Lead Lighting Nail Art

Today I have a little Crumpet Nail Tarts Pick-n-Mix.  This week is geometric/yellow,blue and green.  I think I achieved both!

I started with two coats of Finger Paints Black Expressionism and then stamped with VL-3 and Konad White.  When I top coated it, smeared the white, which happens often with Konad stamping polishes and Seche Vite.  I am actually on the search for a better top coat.  Despite my love for how fast it dries, I have been having a lot of shrinkage recently.  I feel like I am on a holy grail quest for the perfect top coat.  Bah!  Anyway, I ended up touching up the black lines to cover up some of the smearing.

Then I used Colors By Llarowe Tweety Bird (yellow) and Loaded Lacquer Island Punch (blue) to lead light over the white.  I was having trouble finding a green jelly in my stash, so I took Julep Payton, which is somewhat sheer at one coat, and mixed it with a clear polish from Sally Hansen.  I kept mixing until I got the opacity I wanted.

Despite the smearing and imperfect lead lighting, I ended up really loving this!  Wouldn't this make a great easter egg mani with some spring colors?  So fun!

Thanks for looking looking and commenting!  Check out all the other Tarts nail art!

Chinese New Year Nail Art

Thursday is the Chinese New Year so the theme for Adventure in Stamping follows.  It gave me a chance to try a new indie polish.  My model is my lovely sister.  I have been doing her nails for months.  We get together once a week for family night.  The kids play games with their uncle while I paint their aunt's nails.  It has been great for our family!  My sister and brother-in-law were out of the country for many years and missed a lot of my kids younger years. They have no kids of their own, and I value the chance that my kids have to get to know them better.  Anyway, I usually forget my camera, but now that I have a new IPhone, I have a decent enough camera, so here it is.

I love this!  It is exactly what I had in my mind when I started.  Not often that happens.

I also happened to wear this same polish this week and luckily remembered to take pics under my daylight lamp so you could get a good look at it.  This is Native War Paints Fiery Kisses.  My swatch is three coats, but I only used two on my sister's nails for full opacity.  It is a gorgeous red creme filled with gold flakies and a smattering of blue shimmer.  It is just my type of red, dark and cool, rather than warm.  The formula was great and dry time was phenomenal, but I did have trouble wrapping my tips with it.  It slid right off the edge and pooled on the tips, which was weird because I didn't have pooling anywhere else.  I still highly recommend it.

 
We started with black stripes a little off center on all the nails.  I made some nail decals using Maybelline Bold Gold and Chez-Delaney Asiatique.  I backed the decals with blace and centered them at the top of the stripes.  Then I stamped with another image from the same plate and Bold Gold on the accent nails.

I ended up loving these.  Very simple, yet definitely very Asian.  It was one of those rare instances where everything came together really well.  You will, hopefully, be seeing more of my sis' nails since Bria has not been able to keep her nails painted with her new job.  

Thanks for looking and commenting!

Another Valentine's Nail Art

It has been a long time since I have been involved with Llama Nails, but they are having a Valentines theme this month and since I have so many ideas rattling around in my head, I figured I would join in.

For some reason I have been forgetting to photograph my base colors.  It is sad because this is such a pretty polish.  It is Zoya Veruschka, the smooth matte sister of Chita.  I love wearing green polish, so I thought this would be a good choice.

 

Next I stamped with Bundle Monster BM-317, PUEEN30 and Maybelline Bold Gold.  So many hearts and only 28 days in February!

I then filled in the hearts with Seche Vite top coat.  It brings out Veruschka's sparkle.  Reminds me of emeralds!

Since the I stamped a bit low with the "Love" stamp, I dotted some hearts on the ring and thumb with Seche and outlined them with Bold Gold.  It wasn't very delicate, but I still am happy with them.

Although this lasted several days on my tips, the effect of matte vs shiny did not.  The Seche wore down and Veruschka gained some shine from the buffing that happens through every day life.  Still looked pretty though.

My mood stone seemed appropriate for this, don't you think?  Thanks for looking and commenting!

Purple Heart Nail Art

I feel I must start this post with an apology.  It is that time of year when it is constantly cold and it seems that no matter what I do, my hands look like those of a 50 year old smoker.  My cuticles are not too bad since I constantly take care of them, but my skin is constantly dry.  It doesn't help that I am also losing weight.  I mean, it does help my health, but I find that even though I have been keeping well hydrated, my skin is "loosening" and showing that "crepiness", like crepe paper, full of wrinkles.  I need a good paraffin wax!

Today's post is for The Crumpet Nail Tarts Pick-n-Mix challenge.  The theme is purple or/and hearts.  I decided to go with "and".

 I have to admit that I had a very hard time with this manicure.  Not this design exactly, but with the whole hearts thing.  I will have many varied valentines manis this month, so I had plans for this one.  I wanted a cute stamping french tip.  M80 to be exact.  However, my M80 is a fauxnaud (Konad knockoff)  I purchased this before developing a conscious about those kind of things.  I was going to stamp in white and fill in the hearts with pink.  Cute idea!  It just was not meant to be.  I tried every combination of white and stamper that I have.  I tried stamping directly onto my nails and as a stamp decal.  Nothing was working.  I finally gave up and grabbed another image I had set aside for Valentine's Day.


 
PUEEN SE01B.  That cute swirly winged heart.  Once again I tried a couple different white polishes and a couple stampers.  So frustrated though I just gave up.  I have never had so many problems stamping!  I just grabbed another plate and went to work.

I finally settled on PUEEN 68 with much better results.  I was so sick of stamping, however, that I didn't even care if I got my lines straight, just slapped it on my nails, took pictures and said DONE!

This is what I ended up with.  I started with three coats of Dance Legend Mist Way Be Mine.  Such an appropriately named polish for this nail art.  I stamped with the aforementioned PUEEN 68 and A England Lady of the Lake.  The next morning I woke up and went "Ugh!".  I couldn't stand it, so one dimensional and boring.  I decided to add something more.

I filled in some of the hearts with Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer If You're a Seascape, a pretty bubblegum pink holo.  Still not satisfied, but I didn't want to make all the hearts pink.

Instead I grabbed A England Lady of the Lake again and filled in the rest of the hearts with it.  "Sigh".  Much better, but it sure took enough work to get it to that point!  Look how it all sparkles!  My hearts are now happy.

Despite all the trouble, the wonky stamping and my sloppy hearts, I ended up still liking this.  Maybe because I worked so hard at it?  Sometimes nail art is just a pain in the fingertips!

Check out the other purple/heart nail art (I love it when something rhymes).  Let me know if you think I succeeded or if I should have given up a long time ago.  (tee hee)  Thanks for looking and commenting!

Snow Day

February in Minnesota is a funny month.  It is still winter.  Spring does not really come until May, but often, in February, we have a little warming streak.  By warming, I mean low 40's.  It tricks us into thinking spring might come early.  After living in Minnesota for the majority of my life, I will no longer be tricked!  I learned early.  I remember praying, year after year when I was young, that I would wake up on my birthday to discover the early spring flowers breaking through the snow.  My birthday is in March.  It never happened.  My husband, however, is a California boy.  A raise in temperature means spring is here.  It took several years of removing his snow tires in February, only to have to put them back on in March, for him to learn his lesson.  I still have to remind him of these past miscalculations and sometimes he blatantly refuses to give in to it all and will take those darn snow tires off anyway.

All of this is to say that, although there is no snow on the ground right now, I am under no disillusions that it is gone for good.  This means that the Blogger Bragger theme of snowflakes is still appropriate.

Isn't that purple gorgeous?

It is two coats of Essie Coat Couture.  I am totally in love with this polish!  It has three of my favorite characteristics; it is dusty, it has shimmer and is matte.  In this case, a dusty purple filled with a blue shimmer and a waxy matte finish.  So stunning!

It is just as pretty with a top coat, although I am partial to the matte.

As often happens, I found Julep Margit on the same nail wheel as Coat Couture, so I decided to try stamping with it.  Turns out it, like many Juleps recently, it stamps well.  Just enough of a distinction between the the purples to make it not too subtle.

Finally, I topped the snowflakes only with Sinful Color Pearl Harbor for a little sparkle.  In most of the pics it just looks purple, but on my index and ring in this one, you see Pearl Harbor's real beauty, a blue iridescent glitter.  I just love it!

As always, thanks for looking and commenting!

Indian Elephant

The theme for The Nail Challenge Collaborative this month is animals.  It is a nice change from all the love themes going on right now.  For my first manicure, I chose to do an Indian design with some elephants.

I started with two coats of Barielle Kiss Me Kate and two coats of Mentality Foxy on the accent nails.

I stamped with Kiss Me Kate and BBF-15 for a cute little pink elephant.  That little cutie was a pain in my butt!  He just refused to line up on my nails.  In fact, you can see a bare spot on my ring finger because I removed the image twice before I finally gave up with the third.  It was the best one of the three, thank goodness!

Next I stamped with Mentality Foxy and portions of the large image from BBF-29.  Love this whole plate!

Other than the stubborn ellie, I ended up liking this.  I did discover, however, that I need a good pink stamper.  Although Kiss Me Kate will do well most of the time, sometimes you just need a totally opaque stamper.

Thanks for looking and commenting!

More Double Stamping Nail Art

It's Monday and that means The Crumpet Nail Tarts Pick-n-Mix.  Today's theme is flowers/pale blue.  I wasn't feeling the flowers.  I just did flowers last week!  If you missed it, you can find it HERE.

I started with three coats of LynBDesigns Don't Torture Me, one of my all time favorite light blues.  If you want to see it on it's own, you can see it HERE.  Then I stamped with Apipila P.2.  I used the image on the right and Cupcake Polish Neither Here Noir There, a lovely dusty blue holo.  Then I stamped over that with the left image and Jupep Millie.  Two double stamps in one week?  Look at me go!

I love that I can get a splatter effect without all the mess!  Thanks for looking and don't forget to check out all the other Tart's nail art.

Wallpaper Nail Art #4

Two posts in one day?  Look at me go!  It is only because today is the last day of January (can you believe it!) and I still have one more wallpaper nail art to go.  This one is my vision for a child's bedroom.

I started out with two coats of Cult Nails Tempest and a gradient of Orly Melodious Harmony (yellow), China Glaze Pack Lightly (peach) and China Glaze Dashboard Dreamer (blue).  I purchased three from the China Glaze Road Trip Collection, and I am kinda obsessed with them.  You will see them all featured very soon.

Next I stamped with Messy Mansion MM38 and Cult Nails Tempest.  I don't know why I used it instead of my Konad White.  Maybe it was because it was right there on the top of the desk instead of in my Melmer.  It ended up being a little too sheer, which means another subtle stamping.  I think I have overdone those this week.

I have very mixed feelings about this one.  I think if the white was a stark stamper, I would love it but, as it is, I am a bit ambiguous about it.  Thanks for looking and commenting!