Valentine's Day 2022

A simple mani for Valentine's this year. A smooth mauve pink magnetic to give a little bit of a cat's eye look by Nabi. Then I found a mini bottle of glitter that matched the color so closely that they could have been made for each other. And then, just because I had the box open in front of me, a pearl heart stamp using Salon Perfect's Pearl Stamping kit. Simple and subtle, which is nice cause coming soon is St Patty's and you guys know, simple and subtle doesn't really happen often with me and St Patty's!

Crystal Stamping Kit

 

I swear I posted about this before, but I simply can't find the post. I guess I never actually did so here we go!

Back in 2016, I saw a video someone took at CosmoProf. It was s demo for a stamping technique, but instead of applying polish, it applied crystals to your nails in certain patterns. Great for getting perfect lines and super fast! The company was Pave and after that one video I saw once, I never heard about them again. Jump ahead about 4 years and I find these kits at my local Walmart by Salon Perfect. I'm not sure what happened to Pave, they still have a website but most of their stamping templates are sold out as of this writing. I have no idea if Salon Perfect and Pave are related (I really don't think so) but I am LOVING this kit. And at about 10 bucks each I got both the crystal and pearl set. 

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.

Diagonal Gradient MPP

My nail art group does a Monthly Palette Project each month. I thought for sure I had written about this before, but I can't find the post, so I'm gonna write about it again. Possibly for the first time. Anyway, they post a picture with some color options and we use the picture as inspiration for a mani. Here is the photo they used this month:

Unfortunately I don't have many of these colors so I had to come as close as I could. I used the 3 colors on the right. This month we also had to include a gradient in the mani somewhere. I thought I would test myself a bit further and try and put the gradient on a diagonal. It wasn't that much harder, I just had to focus on where I was holding the sponge so my lines would lay in the same spot for each coat I added. I painted my nails with Sinful Color "Unicorn", then I sponged on "Unicorn", China Glaze "Tree Hugger" and Salon Perfect "Scarlet Enchantment". I wish "Enchantment" was closer to the turkey red in the inspiration picture, but I think it turned out ok. I added just a little stamping to dress it up a little. BundleMonster BM314 in Wet n Wild "Black Creme". I like these mini challenges. It stretches the creative muscles.

Holiday Wrap Up Manicures

As promised, here are some holiday manis that I wanted to make into full posts, but time just got away from me or they just weren't interesting enough to warrant a whole post. I could hold on to them for next year, but I'm sure I'll forget all about them by then.

I finally got around to stamping the "prep" nails I did. Stamped with MoYou Festive 04 using Claire's unnamed white stamping polish.

This one and the next were a complete flop. Nothing I could do could make them turn out right. I'm trying to remember what polishes I used, and I think the base is either Wet n Wild "French White Creme" or Sally Hansen "White On". I was trying to mimic the Irish mani and my Grey and Pink dot mani using Christmas colors, but it just didn't work. The dots on the pic above are Maybelline "Bold Gold" and Pure Ice "Silver Mercedes". The dots on the pic below are...umm... I think Sinful Colors "Pine Away" and Salon Perfect "Scarlet Enchantment" with "Bold Gold" again. I was also trying a new topcoat so if you look really closely you will see the colors smeared. The topcoat never hardened so you can also see the impression of my bed sheets on them. Not gonna use that topcoat as a topcoat again. Its gonna be used to make frankens.

And here was a mani I intended to stamp over, but never did. I can't remember if I used a base color of "Bold Gold" or just used several coats of China Glaze "Angel Wings". So sparkly and pretty!

And here is a bonus picture. A Halloween mani using as many stamps as I could find! Fright Night Claw Polish "Phantom" with a white sponged at the tips that is prolly Wet n Wild "French White Creme". I wanted it to look like fog rolling in. I wanted to make a full scene of a haunted house, I just haven't gotten the hang of it yet. Stamped with a lot of BundleMonster plates (BM209, BM213, BM225, BM305) using Wet n Wild "Black Creme".

Red and Green Prep

I was gonna use this as the base for stamping with MoYou Festive 04, sweater patterns, but I got called into work and never finished it. Maybe I'll try and get back to it, but its fine as is for now. The green fingers are Sally Hansen "Emerald City" with China Glaze "Running in Circles" on top of it. The red fingers are Salon Perfect "Scarlet Enchantment" with Sinful Colors "Decadent" over it. They are so much more sparkly than this photo gives them credit for! I got nice complements even tho I never got around to stamping them.

Nail Polish Lexicon ~ Lemming

I have no idea where the term originated, but a Lemming polish is simply a polish you very desperately want to get your hands on. It's one at the top of your wishlist and you will probably spend more money that you should to get it. I have a handful of lemmings myself, one of which I just got a dupe of and am thrilled even if it's not exactly the same thing.

I've never bough Salon Perfect before, but when they released this polish I spazzed out a little bit. It is nearly an exact copy of Ninja Polish "Floam", one of my lemmings.

China Glaze "Whirled Away" was another attempt at fulfilling a lemming desire. Again I so want Ninja Polish "Sticks and Stones" but it is usually sold out so I got this to try and replace it. It is not nearly as close a dupe but it will do till I find something better.

Some of my other lemmings:
Nuf-Oh 61
Color Club Halo Hues
China Glaze OMG Collection
Finger Paints Special Effects Collection
Almost anything by Nerd Lacquer but especially "Don't Blink", "I Think You Call Me...Sexy", "Don't Panic" and "Gorramit".