!!! AIEEEEEEEEEEEEE look away!
Ok since you're still with me I guess I need to show you that not every mani is a success! This thing started out right I mean how could it not with the glorious DS Glamour! Here it is on it's own
I mean what's not to love??? It's a blurple holo!
Well I couldn't leave well enough alone because I just can't have a "plain" polish only mani so I decided to stamp on it. I had a great idea for it too--I wanted to try something I did with a different holo almost a year ago. This is what it turned out like
OMG readers did that make you nearly lose your lunch???? If so I apologize!
Here's the mani I was trying to mimic
Wow that's a blast from the past as it's probably the 5th time I stamped lol But it's SO much cuter!
UG!
Back to the drawing board. I decided not to cover up so much of the beauty of Glamour and went for a simple silver sweep at the bottom corner
Much better! Here's a nice side by side comparison just so we can see how things can and do go horribly wrong sometimes!
I haven't been stamping for a year yet but darn close and this is by far one of the worst mani's ever! I'm glad I was able to save it.
For the mani fail I used Whirl Wind White then stamped using BM21. I went back over some of the image with Kleancolor Metallic Blue using the heart flower from BM03. For the mani save I used Sally Hansen Silver Chrome pen and stamped using BM05
Has this ever happened to you readers? Were you able to save your mani or did you have to chalk it and start over?
Hi Readers! I have two challenges for the price of one today! I have a sweet friend Brenda who's daughter Dyan suffered a brain trauma so a few of us are getting together to create some mani's for her. Brenda told us some of Dyan's favorites such as color, band, football team and what not so we decided to make an album for her of all the mani's we did in her honor. And I always have my Sunday Challenge from the Facebook Group Adventures in Stamping. I decided to combine the two and see what happened. I'm so glad I did because it turned out great! I wore this mani over to my family's birthday celebration and both my mom and sister loved it! In my family we are either Virgo's or Aquarian's lol! My dad is Jan 27th, my little sister is Jan 31st and I'm Feb 12th so it's the Aquarian's turn hahahahah. I also have a nephew who is Jan 16th so we had a lot of birthdays to celebrate.
Before I show you the mani I did, I want to show you the nail polish jewelry I made for my little sister. I think you'll recognize it!
I made ring, earrings and pendant for her based on my stained glass mani. She really loved them and I think they turned out real nice. I need to make a ring like this for me too! Check out how pretty the ring is!!!
Ok now onto the mani! The challenge for this Sunday was stars and I immediately thought of my friend's daughter and how far she's come! She was in a coma and the doctor's said she would not recover. Today Dyan is walking and talking but still has a long way to go. But I wanted to incorporate this stars mani for her and tell her to keep reaching for the stars! Her favorite color is blue so you know I had to pull out my Starry Starry Night franken dupe, Natural Law. Check out how great this mani turned out!
Close Up!
You can see some of the silver sparkles in Natural Law here! I love it!
Now flash
And close up flash!
The camera man offered to assist tonight BUT he was a little inebriated so alot of those pics didn't turn out lol! Here's the best one of the bunch
I really love how this mani turned out! I looked through my plates and used as many of the stars images I could find. I stamped with Sally Hansen Gold, Silver and Blue Chrome pens and also did the middle finger with Nic Stick's Silver Ella.
I feel I accomplished a lot with this mani--I hope Dyan will see it and keep reaching for the stars--she still has a long way to go but she's come so far, I believe it is within her reach.
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! Some of the prettiest stamping mani's to me are the subtle ones. By subtle I mean the tone on tone stamping which are ones where the stamped color and base color are from the same color family. The blogger who I think does an AHmazing job of subtle stamping is NailXchange. Please check her out here. Taking a page out of NailXchange's book I did a nice subtle stamping mani. What prompted me to go tone on tone was my recent nail mail of my first OPI suede--Ink!! It's gorgeous! I don't know why I'm getting on board with these so late but thankfully I have some friends who have helped me out. I currently have Ink, Lincoln Park After Dark, Russian Navy and soon I'll be getting We'll Always Have Paris.
First up here's a pic of OPI Ink suede not the best pic I'm sorry. I didn't really take a lot of pics of it since it had no stamping yet
Ink is one of those fantastic "blurple" colors.
Here's the mani I came up with for it
Here's a close up!
There is SO much incredible depth to a matte when you top it with a glossy topcoat.
To get this look I did 2 coats of OPI Ink suede then stamped using China Glaze Avalanche and Shany plate SH23. To me this was the perfect little mani for a day and then move on kind of mani.
How about you readers--do you like the tone on tone subtle stamping or are you a more dramatically stamped mani person? How about a mani for just a day?
Hi Readers!
My mom has always had a great fashion sense. When we were kids growing up and even now she never has looked her age to me. She likes hip but also classy. I'm quite a bit bigger than my mom so I've never been able to wear her hand me downs BUT I do get the shoes she buys and wears once and her cast of purses! WOOT! I love going shoe and purse shopping with her because I can always tell the things I'm going to end up with eventually.
So naturally I was thrilled when this cool purse made it's way to me!
My friend Destany of Confessions of a Sarcastic Mom and I are BIG red lovers, especially Vampire State Building by OPI, so whenever we find a red we like we tell each other. She went one step further and sent me a LA Colors Craze called Hot Blooded. Instead of having a fever of a hundred and three I decided to use it in a mani! I went a step further and realized I could copy one of my favorite mani's from the beautiful and incredibly talented Kayla of Nails by Kayla Shevonne. You can check hers out there. But you can see mine here!
This is my first time trying a half moon mani using the reinforcement tabs you can find at the store. I think this mani is pretty chic if I do say so myself.
I laid it against the kitchen towel when I was done with the mani and like how it looks this way too
To get this look I did two coats of LA Colors Hot Blooded then topped it with a coat of Seche Vite. I applied the reinforcement tabs at the bottom then did one coat of Zoya Pasha. Another coat of Seche Vite and then I put the reinforcement tab back over the red and stamped with Sally Hansen Coco A Gogo using Konad M57. By covering the red with the tab I didn't have to worry about getting any of the stamping on it.
How about you readers--do you get any good hand me downs from your mom??
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
