Striping Tape and Rhinestones Nail Art

Happy Wednesday! It's nice to be midway through the week so I thought I'd post a little nail art. I added some striping tape detail and rhinestones to the mani in my previous post. It's rare to find me with just plainly painted nails. They're like a blank canvas and I have to fill it.

On my index and pinkie fingers, I used striping tape to make a design, then painted over it with a black polish, and then peeled off the tape and sealed with topcoat. For the middle finger, I painted a thin stripe of clear nail polish down the middle of my nail and used tweezers to place the rhinestones in the clear polish, then sealed it with top coat.

Index, middle, and pinkie fingers are all A England - Dancing with Nureyev and ring finger is Zoya Caitlin.

Shade

Thanks for reading!

A England - Dancing with Nureyev

A friend recently bestowed upon me my very first A England polish. Initially, I thought, yeah, that's pretty. It's a blue holo...cool. But then I put it on my nails and the polish pretty much flicked me on the nose and was like, "LOOK HOW AMAZING I AM!" So I listened and now it's one of my favorite polishes ever.

Dancing with Nureyev is from A England's Ballerina Collection. It is a steely blue linear holo with a slight violet shift. I had difficulty capturing the color shift, but did my best.

One particularly notable thing about this polish is that it is beautiful in one coat!

One coat!

The following photos are with 2 coats.

Shade

Direct sunlight

I added an accent nail with Zoya Caitlin. I think the two look stunning together!

Look how beautiful the holo effect is!

This is the best I could do to capture the violet color shift. It's so much prettier in person.

I don't have anything like this polish and I look forward to trying other A England polishes!

Thanks for reading!

A England is a UK based brand, but is available around the world. It is available in the US at Llarowe or NinjaPolish.

Zoya is available at zoya.com.

All polishes mentioned in this post are from my collection and were not provided for review. All opinions are my own.

KBShimmer Snow Flaking Way and Snow Much Fun

Today I want to share 2 of my favorite wintery polishes. While most of the country is shrouded in snow and ice or just generally arctic weather, Southern California is sunny and warm. Don't get me wrong, I'm thankful for the sunny weather; it just doesn't feel like winter. I wouldn't mind some 50 or 60 degree weather (I'm Californian. That's cold enough.)

Anyway, on to two polishes from KBShimmer's 2013 Holiday Collection, Snow Flaking Way and Snow Much Fun.

Snow Flaking Way (left) and Snow Much Fun (right)

First up is Snow Flaking Way. This polish has a rich indigo jelly base with iridescent snowflake glitter,iridescent circle glitter (large and small), lavender and light blue hex glitter, and a small amount of tiny iridescent bar glitters.

This polish is so pretty! As is normal with large glitter, the snowflakes were a little tricky to get out. Large glitters tend to sink. Definitely need to fish them out and dab them on. It's a little extra work, but for a polish this pretty, I have no problem with that. I used 3 coats for these photos.

Next up is Snow Much Fun. This polish has a sky blue jelly base with white snowflake glitter, large white circle glitter, iridescent light blue hex glitter, matte gray hex glitter, and lots of tiny white and iridescent microglitter.

Similar to Snow Flaking Way, the large snowflake glitter needs to be fished out. For some reason, the snowflake glitters didn't lay as flat as they did in Snow Flaking Way, but again, for a polish so pretty, I wasn't bothered. I used 3 coats for these photos.

While it might be beach weather outside, at least my nails are wintery!

Snow Flaking Way and Snow Much Fun are available on KBShimmer.com.

Thanks for reading! 

The polishes reviewed in this post are part of my collection and were not provided to me for review. All opinions are my own.

1000 Facebook Fans Giveaway!!!

I always planned to do giveaways on my blog, but I never thought I'd be doing a "1000 Facebook Fans Giveaway" so soon! Start a blog, make a couple posts--BAM! 1000 Fans. This is totally normal, right?

Is this real life?

I'm humbled and I owe it to you. Thank you. I also have to give a big thanks to the #sharethelove event that happened over the weekend. So many kind and generous nail and beauty bloggers out there. There are an abundance of extremely talented nail artists out there! I'm so thankful to be a small part of such a great community.

On to the fun stuff! I've got a couple sets of prizes for you. One is US only and the other is international (non-US) only.

US Prize

US Prize contains:

One (1) OPI Push and Shove Duet Pack (which also contains OPI Lay Down That Base)

One (1) OPI "The Texture Effect" set containing limited edition Liquid Sand color, My Current Crush (plus OPI Base Coat)

One (1) handy dandy, colorful nail file

Look at how gorgeous these polishes are!

OPI - Push and Shove with Lay Down That Base base coat
Photo credit: LabMuffin

OPI Liquid Sand - My Current Crush
Photo Credit: ThePolishaholic

International (Non-US) Prize

International (non-US) Prize contains:

One (1) set China Glaze Real Nail Polish Appliques in Beyond Baroque

One pack Cala butterfly nail stickers

One (1) pack Cina nail art decals in Lacy Love

Three (3) mini nail files (one pack)

I hope you'll enter and join in the celebration! Good luck to you. 

Be on the lookout for more giveaways!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Dry Marble Technique with Tutorial

Before I start with the tutorial, a little announcement... To celebrate the start of my blog AND the huge milestone of receiving 1000 likes on my Facebook page, I'll be hosting my first ever GIVEAWAY!!! I've got some nifty nail polish and nail-related prizes so stay tuned for an official post!

On to the tutorial!

I'm a fan of nail art. It's just so fun to do and you get to use so many polishes at once. Win! I created this mani that I like to call, Fantasy Flames, mainly because it looks like magical fire.

To achieve this look, I used a dry marbling technique, which basically consists of glopping various polishes on your nail and then swirling them around with a dotting tool, pin, toothpick, or something similar with a fine point. The following is what I did to create this nail art:

Step 1

Gather up your polish arsenal. You can use whatever colors you prefer. I went with 4 -- one for a base color and 3 to make the flames. Any more than that and I felt it might look too jumbly, but feel free to experiment.

From left: Zoya Raven, Essie Sexy Divide, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Ultraviolet, Ozotic Sugar #903

Step 2

Start with clean, oil-free nails and apply one layer of base coat. I used OPI Nail Envy for this.

Step 3

Ready your polishes. You'll need to work quickly for this look. Loosen the caps on each polish you're planning to use. You won't have time to open and close each bottle while working as you don't want the polish to dry.

Step 4 

Apply your base color on half of your nail closest to your cuticle. It's not really necessary to cover the whole nail with it, but make sure it looks pretty opaque where you've applied it. I used Zoya Raven here. 

Don't let it dry. Just move to the next step

Step 5

Apply a fairly thick layer of the next color in a sort of stripe below the base color so that it overlaps the base color a bit. It doesn't have to look neat. I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Ultraviolet here.

Step 6 

Repeat Step 5, but with your next color and put it below the previous stripe. I used Ozotic Sugar #903.

Step 7

Next, repeat the above with your third color. I used Essie Sexy Divide for this one.

Step 8

While the polish is still wet, grab your fine tipped tool--I used a dotting tool--and begin dragging the polish around starting from the tip (if you want to create a flame look).

Step 9

Keep dragging and swirling with your fine-tipped tool until you achieve your desired look.

Step 10

If needed, clean up around the cuticle with some acetone and an angled brush. I like to use an inexpensive angled eyeliner brush for clean up.

Step 11

Let the polish dry and apply your favorite top coat. Repeat the above steps on your other nails. I think it's easier to do each nail individual so the polish doesn't dry.

Step 12

Admire your pretty nails!

I hope you'll give this look a try. It's not nearly as complex as it looks and it's a very forgiving technique; you just have to work quick enough so the polish doesn't dry.

Have questions? Feel free to comment in the box below. 

Thanks for reading! :)

All the polishes used in this tutorial are from my collection. 

Whimsical Ideas by Pam - Big River

Today I have a polish from my stash to show you. It's Big River from one of my favorite polish brands: Whimsical Ideas by Pam. This one is from her 2013 Holiday Collection - It's A Whimsical Life.

She has the cutest bottles. Would you believe she ties all those tiny bows herself? She does. Well, with some help.

Big River is a rich, cobalt blue jelly base with gobs of sparkling emerald green glitter. 

Taken in the shade

Also taken in the shade. Look at that depth!

Taken in the sun, but with some shadows

Direct sunlight

Big River goes on so smoothly and I didn't have any issues with getting enough glitter on the nail. It was opaque in 2 coats. I used 2 coats of Seche Vite to make it glassy, but one would've been enough. 

I love jelly polishes with glitter, like this one, because they have so much depth and are just mesmerizing. I also have a thing for blue and green polishes so basically I had to have this one (thanks to one of the fine ladies over at redditpolish).

Big River and all of Pam's beautiful creations are available through her Facebook page.

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My First Post!

Hi there! Welcome to my little corner of the internet! I've always loved nail polish, but as an avid nail-biter for most of my life, I didn't really polish them too often. After stumbling upon the immeasurable talent over at RedditLaqueristas, I was hooked. I stopped biting my nails and started polishing. It's been a year and a half since then and I can't get enough!

I'll be sharing pictures of my manis, swatches, nail art, maybe even tutorials if I'm feeling zippy, and other nail-related things here. I hope you'll stick around to see what's in store! Also, as a very green blogger, I'm still learning the ropes and waffling over design stuff. Things'll probably change now and then, but content will stay the same. I'm open to ideas, suggestions, and constructive criticism as well.

First up...

One of my favorite types of manis is one where there are different things going on on each nail, but the colors coordinate. I'm gonna call it a mixed methods mani. Others might call it a "skittles" mani.

Thumb and pinky are Finger Paints - Art You Kidding Me? and black acrylic paint for the dots

Index finger is a base of Zoya - Ziv. Stripes are done with Orly Instant Artist (jet black and white), Finger Paints - Art You Kidding Me? and butter LONDON - Slapper

Middle Finger is a base of 2 coats Julep - Cleopatra and 2 coats Whimsical Ideas by Pam - La-De-Dots

Ring finger is one coat of butter LONDON - Slapper and 2 coats of butter LONDON - Henley Regatta

All topped with a healthy layer of Poshé topcoat.


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