Monkey See, Monkey Do Monday--Chalkboard Nails!

Hi Everyone!!! Happy Monday!  A super long time ago I saw this cool mani done by Sarah over at Chalkboard Nails.  Sarah has mad skills and most of the time I can't come close to doing something by her BUT then I got "the grass plate"  The grass plate is one of those funky kind of plates you find on Aliexpress and need it but you aren't sure when you'll ever  use it.  I got it AGES ago in a group buy through a FB group and I finally hauled it out so I could do a scenery manicure.  Then I remembered Sarah's lovely fireflies at sunset and BAM a star was born!

I did a gradient with Elevation Grand Sunset Teton and Nails Inc Brompton Place and Brook Street.  I have no idea if you can even find the infamous grass plate on AE anymore but it is CZ08 if you feel compelled to look

I'm a little sad my fireflies didn't photograph better  I decided not to use a bright yellow and I think that might have been my downfall

Here's my thumb getting in on the action too

You can find Sarah's original post HERE But I was smart enough to do a nice side by side comparison

I was so excited to be able recreate this beautiful mani from Chalkboard Nails AND use my grass plate finally!

Thanks for stopping by!! I hope you all have a fantastic day!

No net to catch my fall!

Hi Everyone!  Holy cow I'm sorry I sorry I sort of fell off the face of the blogging earth like that!  My short absence was not intentional at all.  I guess life just sort of caught up to me then knocked me down and dragged me under for a few days.

Today I am enjoying a lovely day indoors.  It is gorgeous out but chilly chilly chilly and more chilly.  The sun is out which is great BUT it's not even 50 degrees out!  And it's May!

A few days ago I did a really lovely layering I want to show you.  I started with Elevation Polish Sunset Among The Palms which is nice magenta/pinkish scattered holo with grey  flakies in it.  I really love it because it looks lovely indoors and outdoors.  I decided to layer Darling Diva's The Immortal over it because The Immortal is a holo topper with charcoal flakes in it and ooooh gorgey town!  I just love, love, love, love, LOVE how this turned out!

Isn't this just lovely?!

Can you see those lovely charcoal flakes in it??!!!!

So after wearing it a day or two I decided to do some stamping over it!  

My first thought as to do a grey gradient stamping but I just wasn't feeling it

I hauled out my favorite Mundo de Unas color---Holland Blue and stamped with it

I used plate JQL-05 which is from a set I  got on Aliexpress

At the last minute I added a cute accent flower from the same plate with Mundo de Unas Nabu.  This was really an easy stamped design but really turned out cute!

Tomorrow is June I think all of us in Wisconsin are wondering if  it will be Summer with it--I mean really we haven't even had Spring yet LOL!

Thanks for stopping by!! I hope you all are enjoying your Sunday afternoon!

Palm Trees In Paradise

Hi Everyone!  Hope you all had a great weekend.  I really didn't do much and that's just what I needed.  I spent the day in my pajamas on Saturday.  Yup all day long!  It was glorious!  I made a huge batch of Italian Wedding Soup and I snuggled up with the cats and a wayward chinchilla from time to time and read all day.  I finished 3 books!  It was just so nice.  I didn't have to go anywhere and this is truly how I love to spend my time--wrapped up in a good book OR a few good books.

A short while ago Kelly from Set In Lacquer made the announcement she had a lot of personal stuff going on and was just going to be too busy to keep up with her blogging.  I'm sure she'll be back from time to time to post an occasional awesome mani or two but for now she really needs to focus on some other things and that means blogging is out.  A few of us decided to get together and recreate a mani of Kelly's.  She is pretty amazing and she's a truly super nice person.  I feel honored to call her my friend.  

She has freehand skillz and we all know I do not.  So today I chose to recreate one of her cool mani's with a flair of  my own.  Kelly--while the blogging world will say goodbye to you I'm so thankful you and I are friends outside of the nail polish world.   I'm ever so grateful for that!

Here's the cool mani Kelly did with some of the Elevation Polish Hawaiian Punch Collection

Here's the tribute mani I did 

I had to use stamping because I got no freehand skillz!  Thanks Uber thanks Uber Chic 2-03 for saving the day!

Wouldn't it be great if one day Kelly and I could hang out in our own palm tree paradise??

Yeah I do think that would be great!

Many blessings to you my friend-- thanks for the many great mani's you've done you will be missed!

The Digit-al Dozen Does Geometric--Circle Girl In A Square World

Hi Everyone!! Happy Wednesday!  Whew I'm a bit frazzled today!  I didn't get home until after 8 pm last night so just no time to do my nails.  I really wanted to read and then I got stuck reading WAY too late.  I did a nice gradient today on my lunch hour and then just popped home and stamped up real quick.  Thankfully I had help from Elevation Polish, OPI and Emily de Molly!

My gradient is Elevation Polish Grand Teton Sunset, OPI Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm and I stamped with Mundo de Unas Lilac and Emily de Molly EDM03

This turned out to be a pretty cool funky geometric mani!

Even the dots are stamping! Woot!

All purplicious too!

I might have even made it under the 30 minute mark with this baby but since I had to split up my time I have no way of knowing LOL!

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Ahhhhhhhh Elevation Polish!

Hi Everyone!  Happy Wednesday to all!  Hope everyone is having a great week so far.  I decided to do some gradienting with my favorite Elevation Polishes!! And then just to be different and edgy I decided to top it with the gorgeous 23k gold leaf topcoat Hidden Falls and I just love how this turned out!

Here I did a gradient with China Glaze New Birth and then Elevation Polish Storm In The Morning Light and Definition: The Vivid Unknown then topped with Elevation Polish Hidden Falls

I worried the gold over the cooler blueish colors might not look as good as a silver leaf would have.

 But I totally feel that was an unwarranted fear!  I think it looks great!

I really wanted to try to stamp over it but I ended up just not having the time

Thankfully this gradient doesn't need any stamping at all!

What do you all think do you like the gold leaf over these blue colors or do you think silver would have been a better choice?

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope everyone has a fantastic day!

In hurry? No worries part 3!!

Hi Everyone!! Happy Friday!  I have one more easy 30 minute mani to show you today and I'm excited about this one.  Today I am featuring an Elevation I finally bought (only 5 months later) and one of my all time favorite Born Pretty Store plates!

This is just so gorgeous a berry scattered holo with charcoal flakies

I love the name too! Although living in Wisconsin  we see pines and not palms here LOL!

And check out my stamping!!!

Yassssss it is the coveted Born Pretty Store BP-41

I wasn't sure what color to stamp over it to be honest with you.  My first thought was black, my friend Ashley said no not black!  Then she suggested pink so I went with the always bright and cheerful Mexican Pink from Mundo de Unas

Everyone seems to love this plate because it easily mimics a water marble or needle drag image.

I really love how this one turned out!

So there you have it the flash challenge ended yesterday and I was able to get 3 mani's in all of them under 30 minutes.  Prove to me and hopefully to others you can do something really awesome with limited time.

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you all have a fantastic day!

More from Messy Mansion!

Hi Everyone!! Happy Saturday!  Oh my goodness I have some really pretty mani's to show you all today.  I worked 3 more of the new plates I was given for quality check and just had to review these as well.   I also got to use them with some of my favorite indie makers too!

First up I had a base on of Red Dog's Raspberry Tart which is a light purple with purple glitters and some nice micro white and green bar glitters.  I stamped with what I like to call the reverse image plate from Messy Mansion plate MM49.  I went straight for the starburst flower image with some Mundo de Unas Purple and ooooh it's so pretty!

I'm not going to lie this image covers up a lot of the pretty basecoat but up close you can see the hints of the glitter in the base

I really love this look!!

I think images like this are some of my very favorite

Can you see the glitters in there??? 

Here's the plate can you see what I mean by reverse images??  

Can't wait to try something with the ladies face!!

Next up I had to really reach for something because I wanted to show off the Steampunk plate but honestly when it comes to steampunk I don't get.  I just do not get it at all.  But this did give me a chance to use my gorgeous Bat Crap Crazy polish from 6 Harts

She is a gorgeous brown beauty with some teeny micro holo glitters in her

Stamping is with MM43 and believe it or not I used a copper metallic from Avon to stamp with but to me it looks gold!

There's a lot of cool stuff on this plate so if you are into the whole Steampunk thing then trust me when I say this is up your alley!

I love the keys on this plate and I'm sure I will do more things with this baby

Last manicure to show you today is my favorite!  And it surprises me because just like Steampunk I'm not really a paisley person either.  I mean it's okay it's not great or fantastic and I don't know that I'd ever wear anything paisley at all but again I wanted to showcase this plate because it is pretty in paisley LOL!  Check out MM48!

I chose one of my favorite Elevation's for the base--Definition: The Vivid Unknown.  Then I pulled out my Mundo de Unas and stamped with Turquoise, Avocado and Mustard . . . drops mic!

Can I get a what? what?! Did you see this?!!!! OH MY GAHHHHHH!

This dark blue/teal base is the perfect backdrop for this nail art!

I mean where has paisley been all my life??? Right???!!!!!

I retract my I wouldn't wear paisley statement.  I'm sure if I had this in a scarf I would wear the hell out of it!

And again I'll just say when it comes to stamping  polish Mundo de Unas has no equal.

NO EQUAL!!!!

Here's the MM48 plate, it's all about the paisley!

As expected I had zero issues stamping with this plates.  I have yet to find a Messy Mansion plate that does not stamp well every single time.  These news plates are amazing and I applaud Julia and LilyAnna on their creativity!

Which one of my mani's is your favorite???   For me it is definitely the paisley print!

Thanks for stopping by!! I hope you all have a fantastic day!

The Digit-al Dozen Does Nature--Stormy Seas!

Hi Everyone!  Hope you are all having a great day.  I'm really starting to sound like a broken record with this cold but I just can't shake this sucker.  I'm coming up on a week with this baby now and honestly it's like 5 days too much for me! Find a cure for the common cold already for crying out loud!

But the good news I have been feeling well enough to work on some new nail art things which makes me pretty happy.  I decided to get in on the alcohol ink/permanent marker craze going around.  You can get some really cool bases uses alcohol inks out of the bottle or in the form of permanent markers.  The possibilities are pretty endless.  I check out a few YouTubes on the process and just decided to play around.  Instead of going over a white base I decided to try something over one of my fave Elevation's--Storm In The Morning Light.  Here's the look I came up with!

You can do so much with these things!  I bought a 24 pack of Bic permanent markers the other day and have really been enjoying some of the things I've come up with.  You can do different looks using a brush or cotton swab dipped in alcohol.  You can also spritz alcohol on to the nail with a spray bottle too.  It's really cool

One of my friends thought this looked like the ocean at night and I thought  oh how perfect then as this fits right in with this week's Digit-al Dozen Nature Theme!

I think my favorite is the ring finger but as you can see you can get a lot of different looks just using the same colors of markers put in different spots on the nail

I decided to add some stamping because I think we all know I ALWAYS decide to add some stamping.  I hauled out one of my Dashica SdP plates

 It's not bad at all but it really looks amazing without the stamping over it I think and you know I rarely say that!

I think this week in the DD has just been amazing.  Oh my gosh there have been SO MANY awesome mani's.  Everyone is coming up with something completely different and a lot of us were worried it would turn into nothing but a leopard print and floral week LOL.   

Here's a little collage of the mani with and without stamping over it

Which do you like better??

I'm going to head over and see what everyone else has come up with for day four of The Digit-al Dozen Does Nature

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