Silly Old Bear

Winnie the Pooh and his friends are an old favourite of mine. I could not resist getting the QA3 image plate from Light in the Box since it features that Silly Old Bear.

I used two coats of Orly Hook Up over Sephora by OPI Don't Feed the Hand Models. Hook Up tends to be a shimmery and streaky yellow. The nude polish was essential for eliminating visible nail line.

The stamping was done in Konad Black and the highlights on the wings of the bee and the petals of the flower are Color Club Worth the Risque.

The images all stamped well from this plate. I bought this for less than $2 and that included the shipping. Light in the Box tends to be rather slow and the plates can be hit and miss in quality.

Overall I am very happy with this cheerful manicure. It was simple and it looks good even on my extra stubby nubbins since the major breakage.

Chi Chi Fr**ken Weekend with Darling Diva Pendragon

That post title sounds so very wrong.

I went bin diving with the Strumpet the other day and we pulled out a couple of Chi Chi polishes on clearance. One of these was Fricken Weekend. Yes, I have to admit that I was very taken with the name of it. I promised to share a decant with the Strumpet and so my bank account had another deduction. Ooops.

Weekend is an unusual colour. It is almost a greenish cast gunmetal. Application was of two coats over PVA glue as I intended to apply a glitter polish over the top. When wet this polish tends to be streaky but the streaks mainly disappear once dry. How much they disappear will depend on your application.

Over the top of this I used Pendragon from Darling Diva Polish. I was attracted to the varied green and bronze glitters in this polish from the moment I saw it in etsy. The other great surprise you get as you turn your hand is the holographic effect. This is from the small gold holographic glitter in this polish. It is beautiful.

I had brilliant customer service from Darling Diva Polish. She was very patient as I decided what I wanted in my mini bottles. I did have a worry that I may not have been able to get everything in a mini bottle as some of the larger glitters will not fit through the neck of the 5 ml bottle. Thankfully all of the polishes I wanted did.

OPI Glow Up Already! Butterfly Wings

This is not the best manicure. I piled on two coats of OPI Glow Up Already! over an existing manicure.

Then I stamped with Vivid Lacquer's VL002 image plate in Konad Black. In many ways I can not wait to use up all of my Konad Black because it is horrendous to clean up. In other ways it would be a bad thing because I do not have another great black stamping polish to go to!

This image is not really designed for stubby nubbins like mine. I still think it looks ok and it is much better than I could ever do freehand. The white dots are made with Rimmel French White Tip. After I took these pictures I did the washing up and removed it all. Yes! Easy removal with my PVA glue base.

When Shift Happens over a Tequila Sunrise with a lot of pictures.

When I first tried Girly Bits Shift Happens, I wondered how fiery it would be over orange. For that orange I chose Rimmel Tequila Sunrise. I was pleasantly surprised that two coats of this did not look terrible on me. Admittedly, it is a little bright for my taste but I could not say it looked awful.

Next I applied two coats of Shift Happens. I took a LOT of pictures.

The red part of the colour shift did not appear over orange.

I found orange and gold. At the very extreme I could tease out green.

Not that I could get the green to appear well on the camera...

It did not look in the least bit like fire. Nice but no dice. I had anticipated this and I had already decided that I would stamp over this combination. I dragged out a few choices but I did not have anything that was a flame image. Well, not one that would show the above polish rather than the stamping polish.

I used Konad Black as my stamping polish and you can tell with the shoddy clean up. Why oh why does this polish have to be so hard to clean up? It smears everywhere and it is terrible. The image plate was from Bundle Monster (yet again) and was BM-312.

This manicure looks nothing like fire. Maybe tiger stripes? A colour shifting tiger?

Turquoise Shimmer Comparison

I have these three polishes that look very similar in the bottle. When I have worn them I would swear that they are the same. So, I thought I would wear them all at once and see whether there was a difference or not.

The contenders are: Sparitual Crystal Waters, Wet N Wild Bijou Blue and Orly It's Up to Blue.

They were all different at one coat. Orly was most opaque and had the most shimmer. Wet N Wild was definitely the bluest and also the sheerest. Sparitual and Orly were fairly close in colour but the Orly had more blue.

Skip ahead to three coats. You need at least three coats with these. At this stage Orly and Sparitual look the same. Orly has the better formula and you may be able to get away with two coats on this. Wet N Wild could do with at least another coat. It is definitely different to the other two with it having much less of a metallic shimmer finish and it is more blue green. My camera is up to the usual tricks of not showing things quite right. I could not keep my little finger at the same angle to show that the two are the same side by side.

Sunlight

Shade

Index and little fingers: Sparitual Crystal Waters

Middle finger: Wet N Wild Bijou Blue

Ring finger: Orly It's Up to Blue

I have tried many times to use these polishes for a peacock manicure but it never seems to work out. Maybe it is that the manicure is much better in my head than I could make it.

Shift Happens over Purple Velvet

I had a disaster of the nail kind. Nails on both of my hands broke and I had to trim the others off to suit. Thankfully it was my right hand that had the worst damage where I had to cut them down drastically. Now my fingernails are nubbier than ever.

There was a quick removal of my Dragon with an Iridescent Eye manicure and I had to apply a quick manicure before I had to head off to work. What to wear? What would dry in time? I know, I would use Orly Purple Velvet. Matte polishes are always a good choice because they look good and dry quickly.

After a day of wear the polish was looking pretty bad. I really did not feel like removing it and applying something else. There was not the time for that! What to do? Girly Bits Shift Happens was one of my deeply craved polishes and it was sitting in my "to be used" area. Yes, I would add Shift Happens over Purple Velvet and see how it looks. Two coats went on and of course I had multichromatic loveliness. Hmmm but I had a similar loveliness when I used Fantasy Fire earlier this month...

Aha! I know that the Orly Matte polishes stamp reasonably well so I decided to stamp over the top of my manicure and see how well that worked. I think it is wonderful because you are surprised by the design when you get the colour shift. I used an image from Bundle Monster BM-224

When I wore this indoors, I tended to get mainly a red sparkle. Shift Happens did change colour more readily than Fantasy Fire but I do find Fantasy Fire prettier. This is most likely due to the colour I wore underneath Shift Happens. Purple Velvet gives the polish an unusual purple colour that seems almost a dusty colour. And obviously this shift was stronger because I was able to photograph these colours unlike when I attempted to do the same with Fantasy Fire. Being a top coat, Shift Happens would be more versatile. I am interested to see how fiery it would look over an orange base colour.

As you can see from my pictures, I did not clean up well and there is a lot of chipped wear out of my tips. I almost did not take pictures of this because I did not really want to share how lazy/awful I was with this manicure. On the other hand, you can not deny that it is very pretty. I especially like the first picture were you can see all of the colours over the nail. Below is a picture of what it looked like most of the time but much more red. Artificial light seemed to bring out the red play in Shift Happens.

Eye Spy an Addition to the Dragon...

I know I said that I would not add anything to the Dragon with an Iridescent Eye manicure. I was wrong. What I used did not fit with any reptilian or dragonish idea.

Over yesterday's A-England Dragon and Jessica Iridescent Eye gradient I stamped with Konad Moss Green. I used an image from Bundle Monster BM-316. I am thrilled with how well Moss Green went over this combination. It is such an elegant manicure and very simple too. Sometimes I wonder why I ever bought all of the rhinestones and other fripperies to put on my nails when stamping provides so much.

And here is the end of a short post to share how I updated the manicure. I don't have anything else to add.

Daily Manicure Week - Sunday Dots

Finally, Sunday.

Sunday is a day to sleep in and recover from Saturday. If you feel up to it you might have a while to spend on your nails. Then again you might not feel all that great so something simple is called for. What could be more simple than a dot manicure? By now you are probably feeling dotty for doing your nails so much. Especially if you have been using the same two colours.

The only reason why I used Red Velvet as the base colour for this manicure is because of Wednesday's post. I thought it would look too similar as the stamping plate image used was of dots.

I simply started with a large dot at the corner of my nail and then did a row of small dots. Large and small dots were alternated until the nail was filled. After the polish had dried a bit, I placed a small dot in the middle of the large dots. Dot manicures are very simple and effective. People always marvel at them and do not seem to realise how quick and easy they are.

Daily Manicure Week - Saturday Spun Sugar

Hurray! It is finally the weekend!

Today you want to wear something special and different on your nails. You prepare yet another base of Don't Feed the Hand Models and then plop some Red Velvet on a plate and wait. And wait. Then wait some more until you can draw strands of polish much like the spun sugar of fairy/candy floss. Drape these strands across your nails. Done.

This manicure does take longer to dry. The thinner you can get the strands the better because you get less dry time. To be able to form the strands the polish needs to be on the way to drying. I used the tutorial by Nails from a Fairy Tale to create this manicure.

This is ok for my first effort but I would like to try it again with a different polish to see if I can get finer strands out of the polish.

Happy Birthday September! A Regal Manicure

Sapphires come in all colours apart from red. Red "sapphires" are called rubies. Most people think of sapphire as blue and this is the representation I went with today. The Ceylon sapphire is one of my favourite stones with that unique shade of cornflower blue.

As you may have guessed, sapphire is the birthstone for September.

My base colour for this manicure is Orly Royal Navy. I have used three coats here and some more where I had some fails with my stamping. You can tell I shook the bottle well before use as I also have the blue shimmer that likes to settle to the bottom of the bottle on my nail.

For the stamping I used Nails Inc Cleopatra's Kiss and two different Bundle Monster image plates. On my ring finger is the crown from BM-215 and on my thumb is the crown from BM08. I accented both of these with blue shaded rhinestones. I also used a row of rhinestones along my middle fingernails.

Daily Manicure Week - Friday Freehand

Thank Goodness It's Friday!

You have upgraded your current manicure twice. If you add something else to it, that might be overkill. And you can't seem to find anything else but Sephora by OPI Don't Feed the Hand Models and Mode Red Velvet.

Paint whatever you want. I thought it was simplest to paint on a smile. My artistic skills are pretty dismal. Look at my lettering there...

I tried again and ended up with another mess. There were some hearts and then I did these tulip like designs. Maybe freehand was not such a good idea. I guess these could have looked ok if I had done them on all of my fingers.

It's ok. It is nearly the weekend!

Daily Manicure Week - Thursday Tape

Good Morning Thursday. Just one more day after this until the weekend!

You liked the stamping manicure from yesterday and you don't really want to start over again with another manicure. Yes, another upgrade sounds like a brilliant idea. Out comes the tape and with some careful scissor cutting and removing some of the tackiness of the sticky tape, a new manicure is born.

Of course you can also do this manicure without having the stamping underneath. My tape skills are no where near the league of Erica from Chloe's Nails.

Below is a step by step pictorial of how I cut the tape for the manicure. For this demonstration I used masking tape as it is opaque and easier to photograph.

News Flash: Get your FREE Butter London with InStyle

It is always worth having a look at the magazines when you are going through the checkout. I received my first (and only until now) Butter London nail polish by buying Madison. These magazines don't hold much in the way of interest for me except when I can get my hands on some good polish for a bargain price.

InStyle Australia's October 2012 issue is giving away a bottle of Butter London with each copy. You get to choose between Pillar Box Red or Pink Ribbon. In Australia InStyle costs $8.95 and in New Zealand the magazine retails for $9.20.

I chose to get Pillar Box Red and this was definitely worth it. I love the bright red and the beautiful application I have come to expect from Butter London.

You can also get $5 from your next purchase either online or in store. Since they charge almost $10 delivery per item online, I think I would give that one a miss. It is probably better to wait for the next lot of Butter London to be available on Ozsale. They usually charge $14 per polish and seem to have a capped rate of postage at $9.

I am amazed I managed to update this from the original terrible picture. :O

Daily Manicure Week - Wednesday Stamping

Oh here it is, Hump Day.

Now that you have removed the horrible manicure that looked like you went on a murder spree...

Out comes Don't Feed the Hand Models and Red Velvet because they are the only two polishes you can find. URGH! Hump Day. You apply Don't Feed the Hand Models as a base colour and then quickly stamp over it with Red Velvet.

I used an image from Bundle Monster's BM-322. Now this looks a lot better than the blood caked manicure from Tuesday. Red Velvet may not be the best polish for stamping with but it still looks pretty good. There is not a top coat in these pictures and this enhances the appearance.

Daily Manicure Week - Tuesday Cling Wrap

Hello Tuesday.

You started off with a plain manicure because you did not have much time to work on a manicure on Monday. It was that hard weekend you had. Now it is Tuesday and we get to introduce the second colour that we can use in our manicures. The polish I chose is the gloriously almost rusty coloured Mode Red Velvet. I had promised a featured spot on Red Velvet and I still have not done it yet. This colour was not the best choice as you will soon see why.

So what do you do when you have to get to work and you already have a plain base (Sephora by OPI Don't Feed the Hand Models) to work with? You can upgrade that manicure. After making those lunches and wrapping everything in cling wrap, take a little piece and bundle it up. Put a coat of polish onto your nails and dab it off with the cling wrap. I chose this way rather than using the cling wrap to apply the polish like a sponge because I had always liked the manicures from other bloggers using this method.

I think Red Velvet is the wrong colour to do this with as it looks as though I have dried blood splodged all over my nails! Then I tried to rescue the manicure. The below picture is outside of the rules I am trying to set for myself in Daily Manicure Week. I had to try to make it look better. It looks worse with China Glaze 2030 cling wrap sponged over the top. In real life my clean up does not look so bad but on macro... Blech. :(

I hope Hump Day Wednesday turns out better. This manicure would work better depending on the colours you choose. Use this as a lesson in not to use together.

Daily Manicure Week - Monday

I really liked Shatter Me Claire's 7 Days 7 Ways posts. Her last post left off in the middle of her second edition. I would love to see her finish this one off. This is such a great idea that I thought I would try my own version but with two polishes. One will be the base colour and the other can be used as the accent. I am not sure how well it will work but I can try.

So it is Monday and you had a really hard weekend. You don't feel like doing much so you just paint your fingernails with the first available colour that you lay your hands on.

For the base colour I chose the work appropriate Sephora by OPI Don't Feed the Hand Models. I could have used three coats for this but on a Monday morning you really need to get out of the door!

Dragon with an Iridescent Eye - Gradient

Today I am featuring two well swatched polishes in a gradient. Jessica Iridescent Eye is one of the Chanel Peridot dupes and A-England Dragon.

It was frustrating to be unable to capture all of the loveliness of these polishes combined. I made my gradient with a make up sponge by painting both polishes generously across the sponge. The bonus using this method was that Iridescent Eye became more foil-like. When you brush the Peridot dupes on, they seem to have a tendency towards some streakiness. I found that Iridescent Eye was not too bad but with the smoothness of a foil finish it looked magnificent.

In the bottle and in the shade, Dragon appears to be a khaki scattered holographic polish. The colours conform well with Iridescent Eye as Dragon's colour seems to be one of those in the colour shift of Iridescent eye from gold through to green and finally at the extremes to blue.

The magic comes when you go into the sun. Dragon bursts into life with vibrancy. It is not just the holographic effect coming into play. No, Dragon becomes more green. At the tips of my fingers I had this gorgeous play of colour that sparkled with life. And I could not get my camera to capture this magic and depth of colour!

At one angle, Dragon and Iridescent Eye match colours so that it appears that the Dragon is asleep. Make a move and the Dragon awakens again. Such a pretty manicure. I almost added some stamping to it but there was nothing in my image plates that would add something special to this manicure.

The worst thing I can say about this manicure was that the clean up was horrendous. It feels practically impossible to get Iridescent Eye off my skin. I can still see sparkles of gold on my fingers.

Dedicated to the Ones I Love - XOXO VL001 image

This one is for Mr R and Miss L. I love you.

Sally Hansen Crushed Gems Cha-Ching reminds me of diamonds and rubies. Those stones are special for me as they are Mr R and Miss L's birthstones. I used two coats of this polish and it dried fast. It looked dull and gritty without top coat and I wondered whether it was going to be a top coat eater.

After one coat of Seche Vite had dried, I stamped with the XOXO image from Vivid Lacquer's VL001 image plate. The polish I used for the stamping was China Glaze Millenium. I bet you were wondering if I used any other polish than Nails Inc Cleopatra's Kiss. Finally, all of my fingernails were given another coat of Seche Vite to help smooth them out.

You may have noticed some odd things about this manicure. My hands are very shiny from the moisturiser I just applied. While I was applying the moisturiser, the polish on my index finger slid off in a sheet. Ooops. So I quickly reattached it and took these photographs before they all came off.