Gemma & BM 202

Hello Dear Readers,

Here is last week's manicure.  I started with the lovely "Gemma" from Zoya.  Two coats form the base of this mani.

 (click on pics to view larger images)

Then I added the pattern from Bundle Monster plate 202. I used Konad Special Black for the stamping.

If you look at the thumb/pink, you can see I had a few problems keeping the pattern from breaking up or stretching, but I still like how it turned out, overall.

Hope you are having a great week.  Please leave me some feedback, if you have a minute.

Thanks,
glitterM

Bundle Monster 206

Hello dear readers,

I'm up early today because we are taking our son to board the bus to sleepover camp this morning for his first time away for a whole month...Let's just say I'm a bit freaked out!!!!!


Anyhow, here is another green manicure.  I don't know why I was in the mood to use green again...

For this manicure I used China Glaze "White on White" as the base colour. I only used one coat, which was a bit streaky, but I knew it would mostly be covered with this full nail pattern from the newest Bundle Monster plate 206.

I used Konad Special Polish is green for the stamping.  Then I used my dotting tool to apply small dots of a neon pink, aptly, if not very creatively, called "Pink" by Sinful Colors.  I topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite Quick Dry, as I always do!

The only thing I really don't like about how this turned out is that some nails have a white border that shows around the cuticle. You can see it on the thumb in the photo below. Oh well...

Enjoy your long weekend, everyone!  (Can you recognize what kind of soap I'm holding? I bought a huge package of these bars, but both of my sons hate it!)

Remember to leave me some comments because I love hearing from you all! ;-)

Snakeskin BM Manicure

Dear Readers,

I finished marking all of my exams and doing all of my report cards so I had time to do a really elaborate manicure, and here are the results of more free time...

I painted diagonal stripes, roughly, using Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in "Grass Slipper"  - a lime green that applies nearly opaque in 1 coat, and S.H. Insta-Dri in "Blue-Away"- a powder blue that applies similarly.  I randomly applied a few thin streaks of China Glaze "L8R G8R" - a holo olive green - to add some dimension.  Then, I stamped the pattern using Finger Paints "Evergreen Dream" (in the photo above) which is a shimmery dark green that is quite thin, but, surprisingly, it worked great for stamping!

Just in case that wasn't enough going on, I added a coat of Inglot 203, and holographic flaky polish.

I really think this has the look of snakeskin, and the texture too - just not sure if a snake this colour exists in nature!?

Have a great weekend, everyone, and let me know what you think of my latest design.

EOTD - Lemon Lime Eyeshadow Look

Hey all,

it's been quite some time since I posted my EOTD.  Here's one I did - a lemon/lime smokey eye kind of look.

I used MAC "Canary Yellow" in the inside corner.
I used MAC "Kelly" (a bright green) on the lid.
I used MAC "Riot" (deeper green) in the crease.
I used MAC "Carbon" (black) on the outer "V".

I used a random whitish shimmery shadow from an unlabelled NYX palette for my highlight.
I used MAC creme liner in black.
I used MAC "Coquette" to fill in the brows.

Hope you like this look... I love wearing colourful eyeshadow! Do you?

"Double Bling" Mint Sorbet Manicure

Hi everyone,

this manicure is one of the "thickest" I have ever done. I layered two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Mint Sorbet".  It is one of the worst polishes I've ever used. It was very gloppy and streaky all at once. It went on thick and then seemed to dissolve as I went over it.  I thought it would never dry, and I should have just aborted the whole mission, but I wanted to use this colour at least once since I just bought it!

Then I layered a coat of Nubar "Martini", an awesome pale green holographic glitter polish that has tiny glitter as well as bigger pentagonal silver glitter.

I should have probably stopped there, but I don't know what possessed me.  I decided, "more is more" and added another new polish I bought.  I slapped on more glitter in the form of  Sally Hansen Insta Dri "Snappy Sprinkles" which has both pinkish and green strips of glitter in a kind of thick sheer pink base.

The glitter in "Snappy Sprinkles" goes on a bit unevenly, so I just blobbed it on and pushed it around.  It dries really bumpy, with pieces of the glitter sticking up, so I needed two coats of Seche Vite to smooth it out.  It's still a bit "textured" shall we say, but at least all the layers did dry!

I'm not sure I even like this manicure, after all that... And, I know for sure it will be a royal pain to get all that glitter off!

Well, what do you think of this manicure? Please let me know...

Lightning Bolt Crackle

I went to Sally's this week, just in time to grab a few of the only bottles of China Glaze's crackle collection that they got in stock. Sadly, these collections come out later in Canada than in the U.S., and they seem to be in short supply.

I used the white crackle called "Lightning Bolt" and though I've seen great swatches on other blogs, I was a bit disappointed with this polish. I applied it over Sally Hansen's "Grass Slipper" and it turned out looking yellow or light green instead of staying true white.  I'll have to give it another shot over other base colours to see if I can get it to stay looking white.

In the end, the effect looks cool, but I wanted it to look true white. I even applied a second coat of it after the first coat finished cracking, but it still appears yellow. The bottle I got seemed really watery too.

So far I like the Barry M special effects crackle polish I have in black much better than China Glaze's version, but I would still like to experiment a bit more with this polish and also try some of the other crackle polishes by China Glaze before I give up on them.

Has anybody else had this problem?

Crazy Argyle

For this konadicure, I painted three vertical stripes of polish - lime green, bright green and royal blue.

Then I stamped the argyle pattern across the whole nail using Konad Special White.  It's a design from m60, one of the first plates I bought.

When I applied Seche Vite QD topcoat, the white pattern over the lime green polish kind of turned yellowish.

This one is a real attention-grabber!  It has generated a lot of positive feedback and many questions about how I did it! I love how it turned out.

Hope you like this konadicure....Please leave me some comments!

Green Houndstooth Konadi

Here is my current Konadicure. I used Orly's Enchanted Forest and stamped it with Konad Special Polish in Silver.  The stamping looks a bit bluish for some reason.

The design is the cool houndstooth pattern from IP m63.

As usual, I used Orly Bonder basecoat and Seche Vite quick dry topcoat. I find that combination makes my polish last longer than it takes for me to get bored of my design! Yep, it's lasted a week already, including a lot of hand-washing!

Thanks for looking...please leave me a comment. :-)

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!

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....

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...

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.

EOTD - Brights!

This look may not be everyone's cup of tea, but sometimes I love doing a really bright eye look.

The four main shadows I used to create this look are 4 colours by MAC. 

Bitter = bright lime green (on the lid)

Riot = matte darker green (in the crease and outer corner)

Carbon = black (a bit on outer edge) 

Tilt = frost bright blue (over Lapis eyeliner by Annabelle)

Oh yeah, I used a black kohl liner on the waterline and a thin line of MAC's creme liner in black on the top lash line.  

To get a sharp edge on the outer corner, some people use tape, but I just hold a piece of paper towel against my eye and shadow over the straight edge of it.  It doesn't irritate my skin like ripping off tape would, and it's slightly softened, which I like.

So, do you like this look or is it too much for you? Would you ever wear this, yourself?

Thanks for looking, and I hope you are all enjoying Father's Day!

Beads & Bows - Konad m76 & m77

Barry M "Mint Green" (2 coats)

Konad designs in Special White

For this konadicure, I used Barry M's "Mint Green" which is a great polish that fits with the pastel trend many polish brands are showing this spring.  (Notice the Barry M green glitter dust in my hand?)

Then I used two designs, one from m76 and the other from m77, since they both featured bows.  I added three little glass balls in the centre of the bows. I found these in the dollar store. I guess they weren't really meant for manicures, because after I applied topcoat to the tiny green beads, the colour seemed to melt off.

I wore this to work today and got a few compliments.  Isn't it fun when people notice your little masterpieces?

I hope you have a great week and that you enjoy this konadicure.  Let me know what you think of it...

Grassy Green Konadicure - m77

"Grass Slipper"- Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure

Konad m77 in Special Black

Orly Gold Prisma Gloss - glitter over mid-section

Seche Vite t.c. / Orly Bonder b.c.

I found the design didn't quite fill up my thumb so I added some flowers 

(can't remember which plate they are from) on the side of each thumb. 

See the detail shot below.

I know I used this colour recently, but when I used it last, I didn't get around to stamping any designs on it, so I wanted to give it another go.  I also chose this colour because I was going out of town, and, believe it or not, this colour actually matched all the clothes I was packing.  Why do I have so much slime green clothing???? I don't know.