When I was a kid, my parents didn’t have much money for things that weren’t absolute necessities so I didn’t always get the newest and coolest toys. This is something that can be hard to explain to a kid, but I learned quickly not to ask for things that I knew were expensive. One particular toy that I always wanted was My Little Pony. I must have wanted it badly enough for my mom to remember it years later when she came home from a garage sale with a My Little Pony toy. Although I was already in my late teens, it meant a lot to me and to this day I still remember the look on my mom’s face when she gave it to me. This makes me wonder if I’m spoiling my nephews too much because I buy them EVERYTHING they want–will they appreciate things as much when they basically get new toys all the time? The reason I’m talking about this is because I have a polish from the My Little Pony Collection to share with you today: China Glaze Too Busy Being Awesome. I also used it in a stamped mani so let me show you what I did with it below. Continue reading “China Glaze Too Busy Being Awesome”
Category: Stamping
Illamasqua Dedicate
I feel like Illamasqua was one of my first higher end polish brand obsessions, so I am completely bummed that they are no longer easy to get a hold of since Sephora no longer carries them. At one point I could get them at Nordstrom but then they were gone from there too. I’ve caught them a few times on Hautelook, but I’ve kinda given up on searching for them when I can get other things without such a hassle. I have a pretty sizeable Illamasqua collection, and I told myself that I should start going through my untrieds. I pulled out Illamasqua Dedicate to try out today and jazzed it up with UP and some stamping. Let me show you what I came up with. Continue reading “Illamasqua Dedicate”
KBShimmer You Dew You – Stamping Saturdays
Hey there. I know it’s been 5 billion years since I have done a Stamping Saturdays mani, but I just felt inspired today. Yesterday I got my KBShimmer Unicorn Pee Polishes and I just couldn’t wait to play with them. I did watch the 3 polishes i the collection and also used the topper for today’s Mani. KBShimmer You Dew You is the Unicorn Pee topper of the collection which can beautifully transform any polish. Let me start by showing you the polish that I used as my base color.
KBShimmer Low and Be Bold is one of those delicious cobalt blues that work so well under the Unicorn Pee pigment. This polish has a jelly type consistency but it builds up nicely with two coats which is what I used for my swatches above.
I then applied one coat of KBShimmer You Dew You over KBShimmer Low and Be Bold. This looks much more beautiful in real life since artificial lighting doesn’t truly show all the beautiful color shifts from orange to green. It’s very difficult to capture the shift in all its glory!
Lastly, I used a Born Pretty plate BP-L016 for the stamping image. I used some of my trusty Konad white stamping polish as well, but I’m really looking for an alternative. If you have any suggesting for a great white and black stamping polish, please let me know!
So there you have it. I was happy to try my hand at stamping again after neglecting any kind of nail art for so long. Since I did finish my swatches of the KBShimmer Unicorn Pee Collection, I’ll be posting those on Monday. Let me know what you think of this mani; I’m pretty happy with it and love how it turned out overall.
If you’re interested in purchasing this polish, unfortunately it is not currently available. Only one polish from the collection is still in stock at kbshimmer.com but I’m hoping that they will be able to find more pigment and bring back the whole collection.
Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!
Sweet & Sour Lacquer POTM June 2017
Hello everyone! How has the weather been in your neck of the woods? It has been super overcast here which is surprising but then it has also been on the cool side and it has been hella windy. This is very atypical for California weather in May. It’s not that I’m hoping it gets hot because we all know how much I hate the heat, but I’m just seriously thrown off. The sun did cooperate at least one day this weekend which allowed me to do some swatching. I really like taking pictures in direct sunlight when I swatch, but I rarely get the opportunity to do so. Today I have a really fun polish to share with you from a new-to-me brand. While this is the first time I try this brand, I have definitely heard about them and have seen some beautiful polishes from them in the past. Let me show you my swatches of the Sweet & Sour Lacquer POTM (Polish of the Month) for June 2017.
Sweet & Sour Lacquer Polish of the Month June 2016
This beautiful polish has a turquoise base with lots of shimmer/micro holo sparkle. While the polish has a sheer to medium-sheer jelly base, it builds up nicely. For my swatches above, I have applied two regular coats of polish and a coat of quick dry top coat
Since I haven’t done much stamping lately, I decided to stamp up my mani. I used a Born Pretty plate but can’t remember the name of the plate. Shortly after I finished my mani, I started rearranging some of my nail stuff and I can’t find the plate. I’m a mess.
I really like this polish! Sometimes I can be a bit critical when it comes to jelly polishes, but this one is really beautiful. I love teals in every shade and finish so that just made me like it even more. I like the formula on the polish since it was easily buildable and was very easy to control–this is one of those polishes that did not require any clean up and allowed me to do a perfect cuticle line with minimal effort. If you’re interested in picking up the Sweet & Sour Lacquer POTM for June 2017, you can do so at sweetandsourlacquer.com starting June 2nd. Let me know what you think and if you will be picking this up. Do you have any recommendations that I should check out? I’ll definitely be picking some up in the future!
Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.
Another One Bites The Dust
Ok, no, it’s not me…at least not yet. Earlier this month I got a wordpress notification congratulating me for 5 years of blogging. 5 years, really?! It feels strange saying this because it doesn’t feel like I’ve been at this that long. I keep thinking about just shutting down my blog altogether, but I know that I will miss it terribly. It is still fun most of the time especially now that I am posting less and just doing it when I want to. It feels like so many of the OG bloggers that got me excited about blogging have retired and it makes me feel like it’s the end of an era. While I was contemplating all of this, I started doing a “festive” mani and realized I had done the exact same manicure 5 years ago. It was kind of funny so I wanted to share it with you guys.
Oh, remember when I thought flash equaled good lighting? Hahaha! I do have to admit that my stamping was pretty good even as a newb, don’t you think? I know that my hand position and lighting left a lot to be desired, but I don’t think it was tooooo horrible. Or am I wrong?
And here is a polish that we all know and love: China Glaze Ruby Pumps. I actually couldn’t find my old bottle of this so I had to go out and buy it when I decided I wanted to do this mani. It’s such a gorgeous polish in my opinion.
And here is my full mani using Konad plate M60 and the white Konad polish. I did a crappy job of clean up since I still have some traces of the white polish on my skin–so please excuse that. I actually feel that my stamping was crisper on the first manicure, but that’s due to the white polish. I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but I feel like the Konad stamping polishes have gone down in quality. If you know of a super awesome white stamping polish, please let me know!
So, I leave you with this little blast from the past and hope that you stick around. I know I don’t post very often and I know that a lot of my old readers don’t stop by often because of this, but I just want to tell you all that I truly appreciate every visit, every comment and every like. You guys are what made blogging fun and I hope that you still enjoy reading my blog.
With much love and best wishes for 2017,
Cynthia
Stamping Saturdays – Metallic Flowers
Hey, happy Saturday and welcome to another installment of Stamping Saturdays! This morning I woke up a little early, but I spent my time catching up on TV shows on Hulu. I am really obsessed with the new show 11.22.1963 which is an original show on Hulu with James Franco. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you have to…NAOW! Last night when I got home, I decided that I’d come up with something for Stamping Saturdays, and I was inspired by Frosso’s rose mani. I started off with this gorgeous base color.
I cannot get enough of shades like OPI Infinite Shine You Sustain Me (press sample). Not only do I love this type of color on my nails, but it’s my favorite lip color too. I live for chocolately pink mauve shades which is why I was dying to get my hands on Jeffree Star Adrogyny. Unfortunately, I missed out on it and I’m over it now. Ain’t nobody got time for restock drama.
I then used a flowery design from a Cheeky Plate with Essie Nothing Else Metals. I think this turned out really cute!
Well, I hope you are all doing well. Don’t forget to join the link up below to share your stamped manis. You can also join our facebook group here. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!
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Stamping Saturdays – Marc Jacobs Cora
You know how every Friday you tell yourself how you’re going to wake up early on Saturday and get done all the stuff on your to do list? But then you end up doing nothing? Well, I accomplished the waking up early part, but I stayed in bed all morning watching youtube videos (damn you Jeffree Star!) and old Mexican soap operas from the 90’s–hello Marimar and Maria la del Barrio. I wish I had been more productive, but at least I managed to get a mani done for today’s Stamping Saturdays. You will have to excuse my sad nub nails–I cut them way down after the unfortunate breaks last week.
I started with two coats of Marc Jacobs Cora. I bought this polish like a billion years ago and was planning to return it because the brush was super wonky. When you pay Marc Jacobs prices, you don’t want to deal with a crappy brush. Well, I ended up forgetting and now I just told myself it was too late to return it. Despite the brush, I think this is a nice polish. It looked much more interesting in the bottle, but I don’t think it’s like OMGILOVEIT pretty.
Because of the shimmer in it, I decided to apply a matte top coat. I used my favorite OPI matte top coat, but I think it has seen better days. It’s starting to get super goopy and it started to leave white flecks on my polish. Fortunately I managed to remove the white fleck before they completely dried.
And lastly for my stamping, I used Essie Good As Gold and an image from Born Pretty Plate BP-L004. Overall, I am happy with the way this mani turned out.
Well, what have you been up to this lovely Saturday? Since I’ve been so lazy today, I am going to have a shit ton of stuff to do tomorrow. Hopefully the stores and stuff will be empty because of the superbowl so I can get my errands done. Well, I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.
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Stamping Saturdays – I’m Back!
I know it’s been like 5 bajillion years since I did a stamping design, but last night I just felt like stamping. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm waned once I saw my finished design, but I’m just glad to be participating in Stamping Saturdays after such an extended break. Today you will see my first post with my new nail shape so I hope you don’t hate it too much. I actually decided to change the shape from my signature square/squoval because I have been experiencing too many infuriating corner breaks. I hope that this shape will allow me to get some length without dealing with breaks. So…let me show you what I started with as my base color.
This pretty shade is OPI Spoken From The Heart from the Hello Kitty Collection (press sample). I will just get it out of the way and say that I LOVE this shade. LOVE IT. I love pink polish to begin with, but this color is just so pretty with its coral-leaning tones. The formula was pretty good as well so I only needed two coats for full coverage.
I feel like my stamping mojo failed me because this image just looks blah. I used my Konad black special polish and an image from Born Pretty Plate BP-L004. There’s nothing really wrong with this mani, but there isn’t anything exciting about it either.
I hope you are having a great weekend so far. Let me know what you think about this color! I am hoping to get my swatches of the Hello Kitty Collection done this weekend so they’ll be on the blog next week. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!
Stamping Saturdays #68
Saturdayyyyyyyyyyyy! I’m so happy that it’s Labor Day on Monday because I have a 3 day weekend. Of course I’m planning to do NOTHING except maybe swatch a little. I still have a pile of stuff to get through so hopefully I’ll get through everything over the long weekend. Last night I was binge watching stuff on Netflix (what else is new?) and I decided to just work on my Stamping Saturdays mani instead of leaving it for today. To start with, I wanted to use a densely packed glitter that I recently picked up from Pretty & Polished.
This gorgeous glitter is Pretty & Polished Arcane In The Membrane. The base is slightly tinted so you do tend to get decent coverage with two coats. I ended up applying a third coat just to make it all more uniform.
I decided to go simple with my stamping, so I used an image from Born Pretty Plate BP L-003 and used my white Konad polish. This is so simple but I really like it!
So what are you up to today? I’m just going to relax and enjoy my long weekend. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!
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Stamping Saturdays #65
Hello. Have you melted yet? It’s in the 100’s here so excuse my foul mood. Anytime that it gets hotter than Satan’s butthole, I tend to lose my shit. You see, I live in a coastal city so we don’t really need air conditioning except for a few weeks during most Summers. Even then, it’s not anything that we can’t handle, but for someone who hates the heat, I just become a miserable grump. Last night I was debating if I should even attempt to do a mani for Stamping Saturdays because I figured the heat might make my polish act up, but I am glad to report that everything went fine. I initially thought I might be able to polish my nails near a fan, but you know how that went. Anyway, let me show you the simple design I ended up with today.
I started with 2 coats of Pretty & Polished I Never Kiss and Spell. Can you believe that this is my very first Pretty & Polished?! When I saw that this baby was on sale, I jumped right on it and ended up picking up a few others as well. I was very impressed by how quickly I got my order so that’s always a big plus for me since I hate waiting for orders to ship. This polish has a very delicate holo shimmer that is not super noticeable unless the light hits it just right. The formula is nice and opaque and only requires 2 coats for full coverage. The finish does dry down matte, but you can always top coat it like I did if you prefer a shiny finish.
A few weeks ago, I bought some plates from Born Pretty because they were 50% off. Since I’m usually a cheapskate, I only bought 6. Now that I have received them, I should have gotten more because they are kind of amazing. This image comes from Born Pretty plate BP-L009 and I used Mentality Black Opaque for my stamping polish. I really wanted to do some fancy decals, but it’s just too darn hot so I once again went for something simple.
I know people tend to be very “opinionated” when I change my nail shape, but I took the plunge anyway. I decided to go with an almond shape about a week ago and now I am just waiting to get more length so that I can do some serious swatching. I’m afraid to ask: what do you think of my new nail shape? Well, I’m going to spend my afternoon with my peanut brat so I hope you enjoy your Saturday as well. Thank you for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!
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