Game Day Mani: Clemson

Now that Pretty Little Liars is over, I'm going to start using my normal #RedCoatTuesday slot to honor a different Red Coats - the University of Georgia!  [For those not in the know, UGA's marching band is called the Redcoat Band, which I was in for two years in college!]  So, every Tuesday, I'm going to share my team spirit!  I apologize to anyone who doesn't like UGA, but at least red and black are pretty together!  Tonight's mani includes stamping, decals, and Swarovski crystals!  Let's take a look!

Purchased by me or given as gift.

First, though, here's me, Mr. Blue-Eyed Girl (would that be Hazel-Eyed Boy?), and UGA VI in our Redcoat uniforms.  Band geek and proud!

I used the following items for this mani:

Cult Nails Tempest, Cult Nails Nevermore, Cult Nails Kiss, Konad White, Konad Black, Essie No Place Like Chrome, Cheeky plate CH52 from their Summer Collection, Nail Dot water decals, Nail Vinyls, and little red Swarovski crystals I received as a gift!

I started out by applying my undies, (thumb to pinkie): Nevermore, Tempest, Tempest, Kiss, Nevermore.  Next, I stamped onto my thumb, index, ring, and pinkie fingers using the Cheeky plate.  For my thumb and pinkie, I did a double stamp using Konad White and Cult Kiss, which actually stamped really well.  On my index finger, I stamped using the Essie.  Lastly, I used Konad Black and White on my ring finger over Kiss.  This was my first time doing the double stamp, which came out better than I had anticipated!

Next, I used the little G water decal from Nail Dots that I applied over the silver stamping.  I like these little decals, but they always tend to wrinkle and stick up around the edges, which is not so awesome.  I ended up using an extra coat of topcoat to smooth it down.

Then, after I waited for my coat of Tempest to dry on my middle finger, I applied the Nail Vinyls and painted on Kiss and Nevermore.  This was probably the best Nail Vinyl mani I've ever done!  I think it's because I waited long enough for my base to be 100% completely dry and removed the stickers as soon as I put the paint down without letting it dry.

Lastly, I added on the Swarovski crystals and added another layer of topcoat.  I was actually really surprised that most of these crystals lasted for two days, and I only lost two!  I'm not normally the type of person who likes doing anything that sticks up on my nails, but these aren't that bad or inconvenient.

All in all, I was so pleased with the outcome of this mani!  I highly doubt I'll be doing anything this elaborate for future game-day manis, but I wanted to go all out for the season opener.  Do you follow any fall sports?  Do you like to do fun manis to show your team spirit?

Ecopolo Summer Mani Challenge: Summer Stamping

Thanks for entering the giveaway, everyone!  Verification of the winners will take some time as there are a lot of entries and options to go through.  Please bear with me as I slog my way through the entries.  I'm hoping to have the winners announced by next Monday at the latest.  In the meantime, I'm going to work on catching up on my Ecopolo Summer Mani Challenge before it's officially over.  Tonight's post is Summer Stamping.

*All polishes and plates used in this post were purchased by me for my own use or were RAOK'd to me by a friend.*

First, I put down Sinful Colors 24/7, a matte hot pink creme that I reviewed here.  I then added accent nails of Lynnderella Flower's Fancy Dresses, a light pink based polish with neons, silver holos, butterflies, hearts, and blossoms.  I thought that it would compliment the neon pink well since it has giant neon pink hexes.

I chose the fruity drinks from Cheeky plate CH36 and the swimsuits and sunglasses from Cheeky plate CH37, which are both art of the Cheeky Summer Collection.  I purchased them on Amazon here.

Before I started stamping, I decided I wanted to test a reader tip on how to get the picture to transfer more cleanly from the stamper to my nail - use a coat of Orly Bonder before stamping.  It seemed to work really well.  The intricate design from the swimsuit plate came off the stamp easily.

I used Konad White and Black, but I'm a little bummed with how the drinks came out.  They smeared when stamping.  I think it was due to the design, though, because the white worked perfectly with the swimsuit design. 

I also smeared the sunglasses with my topcoat, Nubar Diamont.  I waited a sufficiently long amount of time, too, but the black still smeared.  The white, however, played well with Diamont.

You can purchase Sinful Colors at Walgreens and Rite Aid.  You can purchase Lynnderellas at their store here.  Follow their fan-run Facebook, Twitter, and IG pages.  Lastly, you can purchase Konad stampers and polishes here.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

Omg.  My favorite day of the year, and I had to go to traffic court.  Ugh!!!  At least it was quick and relatively painless (other than taking a chunk of change outta my bank account).  Ahh well.  This year was no different than other years - we have had a grand total of 0 trick-or-treaters.  It's such a bummer!  I didn't get all dressed up this time because I feel like it's a bit of a waste of time.  Luckily, we did have our annual costume party a few weeks ago!  The hubs and I went as Harry and Hermione (he had the Potter jersey and I had the naturally huge hair).  It's not as elaborate as our Doctor Who costume from last year, but I'm still pleased.

We chose to do the 4th book/movie since the hubby's hair is so long.  So he's holding our version of the TriWizard Cup.

Oh, and I had time to carve a pumpkin, too!  This is my attempt at a free-hand TARDIS.  Yes.  I'm a dork, and I love it.

Here are a few of my Halloween manis that I haven't had a chance to show you guys yet!

Here are Elevation Sarychev and Nyamuragira.  Look at that succulent jelly!!!  I am normally not an orange fan, but this orange is one I could wear all the time.  It actually looked really good with my pale skin.  Nya is grey with gold, silver, and iridescent shimmer, black hexes, and purple flakies.  So pretty!  Oh, sorry about the super dry skin.  It looks so bad!  I didn't want to douse my cuticles in oil, though, because I was about to add my stamps.

You can't see flakies in my swatch pictures, so I caught some in the bottle shot.

I topped them off with stamps from my new Bundle Monster plates using Konad Special White and Black, China Glaze Passion, and Revlon Metallic.  I'm not really sure what the plate numbers are off the top of my head, but I can get them for you guys if you want them.

Next up is Dollish Polish Zombie Flesh.  It's a fetid green polish with gold shimmer and gold, green, and black glitters.  It applied so so well and built up nicely.  This is four coats.

Last up is what I have on right now!  China Glaze Grape Crush undies with Dollish Polish Deadly Nightshade and What's This? What's This? as an accent.  Grape Crush is a deep purple that leans more red than blue with holographic dust.  It's not a scattered holo, it's more like stars piercing the night sky.  Sadly, it's discontinued, so I had to snag my bottle at a salon nearby.  To avoid bubbling, I used two coats of What's This so that I could build it up a little more.  All of the glitters came out pretty well.  You can see my review of What's This here.  Nightshade is a pretty purple based polish with purple, fuchsia, and blue/teal glitters.  I plan to do a full review of it and the remaining Dollish This is Halloween Collection polishes that I haven't reviewed yet.  You can see the glitter top coats from the collection here.

Remember, Halloween isn't over on the blog yet, so stay tuned for a few more Halloween themed polishes!  As you can tell from my last swatch shot, my nails are shorter.  I took my SOGs off for a week or so, and my middle and pointer fingers decided they didn't want to stay long anymore.  My heart hurt when I filed them down.  I finally got them to a decent length and two broke.  Needless to say, I have on SOGs again now, which is why it looks so thick above.  Also, ignore the wonky pointer finger.  It's a super terrible patch job since I couldn't cut it down to the tear, which was waaaaaaaaaay deep and would probably bleed.

You can purchase Elevation here and Dollish at her store, Llarowe, and Overall Beauty.

What did you wear for your Halloween mani?  Did you wear a costume?

Konad,well Fauxnad, and Essie Mirror Metallics

The overwhelming theme from the feedback I've received from you guys was nail art, tutorials, and jelly sandwiches. You have spoken, and I shall deliver! Today, I have a combination of nail art and tutorial to show you, but first, let's take a look at my base manicure. Get ready, because this is going to be picture (and word) heavy!!

All last year I would go to the salon and get gel polish manicures, as would my mom and sisters. It just wasn't cost effective even though it made more sense to get gels than regular polish that would chip in a day. When Christmas came around I decided to put the Gelish system on my list, and my awesome sister got my Gelish stash started. I actually credit getting my gel kit with renewing my interest in nail polish again. Now, I have 20 gel polish colors from Gelish, Red Carpet Manicure, and ProGel. Gelish can be purchased at Sally's, but they only have the minis for $14. I try to find mine on sale or on Amazon. You can find Red Carpet Manicure and ProGel at ULTA.

For my base color, I chose untried ProGel Deep Abyss, which is a rich black cream. I have several polishes that I wanted to try layered over black, so I made things easier on myself by using gel. This way, I won't have to reapply the black base color for every manicure. [Tip: you can paint regular nail polish over gels. Just remember to use non-acetone remover when taking off the regular nail polish.] Deep Abyss applied very well. It wasn't runny, didn't pool at my cuticles, and wasn't too thin or too thick. The only problem I had was it slid a bit from the tips of my nails before curing, despite wrapping my nail. I may try a flash 5-10 second cure of each nail right after I paint them next time to see if it fixes the issue.

Black is the new black.

I was very pleased with the application on my nubbins. Since I didn't have to worry about pooling, it was easier to wrap my nails without getting it all over.

The first thing I decided to do to my freshly gelled fingers was Konad!! Well, fauxnad since this time I used the Salon Effects plates instead of my Konad plates. Konading is basically the process of stamping images made from nail polish onto your nails. Don't worry, I'll demonstrate below. I had just gotten a few of the new Essie Mirror Metallics (so I'm still keeping up with the untrieds!!!), and I really wanted to give them a konad test-drive. They were the perfect consistency for stamping. I used Penny Talk, Blue Rhapsody, and Nothing Else Metals.  I've had Metallica stuck in my head for days now because of you, Essie!

Shiny!

All three polishes apply perfectly in one coat, which is how I knew they'd work for stamping. Penny Talk is a rose gold, which is totally unique in my collection. I'm more of a silver-tone gal, so I don't usually buy many golds. The hint of pink is what's keeping this little guy in my stash. Blue Rhapsody is, you guessed it, blue. Nothing Else Metals is a frosty lavender. When stamped, though, it looked a little too silvery, which is a bit of a bummer. I'm looking forward to trying it out on other colors than black to see if it still looks silver. I stamped these bad boys on using Salon Effects plates SE18 and SE19. They turned out so much better than I thought they would! I got so many compliments on this mani it was crazy!

It almost looks like a Hawaiian shirt.

Let's learn how to stamp!  First, you'll need to gather some supplies:

1) Acetone to wipe down your stamp, plate, and scraper.
2) Konad special polish or regular polish that applies thick (full coverage in one coat)
3) Paper towels to wipe down you stamper, plate, and scraper
4) Stamper (mine is from the Salon Express kit)
5) Scraper (I actually use an old credit card, but you can use a membership perks card too.  The metal scraper that came with my set isn't very good, and I don't want it to scratch up my plates.)
6) Stamping plates (I'm using two plates from the Salon Express kit that I picked up from Sally's. The kit can also be found at any store that sells as seen on tv junk.  There are several brands of stamping plate, and you can find most of them on Amazon, such as Konad, Bundle Monster, Mash, Cheeky, etc.)
7) Paper plate to keep polish off of finished surfaces

Ok, now on to the deets.

After you have completed your base color mani, go ahead and apply your favorite fast-dry top coat.  This will ensure that you don't make a mess of all your hard work.  Also, this will protect the base mani from polish remover in case you need to redo your stamp.

First, put your stamping plate on your paper plate.  Get your scraper, stamper, and acetone ready.  You need to do these steps quickly before the polish dries on the plate or stamp, so it's good to have everything readily available.  Next, drop a bit of polish onto the image you'd like to use.  Here, I'm using a dragonfly.  You don't need a huge blob, like mine, just enough to cover the entire image.

After you've dropped your polish on, grab your scraper and run it at a 45* angle to the plate over the image.  If you do it at 90* you'll scrape off all the paint, so make sure it's angled.  I tend to swipe my scraper over the image two or three times because the polish pooled on the end of the scraper fills in the image giving you a more robust picture.  Place your scraper on a piece of paper towel or on your plate.  

Next, take your stamper and gently roll it across the image.  Do not press straight down onto the plate, or you won't be able to pick up the image on your stamp.  Rolling is key!  

Check to make sure your image is on the end of your stamper.  

If it isn't then either you took too long after scraping and before rolling, OR your stamper may need roughening up.  On a clean stamper, try taking a nail file (any will do except the crystal ones) and rub it gently across the face of the stamper.  Then, take a bit of acetone on a paper towel and clean off any debris.  That should help you get the image onto your stamp.  You'll definitely want to roughen your stamper when you first get it.

After you get your image onto the stamper, quickly line the image up to where you want it on the nail and roll it across.  Again, do not stamp straight down or you will get the image on your nail in pieces or not at all.  

If you mess up the placement, take your acetoned paper towel and quickly swipe across the image to remove it.  Only press as much as necessary to remove the image.  Sometimes, you can even scratch the image off with a fingernail.  Don't worry if it dulls the shine of your top coat.  You will be applying another coat after you finish your stamping, and you won't notice any dullness.

After each stamp, go ahead and wipe off your scraper, plate, and stamper.  This way none of your tools will build up polish residue that can rub off on your next nail.  This is also especially important if you're going to layer stamps with different colored polishes like I have above.  You don't really need to worry about letting the image dry, per se, because the thinness of the polish you use makes it dry to the touch.  Also, if you notice some bits sticking up, just use your finger and push them firmly onto your nail.  

When you're done, apply a thick top coat that won't smear your image.  I use Seche Vite because it tends to float onto my nail without the brush really dragging any paint.  You may need to do some cuticle cleanup, as well, since the stamps can sometimes overlap onto your fingers.

Now you can sit back and admire your gorgeous nails.  Be prepared for a barrage of questions because people get so intrigued by nail art, especially precise, clean-looking art like stamping.  I hope this helps some of you feel less intimidated by stamping.  It used to be really hard, but with practice, you'll be able to finish stamping your entire mani in 15 minutes!

Do you use gels or stamps?  What's your favorite type of nail art?