Neutral & Neon - Waterspotted Watermarble

Hello and welcome! Today I have just a quick little post on a design I stumbled upon on Instagram and immediately had to try - it's a watermable/waterpotted kind of oil slick looking design. 

Inspiration mani by Hannah of blitzseryozha can be seen here, and her video on making this is here.

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 - Festive Nails

Hello! It's definitely been a while since I've made a post - busy holiday season, and IG takes less work to get a picture up, so please follow me there as I post more frequently! (Social media buttons on the left side) This mani is actually from last Saturday, we had our Christmas photo shoot and I asked out photographer to snap a couple pics! So this post will be a little more personal as I thought it'd be fun to include a few extra pics :)

#52WPNMC - Week 4; 3 dark colors

I somehow missed last week's prompt, but it's alright, just jump back in whenever I remember about it! This mani was actually inspired by another blogger, Andrea over at Handtastic Intentions. We met up with a few local polish addicts enthusiasts last week to hang out and chitchat and she mentioned she hasn't tried Julep's Valerie yet. And I realized that Valerie came out in the Oct 2013 collection, and I too, have not tried it...oopsie, time to remedy that! So I thought, hey! green and gold roses would look good! The stamping plate is MoYou London Gothic 07 with the roses, bird and cat. And wouldn't you know it, the mani is right on cue for the 3 dark colors prompt in 52 Weeks Pick-n-Mix Challenge.

Behind the Scenes - Polish Removal using Julep's "Party's Over Kit"

Putting on that glitter or textured polish is a lot less daunting when you know removal's going to be easy! So which getting ready for my next mani, I had my husband snap pics of what my removal process looks like. Hope someone finds it useful!

Husband's got the caps on his fingers from Julep's "Party's Over Glitter Removal Kit" for a little demo - he doesn't have any polish on!

Lime Dandelions

This is a mani for Mental Illness Awareness Week (NAMI) Oct 5-11, which I didn't get around to posting, but here it is!

Halloween Bats!!

Surprisingly this year I'm intrigued and drawn towards Halloween manis. I have maybe 3-4 orange polishes and basically no stamping plates with Halloween imagery.. so, what better excuse do I need to order MoYou London Gothic plates and pick up a new polish? ;)

#52WPNMC - Week 3; Matte

Week 3: I went with the matte prompt. Other choices were 60's and textured. I really wanted to try and do matte blue nails, like ones I pinned so long ago but didn't get the polish name. So I used what I did have on hand.

Julep Marisa topped with NYC Matte Me Crazy 

I stamped the flowers using plate m57 and Konad Special White. It's been a while sine I used this white to stamp and it didn't want to cooperate with me. 

A lot of you might have seen this pic on Pinterest, & it was the inspiration behind my mani. Maybe I'll get a navy blue someday and be able to match this closer :) 

An InLinkz Link-up

#52WPNMC - Pink

For Week 2, the choices were either a 3 color gradient or pink (or both..or any combo of the two) and I tried to incorporate a little of each, but mainly pink!

It's like pink candy corn, lol! 

#52WPNMC - Week 1

I stumbled upon the 52 Week Pick and Mix Challenge late in the week and lucky for me, the first week's prompt was something I actually tried to do already that week! Dual purpose mani :)
The prompt is - gradient and/or teal!

September is Stamping Month! Day 15 - Clouds/Rain

I've been waiting to do this design! I was inspired by mypolishstash 's mani on instagram and have been eagerly waiting for my chance to re-create it :)

September Stamping: Day 2 - Lace

Day 2 - Lace
I'm still around for day 2, this time with more neutral and subdued colors!

I used Julep Lorenzana as my base, and topped it with Liquid Sky Lacquer Holo Top Coat, and I gotta say it looked pretty awesome - office appropriate holo!!

Polishes and Plates in use:

Also (not pictured), MdU #2 Black for the stamping

PUEEN 27

The stamping continues!

See what others participants did :)

Stamping: Grey & Aqua

It's definitely been a while since I've made a blog post...work has really been putting a damper on any nail art :(  But I've been trying to post on IG a little bit more, username is koikitty if anyone would like to follow :)

So here's what I managed to put on my nails, in anticipation of #StampingSaturday but then I didn't see a linkup from The Fancy Side! :O

Base: Julep Braiden, stamping with MdU #24 (Aqua), PUEEN plate 32

Julep June 2014: Swatches + Free polish coupon

This month I picked the Bombshell box, and added on a few extra colors - for which I got 2 freebie polishes (Veronica and Marjorie).

Aurora Lacquers: Swatches!

I would say that I'm relatively new to discover the indie polishes, but when I found out that a new one was being created - Aurora Lacquers, I was very excited. I think it's an awesome opportunity to watch a brand be born and expand their collections and create new polishes right before your eyes. So I'm very grateful for being given the opportunity to try their beautiful polishes! These 4 were sent to me for review. 

Julep Girls: The Fresh Twist - May 2014 Collection

Here they are, all the pretties lined up! Julep May collection - Fresh Twist.

I waited too long to swatch and take photos, our Portland weather came back and it's grey, overcast and rainy. I decided to take pics as is and not wait for weeks to get sunshine :) This was the first collection that I wanted it all, and did get it all! So far I've even worn 4 of the colors!

Julep Girls: Aviva

From the fill line you can tell I like this polish :) Julep Aviva was only available in a mystery box - and it being purple was enough to draw me in. It's a purple jelly filled with silver and purple glitter, and can be full coverage in a couple of coats. I usually only use 2 coats - which is what I've got on in the photos below, plus SV topcoat.

Stamping: Lily of the Valley

My favorite flowers that I look forward to in spring are lilacs and lilies of the valley. More than a decade ago, I got a giant bouquet of lilies of the valley for my birthday (it's in May) so when May comes around - I always look for these flowers. To my delight, grandma planted some in our garden!

Not too long ago I got a new stamping plate from Vivid Lacquer (VL019) and it has an image of this flower on it, so in the back of my mind I've been planning on doing this mani. You know how it is - you see a plate or a polish and have a picture in your head of what mani to do and you must have it right away, and the it arrives in the mail and you're happy that you have it - and put it in the box with the rest of the goodies and don't make the mani right away? Yeah...that's been happening a lot, but at least I have a good excuse - no nail art allowed at work, so I have to save it till the weekends </3

White and green were the easy colors, but what background color to use was the hard part. I was leaning towards pastels, but I'm glad I picked this blue instead! After I had applied it, I noticed how well it compliments my sapphire ring, and even hubby agreed it was a good choice <3

Julep Girls: May 2014 Classic with a Twist

Julep - May 2014 Collection : Classic with a Twist

 Ramona - Muted lavender rose crème
Maddy - Raspberry sorbet shimmer

Dragons are coming

Viserion - cream and gold. Drogon - black and red. Rhaegal - green and bronze.  Out of all these, Viserion was the easiest one to do, the stamping colors show up well enough, but the rest of them gave me a hard time, as I tried to use whatever I had, and I do not own any of the lovely MUNDO DE UÑAS polishes (yet.)

Pinkie - Revlon Timeless, Ulta Smoke Screen, stamped with Konad Special Black. MM21.

Ring finger - Julep Nicolette, stamped with Sinful Colors Gold Medal and Konad Special Black. CICI&SISI 02, MM21.

Middle finger - Sinful Colors Secret Admirer, Sinful Colors Unwrap Me, Sinful Colors Casablanca. MM21.

Index Finger - Sephora by OPI Already Famous, Ulta Envy, Konad Special Black. MM21.

Thumb - Julep Cleopatra, Sinful Colors Dancing Nails. JR-2.