Valentine's Day Hearts

Hey Everyone!! I have been running around a bit since my dad had surgery this week and things are a little hectic. Between visiting him at the hospital and taking care of the dogs I have had these Valentine's Day manis but hadn't had the chance to edit the pictures and get them ready for posting. I am behind but I have several manis to share and a few more since I still have three days until the evil "holiday". I will either post a couple a day or I will just let them run past Valentine's day, not sure yet. 

Looking at the pictures of the base I used for today's post I feel kind of like Goldilocks and the three bears. The first picture is a little too bright because my camera freaked out on this polish when I was outdoors. The third picture is a little too light and washed out. I wish I could say the middle picture was just right but it the polish is actually a little more vibrant in real life. The pictures of the final mani are most color accurate. I hate when I can't get good pictures of a color.

The base for this mani was LA Colors Gel Like in Stunner. 

This polish totally freaked my camera out because it is absolutely not this bright. Not even a little bit. I do love this color though and would like a polish that looks just like this. I probably have one actually.

This is the closest picture to the actual color. Stunner is a really pretty bright coral color. Love the color even if I can't get my camera to take an accurate picture.

This one is a little too washed out. The life of a blogger is always exciting. Sometimes no matter how hard you try you just can not get an accurate picture. 

I went to three Family Dollar stores to try and find these Gel Like polishes. I found one display which was 98% empty and in the other stores I found little buckets with the polishes they had left. I was able to grab a few but I wasn't able to get all of the ones I want. This particular one is a nice color but the brush was thick and difficult. I used two coats but it was nice and thick and had the brush been more cooperative I could have almost done one coat. It also didn't really self level which drove me nuts. The color is nice and I did think it might be nice for stamping.

I decided to stamp some hearts on this one. I used Dashica XL SdP-111 and China Glaze Tip Your Hat to stamp the hearts on the background.

I thought it would be a nice time to double stamp so I decided to add a couple of darker hearts on a couple nails. 

I used Vivid Lacquer plate VL001 and China Glaze Out Like a Light for the accent hearts. I love how the final mani looked. Even in the stamped pictures the base color was playing games.

That's all for now :)

Bees

Hey Everyone!!! It is only Tuesday and I am already wondering if it is Friday yet. Geesh. I recently received the Sugar Bubbles stamping plates I ordered through a group buy back in March. I was swatching them a little bit earlier and now I just want to go home and play with them some more. I also tried out a Mundo de Unas stamping polish that I recently snagged. I wanted to give it a try before I made a huge order and I found one that someone was selling. I am a weirdo but I absolutely love the smell of it despite most people complaining about it. I have lots of new stamping toys that I need to start playing with so I can show you. My head is in the stamping clouds today.

Today's mani is one that I was so excited about. I thought it came out so cute.

I used OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana from the Brazil Collection and Artsyfartsy Crafts glitter in Dark Sunflower. I used Vivid Lacquer plate VL008 for the little bees.

I started with a base of Couture Gel Polish in Dance Til Dawn. I then sponged a gradient on my tips with I Just Can't Cope-acabana.

I added some of the Dark Sunflower loose glitter to the tips to give it some extra sparkle.

I stamped all the bees and their flight patters with black polish. I thought this mani was super cute and fun as well as nice and summery. 

That's all for now. :) 

Monday Blues IrisColors Shooting Star

Hey Everyone!!! Happy Monday! I am trying not to wish the days away but I really didn't have a long enough weekend and would like a day off! I know, the week has just started, but I didn't get much sleep last night so I am tired. There is no school both Friday and Monday but I doubt I will be able to take one of them off as my boss just had surgery. Bummer. I am just looking forward to getting through today without falling asleep at this point.

I almost missed today's Monday Blues (again) because I totally forgot to get a blue mani prepared. Luckily I had this one in my drafts that I could fall back on. 

Today I have a polish from a new to me brand of polish called IrisColors. A friend sent me two polishes from this brand in one of my packages. I have never seen this brand locally and there wasn't much information out there that I could find on the brand. They do have a facebook account which is what I linked you to and I emailed them looking for more information.

This is three coats of IrisColors Shooting Star. It is a gorgeous and very shimmery. The formula and application were great.

I used Vivid Lacquer Plate VL009 and black polish for the stamping. I love this image on VL009 because it creates a look similar to the polishes like OPI Black Spotted that were a mission to obtain. 

This was one of the last manis I did before my nails all broke on me. 

You can see some of the pretty shimmery sparkle from Shooting Star in the above picture.

I was so excited to get this plate because I had refused to try and get a hold of Black Spotted due to the cost and the difficulty. I am loving this image from the plate because I can actually use any color I want to get that same effect.

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 :)

Back to School

Hey Everyone!! Ok. So school started yesterday. My baby joined the ranks of high school. It is so very odd having him go to the same school I went to and even having one of my teachers! We took a tour of the school on Friday and it was a very weird feeling. I was dressed in jeans, sneakers and a t shirt roaming the same halls I used to roam dressed pretty much the same way. We even ran into a teacher that was there when I was so it made it even more strange. I am not enjoying the switch from getting up after 7:30 am to getting up before 6:00 am either. I am hoping I get used to the new schedule quickly because not even coffee is waking me up and I am pretty much in a haze until around noon. I can't tell you how many stupid mistakes I have made the past two mornings because I have not been fully with it. The good news is that I should be back on schedule blogging now. 

In honor of school starting I did a back to school mani which I wore yesterday. I was going to do a full week's worth of back to school designs but I was so tired last night I went for something more simple. I guess this year we will have just one back to school mani. On a side note did you know they now have Crayola Colored Pencils in 36 color packs?! When I was a kid we had 10 (or was it 12) colors!! How in the world are there 36 colored pencils? I was impressed and actually picked up a pack. One of the school supplies T needs is colored pencils and I couldn't pass up the 36 pack even though I know he probably doesn't need that much variety. 36 colors!!! 

Back to the mani. I used a base of Illamasqua Scorch. I don't have a picture of it but I used three coats. I love the polish and the color but the brush makes me a little crazy. It is on the wonky side and applies the polish uneven and streaky. I don't know if all Illamasquas have that problem or just this brush but I am not a fan of that stupid brush. I need to check out my other two Illamasqua polishes to see if they have the annoying brush too.

I used a Sinful Colors striping polish in blue to stamp the loose leaf paper design on Vivid Lacquer nail plate VL008. I think this image is the cutest and it was one of the main reasons I bought the plate. I love the Vivid Lacquer plates and they stamp really well. 

I used a neon purple Sinful Colors stamper and Mash plate Mash-31 to give my papers a happy face.

I have short nails so I was hoping the paper design would actually look like paper. I think it came out pretty cute. I used Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris to do the nail art. 

If my nails were a little longer or bigger fitting some school work on there would have been easier. They are growing though so that is a start. 

My right hand didn't quite come out as good as the left but it is still decent enough to show. 

I was so excited to do this mani. I love the paper design so much. 

I had to explain the mani to my mom. She didn't quite get it at first look. I am not sure what that says about the mani but I also had to tell C why there was a check mark next to dog. He didn't quite understand the check marks. 

I thought it made a great first day of school mani. Not exactly high school level work happening on those nails but I don't think an algebra equation was going to fit on there. 

As a nice little bonus for you I have Mr. Neil guarding his food bowl. The big dogs come and push him out of the way and eat his food if you don't watch them. Poor little Neil, he gets no respect. 

That's all for now :)