Hi Everyone! Happy Friday! Today I'm showing the very first franken I ever made. It's a black glitter with holo hexes I named Midnight's Master after one of my fave books by Cynthia Eden. The Midnight Series by her is fabulous and I had to do it justice. The thing is I made this franken FOREVER ago like over a year ago and never wore it! I paired it with my Crystal Ball duped which the lovely Sarah over at Chalkboard Nails renamed to Crystall BALLZ for me lol!
I do have to say I think I did a pretty great job with my first ever franken!
And I want to try to get a couple days of wear out of this SO let's see what I do with this mani tomorrow to extend some life!
I have to work on Saturday and possibly Sunday so I need to find some ways to wear something more than once that won't drive me nuts LOL!
I hope everyone has a great weekend! Thanks for stopping by!
Hi Readers! Did your mom ever say that to you? "If your friends jumped off a bridge would you?" mine did probably a zillion times and it usually had to do with fashion of some sort! Mom I NEED these aviator tinted sunglasses even though I don't have contacts and can't see sh!t when I wear them. Mom I NEED these suede gauchos even though they seem to stick together when I try to walk. Mom I NEED these ridiculously high heeled wedge clogs that I fell off of in front of the entire football team while walking down the hall in 10th grade. Each time I said I needed it she would ask me why and I would say all my friends have them hence the standard "If your friends jumped off a bridge would you?" Well it seems every blogger AND their mother is doing the kaviar aka fish egg mani so I needed to do one too! I told my friend Rebecca I was going to call it the BALLZ mani--she wanted me to call it the Jesus BALLZ mani. True story readers when I was a young girl growing up (and there was a 70 year age difference between us) my Grandpa Shaw was fond of saying "jesus balls on crutches" when something irritated him. Why--I have no idea--but he did say it and through the years the family has shortened it to just Jesus Balls or as I like say as to not offend anyone JBOC. Feel free to use the saying if you want too lol! Awhile ago I managed to dupe both OPI DS Glamour and OPI DS Exclusive--yes I am that good (big head much, Laurie???!) While I've duped them both I haven't worn them yet! So I decided to pull out one of them for my JB mani.
This is my franken dupe of Exclusive I named Safe, Sane & Consensual
I'm proud of this one--it's a dead on dupe
I decided to jump on the BALLZ bandwagon so I grabbed a few. What a nightmare it was though! I couldn't get my wheel open because all the balls had rolled around in it and the jammed the wheel. Most of them are in my keyboard for crying out loud! I did manage to snag a few though!
Here's a lovely collage I put together using Picasa!
I used nail foil glue to adhere my beads. I didn't sprinkle them on like I've heard everyone else do. I pressed my right index onto some beads I sprinkled on a plate and then pressed them onto my left ring finger. They seemed to hold up okay I did lose some of them on the edges and the tips but that's the hardest place to get nail foil adhesive to work. I loved feeling this! I ran my thumb along it all day and I rubbed the finger across my lips lol! I am a fan of this look and may suggest it to the girls who's mani's I'm doing from prom.
What do you think readers? Are you on the JB mani bandwagon?
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! In the nail world most people know what this means LTHP. It's sort of like NASA is the National Air and Space Association or BSA is Boy Scouts of America OR The Bank Secrecy Act for you bankers out there lol! Anyway LTHP to us is Let Them Have Polish and Cris' blog is one of the first blogs I followed. I copied tons and tons of ideas from her and am so thankful for her creativity as it's helped me find some of mine! Today's post is super cute and I don't really "do" cute lol! Here's the great thing about this Monkey See, Monkey Do--I'm copying Cris who was inspired by Sarah at Chalkboard nails lol! To see Cris' mani go here. To see Sarah's mani go here Sarah's in the spotlight tomorrow!
But let's look and see whooooooooooooo we have here
Here's a close up!
I wish I would have gotten more shots of my thumb! Poor guy's orange so his beak looks whack lol!
Here are the comparison shots first up Cris!
And now mine!
What do you think of this one readers??? Thank god I figured out how to do a successful half moon mani so I could do this cute mani. I know I say I don't "do" cute but I really nailed it here! Geez what a big head whooooooo do I think I am??
My Monkey See, Monkey Do week is almost at an end--I've had a lot of fun doing it and still have lots of WAY COOL bloggers I haven't featured yet so I'm sure you'll be seeing this week again I sure hope you don't mind!
By the way readers I asked some of my friends for some more abbreviations and here's some they came up with--BSB Backstreet Boys of course, USA United States of America--I forgot this one if you can believe it! One my favorites was IHOP International House of Pancakes lol! There are tons and tons of them readers lol!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! A couple of days ago I did some frankening and came up with a Tristam dupe--this is not what I'm showing you today though lol! I had wanted to try my hand and duping both Tristam and Lady of the Lake and succeeded with Tristam but not Lady. My Lady dupe is too pinky purple I still love her but she's not the exact dupe I was going for. I was pretty much on a duping Tristam high then got to thinking about St Patrick's Day right around the corner and why don't I try to come up with a forest green scattered holo. So I did just that! OMG readers this one is a beauty! I named it Rigger after one of my favorite books by Kelly Jamieson--it might actually be my favorite book of hers.
Here's a nice bottle shot
Check out this gorgeous close up under the lamp light
HOLY COW I cannot begin to express how much I love scattered holos! To me they have the most depth of any finish--truly, truly gorgeous
Since it's almost St Patrick's day I decided to add a little shamrock
How cute is that???!
This franken was easy readers believe it or not. I simply took a bottle of NYC Flat Iron Green which is a deep dark green and added some Nfu-Oh 65 to it. I know people think it's crazy to franken with Nfu-Oh but I've done if a few times now and always have STUNNING results. I'm sure I'll be showing off my Tristam dupe in the future too so stay tuned!
Are you ready for St Patrick's Day???? It's tomorrow readers! I wonder what mani I'll be sporting???!!!
Hi Readers! Today I have some exciting frankens to show you! I made my first ever from pigment franken the other day! One of the last times I was at Sally Beauty Supply I picked up a really pretty greeny bluey eyeshadow. I crushed it up into a fine dust and then added it to a SUPER old NYC way too sheer polish I had. I NEVER throw away polishes because you never know when you could use them! It was a bit too light for me so I added just a few drops of Essie Midnight Cami and then a dash or two of Nfu-Oh 61 to give it some extra sparkle and BAM my Naked Edge was born. Some of you might know I love to name my frankens after my favorite books. Naked Edge is part of the I Team Series written by Pamela Clare--LOVE her stuff!
Here's collage I put together of Naked Edge
Admittedly it's gorgeous on it's own BUT I recently got a wonderful franken from my friend Caroline called Ariel's Tail. It's a lovely diamond shaped glitters or green and blue with some stars in it as well. It looks AHmazing over black so I decided to do some black tips topped with Ariel's Tail and voila!
I love, love, LOVE this!!!
Look how pretty Ariel's Tail is with my Naked Edge!!!
It's so pretty I had to make a ring out of it!!
What do you think of my first pigmented franken? I love it (yep breaking my arm patting myself on the back lol). And you just can't go wrong with two gorgeous frankens making on one mani! So simple yet so pretty!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! Today I'm featuring to fantastic franken dupes. Yes I called them fantastic--yes I pretty much broke my arm not once but twice when I made them. Why? Well I've duped Butter London's Black Knight AND Tart With A Heart. I made Gawain the Black Knight dupe in November, but it wasn't until this week I made Ragnelle the Tart With A Heart dupe. Where did I get the names? Sir Gawain was a Knight of the Roundtable. Ragnelle was his beautiful bride.
Here are a couple of pictures of the Gawain my Black Knight dupe
Here's another view
I personally don't have Black Knight but I made this for a few of my nail polish friends, one of which has it, and said it's darn close! Actually she told me she likes mine better HA!
I really hadn't thought of making the Tart With A Heart dupe but then I got to thinking well why not. Again I don't have it and had to go strictly by pictures and this is what I came up with.
As you can see the day I made it i was rocking a cool mani therefore it's not swatched on my nails lol!
The only reason I decided to dupe Tart With A Heart in addition to Black Knight was because of the fantastic layering combination I first saw of it on Scrangie's post.
Here are Ragnelle and Gawain together
I've created some side by side shots of Scrangie's layering and mine as well as bottle shots of Butter London's Black Knight and Tart With A Heart and my frankens Gawain and Ragnelle--here they are
Here are the pics of my Ragnelle layered over my Gawain
Isn't it gorgeous???? Here's a close up!
I mentioned I had seen this layering combination first on Scrangie's blog--you can view it here. Did you check it out??? Did you see this post of Scrangie's already? How do you think I did with these dupes readers? I think I nailed it! Here is a side by side comparison of Scrangie's layering and mine
Mine friends often refer to me as the Franken Queen. After this duping I'm not arguing! I made both of the bottles of my Gawain and Ragnelle for about $6 and that's not each that's $6 total. I believe the Butter London combo was $25--now that's a savings I can get behind!
What do you think readers? Is this a close enough dupe for you or would you rather pay the big bucks for the originals?
Just for kicks readers here's a lovely painting I found online of the beautiful Dame Ragnelle and her Knight, Sir Gawain
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! Welcome to another installment of Franken Friday. I made this little franken awhile ago. Several months ago I came up with a dead on dupe for China Glaze's Grape Crush and I thought geez if I can dupe Grape Crush shouldn't I be able to dupe Crystal Ball? Well yes I was able to do it and really you can do it too! I found a tiny red Sally Girl polish at Sally Beauty Supply a month or two ago and I felt like it was really close in color to Crystal Ball. My wonderful friend Rhonni sends me nail swatches all the time of polishes she has I want to try to dupe. Sure enough this little Sally Girl is a match for Crystal Ball. All I did was add a tiny scoop or two of fine holographic glitter and BAM Crystal BALLZ was born. The name Crystal BALLZ is courtesy of Sarah over at Chalkboard Nails.
Here it is readers what do you think?
Here's a full mani with it on
And of course I have to do some flash shots!
close up!
Then just to amp it up a bit I stamped using China Glaze Emotion and Red Angel plate RA102
What do you think readers? Are you in love with this lovely sparkly red? If you are remember what I said--you can make this as easily as I did! All you need is the little Sally Girl red number 812039 (which my sources tell me is named Phat) and some ultra fine silver holographic glitter like the WetnWild Fantasy Makers glitter.
Are you a frankener readers? If yes, what are some things you've made? If no, why not! It's fun and it's a lot easier than you might think.
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
