Funky French with Flowers

Hello! I have been playing with my collection of Loki's Nail Vinyls again, and did a cute floral, Spring-inspired mani using her vinyls to create a nice crisp funky french. I'm not sure where my inspiration came for this one. I was just sketching out ideas and then all of the sudden this idea was born. These three colors go so well together, too!

I started of with three coats of NYC Hamptons Peach, then used Loki's Nail Vinyls to mask the tip of each nail and painted over top of it using Julep Donna. Here is what it looked like at that point. Pardon the poor lighting, I wasn't in the mood to pull out my light box for this part. I really need to buy another Ott light. :) Oh and also, the dryness from the acetone - gross. Whatever though, you guys get the idea!

After I did that, I used a dotting tool to create the flowers using Color Club London Calling, then added a dot of Julep Donna in the center of each one. I really love this manicure. It came out so much better than I had even hoped. I have been sketching out my ideas on paper lately, and boy is it helping lol.

Here is NYC Hamptons Peach all by itself. This polish was a bit on the thin side, but it built up to opacity in 3 coats.

Thank you for stopping by to look today! I will be back in a couple days with a new mani for the 52 Week Pick n Mix. Have a great day!

KKcenterHK D.I.Y. Water Decals Review + Sally Hansen Hi-Def

Hello! I am probably out on the beach right now having a fabulous time with my family, but just so you don't miss me too much, I scheduled this lovely review for you. :) This is my second shot at using their D.I.Y. Water Decals and I have to say, I learned a lot the first time around, so this time went way better. I got fancy with this one. Here is what I ended up with.

So when the decal sheet arrived in the mail, it looked like this. It is packed nicely and this is actually  resealable packet as well, which is nice. I put my leftover portion of the decal sheet back in there to use it again in another mani. :)

This sheet is the same size as the last one I reviewed, and I decided to do a partial nail instead of a full nail. Here is a pic of what one of them looked like once I had it all cut out to fit on the nail.

I had a lot of fun with these, and I got to use some polishes I haven't used much yet, too. :) Here is Sally Hansen's Hi-Def by itself. It is a very thin polish, so this is about 4 coats. Lovely color, huh?

I also wanted to mention that I tried a couple different topcoats with this mani, and this time I think the topcoats I used actually were worse. :( Here is an image with an explanation about which topcoats I used on each nail.

On the pinky/thumb, I used Orly Top 2 Bottom, which is my fave basecoat. It ate the decal. On my ring finger, I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails. It did ok, until I reach the tip of the nail, and it lifted the decal right off in one spot, which is why you see the chunk taken out on the corner, there. On my middle finger, I used NYC In a New York Minute Topcoat which did ok, but bubbled on me just because it is old and getting thick. On my index finger, I used AVON Speed Dry Topcoat, which did alright as well. It only ate the decal a little bit. So, now that I see how some of these other topcoats did, my Seche Vite doesn't seem so bad after all. I think that the NYC and AVON topcoats did the best though.

I am really pleased with my experience with the water decals this time, and super happy with my results. Definitely check these decals out. They are a great alternative to nail art if you are short on time, and look way better than anything you can do by hand without spending hours at it. :)

If you would like to try out some of the nail goodies they have, don't forget to use the 10% off coupon code that KKcenterHK has generously provided to me! It is good through 1/31/2013.

Coupon Code:  DelightInNails

*Products in this post were sent for review in return for my honest opinion.

Copy Cat Sat - A Polish Addict

Today, I want to share with you some pretty nails I saw last week, and had to re-create. This is what I wore to my first day at my new job (I didn't want to scare them!). This is from A Polish Addict, and it was so sweet and pretty, I just had to do it. As usual, I'm not using the same colors, but they are pretty similar. I wanted to try out some of the polishes that I have had sitting in my stash for a little while which I haven't used.

This is a base of Zoya Lo, which my mom gifted me recently, and I am in love with - thanks Mom! Look at how pretty it is! As usual, it went on in two flawless coats (I LOVE ZOYA!) and it looks gorgeous on its own. I used Zoya Kimber for the french tip. I've been dying to use this, but it is a mini, so I feel like I have to conserve it and use it all sparingly. Who am I kidding? If I ever run out, I'll find a way to get my hands on another bottle.

Last, I did a little stripe of OPI Excuse Moi (from the Muppets Collection!). I am slowly getting better at striping. These lines are almost perfect, which I am very happy about. And I did something I RARELY do. I put something on my nails other than nailpolish. I was going to go without the rhinestone, but it just didn't look right, so I had to. I had these in with my scrapbooking supplies, and never would have used them in a scrapbook, so they have offically been moved to my nailpolish collection.

I'm pretty happy with this manicure, although I can't stop picking at the rhinestones. Thank you so much for looking. Please let me know what you think. Also, if you see anything that you would like for me to try to recreate (with my own spin on it, of course) please leave me a comment. I will eventually run out of ideas, and I would love some input from my faithful readers!

Copy Cat Sat - Nailside

So of course most people have probably seen all of the cool tutorials that Nailside posts, but I just had to try out her clouds technique. They are so cute! Since I wanted to try out some of the new polishes that I have, I decided to use a couple of my new Julep polishes, and my beloved Zoya Wednesday-love this color! Check it out!

I started with Julep Mandy, which is a bright pinky-red. I will say that as with the other Julep I tried, the application with this color was not pleasant. You would think that for a polish that they charge $12, it would be awesome, but it really isn't any better than other polishes I have tried. In fact, it was worse than some of my cheaper polishes like NYC and Wet n Wild, which are actually pretty good polishes in my opinion. Happily I only paid a penny for mine, so I can't really complain.

After that, I started my first line of 'clouds' using Julep Jessica. This is a nice sky blue and goes on in one flawless coat. I have no complaints about this one other than the fact that I have a hard time getting the right amount of paint on the brush. I think it's because of the shape of the bottle, but it kept wanting to suddenly make giant drips, so I had to swipe it on the rim of the bottle lots of times before I got the right amount of polish on the brush. It went on really nice and smooth and is wonderfully opaque. Out of the three Julep polishes I got, this is by far the best one. And it's named after me, so what's not to love?! :) Here is how it looked at the second stage.

Here it is with the flash

Without the flash

Last, I swiped on my second set of 'clouds' with my favorite new Zoya color called Wednesday. Love love love this color! It is so pretty, and it went on like a dream just like all my Zoya polishes. After that I added some topcoat, and that was it. These were fun to do, and I can see myself using the same design in the future with all different colors. Hope you enjoyed my copy cat mani!

10 Day/Week Challenge Day 1 + A Happy Surprise!

First, I will share the surprise, then the mani. :) I'm am so excited I actually won a giveaway. I'm especially excited because it is for a very pretty Nubar, which is a brand I have never tried. It is from ambianceshop.com and I just wanted to post a thank you to her for having the giveaway and giving me the opportunity to try out a brand I probably never would have gotten to try. Thank you so much, Marnie!

Now, on to the nails! Day 1 is Pink Nails, and somehow I actually had a hard time with them. What?! I know - I love pink! Plain pink nails just seemed so boring though, I couldn't handle it, so since I had on some boring nails for work, and didn't feel like starting from scratch, I decided to layer...and then because that wasn't exciting enough, I decided some nail art + stamping was needed. :) Check it out.

Now here are the boring nails. This is Spoiled My Silicone Popped. It's a good color, I'm just bored with how plain it is, but it's great for when you need to be neutral, like at work.

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......................

And here they are with a layer of Kleancolor Sweet Pink on top.

Still not entertaining enough for me. So, I painted french tips and did some stamping using Spoiled Pretty In Punk...which may become one of my favorite pinks by the way!

School was insane so far this week, so I had to do something that wouldn't take a whole lot of time, but would still pack a punch. I'm pretty happy with what I came up with. What do you think?

Purple Sparkly Lacy Nails

I found this nail art done by Chalkboard Nails, and loved it so much, I had to try it. The funny thing is, the original person who did this said she didn't really like it. I, however, love how girly it looks and I think I might try it again but with brighter, more opaque colors. I had the same issue she did, using a sheer polish, I had to build it up a bit at the tip of the nail to ensure coverage, but I got a TON of compliments on it regardless (I've had it on all week already). So, here it is!

Pure Ice Busted and Pure Ice Superstar!

LOVE IT! There will definitely be additional versions of this mani.