Snowflake Mani

I'm back with a winter manicure for you today! Winter is in full swing here, and we have snow and cold, so I was excited to do this snowflake prompt for my stamping group on facebook. I like the snow, but I'm not a fan of the cold that comes along with it. ;) I do love how pretty and sparkly the snow looks at night with the moon shining on it, though, so I tried to mimic that with my mani.

I have another butter LONDON polish to show off today called Big Smoke. It is a dark, grey-leaning blue polish with a lovely shimmer. To achieve this look, I used two coats of Big Smoke, then added one coat of Nubar White Polka Dot (this is a cool glitter topper with tiny and medium sized opalescent, white glitters in a clear base).

After that, I added my snowflake stamping using Red Angel plate RA-119, Bundle Monster plate BM14 and a plate I received from kkcenterhk for review last year, B61. I smeared the darn thing when I decided to put Northern Lights on top and didn't use Seche Vite first.

Here is what butter LONDON Big Smoke looks like all by itself. This is two coats plus a coat of Seche Vite.

Hooray for pretty snow, and pretty snow-filled manis! Check out the links below to see everyone's snowflake manis!

An InLinkz Link-up

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

The Four Elements - Elemental Fairies

This is my first time participating in this new stamping group that I joined on Facebook earlier this month. I love stamping, and would like to improve my stamping skills, so I thought this would be a fun group to be in. :) I chose to do my stamping on my right hand, and I'm a bit disappointed in my photos. It is so hard to photograph my right hand with the way my light box and camera is set up, so I will have to work on that. Also, look at how much shorter the nails on my right hand are than on my left! Gah!

Anyway, my idea for this manicure was to do one nail representing each of the four elements, and then to add fairies, like elemental fairies. Everything was going really well right up until I added the fairies. These were on some Red Angel plates that, unfortunately, were not etched deeply enough so they did not transfer well. I really liked this manicure before I added the fairies, though! Here is what it looked like without the fairies.

I used so many polishes and plates on this manicure, I am not going to list them all, but if anyone wants to know about a specific color/stamp, please just comment, and I will let you know what it is. :) Thank you so much for looking - have a great week!

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thursday - Black Base

Hello! I've decided to jump back on these Golden Oldie Thursday posts because I just have so many old polishes that I haven't shown off on here! It helps me get everything swatched, and also forces me to think outside the box in order to have nail art to fit each prompt. I need that every once in a while, or I get in a rut. Anyway, today I have a positively ANCIENT polish for you. It is a polish from Old Navy that my sister bought when she was probably around 10 years old - she's 25 now. I inherited it after she moved out of my parents' house and didn't take it with her. Katie, you can have it back anytime, just ask! lol

Anyway, this polish is a iridescent topper named Annette. I decided to stamp with it over black (Pure Ice Black Rage) to show off the contrast of colors. Despite being 15 years old, it still has a perfect formula. I used an image from Red Angel plate RA-113 on each nail.

Thanks for looking, and have a great day! I'll have another post for you this weekend with some super cute nail art!

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping With My New Zoyas

Hi everyone! My hubby got me some new nailpolish for our anniversary (12 years!!), so I thought it would be nice to use a couple of them in some stamping nail art. I decided to take a page out of Laurie's book (from Dressed up Digits) and do some double stamping. It always looks so awesome. I used Zoya Tilda for my base and stamped with Zoya Rikki using Mash-43. After that, I added a second layer of stamping using an old Sinful Colors polish called Last Change with BM03 and RA-115.

Here is Zoya Tilda by itself. It's a pretty apple green cream. I like this shade more on the nail than I did in the bottle. That is always good! I did two coats here.

Here it is before I added my last layer of stamping. It's really pretty just like this, too, but I love the dimension that double stamping adds.

Thanks for looking! I'll have more to show off soon as he also bought me two other Zoya's and a China Glaze polish. Yay!

Golden Oldie Thursday - Hot Pink

Hi everyone! Today I have a really good hot pink from my pile of untrieds. I bought this polish for my birthday a whole year ago, and still haven't worn it. I fully intended to wear it over the summer, but it just never happened. So, I'm busting it out today and am kicking myself for not wearing it sooner because it is awesome!

This is butter LONDON Disco Biscuit (top pic is without top coat, bottom pic is with top coat). It is a hot pink jelly with iridescent flecks throughout. It is totally gorgeous. I am not a huge fan of jelly polish since I feel like the nail line that you can see makes it look like I have dirt under my nails, even when they are totally clean. This one built up nicely in three coats though, and I really like it.

I added a bit of stamping using images from my Red Angel plates RA-109, RA-115, RA-118, RA-119, and RA 121. I used Konad Special Black for the stamping.

I really like the way these turned out. They look classy and sassy at the same time. Those are two of my favorite things. :) Make sure you check out what everyone else did for their hot pink manis!

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thurs...I mean Monday - Orange

Hey everyone. I know I am insanely late on this one, but I was so busy all week, it just didn't happen. I actually painted these on Friday night, but with everything going on all weekend, and then a lengthy power-outage, I just couldn't post until today. I painted these floral nails in honor of the annual trip I make to an orchid show at Cleveland's Botanical Gardens with my mom. I used two oranges here,but you almost can't tell.

This is a gradient with Salon Perfect Tangy Tangerine and Revlon Fearless. I stamped over it using several different floral images from plates from Mash, Bundle Monster, and Red Angel. The first image below is Tangy Tangerine all by itself. The second is once I had completed the gradient with Fearless. It is very, very subtle.

Thanks for looking, and make sure you look at the other orange manicures!

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thursday - Valentine's

Good evening! Today I have two old polishes that I have never used. One is actually a topcoat...and shame on me for never busting this one out! It is beautiful and I really just kept forgetting that I had it! Here is my Valentine's Day mani!

I used L.A. Colors Paradise Pink for the base. It's a great pink, I really need to use it again! I used Konad Special White for the stamping, which is nothing new. I used a bunch of different plates for this one: my thumb is Konad m78, my index and pinkie are both on BM02, my middle finger is BM03 and BM09, and my ring finger is from RA106. The topcoat is Out The Door's Northern Lights. What is wrong with me?! I need to use this on every mani! haha

Here is L.A. Colors Paradise Pink by itself. It went on in two smooth coats, and has a nice shimmer to it. :)

Well thanks for looking! Make sure you take a look at what the others did for this challenge!

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thursday - Blue

Oh dear. I should have paid attention to what was next when I did my stripes last week because I had to really dig to find an old blue that I haven't shared and didn't share last week! I love blues, so I tend to use them all at least once. Well, I have another high-school polish from Pure Ice which I have never used on this blog, but which is waaayyy more than half-empty because I love it so much! Iris is more of a topper and has to be worn over another polish. On it's own, it is extremely sheer. I decided to try my hand at stamping with it to see how it turned out.

And, it turned out AMAZING. I broke out my new Red Angel plates and had MUCH more success this time. The image stamped perfectly; my only complaint is that they are small images, which don't fit on my nails at this length, but I filled in the gaps with some freehand, so you would probably never know if I didn't tell you. They are slightly bigger than the images on Bundle Monster plates, and smaller than Mash plate images. This particular image is from RA-107, and I LOVE it. It is so pretty.

Now, I sort-of cheated a little because I had to wear a dark polish underneath to make it pop, and the polish I used was a new polish I got for Christmas - butter London Royal Navy. I only did that because I felt like I could 'kill two birds with one stone' and get Royal Navy swatched at the same time, so that I can show it off later. :P

I did an accent nail with just Pure Ice Iris over butter London Royal Navy , so that you can see how awesome it is on its own. Iridescent beauty right there. Oh, I love it.

Well, there you have it, Pure Ice Iris - a hidden gem in my Melmer, that I should have busted out on this blog earlier and didn't. Make sure you check out what pretty blues all the others have to share for today!