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)

Valentine's Mani

After weighing all my heart design options, I decided to go with something simple for V-Day. I put down a base of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri "Wined Up," then stamped just a couple fingers with the same polish in "Silver Sweep."

On my ring fingers I used a heart + swirl design from Pueen plate #35. On my thumbs, I used a similar-looking small heart from plate #43. That might have been a bad choice, though. On my left thumb, it's centered and just looks small; on the right, it's off-center which is totally bugging me!

Candy Stripes

I have to say off the bat, I'm not 100% sold on this. And the fact that the color ran when I added a top coat doesn't help. That said ... I wanted to do something a little festive for a holiday event I have at work, and after considering a couple options, decided to go with the candy cane look. This is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Cinna-snap," one of my favorite colors. On my ring fingers it's stamped on top of Pure Ice "Superstar!" using the diagonal stripe design from BM-423.

This is a very bad picture, but that's ok because it's a kind of bad manicure.

My husband said he wanted to eat my fingers - what do you think?

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...

Silver Vines

My plan was to do this silver vine stamp from Pueen plate 46 on my ring fingers only. Then I thought, it looks nice, I'll go ahead and do my other fingers. You know what... that was a mistake. I'm not good at lining the stamp up straight, so most of them are crooked or off-center, one came out smudged...

Anyway, this is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Celeb City" (it works for stamping!) on Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in "Wined Up."

Random Flowers

Bad news: my first plan, to use the French tips on Konad plate m19, was just not going to happen.
Good news: I finally ended up just stamping some random flowers over each nail, and it totally worked!

Sorry about the cuticles, that's what happens when I have to mess around so much with nail polish remover, washing my hands, repainting, etc. This is a base of OPI for Sephora "Nonfat Soy Half Caff," one of my all-time favorites! Then I stamped the flowers with Pure Ice in black (not sure of the exact name) and Revlon "Raisin Rage."

I didn't really care so much about how this turned out, because I ordered two sets of Pueen plates which should be coming tomorrow, so I plan on going a little nuts with them!

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).