ABC Challenge 'S & R' - The Red Angels are Sew Psyched

Hi all!

NOT DEAD! How about that? Sorry for my super extended absence, between work and getting everything done for graduation in two weeks plus my own personal down-time, it's been harder to get a post up. The biggest reason for my absence though? The sad sad state of my nails :'(. They've been peeling so badly recently and just brittle and dry that they're pretty nubtastic at the moment.

However, since I don't want to just disappear from the challenge altogether, I have a half-assed attempt to cram two challenges in one post! My base color is Essie Sew Psyched (for the S day) and I did a little accent stamp from RA-107 (for R day). I also stamped with Essie Good as Gold.

If the tips look weird its because I wore this for almost 5 days (!!) before taking the pictures and I had to retouch the tips a bit. Still, 5 days with barely any tip wear is pretty fantastic if you ask me! I never knew how to appreciate a long lasting mani until now.

Have a great day and (SPOILER ALERT) I'm actually wearing my 'T' mani as I type so be on the lookout for that post soon! (Could it be? Two posts in a week? EGADS).

Thank you for reading!

Sunday Stamping: Over Glitter

Hi all!

Exciting news, I joined the group Adventures in Stamping! I had seen all these cool posts by Anutka at Wacky Laki and the challenges always seemed fun so I joined up. Basically, we uh, stamp on Sundays. Today's theme was 'Over Glitter' and it gave me an excuse to use a brand spankin' new polish.

For today's mani I started with two coats of Illamasqua Creator, a 'magical black' (as described by Illamasqua) chock full of tiny silver glitter. It's weird though, because it looks like glass flecks or shimmer but, in the macro, you can see it's tiny rectangular glitter. Like really tiny miniaturized bar glitter. I dig it! Application was a breeze, as can be expected, 2 coats and -0 fussing with the glitter. On my accent nails, I stamped with RA-120 and Essie No Place Like Chrome.

What do you think? Perhaps not as creative as I would've wanted for my debut into the group but, then again, there's always next sunday :D

Hope you've all enjoyed/are enjoying your weekend!

31 Day Challenge Day 7 - Black and White

Hi there!

Sorry for the super late post, this is the mani I completely forgot I had to do and had no ideas on what to do in the first place. To do this I had to remove one of the most awesome things I've done in a while and it made me sad. Also, this mani gave me all kinds of trouble. First, I discovered all my white polishes are clumpy almost empty messes and I'm out of thinner. Then I remembered I had Illamasqua Load (teehee) which was white enough.

Load is really interesting color, like an off white yellow... let's not think of the inspiration for the name. The formula is a bit streaky and watery, needing 3 coats but they dry very fast so it's not bad at all. It's not a color I would reach for if I was in a hurry but I'm definitely glad to have it, love how it makes my nails look.

Once I had Load (teehee) on, I decided to go ahead with some fishnet nails. Stamped with RA-109 (I'm sure you're all sick of seeing this image) and then BM-209 with Wet 'N Wild black creme.

I'm extremely meh about these. It doesn't help that I was doing these in a hurry in an absolutely ridiculous heat. Isn't it supposed to start cooling down now? Blegh. Mostly, I think I'm just sad I had to take off what I had on. No, nevermind, I think it's the heat getting to me.

Sorry for the erratic post, I have about a zillion things on my mind. Hope you've had a better day and thanks for looking!

To see better black and white manis, do the clicky on the linkys!

-Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
-Greta at How Was Your Day?
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints 
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish 
- Robin Sparkles  

31 Day Challenge Day 1 - Red

Hey all! Monday, boo.

Aanyway, today I'm starting the famous 31 Day Challenge! I'm so excited to be joining these awesome ladies, I've always wanted to do this with other people and I know we've got a great group going. Special thanks go to Kimber from Kimber's Lacquer Korner for getting us all together and laying down the law ;).

Now, of course I wanted to start this off with a bang. And of course it didn't go as planned. I'm not a red nail polish fan. I can admire it on other people, but something about the way it goes with my skin tone has never convinced me. Point is, I was completely uninspired and confused when I started this. To add insult to injury, my topcoat bubbled like crazy and dragged the polish around so I had to find some way to fix it. I still kinda sorta maybe like the result a little bit though.

I used 2 coats of Essie Fishnet Stockings, a beautiful deep brick red with a great non-staining formula. Then, when everything went wrong, I layered Essie As Gold as it Gets and stamped with RA-119.

So yeah...I'm gonna go ahead and apologize for this. I really didn't know where I was going with it and it shows. I do have some really cool stuff planned out for other challenge days so it will get more exciting :D.

The good part is there's more manis you can check out! For some better ideas, check the links below:

-Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna at Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa at Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
-Greta at How Was Your Day?
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L  

Have a good day lovelies! 

Luxurious Stamping with Essie Little Brown Dress

Hey all! Sorry there wasn't a post during this weekend but I didn't have time to schedule anything before my little boating trip. If it makes you feel better I'm completely roasted from my idiotic sunburn so I'll probably peel soon :(. DAMN YOU past me that did not reapply sunblock!

Enough complaining, back to the nails... A couple of weeks ago they were showing The Other Boleyn Girl and there was a scene where the king was wearing this gorgeous ... thing (it wasn't a shirt, or vest or any other piece of clothing I can name). Point is, it was brown with icy blue embroidery, very rich looking. Of course, the first thing I thought was "Hey! I can do that on my nails!".

For this I started with two coats of Essie Little Brown Dress, a good dark chocolate shade, and stamped with RA-112 and Sally Hansen ColorQuick Pen in chrome blue.

I didn't really wear them as a full mani because I was in the mood for something brighter when I tried this, but you can bet I'll be doing this again and wearing it for a while. Also, my stamping hasn't really been great as of late and I feel reinvigorated with this one :)

Next up I have the really awesome mani I did for the boat trip so keep an eye out for that! I sincerely hope no one is in pain like me and you can enjoy your day!

China Glaze Electric Beat + Stamping

Good morning!

Now that the Black and White Challenge is over I'm back with a bright, spring mani.

I started with one coat of China Glaze Electric Beat. What I can't remember is if I added a second coat or not. I don't think so, because I remember getting really good coverage with one...Aanyway...

Electric Beat is part of China Glaze's spring collection and it's a bright blue creme that leans periwinkle at times. It has a wonderfully buttery application, it's that kind of thick formula in a good way.

Then I stamped with my Red Angel plate 109 and Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in Gold Chrome.

Just look at the detail on that flower! I love this design so hard.

I took a bajillion pictures because I just liked it too much. I hope you guys enjoy it too!

Black and White Challenge Day 6 - Color Base with White

I'm back again for another installment in the Black and White 10 Day Challenge! As you know, this challenge was by Mateja from Purple Glitters and Dolores from Colorful Bottle. Today we had a color base with white and only one idea popped in my head.... St. Patty's nails!

Since I haven't really had a chance to do St. Patrick's nails I settled for this simple design. This post will be a little long so make sure you stick around after the jump for more pictures!

Illamasqua Muse and flakies!

Happy tuesday! I meant to have this up yesterday but le boyfriend didn't go to work and he kidnapped me. I regret nothing, hope you guys understand ;). We also started at the gym yesterday for my cousin's wedding so we shall see how I feel during the rest of the week!

Now this is going to be a monster post again because I loved every layer of this mani so you'll see the finished product now and most of the post under the jump!

Black and White Challenge Day 1 - Black on White

Finally! This was difficult to photograph and I really missed my sunlight pictures, the newer ones under artificial light make my skin look really yellow. I managed to snap two not fantastic ones in sunlight at least. 

Either way, onto the mani. This time I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails in Hard to Get for the white and Wet 'N Wild black polish with RedAngel plate 106.

I was actually dying to make this pattern work, I'd tried it previously and it never picked up neatly so I'm pretty proud of this effort! I'm also loving the contrast, from afar it looks like zebra print which is neat too.  The only problem was that every single picture I took looked blurry because of the pattern or maybe I was just having a shaky day.

See you on March 4th for White on Black! (And some regular posts in between as well)

Sally Hansen Dorien Gray

After the break I didn't really feel like doing any crazy colors, I wanted something subdued that wouldn't call attention to my sad little nub so I reached for Sally Hansen's Dorien Gray. I'm sure many other blogs have featured it since it's pretty old but a good classic gray to have. Two easy coats and you're done. But of course, that wasn't enough so I added a coat of Finger Paints Twisted for some fun.

And I didn't really love it. I tried mattifying it to see if that would help, but not really. So I decided to stamp it with RA-111 and Sally Hansen Silver Sweep.

Sorry the pics are so yellow, I took these at work.

Just look at the gorgeous flakies under the stamping! It looked like little windows into awesomeness. I really wasn't going to buy any of the Finger Paints flakies because I didn't think I needed them. I only caved in to Twisted because I was afraid of regretting it later. Only negative is that it takes FOREVER to dry and I didn't really want to add 2 layers of Seche Vite so there was a lot of waiting around.

Thanks for looking!