Um bats?

Man I really should write all this shit down before I forget but I'm almost positive this is only one coat of China Glaze Below Deck.  I think one coat cremes are probably my favourite type of polish...yes even better than holos!

I stamped with BM07 and Wet and Wild Black Creme again.  My intention here was to use black rhinestones but I decided that it made my wings look like little black bats which was not the look I was going for at the time.

So instead I opted for little pink-headed bats lol.  Topped with a coat of SV.  I'm thinking maybe I should have stamped in pink?

So I don't think Dollarama carries those little rhinestone wheels anymore.  I've been looking over the last month in several stores and haven't found any.  Crap.  I suppose I can place an online order but that will have to wait since I've got my Zoyas and some Golden Rose holos on the way...but they won't get here until May :(

Later
P

Buh-bye m64

Okay so here's 2 coats of the awesome Hard Candy Beetle of course.  And another shot because the Princess of Poo thought this polish was so cool...even though you guys have seen it a million times I'm sure.

Then I used the final image from konad plate m64 and once again, Wet and Wild in Black Creme.

You know what really kicked ass about this image?  I didn't have to get it straight to look good!  Anyways, one last shot with topcoat...

I thought removal would be a pain in the ass but it really wasn't.  So now we've got 2 plates down and about 30 more to go LOL.

On another quick note, I noticed the other day at Walmart that the Sally Hansen Salon Manicure polishes were $4.97 here in Canada!  Since Walmart doesn't typically have sales I'm wondering if this is a permanent price drop...probably not, but it wouldn't hurt to check out your Walmart if you're looking for them.

Later
P

Storage and a quickie

First up today is Del Sol Superhero in 3 coats.  I have NO IDEA why the heck these things won't change colour for me!  We do have sun up here in Canada, but I can't seem to get these to work argh!

Anyways, I stamped it with with konad plate m45 in my go-to blue stamping polish - China Glaze's Little Drummer Boy.  Nothing fancy.

So I thought I'd share with you what I use for storing my polishes and image plates.  I've been a little slow in converting my old storage system over but here's where it stands right now:

The fabric covered shoe boxes are what I was using before I found these storage containers at Staples.  They are called Really Useful Boxes and they come in different sizes.  The sizes I bought were around $14 and I should probably have counted how many polishes they hold before I posted this but maybe I can edit it later.  I can tell you that in all those boxes combined there are well over 300.  The shorter size is perfect for holding Color Club's and Zoya's but other brands don't really fit.  I've got 6 Color Club collections in that one you see.

And this is my storage solution for my stamping plates.  It's a little photo album I picked up at Walmart for $3.  It's great because I can just flip through them and pull out only the one I want, plus it's got tons of extra pages if I buy more.

So as a parting shot...here's what I picked up on my lunch Friday:

OPI Bronzed to Perfection and Yoga-ta Get This Blue.  Grand total $8.99 including tax for both.  I love a good deal!

Later
P

M64 and holo frankens

So I mentioned before that I had picked up this old Sally Hansens Prisms in Blush Diamond which is a totally girly pink and not 'me' at all.  But it's holographic so I decided to try and franken it.  Here is what it originally looked like:

And here's what I've got so far:

The left one is kind of a darker version of China Glaze's Gamer Glam.  The one on the right is just a darker pink and is still a work in progress.  I'm thinking of going really dark with it but I'm afraid to ruin the holo.  Here they are swatched under really shitty lighting and in reverse order:

I think I'm content with the purple shade for now.  I decided to try out the pink shade in my next m64 mani.

This is 3 coats of the above pink holo on my ring finger and China Glaze's Bogie on the rest - 2 coats.

I used konad plate m64 in the same colours on opposing fingers.  Unfortunately the holo polish is a little too sheer for stamping but I really love Bogie...nice colour and did a great stamping job.  I did manage to stamp somewhat straight this time lol.

I'm thinking I may go out polish hunting on my lunch today...I have no willpower dammit!

Later
P

Matte black and a crappy marble

2 coats of Orly Matte Vinyl.  Oh how I love matte polishes...especially dark and/or vampy ones!  I just wish they wouldn't chip after a day or two of wear.  If someone ever invented a permanent nail polish I would wear matte black for the rest of my life. 

Anyways, as always I have to go ahead and ruin it with my stamping.

This is BM05 and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Celeb City.  I don't necessarily think this was a bad idea, just bad execution.  I'm getting super annoyed at not being able to stamp straight lately.

And in other rants...I'm giving up on marbling.  I just cannot seem to aim properly either.  This is 2 coats of OPI DS Sapphire:

For the marbling I used Color Club's Alias and I Believe in Amour along with clear polish in between.

First of all the pink seemed to blend into Alias which totally covered up all the sparkly awesomeness.  Second of all, I was going for the design like you see on my pinky but unfortunately I seemed to have missed half of my ring finger and then my index finger aim was totally off as well.  I just think that marbling isn't worth the effort when you can't get exactly what you want.  I think this is probably the 4th time I've tried it and it's never satisfied me.

Hey but life isn't all bad right now lol...they just announced this giant kick-ass metal fest in Toronto in July...now I just have to figure out who I'm going to drag to it haha!

Later
P

Laser Lime Love

Oh yeah Tronica again :)  This is 2 coats of China Glaze's Laser Lime.  I know I said I was going to use all my stamp images plate by plate but I have occasionally been switching it up and I used plate BM12 with Wet and Wild's Black Creme.

I did use a topcoat here and it did sort of dull the holographic effect but I still liked it well enough.  I will probably use this image often.

And here are my latest acquisitions over the last couple of weeks.  I think I'm seeing a trend here...what's up with all the blue polishes lately? From L-R:

Finger Paints Carnation Creation
Nicole By OPI Honeydew You Love Me?
Nicole By OPI Rich In Spirit
Wet and Wild Blue Wants to Be a Millionaire
Wet and Wild Night Prowl

The Nicoles were on sale at Shoppers last week for $5.99 :)

And speaking of hauls...lucky me again, I got to take part in the Zoya BOGO offer and I ordered 6 of the new polishes - 2 of the mattes, 2 of the cremes and 2 of the sparkles...Faye, Breezi, Mitzi, Apple, Mira and Phoebe for the bargain price of $26US.  Unfortunately I won't have them in my possession until my other sister, the Duchess of Doo, comes up here to visit us in late May.  If I didn't have a sister in the US I'd be pretty ticked off that Zoya doesn't ship to Canada...we need to fix that!  Zoyas are already pretty hard to find up here as it is!

Later
P

An unusual french

I had this idea brewing for a long time to do a french mani with darker shades from pinky to thumb.  The original idea was to use a lilac base and I really wish I had, but this Joe Powder Blue was calling my name for some reason.

This is 2 coats and it was the first Joe polish I bought.  It's also the biggest pain in the ass.  I got a nasty bubble as you can see on my pinky and the formula is pretty streaky.  I laid it on pretty thick to get it in 2 coats.

So although these polishes aren't all the same shade, it was the best I could do with the limitations in my stash.  From L-R:

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - White On
Color Club - Who Are You Wearing
Elf - Desert Haze
Color Club - High Society
Joe - Storm
Sally Hansen Salon Manicure - Bittersweet

I did the first 5 colours on a diagonal.  Then I put the white one away and painted them in the same order over top:

I did have a bit of a tape issue on my index finger though.  I may try this again one day when I can find 5 colours that are all in the same family because I think it would look much better.

Later
P

A Princess of Poo two-fer

I really liked these colours together but this didn't turn out like I thought it would.  I was pretty sloppy with it too.  This is the mani I did for the Princess of Poo before I left on my holidays.

It's 2 coats of Sally Hansen Salon Manicure in Yellow Kitty.  I stamped it with konad plate m64 in Revlon's Copper Penny.  I liked it but she didn't, so I freehanded the tips on it and did a terrible job.  I need to help her out with shaping her nails.  She's actually got one nail that has a wicked curve/warp to it...does anyone know any fixes for that?

And this is the mani I did for her when I got home.  It's 2 coats of Color Club's Ms. Socialite...she seems to always pick out the colours that I've recently worn for some reason lol.  Then I stamped her with a partial image from BM12 in China Glaze's Hologram. 

So lastly, I just wanted to make a quick mention to anyone who's recently stopped by here that although I haven't been putting the Canadian purchase info in the body of my posts anymore, you can still find a listing of brands, retailers and prices if you click on 'Where to buy' under my blog header.  Does anyone know how to change the title on the 'pages' because I can only find how to change the 'home' page title?  Seems I'm not as computer savvy as I thought lol.

Later
P

M64 second round

I'm still loving my Tronica polishes :)  However I keep ruining them with konad designs.

This is two coats of China Glaze Hologram.  Then I pulled out plate m64 and a really old Sally Hansen Chrome polish in Royal Purple.  Yeah ok you guys caught me...I'm old...well older than a good chunk of you anyways.  I've got a few Sally Hansen Chromes, Nail Prisms and Revlon Street Wears that I bought brand new when they were first released.  I'm glad I hung onto them because I let my love for nail polish fall to the wayside for several years and some of those polishes are pretty sought after now.  Maybe I should do a post on all my old polishes...but I digress...

So apparently I suck at stamping anything with straight lines.  Not a single one went on my nails straight.  Has anyone successfully stamped with these types of images?  There must be some kind of trick to them.  And I ruined that awesome holo finish...bah.  I didn't even bother to topcoat it and pretty much took it off shortly after.  I don't think there's a lot I can do with m64 sorry.

Later
P

St. Patty's Day #2

I decided to do another St. Patty's Day mani and started with 2 coats of OPI's Don't Mess With OPI which I picked up in the US from the Texas collection.

This is my new favourite polish!  It seems pretty similar to Jade Is The New Black which I've seen swatched everywhere and I have no idea why I didn't grab that one when I first saw it.  I am totally loving this colour and it will be used often.

So I wanted to do something a little fun for a change and the initial idea was to make two beer mugs toasting on two fingers but after I did the first one I figured a second beer mug might be too much.

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow and Essence in Sundancer for the mug.  Then I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On for the foam and stamped NYC in Flat Iron Green with image plate BM03 for the little Shamrocks.  Topped it all off with Seche Vite for the super shine.

I texted the photo to the Princess of Poo and got a good laugh out of it:

Poo: wtf?
Me: beer dork!
Poo: Oh it just looks like polish glopped on

Yeah I suppose it does but I'm so in love with this green that I don't care!

Later
P

My Kind of Holiday

So I didn't post any valentine's designs because quite frankly, even typing that word makes me want to vomit.  But a holiday that's just an excuse to drink?  Frig yeah!  In fact I'm even contemplating another St. Patty's mani.

This is 3 coats of ELF Mint Cream.  Another coat even wouldn't hurt.  Anyways, I was going for 'simple and elegant' and some might find it boring but I liked it a lot.

I stamped it with NYC Flat Iron Green and BM03.  It's a bit hard to see in the pic but the stamp didn't come through opaque and it almost looked liked the clovers were real...very cool.  I'm always so tempted to 'overdo' it with the simple designs but I managed to keep this one like this and I'm glad I did.

One more thing for today...so yesterday I posted about the Color Club Catwalk Queen set I picked up at Winners.  I was happy with the colours when I bought it so I'm not going to complain to the company or anything BUT...I feel liked I got ripped off when I got home and found that my set was missing the holo polish - Fashion Addict.  And when I got home last night and compared the replacement polish to the rest of my stash I found it was Uptown Girl, which I already own from the Rebel Debutante set.  I also want to mention that when I bought the Catwalk Queen set they had about 4 of them at Winners and they all had exactly the same polishes...so none of them actually contained Fashion Addict.  So I don't think it's actually some random person switching out polishes in the sets.  Not cool Color Club!  They are obviously selling them to Winners at a steep discount while removing the 'hot' polishes.  This is not the first time I've noticed this either...my Untamed Luxury set also has glaringly obvious errors.  I just wanted all the Canadian girls looking for the Color Club's at Winners to be aware of this.

Later
P

At what point...

does your polish addiction become unhealthy?  I mean I just spent probably $200 on nail polish on my vacation and I continue to drop cash on more when I get home.  It's not like I'm spending my baby's diaper money on polish (no, I don't have kids anyways) but I'm starting to have 'polish remorse' after I buy them.  Anyways, here's what I bought this past week:

After seeing a post on Sparkled Beauty about the new line of Joe Fresh polishes I had to run out and buy Twilight (center) because I don't have a flakie in my collection yet.  And of course you HAVE to buy 3/$10 when you buy Joe polish lol.  On the left is Ink and on the right is Peacock, which I'd been wanting for awhile as well.  And here they are swatched in reverse order:

As thrilled as I am to finally have a flakie, I'm pretty disappointed that it's in a black base.  I'm also not really a fan of the orange in it either.

So then I also went to Winners and picked up 2 Color Club Collections: Catwalk Queen and Dark Romance.

Again it seems that my box has been mislabeled because the holo - Fashion Addict is definitely not in there!  Argh!  Anyways, the two duochromes were the reason I bought it and they are fantastic!  Here they are layered over black:

All 3 are 2 coats of Dark Romance (matte black).  The middle is with a layer of Ready To Wear and the right is a layer of Runway Muse which couldn't catch the light properly - it's very purple.  I love these.

So no nail art today, but I'm a happy camper because I've got Revlon Perplex on right now.

I tried to stamp it and failed miserably.  I ruined my mani but then saved it with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.

Seriously if you don't own Fairy Dust you need to run out and get it!  Ruin your mani?  Don't remove it, coat it in Fairy Dust and all the imperfections are gone plus you get to stare at this amazing micro-holo glitter.  It's great for giving your plain jane mani a little kick too.  Love it!

Later
P

So let's try m64

This is the only shot of this mani that was actually colour accurate.  This is 2 coats of Color Club Ms. Socialite from the Rebel Debutante set I picked up in the US.  It's definitely a purple as shown in the above photo and not the burgundy you see below.

I'm having serious lighting issues at home right now.  As always though Color Club's formula is great.

I used China Glaze Gamer Glam from the Tronica collection to stamp with image plate m64.  Boring sorry.  I was uninspired for this one but I do like the colours. 

I would also like to say I think Tronica is getting a lot of undeserved hate.  So admittedly I don't have any of the OMG or Kaleidoscopes but I do have a few linear holos and they are totally different so I don't think it's fair to compare them.  I wasn't expecting these to be linear holos and I think they're great.  You cannot see the holo through the bottle in these polishes but you can definitely see it on the nail.  Hey but you can all take my opinion with a grain of salt because we don't all have the same tastes.  I hate that crackle shit.  I think it looks messy and I'll never put that crap on my nails.  You can all hate me now lol.

Later
P

There's no place like home :)

So here's my first mani after I had to trim all my nails down.  I was dying to try all the new polishes I bought and I ended up pulling out an old Elf in Light Red as a base.

I should have used 2 coats, but I didn't because I thought the jelly glitter would even it out...and it sorta did but not really.

This is 3 coats of Kleancolor Red-Hot.  What a pain in the ass to get all those awesome hex glitters out of the bottle.  I just couldn't get enough of them on even in three coats.  I gave up.  Terrible pic too by the way.  But everytime I looked down at my hands I thought of Dorothy's slippers in the Wizard of Oz and it made me crack a little smile. 

When my nails grow out a little more again I'm going to try and get them totally coated in the glitter because I do love that little bottle of Red-Hot.

Later
P