Butterfly Manicure with MoYou Pro XL 05

Hi everyone! Today I have a recreation of a mani by Kitt at The Cat's Claws. For this week's stamping plate challenge, I had to recreate someone else's mani using the plate I selected at the beginning of the month. After looking around online, I decided I liked her nailart the best. :)

I did not have the same nail polish colors that she had, but I had a bunch that were similar enough to make it work. I used Julep Melanie and Mahima, Butter London Knees Up, and COS BAR Orange.

I sponged on the colors in the same pattern, then stamped the butterfly wing pattern over top using Konad Special Black polish. After that, I added my dots with Konad Special White and a dotting tool.

Thank you so much for looking. I'll be back in a couple of days with my negative space mani for the 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge. :)

52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge - 3 Color Gradient + Pink

Goodness I love gradients! They are just always so pretty! Today I have a purple, pink, and yellow gradient to show off to fulfill both prompts in one manicure. I used COS BAR's no-name purple polish from their Target exclusive two years ago, L.A. Colors Magnetic Force, and Barielle Soul-er Powered. They look even more beautiful together than I imagined. :) After that, I added some stamping using MoYou London's The Pro plate 13 for the hummingbird and flower images with Konad Special Black polish.

Here is the gradient all on it's own. At first, I didn't want to stamp over it, it was so pretty, but I'm happy to say that the stamping only improved upon it. ;)

Here is L.A. Colors Magnetic Force all by itself. It is a coral-leaning, shimmery pink that went on in just two coats.

That's all I have for you today! Later this week I will have some freehand nail art for you if I don't muck it up. Wish me luck!

Here is what everyone else did!

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thursday - Burnt Orange/Copper

Hi all! I got a little short on time, so I had to settle for a simple stamped manicure for today's post. I have very little in the way of burnt orange/copper polish, but this one will have to suffice. It is a polish that was released exclusively by Target two years ago: a no-name orange from COS BAR. I rarely wear orange on it's own because it's just not a good color for me, so you know I had to add some stamping here. And since fall is apparently here (the horror!), I did a nice fall leaf manicure.

I stamped using an image from MoYou London's Suki Plate 07 with Avon Gleaming Gold. After that, I stamped leaf images over top of it using Clinique Garnet Ice and Bundle Monster plate BM04 and Red Angel plates RA-118 and RA-121.

Here is COS BAR's orange on it's own. This polish is on the thin side, so I did three thin coats to build this up to full opacity.

Thank you so much for looking! Make sure you look at what everyone else shared for their orange/copper polish!

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thursday Two-fer! - Purple & Skittle

I'm really getting to be quite terrible at blogging. I swear I blogged more when I was juggling school on top of everything. Now I have no school...and no excuse to be neglecting my baby blog and my nails!! Ah well, maybe I just have a case of the winter blahs. Spring will be here soon...right?! I better keep this brief or I will miss yet another deadline! Ok, so first up is my purple mani for this week.

The base is Zoya Areetha, which was a purchase I almost instantly regretted when I realized that it was a chrome/frost polish. I can't stand seeing brushstrokes on my nails and this polish was terrible for that.. I bought it and then never used it...until this week. On top of that, I added China Glaze CG In The City. This is the first bottle of China Glaze that I ever purchased, and then NEVER tried. I did a random design with striping tape and tried to keep it simple so I could finish this post on time. :)

Here is Areetha by herself. Ugh I hate the streaks! It is such a shame because the color is gorgeous. I got a few compliments on it too. Those people didn't look at it up close, like I have been...

Haha, ok next we have my skittle. This is 4 untrieds/loaded into one mani! I started with COS BAR (an unnamed dark bronze. I did my nail art with Bath & Boddy works Copper, Townley Mochachino (these two colors are both over 10 years old!), and Sally Hansen Snappy Sprinkles. Snappy Sprinkles is another glitter I bought years ago and then didn't really know what to do with.

Here is COS BAR's Bronze all by itself. It's not bad. It's actually a pretty good fall/winter color.

Thanks for looking and make sure you look at what everyone else did!

January Tri Polish = Red, Orange, Yellow - Day 4 (3 for me!)

Ok, so I skipped last Tuesday because I just couldn't stand the red, orange, and yellow, but now here I am. Nail art is an addiction, people. I can't tear myself away from it! :) The three colors I used in this mani are Sally Hansen Lemon Zest, NYC Broadway Burgundy Frost, and COS BAR orange, which has no name. I also used some white, which was my go-to white, Pure Ice Superstar!.

I feel like these came out kind of crazy. If you cannot tell, I was trying to emulate Tartofraises (cute nails), but I feel like I ruined it when I added the dots and swirls. The flowers became a little overshadowed. Oh well, I tried, darn it. :)

This is my favorite flower of them all. It was the third one I did. The first one was on my thumb, and that one is definitely the worst. I love these one-stroke flowers. I need to do more of them!

Here is Sally Hansen Lemon Zest by itself. This is a great yellow. Unlike most yellows, it goes on mostly opaque. This is just two coats. I was very impressed.

Well thanks for looking! Make sure you look at what everyone else did with these three colors.

Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge Day 1 - Water Marble

Today is my first day of the Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge. I'm so excited because it is the first time I have done a full water marble! I couldn't decide if I should go with fall colors or Halloween colors on this one. I had to think about it a lot. Here is what I finally decided on.

For this water marble, I used Zoya Arizona, Zoya Pippa, COS BAR Orange, and Pure Ice Black Rage. It;s not my best work ever, but it will have to do. This black polish hated being used for a water marble, and I tried the only other black polish I have and it was even worse.Here's hoping my next mani is better! For  a little redemption, here is Zoya Pippa all by her lovely self! Should have just stopped here! haha

Thanks for looking, and be sure to check out the other participants in this challenge!

datyorkLOVES

Erica's Nails and More

DreamyMM Nails & Make Up

 Tes Did It Nails
Sassy Paints
Nicole gets Nailed
glitznglammer
Finger Food
Wicked Tips
Fancy Schmancy Nails
Delight In Nails
Polish Groupie
My Nail Journey
Get Polished Up!
Just A Girl and Her Polish
Spellbound Nails
Le nail's corner d'Alex
Hello.Lacquer
 Countess Nails
Color the world with polish
Nail Crime Nail Art
Coat of Mani Colors
Cutie Cuticles (nail art by Laraib)
Wacky Laki
Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge October 1-31st, 2012
GLAMOROUS NAILS
Over The Topcoat
Polish Gone Crazy
tragedystipsandtreats
Susy In Color

Summer Challenge Day 1 - Bees

Theodora from Red Hair and Black Nail Polish and Kaki from GlitterObsession  put together a Summer Challenge for the month of July! They came up with some fun ideas and it's an every-other- day nail art challenge. I'm pretty excited as this is going to be the first nail art challenge I do where I have a deadline. I'm not very good at those when it comes to nail art (I'm sure you have noticed my Copy Cat Sat's are Copy Cat Sun's a lot of the time), so we'll see what happens. :)

Day 1 (July 1st) is Bees. Here is my take on Bee Nails.

So what do you think? I didn't even know where to start on this one, but I always like to use new polishes that I haven't tried yet. This time I started with Sally Hansen Pixel Pretty for my base - it was one of my only untried blues, so I felt the need to use it.  After that, I painted on my flowers and bees with a small paint brush and my new dotting tools. I used so many colors for this, I'll just list them out:

• Sally Hansen Pixel Pretty
• Pure Ice Super Star!
• Sally Hansen Lite
• Spoiled I Only Eat Salads
• NYC Taxi Yellow Creme
• NYC Uptown
• NYC High Line Green
• Spoiled Pretty In Punk
• Julep Brooke
• Priti NYC Red Ace Rose
• Salon Perfect Tangy Tangerine
• COS BAR (no name purple)
• Pure Ice Black Rage

Here is a photo of Sally Hansen's Pixel Pretty all by itself.

As always, thank you so much for looking! A full outline of the challenge can be found here. Please be sure to check out the other participants in this challenge!

1. Theodora from Red Hair and Black Nail Polish
2. Kaki from GlitterObsession
3. Cuti-CLUE-les
4. Whimsical Glam
5. Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue
6. Sangy from Lipgloss Affairs
7. Taya from Taya
8. Kelly from Adventures in Nail Art
9. Diana from Nails by Diana
10. Alexis Leigh from -XOXO Alexis Leigh
11. Namira from Namira Rahman
12. Chiro from Nail of This Week
13. IsaBella at IsaBella's World
14. Beautilicious Blogger
15. Nikki from Little Green Heart
16. Peace Love and Polish

I heart Target - Revlon and COS BAR!

I won a Target giftcard at work, and although most of it went toward groceries...I had to spend a little on myself when I saw these - heehee! First up is this Revlon polish called First Class. It's an exclusive color for Target and it is gorgeous!! Such a beautiful bright blue, I already know what I'm going to do with it...but that's a post for another day. ;)

I also got this lovely purple from a brand called COS BAR, which is now selling its wares at Target. It comes from one of my favorite places, Aspen! I had one of the best vacations of my life in Aspen, and it was the only vacation my husband and I have ever been on where it was just the two of us. So, needless to say, anything that says Aspen on it immediately makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Anyway, they have a very limited selection. After looking all over the bottle, there is no name for the color anywhere, not even a number, so we're just going to call it purple. They have a chartreuse-y green, a bronze color, and an orange color as well. I'll be doing a mani with this one too pretty soon, so stay tuned!

Here they are! Lovely, huh?

Here's a close-up of the bottles

Oh, one last thing! I got a goody to share with my readers. I have never tried Julep polish, but have a friend who uses it and loves it. That lovely friend of mine shared with me that you can try out the Julep Maven subscription for just a penny! I just signed up and it is so real, I am stunned right now. I think I can afford $0.01!! So, this will be mine in a short while. Yay! Check it out! Just enter in the code SHAREONMAY at checkout!
JULEP