Winter Break Konadicure

Hey guys,

Well, I am sad to report I have been sick with a lousy cold for my entire winter break, so far.  I finally felt good enough to do my nails and post the results....

This is China Glaze's "Flying High" - a colour I just never get tired of - with a stripe of black polish (Sally Hansen Extreme Wear "Black Out".  Then I stamped over the black freehanded stripe with this cute leopard print & lace pattern in Konad Special White.

Konad IP m57

Hope you have a happy and healthy New Year!

Royal Blue & Gold Floral

Here's the konadi I've been rockin' this week. It's Orly "Royal Navy" which I love, but wish was a bit more opaque, with stamping in China Glaze "2030". Unfortunately, I didn't take pics right away, so there's a bit of tip wear showing.

 I did a double-stamp on the ring finger and the thumb to add a bit of variety.

Hope you enjoy it, friends!

Party Time

This is the konadicure I made to wear to some family parties we attended this weekend. I wanted something that would go with a grey dress in the daytime and a fancy black dress for the evening.  This is what I ended up creating.

Here it is with different camera settings.  I'm holding a silver clutch my mom let me borrow.  I used China Glaze "Millenium" for the stamping. It is so awesome for that purpose! I used Revlon Top Speed in "Fire".  The black tips are "Black Out" by Sally Hansen.''

Black & Gold Konadi

Hey all,
Here's my latest konadicure. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black as the base and China Glaze 2030 for the stamping.

 The pocket watch was a beautiful gift that my husband's grandmother gave to me...I thought it looked perfect with this konadicure!

Hope you liked this post. Have a great weekend!

Better L8R Than Never

I know you're all familiar with China Glaze's L8R G8R, but I just recently got it.  I've been looking forward to doing a konadicure with it.  Here's what I came up with...

For the base of this konadicure I applied two coats of L8R G8R which has an amazing pale green/lime holographic effect that I couldn't quite capture on film as well as I'd hoped given the limited sunshine this week.

I added the marble pattern using Orly's Enchanted Forest and then decided to accent a few nails with butterflies using Konad Special Black.

For the final touch, I used Orly's Prisma Gloss Gold topcoat which added another subtle element of shimmering glittering specks.  It worked well to seal the stamping, but two days in and I'm annoyed that one nail is really peeling at the tip.

What do you think of this konadicure? Do you like it better with just the marble design or with the butterflies too? They look a bit like black bats caught in a web - or is that just cuz it's almost Halloween? :-)

"Designer Satin" Konadi

Okay, so nobody commented on my yellow disaster from last post. That bad, eh?!

Well, here's what I did later that night when I took off the mess I'd made....

Ah...much better!  This is China Glaze's "Designer Satin" which is an older colour, but I just got it from 8ty8beauty.com.  I really like this deep raspberry creme colour for fall.

I stamped this pattern from IP m76 across the middle of each nail.  I used Konad Special White, which always makes a very crisp, clean image.

Today I peeled a bunch of apples to bake an apple crisp, and luckily my manicure escaped without harm.  Gotta love Seche Vite topcoat! Keeps it shiny and nick-free, and dries super fast without smudging the stamping at all.

Hope you all are having a great weekend.  Please leave me a comment, because I love reading your feedback!

"Happy Go Lucky" Manicure - epic fail!

Here's a manicure I just finished. I am not very happy with how it turned out at all. I used China Glaze's "Happy Go Lucky" from last year's Up & Away Collection.  I just recently got this colour, and I do like it. But I was somewhat impatient and rushed to add stickers before the polish was dry enough. So the whole thing turned out kinda lumpy and I'm probably going to take it off pretty darn soon.  The truth is...I can't stand it!!!!!

I figured I'd snap a few pics to share my sad failure.  It looks worse than this in real life, but it kinda makes an interesting photo, at least.  Ever do a manicure that you know is an epic fail as you are doing it, but somehow you just keep going?!

Well, hopefully I'll have something prettier to show you soon.  Now it's late at night and I better get some sleep...wish me better luck for the next attempt.

Note to self:  Konadicures are way better than using stickers!

"Thinking of Blue"

I bought this polish a few months ago, and I finally got around to using it last night.  This is Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in "Thinking of Blue".  It's a deep colour that looks navy blue in some lights, and slightly purplish royal blue in other lighting.  I used China Glaze "Millenium" to stamp the pattern from IP M77.

I'm still really jazzed about how well the polishes from the C.G. Khromes collection work for stamping and show up so crisp and clear on dark colours.

Hope you enjoy the long weekend, fellow Canadians!

Fall Floral

My sister brought me this Barry M polish when she visited back in the summer, but I just got around to using it this week.

Konad IP m57

black dots made with a dotting tool

This is Barry M's "Mushroom" with flowers stamped in "2030" from China Glaze's Khrome Collection from last fall/winter. I finally managed to get my hands on  a few of the Khrome polishes and they are awesome for stamping...but you have to move FAST! They dry really quickly on the stamper and won't stick to your nails unless you work swiftly!

I didn't have daylight when I had time to do my pics, so the photos aren't the best. Still, I really like how this turned out. I'm not typically a fan of how these "pooey" colours look on me, but this one isn't too "greige" so I think it's somewhat flattering.

What do you think?

Green Ivy w/Dark Tips

I'm really happy with how this mani turned out, but if I did it over, I think it might have been nice to use more of the dark glitter colour and move the pattern up a bit.

I used Sally Hansen in "Going Green" which I love. It has a slight shimmer and is the perfect bright green.  The tip is Finger Paints "Evergreen Dream" which is a deep dark green microglitter from a few collections ago. 

The stamping design is done with Konad Special White from IP m62.

Hope you enjoyed this post and have a great week!

Spritz Cookies

Okay, so I know this isn't a baking blog, but I wanted to post a few pics of the cookies I made with my sons this week. I saw an ad for the Wilton Pro Ultra II Cookie Press in my local Bed, Bath and Beyond flyer and it looked so cool. (Check out the video at the Wilton link to see exactly how it works.)

So I clipped the 20% off coupon and went out to buy one. I followed the recipe that came with it and whipped up some dough, and then had a blast squeezing out cookies of various shapes and decorating them.

Check out the yummy and cute results:

Then we added some blue food dye....

One batch of the dough made tons of cookies and we had tons of fun cranking them out and sharing them with our family and friends.

Hope you are having a great weekend!

Hot Colours Konadicure

Here is my latest konadicure. Sorry it's been so long since I posted but my last manicure was just plain blue, and a colour I've already posted.

I started with a coat of Orly "Bonder" - my absolute fave base coat! Then I painted my whole nail in "Cerise" - a bright pink Sally Hansen polish. Then I added a triangular shaped area in Finger Paints "Tangerine Tint" to line up with the leopard print area of plate m78.  I stamped the design in Special Black and added Seche Vite t.c. to seal the deal.

Thanks for looking! Please leave me your comments!

Savvy "Gotcha Grape"

Here's what I ended up wearing for the first day of school cuz my last mani got a big chip right before I went to bed, and then I couldn't bear starting the year with a busted up manicure!

Orly Bonder b.c.

Savvy "Gotcha Grape" 2 coats

m78 in Konad Special White

Seche Vite t.c.

The base colour is a bit sheer/streaky, but it turned out okay. I decided not to stamp all the nails because: a) I wanted to see more of the purple than the pattern left showing and b) it was getting really late and I needed sleep.

Hope all you students and teachers had a great first day back at school!

Pink & Purple Zebra

Hey guys,
here's another mani/pedi with a gradient background and animal print over top. I'm going to a party tonight and can't wait to rock this wild design.  It'll liven up my basic black dress.

I did the stamping with a dark purple special Konad polish - can you tell?

Hope everyone has a great long weekend...can't believe I am going back to work (school) in a few days!!!!

Vacation Mani/Pedi

Sorry it's been soooo long since I posted. We took the kids to Orlando to see all of the Disney Parks, Water Parks and Universal Studios/Islands of Adventure. That was such an incredible vacation - my first time there too! Anyhow, here is the mani/pedi I wore. It got lots of attention, and I really loved it, but I only took pics after wearing it for over a week, so pardon some chips and tip wear!

This design was inspired by many of my fellow bloggers who have been doing similar konadicures.  I layered a few polishes to get a gradation from lime green to bright blue. Then I used the popular leopard print plate in Konad Special Black to get the pattern on top. I just can't believe I'm still flexible enough to manage to do that on my toes too! Ha ha ha....

Purple Fancy Flight

For this Konadicure I used an older colour - Orly's "Cashmere Cardigan" which is a light lavender - but more on the dusty bluish side.

Swirls - Konad m69

Butterflies - Konad m78

Stamping done in Konad Special Purple & Silver

And now in different lighting....

The butterflies barely showed up. Boo hoo...I need to get some China Glaze Khromes soooo badly for metallic silver/gold stamping! I can never find them in Canada....

Hope you enjoyed this konadicure. Let me know what you think of it.

Have a great weekend, everybody. (Yes, I know it's only Thursday, but we're almost there!)

Lavender & Lime Eye Look

Okay, so it's really more like purple and lime, but I couldn't resist the alliteration of "lavender & lime"!

Smashbox Photofinish Lid Primer

MAC pigment in "Violet" (applied wet)

Barry M Dazzle Dust #99 (applied wet over "Violet")

MAC "Beautiful Iris" e/s on browbone and inner tear duct

MAC "Bitter" e/s to line lower lashes

MAC "Carbon"e/s to line waterline

MAC creme liner on upper lashline

MAC "Coquette" e/s to fill brows

Maybelline "The Falsies" mascara - LOVE IT!!

And now, in different lighting...

Hope you enjoy this eyeshadow look. I love these colours together. Do you?

Layered Green Konadicure

To make up for my Konad-less manicure in "Royal Navy" from last week, I did a pretty busy, layered konadicure last night.

For the base colour, I used SH "Grass Slipper", which I have posted as a plain manicure before. I used Konad Special Green and Special White to stamp the argyle, plaid and flower designs from m60 and the flower with the curly stem from m77.

I did the pinky first, but didn't like how the white plaid lightened the overall look, so I did the overall pattern on the ring finger in green, with white flowers on top. I like that pattern better. I alternated the designs on every other finger across both hands.

So, let me know which design you like better...or is this konadicure too busy for you altogether? ha ha ha...

In the Navy

I finally used Orly's "Royal Navy" which is shaping up to be one of the summer's coolest new polishes.
I tried to capture the colour accurately, and you can see some of that subtle turquoise shimmer showing through. When you are in direct sunlight, it glitters a little more.

 I took these pics next to a window.

It is such an amazing colour, that I didn't even want to Konad over it!

I couldn't resist using a spool of boondoggle (or "gimp") that I bought to make bracelets with my kids this summer.  The colour was right on!

My husband loves the colour because it matches his new car! Ha ha ha :)

Hope you enjoy this post. Let me know if you have or want this colour, and what you think of it.

Over the Top in Pink, White & Green (pic heavy)

Okay, so I know this mani is a little bonkers, but I felt like doing something fun this week.

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "White Out" and "Going Green" and S.H. New Lengths Ceramics in "Cerise".  I stamped various Konad designs in Konad Special White.

I used polka dots and bows to tie the nails together. The thumb, pinky and ring finger use all three colours together, but the pointer and middle fingers have one colour plus white dots.

The pink dots on the ring finger were made using "Cerise" and a dotting tool because I didn't have any Konad Special pink. At first I wasn't happy because the pink dots look irregular, but now I think it adds something unique to the overall look.

On the pinky, I free-handed a stripe of each colour and then added some green glitter down the centre. I got the glitters in my free sample package from Viva La Nails. I like them because they are flatter than rhinestones, but when I added topcoat, the colour from them smudged a little onto the white polish.

So, do you think this manicure belongs to an insane person? My son told me they look like nails that a clown would wear. Ha ha ha!

Have a great week, and let me know what you think of this manicure.