Peace & Love

Happy Wednesday! I have been playing with this idea in my head for a while. I TRIED to do a another mani, but I need a whole lot more time for it. I think that will be my weekend project. (Stay tuned for that one). One of my favorite pieces of jewelry ever is a necklace that I have that has a dove (my favorite) and a blinged out peace sign. It's very similar to this one. I combined this idea and my favorite tee and came up with today's mani:

Index:

BM07 stamped with Konad black over MAC Obey Me

Middle:

WnW Black Creme with silver dots from bornpretty. I LOVE that Black Creme is a one coater! My "&" sign came out a bit lopsided :(

(Edit)

Ok, so here is a quick tutorial on how I did the ampersand. Since I had only done one coat of Black Creme, it was pretty much dry by the time I got to my middle finger (I did this finger last). With my dotting tool I scratched on to the nail where my design would be to use it as a guide. I then traced about the length of where 2-3 balls would go at a time (so that it wouldn't dry) and just pasted one little ball at a time. This one nail was actually alot faster than I originally anticipated. I found that when the balls started to dry, they actually dried as a "string". Once I was done with the design, I went back and just lightly repositioned the "strings" to where I wanted them to go (as they were easier to manipulate because they were already stuck together) instead of trying to move them around as I was placing them on the nail. Then I applied 2 coats of SV to "seal" the design in.

Ring:

Dotted heart using Milani Red Sparkle over Zoya Kelly

Pinky:

MAC Obey Me

I'm in a very Beatles mood today :)

Everytime I wear Kelly I remember why I love it so much! It's just sooo pretty.

So....here goes one from the vault:

It was Christmas-time, can you tell???

Thanks for looking!

Spring is On It's Way

We had the most perfect weather all weekend! Mid 70's and clear skies. How can I not be inspired? Nothing says Spring is here like the birds and the bees :)

For this mani I used OPI The "It" Color. It's a bit sheer, so this is 3 coats. Not the easiest color to work with, but totally worth it in the end; it reminds me of egg-yolks :)


A while back I ordered some heart rhinestones, pearls, and a set of dotting tools from BornPretty and they FINALLY came in. I couldn't wait to use the dotting tool. This was the smallest dot. I used BM20 to stamp my thumb with Konad Polish. I was going to do my whole nail, but I'm a bit hung over so I did not have the patience to tape it off or try and restamp my thumb. Plus, I think the off angle shows off my lil' bee's stinger more :) The black dots were done with WnW Black Creme and the daisies were dotted with WnW French White Creme. The flowers were really easy to do, just one center dot followed by dotting the petals. Since the polish was still wet, the rhinestone went on without the need for the usual clear polish to make it adhere. I applied a coat of SV to seal all the colors in. In total this took about 30 minutes (3 coats take a while to dry)


I REALLY hope the weather stays this way for a while. DH is coming home this week so I hope we can enjoy some quality outdoor time with Bella before it gets too hot. (Houston weather is brutal in the summer).


Thanks for looking:)


                                                    

Nail Art Challenge (Days 19, 20, and 21)

Hey everyone! How are ya'll doing? It seems like forever since I posted anything so I have a few posts to put up. Bare with me :) I'm still two days behind....I will dedicate a full day to nail art one day to catch up. Ok so let me get started. Day 19 was a total bust. I started off with Essie Splash of Grenadine. I love the Kardashian sisters' nails, they always have the nicest nails. Khloe posted it here. Although on me it looks way lighter for some reason:

I used BM20 and SH Coral Rush. This is an excellent np to stamp with. Actually all of the Insta-Dris seem to be really good for stamping. Perfect one-coaters too. Here is my end result:

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I will file this mani under the FAIL category. I really dislike this one. I think the coral color was too much for the base and it just looks off. Maybe if I had picked a lighter color they wouldn't have clashed so much. Oh well, you can't win them all (-_-)



Day 20:

With all the holo craze going on lately I decided to pull out an untried. This is Milani HD. I tried OPI DS Coronation and I loved it. This one is even better in my opinion. The holo is way more apparent and scattered. It's a bit sheer. I only did 2 coats, but I'm sure had I done another one, it would have been completely opaque. Here it is alone:

Most of my manis are done at night since I wait until Bella is asleep so I rarely have sun pics. This pic does not do it justice AT ALL! I did some Konad Zebra Stripes with their "special" polish.

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I liked this one the best out of the three I'm posting. I think this would look majorly FIERCE with a LBD! :::insert sexy growl here::: The holo is also a little more apparent in this pic. I am so glad I invested in the black Konad polish. I have the worst luck trying to stamp with black and this makes it a whole lot easier to get crisp, clean lines.

Day 21:

You know how sometimes you have this idea in your head and you THINK it's gonna look super cute..then you actually do it and you HATE it?? This is totally one of those days. So I really like french manis. I think it's a cute way to do something subtle. I've been wanting to try the BM french tips. It seemed like a good idea :|



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I have a bad habit of not putting my polishes up after I use them. I have this box I keep what I'm gonna use for the day in. This was there, so I thought....why not? I used CHG Hologram and stamped it with SH Coral Rush. (Can you tell I'm on a holo trip? LOL) It looks kinda Christmasy to me.

Ok...that was a looong post. Thanks for making it to the end.

Nail Art Challenge (Day 15 & 16)/ Glow in the Dark Ring

So yesterday I spent most of the afternoon making rings. I don't know how, but I managed to stab myself in the face with my pliers. Ha! I think I was so afraid to break a nail that I'm almost glad it was my face and not my hands. Sick huh? I had to make up for the day I missed so I applied a BM stamp to my already applied color (SH Blue Me Away).

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I know I said I was gonna stick to greens for the month, but the day was soooo pretty..I just had to do a blue! Once I took that off I was fully planning on doing a nude. Do you ladies watch The Bachelor? Well, Monday I watched the finale and I just loved Emilie's nails. The opaque-almost white look looked gorgeous on her. After reading around a bit I found a couple of colors that I wanted to try and I fully intended to use one of those. Buuut...since I THOUGHT St. Patty's was today, I went with OPI Jade is the New Black. 


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What a poor excuse for nail art, huh? I used the gold Konad special polish to stamp the clover. I think overall this week has been a bit off for me. But, today is my Friday; major PLUS! The whole ring making threw me off, so as a little extra...here is one of the rings I made yesterday:

The owner of the bead shop said she had just gotten these in and that they were glow in the dark. Who doesn't want their jewelry to glow in the dark?!? How cool is this stone?? I'm a total nerd and this reminded me of Lex Luther stealing Kryptonite from the art museum in Superman Returns. Ha!

Side Note:

I really need to figure out how to stamp twice on the same nail. I'm not sure how the ladies with really long nails do it to get overall coverage (other than with the XL stamps). What techniques do you use to fully stamp your nail if the plate is too small?

Nail Art Challenge (Day 14)

This time change is horrible! I almost overslept and my daughter did NOT want to cooperate with me to get out of bed. UGH!! I hope all your Mondays are going better than mine is. Here is today's mani.

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I was going to use scotch tape for the tips, but decided I might as well try something new. I did the tips with a brush and acetone. My ring finger is still shorter than the rest of my nails, so this was a nice was to disguise that. The tips are done in SH Lickety-Lime Split. How gorgeous is this color!?! Again, I used BM03 for the shamrock. The dots were done using the dotting tool. I TRIED to have them go from bigger-smaller, but they all ended up being the same size. Both were done using SH Emerald City. I have all these little ridges on my nails. I really need to use some Biotin or something. Maybe drink more water. I'm not really sure what's it due to or if anyone else has this problem.

Do you ladies have ridges like these on your nails?

Thanks for reading :)

L

Nail Art Challenge (Day 10)

Hey everyone! Ok, I just wanna start off by saying coming up with new ideas every day is hard! (Hence the word CHALLENGE I guess, lol) I completely drew a blank as far as what to do today. I started off with Forever 21's Love & Beauty in Olive Green.

It has a bit of a foil-y finish to it. The first coat went on a bit sheer, but was almost completely opaque after the second coat. Not a bad deal for $2.50!

Day 10 was really tough for me. I spent all day trying to figure out what I would do to this color. I finally went with flowers since I've never done then before.

This is not one of my favs, like at all! It kind of reminds me of grandma curtains of cushions for some reason. Although my grandma had neither, she had those god awful plastic covered couches. Ha!


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The 3D accents are my little silver balls. They're surprisingly easy to work with. I use the end of my dotting tool, dip it in clear np, then pick up a little ball, and voila! I swear by the Konad Special Polishes. I know alot of ladies do some wonderful things with regular polish, my skills are just not that good. It takes me forever to stamp, and by the time I'm ready to stamp the np has already dried. So these are good for me. A bit pricey I must say, but worth it :)

What kind of polish do you find the best to stamp with??

Laura :)

Nail Art Challenge (Day 4)

Still recovering from a Bella induced cold/flu, so I just spruced up my NOTD (Opi Done out in Deco) with a BM stamp and accent thumb with Zoya Dannii.

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I had tried some other random design on my right hand, which came out HORRIBLE! So this is the elusive left hand (flipped cause it looked really weird the right way). I'm going to the Rodeo tomorrow...so I have NO idea what to wear tomorrow. I will keep you updated...



Nail Art Challenge (Day 2)

I'm gonna try and use all the greens I have. How cute is this green? It's the HAPPY/EARTHY Mood Polish from Claire's. This is how it looks with my regular "mood" :/ (Mood is fancy for hot/cold, lol)

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Cold (would that be sad??)

Hot/ (Happy??)

Happy Wednesday everyone :)

Nail Art Challenge (Day 1)

So a few girls decided to do a challenge. Post a new nail art picture for 31 days. I thought it might be fun to at least TRY and do it...



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Worn is Puddle Hop and BM19.

I'm home sick from work. I feel like total crap, so this color cheers me up a bit. Happy Wednesday :)

Read up on the Challenge HERE

 



Wonder Woman Nails

I was so excited when I was told on MUA that these were out. So, I called MAC and to my surprise they had them in stock.


How ADORABLE are these!?!?

SPIRIT OF TRUTH/OBEY ME

I actually really like both of these colors. The colors are so rich. SCORE for MAC!!!

Obey Me is actually a bit jellyish so there is a slight VNL after 2 coats. I really like this shade of red. Most reds tend to make my hands look really orange, or the red itself pulls orange because of my olive complexion. This stayed red and didn't give me lobster hands. The bottle is just to die for...so that's a plus.

I was surprised at Spirit of Truth. This is a total one coater, and I imagine that it would be pefect for stamping. I love the bottle so much, I doubt that I will be "wasting" it on stamping. I used two coats here, but only because my application was so crappy that I wanted to make sure it pictured true to color. Also, how clever are the names??

I decided to play around with some WW nail art....what do you think??

Have a great weekend everyone...xox...L

Artsy Thursdays: Cupcake Nails

I did this last Friday, but I decided to wait until Thursday to post this. I'm giving myself a MUA 3 year anniversary mani. This was insipired this. Not sure what I'm gonna do yet though :|

Gahhh this took forever to do! But...I think this was because it was my first time doing something 3D (ring finger)

Thumb:

2 coats of OPI Show it and Glow it! over 1 coat of LA Girl Matte Lilac.

Index:

Sinful Beautiful Girl. BM20 plate with Konad Special White Polish

Middle:

LA Girl Matte Lilac

(Stripes) Matter Lilac and Beautiful Girl, (Cupcake) Sally Hansen French Tip White.

Pinky:

Matte Lilac with BM19 plate

I used these little silver 3D balls from Sally's.

I hope you like it. Happy Thursday

xox...L



BM/Konad Cheat Sheets

When I decided to start stamping I had NO idea how many stamps there were...ahhh the choices!!! (>.<)

I started off with the Bundlemonster image plates because I was super hesitant to shell out $7 per plate on something that might not even work for me. So...I went on Amazon and purchased the 21 plate set for $17.99. Even then, I didnt have a good idea of what I was getting....here are some cheatsheets in case you want to know what comes in the BM set.

 

I also picked up a few Konad plates at my local mall. I'm lucky enough to have a kiosk so I can see them in person and know what I'm buying beforehand. 







M1-43

















M44-81

 
















S2-10

I hope this helps!!