Inspired by my new blue dress

This past weekend I bought a simple but lovely blue dress from Target. On Monday I wore this dress going to training off-site from my regular workplace. Why not go the full package and wow them? Yes, my nails were going to match the jacquard design you can not quite see in the below picture.

Target

As my base colour I chose to use Orly Royal Navy. I thought that Royal Navy would be a lot lighter than the blue in the dress but that I needed a lighter colour when stamping black over the top. The added blue shimmer would help give a little extra and define the design.

After going through quite a number of plates and using different black polishes, I ended up stamping with Konad Black. I really did not want to use Konad Black because it is such a pain to clean up. Even then, I had trouble with the stamping. To combat this, I had to suffer for my nails and turn both the air conditioning and the fan off. This enabled me to stamp properly but I only had time to stamp an accent on my middle finger. A Bundle Monster image plate was used. I know I tried both BM 20 and BM 21 but I am not sure which one I used in the end as both plates have a similar design on them.

On my ring finger I placed a black bow to match the ribbon belt on my dress.  Manicure complete. It drew some admirers too. That is always a sign of a job well done.

Happy Birthday January

I know I missed out on December's birthday post. I did have a plan for it and that did not involve the December floral emblem of holly. There will be another December to post in since the world did not end. ;)

Many of you would know that the birth stone for January is the garnet. The rhinestone flowers I used in this manicure represent garnet. I know that most people picture garnet as a different shade of red but that was the best red I had in my wheel of blossoms. What you may not know is that the Chinese plum (aka Japanese apricot) is the January floral emblem in China. Plum blossoms are a common oriental motif that I like so I thought I would bring it back to the blog after the last appearance in Spring.

My base colour is a-England Dragon. Two coats were applied but the beauty could not be appreciated when I first took pictures as it was overcast. I am not going to complain because the coolness the weather has brought is a welcome relief from the high temperatures we have had lately. The sun did peep out for a few moments after I had applied some cuticle oil. A dash was made to take at least one picture to show the scattered holographic loveliness that is Dragon.

Using Konad plate M66 I stamped my favourite stone fruit blossom image in China Glaze Cherish. I did consider a red for the stamping but I decided for the chrome of Cherish instead. Seche Vite was applied over the stamping. What is unusual is that I stamped directly on the dry base colour. This colour dried satisfactorily fast to enable me to stamp without waiting hours for the firmness required.

On each fully stamped blossom a rhinestone was placed on the wet Seche Vite. That brings us to the end result. I think the manicure turned out well but the red and green could have a Christmas vibe to it. Still, I like it and I hope those who celebrate their birthday in January do as well.

MUD Nail Stickers - Star It On 001

I have had MUD nail stickers since Woolworths released them. Since it was late November when I bought them, I thought I should try them out. They would have been wonderful to wear over the Christmas season as the design I have is 001 - Star it On. The sticker backing is clear to show a base colour. Each of the stars have a silver reflective backing so that they stand out against the base colour and are not affected by the colour choice. They always appear like white rhinestones.

For Christmas I received the gorgeous purple shimmery Illamasqua Poke. I love their delightfully wicked names. Over a PVA base I applied two coats of Poke to my nails.

After allowing the polish to dry for about 10 minutes, I started to apply the nail stickers. As I have very short nails, I was able to get two nails covered for each nail sticker. When I placed the sticker I then smoothed it down with my finger. Excess was trimmed off with a pair of nail scissors. A cardboard nail file was included with the package of nail stickers but it did not do a very good job of filing off the excess to neaten the end.

These nail stickers look great being worn. They are fairly easy to apply if you are not a perfectionist. I should note, this is the first time that I have applied nail stickers. As the backing on this particular design is clear, it is more forgiving when you make mistakes or have less than perfect application. Although the directions state that you apply these to the bare nail, I have not noticed a difference in wear between bare nail and polished nail.

On the negative side, these will annoy you if you need perfect application. The backing seems like a normal sticker and therefore difficult to get smooth and flush at the free edge. Star It On is a raised design and that may not appeal to some people either. If you plan to use a nail sticker for more than one nail you need to take into account that there is a graduation in the size of the stars from large at the base to small at the top. I think the way I have applied my stickers looks effective in having large portions on my thumb, index and middle fingers. The remaining fingers have the small portions that combine to appear graduated from large to small across my fingers.

MUD Nail stickers can be bought from Woolworths Supermarkets in Australia. The retail price is $5 for a set of 16 stickers with a nail file included. (Although they sell the set for $5.38 from Woolworths online.) They are produced by the same company that manufactures Ulta3 and I am not sure how these compare to the Ulta3 nail stickers.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas...

I shared with thee an Illamasqua pretty.

When my Strumpet gave me two bottles of Illamasqua for Christmas I was overjoyed. I even had hot, little tears burning at my eyes with the emotions. Phallic and Poke were the two polishes I received and both were on my want list. Today I am sharing Phallic with you and Poke will make an appearance in a few days.

I thought I would use the Twelfth Day of Christmas to share a Christmas themed manicure with you. It is the perfect excuse as I did not manage to get the Christmas manicures I wanted to do done. I started with Chi Chi Gimme Gimme a Man and applied two coats.

To make the presents I taped a cross on my thumb and ring fingers with striping tape. Phallic was applied over the top and the tape removed. A coat of Seche Vite was laid over the top and this was used to affix the blue bows. This was the design I had in mind when I originally bought these bows.  Thankfully these look as good when completed as I had envisioned them in my mind's eye.

The stamping was done with Phallic and image plate MJ VII. I chose not to use the gift image as my nails are exceptionally short at the moment and would not show the design off to the best effect. Tape was also applied to the side of the middle finger and Phallic placed along the side.

This manicure gives me a giggle to think of the names of the polishes. How often do you get to feature Phallic with Gimme Gimme a Man?

Santa left Illamasqua in my Christmas Stocking.

Before Christmas I had the opportunity to visit Illamasqua. I had decided that I would get Viridian as my chosen polish. When I arrived in store I browsed the holiday special catalogue and found the two Christmas duo packs. The bright pack had Viridian and a special limited edition release, Glitterati. Needless to say, I did not pass up the opportunity to get the pack at the special price of $38. Usually it would cost $42 to buy two Illamasqua polishes.

After I got home I stashed this set away to put in my Christmas stocking. Hey! I need to have something for Christmas when Mr R and Miss L are getting exceptionally spoilt. How else can I get spoilt except with some lovely polish? Illamasqua no less.

Viridian has been shown to perfection on much lovelier nails than mine. I thought I would show Glitterati with some nail art done with Viridian. Two coats were applied of this gorgeous dark red jelly-like polish that is packed with holographic glitter.

To do the nail art I used two circle paper reinforcement stickers to make a curved shape on my thumb. My nails were cut and filed back today because of breakage and I felt that my thumb offered the best canvas as it is the largest area to work with. Then I dotted on the version of OPI Not Like the Movies that is not "oil slick" multi-chromatic. A large and small dotting tool were used. Inside the large dots I finally dotted some Virdian. Without placing this over Not Like the Movies, I feel that you would not have been able to appreciate Viridian against Glitterati. Sadly, my top coat did smear some of the Viridian dots.

Inspired by the Christmas Beetle

The Christmas season brings the arrival of the beautifully iridescent Christmas Beetle. I remember watching the shimmer of the shell for ages when I found the beetles in my room.

This year I have only found one beetle and took the opportunity to photograph it for you. I took many pictures as I had trouble with capturing the colour of the shell and keeping the Christmas Beetle in focus. While I was taking the pictures the beetle crawled around on my hand and bumbled with some flying.

When I first saw Pretty Serious Mummy Mush, I thought of the Christmas Beetle immediately. It has a pale gold base with pink and green shimmer. To get a good base, I used three coats as this is a polish on the sheer side. For the design I decided to do a modified version of the ladybird (ladybug/ladybeetle) manicure.

I trimmed a nail art brush to make it finer and shorter and used Ulta3 Black Satin. You can tell why I do not freehand nail art as I am simply terrible with art. Over the top of the black lines I applied Ozotic 503 for a green shimmer. It does not look right... So I had another go.

I only applied Mummy Mush to my nail because I was not intending to keep the design on my nails. Hence, that explains the lack of clean up as I just wanted to see if my second thoughts after studying the picture of the Christmas Beetle were better. I also used the same black.

Hmmm. Shoddy looking but I thought I would add Ozotic 503 again. This did soften the design. If I wore this out in public I am sure I would get questions as to what on earth I had on my nails.

O Tannenbaum! O Christmas Tree!

I am not having much success with using PVA as a base coat ever since I had a manicure done. I suspect that the buffing they did on my nails made the surface so smooth that the glue does not have the type of surface it needs to adhere well. Every time I have worn a manicure since the manicure I have used PVA and the polish just pops off.

For this Christmas I had planned to do a few different manicures and life got in the way. We have come to the holidays now and I get to post my Christmas Tree. Someone had mentioned in a post on a blog that Darling Diva's Mitochondrial Eve looked like a Christmas Tree complete with ornaments. There and then I decided that I would get Mitochondrial Eve and I would do a Christmas Tree manicure.

But... I left off buying Mitochondrial Eve. I was trying to be financially wise and then when I was able to buy, the polish was not listed any longer. Oh no! I messed Darling Diva and asked if it was possible to get Mitochondrial Eve. Joy of Joys an affirmative response was received.

The base colour for this manicure is Ozotic 502 that reminds me of Sally Hansen's Nail Prisms Golden Cinnbar when worn. This polish is lovely by itself and I did not take pictures to capture the different colour shifts.

To create the Christmas Tree I simply used tape and applied two dabbling coats onto the nail. Simple, done. If I had longer nails I would have added a star at the top but I do not believe I had the space to make it look good.

You only get three fingers in this picture as I hurt my poor index finger. You can also tell that I did not clean up afterwards with the top coat. Not too long after these pictures were taken when POP! off they came.

Starbucks and Zebration for my 100th post!

When I looked at plate MJ VI I thought that the lady image looked familiar. At first I thought it may have been a logo for Godiva until I went into the kitchen and noticed that the logo on my Starbucks cup was the same. In my defence, I have probably had something from Starbucks less than the number of fingers on one hand. There is not an outlet locally either.

To start I stamped the Starbucks Mermaid onto the more rigid plastic of a sandwich bag using Konad Black. Ulta3 Lily White was brushed over the top. I had to try this a couple of times because I did not wait long enough for the black to dry the first time. Applying the white smeared the black to make a round grey mess. I left that to dry for another day's manicure. This is a method that I bookmarked from Polished Peripherals.

The day finally came to do my manicure and I had to select my green. None of the greens in my collection matched that of my cup. They were either too pale or too dark. Ulta3 Frog Prince is the closest I could come to the right colour. Two coats of Frog Prince went down over a PVA glue base and another layer of PVA was added to the top on my thumb to stick my mermaid onto. I allowed all of the layers to dry before adding Seche Vite.

On my index and little fingers I used Peita's Polish Zebration to carry through the black and white theme from my Starbucks Mermaid. Konad White was used for the two images on my middle and ring fingers. I thought I would add some beverages onto those fingers. The take away cup with straw was too large for my trimmed down shabby nubbins but I still think it looks good. It came from plate MJ VIII. For the coffee cup I used only the cup part of the "Coffee Addict" image. You can find it on the Fun 2 plate.

Christmas Pudding

Ever since I have seen Christmas Pudding manicure designs, I have waited for Christmas to arrive so that I can finally do one. With the work Christmas Party, I thought it was a brilliant opportunity to be able to do a Christmas Pudding design earlier.

For the cake part of the pudding I started with OPI Who Comes Up With These Names? Two coats later I left it overnight. In the morning I applied L.A. Girl Uninhibited to represent the fruit in the pudding. It would be great if I had a polish with the small black glitter for the sultanas and raisins and the larger glitter was red for glace cherries.

Excuse the very early morning light for the picture. I was up and making cupcakes for the party that night at 4:30 in the morning. The glitter dried quickly and that allowed me to paint the sauce on using Ulta3 Lily White with a nail art brush. I always envisaged having this manicure with holly on it but I didn't have anything I could use and my nails are too small for any stamping images.

I managed to get the cakes cooked, frosted and decorated before I left for work that morning. A load of washing was done for the children with their school uniforms for the day. Phew! The party went well and we scored plenty of things. I won a bottle of wine with my raffle ticket and another two bottles through auctions with play money. Mr R spent the rest of my money and was very proud of himself. He won a hamper stuffed with sweet and savoury food. Only about half of the items can be seen here.

Nail Fail - Glitter and Gradient Stamping

Today I bring to you a nail fail. It does not look overly terrible except for the fact that I did not clean up at all in the end because I knew it was not working out. The manicure does not work like it is supposed to do.

Early in the days of this blog I posted a haul post. This is one of my most successful posts even though it only consists of pictures of nail polish bottles I bought... Two of these polishes are Nicole by OPI polishes called Virtuous Violet and One Less Lonely Glitter. This is the first time I have ever used them.

Virtuous Violet is a nice colour. In the bottle the shimmer seems almost duochromatic. To get enough coverage on your nail you need four coats. I used three here because I knew the glitter would work fine with only three coats.

I seems it would take too many coats to make One Less Lonely Glitter opaque. On other blogs I saw that most people seem to still have some nail visible at three coats. It has pretty mauve small and microglitter in a clear base. The brush seemed rather clunky but I applied the polish without problems.

Onto the fail part of the manicure. Miss L decided she wanted both Kleancolor Metallic Pink and Metallic Aqua "side by side". I sponged a gradient on for her and she was mightily pleased. Her nails are very small and the ridges around the cuticle and the sides of her fingernails are deep. It makes it difficult to get the sponge into the area to dab the polish on.

I decided that these two colours would go well with the purples. Since I already did a sponged gradient, I thought I would stamp one onto my fingernails. The plate I used was an MJ plate but you can not see the full nail heart design. Part of the problem is that I used the double sided stamper from Lightinthebox.com. It was TERRIBLE as the silicone part of the stamper is much harder than the Konad one I adore. I switched over to the Konad double stamper after doing my thumb and index finger.

This one will come off soon. Thank goodness I used PVA glue as a base.

Movember and International Men's Day

Today is International Men's Day and about two thirds of the way through for those growing their (hopefully) spectacular moustaches for Movember. I am proud to admit that Movember was started in Australia and has grown from there. It seems we have a lot to do to catch up to those Canadians but at least we are giving our men some support for men's issues.

Visit the Australian Movember website has lots of information, merchandise and ways to connect to other Mo Bros. Most importantly you can donate to the foundation for the funds to be used for men's health initiatives such as prostate cancer and mental health.

The theme for International Men's Day for 2012 is health to tie this post in nicely with the aims of Movember. Helping men to be aware of their own bodies and minds will help them to live longer and happier lives. That is something to want for every special man and man-to-be in our lives.

Don't Feed the Hand Models from Sephora by OPI tends to be my go to nude base colour. I have used it here in two coats to represent skin. I would have done different skin colours but I did not have the polishes to represent that.

On the new MJ VIII image plate there is a full nail image of different moustache styles. These are perfect for Movember. Different shades of Kleancolor Metallics were used to represent different whisker colours for the moustaches. We have Metallic Black for black whiskers, Metallic Mango for the ginger whiskers, Metallic Yellow for the blond whiskers and Coffee Addict for the brown whiskers.

Iridescent Eye visiting the Celtic Moon

I decided that I would do something with my right hand. There was a blank canvas of Orly Matte Vinyl and it was begging for me to decorate it.

Another design from MJ VIII was used with Jessica Iridescent Eye as the stamping polish. I had heard how well China Glaze's Bohemian collection stamped over black and I thought that this polish would as well. The full nail image I used appears to be a variation of a Celtic Knot treatment.

I would have left my nails with just the Celtic Knot design over the matte black polish but I had a slight mishap. All of my nails stamped well except for the little finger. Since I did not have a top coat on, I could not remove my failure and re-stamp. I was also reluctant to remove all of the nail polish and start again. Putting another layer of Matte Vinyl and then stamping over that would have made my polish too thick on my nail.

Over to one side of the coffee table I still had some paper reinforcer stickers. I still have not tested the design I was going to do with them when I pulled them out of the box! The perfect solution was to use the stickers as guides to make half moons. When I painted the rest of the nail with Iridescent Eye, my little mistake where the polish did not go would be covered.

These pictures were difficult to take as I had little light to work with the first time I tried. When I had light outside available the manicure had lots of wear as I did not use top coat to seal it all in. I wanted to preserve the matte. The other reason why it was difficult to take picture is because of my camera. It is hard to hold the camera in my left hand, keep it steady AND push the button to take the picture.

Happy Birthday November! Citrines and Chrysanthemums

Some of the symbols of November are citrine for the birthstone and chrysanthemums for the flower. I have used both of these elements for this birthday manicure for November.

I started with Kleancolor Metallic Yellow for the base colour. This was the best shade I had with that yellow colour to match citrines. Granted citrines come in a range of colour but I wanted a rich yellow that had that gem like quality and shine. That is a little hard since all I have are either golds or creme yellows that were not quite right. I was surprised by rainbow flashes of shimmer in Metallic Yellow when the light hit it. I never expected that as I thought it would be a simple gold.

In Australia, chrysanthemums are usually sold in May for Mother's Day. I have never liked chrysanthemums because the cut flower smells terrible. Pyrethrum keeps me away as well as the insects. Thankfully, Mr R and Miss L have never bought me any, yet.

Nevertheless, I find the stylised chrysanthemum image from Bundle Monster BM-313 pretty. This was stamped in Konad Black. I was going to use Kleancolor Metallic Black but I knew the Konad was the best for that dark, black and crisp image. If this had been an all over image with a lot of clean up required, I would have chosen something else as Konad Black is horrendous to clean up.

The placement may seem all over the place but I was trying to do the same design differently to add interest. My right hand that I did afterwards has a more even placement and it looks good all lined up together. Unfortunately my left hand refuses to assist in taking a photograph to show you.

Lest We Forget - Remembrance Day 2012

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…

You are now living in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours…

You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."

Ataturk, 1934 - Gallipoli Memorial at ANZAC Cove

My base colour is two coats of essence Viva La Green. My bottle was very thick and tacky. As this is the first time I used it, I think people had opened the bottle in the store before I bought it.

Poppies are an enduring symbol of Remembrance Day and I chose to use these for my manicure. Both of the images that I believe to be poppies are from Bundle Monster image plates. The image with the two poppies comes from BM09 and the single poppy is from BM06. Konad special polishes in red and green were used for the stamping.

Gloomy Sunday - Black on Matte

It is a dismal, gloomy day. A Gloomy Sunday. I first encountered "Gloomy Sunday" in the movie "Schindler's List". The song has a reputation for being associated with suicide. I do not know if the song deserves the reputation or not but I definitely feel more despondent in rainy weather.

I applied two coats of Orly Matte Vinyl and this gave me a black chalkboard like finish. In the picture above you can see some of the rain drops that fell on my nails as I took these pictures. There is some smearing on the lower left from a drop on the lens of the camera. I braved the rain as I have been unable to take decent pictures inside my house.

The look of shiny stamping over matte has been something I have wanted to try for some time. So I used Konad Black and stamped a design from MJ VIII. I like how simple and subtle the design is. It's something different to have the sheen of the special polish picking out the features of the design as a counterpoint to the dullness of the matte.

I thought I had cleaned up well but black is not your friend in the clean up stakes. This is especially true with Konad Black. I used cotton buds AND a brush to get into the crevices. Ooops. I can't seem to get all of that polish out.

Green Moon and winner of the 2012 Melbourne Cup

I am not that interested in the Melbourne Cup except as an excuse or inspiration for nail art. Cup Day was about frocking up at w ork. When I heard that the winner of the cup was Green Moon, I instantly thought of green moon fingernails.

A moon manicure is something I have never tried. Luckily I did get some paper reinforcement stickers in preparation for such a day. I do think that a moon style is better suited for longer nails than mine but I could not resist with a tribute to this Irish horse.

In my quest for fast polish drying and mixing things up a little, I used Orly Viridian Vinyl as my base colour. It is a green matte polish although the finish tends to be more satin. I let that dry overnight while I did a Google search to find out what the colours were of the jockey's silks.

This morning I woke up and got my paper reinforcers ready with Orly Blue Suede. The satin matte polish to bring the look together while drying fast. Brett Prebble's silks were navy blue with white stripes as armbands. I don't own a white matte (*gasp*) and I did not think that white would go over the navy well.

Green Moon turned out better than I expected for I worried about my placement of the moons. Also, I would have liked to have been able to put a white stripe on for the other part of the jockey's silks but opacity and bleeding concerned me. There could be lots of improvement but this will do fine.

I Love Conversation Hearts

Recently I received some MJ plates from the creator of the Fun plates. I was pleased with how quickly they arrived from the Phillipines to my end of the world. The only thing I was uncomfortable about in ordering these was wondering what the postage fees would be like.

The Conversation Heart lollies image is from MJ VI. I had to rummage around in boxes for the tools to do this since I have not unpacked my nail polish properly yet. Hopefully that will happen soon. For ease, the stamping polish was Konad's special polish in mauve. I think the image stamped as well as any other image I have from Konad or Bundle Monster plates.

The base polish is Pretty Serious Emma Louise that I posted about recently.

I found out about this newest release of image plates from Spellbinding Nails. They are a great collection of plates and I will have to bring more in coming posts. You can order your own from My Online Shop. For the four large image plates I was changed 650 Phillipine Pesos which exchanges to around A$15.

Polish Us Pink! Dots and Ruffles

I thought long and hard about what I could do for this manicure. I did not want to stamp and I wanted to do something that I had not done before. Honestly, it was a bonus to be simple.

Today I present three pinks to you. Mode Cerise is a pink that builds up to a cherry red. When you marble with this colour it is definitely pink. The neon shade is Hollywood from the B Collection by Bloom. I have never used a Bloom polish before but this was one out of a set of three I bought. I will have to try one out as a base to see what it is like. Last of all I thought I would use the Cleo magazine freebie, Nails Inc Bag a Bachelor. I loathe the formula on Bag a Bachelor but since I was dotting, it was not going to matter.

I started out with Cerise and gave my nails two coats except on my ring finger as that was going to be the accent nail. Then with a dotting tool I simply added large dots of Hollywood and then small dots of Bag a Bachelor.

For the accent finger I decided I would try a ruffle. I had tried once before with this style and I failed. Honestly, how could someone fail at putting dots in lines across their fingernail? Me. This time it worked out much better. I did not bother with a base colour and simply dotted my three pinks in rows. Voila! Done!

The McGrath Foundation has a very specific goal for their fundraising. They use the funds to place Breast Care Nurses in communities throughout Australia. The other focus in on raising awareness in young women.

Interlocking Dots

I first noted this manicure to be tried for a later date on Kelly's Kolors. Kelly's post was bookmarked in the Nail Ideas folder and that was where it stayed until now.

Fast forward to today. I wanted to do a new manicure but what? I already had Orly Sapphire Silk out on the desk. Hmmm essence You Belong to Me looks as though it would complement well with that. I did not want to stamp and I was not sure whether either of those polishes would be suitable for stamping. Then I remembered the interlocking dots.

All of my nails were painted in You Belong to Me and I applied three coats. A coat of Seche Vite was then applied because I am impatient and I did not want to wait for the polish to dry naturally before I could apply the tape.

I am a big fan of doing only one accent nail because there is less chance of me ruining the entire look. It also takes less time and it was getting close to my bedtime. So, I taped off my ring finger with some de-tackified sticky tape. On went Sapphire Silk to make a corner of teal delight. I pulled off the tape and started dotting right away. After letting the polish dry a moment, I applied another coat of Seche Vite.

I am very glad I can not take pictures of my right hand easily as I failed with my ring finger. There was little control over my dotting tool. The resulting design did look good but it certainly was not the neat interlocking design I have on my left hand.