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)

Melon Flowers

I had this look in my mind last night, so today I made it happen! I think this would look good with gold stamping, too, but I don't have gold nail polish at the moment, so went with my favorite silver...

Base is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in "Get Juiced," stamped with Insta-Dri "Silver Sweep" using the roses from Pueen plate #80. Love this base color, it's a nice coral/watermelon shade I got for the summer (it's been on my toes for the last couple weeks, too).

Jamspiration

A few of my friends are now selling Jamberry wraps, but as I've discovered, they just don't work for me. However, the catalog is great inspiration for me in creating my own nail art! Inspired by the style Glam, I decided on a base of Finger Paints "Putty in My Hands," stamped with Pure Ice "Fairy Godmother" and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Mauve It." I had a couple design options, but ended up using the sketchy flowers on Pueen plate #77 - I loved this plate as soon as I saw it, but hadn't used it yet!

Origami Jam

A friend at work was selling Jamberry nail wraps as a fundraiser for her daughter's soccer team. I loved a lot of the designs, but decided to go with a couple that looked like things I couldn't just do myself with stamping. I loved these origami-looking birds on a white background. For my first ever attempt with Jamberry wraps, I decided to do them on my ring fingers only, with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Bubblegum Pink" on my other nails.

Well, I don't know if the problem was the wraps or user error, but they never seemed to stick right, and came off in the shower the next day. So I painted those nails with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "White On," and stamped the origami bird from BM-405 a few times in "Blue Me Away!," "Mint Sorbet," and "Bubblegum Pink."

Following the Rules

I picked up three of these Sally Hansen "Get the Look" kits at Target this weekend. I didn't necessarily want "the look," they were just a good deal for three full-size Xtreme Wear polishes. However, I decided to try following the instructions from this pack for a "Side Swipe French Mani."

I started with the metallic "Pink Satin" over all my nails. Then I used a piece of tape to create a straight line diagonally across each nail, and painted "Lacey Lilac" over the tips. I finished up with "Confetti Punch" just at the very tips, so it overlapped both the other colors. I guess they turned out ok, but I wasn't super excited about it overall.

It's a Girl

I'm throwing my friend a baby shower tomorrow, and it's a girl, so we're doing everything pink. (I hate reinforcing traditional gender roles, especially before the kid's even born, but it's a cute theme.)

This was one of my more involved manis. I started with a base of Wet n Wild "Tickled Pink," and then used a sponge to create a gradient with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Love Train" on the tips. I almost left it like that because it looked so nice, but I went ahead with my original plan and used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Slick Slate" to stamp a design from Pueen plate #59. The gray tones down the pink nicely.

Bright Butterflies

I was so excited about the spring weather, I wanted to do something with the allover butterfly design on Pueen plate #39. I did a base of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Love Train," which has a nice purple undertone. Then I stamped with Sally Hansen Instra-Dri in "Brisk Blue," which may have been kind of a crazy choice, but I was in the mood for something bright. Then I went one step further and used a dotting tool to add some details in Wet n Wild "Frosted Fuchsia," which was probably the craziest idea yet, but oh well...

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...

Hibiscus Inspiration

Inspired by Soguesswhat11's latest "fauxtorial," I used a couple of the flowers on Pueen plate #72 to do this design. All the colors are Sally Hansen Insta-Dri: the base is "Petal Pusher," flowers are "Presto Pink," and vines are "Mint Sprint." I like the gold on pink she does in her design, but I have cut all goldtone out of my life at this point, can't backtrack now!

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!

Pink Polka Dots

I really like the color scheme here; gray + pastels seems very current. This is Sephora by OPI "Dance Til Fawn," with dots of Wet n Wild "Tickled Pink." Tickled Pink has proved not to be so good for stamping, and gets streaky as an all-over color, but it's great for dotting. I almost went with more of a fuchsia for the pink, but I'm glad I ended up going with the pastel.

Subtle Spirals

My original plan for tonight was to do one of the lacy patterns in black on a pale pink base. I used Sally Hansen Star Opal in "Rose Gold Opal," one of my all-time favorite nail colors, and then started stamping... I haven't had any problems with black before, but I guess doing it on such a pale background, regular black polish didn't end up looking as opaque as it has on darker colors? I also feel like there was something on the plate that was preventing me from picking up the pattern right (and I always clean them with nail polish remover before using, to remove any residue). Moral of the story is, it looked bad.

After trying and failing with with a different lacy pattern, I decided to go for something completely different, and instead stamped this swirly spiral pattern in Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Vigorous Violet." It came out a little lighter and more subtle than I had intended, but I liked it in the end.

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!

My First Attempt with Konad!

I've been kind of obsessed with the idea of Konad for some time, so I finally did some research, figured out what kind of supplies I needed, and placed an order. I was so excited to try everything out when it arrived! I only got the stamper and some plates, not the special nail polish.

For this first attempt, I tried a couple things just to test out some of the designs, but eventually decided to go with Sally Hansen InstaDry in "Expresso," and Essie "Fiji" for the stamps, for a kind of subtle look. To jazz things up, I added a tiny dot of red in the center of the flowers with a dotting tool (but kind of regretted it).