Matted Action

Wowee things are busy over here! Internship, grad classes, working, and planning a wedding keep me running! I've still been doing my nails and taking pictures, but time to write posts is lacking. I had a free minute here and really wanted to update!

Below are some pictures of Zoya FeiFei and Zuza, Nubar 2010 and Nails
Inc. The Wyndham, matted with Essie Matte About You.

Sorry for the short post!! I'll try to get better with this!

-Amanda

Flakies- The Best Kind of Love

What's the best kind of love, you might ask? Ah, what a question! In my opinion, a love that is slowly stoked , gradually growing without notice until it erupts in a blaze of glory and passion is the best kind of love. When it comes to flakies and nail polish, I have that kind of love.

When I first saw pictures of flakies and nail polish, I was intrigued. They glowed and were quite beautiful. I bought 2 polishes- Nubar 2010 and Nails Inc. The Wyndham. I tried them over the standard black polish and was less than enthused.

Well, the other night I was hunting for some polish to do a new manicure with and found my 2 lone flakies sitting in the box. I figured I'd give them another go around and try them layered together since I didn't care for them alone. I then reached for Zoya Petra- this muddy plum color that just looks amazing with my skin (dark colors usually look horrible on me for whatever reason, so Petra is like a Holy Grail when it comes to a darker polish). I knew I needed to try these polishes together!

Now, I did not have my camera handy for picture taking and had to make use of my phone's camera. Sorry it's not as clear as normal, but the glowy goodness of the flakies do enough talking to compensate for poor picture quality.

Pictured below are 2 coats of Petra, with 2010 and The Wyndham layered over with top coat to seal it all.

                                                                           (indoors)

 (indirect sunlight)

(indirect sunlight)

So yeah, I'm super happy I gave flakies another try. It's safe to say I'm hooked!

Hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

-Amanda

New Challege! The Lazy Days of Summer #1- Beach Themed

I knew I wanted to join up with this challenge as soon as there was talk of it in our Facebook group. The same ladies, as well as some new ones, teamed up to do a Summer themed challenge! Woo!

How fun does that all sound?! I was planning on starting the same time as everyone else, but they increased my hours at work, and my grad summer classes all had these crazy big assignments due at the same time! THEN I got sick! I'm feeling slightly better, but man- a cold in the summer is just horrible. I have a presentation in class tonight and my voice is virtually non-existent! 

Anyway, I wanted to make myself feel better, and something that always makes me happy is the beach. I love the sound of the waves, the feel of the air, the breeze....sighhhhh.

Anyway, I sucked it up and began the challenge! 

For the beach theme, I went with what I think of first when I hear the word "beach"- water, sand, and sparkle. There's just something about the way everything at the beach just glistens in the sunshine! I tried to reproduce it on my nails. I began with 2 coats of Nubar Blue Hydrangea, then went and did the tips in uneven strokes with China Glaze Fast Track. Then, on Blue Hydrangea only, I used Rainbow Honey Celestia (holy crap, this polish is amazing. I'll be doing a post on it in the near future!), and then went back in and applied a bit of All That Glitters Jean Genie. I finished the whole thing off with some Seche Vite. Have a look:

Not exactly what I had in mind, but it works just fine.

If you would like to see more designs from The Lazy Days of Summer challenge, check out these other ladies:

Victoria Vertel

http://www.manicurator.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Manicurator

Alyson Epstein

http://beadsnailsfood.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/BeadsNailsFood

Amanda Murphy

http://mandyspolish.blogspot.com/

Hannah Fabiny

http://polished-prisms.blogspot.com

http://www.facebook.com/PolishedPrisms

Sue O'Connor

http://creativenaildesignbysue.blogspot.com 

Katee Baum

http://www.agirlandherpolish.com

http://www.facebook.com/AGirlandHerPolish

Charlotte-Louise Bennett

http://charlottes-nails.blogspot.co.uk/

Jessica Francis

http://nearlynaturalnails.blogspot.com

https://www.facebook.com/NearlyNaturalNails

Karine Assemien

http://karinea0a.blogspot.com 

Jen Guin

http://thepolishedzombie.blogspot.com

Jessica Brown

http://jessicasnailtales.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/JessicasNailTales

Ashley Rowlands-Vanderzande

http://onenailtoanother.blogspot.ca

Pryanka Arora

http://nailsparks.blogspot.com/

Anna Freedman, Erin Obriecht, Robin Storesund

http://www.polishedcousins.com

http://www.facebook.com/PolishedCousins

Maribeth Robienczak

http://obsessivecosmetichoardersunite.blogspot.com/

Kayono Lan (aka Johanna)

http://kayonolan.blogspot.de/

Sharra Farivar

http://alira23.blogspot.ca/search/label/Polished%20Prisms%20The%20Lazy%20Days%20of%20Summe\

Nichole Mowery

http://aotnf.blogspot.com

Stephanie Oblas

http://alittlepolish.blogspot.com

Thanks for reading!

-Amanda

ASBMF Challenge #11- Eggs and Chicks

Ahh....this challenge. I really wasn't looking forward to doing this particular challenge. Why? Well...mostly because it's May and I feel like wearing bright colors and glittery things and eggs and chicks just screams muted colors to me. So, I thought to myself- how can I make this less Eastery....more any time of the year? I came up with the idea of doing a little baby blue bird instead of a baby chicken. I hope that's okay!
For the egg portion, I decided to show it in varying states of breaks.
I think the idea looked better in my head, but I'm IN LOVE with my baby bird!! I wish I had done more!

I was so nervous about drawing my little bird! He came out super cute though!

Tried to make it look like he just broke free from his egg. 

I wish my egg lines had come out better. My hand was shaking so badly today and caused me to smudge them. So frustrating!

For this, I used a base coat of Sinful Colors- Snow Me White, I drew the eggs with SoEasy Stripe Rite in black, the bird was hand drawn with Zoya Yummy, accented with Nubar Blue Hydrangea, and beak and tootsies were done with Essence Mellow Yellow.

I hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

-Amanda

ASBMF Challenge #6- Ombre

On to the sixth challenge! I can't believe I'm moving along so quickly now!
So an ombre design means staying with one color and simply doing a gradient with it. It can be done one of two ways. You can do a gradient on each nail with different sponging techniques, or you can do what I did. I chose to go from light to dark on one hand. Take a look:

I chose the color blue with which to do my ombre. I just love blue. I really thought I had more blue options to choose from, but what you see are what worked best together. My pointer and middle finger look like the same color in this picture, but in real life, they look nothing alike. I had to use my flash and it skewed some of the colors, but I think you get the idea. Also, fun fact of the day, the color on my index finger (Zoya Breezi) is my new favorite color. I had gotten it back in December when Zoya was doing all of their amazing flash promotions and never used it! It's amazing. If you don't have it and you love blues/teals- get it!

Here is another shot of the ombre:

Lastly, here is what I used to accomplish this fun look:

(From left to right- Orly Bonder (as base), Seche Vite (topcoat), NYX Girls Blue Ink (it's a jelly!), Zoya Breezi, Zoya Yummy, Orly Snowcone, and Nubar Blue Hydrangea


Hope you enjoyed,
Thanks for reading!

ASBMF- Day 3- Glitter Sammy

So, interesting discovery of the day? I only have ONE jelly finish nail polish! I was appalled...but told myself it's okay and that I only need one to complete this challenge. I've never once done a glitter sammy (which I think is obvious since I only have one jelly polish) and I was excited to try something new!

For those of you who may not know what a glitter sandwich manicure is, I'll explain quickly. It's when you take a jelly finish nail polish (a polish that is less opaque than a normal polish and has a very distinct squishy appearance to it). On top of your jelly polish, you apply a glitter polish (preferably one that is suspended in a clear base) and then complete with one more coat of the jelly polish. The resulting look is suppose to be as if you can look into your nail forever, observing layers and layers of gorgeous glitter that rests, suspended in your jelly polish. 

For mine, I began with 2 coats of NYX Girls Ink Heart. This is a stunning inky, glowing jelly blue polish. I adore this polish. I decided to layer lots of glitters, so on top of Ink Heart, I put a coat of Nubar 2010- mostly because I wanted an excuse to use a flakie. On top of that, I put a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust- a lovely holographic glitter. My last glitter addition was Wet n Wild's Party of Five Glitter. I finished the whole thing with one coat of Ink Heart and a coat of Seche Vite to seal it.

I'm going to say I prefer the manicure without the last coat of Ink Heart- yes, I know that "unsandwiches" the manicure, but it was really better. Take a look:

I just want to say sorry about my camera. It's dying I think. It decides to only focus in on the pinky and ring finger in most pictures today. But, you can really see the holographic goodness in the middle and pointer fingers
Here's a close up on my thumb, pre-sandwiching. I'm saddened that Nubar 2010 sort of died in the layering, but before I applied Party of Five Glitter, it looked amazing with Fairy Dust. I should have taken a picture of that!

Alright, let's finish up with a bunch of sammy eye candy!

I hope you enjoyed!

Thanks for reading!

-Amanda

Happy Easter!

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with your families! I just wanted to quickly share my Easter nails with you. These are not only my holiday nails, but are also the first result of a nail challenge! I've never done one before and have truly wanted to. For those of you who may not know what a nail challenge is, let me do my best to explain. Someone comes up with an overall topic for nail art and then breaks it down into a specific challenge for each day/week/month. Bloggers and non-bloggers alike are more than welcome to participate and it's just amazing to see the different works of art that each individual makes for that day's/week's/month's topic! The one I'm participating in was created by Hannah over at Polished Prisms. It's a spring themed challenge and it's AMAZING! She shared it in a group we're in on Facebook and the response to participate was a resounding YES!

Here is what her challenge consists of:

(Image taken from Polished Prisms)

As you can see, it's a fun challenge, and extremely laid back! No need to do a new design every day if that's not what you want to do! If you would like to participate, be sure to head on over to the Facebook page here, and request to join. You can see what everyone else is up to and share what you've created!

Alright, enough jabber, let's get to the nails!

As you can see, challenge #1 is Spring Pastels. I thought I had more pastels, but in the end, I had enough to get the job done!

I knew I wanted to do something girly and fun for Easter and pastels seemed like a great way to go, so I was able to knock out challenge #1 and an Easter manicure at the same time! I chose to do a skittle manicure (every nail a different color, but still in the same tone/color family) and I'm in love with my dotting tools so that had to happen. 

I used the same colors throughout. The base colors on my nails are as follows:
Thumb- Essence You Belong to Me
Index- Zoya Sweet
Middle- Essence A Lovely Secret (I just need to say how much of a SURPRISE this polish was! Never would have guessed this sparkly deep gorgeousness would come out of this tiny bottle!)
Ring- Essence Mellow Yellow
Pinky- Nubar Blue Hydrangea

Then with my dotting tool, I just layered the colors. I have to say I'm pretty happy with my Easter/April Showers Bring May Flowers Challenge #1 designs!

I hope you all have a wonderful day, and thanks for reading!
-Amanda

More Stamping

Stamping. I think I'll master it some day. I also think I'll master the art of cleaning up my cuticles and whatnot after painting my nails. I don't think today is the day for either of those things, but it doesn't keep me from trying to make a decent manicure...disregard the paint on the hands please.

This came out a little more differently than I had hoped. I expected the green to retain it's duochrome capabilities but it didn't. I wish it had been darker. But still, not horrible.
This is Nubar Blue Hydrangea. I used Konad plate m83 and Zoya Gemma.

A closer view.

You can see the bottle here. I LOVE Nubar bottles. So easy to use and super cute. All the Nubar polishes I own (all 4 of them) were recently purchased on Amazon. Great use of a purchase.

This is the manicure I did today. I wanted some colors that would really pop so that I could see how good the Bundle Monster stamp plates really are. I LOVE them! My fiancé had gotten them for me for my birthday. He's a sweetheart :-D
This is Sally Hansen White Out. I used Bundle Monster plate BM-204. I used Ulta Moody Blues for the stamp as well. I love the result. It reminds me of a Polish pottery type design.

 

The pinky is without a doubt my favorite. I ended up having to use my dotting tool for a few fingers because I placed the design too far down on the nail for my liking. I added a few blue dots to fill the space.

Thanks for reading!