Color Club Gingerbread Man & Holly

I hope you are enjoying your Thursday! I recently got a new camera. I have been playing around with it and trying to see if it is what I want. Obviously, macro shots (close up photography) is a large part of my camera use. I have not perfected taking manicure shots with this camera yet, but decided I needed to start posting them. If anything, seeing them on my blog will hopefully help me figure out tricks to make the pictures better. I purchased a Fujifilm FinePix HS30EXR. The camera is amazing. I am just having trouble getting macro shots in my light box without casting a shadow with the long lens. Also, getting my skin to turn out the right color. If you have any advice, please let me know, whether by comment or email.

Enough of my camera rambling, onto the pictures!

Color Club Gingerbread Man is a light gold foil. The application is perfection and opaque in one coat. It may appear like your basic gold foil, but it does have something special about it. Its scented! It smells like a frosted gingerbread cookie. The scent is very light. Nothing overpowering.

I wanted to make this manicure into something even more Christmas like than gingerbread, so added hollies. Three berries and three leaves. I used stamping plate BM14 and Ulta The Jungle Look. I attempted to stamp red and green on my thumb, but the delicate design dried too much before I could stamp it. So I decided to do green and add the red afterward. I went back with a small dotting tool and Love My Nails New Love to make the holly berries red. I personally love this. Its simple and very easy.

Halloween in July

Its Stamping Sunday! This week's theme is "Something I Love." I debated for a little while over what to do. If I had a penguin plate, you would be seeing penguins this week. And my owl plates are in the mail. I looked through my plates and the moment I saw the Halloween themed one, I knew I wanted to do that. It is one of my favorite holidays.

I started with two coats of Love My Nails Raspberry Sorbet, a maroon creme. I created a Halloween accent on each of my ring fingers. A spiderweb with Color Club Worth the Risque and plate BM13; then a spider with Sinful Colors Black on Black and plate BM13. Using a holo for the web causes it to catch the light in a way similar to actual spiderweb.

I love this design and will absolutely be recreating this in October when Halloween is closer to occurring.

Worth the Risque is from the Color Club Femme Fatale Collection. It retails for $4-8. I purchased mine on ebay from this seller. I've also heard of it being seen at Bed Bath & Beyond. Love My Nails retail for $1 at Bari Cosmetics. BM stamping plates are part of a 21 piece set that retails for $18 on Bundle Monster or their Amazon store. Sinful Colors retail for $2 at Walgreens (online/in store) and Target (in store). They're also available for $2.50 at Cherry Culture. 

Stars and Stripes

I hope you are enjoying your Tuesday! Today, I have a design for Monkey See Monkey Do and Fourth of July. I found inspiration in a design by Girlie Tomboy.

I absolutely love this! I got several compliments at work today. My index and pinky are two coats of Love My Nails New Love and my ring and thumb are two coats of Color Club Cold Metal. For my middle finger, I did one coat of Pure Ice Super Star!, stamped on stripes with New Love and plate BM20, and finally stamped on a star with Cold Metal and plate BM05.

Love My Nails retail for $1 at Bari Cosmetics. Cold Metal is part of the Color Club Foiled Collection. It retails for $4-8. I purchased mine in a collection set of all six for $8 at Ross. BM stamping plates are part of a 21 piece set that retails for $18 on Bundle Monster or their Amazon store. Pure Ice retails for $2 at Walmart and Bari Cosmetics. 

Patriotic Stamping and Glitter

Its Stamping Sunday! And my first design for the Fourth of July. I'll admit, its a little bit of a fail, but not too bad. The theme for this week is dots and circles.

The stamping didn't transfer perfectly and smeared a little. Plus my glitter didn't disperse well. But unless you look up close (or with these macro shots), the design looks nice, so its not all bad. I started with a base coat of Pure Ice Super Star! as my white backdrop. Next I stamped on Sinful Colors Sugar Sugar and Color Club Cold Metal with plate BM19. For my accent nail, I used two coats of Love My Nails Glory. Its a slightly blue tinted base with red and blue string glitter plus silver stars. I love how unique it is, but wish it was less bumpy. Two coats of tc later and still bumpy. But its perfect for the upcoming holiday.

Love My Nails retail for $1 at Bari Cosmetics. Cold Metal is part of the Color Club Foiled Collection. It retails for $4-8. I purchased mine in a collection set of all six for $8 at Ross. Sinful Colors retail for $2 at Walgreens (online/in store) and Target (in store). They're also available for $2.50 at Cherry Culture. BM stamping plates are part of a 21 piece set that retails for $18 on Bundle Monster or their Amazon store. Pure Ice retails for $2 at Walmart and Bari Cosmetics. 

Rainbow Favorites Day 7 - Pink

I hope you are enjoying your Saturday! Today is the last day of the rainbow challenge. And today's color happens to be my favorite polish color. So picking just one pink polish was hard. I couldn't pick just one, so I chose three.

China Glaze Sangria, Claire's Candy Shop, and Love My Nails Palest Mauve. Sangria is a hot pink shimmer. Nothing especially unique, but oh so pretty. Candy Shop is a pink jelly packed with multicolored and multi-shaped hex glitter. I promise it lays and appears much more flat than in the photo. For some reason, the glitter looks bumpy here. But if you look at my previous post with this polish, it looks perfectly smooth. Palest Mauve is a pale mauve pink creme, just as the name implies. Its a tad more mauve in reality and has been a favorite pink of mine for a long time. I even went as far as to grab a back up bottle of it. The application on all of these polishes is great. They all require two coats for opacity, though I added a third of Candy Shop for more glitter.

Claire's retails for $5 in store. China Glaze retails for $5-8 a bottle at Sally Beauty Supply, Ulta, and various other stores/sites. Love My Nails retail for $1 at Bari Cosmetics.

Doing this challenge has been so much fun. I hope everyone has enjoyed seeing my favorite colors. I know I have enjoyed seeing what other bloggers chose.

If you want to see what other polishes the other lovely bloggers are choosing, check them out. :)

~on beauty stuff and what else’s...~

9ml Universe

atlcatsmeow

Captivating Claws

Fancy Phalanges

Fe’s Nails

Football and Fingernails

Fresh Air & Fashion

Happy Nails

Kelly’s Kolors!

Lacquer Dreams

Lacquer or Leave Her!

Liesl Loves Pretty Things

Light Your Nails!

Manicurity

My Life in Polish

Nail Polish Lane

Nailpolish is Alive

Nubbin Nails

Of Color n Music...

Passion for Polish

Polish and Such

Sincerely, Obsessed With Polish

So You Think You Can Paint

The Rantings of a Nailpolish Hoarder

True Blood Sunday!

ITS TRUE BLOOD SUNDAY!! I love the show. Definitely one of my favorite shows. So of course I had to do a mani for the season five premiere, which is tonight.

I did all of my nails in a splatter mani. I had intended to write True Blood on my thumb, but it was not working out well, so splatter for all. I did one coat of Sinful Colors Black on Black then splattered on Love My Nails New Love with a straw. Looks like blood splatters. 

If you have never done splatter with a straw, let me warn you. I haven't done one in almost a year, so I forgot how frustrating cleanup is. I wish I had taped off my skin. To help you understand what I mean, I took pictures.

The first picture is before any cleanup. Its everywhere. Including the underside of my fingers from touching wet polish. The second picture is after my first cleanup attempt. It took another round of cleanup on the skin, plus some around my nails this morning to get the pictures you see up top. So ladies, please, remember to tape off.

Sinful Colors retail for $2 at Walgreens (online/in store) and Target (in store). They're also available for $2.50 at Cherry Culture. Love My Nails retail for $1 at Bari Cosmetics.

Floral

I hope you're enjoying your Monday! Another Monday Nail Art Challenge is here. This week is Floral. I wish this had turned out better. 

I was inspired by this post on the Nail Nerd. I used e.l.f. Fire Coral as a background for my flowers. The rest of the polishes I used were Sinful Colors Black on Black (outline), Love My Nails Orange Blossom, Ulta Peach Parfait (petals), China Glaze Mahogany Magic, and Julep Olivia (flower center).

For the Love of Train

Its Stamping Sunday! Yes, it is that time of the week again. :) The theme is Inspired by Music. It could be our favorite artist, album, artist/band, et cetera. I chose to do a song by Train. Given I have a limited amount of stamp images, I listened to my favorite Train songs to see which one I could do.

Not perfect considering my limited collection, but it was fun to do. I was inspired by Save Me San Francisco by Train. I based each nail on a different piece of the lyrics as the story goes along. Index: "We took the highway to the One, up the coast to catch some sun." I did a base coat of Cosmetic Arts Sky High with Sinful Colors Snow Me White clouds. Then I stamped a sun with Konad Yellow and plate BM01. Middle: "I drove into Seattle rain, fell in love then missed the train." I did the same base as my index finger, then stamped on the Seattle Space Needle with Sally Hansen Night Flight and plate BM15. Ring: "If I could wish upon a star." I did a base coat of Sinful Colors Black on Black with Midnight Blue sponged on and a layer of China Glaze Fairy Dust. Next I stamped on stars with Wet n Wild Silvivor and plate BM21. At the time, I had misplaced the plate with a single star, so I used my full nail design and just stamped one of the stars. Finally, Pinky: "But there's a wide-eyed girl back there, and she means everything... everything." I used  Look by Bipa Metallic Matt as my base before I stamped on Love with Love My Nails New Love and plate BM09.

Wet n Wild retail for $1-2 at CVS, Walgreens, Walmart, Ulta, and many other stores, all of which are listed on their website. Cosmetic Arts retail for $2 at Ross (I'm unsure where else they are sold, if anywhere else). Sinful Colors retail for $2 at Walgreens (online/in store) and Target (in store). They're also available for $2.50 at Cherry Culture. Konad Special Polish (for stamping) retails for $6.80 on their website. Sally Hansen Insta-Dri retails for $3-5 at Walgreens, Walmart, Riteaid, Target, and Ulta. China Glaze retails for $5-10 a bottle at Sally Beauty Supply, Ulta, and various other stores/sites. Love My Nails retail for $1 at Bari Cosmetics.


If you want to listen to the song that inspired my nails, click the song title you see above. Or click here if you would rather see lyrics. :)

Nautical

Its Stamping Sunday! Over at Adventures in Stamping, this week's theme is 'Three Colors'. You can only use three colors including base coat and stamping polishes, no more, no less.

I decided on a nautical design of red, white, and blue. On my ring fingers, I did two coats of Essie Midnight Tango then stamped on an anchor using Sinful Colors Snow Me White and plate BM08. On the rest of my fingers, I did three thin coats of Snow Me White then stamped on stripes using Love My Nails New Love and plate BM20.

The lines are not perfect. Despite my nail beds being relatively small, the whole nail designs do not cover my entire nail. So I had to use a nail art brush to fill in the gaps. I still like this design though. In person, the stripes look fine. Macro pictures show every detail and flaw.

Sinful Colors retail for $2 at Walgreens (online/in store) and Target (in store). They're also available for $2.50 at Cherry Culture. Essie Midnight Tango is from the Mortia's Nails Collection and only seems to be available on HSN.com in a set of three marked down to $7. Love My Nails retail for $1 at Bari Cosmetics.

Retro Stars Rainbow Gradient

Its Stamping Sunday over at Adventures In Stamping on Facebook. This week is Stars. And tomorrow's Nail Art Challenge at Polish-aholics Anonymous is Gradient/Ombre. I had this vision of a rainbow gradient with black stars. My nails are not exactly what I imagined, but the design is growing on me.

It reminds me of a vintage tee where the edges of the images fade and become worn. I don't think this plate image was etched deep enough. I could not pick up the image in the same spots over and over.

Its a lot of color! I used Essie Bone Chilling, Zoya Pippa, Dahlia Orange, Love My Nails New Love, Color Club Poptastic, Julep Anne, Zoya Phoebe, and Sinful Colors Irish Green. I started with a coat of Bone Chilling then sponged on each of the other colors. Next I stamped the stars on using the BM21 plate and Sinful Colors Black on Black.

I really like how colorful this is!

Snowflakes!

'Tis the season for snowflakes! Not here in Louisiana, but certainly on my nails.

I started off with two coats of Ulta Mint Condition. The application was good and it went on very smooth. Please excuse the little imperfections. I did this mani Monday and that night was crazy.

Next I layered Body Luxury Cream Shimmer over top. I wanted some subtle shimmer with my background. I got this polish in a set. All of them are nice. Not the best, but nice for layering. I found them at Burlington in a set of six for five dollars.

Finally I stamped on snowflakes with the BM14 plate using Love My Nails Angel. The effect is very subtle, though more noticeable in person. I really liked wearing these snowflakes. 

There is a little wear and tear on this polish already in the pictures. As I mentioned before Monday was crazy. Before adding the snowflakes, I had to go move boxes, so my damp polish got pushed slightly away from the tips.

Candy Cane Nails

Its been a few days since I posted a manicure. Life has been hectic with Christmas, among other things. My little brother is going off to bootcamp next week. We did Christmas for him over the weekend since he'll be gone. I'll show you all the mani I did for our early Christmas later on this week.

Today I have a candy cane design to share! I've been wanting to do candy canes because of my love of peppermint. And this week's challenge on PAA was Stripes/Rainbow (the vote tied).

Each hand ended up looking different. I stamped my left hand and was unhappy with the design, so I tried to freehand the stripes on my right hand. I actually like my right hand better for once, with the exception of my index finger.

Right Hand

Left Hand

I definitely want to do this mani again this month. I'll remember to freehand it all. The base coat of white is Sinful Colors Snow Me White with red stripes of Love My Nails New Love. I also added one coat of Ulta Glitter Top Coat to give them a little sparkle.

It should annoy me more that my hands are different styles of stripes, but where I work, no one pays much attention to my nails. And I put too much effort into it to remove it just yet.

I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to their week! :)

Untrieds Day 9 & 10 - Rainbow Nails

I've been sick lately, so much so that I haven't been to work most of this week. So I missed painting my nails yesterday. But I more than made up for it today. :) I painted all of my fingers a different color. Ten untried polishes!

These aren't exactly a rainbow, but it is a rainbow of colors. I used to work at a fabric store and this is how we organized the colors from light to dark. White, yellow, orange, red, pink, purple, blue, green, brown, silver/black.

From left to right, I used: Essie Bone Chilling, NYC Taxi Yellow, Sally Girl Amped, Wet n Wild Red Tape, Lavender Creme, Love My Nails Frosted Purple, Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, Wet n Wild SaGreena the Teenage Witch, Julep Olivia, and Beauty UK Gun Metal.

I think its a fun mani to do. And certainly eye catching considering the wide array of colors.

Please check out the other lovely bloggers participating in this challenge. :)

Alexandria at Je T'aime Lacquer

Alyssa at Always Polished

Amber at The Polished Momma

Andrea at Addicted to the Allure of Beauty

Caitlin at Something Creative

Carly at Lacquered Lover

Caroline at Good Lack, Nail!

Caroline at Shadow's Nail Art

Chelsea at Pretty and Polished

Ingie at Limited Addiction Nails

Jacki at Adventures in Acetone

Jamie at Nails Adored

Lindsey at Nailtopia

Nory at Fierce Makeup and Nails

Rachel at Cherry Glam Girl

Sarah at Lucky Lacquers

Shaina at Haute Lacquer

Taylor at Nailed to the T

Thalie at Glazed Talons