Orly's got the blues...BM203

Dear Readers,

For this post I decided to include a few shots of what it looks like on my kitchen table when I set up to do my manicure.

The design I used comes from Bundle Monster's plate 203.  I like the interlocking shapes - they are bold, but let enough of the base colour show.

 I used Orly Bonder to get it started. I used 2 coats of Royal Navy for the base colour. Then I used Snowcone to stamp.  Not all polishes can be used to stamp, but this one is really pigmented, so I gave it a try. Luckily it worked very well, even over a darker coloured base.

Hope you didn't mind all the pics.  Do you like more than one or two pics in a post?  I was having fun with my camera...

Please leave me a comment - it's always great to hear from you!

"Stone Cold" Stamped

Hello Dear Readers,

Here's another stamped mani I wore recently.  I used Orly's "Stone Cold" from their Mineral FX collections.  It is an amazing bright blue colour!

(click on the image to see a larger version)

I added a design on the tips using China Glaze "Millennium".

Hope you like this mani. I love hearing from you, so please leave me a comment, and I'll be sure to respond!


Have a great day. :-)

Rock Solid Rocks - One Week Later

Good Morning Dear Readers,

I cannot believe how long it has been since my last post! Going back to work (school) has really been the focus of the last two weeks, as has getting my own kids back into the routine of going to school.  But alas, one cannot go without a manicure...so my nails have been painted, just not photographed or posted about in a timely fashion.

Here is what I've been wearing for the last week.  I know you have all seen swatches from this collection already, but here are pics of my manicure anyhow... It is still in pretty good shape considering it's been on for a week already!  A bit of tip wear shows, but that's about it.  I used two coats of Orly's "Rock Solid" from their Mineral FX collection.

I bought three of the colours from this collection, and they are all impressive.  Fully opaque in two coats and one coat of Seche Vite QD pretty much smoothed out any roughness.  I always use Orly Bonder as my base coat. The other colours I purchased are "Rococo A-Go-Go" a purple and gold combo, and "Stone Cold", a dazzling bright blue.

Just look at all the glittery goodness! This is a perfect colour for the fall season. Grey but with something special.  It matches with everything you wear, too!

These polishes are more pricey than the average Orly polish, but coming in at around $10, I still think it's worth it, for the amount and quality you get.  So if you haven't purchased these yet, I'd say grab a few while you can.  I got mine at Sally's, and in Canada, I find if you don't snap up items from new collections right when you see them, they are gone, and we don't get many of each one in stock, sadly.

What's your experience snagging polish in Canada, fellow Canadian bloggers?

Have you been rocking "Rock Solid"?  

Hope you have a great weekend! TGIF!

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!

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!)

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.

Multi-Coloured Konadicure

I got inspired to do this konadicure after seeing this post on xsparkage's blog. I used different polishes than she did (cremes instead of holos) and a different Konad IP, but you can click on the above link to see what gave me the idea.


Here's my version of a multi-coloured background, with a design stamped on top:

For the base colours, I freehanded diagonal stripes in Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in "Grass Slipper" and "I Pink I Can", as well as Orly "Snowcone".  I thought these colours worked well together to create a bright, summery background for the black pattern.

You can see that I placed the colours in different orders on each nail instead of doing each nail with the three colours in the same order. 


The design I stamped is from Konad IP m60. I love these concentric circles, and I realized that I'd only ever used this pattern once before, so I figured, why not? The pattern isn't quite big enough to cover my thumb, so that looks a bit messed up, but otherwise, I really like how it turned out.

This is a new polish I just bought form the Complete Salon Manicure line.  "I Pink I Can" is a cute name and it's a light pink, but not as light as is looks in the picture. It leans a bit to the warmer side of pink.  The thick brushes in these bottles weren't that great for trying to paint diagonal lines, so I did make quite a mess, but most of it washed off my cuticle area after a few hand washes the day after I created this konadicure.

So, I hope you enjoyed this post, and maybe some of you will be inspired to try a similar konadicure yourselves.  It was a little difficult, but I think the results were worth it.  What do you think?

Polka Dots - Konad m79

Orly "Snowcone"

China Glaze "White on White"

Konad designs from IP m79 in "Snowcone" and Konad Special White

Here is a cute pastel konadicure I did last night.  I waited until this morning to take photos, but it wasn't very sunny.  These were taken indoors, beside a window so at least I could use the daylight.

I decided to create an accent nail, which I did in white, using "Snowcone" to stamp the pattern so it would match the other nails which had "Snowcone" as the base colour.  I used the dots from m79 on most of the nails, and then thought the dots, lines and flower pattern on the same plate would pick up the dots and add something extra for the accent nail.

I'm really happy with how this turned out.  Please let me know how you like it, and enjoy the rest of your weekend!