Halloween Skulls

A few days ago I painted my nails with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Black Out." Now that Halloween is tomorrow, I added some of these little skull and skeleton designs from Bundle Monster plate BM-413, using Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Silver Sweep." (I thought I had a spider web design, but I guess I imagined it.)

Fall Vines

I got a manicure just a few days ago (to prepare for a wedding) and it already had some huge chips! So I went ahead and painted my nails myself. This is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Surspice!" which I love for fall. Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I topped it with the vine design from Pueen plate #76 in Pure Ice "Black Out."

Stained Glass Flowers

Very excited to share this one! After seeing the Powder Perfect Stained Glass polishes on another blog, I ordered myself a set of red, yellow, and blue (for mixing and making other colors). They're translucent, so designed to be painted over your stamped lines to color in the open spaces. People have done beautiful things with these. They seem to generally use them on white, though.

Mine is a base of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in "Get Juiced," stamped just on two fingers with a rose from Pueen plate #80 using Wet n Wild "Black Creme." Then I used Powder Perfect "Medieval" and "Cerulean" to make some purple shades...

My thoughts: I should definitely have done this on white or a very pale color, as the result was kind of muddy. However, the colors seemed to work well. They do dry quickly, so just put a little down for blending. I used a small nail art brush to apply. Also, I am extremely strongly right-handed ;o)

Fish Scales

Something I've been liking to do lately is paint my nails a solid color for a couple days, and then when it starts showing signs of wear, stamp over it. That's what I did with this mani, which started with just Sinful Colors "Sail La Vie," which got lots of compliments on its own.

Then I used Wet n Wild "Black Creme" to stamp this scale pattern from Pueen plate #86, and finished it off with dots of silver Stripe Rite. I got even more compliments on it this way!

Gradient Dots

Inspired by a few "dotticure" pictures I pinned on Pinterest, I decided to try a kind of gradient version. On top of a base of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Brisk Blue," I dotted Pure Ice "Black Out," "Kiss Me Here" (gray - that name makes no sense), and "Superstar" (white).

It turned out neat, but I'm not 100% happy with it. It took me a couple nails to figure out a pattern, and on the dark base, the white really sticks out, as compared with the black and gray.

Next I'd like to try a gradient base with a single color of dots on top!

Party Fingers!

I was going to a fancy party and since I was wearing a simple black dress, I thought I'd jazz things up with some fancy nails. Unfortunately, I don't remember the specifics for this mani! But, this is a background of two different Sally Hansen blues, stamped in black with a Pueen design. I love how they turned out! ...Unfortunately, they started chipping almost immediately!

Spring Thistles

I thought I'd try another gradient mani, this time with just two colors. I used Pure Ice in "Fairy Godmother" (purple) and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Love Train" (pink with lavender undertones). The first nail I did turned out like a beautiful sunset. Then the rest of them looked like a bad faux textured wall :o( But it didn't matter so much, since I was covering the whole thing with this thistle-like design from Pueen plate #51 (in Pure Ice "Black Out"), which I've been waiting to use.

The overall effect is kind of crazy (looks like something from the 80s), so we'll see how long this actually lasts...

More Bird Stuff

Wasn't going to stamp tonight, but then I decided to add a little something. Of course, I have a hard time lining up images, so it might have been better to just leave them plain.

This is Sephora by OPI in "Frankly, I Don't Give A-dam" (no clue when this came out, I found it on sale at a Big Lot's recently), stamped with Wet n Wild in "Black Creme." The bird is from BM-401, and the feather (which you have seen many times before) is on BM-419.

New Year's Lace

My husband and I are going to a black & white party for New Year's Eve, so I was thinking for a while about what to do. I decided to try this, and if the stamping wasn't happening, I would just do glitter on top of black. But this worked out well!

This is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Black Out" stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Silver Sweep" using the flower/lace pattern from Pueen plate #28.

Happy new year!

Party Pink

I don't have any kind of special event coming up, I just thought this would look fun, and it does! I used OPI for Sephora "Henna-Thing is Possible," stamped with the swirly/vine design from Bundle Monster plate BM-406 in Pure Ice "Black Out." Then on my ring fingers, I have Finger Paints "Van Gogh's Violet" (which looks more glittery in the bottle than it is on your fingers - this was three coats).

Fun fun fun!

Also wanted to mention, I've been using Seche Vite top coat because I heard it doesn't make stamping streak so much, and so far, so good!

Silver Damask

I spent the last week wearing novelty Sally Hansen nail strips: black and white music notes, for my concert band performance last weekend. I got more comments and compliments on that manicure than anything I've ever done, but I was ready to do some stamping again.

I love this color combination! This is Revlon "Black with Envy" stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Silver Sweep" (possibly my favorite polish for stamping now). I used the damask/fleur-de-lis design on Pueen plate #14. I haven't had much luck with this type of design in the past because I'm not too good at getting the design on my nail straight, but actually I did ok on 9 out of 10 nails this time.

Hearts

I wanted to do something with two (or more) different heart designs, and decided on the single heart surrounded with swirls on Pueen plate #35 for my ring fingers, and the hearts with swirly dots from plate #45. On a base of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Wined Up," I stamped Wet n Wild "Black Creme."

Now, here was the problem: as I was doing my first hand, I was getting really frustrated that the design wasn't getting picked up. Then I realized I was using an old bottle of Wet n Wild that I found in the back of my nail polish drawer. I have no idea how long it was in there, but as soon as I went back to my new/current bottle, the designs came out beautifully! So for once, my right hand looks better than my left :o)

More Roses and Lace

After changing my mind about five times tonight, I decided to use the other rose and lace design on Pueen plate #27, stamping in Pure Ice "Black Out" on Revlon "Raisin Rage."

We're going to the renaissance faire this weekend, and I think the design and color scheme is kind of renaissance-y...

Lace and Roses

I've been seeing a lot of people on Instagram and such using these rose and lace designs, so even though it's not my usual style, I decided to try this design from Pueen plate #27. In Wet n Wild "Black Creme" on Sally Hansen InstaDri "Vigorous Violet," it comes across as more sassy than sweet :o)

The only bad thing was that the delicate design got pretty streaky when I put on the top coat. Sorry again for my raggedy cuticles - and I had to go with my right hand because it was the less streaky of the two, plus I got a really badass blood blister on my left ring finger :o/

Star Light, Star Bright

For this manicure I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Marine Scene," stamped with Wet n Wild "Black Creme. On most of my fingers, I stamped the star and dot design from Pueen plate 18, and then added additional dots of Xtreme Wear "Celeb City." On my ring fingers, I used the star pattern on plate 24.

Ugh, the streaking looks so bad in macro!

I didn't expect this polka dot design to look so punk rock, but it kind of does. Also, I totally smudged my right thumb :o(

Black & Blue

I needed a little inspiration for my nails today, so I perused Instagram to see what other people were doing with their Pueen plates. I kept seeing this design from plate 26 popping up, and a couple times in blue on black, so I decided to try it.

This is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Blue-ming Fast" (bought on clearance for $1.07!) stamped on Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Black Out." Then I added dots of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Celeb City" to jazz it up a little bit more. I'd like to try actually stamping with this silver sometime.

I have to say, I'm really impressed with the Insta-Dri polishes for stamping, they are pretty opaque. I've used them on top of black a couple times now.

Scaley Shells

I wanted to do my nails tonight, so I looked online for some inspiration photos using the Pueen plate sets I have, and kept seeing this image from plate number 13. I had some trouble getting it centered right, but it doesn't look horrendous...

The base is Wet n Wild "Bijou Blue," design is stamped in Wet n Wild "Black Creme," and then I added a dot detail in Wet n Wild "Metallica."

...And pretty much no streaking from the top coat!

Funky Flowers

I'd had my eye on this floral pattern on Pueen plate 25 for a while. I was actually planning on doing a different pattern in black on pink, but couldn't get it lined up right, so decided to go with the flowers instead.

I think I would have liked this more in a different color scheme - maybe even a white background with different colors for the flowers. As it is, it strikes me as kind of a 60s psychadelic flower thing. Also, the base color, Wet n Wild "Tickled Pink," turned out pretty streaky.

CELEBRAT10N

I'm leaving soon for the national conference of an organization I'm part of, and our logo and everything are pink, so I've been planning for a while what I wanted to do with my nails. Originally I was just going to do polka dots, but then I got the stamping plates and decided to go with stars instead!

My toes are Sally Hansen InstaDri in "Presto Pink," and my fingers are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Black Out" with Presto Pink stars from Pueen plate 44. I know they're going to be a hit!

Blue Jewels?

I had this awesome multicolored stamp all planned, and when I actually went to do it... it just wasn't happening. It's possible these Pueen plates have some kind of residue on them that needs to be cleaned off the first time, but that hadn't occurred to me yet, so I scrapped that idea and went with something else.

Instead, I painted my nails with Pure Ice in "Kiss Me Here" (gray), and used three of the designs on Pueen plate 26 with Wet 'n Wild "Black Creme." On my middle three fingers, I used the one on the right that looks kind of like chandelier beads in varying lengths. For my pinkies, I used the similar one on the left where they're all the same length, because I didn't want to risk having the mostly blank area end up on my nail. And for my thumbs, I used the swirly dot pattern at the top to cover the large area.

I then went back and added dots of Wet 'n Wild "Bijou Blue" on top of some of the larger gem/teardrop shapes. Unfortunately, when I added a top coat, a lot of the designs smudged :o( I think this was mostly because the top coat is kind of old and gloopy now. That's going into the trash :o/