HPB Presents: NYE Countdown

This is my last mani for 2015 - I'm excited that I get to look forward to 2016 and get more of my design ideas out of my head and onto my nails! HPB is still doing winter/festive designs so I'm getting one more done! I really enjoy participating in these monthly link ups and hope they continue next year :)

To be honest, I wasn't too enthused about doing a NYE mani. This has been an exhausting week and I'm just looking forward to having Friday off! But I did manage to get one last mani in before the year ends, so I hope it's somewhat festive!

HPB Presents: Poinsettias

I'm feeling ambitious and going for another post for HPB winter/festive theme! This time with a more floral approach, using a traditional color scheme.

They're not actually poinsettias but I think I get get away with it because white, red and green make them look so festive, right?

Stamping Saturday & HPB Presents: Holiday Nails

I think I'm so full of holiday design ideas that I'm getting anxious I won't be able to get them all done before the holidays pass! Today I have a 2 in 1 kind of post, Stamping Saturday and HPB, as well as 2 designs based on one polish!

Swatch & Art: Sinful Colors - Navy I Do

I'm still seeing a lot of sweater prints so I wanted to make another one! 

Sweater print is from Moyou London Festive 06, stamped with MdU Fiji. 

Then I thought...sweaters aren't shiny, right? And the matte ones I've seen were so pretty and had a more realistic look to them..but I think I prefer mine shiny. Maybe it's just the matte coat I used (NYC Matte me Crazy) but the navy all of a sudden looked much bluer and brighter. 

Base color is Sinful Colors Navy I Do, and it's pretty much a one coater. I did use 2 for even coverage.

Swatch & Art: Lacquistry - REDiculous

A lot of holiday designs are fighting to get onto my nails so this is going to be an attempt at getting several done!The star of these manies is REDiculous from Lacquisty.

Check out the polish solo & with festive nail art after the break! For 30 Days of Colour I have "Candy Canes" and "Ugly Sweater" which I did over the weekend, so that's also fitting for Stamping Saturday, right? :) 

Stamping Saturday: Sweater Weather

Stamping Saturday is here again and I wanted to show off my "sweater nails"

Stamping Saturday: Fall Foliage

I couldn't get a post up on Saturday but my nails weren't naked! I'm trying to get to all my fall design ideas before Christmas colors start drawing me in! I went with metallic leaves for this one.

  

Stamping Saturday: Plaid

 As much fun as I had with all the Halloween manis in October, I was anticipating the start of November when I could continue fall designs. I was looking forward to do "sweater nails" and pawing through my plates, but got distracted by a plaid print. So that's what I got to show for Stamping Saturday.  And I got a new plaid shirt last week, so everyone at work was commenting on how matchy matchy I was :)

  

I really liked how they turned out. I went back and fort with color combos of red & white and red & black, but hubby suggested combining all three and it really pulled the look together!

Stamping Saturday & HPB Presents: Spooky Night

 HPB's theme for October is Halloween, and it's time for Stamping Saturday again so I'm combining the two for this look. I was really inspired by Winstonia's "Spooky Night" nail wraps (see here) and thought I could achieve a similar look with stamping. How did I do?

Stamping Saturday: Spooky Scenery

I have another Halloween inspired look on my nails! As I missed Stamping Saturday last time - sorry ladies, I really wanted to have a mani ready for this one so I got it a few days ahead and kept showing it off to all my coworkers, lol. Since the move we're gone through quite a lot of our phone's data and the initial month long wait to get internet set up has been pushed out till Thanksgiving-ish and it's been really challenging being so limited and disconnected. So that's the reason behind the drop in blog posts..and I've been doing better about posting in the last couple of months!

So I hope you do enjoy my posts whenever I can get them up!

Gone Batty

October is here! And immediately Halloween manis started popping up! One of the popular monthly challenges on IG is #clairestelle8challenge and the first prompt for this month is Bats. I have not participated in this challenge before, and after the move and lacking internet, I think I'll hold off on challenges until November-ish. But seeing so many batty manis in my feed and in other places on social medial, I felt compelled to have a festive mani too.

Black and orange are pretty typical colors this time of year, right? 

Stamping Saturday: Ultra Chrome Flowers

 Stamping Saturday is here! And I'm excited to be able to show the mani I'm been wearing pretty much all week, lol. With having moved into the house, we won't have internet for almost a month so I'm anxious about getting an actual blog post written up (on the plus side, no broken nails so far!) But I think I'll make it with some workarounds ;)  So here are my ultra chrome flowers!

Click to read more for polish and plate details :D

HPB Presents & 30 Days of Colour: Autumn

 I've joined a great group on FB recently - Hobby Polish Bloggers (HPB for short) and although I'm still lurking and not posting, I wanted to participate for the first time in their themed linkups - and the theme is Autumn/Fall! Of course there'd be a prompt like that in the 30 Days of Colour Challenge too, for Day 22.

As soon as I saw the inspiration and the first swatch of Frenzy Polish Apple Picking, it had to be mine, and I had to stamp leaves on it. It was decided on first sight! 

30 Days of Colour: Nude & Neon

 Day 17 Neon & Day 20 Nude
I had the idea for this mani some time ago and despite other color prompts, I reaaaaly wanted to do it, so I did, and just saved it for today's prompt ;)
The neon pops against the nude in a different way than it does when it's a stark white base, I really like the look. 

And the nude polish is one of my favorites, it's Fair Maiden Polish Fairest of Them All. The neon polishes are Yas and Slay from LynB Designs. 

Stamping Saturday: Mermaid Scales

Stamping Saturday is here once again and today I decided to return to a gradient manicure. I'm happy that my nails have grown this long without breaking, so I wanted to take advantage of that and try a 4 color gradient. As we're packing more seriously now for our move next week, I feel like I'd better shorten them down before a casualty occurs and I'll be left with nubs!

My color choices for the gradient are blue-ish and that determined my stamp - mermaid scales! 

30 Days of Colour & Stamping Saturday: Holo

Day 14 Holo & a late Stamping Saturday mani

I had this design in mind for stamping, so I went with a non-traditional holo polish. KBShimmer Home Surf  - a muted teal crelly with silver holo glitters. 

 When I first swatched it on a nail stick, it looked a lot grey-er and more "muted" then I was expecting, but after looking up additional swatches, I concluded that's just what the color looks like, and it actually grew on me - it changes slightly, depending on the lighting.

30 Days of Colour: Magenta & Turquoise

Day 8 is Turquoise & Day 9 is Magenta

I'm sure I could have dug around and come up with a turquoise to use on it's own, but I liked the 2-in-1 color combo, so here's the next one I put together. I'm not sure if that's more turquoise or teal, after a while my eyes give up trying to differentiate, but my stamping polish is MdU Fiji.  Once I pulled it out and stared at my girly magenta nails, trying to decide on a design that showed off both colors, I realized what I was holding - teal is the color of the awareness ribbon for PCOS and Ovarian Cancer. And the month of awareness is September. And I just happen to have an Uber Chic plate (3-01) hanging out on my desk that proudly shows off the ribbon and the slogan "fight like a girl".  I seriously didn't want to take this mani off, and was really tempted to skip the rest of the challenges and keep making teal manis for the rest of the month. I wear teal for me.

Now how about that magenta? Say hello to one coat of Nvr Euff Polish Unicorn Bait.

30 Days of Colour: Orange & Blue

 Day 6 Orange & Day 7 Blue

Since I like to add nail art to most of my manis, I noticed that what I ended up doing for the orange prompt could double as blue as well - so here's 2 in one! I quite like the idea - I'm already incorporating it into turquoise and magenta, so come back to check that one out in a couple of days ;)

I'm going to say that this is the first official koi design, of hopefully many more to com. As it's the blog name, the koi is present in pretty much every social media account I have, so it's about time I started on the manis :)

30 Days of Colour: Green

 Day 4 is Green + Stamping Saturday! 

Uh-oh, I fell behind a day! It's supposed to be purple already, but I quite enjoyed this green. 31DC2015 also had green prompt for day 4, so that's who challenges in one! With our weather finally changing and looking more like what's expected this time of year - well, there hasn't been much sunshine in the last few days, and I needed it to show off this beauty.

There's slim pickings for green polishes in my stash, but a lot more than yellow! This is either #27, Herbalist, or Травник  by Anna Gorelova (blogger collaboration line with Dance Legend) 

30 Days of Colour: Pink

Day 3 is  Pink 

I'm kind of surprised by how my color preferences are slowly changing. Not that long ago, I hardly had any pinks in my collection, but that's been rapidly changing. This is one of my more recent additions, Fair Maiden - Dance Up On Me.   It's a pink holo with tiny pink flakes in it.

30 Days of Colour: Yellow

Day 2: YellowHonestly, I stay away from certain colors and yellow is one of them. I probably have 2-3 bottles in my collection. That's why I was hesitant to use it as a full mani, it's too intimidating. But for some nail art it works wonderfully ;)

 LynB Designs YOLO. I put my toes in the water this summer and got a couple neon polishes, and I love this highlighter yellow! I used one coat of it over a white base on my pinkie, and sponge gradient on the other two. It was good to finally put it on, it's not as scary now!

The stamps are from MoYou plates, and the little bit of green I used for coloring is also a LynB polish, YAS. Black stamping polish is once again, Ya Qin An.

Let's see what yellows were used!

An InLinkz Link-up

30 Days of Colour: Red

30 Days of Colour is happening again and I'm feeling ambitious!! Let's see how long I can make it :D Red it also day 1's prompt in 31DC2015, another month-long challenge. Maybe I can double dip if other days are coinciding or are close enough

Day 1 is RED

 I don't wear red often, but I do have a couple in my collection. I wanted to show off this one - Lacquistry Rediculous. I think on shorter nails this is easily a one-coater. But because I'm hung up about any VNL not showing, I did apply a second coat. It's basically the red version of Amazeballz which is a struggle to describe if you aren't familiar with these polishes - it's like tiny metalic/foil like particles. No issues with removal as it's not glitter.

And a new discovery - Messy Mansion designs now fit my nails pretty much perfectly in terms of length! The rose is from MM20, and the quality is top of the line as far as stamping plates go. Black polish of choice is Ya Qin An from BornPretty Store.

Ta-da! Day 1 is complete, look at all these reds!!

An InLinkz Link-up

Swatch & Art: China Glaze - At Vase Value

Say hello to yet another China Glaze from my stash! At Vase Value, really changes color based on lighting - while I had it on, it swayed from a washed out robin's egg blue to a baby blue that really popped. You can tell the color ranges from what's on the nails and what's in the bottle - they're not identical all the time!

 I was pleasantly surprised that it took me just 2 coats to get full coverage. I was worried that it would be thin and streaky. 

Swatch & Art: China Glaze - Thistle Do Nicely

For this simple stamped manicure I used a base of China Glaze Thistle do Nicely. It was rather hard to capture the color of this bright beauty, it's neon pink! I put it on in the evening and went for a walk with hubby, I was staring at my nails the whole time. Turns out I like neons, lol! It was practically glowing pinky-orange and there's no way to capture that in a photo.

It was a bit streaky for me and dried somewhat matte, but I got the coverage I was after in 3 coats and the glossy look with a topcoat.

#StampingSaturday: Starry Night

I think I'm meant to be late for Stamping Saturday all the time...this week I actually had my mani done in time and then we had a power outage from the storm, so I couldn't post even if I was ready! Anyways, on to the mani..

I was going to hold off on darker colors because I'm still enjoying the bright and summery ones, but you know...some brands just have to put out gorgeous shades, and naturally, they need to go on my nails asap!

Swatch & Art: China Glaze - Too Yacht to Handle

This one's going to be short and sweet. I unexpectedly got sick on Friday and the only thing I got done over the weekend, besides getting lots of sleep, is my nails. I couldn't show up for work with the same mani as last week, coworkers are starting to get excited and noticing my nails more, and they think I change them everyday! I have to keep up appearances, lol.

Do you recognize this popular summer color?

#StampingSaturday: Floatin Trailer Park

I'm taking a break from gradients this Saturday and doing a simple stamped mani inspired by the polish itself - Gunpowder Lacquer Floatin Trailer Park.

I missed the initial launch of this new indie brand, but this color kept drawing me to the site again and again and I finally picked it up at a restock. As a bonus it came with the little sailboat vinyls from Vinyl It Up. How fitting, right? All that's missing are some waves, and that's easy enough to fix .

#StampingSaturday: Twilight Fairy

Saturday is here once again, and that means it's time to stamp! It pretty much took me all day to finish up the mani because I wasn't feeling too well, but had a vision for my design and I was going to stick to it!

Ocean Gradient with Enchanted Polish

There's a pretty popular mani depicting the beach, and I wanted to try my hand at it. Here is the result!

I've seen this design time and time again, and most recently Alesya over at PhD Nails did her own version, and that convinced me that it's my turn now.

Swatch & Art: Enchanted Polish "April 2015"

Summer is going by, and a lot of my manicure ideas are not getting onto my nails so I want to try to do more arts and get it out of my system so I can transition into fall and not regret all the things I didn't get to do. This swatch is the base of one of those designs I need to cross off my list.

Enchanted Polish - April 2015

If you look closely at the corner of the bottle - you'll notice that this isn't just a plain white polish, there's more to it!

#StampingSaturday: Love Birds

This Saturday I'd like to share my Robin Moses inspired "love bird" mani. Last Saturday I hung out with a lovely lady who lives nearby and is also into polish and stamping, it was a stamping play date of sorts. We actually met in Claire's last year while both trying to find a marshmallow stamper, haha. So I got to peruse her plates collection, and being the hoarder that I am, I had a handful of stamper heads with me so I borrowed this bird images from her FUN15  (with MdU Black) plate and took them home with me - and this is what I did with them! Apologizes in advance for the picture heavy post, but I really liked the outcome!

Swatch & Art: Fairytale Finish "Crushed Garnet"

 For a while I've been eyeing Fairytale Finish from afar and finally took the plunge and signed up for the subscription - NeverEnding Fairytales . I went with the $16 for two polishes option, so I get two mystery beauties delivered to me. I might be afraid of glitter, but this one took my breath away when I opened my July package. Look at it!!!! So gorgeous!! This little gem is Crushed Garnet (July's theme was jewels and gems)

Swatch & Art: Bonita Colors "My Avatar"

Bonita Colors has several summer collections out, and I helped myself to a handful of them ;)
One of the collections is a new polish line "Gel On" - applies like polish, finishes like a gel. It's supposed to be extra shiny and last for 7 days. I don't think I'm going to test that claim as I change my polish more than once a week, but I'm looking forward to trying out the colors anyway!

 This beautiful blue is 2 coats of My Avatar. I love the color! I should wear my blues more often!

I added a sunflower accent using UberChic plate 3-01, using black MdU of course, and filled in with LynB Designs neon yellow -YOLO. The gold center is done with Bold Gold from Maybelline.

Hope you enjoyed this brief post, I'll try to do more of them in the future in hopes of getting into the habit of posting more frequently.

#StampingSaturday: Floral Gradient

Hello! It's been quite a while since I've done a blog post, but I feel like it's time to get back to it :)
I post a lot more frequently on IG as it's faster to post just one picture than to compile a longer post, so please drop by and follow!

This is my stamped gradient using two polishes from Nvr Enuff Polish.

30 Days of Colour (May): Holo/Water Marble

 I've got lots of holo nail polishes but water marble skills are lacking...heh...that's when stamping comes in handy! Hehe 37 and 40 make a faux water marble with no mess :D

30 Days of Colour (May): Purple/Dry Brush

Time to catch up on all of May's prompts that I've done but not posted yet, still a few days left in this month!

For the purple challenge I went with Colors by Llarowe - Purple Pizzaz

Red, White and Blue - Memorial Day

 I just wanted to share my mani for Memorial Day - unfortunately no sunshine  to show off the holo, but this is such a patriotic color combo that it works well even without the special effect holo would add. Red, White and Blue!

30 Days of Colour (May): Green

I'm really behind on the fills for May's challenge but as the linkups are open till end of month, I will try to get them all done!

I actually don't own as much green polish as I thought, so I wanted something more  unique to use from what I do own. This is LynBDesigns Absinthe Part Deux - apparently it's a LE polish  because I had a hard time finding a lot of photos for it. I picked it up in a destash sale a few months ago so I'm even happier to have it in my collection.

#StampingSaturday - Pawlish and Polka Dots

I'm glad to be back for Stamping Saturday! I haven't been posting recently and have been keeping my nails simple looking to keep a low profile at work....too much stress, I really wanted to quit!! But I didn't, and instead interviewed for and got another job starting next month :D Now I can continue playing with polish as usual!

This was actually my mani last Saturday but I didn't get around to uploading all the photos and writing about it till today, so here it is!

30 Days of Colour (May): Gold/Dotticute

 I usually drop the ball midway through a challenge but this time I want to stick it out till the end - it sounds really fun and will push me to try other techniques besides stamping :D I found this group of ladies through IG, and decided to join them for the month of May and follow along with the prompts.

#Stamping Saturday: Fair Maiden Kitty

My weekend is short-lived, as I have to go to work on a Sunday..not too thrilled about that, but that just means I have a better excuse for playing with polish on Saturday. Instead of..you know..doing something useful with my day off, haha :D

StampingSaturday: Minty Mermaid Scales

 For this Stamping Saturday my inspiration came from a bar of soap! It had such simple and cute packaging, it's too bad I didn't snap a pic of it - I always file stuff away in my memory "to do a mani like this later" and sometimes I actually remember!

Bloody Nails -Game of Thrones Returns

Game of Thrones is back on, and of course I had to do a mani for the occasion. I still have my mini bottle of The North Remembers by Novel Nail Polish and I was happy to discover the thermal pigments still work. For the blood splatters I used SH Insta-Dri Wined Up and the plate is one of Y plates from Aliexpress. The direwolf of course is from MyOnlineShop Jr-2.

Stamping Saturday - Copycat nails

One of the stamping related groups I'm in has a prompt this week for coping a manicure that someone has done with our chosen plate - mine is MoYou London Pro 9 this month! It's a great plate that I haven't given enough attention to, but it proved a bit challenging to find a mani that used those images! I did succeed though, and this is my re-creation :)