Winstonia Hearts

So I pretty much suck at stamping,

but every now and then I'll try it.

Here's a time that I've tried it and it actually looks somewhat okay!

Here's a cute heart pattern from one of my Winstonia plates:

I used CG's 'Cranberry Splash' as a base,

Sally Hansen's 'White On' to stamp with,

and Winstonia plate W102.

The white wasn't as bold as I would have liked,

but the pattern still transfered okay :)

Yay!

Creepy Jack

I don't often do stamping because i'm just not very good at it,

but I do like stamping.

So, I decided to attempt to use a couple stamps from my new Winstonia plates.

Here's what I came up with:

This is 2 coats of Zoya 'Thandie' with Konad black stamping polish

& Winstonia plate W116

I like that the stamp is smudged a little

and that the topcoat made it run some-

it looks even creepier to me that way :)

Anyway, that's my stamping for the month, probably

haha.

I may have a go at another one; we'll see.

Sleek acid raver's look & nails!

Happy Monday!

So one thing i LOVE about summer is all the neons.

I bought Sleek's Acid Palette not that long ago,

and have been itching to use it.

Also, i love going to shows (be they raves, dnb, edm, what have you- i'm actually seeing FLux Pavilion, Skism, & Ana Sia this weekend :DDD)

and often times neon is everywhere there.

Keeping both these things in mind,

here's the look I created using Sleek's Acid Palette.

I used:

Too Faced's Shadow Insurance

 unnamed neon yellow, orange, pink, & green from Sleek Acid Palette

Covergirl Line Exact liquid eyeliner

L'Oreal Voluminous Million Lashes

You can see I had some issues with fallout that I just couldn't get cleaned up properly,

but i'll get it next time.

I was VERY impressed with these shadows.

When I initially swatched them,

I wasn't sure how pigmented they would actually be...

but they blew me away.

Super pigmented & were easy to work with, even for mattes.

Also, (despite the primer) their staying power was amazing.

Next up,

some neon nails with crappy stamping!

Yes, those are aviators.

I attempted to stamp them in a slanty pattern but that went bust.

Though the stamping sucks,

I liked being fun in painting each nail a different neon.

ORLY 'Melt Your Popsicle'- pointer

CG's 'Yellow Polka Dot Bikini'- middle

CG's 'Pink Voltage'- ring

CG's 'In the Limelight'- pinky

Winstonia plate W109  w/ black Konad stamping polish

What are your thoughts on this look & the crappy stamping mani?! 

:)

Shrooms!

Unknowingly, I have been on a hippy streak.

T'as not planned, despite was yesterday was!

Anyway, I have some fun stamping for you today.

I'm slowly but surely getting better at stamping,

but still have a lot of work to do.

I wanted to use my new Winstonia plates some more,

so here's ya go!

This is Winstonia plate W110 in Konad black stamping polish 

over China Glaze's 'Flip Flop Fantasy',

which is one of my top 10 favorite polishes :)

I LOVED these little toadstools.

It's so cute, fun, and different that I didn't want to take it off.

What do you guys think about this stamp?

Stamping & drugstore haul

Hellooooooo.

I actually have some decent stamping for you today!

:O I know- it's shocking.

I've been wanting to try another Covergirl polish since I was so impressed last time.

I also half-heartedly gave stamping another go,

and i'm pleased with how it came out.

Here's 2 coats of 'Golden Opportunity' stamped with Konad plate 

(I know this last one is blurry, but I wanted you to see the full effect.)

'Golden Opportunity' is a champagne gold foil. It didn't last anywhere near as long as 'Constant Candy', but it's still a great polish!

As for the stamp, i don't even like paisleys, but I found myself liking this pattern against the gold.

POLISH INFORMATION

Brand: Covergirl

Type: Metallic Foil

Formula: Great!

Opacity (1-5): 4

Application: Awesome!

Price:  $5

Get This: any local drugstore or large super market like Walmart & Target

What do you guys think of the pattern & combo?

ALSO,

i gave in & purchased the entire Sinful Colors' Sugar Rush collection :P

AND some St. Patrick's Day polishes:

Can't wait to show you these!

I freaking love pastels.

ANDDDDDDDDDD,

for those of you that have actually read my post-

i have a little surprise gift for you here in this 'hidden' giveaway!

Enjoy! :)

Some Santa Stamping

Hey everyone!

It's been a long time since i'd done any stamping

(mainly because i'm no good at it),

but I thought i'd try my hand at some festive Christmas stamping the other day.

I used a stamp from the Konad stamping plate I had in my most recent giveaway.

Here's Santa over 2 coats of Color Club's 'Berry and Bright'.

** Let me go ahead and ask you to forgive my middle finger. The darn thing chipped right before I took these pictures & I didn't have time to fix it ://

'Berry and Bright' is a vivacious red shimmer with blue/purple flecks that can be seen in sunlight. You can kind of see it here, but not as clearly as it looks in real life. 'Berry and Bright' is part of CC's Winter Affair collection. So far I have tried 3 different polishes from this collection, and loved them ALL.

The Santa & Merry Christmas stamp are from Konad stamping plate m12 using white Konad polish.

I attempted the 'merry christmas' stamp a dozen times- and this was the best out of them all. Sad. But my stamping skills are going to be lackluster until I practice with them more, which I never seem to have time to do :/

I liked this mani okay. It was fun and gave me a chance to use my new stamping plate,

but I'm not crazy about it. The plate and the polish are great, I just don't like how I've used them together here.

What do you guys think?

BLOGIVERSARY GIVEAWAY!

WHATSUP WHATSUP!

So, my Blogiversary is coming up (dec 5) and what better way to celebrate that than to have a giveaway to YOU, my followers who make all this possible!

It's hilarious to look back at my first few months of posts,

as i was a TOTAL noob in the nail world (well, I still kind of am)
 and still experimenting in the makeup department...

Anyway, practice makes perfect!

So, even though November has just started,

I want to get a jump start on Christmas!

I want the winner to be able to receive these in plenty of time before Christmas so they can use them.

I'm going back to nail polish this time,

but I'm also throwing in a item that was suggested by one of my followers!

Prizes include:

4 polishes from China Glaze's new Holiday Joy 2012 collection,

AND

This fantastical little holiday stamping plate from Konad!

:)

RULES:

1. OPEN TO INTERNATIONAL FOLLOWERS.

2. Please be aware of your country's shipping regulations.

3. Must be 18 or older to enter.

4. Cheating will NOT be tolerated. All entries will be checked.

5. Winner will have 48 hours to respond; after that another winner will be chosen.

Good Luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Wee bit of Halloween Stamping

Hey everyone :)

I've got some stamping for you today.

I'm not the greatest 'stamper', but I think it's super fun and looks really cute on people who do it well. Unfortunately, I do not do it very well- but I still like to try! :P

Here's some super simple Halloween stamping I did yesterday.

In case you can't tell (due to the crappiness of my stamping skills), that's bats and a witch!

I chose Zoya's 'Tanzy' for the base polish here. It's a bright, pumpkin orange metallic with gold flecks. I wasn't crazy about it when I first bought it awhile ago, but now that it's the Fall I realize it's beyond the perfect shade. It makes me want pumpkin pie, and I don't even like pumpkin pie!

The stamps are from BM plate 13 using Konad stamping polish in black.

So there you have it.

Simple but festive :)

Thanks for reading!!

Neon leopard print nails!

Goooood afternoon, everyone!

Please look what I just saw outside my window:

SO. CUTE.

My neighbor leaves birdseed or something all over their patio (ugh), but it WAS cute to get to look out and see these tiny guys. adorable.

ANYWAY,

I finally played around with some stamping again,

and using my daughter's leopard print leggings-

here's what I came up with!

Tada!

 I totally love this mani. It's by far my favorite that I've done in awhile :)

I'm still not that great at stamping, but i'm slowly getting better.

I used:

China Glaze's 'Pelican Gray' as base

Konad stamping polish in black for spots

Konad stamping plate m57

CG's 'Purple Panic' & 'Yellow Polka Dot Bikini' for accent spots w/ dotting tool

SV

What do you guys think?!

Also,

STAY TUNED because I justtttttt might be announcing a giveaway tomorrow! ;)

Day 7: child's room decorations

Hey guys!

So I just noticed something :x

I've got the days and themes mixed up JST A BIT.

This is due to one of the day's assignments being totally illegible. Well, at least a part of the sentences is. And EVEN when using my context clues like a good little English student,

I have no idea what it says.

SO, i'm just going to skip that day altogether!

Anyway,

tonight's post is about your child's room decorations.

My daughter's room is themed in a Jungle Jill theme,

which is basically jungle animals in light pink, white, green, and brown :)

I used her comforter as my inspiration:

Cute, right?

I tried my hand some stamping (which failed) and some nail art (which didn't turn out that badly):

Obviously i've tried to incorporate the different 'themes' of the comforter on each nail.

What's that on my pointer finger, you ask?

Well, it WAS giraffe print stamp. But it didn't exactly transfer over that well.

Neither did the zebra, obviously.

But whatever.

I don't claim to be a nail artist!

;)

I used:

Zoya's 'Gaia' as base on thumb & Zoya's 'Kylie' for dots

China Glaze's 'White on White' as base on pointer and ring finger

NOPI's 'Hard Kourt Fashionista' for giraffe print & BM10

CG's 'Re-Fresh Mint' for base on middle finger & 'Kylie' and 'White on White' for flowers

Konad polish in pink & Konad plate m57 for zebra print

OPI's 'Pink Friday' on pinky

ALSO,
Don't forget to enter my giveaway &
 vote for your favorite eye look for a tutorial!

July 4th nail art & indie

Happy Independence Day!

To all my international followers,

I know this day holds little significance for you (unless you're from the UK, heh heh),

but it's still a great excuse to drink, be with the people you love, and relax!

I've got some nail art to show you AND my third and final July 4th indie.

First up- the nail art.

:)

I know this is super simple, but I still quite like how it came out!

There's a lot going on, so i'll break it down for ya.

I used the following:

Thumb: China Glaze's 'White on White' as base; Sinful Colors Nail Art in red and blue

Pointer: Kleancolor 'metallic blue' with tiny confetti stars on top

Middle: CG's 'Blue Year's Eve'; stamped with BM20 & white Konad polish

Ring: Butter London's 'Knees Up'

Pinky: OPI's 'Into the Night'; stamped with BM14 & Konad white polish

It's been awhile since i've done any stamping,

so this holiday was a perfect excuse to do some :)

Next up,

my last July 4th indie polish to show you.

This is 1 coat of DarlingDivaPolish's 'Anita' over CG's 'White on White'.

'Anita' is a clear base with micro holographic glitter and large white (matte), red, & blue hexagonal glitter.

This is the polish i've been most excited to show you guys out of the 3,

and it's the one I ended up liking the least :(

The polish was just terribly gloopy and like it threw up all over my nails.

Despite only using 1 coat,

it was still really hard to work with.

I've bought one other glitter from this shop,

and it was the same way :(

I do know, however, that she has some other polishes which are not topcoats that are highly popular,

so it must just be these.

She does have a TON of other polishes in her shop that look great.

You can get 'Anita' and others for about $8.

That's it for me!

What do you guys think?

simple, Victorian-ish mani

Hey guys!

I'm taking a break in between studying for my final tomorrow to blog. Tomorrow is the last day of my Maymester class, and then i've got Friday and the weekend to relax before another summer class starts up :/

Anyway,

I had a go at stamping again today. 

This is one of the areas of the nail world that I need to work on the most, but practice makes perfect! Or so they say...

Okay, so awhile ago I bought a couple of the polishes Maybelline just released in their new nail polish line. I've been itching to try one of them & see what they're like, and since it's been awhile since I did any stamping I decided to combine the two.

Here's 'Chiffon Chic' with Konad stamping plate m57 & Konad stamping polish in black.

'Chiffon Chic' was surprisingly awesome! I mean it just looked liked a typical pink creme, but it totally exceeded my expectations. It's a lovely, Barbie pink creme that applied really well. I used 2 coats here. I also wore this mani for 3 days, & it barely chipped at all- which is a LOT more than I can say about some polishes that cost triple what it did. so wow!

So I seem to have the hardest time aligning the stamper on the same place on each of my nails. The design was supposed to be on the right side of each nail, but some are more towards the middle, diagonal, or even backwards LAWL. i'm a n00b.

You can see the the bubbling of 'Chiffon Chic' on some nails, and I think that was due to one the polish drying while I was still trying to apply the same coat (I was sitting directly in front of the vent, so I'm wondering if that's what caused it...).

Anyway, the stamp really reminded me of the Victorian era, for some reason. I like the dainty -ness and simplicity of it :)

What do you guys think?

today's haul and bikini time for Live Loud!- Day 4

GOOD EVENING.

I'm halfway through the last week of this semester!

yessssssss.

... of course I'm taking 5 summer classes this summer, but at least I get like a week break in between now and my maymester class O_o.

Lots to show you tonight!

First- my little haul from walmart today:

Woo!

I'm thinking about maybe using the Revlon's for a giveaway- what do you think??!

I've also never tried the Maybelline polishes, so that'll be something new. Plus i actually bought eyeshadow that's not considered a prestige cosmetic for the first time in forever, but I couldn't resist that lovely, lime-y green :) We'll see how it turns out.

Now onto tonight's little bright beauty- CG's 'Yellow Polka Dot Bikini'!

Though it looked more like a bright sunshine yellow online (which is where I bought it), this polish is legit neon, highlighter yellow (think Essie's 'Funky Limelight'). It's part of CG's 'Poolside' Collection.

:/

Sadly, as with most of my other brights/neons (also many from this same collection), it was sheer, streaky, and hard to (ever) build up opacity. It was a cloudy day today, but that seemed to make it easier to capture the neon-ness of the polish, oddly enough. In the past days when it's been really sunny, the polishes always come off looking much more subtle than they really are... ?

Anyway, I really wasn't that much of a fan of the unexpected highlighter yellow OR the streaky-ness of it, so I added a stamp to spice it up/hide it, haha.

Can you tell i'm new to stamping? :/

Here I used BM19 and Konad special polish in black to get a polka dot effect to match the name. Done right, this would look really neat.

Aside from the atrocity of the stamping skills, I still like my nails much better with it than without it. Plain old highlighter yellow just isn't my thing, it turns out :/

What are yall's thoughts?

Anyone tried 'Yellow Polka Dot Bikini'?

zesty nails!

hellooooo everyone.

I've been wanting to use my daughter's cute little dress as inspiration some nail art for quite some time, but I was waiting for the warmer weather :) Despite the fact that today just happened to be the coldest day we've had in awhile, the rest of the weather lately has indeed been almost hot!

Luckily I almost have all the colors in it, so I used those plus BM04 plate for this mani!

*close up

I used:

PureICE's 'Wild Thing' as the base

Konad stamping polish in 'pink'

Zoya 'Pippa'

Sally Hansen's 'Sun Kissed'

& here's the inspiration!

I like this mani more than I thought I would, but it's still only meh. I wish the yellow & orange  slices had shown up better, but they weren't polishes specifically for stamping so i'm not surprised.

The worst part was the base polish. It's one of the polishes I've had the longest, & it's consistency was just CRAP. But it was the only polish I had that matched the dress, soooo :/

As soon as I got the plates a couple months ago & saw that stamp, I knew exactly how I wanted to use it. All in all, i ain't mad at it. It's okay :x

What do ya'll think?

'do-re-me....'

helloooooooooo!

the week is halfway over,

& Nit Grit is just one more day away :tup

Tonight I have a stamping mani for you. I'm still really new to the stamping world and working on my technique, but I did do something today that I quite liked & wanted to share.

* woo, flipped photo!

*fluorescent lighting

Hoorah! Though I messed up my thumb, I really liked this little design. With the show coming up, I felt like doing something musical :tone

I used China Glaze's 'White on White' as the base (2 coats), then stamped this pattern from Konad plate m73 with konad's black nail polish.

I wish I was ambidextrous because the nails on my right hand are in SO much better shape,

but alas- i am not. I'm really going to try to start getting more pictures of them, though.

Anyway, short little post tonight,

but I'm happy with it :)

a little shirtspiration

supppp.

i'm blogging from my bed tonight because my poor baby girl is struggling with acid refulx, and REFUSES to sleep anywhere but my chest :x

So here we lie.

Anyway,

I wore a shirt the other day that suddenly made me think it'd serve as good inspiration to try some nail art.

After looking at it further, I discovered the color of the shirt matches almost EXACTLY China Glaze's 'Kinetic Candy'... so I free handed a little design from the shirt.

*thumb

voila!

Nothing particularly creative since I copied it straight from the shirt,

but I thought it was kind of neat, nonetheless :)

I used 2 coats of 'Kinetic Candy' as my base... & it was quite the let down. I just bought it a couple weeks ago but I don't know if I just got a bad bottle or what, because the formula of this polish was uber thick and sticky. Though I love the color, it's almost not worth the trouble :/

Then I used a Konad stamping plate (can't remember which one- would go find out but i'm trapped in my bed at the moment) for the hearts. I used the same Konad polish with a dotting tool, nail art brush, & striper to do the rest!

Weee!

I enjoyed this & would like to do some more,

so hopefully I'll think of something else soon :)

Have a good night!

early st. patty's day mani & ulta haul

good evening, everyone.

Tonight I have my first stamping mani to share with you :)

It took me a bit to get the hang of it & lord knows I still have a ton of improving to do,

but I've got the gist of it.

* fluorescent light

* sunlight

So there you have it.

I know it's a pattern everyone has see before but I wanted to start with something safe.

I  used:

Konad stamping plate m57

China Glaze 'Refresh-mint' as the base

Konad stamping polish in black for leopard pattern

CGs 'Kinetic Candy' & 'Four Leaf Clover' for the dots

ALSO,

I bought some fantastic goodies at Ulta yesterday.

Holllla!

I can't wait to try & review them all :)

Do any of you have these products?

What are your thoughts?