Hi Everyone Happy Monday! Today kicks off the Digit-al Dozen's Black & White Week. And man is it needed--black for mourning the death of that Packer game yesterday! OH MY LORD! Who expected to see that happen?! Yikes definitely not me! I watched every single painful moment BUT while I was doing so I had the chance to do a Monkey See, Monkey Do Monday mani!!! Woot!!! I haven't done one is a long time. There are a lot of great black and white mani's done but some really talented people too BUT I have always, ALWAYS loved the one I recreated for you today.
I chose to do the black and white gradient zebra Diana from D.I.A.N.A did. This was an entry to fashion inspired contest Anna over at the Wacky Laki had. I've have been inspired by both of these ladies for over two years now. I'm lucky enough to be in a couple of Facebook groups with them and I've learned alot from the both of them as well!
So kicking off the black and white week I give you--gradient zebra!
Isn't this one WILD!!!!!!
With Diana being Dutch I couldn't use any of the same polishes she did so I had to improvise. I used Sinful Colors Black On Black and Snow Me White and for the grey I used my franken Shibari MASTER
This is the dress that inspired Diana to do the mani
It's pretty gorgeous!
Here's a side by side of my mani and the dress
I honestly think a black, grey and white gradient is one of the most striking you can do. Check out how great thumbie looks!
I stamped using M57--which is the only thing of Diana's original mani I did have!
Here's a collage with pics of both Diana's and my mani--I really loved doing this one!
I think this week is going to be amazing for the Digital Dozen! I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!!
Hi Everyone!!! Happy Friday!! Most everyone at work is off today except for 5 of us who volunteered to work. I'm really going out on a limb by wearing some wild neon today. Since I'm the only one who will be on my side of the building I don't have to worry about blinding too many people.
I was going to do a yellow, green and blue neon gradient but then forgot and painted yellow over my whole nail instead of going straight to gradient LOL! FYI blue over yellow makes green!!! So this is a love yellow and green neon gradient.
I'm not too sure if this Konad plate M69 is supposed to be a tiger or zebra but it had the closest stripes to match my zebra face from Cheeky Jumbo 9
I do like this mani, it's wild and bold
Could it be this Neon Week is starting to grow on me???
Too bad zebras weren't really this color!
Only a couple more days of Neon Week left!!! Wonder what everyone else has done for today???!!
Hi Everyone!! Happy Friday! I am SO glad the weekend is almost here. It is cold, cold, COLD here again and I just really don't feel like going out! I'm thinking some nice Wisconsin Beer Cheese soup and pretzel rolls from O & H will make the perfect weekend meal!
Today in the Crumpet Nail Tart's 31 Day Challenge is Inspired By Your Childhood. I had thoughts to do an Elvis jumpsuit skittle mani as I loved Elvis since I was 7 years old and he was a HUGE part of my young life. Then I got an idea for something completely different last night!!! When I think of my childhood and how happy it was there is just one person that comes to mind--my Grandma Welch. She was the best grandma in the world! I only had her until I was 17 and I still feel quite cheated I didn't have her longer.
She was a cake decorator for Lehman's Bakery for over 30 years. Every year on my birthday she made me a Danish Layer cake. Because my birthday is on February 12th it either had Abe Lincoln on it or Valentine's Day decoration. It was ALWAYS delicious.
I miss my grandma alot, I miss her hugs and her smile. I miss her gentle nature. Mostly I miss how much she loved me and my sisters.
Today's mani is done with love for my Grandma Welch
I got all cute and sweet with this one!
I skittled with some holos just for my sweet from Jin and hauled out DS Divine and my franken Safe, Sane & Consensual (yikes I shouldn't have used that polish in grandma post!)
I stamped with Konad m83 and DRK-B.
Here's a nice shot of it with flash
All in all a pretty sweet mani!
Wow we are so close to being done with this challenge--what's in store for tomorrow?
hmmmm Inspired By Your Country--how many red, white & blue mani's can be done??? Can I come up with something different? Tune in tomorrow to find out!
What did the other Tart's do for their childhood inspiration? Be sure to check them out!
Hi Everyone!!! Happy Monday!!! I forgot to report back yesterday the Packer's won their first game in the play offs!!! My son thinks it's because of the Frozen Tundra Kringle we got to eat while watching the game LOL! I'll post some pics of it after the nail stuff!
So today's theme is Ombre or Skittle. I gradient ALOT which can sometimes be an ombre, the gradient I did a while back with Save The Date is definitely an ombre, so I thought for a refreshing change I would do a skittle. I sort of suck at color skittling so I decided on a stamping one.
Quick someone call Justin Timberlake because I brought sexy back! This is my take on a "sexy" stamped skittle!
I used 2 untrieds for this mani too, Venique Vixen Pump and BeYu209 layered over it which, while some say is a Clarins 230 dupe--it's not, is super lovely!
I used some plates from the 3rd BM set 303, 310 and 323 and well as Konad M71. I like how this turned out, just wish I was a little lighter handed with the laces on my corset.
Venique Vixen Pump is really lovely, layering the BeYu 209 over it made it EVEN lovelier. I honestly thought about getting on the Chanel Malice bandwagon but I pulled myself back, I have ALOT of dupes for it or similar colors to it, I just don't need a zillion of these colors especially when I have Vampire State Building! Whew! Crisis Averted!!!
Here's a pic of Vixen Pump and BeYu 209--some have said BeYu is a dupe to Clarins, but as I've have both I can tell you it's not. It is quite lovely though
As promised here are some pictures of our Frozen Tundra Kringle--frozen tundra is what Packer fans lovingly call the Green Bay Packer's stadium which is really called Lambeau Field
Kringle is a Danish pastry pretty exclusive to Racine, WI where I live. I grew up on this stuff and O & H Bakery is the best in town! The Frozen Tundra is cream cheese and dark chocolate chunks. It was fabulous!
Okay so I've brought sexy back and showed you some yummy food so let's check out what's up for tomorrow with the Tarts!
Duochrome, Flakie or Holo!!! Okay 2 out of 3 ain't bad!!! I love me some duochromes and flakies!!!!!!
Let's see what everyone else came up with for today's theme!
Hi Readers! Awhile ago (and you'll be able to tell that from the pics lol) I did what I like to call the world's worst mani. I tried to do this realistic looking tiger stripe mani and YES this was even before Animalistic Week but it was a ginormous fail. I didn't even leave it on for one day. Since then I've gotten some great oranges such as Riveting and the lovely Take The Stage. So I'm thinking to myself can't I improve on this monstrosity some how?? Um no--no I cannot readers! Here's the pic of the new improved (um not so much) mani
I mean YIKES readers! I did a gradient in oranges over white hoping for a cool realistic tiger. It's just not doing it for me. But let's continue with carnage.
Hmmm does it look better from this angle?
No but you know what DOES look good? My new ring! This is a "slave" ring--two rings worn on the same finger!
yep I love this ring!
It almost makes up for the crappy mani!
Now as promised here's the mani from months ago I tried to fix and make fantastic--side by side comparison old mani is on the left new on the right
I can't remember what I used for the first mani readers but my guess is Sally Hansen White On with OPI Atomic Orange sponged on. I stamped with Kleancolor Black using image M57. For the new one I used Sally Hansen White one then gradiented with OPI Atomic Orange BUT then added China Glaze Riveting and OPI Take The Stage on the tips. I stamped using BM16.
I don't know about these readers. My nail polish friends tell me they are both great. I'm just not feeling it. Remind me of this the next time I talk about doing something "tiger"!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! The stamping challenge for this Sunday was sooooooo close! The choices were A. Stamping Over a Gradient B. Multiple Images or Plates and C. Wild Animals. Because it was so close it was decided you go do either A or B but a few of us decided to do the triple threat--stamping multiple animal images over a gradient lol! I LoVE how mine turned out!
I've seen the animal print image on BM225 and never really new what it was. At first I thought it was a cheetah but when I did my difference between the leopard and cheetah mani a long time ago and discovered the cheetah's marking does not look like this at all. I'm talking about the image on my index finger. I asked some of my friends what they thought it might be and my friend Claude said hyena!!! Yep I'm going with that a hyena. So we have here the hyena, the "liger", the leopard and the giraffe!
I hauled out my Leopard foil ring to see how it would look with this mani
I don't like it! the colors don't match lol!
Check out the right hand, it looks as good as the left!
I used a ton of polishes to get this look readers. My gradient was done doing 2 coats of China Glaze FYI over my basecoat. Then I sponged China Glaze It's My Turn a little more than half way up the nail from the tips. On the tips I put my dark brown holo franken named SPUD. I used Konad black to stamp the hyena and leopard image. Over the giraffe I used an ancient Mary Kay polish I had called French Roast for the for the "liger" I used China Glaze Unplugged. Here's a pic of the polishes I used
The stamping images are as follows the giraffe is BM215, the hyena is BM225, the "liger is M78, and the leopard is BM221.
I made this really lovely collage in picnik
BUT since Picnik is closing I decided to mess around with the collage feature in Picasa and look at how nice it turned out!
What do you think readers? Was I successful with the triple threat of multiple wild animals over a gradient? I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! Today I'm featuring one of my fave bloggers BUT it's not her design! It's actually the winner of her Spring contest! This has never happened before in Monkey See, Monkey Do week LOL! When I saw this mani picked as the winner I totally agreed and said (in my best Guy Fieri voice) Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!! Here's the post where Kay announced the winners. And this is where you can find the winner, Neivys, post. This mani is SO lovely!
What I wish I had done differently though is this--I painted my nails with Zoya Pippa to have the yellow really pop but then I had to do an upside down and backwards gradient which resulted in cruddy looking cuticles! UG. Next time I used these color I'll paint half way down with orange and then yellow and then sponge lol! Here's a nice close up, would you be so kind as not to look at the crap a$$ cuticles???!!! Thanks!
And here's Thumby--as always he turned out great!
Here's a shot of the left hand! For some reason my index sunflowers decided to mate on this finger lol!
Isn't this a fun mani Readers??? No wonder she won--this is just picture perfect! I got a ZILLION compliments on this mani too. I just wish we were having some warm sunny weather instead of chilly cloudy weather here lol!
Here's a lovely side by side of Neivy's and mine
To get my look I used Zoya Pippa, OPI A Roll In The Hague, OPI Animalistic and I stamped using MASH M21 and Cheeky 11. Here's a pic of the polishes I used
What do you think of this one readers? I really love it and I'm so grateful to Enamel Girl for her contest because it lead me to another cool blogger and a fabulous mani!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! I think it's no secret when it comes to mani's I love all things dragon scales and mermaid tails! I came up with this one after I was doing some blog searching. Check out the inspiration for today's mani here. In addition to some nice swatches and designs Nihrida rocks some AWESOME rings! When I first saw this post it reminded me of a merman and I loved the look so I pulled out some untrieds in my stash to see if I could recreate it.
As you can see I went a bit further than Nihrida and added a holo topcoat. What I did to get this look was 2 coats of L'oreal VIP Status (which I love btw). Then I sponged on a light purple LA Colors Craze--no idea what that name is since they aren't on the bottle! I also sponged on a purple flakie LA Colors Craze AGAIN with no name. After all that was dry I sponged on the lovely OPI Mermaid's Tears, stamped using M57 and L'oreal VIP Status. What was so cool about it is the fish net stamp doesn't show up over it's self but only the other colors! I liked the look but decided to get more "scaley" looking so I added my gLORIous holo topcoat over all. Pretty cool!
Here it is with flash! Pretty darn gorgeous!
Here's a pic of all the polishes I used--if you know the name of the LA Colors let me know!
While I didn't love this mani I did like it. I loved the look of VIP Status with gLORIous over it. I think one of these days I might have to do some side by sides of mermen with mermaids!
Thanks for stopping by! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
Hi Readers! I'm not sure if I mentioned this before or not but I belong to a facebook group called Adventures in Stamping and on Sundays we have a challenge mani. This Sunday's challenge was Under The Sea. Since I had to finish up my Animalistic Week I wasn't able to feature this mani on Sunday so here it is on Tuesday lol!
Here it is with flash
one more time!
This mani was really a labor of love! A lot of polishes were used to stamp with as well as several plates. To start out though I used a seafoam green franken i made which I named The Bikini Diaries. I try to name all my frankens after my favorite books. Here is a pic of it before any stamping was done.
Isn't it lovely? Naturally I think so as I made it lol! After I did a two coats of The Bikini Diaries I put some Sinful Colors Nail Junkie on the tips, I tried not to go straight across but give it some depth. I pulled out my Kleancolor Metallics to stamp with, I used Metallic Aqua, Metallic Blue, Metallic Red, Metallic Fuchsia, and Metallic Yellow. I also used SH Whirl Wind White for my skelly fish. My favorite image on any plate is the super cute skeleton fish (which I lovingly call skelly) on BM04. To do this mani I stamped the plant image from BM05 onto a few nails in different colors. I also used the swirly plant and dot image from BM04. I also used the skeleton found on BM211--when he's under the sea he looks like a cute octopus or jelly fish and not a scary skeleton lol! I blobbed different color of the metallic polishes on the school of fish image on Fauxnad M27. I really love how it looks, sort of cute but sort of detailed and fancy.
Thanks for stopping by!! I hope you all have a fantastic day!
