Sunflowers!

We're in the dreary days of winter and I'm counting down the days until the skies are sunny and the breeze is warm!  On a hot summer day last summer, we did a walk through a sunflower field with our granddaughter that was one of the highlights of our summer and I'm looking forward to doing it again this year!  In the meanwhile, I'll have to look at these sunny nails!

Started with a base of two coats of Wet n Wild Potassium Rich, no top coat.

Topped with Garden Path When the Owl & Witch Together Are Seen, no top coat.

Topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

Stamped using What's Up B044 using Painted Polish Midnight Mischief.

Topped with a coat of KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

Pictures from the sunflower stroll!

Thanks for looking!

Fluid Art Fail Made Pretty Cool Decal!

I'm sorry for being absent this last week or so; life has just been kicking me in the butt and I haven't had time to do any posts, etc. even though I'm still changing up my nails almost every day...night I mean, usually around 1 am as that's when I'm finding time to do them!  Thank you for hanging in there and waiting for me to post versus just unfollowing me on whatever media you do follow!  I sincerely appreciate it!

This mani was from a fluid art fail from when I was sampling different fluid additives to see if they would create cells for DYI fluid art including sampling different silicone mats so see how they smooshed, helped in the cell process etc.  The result was a fail as far as fluid art goes but it did turn out a pretty cool mat decal so I still added it to my nails and did some stamping and was pretty happy how it ended up looking, even if it was a fluid art fail!  Here's what I came up with!

Started out with the failed fluid art decal.  I'm not sure actually which polishes I used other than LA Colors but I know for these fluid arts, I've been pretty much sticking to non indie polishes and those that are on the lower end of retail costs because they use up so much polish and because at the time, I was doing a lot of experimenting and I didn't want to use up some of my indie or high end polishes! I actually found some notes on this; used LA Colors Family Ties, NYC Polyester Pink, NYC Snow White, WetnWild Who Is Ultra Violet and LA Colors Punchy were the polished used for the base.

But before I do get to the nails, this is Ms. Cindy wearing the LA Colors Family Ties which is an amazing hot pink gel polish! I wore it alone on Ms. Cindy while wearing the mani I'm sharing now.  Absolutely love the colour, finish, shine and application of this polish!  I thinkkkk I had found these in Dollar Tree for $1.25 each over the winter and pretty much bought one of every colour they had and so happy that I did!

But back to the nails; applied decal to the nails, did clean up, etc.

Applied KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

Stamped using image from Apipila Super Placa I using FunkyFingers Dark Knight.

Topped with KBShimmer Clearly on Top to finish.

I think this turned out to be a pretty cool mani and is exactly what I love about stamping; an interesting image that you can see the interesting base below can make awesome nails!  Or in this case, the stamping saved the mani because remember, it was a fluid art fail that I went with anyway but it did end up creating a pretty cool base for the stamping!  Never be afraid to try out your fail; worst case is you've used some time and acetone and you have another canvas for your next creation!

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks for looking!

Digit-al Dozen Does Birthday's; January 2017

This month in the Digit-al Dozen, we are celebrating Shelly at Sassy Shelly, whose birthday happens to be today!  Happy Birthday, Shelly!  Here's the nails I did based on the galaxy pix she chose!

Here's the inspiration pix.

Started with a base of two coats of Zoya Storm; shown with no top coat.

Added a coat of KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

For the galaxy, did a bunch of sponging.  Used Dare to Ware Wild Berry (purple), OPI Fearlessly Alice (light blue), and OPI Super Trop-i-cal-i-fiji-istic.

Sponged on Tonic Magnetic Midnight and Dragon Tears here and there.

Added American Apparel The Valley (light blue) and Sunset Blvd. (coral).

Before top coating, dabbed on Wet n Wild R-U-Free-2-Dance?, then top coated with KBShimmer Clearly on Top.

The stars in the pix were more blue than white, so stamped them on using MoYou Beach House using random parts of an image from Yours Truly Sasha Gossen Aim For The Stars.

Added a few dots here and there using American Apparel Sunset Blvd again to try to match the pix.

Swoon!

Just after I applied top coat to finish, I knicked the bottom lower corner of my middle finger.  Badly.  So filled it in with polish, responged a bit then added stamping just there to cover the indent.  If you look closely to above pix, you will notice it is a little different; that is why.  Once I fixed it up, applied top coat to finish.  I'm glad I was able to patch it up decently as these nails were a fair amount of work and time and it would have taken a bit just for the one!

Here's the other ladies birthday tribute mani's!

An InLinkz Link-up

Hope you're having a great weekend; thanks for looking!

Aqua Blue Nails

Continuing with blue nails for Autism Awareness month. 

I've had this mani saved in archives since late last summer....it was a mani I done using a polish I had picked up while back to school shopping with my daughter; she was shopping clothes, I was shopping nail polish!  Seen this cool coloured polish at Bootlegger so bought it; this was the mani I came up using it. 

Started with a base of two coats of unnamed Kismet polish.  Beautiful colour...horrible formula.  Streaky mess.  This polish had random grit in it, resulting in bumps throughout.  Urrggg.  So disappointing. 

I had to layer it with something to try to salvage it with one of a few polishes on hand as I was away for the weekend...so added a coat of WnW Spontaneous Combustion and topped with SV.  I think the layering helped.  A bit.  I guess...

Decided to stamp it; I thought this turned out kinda cool...like stained glass...almost?  Maybe...(This mani was done around the time that my iPhone had to be reset and because I keep all my mani notes in it, the plate info was lost.  If I come across the plate info, I'll update the post.  Sorry.)

I'm not sure if you can tell, but I then fished out a few of the glitters from Spontaneous Combustion and used them to dot the centres of the flowers.  Topped with SV.

This was the big news I had back late summer when I had drafted this post...always a thrill to see see these type of milestones!  Even now to have over 1500 follows is exciting....so if you're a new follower since then...or have been following for a while now.....thanks for stopping by and checking out my little blog!  I know I don't share much about my life....have no funny antidotes or clever writing to go along with my pix...and there are many times that my cuticles are less then stellar, hang nails are common, clean up not the best and sometimes the lighting is off...(I'm surprised I have any followers sometimes! lol!)....my blog is usually pretty minimal with just lots of pix of a mani from start to finish with some rambling in between (OK, I know I do tend to be a little wordy so probably lots of rambling in between is more accurate!)....so thanks for stopping by!

A surprise giveaway for anyone who has checked out the post this far!  Dashica has released some new plates and because I'm in a rambling mood, and to say thanks to everyone who happen to read this far, I'm placing an order of the new plates as they just previewed at Dashica this week. I'm going to do an impromptu giveaway right now for anyone who comments on this post only over the next 48 hours.  The prize will be your choice of 3 of the Dash plates (these are the small rectangular plates...and you can pick any three from no. 1 to 40 in case you want one of the previously released ones)...I'll add the winners 3 picks to my order; and will ship to you when I've received them from Dashica.  I'll cut off the entries 48 hours from the time I publish this post. You can see the plates here and just note in the comment section of this post your GFC follower name, your choice of the 3 Dash plates and an email address for contact purposes. Open internationally, see Giveaway Policy for any further details. This giveaway is sponsored by me! I will not be advertising this impromptu giveaway any place but here and there's no need to announce it on your blog, or on facebook, or start following me on pinterest or any other forum as there's no extra entries to be obtained, just one comment will be permitted for an entry. This is simply a thank you for those that regularly take the time to check out my blog! I do appreciate it!

Have a great weekend.....and thanks for looking!

Stamping Polish Comparisons

As happy as I am with the stamping results using Konad black special polish, I'm not generally happy with the cleanup, which is rarely 100% plus it has a tendency to drag probably more than any of the other Konad polishes. I've been wondering if there are other black polishes that work well for stamping. I took note of various comments on my blog (thanks Bunny Nails for mentioning KleanColor because I never would have thought about this one!) as well as seen what some others were using for stamping polishes; either swapped or bought them and decided to see if there was an alternative to Konad.



For this comparison, I used (left to right below) black Konad special polish, KleanColor Black, Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris, FingerPaints Black Expressionism and Essence Stamping polish.



For this stamping experiment, I used FingerPaints Blue Raspberry Taffy (blue) and Misa Without Airs Orange (orange) as the base. Initially, I was planning to do an Aztec theme but when I discovered that the Misa had a shimmer, I wasn't too keen on finishing it for some reason....this is why the plates you're going to see are Aztec themed for the stamping comparison as I already had them picked out for the mani! This is two coats of FingerPaints Blue Raspberry Taffy from their Gumdrops and Lollipops collection and three of Misa Without Airs Orange. (As a side note, I did have skin staining with Blue Raspberry Taffy; if you decide to pick it up, you may wish to be careful with removal.)



Stamped images in same order; starting at thumb: black Konad special polish (Big SdP C), KleanColor Black (Big SdP C), Wet n Wild Ebony Hates Chris (Big SdP B), FingerPaints Black Expressionism (Big SdP F) and Essence Stamping polish (XL A)...in hindsight, I guess the fairest comparison would have been using all the same image plate...unfortunately, I didn't think of this at the time!



So you could see how dark the stamping polish is, I purposely left it without cleanup. I also wanted to apply the topcoat fairly fast to see if there was any topcoat drag so didn't want to take the time for cleanup at this point to see if they did drag while relatively wet...the only delay was the time taken to snap a couple pictures. I used SV, which is the topcoat I use 99% of the time. Pix below is with topcoat.



I didn't see any visible signs of SV drag on any nails.

The above pictures are on my left hand; on my right hand, I alternated the base colours but kept the stamping colours in the same order, just to see if there was any stamping colour difference, but the results appear to be consistent with the left (ie WnW is still faint).



These are my comments/observations generally on all the polishes I tried:

Konad: I generally buy Konad online for $6.99 as it is $10-$12 at local stores; however, its not that handy for me to buy (flea markets in other towns). Stamping results: Konad stamped crisp, clear and the darkest image of all polishes tested. Cleanup: While it seems I didn't do too bad of a job clean up in this pix and there doesn't seem to be any leftover residue of stamping polish on the skin, I know this always isn't the case from past results as sometimes no matter how much time I spend with clean it up, it stays in the small fine lines in my skin...it also took the most amount of time to clean up in this pix but at least it cleaned up well! Drag: no visible drag in this test (but prone to drag from past experience). I usually wait a bit before topping with SV to ensure stamping polish is good and dry before applying SV to hope to eliminate drag...but even then, sometimes it happens!

KleanColor: Pricing was $2 in my area for a bottle. Availability: There's only two stores that sell KC in my area; the one didn't have KC black in stock; second one did and its pretty close to my house. I'm guessing KC should be found easily online too at reasonable pricing if needed. Stamping results: Stamped dark and fairly crisp, just a smidgen less in darkness and crispness than Konad. Cleanup: No issues at all with cleanup. Drag: No issues with drag. (Additional comments: I wonder if the bottle was left with the lid off for a bit if the polish would thicken to see if stamping results would be better? Because this polish is thinner than Konad, slightly better results may be achieved if it sits on the plate momentarily to dry which sometimes helps with better stamping results. Also, would like to monitor for SV drag because it would be a great plus not to have to worry about drag when applying the topcoat. I also have to recognize that while there is missing pieces of the stamped image on my finger, this may be the design plate and not to say I wouldn't have the same results with Konad as it happens with Konad polish too...sometimes this is remedied by just scraping side to side or down to up.)

Wet n Wild: Pricing was $1.49 for a bottle. Availability: locally sold at Walmart; lots in stock. Stamping results: Stamped the faintest of all polishes; wasn't even dark. Cleanup: No issues at all. Drag: No issues with drag. Additional comments: I have to say I was surprised the most with the results...or lack thereof...from this polish as I've read so often about gals using this for stamping polish but the stamped image is not very dark at all. Terrible brush; wouldn't even want to use this polish as a base polish. Maybe if I need a black to ever franken with I might use this polish. This would be my last choice ever because its just not a good dark stamped image. In fact, if this was my go to black stamping polish...I'd pick another stamping colour.

FingerPaints: Pricing was $5.99 for a bottle (slightly less with Sally's card). Availability: locally sold at Sally's; part of core line; usually in stock. Stamping results: fairly faint for a black but passable. Cleanup; no issues at all. Drag: No issues with drag. Additional comments: Wild card here; I actually bought this as an alternative to black base for manis as I heard it was a one coater and was pleasantly surprised that it stamped OK....maybe a good polish to take on holiday as serves two purposes for base and stamping! On the thin side; maybe another polish to try again if the lid is left off to let it thicken again? The stamped image shadowed which is because its a thinner polish; may be remedied by the polish sitting a bit on the image plate before scraping which sometimes helps.

Essence Stamping Polish: I don't actually know pricing as I received this in a swap. Availability: Not available in my area at all. Stamping results: OK for a fairly thin polish; not as good as Konad or KC. Cleanup: no issues at all. Drag: no issues with drag. Additional comments: Surprised it stamped so dark given that it is a fairly thin polish. Small sized bottle. Probably will never have another bottle as not available in my area at all so probably out of luck once this bottle runs out!



Results? I guess it will depend if stamped image is more important or the cost of the stamping polish! I think that based upon stamping results, availability, pricing, quality of stamping image, etc, the best overall polish would be KleanColor Black....that being said, I'll probably stick to Konad strictly because personally, I'd rather pay the extra and order online for the crisp clear stamping results of Konad! Also, while Konad cleanup takes longer and sometimes stays visible in my clean up pix, keep in mind that this isn't nearly as visible to the human eye as people aren't looking at your nails in macro view and immediately after stamping! As I take these pix mainly late at night, by the time I shower the next morning, there's little stamping polish left visible. All this being said, and as this is the first and only time I've used KleanColor to stamp, I'm going to use it more for stamping to get a good feel with how it stamps...because its available locally and less than a third of the price of Konad...and if I can get it to stamp well and it has no drag, it may be my next go to stamping polish...unless I find something better in the next round of comparison stamping that is!

Have you tried these polishes? Are your results the same or not? Just curious.....its always interesting to hear what others think...just like one person may prefer Poshe topcoat and the next SV if you know what I mean! Do you use any of these for stamping? If not, do you have any other suggestions? There's still a few black polishes I've yet to compare being Beautiful Scratchers black, Sally Hansen Black Out, Wet n Wild Black Creme and CND Blackjack. I think Fab Ur Nails also has a black stamping polish; I'm probably going to order it too whenever I get around to placing my order as I want to try a few of those stamping polishes.

I have a few different white polishes to try as well; KleanColor white, Sally Hansen White Out, Beautiful Scratchers white, Essence stampy white polish...do you know of any others that work well and may be an alternative to Konad? I'd love to know your thoughts!

Thanks for looking!

Playing with Old Dusty Polishes

I'm sure you're tired of me commenting how I'm getting more into layering recently...and trying to combine a cool layering combination with some interesting stamping. So not too long ago, I spent a bit of time (who am I kidding...a lot of time!) in one of my local dusties riffling through the bins looking for polishes that I thought could be interesting for layering. This is the result of a few of my finds.



I'm not a terribly creative or visual person; I can't look at polishes and think, well this will look cool with that on top...my brain just doesn't see those unique layering possibilities...so I spent a couple of hours...yes, hours...at the store, picking up the polishes, shaking them up, tilting them, looking at them in different angles and lighting...I'm sure the sales ladies thought I was a little kooky! Good thing it was a place that I frequent often and they know me well as 'that polish lady'...nothing annoys me more then when I'm hurried along in my polish shopping when looking at polishes...typically the smaller beauty shop supply places that watch over me when I'm in the store like I'm a shoplifter...I hate that!

Anyway, these were a few of my purchases....blah in a bottle I tell you!




And my experimenting when I got home. Um, I guess I bought quite a few bottles, eh? Lol!





All I can say is thank goodness these look so blah in the bottle...which I'm sure is why these older polishes are so plentiful in my area...because I'm sure if everyone could visualize their gorgeousness when layered, everyone would have snatched them up already! I'm not sure how well you can see this, but if you look in the very far left hand corner, you'll see my swatch of a cool, glitter polish I found with diamond shaped glitter in it...it was terribly goopy and thick when I bought it, but came back nicely with some thinner. I've yet to use it on a mani though.

After I finished playing with them and decided which polishes to use, I started my mani using one coat of Wet n Wild Black Creme.



Did the layering using the selected dusty polishes.



Bottle pix of the polishes I used for this mani. A couple of these had more colour than the rest of the blah in a bottle ones, but they were too sheer for my liking without doing a lot of coats, which is why I picked them up for layering. These are the five bottles I used for my mani; the first one is on the middle finger (Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Lemon Lime), the second on the thumb (Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Hot Magenta), the third on the pinky (Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Nylon, Balance Fr., colour #4363-12; has a 12 on the top of the lid), fourth on index (Sally Hansen Hard as Nails New Lengths Ceramics, Sheer Glisten, colour no. 6212-01 and has a 01 on top of lid) and the last one was on the ring finger (Rimmell 60 Seconds, Pulsating)**.



Then stamped using Black Konad special polishes with QA 17.


I'm not sure if you can see this well, but the stamping polish kinda shrunk and cracked after I stamped on the middle finger, which you can see in the above pix right at the tip. But I just touched it up with a bit of polish and you can't even tell in the pix below.



So simple and cool....I can't wait to try out more of these dusty finds including seeing how they look over colours other than black!

Thanks for looking!

**Post was edited to include names of polishes on nails (Feb 24 2012).