Four Seasons Manicure (with a bonus 5th season some of you will know well)

Hi everyone! Today I have a stamping manicure for you that represents the four seasons. Well, five, but I'll explain that in a minute. I love double stamping ever since the first time I saw Laurie over at Dressed Up Digits do it a long time ago, so every time I can, I try to squeeze some into a manicure. Since this one is for my stamping group on facebook, it is an excellent excuse to do some double stamping. ;)

I used so many different polishes and stamps for this, I'm just going to list them out at the bottom of this post. If anyone has any questions or wants more detail, just ask in the comments. So, you may be noticing that gray thumb and wondering what that is supposed to be. We have a season here between winter and spring that I refer to as "slush disaster". My husband calls it "crippling depression". It is freezing cold and there is slushy snow and water everywhere. The sky is always cloudy and grey and you start to wonder if you will ever see the sun again. And this goes on for MONTHS. I thought a grey nail with clouds and blowing wind would represent this well. It really does feel like its own season here in northeast Ohio.

Here are the polishes and plate I used in this manicure, by finger:

• Pinky - Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, Sally Hansen Lemon Zest, BM21 & BM01
• Ring - Barielle Joytini, butter LONDON Chuffed, MoYou Sailor 07, BM04 & RA-118
• Middle - N.O.P.I. Pros & Confidence, butter LONDON Airy Fairy, Konad m63, BM114 & RA-119
• Index - Sally Hansen Perfect Pear-ing, China Glaze Paper Chasing, RA-102 & Cheeky B21
• Thumb - Julep Dendrie, NYC Tribeca Silver, Konad m79 & MoYou Sailor 07
• The final stamp on each nail was done using Konad Special White polish

Thank you so much for looking and make sure you see what everyone else did for the seasons!

An InLinkz Link-up

52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge - Texture

So, I'm going to start by saying that I totally hated this manicure. It had nothing to do with the polish or the stamp I used, and everything to do with how awful the nails on my right hand are looking lately. They are downright shabby...and then my photography was pretty bad, too, because I cannot photograph my right hand in my lightbox without contorting all weird. It makes my hand look like it's got rigormortis. I know I'm totally picking myself apart here, but I almost didn't share these because I was so mad about how bad they look in the photos. I guess I will have to go back to only showing my left hand on here. :P Alright enough ranting and on to the nails.

I need to take a moment to be positive about something here, and that something is Zoya Chita. She is beautiful, and sparkly, and textured, and made of magic just like the name Pixie Dust implies.

I felt like adding some simple stamping, and one of my coworkers requested celtic knots, so I used an image from my large Cheeky plate D using Konad Special Black polish.

Well that is all. Make sure you take a look at the other textured/matte nail art for this week!

An InLinkz Link-up

The Neverending Pile Challenge - Holo

It's holo day! And believe it or not, I actually have two holos that I have never used before. I know - it's shocking. The truth is, I wasn't entirely sure what to do with these, but I just had to have them. They are from the holographic collection that China Glaze released last year. This is Galactic Galaxy and OMG a UFO.

I wanted these because of the fact that they are not your typical bright holographics. I was enamored with the idea of a dark gray and drab green holographic. That just seemed so cool to me, and when I saw their rainbows in the store, they had to become mine. I decided to do some stamping with these so that I could use them both in one mani.

Here is China Glaze OMG a UFO all by itself. It's pretty and the rainbow leans a bit green/yellow, but it's there. I was not lucky enough to have sun for the photographs, so I used my best daylight bulbs in the hopes that I could do these nails some justice. The polish itself is great - it does not pull, and this is three thin coats.

Thanks for stopping by and make sure you check out what the other girls did!

An InLinkz Link-up

Nail-Art-A-Go-Go Day 2 = Jewel Tones!

Good evening! I thought I would have this post up earlier, but I kept having to pause my painting to cook up some yummy foods for the big game tonight. I don't care about football AT ALL, but I do care about my husband. Therefore, I made all sorts of yummy game snacks to surprise him and make this day extra special. And, since I get to eat it all too, it makes me happy. :) Anyway, for today's post, I got it in my head that I wanted to do something like stained glass.

It was a lot more time consuming than I first imagined, but I loved the way it turned out. It looks pretty much the way I envisioned it. :) I used the stamping decal method with an image on Cheeky XL Plate D. This is the part that took forever, but it was worth it.

For this mani, I ended up using 12 nail polishes! I'm going to list them out below rather than explain in detail what I did with each one. I just don't have that kind of time today!! I will say that I started out with a white base in the hopes that the colors would look brighter, so for  that, I used Pure Ice SuperStar!, which you all know by now is my favorite white. Here are the rest of the colors I used:

• butter LONDON Knees Up
• essie Sure Shot
• Julep Angela
• Julep Leah
• Julep Marjorie
• Konad Special Black
• L.A. Colors Magnetic Force
• L.A. Colors Wired
• Pure Ice Femme Fatale
• Pure Ice Vintage Glam
• Sally Hansen Pronto Purple

Make sure you check out what all the others did for today's challenge!!!

Laid-Back NEW31DC Day 31 - Recreate Someone Else's Mani (From Earlier In This Challenge)

Well here we are: the last day of the Laid-Back 31DC. It's been fun, but I am ready to be finished. I think I bit off more than I can chew in these past few months. I absolutely loved this challenge, and am so happy that Debbie of The Crumpet created a laid-back version for us. This challenge was one of the hardest for me because I had a terrible time choosing which mani to redo. In the end, I chose this gradient stamping mani from Smashley Sparkles. She did this one for the Merge or Melt day, which was definitely my favorite day of  the challenge. Everyone did so much fantastic nail art for it! Here is my attempt at recreating it!

I did not have these same polishes, so I decided to just use my China Glaze holos for this. I started out with a white shimmer base to help the colors pop. I used Julep Kate, then created a gradient using China Glaze Infra Red, Get Outta My Space, and Sci-Fly By. I don't have the same stamping plate either, so I used the closest thing I had, which is an image from my Large Cheeky plate D. I used Pure Ice Black Rage for the stamping.

Here is my gradient before I added the stamping. Boy, I sure do love a gradient. They are just so pretty!

I think it turned out pretty well. I do love a good gradient with stamping. Be sure to check out what everyone else did!

Laid-Back NEW31DC Day 29 - Inspired By A Blogger

Well...what a tough decision. There are so many bloggers that I love to follow, so I really couldn't figure out who I wanted to use for my inspiration on this one. I was catching up on my blogs this past weekend, and suddenly got my inspiration from a bloggers background. This is a blog that I have been faithfully reading for over a year now and I hope you will be able to guess who it is!

Alright, well if you couldn't guess, it is Rebecca from Rebecca Likes Nails! Her background on her blog is so cute, represents her well with the purple and the bow, and looks great as nail art. :)

I used L.A. Colors Tropical Breeze as my base for this manicure, then used Pure Ice SuperStar! to add dots. I used Cheeky Plate B09 to stamp a bow on each finger using Konad Special White, then colored in the bows with Pure Ice Black Rage. Hope you like this, Rebecca! :)

I hope you like this one. I think it turned out really cute! Make sure you take a look at what every one else did.

Laid-Back NEW31DC Day 1 - Black & White

For my first day of the Laid-Back 31 Day Challenge, I got inspiration from a co-worker. I just couldn't get any good ideas, but he came up with optical illusions, which is an awesome idea, so I executed it as well as I could.

The base for this is Pure Ice Black Rage. This is the best, most opaque black I have found. I used mostly stamps for this, and did one nail freehand. On my index finger, I used BM-19 with Pure Ice Superstar!, on my middle finger, I used Mash-45, on my ring finger, I used one of the Cheeky large plates (D), and on my pinky, I used Konad plate m-63, and for my thumb, I drew in the classic face or candlestick illusion. Thanks, Josh for helping me out on this one!

Thanks for looking and be sure to check out what everyone else did for this challenge!

10 Day Holiday Nail Art Challenge: Day 9 - Red, Green & White

This mani I actually did on my mom for Christmas Eve. She wanted some festive nails, so I did her nails in this poinsettia theme to celebrate the holiday. I really loved how these nails turned out and I think she did too!

For this, we started with a base of Pure Ice Super Star!, then added a coat of Pixi Opal Sheen to give it some pizzazz. :) After that, I stamped on the flower image from Cheeky plate M70 using China Glaze Adventure Red-y, painted on my leaves by hand using Pure Ice Femme Fatale, and then added the yellow dots in the center using Zoya Pippa. It was a long project. Thankfully, Netflix saved the days with all the newly released Disney videos. We watched Aristocats to pass the time. I hadn't seen it since I was a little kid, so that was pretty fun. Thanks for looking and I'll have my last post for this challenge for you on New Years Eve!

Pure Ice Temptress

Today I have for you a pretty 'velvet' polish from Pure Ice in a lovely color called Temptress. This is a dark bluish-purple with gold flecks which change color in different lights. I saw green, red, gold, ans who knows what else. It's very pretty, and I like looking at it. :) These velvet polishes from Pure Ice have a matte  or suede finish. It's a very soft shine, unless you add topcoat. Here are a few pics of the color on its own.

 

Super pretty, right?? Of course, I can't just wear a color by itself anymore, so I decided to add some stamping. I won a bunch of Cheeky plates from Lizzy, The DIY Lady, (thank you!!!) so I decided to try out a bunch of the floral images from plate M70. I stamped in Julep Sienna, which turned out to be pretty nice to stamp with. Take a look!

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I know I did, and I ate a TON of fabulous food. :) Now I'm looking forward to my last day of class on December 14, then it's Christmas, Christmas, Christmas from here til the new year! Speaking of Christmas, is anybody doing a Christmas/Winter nail art challenge? I'm thinking about hosting one. If interested, email me at delightinnails@gmail.com. :) Hope you all have a wonderful week!