Another Messy Mansion Celtic Knot

 With all the plates and polishes, all the nail art I own, I still come back to Messy Mansion for my St. Patrick's day mani. For a holiday I love so much I really need to get more plates for it. This is China Glaze "Refresh-Mint" with OPI "Gleam On!" Over it. Stamped with MM04 in Maniology (formerly BundleMonster) B441 "Alocasia".

4th of July 2014 Skittle

I don't know why I was so excited for 4th of July this year. Usually I just try to catch glimpses of the fireworks going off thru the trees outside my window without ever leaving my own room. This year was different for some reason. My city stopped putting on fireworks displays a few years ago because of cost but for some reason did it this year. Only this time they charged you to get into the park to watch it. Guess they have to pay for the displays somehow. So I spent the night on a bridge just outside the park and still got a great view of the fireworks. Sorry, I'm broke.

I was excited to do 4th nails and decided to do skittles. Well, not actually decided. The fact is I COULDN'T decide what technique I wanted to do...so I did them all. I had a vague idea that maybe I would pick the nail that turned out best and redo the rest to match. That didn't happen so skittles it was! I used the same 3 polishes on all the nails, just the technique changed. Essie "5th Avenue", China Glaze "Snow", and Sinful Colors "Endless Blue".

I'll go the the nails one at a time tho.

Left hand

Thumb: Over "Endless Blue" I simply used Salon Perfect "Speck-tacular"

Index: Messy Mansion stamping plate MM15 and little rhinestones I got at a dollar store.

Middle: Blue and White striping tape I got at WalMart by Salon Perfect

Ring: Watermarble. I really should have painted the nail white first to make the color stronger and hide the bald spots but I was excited and didn't think it thru too well.

Pinkie: Small nail decal by Salon Perfect

Right Hand

Thumb: Salon Perfect "Starred and Striped" and "Grand Finale" over "Endless Blue"

Index: Another Salon Perfect Decal

Middle: Another Watermarble. This time with a white under coat

Ring: I loved the Index on my left hand so much I wanted to do it again on my right. 

Pinkie: This was the first time I had ever used loose glitter before. This is "Endless Blue" that I topcoated with a slow drying topcoat and then brushed some loose glitter over the bottom half of the nail. I added a star rhinestone that I got from a dollar store years ago and topcoated the whole thing.

I wore this polish for longer than I usually do and something odd started to happen. The topcoat started to eat the color off of the metallic striping tape. This is after the first topcoat and you can see between the white stripes that its turning silver. I re-topcoated it again a few days later to keep the edges of the tape from lifting up and the blue almost completely turned a silver brownish color. Very odd and something I need to keep in mind when I use this tape again.

Dragonscales

I am so in love with these nails! The mottled look of the scales is stunning! On Messy Mansion's facebook page a fan posted dragonscale nails and I fell in love with them I just had to try them myself. I don't see a blog post from her but I will link to the facebook post here. I don't know what polishes Jae K used, but I painted my nails first with 2 coats of Sinful Colors "Clementine" I then sponged a little bit of Sally Hansen "Lighting" in patches. Where I didn't put "Lighting" is sponged just a teeny tiny amount of Essie "Fifth Avenue". Then I sponged all over it again with "Clementine" to blend all the edges. I went over the top of the red and yellow to make them not so bold. This way it all looked like shades of orange.

Satisfied with the base colors, I then stamped over it with MM21. Scales on all fingers, but a dragon for the accent nail. I used Cosmetic Arts "TGIF". To give you an idea of how big the stamps are, here is my nails before clean up:

More than satisfactory for my nail length.

Here is Jae's picture:

And mine again:

One of my better Monkey See, Monkey Do mani's if I do say so myself.

Koi Fish.

I almost named this post "Jelly Fish" for no other reason than it made me giggle. After my fail of a seahorse, I still wanted to try making an image go across all my nails. Other than a little mess up on the middle finger (it's a bit twisted) I really like it! I painted my nails white (when my bottles of white get low I pour them all into one bottle, so this is a mixture of Sally Hansen "White On", Wet n Wild "French White Creme" and Milani "White On The Spot") I then stamped with Cosmetic Arts "TGIF" using Messy Mansion plate MM29. I colored in the Koi using OPI "Y'all Come Back Ya Hear?" making sure to leave uncolored white patches. Then I filled in the water with a frankened blue jelly I made. I love this so much more than my seahorse from the other day!

And here is the Koi fish for comparison in-case you're not sure what a real one looks like.

Police Nails

My Uncle just celebrated 30 years with the police force and will be retiring soon. I just got Messy Mansion's plate MM28. Coincidence? I think not. The universe is obviously telling me I need to do a crime and punishment mani so here it is. I rushed the stamping a bit because I was running late for work, but over all I like how it turned out! Index, middle and pinkie are all painted an unnamed grey from Fingr's and stamped over with BundleMonster's BM414 using Wet n Wild "Black Creme". I then used MM28 again and Cosmetic Arts "Picture Day" to add some fun images. Oh, the DNA strands are from MM25. The ring and thumb are Sally Hansen "Lighting" stamped with MM28 again in "Black Creme". I really do like it. The grey fingers remind me of fingerprint dust. Many people don't know this, but I started taking classes thinking I wanted to get into forensic science. That was the vague plan anyway. Then one semester I took a microbiology class as just a prerequisite and fell in love with micro. So Forensics fell to the back-burner as Micro took front stage, but it still holds a soft spot in my heart.

LeadLight Flowers

I got a new Watermarking software for my pictures!

Well, we made it past St. Patrick's Day. I love the holiday, but it's time to hang up the green polish for a little bit. Maybe next year I won't start my celebration right after Valentine's Day. Today we have a neat technique that I'm sure has been floating around out there for a while, but I only just discovered it when Messy Mansion posted about it a couple weeks ago. I may do a tutorial on it soon, but for now I'll let Messy Mansion explain it herself. Now she calls it the Leadlight technique after her new polishes coming out and that's what I call it too, but it also goes by "glazing". The term Leadlight makes me think of stained glass windows with the lead strips that hold the colored panes in place. I'm not sure what Messy Mansion had in mind when she came up with the name. The basic idea is a light color background that you stamp a dark color over. Then use sheer or jelly polishes to fill in the colors. The colors will stand out over the light color, but won't obscure the dark color lines. I've used a white background (Sally Hansen "White On" and Wet n Wild "French White Creme". I was running low on white so I poured them both into the same bottle) I stamped with Wet n Wild "Black Creme" using MoYou Pro 06. Then I filled in the flowers and leaves with Sinful Colors "Irish Green" and OPI "Guy Meets Gal-veston" and "Y'All Come Back Ya Hear?". All three are strongly pigmented jellies that I don't get a chance to use all that often.

So what do you think? I think this is a good substitute for those that just can't seem to get the hang of stamping decals, tho not a replacement for them. You have the limitation of only being able to color over light colored backgrounds. Other than that, it does seem to be a viable option for art in its own right.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

And a simple design to finish off my St. Patty's day celebrations! I wanted a very simple cream base so the glitter I added to the accents would stand out better. OPI "Jade is the New Black" as a base color. I don't have many OPI's as they tend to be more expensive than my regular fare, but this was a gift. I never understood why OPI is so popular, but I think I get it now. I was very pleased how this dried even before I added the topcoat. And application was a dream too. If only the decals had behaved as readily. Messy Mansion MM04 is wonderful to work with, but I'm still getting the hang of decals and these ones put up a fight. Wet n Wild "Black Creme" filled in with Sinful Colors "All About You" and "Gold Medal". I thought they came out wonderfully, and at a distance they really don't look all that bad.

But close up? Ugh. Bubbles in the paint. A lot of bubbles in the paint. The more it dried, the bigger the bubbles got. I'm at my wits end with this problem. Then as the ring finger dried it got these weird ridge-like wrinkles in the topcoat. Please, any advice would be greatly appreciated! Leave tips and tricks in the comments section.

Nail Polish Lexicon ~ Indie and Messy Mansion Product Review

I just got my first order of Messy Mansion plates. They are my first "indie" plates, plates designed and sold by an independent manufacturer. Commercial plates like Bundle Monster and MoYou are awesome, but ever once in a while I like to support those people that go at it alone. It is like the difference between a grocery store and a farmer's market. Indie plate makers are having a hard time of it lately. Some commercial makers have been trying to copyright the act of nail stamping and are attacking indie makers with lawsuits and cease and desist orders. You won't see me buying plates from people who do that anytime soon. And there there is the opposite side of the scale, the cut rate dealers. I don't mind super cheap plates of suspicious quality, but when they steal the designs from other makers it becomes not cool. So independent plate makers have the big commercial companies trying to force them out of business, and cheap companies stealing their designs.

Anyway, here is my first indie purchase. The 3 plates come in resealable baggies with a holographic sticker on the bag sporting Messy Mansion's logo "MM". I bought MM04 the Irish plate, MM25 the Science plate, and MM28 Crime.

The logo sticker really caught the light in this photo :)

Well first lets take a look at the size of the plates. They come with the standard blue film to protect from scratches. And they are larger than many of the plates I've gotten in the past. Here I compare it to BundleMonster's BM221. BundleMonster is a standard sized plates. Most plates you buy come in this size.

The area within the full nail image is also larger than BundleMonster's.

Much longer and a tad bit wider than BundleMonster. The size for full nail images do vary quite a bit. I'm just using BundleMonster because it is a very common plate company. And the plate happened to be sitting on my desk when my MM shipment came in.

And on to the stamping. The images are etched evenly and deeply. I think they are deeper than any plate I've gotten before. The edges are crisp and clean. I am in love! I've ordered 5 more plates and can't wait till they come in!

I am totally in love. By the way, what do you think of my new camera. I'm still working on the best way to use it, but I think the results are stunning. The shape of the photo is different and I'm trying to come up with a way to fix that without having to crop each and every photo, but other than that, I am super pleased.

Celtic Knotwork

I thought I was super clever when I came up with my Book of Kells mani. I guess I was too clever. People asked about my nails and when I proudly proclaimed that they were inspired by the Book of Kells, I got blank stares and "Book of what?". Apparently no one knows what an illuminated manuscript even is. *sigh* Luckily my first order of Messy Mansion plates came in yesterday so I can go back to playing with classic green manicures. This is 2 coats of China Glaze "Running in Circles" my fav chunky green shimmer ever. Then stamped in Wet n Wild "Black Creme" using Messy Mansion MM04. I'll be writing a proper review on Messy Mansion later, but short story? I am so impressed! I Love Them!