Rite Aid was having one of their BOGO sales so I swiped up a bunch of new Revlon nail polish colors.
This one, Starry Pink, was a thick chalky disaster. 4 goopy coats and it still looks splotchy in certain light. It’s not sheer enough to layer and I didn’t want to add a topcoat to the 4 I already had on so no stamping on that rough surface. And that’s that.
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I slipped a few normal manicures in between the Christmas ones. It was all getting to be a bit much. Now I’m all caught up.
This is Orly Pink Chocolate with some pink Sally Girl glitter on top. The teeny bottle of Sally glitter is pretty much the same as Essie Luxeffects pink glitter in A Cut Above.
This is a perfect deep rose for any occasion where you can’t go too crazy.
All my nails went to hell and had to be chopped. This is either white fishnet over pewter or a sparkly snake.
I’m a snaaaaaaake!
And this is the China Glaze Trendsetter with the dark brown Julep tiger stamp.
3 days later and it still looks great!
No plans for NYE so, I probably won’t do a big glitter explosion.
Hope you have a great weekend!
Happy New Year!
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Here’s an easy manicure for the holidays.
I grabbed a mini bottle of China Glaze Ruby Pumps for $2 at Sally last week and added a green accent nail with some glitter. An accent in gold or silver would be sweet too!
looove this color!
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Back to nail stamping!
This is one of those Kleancolor polishes I wrote about a while back with a gold shimmer stamped on. I loved this mani so much!
from this Bundle Monster set of plates
I just did this with the same plate and the aubergine Julep polish. I added a gold pearl. Loving these rich colors and gold.
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Taking a break from Konad this week. I’ve been craving GLITTER!
I love love love doing these glitter tip manis! This was a fine copper glitter w/ a larger gold on top.
I got a pack of Halloween nail stickers but I’m not quite ready to do THE Halloween mani.
This is one coat of lavender with 2 coats of Pure Ice Spit Fire on top. Intense!
PS -Those leopard glitter nail appliques by Incoco that I received in my October Birchbox and didn’t stick? Incoco was nice enough to send me a new set + polish remover and they totally work. It must’ve been a fluke. I’m really happy with their customer service!
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I’ve been trying to come up with interesting color combos. This is grey with a red pattern (looks more purple) but I love it! Already some tip wear when I took the pic:
I also wanted to try red on top of aqua. This is 4 days later after cooking and washing dishes all weekend. The Konad stamper is pink so the red polish was hard to see so this didn’t turn out as nice as I wanted and; I should’ve turned the stamper around on a few nails so they’re not all lined up the same.
And lastly – those Incoco nail polish decals I got in my September Birchbox. What a load of poo. They don’t stick! They were completely dry and stiff. I’ve seen other people complaining about the same thing online but I was determined to have one accent nail. I cut it to fit, applied a coat of clear and held it on until it dried, then 2 more top coats. It wrinkled up on the edges and the whole thing fell off in 2 days. I’ve sent Birchbox and Incoco emails. We’ll see what happens. It’s a shame because they are cuuuuute!
So, what have you been doing with your nails? Do you wear different colors when the weather gets cold?
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ULTA Eye Popping Poppy with gold dots and 2mm gems:
yes! got a cat hair in the pic!
I put a topcoat over the gems so they lost their faceted look. The little nubs felt strange and I was constantly touching them. It took a few days for the 1st one to fall off.
The gems were $1.50 (free shipping) on eBay here.
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I was digging through the craft box I left at my parents’ house looking for wooden stars for those silly yarn trees and I found a pair of scrapbooking scissors (also called “paper edgers”).
A long time ago, I was knitting and selling dog scarves (I am so serious) at a foo foo hair salon. I used the scissors to make fancy tags. Anyhoooow…
I’ve been seeing manis done with scotch tape cut by these fancy scissors so I took em home. Here are the results:
This was a trial and error process. I first tried the gold on TOP of the lavender but the glitter messed up the crisp edges. So, I took everything off the ring finger, put gold on the entire nail, a layer of Seche Vite top coat for a smooth surface and then did the tape and lavender. Top coat again to soften the edges.
There were little scalloped edges that got a bit lost so, I think the more intricate the design, the less likely you’ll get good results.
Just make sure your polish is completely dry before you apply the tape, press the edges down really well and pull off tape while polish is still wet.
A $2 mani!
essence colour & go in No More Drama – Wet n Wild Fast Dry in 223C The Gold & the Beautiful
Here’s another pastel and gold mani – both are teeny bottles from Sally for 99-cents each. Another $2 manicure!
I think this has been my fave manicure ever.
OH!
I popped into my local Dollar Tree for the hell of it a couple days ago and they had these LA Colors glitter sets for $1. A little polish and 2 nail glitters. I got the 3 different color sets they had. They retail for $4.
They also had the Art Deco nail art polishes. I grabbed one in silver. These retail for $2+ and way more for other brands.
So, check out your local Dollar Tree and see what you can score!
I’m also putting myself on a nail ban for a good while. I have too much stuff I haven’t even tried out yet! Time to get busy!
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I finally got the nail stamping plates!
So here’s the deal… it’s freakin awesome! Takes some time but so much fun! I’m an insane perfectionist who loves tedious tasks so this was right up my alley.
Like a dummy, I did a black pattern on already dark polish but I love how it turned out! I also did them in the evening so the lighting is terrible. Sorry sorry sooooorry!
So here’s my first stamped manicure and then I’ll get into the nitty gritty:
there’s a cat hair in every one of my nail posts
still not totally cleaned up either
I read and read so much about this process and found that the name brand Konad stamper was vital.
The newest model of stamper is the double ended one. I used the large red end since this was a large pattern.You get the scraper with the stamper for about $6 including shipping.
I also read that an expired gift card works better as a scraper and now, I can agree but, that little pink one really is sufficient and you can’t not buy it w/ the stamper.
The design plates don’t need to be name brand to get a good pattern. A single Konad brand plate can cost $4+ while I got 16 off-brand plates for $18.48 (free shipping) from Born Pretty. They’re the identical designs, numbered the same. Yes, shame on me for buying faux-nad plates.
This is the design I used for my mani, the top right floral:
Here’s the plate and stamper so you can get an idea about size:
There are full nail designs, French tips, small patterns… all sorts of plates out there. If your nails are really long, you may not be able to fit a full nail pattern on your entire nail.
For stamping, choose a polish that’s opaque in one coat (I used Wet ‘n’ Wild’s black). There are Konad Special Polishes but you don’t need them. Here’s a huge list (constantly updated) of great polishes to use for stamping.
That’s all folks!
Here’s a quick video tutorial if you like visuals.You don’t need sound. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments!
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