Monday Blues: High on Hope

Hey Everyone!!! Ok, I am back. We had a long week last week and I didn't get to use the computer at all to edit pictures and post. T finished his project though there was drama with it at the end. At least it is done and things are calmer on the school front. We went out of town for my cousin's baby shower for the weekend so that was crazy. A dear family friend passed away this past weekend so we have that going on too now. It is a bit crazy and things haven't exactly gone as planned. I do have today's Monday Blues post though. I also have a super exciting three day posting of Oopsie Daisies Sanderson Sisters Halloween Trio. I was going to start that today but things just didn't work out. My ear and throat also are hurting right now so I am hoping I am not getting sick. We will see. This post is going to have a ton of pictures.

 

Today's Monday Blues polish is Orly High Hopes from the 2013 Spring Hope and Freedom collection.

This is three coats of High Hopes. 

I would describe High Hopes as a perfect denim blue with pink/purple shimmer. 

This baby looks awesome. 

I thought I was having problems getting the shimmer on camera but when I looked at my pictures on the computer it showed up quite well.

I love this polish! The shimmer is so pretty and I love the shade of blue.

That's all for now :)

The Isabella Emerald

Hey Everyone!!! Ok I think blogger is finally cooperating with me and I can get this posted. I always have a problem moving my pictures around once uploaded when I try and blog at work. I was so tired last night I just uploaded the pictures but didn't make sure they were in the right order. I just spent way too long and had two different browers shut down on my when I was trying to get them arranged. Sometimes computers and I do not get along well. I am so excited to finally have finished that blanket I was working on. I forgot to upload a picture of it so I will have to show you that tomorrow. 

Today I have an amazing polish from Smitten Polish. This is one of the Shipwrecked! polishes and it is amazing! I just recently was able to get this baby and I am so excited. I don't know why I didn't get it sooner and I am amazed that Noelie still has stock of this gorgeous polish. 

The Isabella Emerald is a gorgeous emerald polish inspired by the 964-carat emerald presented to Cortes then lost at sea for a couple hundred years. 

This is a gorgeous emerald green jelly base with various sizes of disco glitters that give it a ton of depth and sparkle. 

For the stamping I used Essie Good as Gold from their Mirror Metallics collection and Vivid Lacquer plate VL008. I LOVE the VL plates and how well they stamp. I highly recommend them!

Now, my pictures are slightly out of order and because of the issues that the program is giving me I am going to leave them that way. This picture shows the mani mattified. It was supposed to go at the end but the internet disagrees.

A close up of the two stamping designs. I used three coats of The Isabella Emerald. 

The application was great and I had no issues with the consistency. Toward the end of the mani I did realize that next time I will probably want to add some thinner as it got a little thicker. I also like my polishes pretty thin so it would probably be fine for a normal person.

I really love how much depth the glitter gives this polish. It makes me think of a faceted gemstone with the way the glitter reacts to the lighting.

This one was way shinier in person but the weather didn't cooperate and it was very very overcast. It has been raining all week which of course makes taking good pictures fun.

Such a pretty shade of green. I usually don't like gold but I thought it went perfectly with the color. I have stamped with gold two manis in a row now. I might need my temperature checked.

Next I want to try layering The Isabella Emerald over a darker green so I can preserve the pretty and see how a dark green base brings out that glitter. 

I am so glad I was able to get this polish before it was gone. There is still some stock left but this one is so pretty I can't imagine it staying around too long. 

I kept this on for two days and still didn't want to take it off. I probably wouldn't have if I had more manis in reserve to blog about. Since I didn't I had to take it off so I had stuff to post. 

This is a shot with flash against part of the blanket. 

I love how glitters look mattified. I would have worn this one mattified for an extra day.

So so pretty. If you don't have this polish already I suggest you add it to your collection. It is gorgeous and emerald does happen to be this year's color. It is currently on sale at Smitten Polish for $7.00 so not only do you get a gorgeous polish but you get it on sale too! 

That's all for now :)

Leather Loose is Good as Gold

Hey Everyone!! I finally finished the big star blanket I have been crocheting! I am so excited. I have to cut the little strings off but it is finally done. I started working on a little blanket that goes with it and realized after getting pretty far along I was using the wrong hook. Smack me with a shoe! I am going to start it over tomorrow so I will be fresh and alert. 

I have an official review on BornPrettyStore stamping plate m64 today. I had used this design a couple of times. Unlike m73 I had absolutely no issues with this plate. The image was clear and crisp and stamped very well. I can't wait to use the other images on the plate.

Born Pretty Store plate m64. I used the top right image for this mani. 

I used Essie Good as Gold from the 2012 Mirror Metallics collection to stamp the design. The Mirror Metallics polishes are great for stamping. I don't do gold often but I thought it worked well with this pattern and base color.

For the base I used Leather Loose from the Sinful Colors Leather Luxe collection. I used this one again really soon because I wanted to do a mani using top coat. My pictures don't do this polish justice.

I really love the image and how it comes out when stamped. Next time I think I will put glitter in place of the dots to give it more oomph. 

You can find plate m64 at BornPrettyStore right now for $1.99. I highly recommend this plate. As always you can used code JLG10 for 10% off. 

That's all for now :)

Whipped

Hey Everyone!!! I really hate when I mess up a mani about 2 minutes after completing it. I did today's mani and realized as I was top coating my second hand that somehow I got a smudge of the stamping color on the side of the tip. I should probably redo it but I don't want to. Then I realized I dinged the crap out of my thumb nail and wiped a bit of polish off. I am also not going to fix that ding because I have other stuff to do. Since you don't see my thumbs anyway I don't feel obligated to fix it just for my sake. Both little imperfections are making me crazy though because I can see them. 

Today I have the final polish from the Sinful Colors Leather Luxe Collection. This polish is the black matte polish called Whipped. I did an accent nail with Catherine Arley 803 and then stamped with the opposite color using Born Pretty Store plate m64. I will review that plate in another post since it didn't quite show up on this mani.

I used three coats of Whipped. I love the black matte! The application was great and I could have probably gotten away with two coats if I was taking my time and doing a better job at applying it.

I used three coats of 803 as well. I love this polish but there was very little sun and I was having a very hard time getting the holo to show up. It is a fun lime green, chartreuse color. 

803 wasn't really good with the stamping only in that it didn't show up very well. It might work over a lighter color and I am guessing that top coat might have brought it out a little more as well. I can't say for sure regarding the top coat but it was pretty subtle without it. 

Whipped also stamped very well but was light when it was put on the nail. I can't remember if I put top coat on top of the stamped Whipped but it doesn't look like it. I should have probably written that part down.

I was hoping that 803 stamped would have added some sparkle to Whipped but I actually rather like the subtle look. 

Hopefully my cuticles are on the mend too so I don't have to torture you with the dried out mess any longer. It was harder to apply oil and take pictures with the Leather Luxe collection because the oil left the polish looking shiny for far too long. 

That's all for now :)

Blue Sunshine

Hey Everyone!! I hope everyone had a good weekend. We didn't do a whole lot this weekend but run errands and watch football. It stormed all day yesterday so it was a nice stay in doors type of day. I just remembered I have to print out some stuff for T's school project. The projects they have for history class are no joke. I was hoping that the projects would be over now that he is in high school but no such luck. His first project is on Egypt. It should be exciting.

Today's Monday mani is another post of Zoya Sunshine. I know, that is sort of cheating, but it is such a pretty blue. Today I stamped over it though so I will also be reviewing one of the Born Pretty Store stamping plates.

Since we are into music and T plays the saxophone I wanted this plate solely based on the music image. When I saw that Born Pretty Store had this plate I ordered it. I have never had an issue with any plates from Born Pretty Store until this one. When I went to take the blue plastic protector off it didn't want to come off easily. It also left behind a ton of adhesive in the areas I could get the plastic off. 

Scrubbing off all that adhesive was not fun. The plate isn't backed and the edges are pretty sharp and I was lucky I didn't slice my fingers. I came close several times. I am not quite sure if it is the way the plate is etched or the designs but I wasn't satisfied with the way it stamped either. You can see in the picture above the music notes image is not really clear. This is plate M73 from Born Pretty Store.

I used two coats of Zoya Sunshine. As I mentioned in my previous post it was really thick when I first used the polish. I found my thinner and was able to thin it out. I actually thinned it out a little too much but it was easier to use when it was on the thin side. Sunshine is from the Fall Pixie Dust collection. It is a gorgeous dark blue/light navy with silver sparkle. 

I decided to do my ring fingers with top coat to see how it looked. I actually prefer Sunshine without the top coat. I am surprised I like it better that way but the top coat doesn't really do anything for me. I ended up stamping the floral image on my right hand because I was not enjoying the way the other image looked on my left hand. I actually really like the way this stamping came out though.

I started with the weird feathery image on my left hand and hated the way it was stamping and the way it looked. I then wanted to try the musical image but only to see how it was going to work. I didn't hold high hopes after the first image I tried didn't stamp well. I am not really pleased with the way the music image stamps at all. It isn't very clear and crisp. I was hoping it was just because I was stamping on a textured polish but it looked just as jumbled and unclear when I looked at it on the stamper before putting it on the nail. The image just isn't clear enough.

This is the first image I used from the plate. Not all of the image wanted to transfer and it didn't really wow me. I was going to spice it up and stick with my football colors by doing the dots in red but after seeing how the image transferred I was discouraged and didn't even want to bother. 

I didn't try all of the images on the plate but two out of the three I did try disappointed me.

I do love the flower print though. It reminds me of a pretty fabric or china print.

Since I was actually stamping over a top coated finger on my accent nail I can safely say I don't believe the stamping problems were due to the textured polish. It gave me the same problems on all my nails. I do love this blue polish though. 

I am loving the pointy nails though C hates them. He is threatening to make me file them down after I purposely poked him when he made fun of me over something. They are quite pointy but so fun.

Over all I have never had any other troubles with Born Pretty Store products but something about this plate didn't work well. I don't know if it is the etching or what but I wasn't thrilled with my stamping outcome on two of the images. I used a different plate that I bought from them for the mani I have for you tomorrow and that plate worked perfectly so it must just be this plate. As always my discount code for Born Pretty Store is JLG10 for 10% off.

That's all for now :)