Pink Ivy- Stamping with Milani

I got the chance to do a really fun manicure recently, and I loved it so much I kept it for a full week! It was hard to photograph, but I think I got a pretty decent representation of it. You'll have to let me know what you think, and if you'd wear this!

Since summer is here, I was feeling the urge for some bright colors. I also wanted to dig into some of my older polishes, so without much hesitation I pulled out Wicked Style from the China Glaze Electropop collection. I know, I wish I had multiple backups of these polishes, they're definite staples in my collection!

Then, to add a bit of whimsy and to use one of my semi-new stamping plates, I stamped a pretty floral pattern from the Pueen plate #33 using White Milani polish. This worked beautifully, as you can tell! And of course, since I'm me, I had to add a bit of sparkle to things. A single coat of Essence Colour and Go in Space Queen finished things off beautifully!

All in all, this was a fun, bright manicure that made me smile lots. There's something about having my nails done that just makes my day seem a bit brighter!

What colors are you finding yourself drawn to this summer? Are you feeling hot in pastels, or are neons singing your name? Leave me a comment and let me know what you're loving this summer!

Some polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Sparkling Hearts

Salon Express plate #21, Zoya Lara, and a silver
Sally Hansen Color Quick nail polish pen.

Whee, I'm back with actual nail art! So exciting, even though this is not exactly a groundbreaking design. Still, it's fun and maybe I'm back in the saddle again?

This look started out simply enough. I was sick of looking at my bare nails, so I reached for my Sally Hansen Color Quick polish pen. Unfortunately, I have no idea what this color is called because this is the pen I keep in my purse for emergency manicures. You never know when you're going to need to paint someone's nails!

As a result, this pen looks like it's had a very interesting life! At first I wasn't very fond of these pens, but then I figured out how to use them. It's important to press the button enough times to have a drop of polish visible at the top of the brush. It will ease its way down the brush fibers to apply beautifully. If you don't have that much polish, you'll struggle to get the polish to apply even though the brush looks like it has enough color. Once I figured that out, I was really happy with these pens.

I've had this pen in my purse now for over a year, so I guess that's a good example of how sturdy they are. It's never leaked, either, and the cap stays on wonderfully. I definitely need a few more of these!

So, back to today's nails. Once my nails were painted silver, I realized I wanted a bit more something on them. I decided to go with Zoya's Lara, from the Summer 2012 Beach collection. It's a gorgeous pink creme that applies like a gorgeously. As you can see, it stamps nicely too!

I wasn't sure what sort of design I wanted to use, so I decided to go with the clustered hearts on SE21 from the Salon Express stamping kit. I've had trouble with the larger stamps, so I thought it would be good practice as well as being cute.

Also, instead of stamping the whole image in the center of the nails, I decided to place them more near the tips of my nails. This actually worked pretty nicely, and although I liked the final look, I felt like there was something missing. (I bet you can guess what it was, too, if you've been reading me for very long!)

That's right... I decided to add some glitter! I couldn't find a glitter polish that worked well with Lara's pink tones, so I pulled out my loose glitters. I ended up using a pot of glitter that Melissa from the Daily Nail sent me last halloween. It's a fun hot pink that seems unsure if it's a deep hot pink or an electric purple. Whatever it is, though, I absolutely LOVE it!

To use it, I put a few drops of clear polish onto a palette (the back of my stamping plate in this case), then put a bit of glitter on top. A quick mix and I had custom glitter polish to dab on top of a few hearts! This added just the kick I felt they needed, and I was finally happy with this look!

So what do you think? Does the glitter take it over the top? Is it something you'd wear? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think of this one.  I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Polishes were provided by the brands for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Another Fail...

Once again, I've got a total failed manicure to share with you today. I was experimenting with the Jessica Heavy Petal collection polishes again, this time going for a pink look. Unfortunately, it was a complete disaster.

I'm not sure what I was going for, but this clearly isn't it. I started with a base coat of Dazed Dahlia, which is such a beautiful deep hot pink. It's vibrant, but not too vibrant in my opinion.

I then wanted some texture to the background before I started stamping. I used Rolling Rose on my striping brush and added some slashy, stripey bits. I expected the Rolling Rose to add just a bit of texture and shimmer, but instead the stripes really showed up against the background! Not ideal, but I kept right on, hoping I could salvage something from this.

I pulled out my Salon Express stamping set to add some interest to my nails. I started with CND's Green Scene and stamped a swirly sun-type design on my ring finger. BLEAH! This just did NOT work. The green is too similar in value to Dazed Dahlia, so the colors meld into each other visually. No bueno!!

At this point, I knew I was basically not going to be able to save this one. I just stamped random designs from the Salon Express plates, mainly to see how they worked. I was happy with the stamps, I just with the overall design worked better!

Finally, I'll show you a closeup of my thumb... I think I went over this with the Jessica Holographic topcoat too, but I'm not sure. The sparkles are pretty, but this is just not a good look.

I apologize for not cleaning this one up, but I knew I was taking this off as soon as I got photos of it. Keep in mind, this is not a failure of the polishes. This is purely user error- I'm the failing part of this experiment!

So, help me out here- what do you do when you try a nail design that just doesn't work? Do you keep adding to it, hoping it'll work out? Do you say to heck with it before you're finished and take it off? Do you just shrug and keep it on? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Til next time!

Polishes were provided by the brand for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Easter Means Crawfish!

Boiled crawfish and a sliced bulb of garlic, yummy!

Ahhh, Easter. I'm not religious, but most of my husband's family is Catholic, so every year they throw a huge crawfish boil. It's the perfect occasion for catching up with family, eating til you think you're going to explode, and just letting the good times roll.

Oddly enough, I'm really not a big fan of crawfish. I'll eat them in things like crawfish etouffee or crawfish pie, but I'm just not fond of peeling boiled crawfish. So, I end up sitting and eating a hot dog or something while everyone around me slurps and cracks and does all those other icky things. :D

Anyway, on to the fun stuff- nails! I'm kind of frustrated, because while this was an adorable design in my head it just didn't work so well in reality. I did a base coat of China Glaze Dance Baby, followed by two sponged coats of a gradient from Fuchsia Fanatic to Gothic Lolita (both China Glaze as well). Then I stamped on some flowers in Scherer Chameleon's Blue Sky. I topped it off with my Best Nail Treatments topcoat, which I've found works beautifully for stamping.

I think I would have liked this better with a lighter stamp, or a lighter background. The Chameleon polish stamps really nicely, but it just didn't show well enough on this background. The pink-to-purple gradient was nice enough, but... I don't know. Something about this just didn't work for me.

Ah well. It wasn't awful, it just wasn't what I had hoped it would be. I did get compliments on it today, though, so all's well that ends well. And now, picspam.

Mmmm, nothing like small boiled crustceans.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Magnetix Polish

Magnetix polish with two magnets.

I am so excited! Last night, my family and I were out running some errands and I decided to stop off at Rite Aid to see if they had any fun new nail goodies. Talk about a score, I found a display of magnetic nail polishes!

They weren't too horribly expensive, either. The Magnetix polishes are $7.99 each, and come with two magnets! I was excited about that, since it seems most magnetic polishes either come with one magnet or make you buy the magnet separately!

The polishes come in a plastic box, and the display was on the bottom shelf. I could easily have missed it if I wasn't specifically keeping an eye out for interesting polishes! Unfortunately, I didn't notice how many colors there were, but I saw quite a few, including gold, silver, green, blue, deep pink, and a sort of putty brown color. They all had the same two magnets, so you can't get more patterns by buying more than one bottle.

Still, the patterns are nice enough. The magnets are somewhat flexible too, which let me sort of bend the magnet around my finger, so tht the magnetic field reached more of my nail instead of sitting right on top.

One strange thing, at least to me: the bottle shape is downright bizarre! While the bottom of the bottle is round, the top is triangular, and slants off to the left! It's sort of like a Nicole by OPI bottle, if you turned it to the side and the top was triangular. I don't know, it's weird!

It doesn't affect the polish inside, though, and it wasn't hard to hold or anything. I just find the shape weird. Maybe it's interesting instead. Whatever.

The big question for me was would it work. I've been dying to get some magnetic polish, but I didn't want to spend $20 on a bottle, I'm just too poor for that. I can deal with $8, even if it is a bit more than I'd like to spend, but I would be heartbroken if it didn't work. Thankfully I wasn't disappointed...

  

So, the final verdict? This stuff is kind of tricky to use, but it's absolutely gorgeous. It can be worn as a normal polish, worn with the magnetic stripes, stamped over a different polish... (yes, it stamps like a dream!)

Take a few minutes to get used to using the magnets, though. If you use too little polish and you won't see stripes, and if you use too much you won't see the stripes. Expect to have to redo a few nails, or do like I did and just live with it, since it's pretty no matter what you do to it! I'll let the rest of the pics speak for themselves...

What are your thoughts about magnetic nail polish? Are you itching to rock the trend, or is it leaving you bored and waiting for the next big thing? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

Yay for finding inexpensive magnetic polish!

See my disclosure statement for more information.

More Adventures In Stamping With the Salon Express Nail Stamping Kit

Ok, just ignore the photo from yesterday where I was trying to get the hang of stamping again. Turns out, all I needed was a polish that stamps well and a bit of practice!

The problem is, I was stamping onto Glitter Gal holographic polish with metallic polish, so it was HORRIBLE to photograph! But two photo sessions and much time in Photoshop later, I have a few shots to show you how well the stamps work.

Keep in mind, I've heavily edited the images to make them viewable. But I haven't touched the nail parts of the photos, and I've got a before shot to show you the difference.

Ok, enough yapping... let's get to the pics!

I should have moisturized, but I was so excited...

This shot actually shows four stamps, although it's hard to tell. The first finger (from left to right) has a flower in Heaven Creamsicle, but it doesn't show from this angle. Trust me, it's pretty.

The middle two fingers are a old franken I made myself. It is GORGEOUS, and even more clear than it seems in this photo. Seriously, I'm LOVING this polish for stamping!

The pinky has a portion of a butterfly, but for the life of me I can't remember which polish I used for it. My memory sucks...

So hard to see... *sighs*

I stamped these fingers first, so I was still getting the hang of it again. Still, you can kind of see what's going on here. The pinky is stamped with NYX NP 47 Le Prive, which is a really gorgeous duochrome, a slate/steely blue polish that shifts to a pale gold. Melissa at The Daily Nail sent me a care package of a bunch of fun gorgeous polishes around Halloween, and this is one of the beauties she included. Love it! I bet it'd be STUNNING over black!

The middle two fingers are stamped with a Maybelline matte metallic gold polish, and although you can't quite see the designs in this shot, the ring finger has what appears to be bamboo, and the middle finger has a portion of a rectangle with cutaway flowers in it. This looks really fun and funky in person, and I can see using the "full nail" designs like this in the future.

Ahhh, here we go. This is a pretty horrible shot, as it (like the others in this post) was taken in low light using available light instead of flash, because I was trying to keep the holographic reflectiveness of the Glitter Gal Purple Holographic from totally obscuring the stamping. With lots of color correction and a bit of Photoshop magic to make my cuticles not look so disgusting, we've got a somewhat presentable photo.

Unlike the original. This is a great example of how I edit my photos. I will always tweak the color balance on my pictures to try and reflect something more resembling what I see, rather than what the camera sees. I have no problem cleaning up the raggedy cuticles I always seem to have, because really, who wants to see that?

But I do NOT retouch the actual nail art part of my photos. That's a point of pride for me, really... I want you to see what I did, not what I wish I'd actually been able to do. When I do make Photoshop mockups, it's always clearly marked, and it always looks like Photoshop instead of my real nails.

I'm not the best nail artist by far, but I do want to present MY work, not some fantasy drawing. So... yea, that was quite a rant... oops. :D

Anyway, the bottom line is that I LOVE THIS STAMPING SET!! Honestly, if you have any interest in getting into stamping, this is the way to get started. Check your local stores for their as Seen On TV products, and you can play too! And again, please share what you've done. I wanna see!

Til next time!

Blah blah was provided by the manufacturer for consideration.

See my disclosure statement for more information.

Finally, an affordable drugstore stamping kit!

Holy WOW, I'm excited about this!! My husband and I went to WalMart to walk, as is our habit, and meandered over to the As Seen On TV section, mainly to have a giggle at the silly products. It's always good for a few minutes of fun, you know?

Imagine my surprise when I found THIS! Holy CRAP, do you see what that is? It's a drugstore nail stamping kit- not just stamping disks, not just a stamper, but a whole kit with everything you'd need (except the polish) to get started stamping your nails!

I may have squealed out loud over this. I may even have hopped up and down a bit while I hugged the kit to my chest, swooning over the awesomeness of it.

My husband's reaction? He chuckled, shaking his head at me. He doesn't understand my love for nail art, but he does like to see me get excited. Once I saw this kit contained awesome image plates, I absolutely had to have it.

That's right... not one plate, not two... but five!! Five plates with adorable images, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's look at this bit by bit, shall we?

Just look at what the kit contains- You get the nail design stamper (which is DOUBLE-ENDED, people!!), the scraper, the image plate holder, and FIVE image plates!

And these aren't the usual floral plates... while you get an assortment of really cute florals, you also get cute things like an apple, a palm tree, a seahorse... really cute stuff! The plate with animal print and patterns is what made me hop up and down, though.

What can I say, I'm silly.

Let's look at the plates up close... they're worth it!

 

Yes, you can click those images to see them larger. How adorable are they? I really like the double heart in the center of plate SE 21, the flower on SE 18, just about everything on SE 19, and the flower on SE 20. And OMG, do I even have to mention SE 22? I LOVE those images!

There's just one issue with SE 22- the images are definitely not full-nail. They might cover my pinky nail, but definitely not any others. Still, these are very usable images.

I can see myself using these as partial-nail stamps, to decorate half the nail, or french tips, or whatever. They're still absolutely adorable! Totally worth the price of the kit!

Oh yea, the price... I haven't mentioned the price. Can you believe this whole kit costs a whopping $10? Me either! Heck, you can barely get a single Konad plate for $10, much less the whole setup. I'm in LOVE!!

I'm also really excited about the double-ended stamper. One of the problems with the traditional stamper that comes with kits is that it's just too big. It can be hard to line images up on smaller nails using the big stamper, and a double-ended stamper can be hard to find, or more than you want to spend.

So, let's look at what it would cost to pick up these items from Konad, since that's the brand that started the stamping craze. If you were to buy them separately, you would end up with:

• double ended stamper and scraper: $6.90
• image plate holder: $2.90
• 5 image plates: $6.50 each, total $32.50
• Total for whole set: $42.30 before tax and shipping.

Pretty awesome deal, don't you agree? I know I'm over the moon! Of course, you don't get the Konad name, but in all honesty, I've used Konad plates and stampers, and I'm not seeing a huge difference in quality here. This is the best value I've seen yet when it comes to stamping kits.

Now comes the embarrassing part: I am SO out of practice when it comes to stamping. I had my stamping set in a sweet little cloth bag, and I seem to have misplaced it somehow. It's been way too long since I did any stamping, and BOY does it show. But I feel like I need to show the stamping I did, even though I'm WAY out of practice.

I pulled out a selection of polishes I'd been wondering about to see how they'd do on black and white. Sadly, most of them didn't work as well as I expected, although the Heaven polish surprised the heck out of me!

Also? Don't blame the bad stamping on the image plates or the stamper. I'm definitely to blame, as I'm getting used to the whole stamping process again. It definitely takes some getting used to!

So, I know what I'll be fiddling with for the next few weeks. I have so many ideas bouncing around my head! YAY!

Also? This is the fastest I think I've ever reviewed anything. I was so excited to see this, and even more excited that it's everything I was hoping for.

This may have been as As Seen On TV set, but it's definitely nothing to laugh at. This set is worth every penny, and quite a bit more!

As far as I know (after some quick googling) these are for sale at WalMart, CVS, Walgreens, and maybe Rite Aid? You may find them other places as well, I don't know... if you see a section for As Seen On TV items, look around! You just might get rewarded with awesome stamping!

I love this kit! You should go buy one today!

See my disclosure statement for more information.