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Friday, December 30, 2011

Awards Day

In the past few weeks, I have received three different awards.  Since I hate following rules, I thought I'd combine all three and make up my own questions.

The first one I got was from Polish and Charms. This is a new one called the Nail Polish Tag.


The next one I got was the Top Ten Award from Nails Like Lace, Rainbowify Me and Polished and Not Quite Put Together.



Lastly, I got the Versatile Blogger Award from Red Hair and Black Nail polish.



All of these come with rules about answer these questions etc.  I decided like my last awards post here to make up my own trivial questions.

Here are another eight random things about myself. The other list if you care is linked above.

1) I am a classically trained pianist.  Growing up, I wanted to be Liberace.  I went to college the first time as a Harpsichord major.  If I could have made a living at that, I would have.

2) I failed out of said college with a 0.92 GPA.  I am so damn proud of that GPA.  It takes a lot to get that low a grade point average.  I got all A's in my music classes and F's in all the rest.  How dare they have a math final on my birthday! (Sorry Mom and Dad!) I made up for that by having a 4.0 in nursing school!

3) I got that GPA being a little sister in a fraternity-Lambda Chi Alpha-I am NOT sorority material

4) I have lived in five different states.  NY, Ohio, Illinois, Missouri and Virginia

5) The St Louis Arch is my Talisman.   When I lived there, I used to just sit on the steps under it and be at peace.

6) My Dad was a milkman in his career-so I really AM the milkman's daughter.

7) All my cabinets and closets have baby locks on them.  My cats learned how to open them.

8) I love to drive.  My Dad said I should have been either a race car driver or a truck driver.  I drive an hour to work and back every day, always at least 8 mph above the speed limit.  9mph above is a 4 point ticket, 8 is only a 2 point ticket.  20+ is a reckless driving ticket-6 points. How do I know this?? I have gotten quite a few in my day.  Now I set the cruise 8mph above and the Man leaves me alone. Plus while I'm driving, I am chair dancing, playing the drums and scream singing.  I wonder why people look at me funny?!?

So there you have it.  More trivial crap about me than you probably never cared to know!  Please go and check out the blogs I linked above.  They are all really great!  Thank you again to those that gave me these awards.



Wednesday, December 28, 2011

My stamping revelation-

There are several blogs out there who are my stamping gods.  One of them is Bregje's at Oooh, Shinies!  I am in awe of her and her stamping.  She actually came up with rules to follow for stamping. One of her rules is a light base and dark stamping. She has been trying the opposite lately.  Her other rules apply to when to stamp with shimmers and cremes.  You need to check out her blog.

I normally do the opposite of Bregje.  I love dark polish so I normally start with a dark base and add a light stamp.  Lately, I have been having too many subtle manis and I thought I'd try out something different.  I also tried a new method of stamping.  I normally roll the design on but have found I either smear it or there are light and dark patches.  This time I did straight up and down on my nails and boy did I see a huge difference!

First up, the silly bottle shot.


I have had that afghan since I was a little girl.  My Gramma made it for me.  I am also doing a brown fest today since it has been a while since I wore my favorite color.  This is OPI A Taupe the Space Needle and Get in the Espresso Lane.  All from this Fall's collection.

I started with the taupe and used espresso for the accent nail to show how I normally would have done it. Here are your shots.

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The taupe is such a pretty neutral.  The formula on these was very nice. I don't normally buy OPI-but these are nice.  The espresso is a deep dark chocolate.  So pretty.  Next, using my new stamping method, I used my new XXL plate #4 and topped it off with my funky french.  Here are the results.

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Using the new stamping technique really makes a huge difference for me.  I have no light and dark spots, all the parts of the design are there and it just works so much better than the roll on method.  I need to update my tutorial.  I stamped straight on putting a finger under the nail to be stamped for control of movement.  I then stamped with strong even pressure and it truly works better!

Now on to Bregje's rule-what do you guys think?  Is the dark on light base better or light on dark base?  I must admit that you can see the design much better on the light base.  For me, I like them both.  I know that I will try more light bases in the future.

Any thoughts out there?  Who's loving my brown fest?



Sunday, December 25, 2011

Merry Christmas!

I am spending the holiday with my family in New York. Hopefully there will be lots of snow!  I wanted to wish each and every one of you a very Merry Christmas.  I will return with posts on Tuesday 12/27/11.



Saturday, December 24, 2011

It's the evil eye stamp

I had a really hard time trying to figure out what to call this mani.  I ran through all sorts of ideas, but stuck with the one I kept coming back to.  As you know, Zoya always has sales.  I recently had acquired this beautiful rust orange shimmer and just had to try it out.

I also wanted to do a very colorful mani.  Usually I match the stamp and the funky but this time I used three different colors.  I am not sure how I feel about these colors together.  I had a different idea in my head.  I will let you guys decide.

Here is your silly bottle shot.



This is Zoya Kaufda and Illamasqua Scarab.  As I said earlier, this Kaufda is a pretty rust orange shimmer.  I think it's lovely.  I had a little problem with the application, the formula was a little thin.  Also, some of you will tell me that this is too frosty for you.  I did have brush marks but I knew my stamping would cover that up.  The sun was hiding when I started this so I have no sun shots to show off the pretty shimmer. Here are your shots.

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Isn't this pretty?  I love colors like this.  Reminds me of fall leaves.  Don't worry, you will see the shimmer in the final shots.  I then stamped with Konad special polish in yellow and Red Angel plate 120.  This I topped with my funky french in Scarab which I showed you before.  Scarab is a stunning deep red shimmer.  Here are the results.

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First let's talk about that shimmer.  Isn't it awesome? I am so loving this orange.  I am a bit bummed that the Scarab looks black in these pictures.  But look closely at the design.  No matter which way I look at it, all I see are eyes staring at me.  Whether upside down or right side up, the eyes keep staring and staring.  It's actually kind of creeping me out.  I have been looking at these eyes for days now.  I'll be so happy to take this off!

I did get a lot of compliments on this at work.  It sure is colorful.  I still haven't decided if I like this or not. Maybe it's just my anal nature and I like my stamp color to match my funky.  I was stepping outside my comfort zone here.

But those eyes keep staring.......



Thursday, December 22, 2011

I sure am good at subtle-

I had big plans for this mani.  I really did.  I was gonna wow you guys like there's no tomorrow.  What happened you ask?  Well you'll have to read on to find out.

I realized that I hadn't used my beloved Rescue Beauty Lounge polish in a while.  So I grabbed my Piu Mosso which is a dark blue with this great orange shimmer.  I thought I'd play up the shimmer and stamp with orange polish.  I thought wrong.

First up-the required silly bottle shot.



Wait a minute you ask?  I don't see any orange polish in that picture.  Read on my friend, read on.  I polished with the RBL and the first layer showed this incredible orange shimmer and I was all sorts of excited.  I think this is the world's perfect polish formula.  I had forgotten how awesome it is.  I next did the second coat as always and wait a minute-the orange disappeared!  All I was left with was a super nice dark blue which I love but I really had in mind to play up the orange shimmer remember?  Here are your shots.

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Yes you can still see shimmer but it is not orange anymore.  I was so disappointed.  Of course, I had to change tactics and pick a different polish to stamp with.  I decided to go with A England Tristam.  I had seen this all over the blogs and still hadn't tried my own yet.  This is a medium blue with holo goodness.  I used plate XL I but it won't matter to you because you can't see the design.  What you get is really cool holo shimmer but the design got lost in the subtlety.  I topped it off with my usual funky french.  Here it is.

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Even though it's not the mani I started out with in my head, I think this actually came out really cool.  I just love the sparkle of the holo Tristam and need to do a full mani with it.  I realize you can't see the design, but in a way that's ok because of the shimmer and glow in the sun.  The other nice thing? It didn't stain when I took it off.  That's what I love about RBL polish too.

I really would have loved to see my original idea of the orange shimmer stamp.  I wish more of the orange showed through like it does in the bottle.  In my mind, this is still a keeper, subtle as it is.

What do you guys think?



Tuesday, December 20, 2011

It's A Purple Shimmer Fest

Today I wanted to try a new Lynnderella polish my friend at Polish Amor got for me.  No it's not a chunky glitter.  I am still recovering from the awfulness that is pink I wore for you.  This is actually more shimmer than glitter.  I picked out a light purple and a dark purple shimmer to go with it.  As you know, my camera will show it as blue.

Here is your bottle shot.


This is Nails Inc The Mall, Lynnderella Bride of Franken and Nails Inc St John's Wood.  I started with SJW. This is a very pretty lilac blurple.  Maybe even more purple than blue.  It sure is pretty in real life. Here are your shots.

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I also used Cult Nails Wicked Fast top coat for this step.  It is much thinner than Seche and I put way too thick a layer on and was afraid it would bubble.  But it didn't.  It's more the consistency of CND super shiney.  It worked just as good as Seche.  I am very impressed!  I next added 2 layers of BoF and topped it with my funky french in The Mall.  The Mall is a dark blurple shimmer.  Here is the final result.

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Isn't this pretty?  It is mostly shimmer with a few ditzels of glitter scattered throughout.  It flashes different colors in different light.  Little flashes of rainbows.  It's really awesome.

Just know this is more purple than these pictures show.  What do you guys think?