French Tips - W7 Mosaic and Julep Eden polish

 

 

 

I think French tip nails are very pretty and elegant but have never been drawn to have a classic French tip on myself.  In general, I don't go for the classic on myself.  But I have to say, I love, love, love unique combinations in French tip style.

I think this is probably my favorite manicure I've ever done on myself.  It was so simple to do, but something about the metallic purple so perfectly matches the purple glitter in the base coat.

Here's the base coat by itself.  I bought this off of a blog sale.  I have no idea where one might get W7 nail polish in the US.  I had never heard of it before.  But I'm really glad I took the chance and picked this one up.  At the same time I picked up a similar polish with a white base and red and black glitter.  I will have to try a French manicure with that one soon.

Can you tell how much I loved this manicure???  So many pictures, but I just couldn't narrow it down anymore.

Darling Diva - Highway to Hell Swatch

 Here are some swatches of Darling Diva's Highway to Hell.  I love this polish.  It's so deep and layered.

Really quite pretty.

Cow Manicure

 

 I really love this manicure!

 I think it turned out pretty well, so I took a ton of photos.

Seahorse on Ninja Polish's Mystic Glacier

I started with 3 coats of Ninja Polish's Mystic Glacier.  Even with 3 coats, there was still a visible nail line, but the polish is very, very pretty.

 



Another pic.

Dollish Polish - Tetris Swatch

This is one coat of Dollish Polish' Tetris polish on top of a couple layers of black polish.

I love this polish.  Perhaps because I used to play Tetris for hours on end.  And this polish really captures the feeling of the game to me.

I got my bottle here.

Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter and Nfu 51

Here’s a manicure I stamped with silver flowers over a purple base.

I started out with 2 coats of Pinky Glitter from Sinful Colors.  I had seen this color in the store a couple of times and was drawn to buy it but never did.  Finally they had a sale, by 2 for some cheap price so I decided to take the plunge.  Really, I knew it might be a bad investment, but certainly not an expensive one.  When I got the polish home I did 1 quick coat on my thumb and decided first that I hated it then that I loved it.  So as soon as I had a chance I did all my nails and decided…..I was right the first time.  I hated it. 

 

I didn't take a picture of alone on my nails but here is the bottle.

 

In order to avoid just taking it back off again, I decided to try layering Nfu Oh 51 over it.  Much better!

 

Then I used a silver polish to stamp some flowers from the Cheeky 12 plate on top.  Ended up really liking the result.

Ladybug Nails

I just love ladybugs!  So here is my attempt at a ladybug manicure.

I think these turned out pretty well.

I started with a couple coats of OPI's My Vampire is Buff.

Next I made a decal using LLC1, Black Crème from Wet n Wild and Cherry Red from Sally Hansen.

Jewelry Challenge - Silver Earrings

This manicure was inspired by this earring.  I hardly ever wear the earrings because they are too heavy, but I love the design.

I started with a couple coats of Nina's Black nail polish.  Then I stamped using Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Silver Sweep with BM-214 image plate.

I didn't get all the images stamped exactly in the middle of the nail, but I still like the way it turned out.  And a lot easier to wear than the earrings!  :)

Circus Manicure

I created this manicure for a 'vacation' challenge.  For some reason the circus came to mind when I thought about a nice, childhood vacation. 

The red and white represent the circus tent, and the figure is an elephant.  Not sure it completely conveys 'circus' but I think it's pretty.

Here is how the manicure looked right after stamping.  I was unhappy that I could see the stripes through the elephant so I colored him in by hand. 

For this manicure, I started with 3 coats of White on White by China Glaze.  Next, I used Cherry Red from Sally Hansen and Cheeky plate 21 for the tents.  The stamp is supposed to be for a French tip, but my nails are so short that the image covers most of the nail.

The elephant was done with Black Crème from Wet n Wild (great black stamping polish!) and LLC10 plate.

Stars and Moon Mani

 

 

Here's a little manicure I wore a couple of weeks ago.  Base color is Nfu Oh 52.  At some point I will do a swatch of it alone.  It's a beautiful flakie polish that changes colors.  In the bottle it appears dark blue with green flakies.  But on the nail it sometimes appears much more purple.  Prior to the stamping I used a top coat to make it matte.  I think flakies always look so pretty matte.

Next, I used Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri polish in Silver Sweep for the stamped design.  The Insta-Dri collection tends to stamp very well, and this silver color, in particular, I've used a number of times with great results.  The designs are from Cheeky plate CH46.

Please excuse the condition of my cuticles!  They are quite a mess in these photos.

Julep Polishes - Eloise and Jessica

 

 

For this manicure, I started with 2 coats of Julep's lovely Jessica polish.  Jessica is a very pretty pastel blue.  It's a tad bit lighter than it shows in the photos.

Next, I stamped the design from Cheeky plate CH6 with Julep's Eloise.  I really like this polish for stamping.  It is dark enough and covers well so it shows up, but it's a little more interesting than a plain black.

All in all, I think this turned out pretty nicely.

What do you think?

Chirality - Dahmer Crunch and Special BTK Swatches

 

 

Today I have 2 polishes from Chirality. I was planning to wear just Dahmer Crunch but instead of putting on 3 coats of it, I decided to try layering 1 or 2 coats of it over a white undie. The effect wasn’t bad, but it really wasn’t what I was in the mood for. It had a very stark effect; black and white with no shades of gray. In a different mood, it would have been perfect but I just wasn’t loving it at the moment. So I decided to try putting a coat of Special BTK on top and I think the resulting look is stunning!

I’m very glad I bought both of these at the same time. Later I picked up the small size bottles of Raisin Gein and Bundy Berries, but I may need to get the full sized bottles of those, as well. These 4 polishes are really great and when I consider all the possible combinations of layering them together! Wow! It’s like making your own frankenpolish the super simple way.

 

 

 

I also tried out Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food to smooth out the roughness of the glitter.  Worked like a charm!  I'll be using this over glitter all the time going forward.

 

You can find Dahmer Crunch and Special BTK at Chirality's etsy shop and Glitter Food at the Nail Pattern Boldness etsy shop.

Strawberry Manicure

Today's manicure was created for the Sweets challenge on the Facebook group She Who Does Nails.

 

Strawberries are sweet? Aren't they? I know the rest of the participants are doing more commonly thought of sweets, such as candy bars and cupcakes, but I've been dying to try out making my own stamping decals and this strawberry design seemed like a perfect stamp to start with.

I started with 2 coats of All That Glitters polish - I Luv Me.  This polish comes from the Bitter Hearts collection and can be found at the All That Glitters etsy store.  This glittery polish is so pretty and the perfect background for my strawberries!

 

Next I made decals using the strawberry from Cheeky plate CH13.  For the pink berries, I used Essie's Splash of Grenadine and for the red - Sally Hansen Cherry Red.

Not too bad for a first attempt, I think.

Check out all the other amazingly sweet manicures for this challenge!



 

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Smitten Polish Hocus Pocus Plus Glitter Food

Today I have a beautiful polish to show you.  This is one of those polishes that make me concerned about my driving.  I can just see it now.  Officer - 'why did you hit this light pole?'  Me - 'well, you see officer, just look at this nail polish.  I was so mesmerized by it in the sunlight I forgot to watch the road.'  Yeah, it's that pretty!



I used 3 coats for the swatches below to get the level of opaqueness I wanted.  Next time I might try layering it over black to see what it would be like.  (Please excuse the shrinkage.  My bottle of Seche Vite needs a little thinner.)

This polish dries a little bumpy and with a more satin-like finish.  I just got a bottle of Nail Pattern Boldness's Glitter Food so I decided to give that a try.  I hadn't realized it dries to a matte finish, but it does.  The beauty in that is that it dries super fast.  By the time I had finger 10 painted, finger 1 was dry.  Love it!  It also smoothed out the lumpiness very well.  I'm going to be trying it with all my other glittery, bumpy polishes and I'll let you know how it works.  Lastly, I added a quick coat of Seche Vite to make it all shiny.

This photo is a little out of focus on purpose to try to capture all the holographic goodness.

You can find Smitten Polish's Hocus Pocus at their Etsy store or at Llarowe.  Last time I looked Hocus Pocus was still in stock at Llarowe, but not Etsy.  Glitter Food is available at Nail Pattern Boldness's Etsy store.  Both of these products are must haves in my book!

Julep April - It Girl Swatches

I got 3 beautiful polishes in my Julep box this month and I created a stamped manicure with 2 of them.

First I put on a coat of a cream colored polish to cover over my stained nails.  Considering the stains are yellow this may have been unnecessary but I wasn't sure what color I was going to start with, so I put the base coat on first.

Next I did one coat of Abbie.  I'm really impressed that I only needed 1 coat.  If I had been planning to wear it without stamping I would have applied one more just to even out a few places but 1 coat covered surprisingly well.  All my other yellow nail polishes take at least 3 coats to give a reasonable finish.  So if you are looking for a good yellow, I definitely recommend this one.

Then I used the purple polish, Eden and Pueen stamp 19.

The stamp messed up a little on the pointer finger - user error.  But aside from that I really like the effect.

Here's a picture of all 3 polishes I got in my box. The green is called McKenzie and I really love it, as well. I'll do a swatch of it soon.

 

The first polish, Eden, photographed much more blue than it actually is.  It's really a deep, rich purple.  Very pretty.  It deserves a swatch of it's own, as well.

I have to say I've only been doing the Julep Maven box for a couple of months but I've been very happy with what I've received.

If you are interested, check out Julep Maven Program.
Note:  I paid for these polishes myself and I'm not affiliated with Julep in any way.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend!