China Glaze Lets Do It In 3-D stamped with Moyou London Gothic 10.
Reminds me a bit of Labradorite. Plus, Jesus on my thumbs. Which to me is hilarious.
Still loving the Moyou squishy stamper in the regular Konad size. It's perfect for us girls who play guitar and keep our nails uber short.
Oh yeah. Speaking of that. Sorry bout the state of my nails/cuticles lately. I decided not to let it keep me from postig pix. So look away if dryness makes you all icky.
Here's my first attempt. Sort of a nerdy robot theme going on. I used BM-609, and BM-415. Apologies for the state of my cuticles, etc. I've been lazy and it's dry and cold where I am.
The stampers are interesting. I didn't snap a pic, but it's the set BM sells with 2 stampers and 2 scrapers. They both pick up fine. I prefer the silicone, personally, but the long rectangular shape is weird. Takes some getting used to. I did one hand with the new ones, and went back to my usual stamper after that.
I'm loving the Bundle Monster CYO sets. There's a few images in this new one that get me, for sure. The skeleton cameo on BM-612, the dinosaurs on BM-611, the patchwork on BM-608, the birds on BM-614, and the buttons on BM-619. A big shout out to the girls who submitted those especially. You rock.
Also, I ordered these on Friday when they were released, and got them in the mail on Monday. Cheers to you, Bundle Monster. That was lightning fast!!
Now for a look at the pix:
So these are them. I'm about to try 'em out along with the stamper set I received for free as part of the promotion. Will report back with thoughts on those and pix of a finished mani when I'm done. Not to choose an image to use first....
Hey you. So I have been using gel polishes more and more lately. Originally I got the Knock out Nails system to try and combat or at least protect my weakening nails. It came with a UV lamp and a special UV nail hardener. I used it for months to give it a fair shot, but it just wasn't for me.
I ended up not liking the fact that it didn't soak off. I would often be left with lifting at the cuticle. Which, in turn, led me to have to do fills, essentially, of the hardener. And after a significant amount of time passed, I realized that it was doing nothing to actually strengthen my nails. Meaning, yes. My nails were stronger with the product on them. But once it was removed, not so much. O.o
So I tried all kinds of hardeners/strengtheners. Garlic, formaldehyde, etc. I wanted to try Qtica by Zoya, but didn't ever foot the bill. Then, I came across this Red Carpet Manicure line at my local grocery store (Ulta exclusive? NOT...!). And had to try it out. At the very least, the gel polish would stay on my nails for a couple weeks and in turn strengthen my nails while they had time to grow some. And if I wantd to, I could polish on top of that and even change my polish every other day or so without damaging the gel too much.
So I gave it a shot! And I'm glad to say I liked it. I've been too busy with work to do a mani every day or 2 or 3 anyway, so it's or is for me for now.
And the plus side is the strength it gives my weakest nails while they grow. AND the fact that can also repair breaks when they happen with the gel a la loodieloodieloodie..
So then, the next natural progression was to find out all the nifty new nail art I can do with gels that I can't do with regular polish. ;0)
And after searching youtube, I came up with this. Except he uses gel top coat to dot on the design. I tried that, and since top coat has a bad habit of melting and pooling everywhere, it was kind of messy. So I kept searching, and found someone reference using base coat instead. DING DING DING!!! My RCM base gel is all sticky and perfect for this technique.
It's super easy to do, too. You can use regular polish for the bottom color, but you have to use gel for the top.
Once you're ready, and your bottom color is dry or cured, paint a thin coat of the top color (I used black here) but don't cure it just yet. I like to do this one nail at a time. So I get the best most crisp design. The longer the gel has to sit on the nail (while you dot the design on the rest of the nails for ex), the more it will deform as it warms up and spreads out.
So do it like this. Cure the bottom color layer. Then working one nail at a time, paint a thin coat of black. Then use a dotting tool to dot the base gel all in whatever pattern you want to on the nail. Then once you're all done with THAT NAIL, flash cure it for a few seconds to set it. That way it won't move all around while you do there rest of the nails.
Continue this way until the last nail (on that hand, anyway), and cure for the full time (my base gel says 1 min but I did 2 cause it's kinda a thick layer).
Then top coat it and you're done!
Here's some swatch-sickles I made to try different color combos:
Snakeskin gel technique swatches
L-R: White on turquoise, white on black, black on white, black on turquoise, brown on turquoise, brown on taupe, taupe on brown
Snakeskin gel technique swatches
The pic at the top of this post was done using a gradient from white to turquoise. With black as the top layer:
Snakeskin gel mani
The picture above I did using a silver glitter gel polish, with an accident of the turquoise. Here's a peek at what it looked like after the first coat of gel:
Snakeskin mani after first coat
I hope you enjoy looking at these as much as I loved making them! Thanks for reading and happy polishing to you all.....! XD
So I just got the new "Create Your Own" plate collection for 2013 in the mail from Bundle Monster. I've been looking for images through goole image search for this collection, and coming up empty handed.
Lucky for you all, I decided to snap some pix!!!
I'll be sure to post pix of all the plates individually, but for now here's a super sneak peak showing you just the plates I used for the mani I did tonight. Mind you, this was just to play around with them (I can NEVER WAIT LONG!!!!).
So, withy further adieu, here's my Kraken Mani:
Kraken Mani
I love these new plate so much!!!! I splurged and ordered this set, the Holiday set, and a second plate storage binder. Hey, I DESERVED it. Work has been crazy and I've had to get up at the butt crack of dawn for like a month PLUS. So there......!!! =0P
Here's more pix:
Kraken mani
Before I put in the ship image and the ship's wheel ....
Kraken Mani before extra images
More with all the images added:
Kraken mani w/ ship
And here's how the packaging looks:
Bundle Monster packaging
Back of packaging
And finally here's the plates I used:
BM 414
BM 401
BM H13 (from holiday set)
I hope you enjoyed this post! I'll try to get something up with pix of ALL THE PLATES very soon!!!! XD
Ok guys. I get SO MANY EMAILS AND COMMENTS asking me where to get Lynnderella polishes. And I totally understand why! But it's gotten so overwhelming to answer you all individually. I don't have time! lol
