Stardust Polish Supernova Winter Butterfly Nail Art

Happy Sunday ladies,

I wish I could say my Sunday is going to be spent indoors basking in warmth and drinking chocolate chai while working on fun manis, but I know how this jazz is going down.  I'm gonna be filling out templates, chasing down electrolytes, and doing goodness knows what else.  Doesn't that chocolate chai sound nice though? I've been making it at home lately from unsweetened almond milk and the Starbucks mix and it's totally heavenly! Just like the mani I'm about to show you.  It's another Stardust Polish mani and today's dalliance into Drema's world features my favorite of the 3 polishes sent to me - Supernova.  Check out swatches here.  I wanted winter to be a little more glamorous, beautiful, and whimsical.  I think I hit it spot on.

Supernova Mani-louge

Base: Stardust Polish Supernova

Stamping polish: Konad Special Polish in Deep Blue and Black Gold

Stamping plate: Bundle Monster CYO BM424

I did a little gradient stamping for the wings because I knew I wanted the butterfly to transition from dark blue to black at the edges. What blows me away is how blue this polish it!  It's bright and exuberant and every time I looked down it made me happy to see the blue and various colored matte glitters shining back at me. 

So what do you think?  I also took this opportunity to once again break out some of my Create Your Own Bundle Monster plates.  I am so impressed by this set.  The rhinestones and gold beads were simply the final touch required for embellishment.  Over all I love what I created!  In any case thanks so much for reading.  I'll have my last installment of nail art up tomorrow and see you next post!

Buttlerfly Trap....On Sundays I Stamp!

Hallo polished prisoners,

Today is Sunday and you know what that means.  Yes, another Adventures in Stamping post!  This weeks challenge was to use either bronze, silver, or gold as either the base for our stamping or the stamping color itself.  I know it's a touch Olympian in nature yes? But, for one I'm not really following the Olympics (eh-hem I haven't owned a functioning tv in over 5 years), and second I was feeling the need to try out a new plate that arrived this week from Nailz Craze.  So here's what I came up with...

Mani-louge

Base Color: Paints by Allya Automatic

Gradient: Paints by Allya Automatic and Pity and Essie Jamacian Me Crazy

Image Plate: NC1 by Nailz Craze

Stamping polish: China Glaze Passion

This gradient kills me...by itself it would be one fine manicure, but I can never leave well enough alone lol. 

I love the touch of shimmer created by Jamaican Me Crazy. This is one of my favorite Essie polishes.

It just feels vibrant right?

As you can see I love butterflies, but not in a Mariah Carey crazy way more in a they make for great nail art kind of way.  Do you have a type of manicure you keep coming back to? For me it's always some kind of butterfly like creation.  However, I have never done butterflies before using gold for their wings.  I have to say I'm a bit in love!

Shimmy and shake!

 In case you are wondering about the polishes I recently did a little haul from Paints by Allya from her recent Full Ruscha collection.  They are all gorgeous cremes with not a glitterbomb amongst them.  To be frank while I love glitter I always appreciate a good classic polish in my life.  I'll do a review of this collection later, but for now it's safe to say I'm really happy with my purchase. 

I love it!

So here we are another AIS Challenge met and stamped!  What do you think of the final results?  I'm very shocked by the simple beauty of this one myself.  I could have kept going after I stamped but I thought I wanted the polish to have the spotlight.  Thanks for reading and I'll see you next post! Toodles...

Butterflies, Bling, & Duochromes Oh My!

Hey polished prisoners,

This one is definitely all about me! Hahaha - wait I know isn't this my blog anyway and thus by definition all about me? Well lately, not really.  I don't know why but I've felt weird pressure in my head to "create" & had a spew of fails.  It's bad to get yourself into loops like that where your forcing something or not quite loving it but you just can't stop.  Well not today ladies.  I just wanted to sit down and do something that was all about satisfying my desire for pretty, pretty, pretty.  No flashy techniques (at least not to me) and what I love - bling!  You might be thinking what am I talking about there's been plenty of bling on here but not like this.  I satisfied all of my lusts again at once - butterflies, bling, and duochromes.  If I smoked I'd be enjoying a long drag in satisfaction because I'm all smiles.  Now onto the art....

It's a jungle in here! Watch out for moving insect life! Also ignore the eyelash that somehow snuck it's way into so many of my pics - grrr!

Blinging baby!

I used China Glaze Custom Kicks for the base.  I love this color - turquoise with gold microshimmer and opaque in one coat.  It's been a favorite of mine for years, but it does stain the hell of our your nails so a peroxide soak is necessary after use even with two layers of base coat.  One careful coat pictured here.

You can see the tiny particles of gold shimmer even with my indoors lighting. Don't ask me why I'm holding an Ozotic bottle I must have grabbed whatever snapping a quick pic.

I used the "wet sponge" technique to create a gradient that is to all intents and purposes a non-rigid colorblock using Custom Kicks, Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri Grape Going, and OPI's Number One Nemesis.

All this shimmer from those duochromes.  I am so so impressed with OPI's Number One Nemesis in particular.  I had this but hadn't even used it yet until this manicure.

I love that the stamp allows for gaps to let the shimmer of the polishes underneath peak through.

I stamped using my new Vivid Lacquer Plate #002's monarch pattern and Konad's Special Polish in Black Pearl.  One thing I forgot to note about the VL plates is that the larger images such as the butterfly will not fit fully on the "traditional konad stamper" and you will need to use and XL stamper if you have longer nails.  Not too much of an issue but worth noting since the XL stampers always require a bit more finessing to work with than the Konad ones. 

It would have been a lot to stamp every nail but then I am a big believer in non-symmetry in my nail art.  I like seeing the "base" which is as pretty as the stamping as well.

Finally, I added gold microbeads and 2mm clear rhinestones.  Talk about instant pretty! This was one of those ideas where everything just came together perfectly.  I want to be this happy every time I sit down to paint my nails though I know that's not gonna happen but for now I'll just sit back and enjoy.

Lol had to throw in the little VL black kitty.  She's just so darn cute! This shot is dripping bling too :)

What do you ladies think? I put up a tutorial for this one too that you can check out below, but it's as straightforward as they come.

 Thanks for reading and toodles!

I'm back and here to stay + Fairy Manicure!

Hey all my lacquer lovers!

Let me apologize in advance for my long absence. Unfortunately things have been pretty tough on my end lately between school and my plummeting health.  I just haven't had the time or energy to devote to my blog or Youtube channel which I'm pretty sad about.  Maybe it hasn't come across after all I don't have a ton of posts on here, but nail art and makeup are my passions and becoming more important to me every day so of course I want to spend time raving about it's awesomeness and sharing my joy of new discoveries with everyone.  And so I'm back I've decided this time to be very disciplined about my approach to my blog in the hopes of creating something wonderful fun and inspiring.  It's my hope that  you'll forgive me and welcome me back into the nail loving fold.  So let's talk about some of this love I've been gushing about...

 As soon as I was released from the hospital I felt I must absolutely do my nails.  I'd been forced to do some abhorent things in the name of medical health such as painting only 4 of 5 fingers so that the 02 monitor declare to all that I was you know breathing.  And so to hold onto my sanity upon discharge I had to absolutely get into my polish ASAP!  I wanted to do something ethereal, springy, and fairy like.   In no small part influenced by my love for a Prada collection that debuted some years ago to a wild success.  I used Essies's Navigate Her - a creme minty green and Essie's Bangle Jangle - a creme lavender with hints of a blue undertone to the base.  Nubar 2010 was added for a touch of fire and mystical quality I think fairies represent.  I also added Kiss nail art butterfly and floral stickers along with fimo, 2mm rhinestones and pearls for a final touch. 

My nails felt alive!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to quite capture the fire of the Nubar 2010 here.

This is just so yummy!  Flowers, butterflies and pearls oh my!

I love how this turned out although I was able to get any outdoor pics.   It's like  small garden landed on each fingernail :) I hope you like this design as well and please feel free to let me know what you think and thanks for reading!