Taste the Leopard Rainbow

Hello all!  Today for you I have an awesome rainbow and animal print nails.  I got the idea from one of my most favorite bloggers, the ever so lovely Christina at Let Them Have Polish, of which you can view here. 

And here are mine (sorry for the crap-tastic cell phone pic).



For the pinky & pointer fingers I used:  Color Club (aka CC) Warhol, CC Poptastic, CC Wham! Pow! & CC Almost Famous

Ring (and thumb but not shown here):  CC Almost Famous, Sally Hansen Insta-Dry Chartreuse Chase, CC Twiggie, CC Factory Girl & China Glaze Bahamian Escape.

Middle Finger (also my favorite):  CC Factory Girl, CC Chelsea Girl & CC Pucci-licious

I sponged all of these colors on using a make-up wedge.  I then stamped the leopard print image on using Konad black pearl and image plate M78.  I then topped it off with Seche Vite

This was so fun and looked so awesome in person that I can't wait to do it again!

Hope everyone has a wonderful, turkey-filled & safe Happy Thanksgiving!

Pink Feather Mani

I've seen this on several other blogs and so I thought I'd try my hand at it.  I'm not sure if I like it or not...

I used China Glaze Purple Panic for the base color and the feathers I purchased at Michael's.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!



Freehand Funky French on the Diagonal

So if you can't tell by my boring title names, I'm not really a creative person.  It may appear (at first glance) that I am and I truly wish I were but for the most part all I am able to do is take someone else's idea and try my hand at it.  I've had my creative moments but I'm just not yet brave enough to show those because most are fails.  Maybe some day. ;)

One of the many cool things I've come to find out about nail art is that the love for it is universal.  While the taste may vary from culture to culture or even person to person, you don't necessarily have to know the language of the individual to "get the picture".  A lot of blogs and youtuber's I subscribe to are in other languages & I don't speak a darned one of them - I only speak English. :(  The reason I say all that is because today I have for you my take on a funky french that I saw here, which is not in English, but here is the pic of my nails:

For the base coat I used Gelous that I purchased at Sally's Beauty Supply.  I then freehanded the black which was LA Colors nail art w/the striping brush in black.  Once that dried I used Sally Hansen White Out and a toothpick (I didn't have any dotting tools yet) for the white dots.  Then I alternated smaller dots on top of the white in blue (cannot remember the polish I used - sorry!) & a purple-pink neon China Glaze Purple Panic.  I then topped it off with Seche Vite.  I believe this is the 1st freehand nail art mani that I've ever done & it's still one of my favorites! 

Another cool thing about this mani is that it was super cheap to do so if you're looking for a neat way to spice up your nails without having to pay salon prices or buy special tools then this should be right up your alley!  The LA Colors nail art polish I got at one of my local dollar stores for $0.99, a toothpick and 2-3 other colors is all you really need to accomplish this look.

Hope you like!  Have a great day fellow nail polish lovers!

Base, Color & Top Coat Mis-Match...or is it the weather?

Over the weekend I did mine & my mom's nails but 1st, let's look at my mom's:

I used CND Stickey as the base coat with 1 coat of Petites in Raspberry Ice.  I love polish that is opaque in 1 coat but they are so rare!  I have come to realize that the opacity is not based on brand as I initially thought but basically it's based on the pigmentation of the color itself. 

Anyways, this color is a hot pinkish-magenta with some shimmer & I love it!  I'd gotten some inspiration from Scrangie (who I consider to be one of the top guru's in the nail polish world) http://www.scrangie.com/2011/01/cover-girl-iceslicks-anti-freeze.html.  For my mom's mani I put 2 coats of Cover Girl IceSlicks Anti-Freeze on top of the hot pink and it is fabulous!  On a nail wheel I tried Anti-Freeze over China Glaze's Goth & it looks amazingly awesome (like outer space) but I just don't think black would be appropriate for my mom - she would feel very out of place.  This isn't the best pic because it was so hard to photograph but the blue glitter gives off an aqua/purple shimmer & I love it!  It took absolutely forever for the 1st coat to dry but once we got the 2nd coat on, we topped it off with Seche Vite.  You may ask, what's the problem?  Well, in less than 24 hrs after giving her this mani, it started to chip & there was shrinkage at the tips.  I even buffed her nails to get the shine off so that the polish would adhere better!  I think I'm going to start keeping a list of base coats, polish brands & top coats that don't play nice because after all this hard work, I don't want it to happen again.



So after I did my mom's nails, I did my own.  I used Nailtek Foundation II for the base coat & China Glaze Bahamian Escape (also a 1-coater!).  I added Konad to it from plate m50 using the Konad special polish in purple & topped it off with ole faithful Seche Vite.  And guess what - mine started peeling off within 3 hours!  That's just ridiculous.  My sweet husband even washed the dishes for me & I was in church most of this time so it's not like I was doing some type of manual labor that would ruin my mani.  Ugh!  I was so aggravated!!!  I was able to touch up most of it so thankfully it was hard to tell but then it started peeling again within just another few hours! 

Later I added a purple rhinestone to the ring finger as an accent.  This pic was taken after I'd touched it up for the second time & this time around the touch-ups are definitely more noticeable (see pointer finger in the top corner).  Btw, all pics are clickable so you can enlarge for more detail.

So I have a few questions for you:

Which do you like better, with or without the rhinestone?

What do you think caused these issues?  The interaction of these polishes, the weather, the user? ;)

Have you experienced anything like this?

China Glaze Secret Periwinkle & Konad m64

Hello all!  Today I have for you one of my most favorite mani's I've ever done.  This is China Glaze Secret Periwinkle (2 coats) with design from Konad plate m64 stamped on top with the Konad special polish in white & of course topped off with Seche Vite fast-drying top coat.  I started to add white tips to this because it would look fabulous.  Maybe next time...