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Stamping Saturdays #55

Posted on 7 February, 20157 February, 2015 by Cynthia

I’m sorry that I’m showing you L’Oreal Masked Affair today because I know how hard it has been for some of you to get your hands on it. Ok, I’m not that sorry because it is a gorgeous polish, and I was excited to find it after all the swatches I had seen. I normally have a hard time finding drugstore stuff like this because the stupid displays have like 2 of each polish, so this was a major win. I don’t think that we will ever get tired of holographic polishes–this is definitely a good one. Let me show you this baby on its own before I show you how I jazzed it up for today’s Stamping Saturdays.

Ghhhaaaaa! Gorgeous. There are plenty of silver holos out there, but this isn’t really silver–it leans lavender and has a unique finish. The formula is a little thin which is normal for drugstore polishes, but it does build up nicely. I applied 3 coats for my swatches above.

Since I didn’t want to cover up a lot of this beautiful polish, I used a delicate stamp. As usual, I used my Mentality Black Opaque polish for the stamping. The image I used comes from plate MoYou London Pro Collection 18 (press sample) which is one of my favorite plates!

So what are you up to today? I’m watching Peanut today so it’s been a busy morning. I just managed to put him down for his nap so that’s why I’m posting this kinda late. Anyway, I hope you’re having a nice weekend, and I will talk to you soon.

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Chevrons and Flowers

Posted on 29 December, 201428 December, 2014 by Cynthia

Happy Monday, ladies! Ghhhaaaaa! It’s the last week of the year, and I decided that I wanted to try something a little different today. While I admire all of the amazing ladies who do tons of freehand nail art, I am usually a big fat failure when it comes to anything more complicated than stamping. I got together with Amy and Siobhan to do a mani based off an image or pattern just to mix things up a little. Amy found an awesome pattern, and we decided to use it for today’s mani.

Am I the only one who wants that shower curtain like immediately?

I started off with OPI Angel With A Leadfoot (press sample) as my base. I’ve been using this white a lot lately for my manicures. Can you blame me? It’s so crisp and creamy.

Since I always end up messing up something simple such as chevrons even with vinyls, I decided to use a stamp for this kind offset chevron design. This image is from plate MoYou London Pro Collection 18 (press sample) and I used my Konad special polish in black. For the flower design, I used a water decal that was sent to me by the lovely Jacqui last year after I mentioned that I had never used them before. She has a great post explaining how to use water decals which I referred to today before I used them. Check out her post here. It was super easy to use the water decal, but I did have to do some trial an error. It’s really important to trim them down do that you don’t have any overhang. Because my nails are naturally very curved, the decal did not lay all the way flat at first so I had to fiddle with it to make sure it was as flat as possible before top coating the entire thing. I really loved this design! Even better, I loved doing this with my girls because sometimes I feel like all I do is swatch. While I love swatching, it can sometimes get tedious so doing something like this can get my creative juices flowing.

Make sure that you check out Amy’s and Siobhan’s designs by clicking their links below. What do you think of this design? It was rather easy to create, and it turned out really cute if I do say so myself. I hope you’re having a great beginning to your week. Thank you for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

Stamping Saturdays #41

Posted on 18 October, 2014 by Cynthia

Well hello there and welcome to another Stamping Saturdays! I haven’t posted much in the last week, but I won’t get into it here because I have a lot to share and I’ll never get through this post. Ha! I am super happy with the weather lately because it’s finally starting to feel like fall. I’m going to do a ton of stuff around the house today so I’m kinda looking forward to everything being spic and span. For today’s mani, I used one of my new pretties: OPI Christmas Gone Plaid.

I really hate that my pictures make this polish look darker than it is. It’s actually a lot more green in real life and it’s gorgeous! The good news is that OPI Christmas Gone Plaid (press sample) is super amazing, smooth, opaque and incredibly shiny on its own.

I just wanted to jazz everything up so I applied a coat of Nubar 2010 which is one of my favorite flaky polishes.

This large houndstooth design is from plate MoYou London Pro Collection 18 (press sample). I just love houndstooth everything!

Well, what do you think about this mani? I hope you’re doing well today and that you are enjoying your weekend. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

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Stamping Saturdays #32

Posted on 16 August, 2014 by Cynthia

Last night I stayed up until like 4 am binge watching Orange Is The New Black so I didn’t get up this morning until like 9 am. I had so much cleaning to do today since my brother is a pig and rarely helps out with any of the house cleaning which pisses me off but I feel like I waste more energy bugging him about helping more than to just freaking clean everything myself. Even when he does help, he does such a half-assed job that I end up being pissed and cleaning everything again. Maybe that’s his strategy? Ugh, whatever. I also couldn’t find my gloves so my hands and nails took a beating after I got through the kitchen stuff. Fortunately, I was able to do my Stamping Saturdays mani last night before all of the abuse happened. Last week I showed you an awesome glitter by Kiara Sky, and today I have a lovely creme for you. Let’s take a look at it, shall we?

Holy mother of God! Kiara Sky Blue-letproof Vest is one of those perfect blue cremes that make your heart skip a beat. This polish is seriously perfection in a bottle. What you see here is ONE coat of polish and one coat of Seche Vite. I was obsessed with the color, the formula and the shine. You all know how I feel about cremes so this polish made me super happy.

I then used a geometric pattern from plate MoYou London Pro Collection 18 for my stamped design.

I knew it was going to be hard to center this pattern and while the pattern didn’t come out *perfectly*, I’m not too annoyed by it. There is nothing better than Konad’s black stamping polish for a big design like this because it transfers so crisply.

So what are you up to this weekend? I was thinking about going to watch The Giver or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but maybe I will just spend my whole weekend swatching. I have so much polish to get through, but I’m excited because there are so seriously gorgeous polishes in the mix. Thanks for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon.

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The Lacquer Ring – Geometric

Posted on 1 August, 2014 by Cynthia

Aww man, I feel like such a loser. After postponing this post last week, I still managed to post this late. I sort of have an excuse because I had a really stressful day, and I just didn’t have it in me to write up this post. I’m sorry for being a total flake for my fellow ladies in The Lacquer Ring. I promise I won’t be a flake this month. Can you believe it’s August already? WTF? Where did time go? Where have all the cowboys gone? Anyway, the theme we were working with is geometric. I have to admit I suck big time at freehanding anything especially when it has to be precise so I knew I had to do some stamping. Let me show you what I did.

I started with my two favorite polishes from the OPI Nordic Collection: OPI My Dogsled Is A Hybrid (press sample) and OPI Suzi Has A Swede Tooth (press sample). These are such gorgeous colors and the apply like butta.

Since I’m newly obsessed with China Glaze Fairy Dust (press sample), I applied one coat to really get this to sparkle.

I picked out a design I’ve used before from my MoYou London Pro Collection 18 plate(press sample.)

So what do you think about this end design? I’m happy with it because it is geometric and I love the colors.

I’m cutting this short because I am soooo running late right now to meet up with one of my besties. We have a lot to catch up on! Don’t forget to stop by tomorrow for Stamping Saturdays. I have tons of ideas right now and I just hope that I can execute them.

Talk to you later!

The Lacquer Ring – Pink Holo

Posted on 12 June, 201411 June, 2014 by Cynthia

Hey, look! The Lacquer Ring is back! It feels like it’s been forever since we posted, and I’m still confused about the success of my Cherry Blossom nails. I ended up liking them but I wasn’t thinking they were anything special…and then they ended up on StumbleUpon and they got over 25,000 views on imgur. What the heck?! For real, yo. Anyway, today Amanda has chosen her color: Pink (holo or neon). Uhm, thanks Amanda for choosing my color of the moment! Of course I had to go holo so I ended up using Jade Déjà Vu.

Gorgeous, right? I’ve used this polish a couple of time already in recent times so you know it’s a favorite considering the amount of polish I have. Then I decided to stamp over it for shits and giggles.

This is plate MoYou London Pro Collection 18 (press sample). I think I’ve used half of the images on this plate so far. Love them all!

I went with this image because it doesn’t completely hide the beautiful polish. I’m not going to lie: I like this a lot. What do you think?

Forgive my sporadic posting lately. I’ve still been trying to get use to my new job so sometimes I am just mentally exhausted by the time I get home. Even though I haven’t been posting every day, I have been doing my nails and wearing my favorite polishes. I wore OPI DS Pewter for 2 days!!! Omg…one polish for 2 days. That’s unheard of for me and my swatching ways. It’s nice to take a break once in a while. I hope you liked my pink holo creation and don’t forget to check out the other posts below. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon!

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Stamping Saturdays #22

Posted on 7 June, 20147 June, 2014 by Cynthia

I feel like such a slacker. I’ve been pretty much neglecting my blog and responding to comments which is so unlike me. Sadly I feel like it’s a trend lately only because I have other stuff going on that is sapping the creativity and motivation out of me. I think I just need a swift kick in the ass to get back on track–or a really awesome Stamping Saturdays mani! I hope you’re not tired of me using my MoYou London plates so much because I’m not going to stop any time soon–they’re awesome.

Today’s plate du jour (see what I did there? I’m sho shmart) is MoYou London Pro Collection 18 (press sample.) You can click on the image to be taken to this plate on MoYou London’s website. Buy it. You know you want it.

So I started with 2 delicious coats of OPI Incognito In Sausalito (press sample.) This polish is so amazing and buttery that it can be a one coater, but I’m a creature of habit so two coats is my preference. The polish may look a little off here because my bottle of Seche Vite was acting up. I don’t know what the dealio was, but it made my polish wrinkle a little bit. I added a shit ton of Restore to it and then it was acting normal again so maybe it was just too thick…that’s what she said.

I don’t know why I forget that Essie Shine Of The Times is so freaking awesome. Seriously. Look at it.

And here is the final mani. I am a little on the fence about it because part of me loves it but then it looks a little off. I’m just going to go with it. I’m a little annoyed that I stamped the image all crooked on my ring finger but at least I got it straight on my other fingers.

Do you have a Stamping Saturdays mani to share with us? You can link up your mani below or you can grab the code for your blog. I get super excited when I see more people joining in so I hope you will too. Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I will talk to you soon. Enjoy your Saturday!

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Stamping Saturdays #17

Posted on 3 May, 20143 May, 2014 by Cynthia

Holy shitballs you guys…I had a bad day yesterday. My day was a perfect comedy of errors so it’s not like something horrendous happened to me, it was just that EVERYTHING was going wrong. I ended up going to dinner with a friend and then we ended up drinking (a lot of beer–ha!) and watching the show My Strange Addiction. Do you know how much stranger that show is when you’re wasted? I am miraculously not hung over this morning which is great considering that I needed to put this post together. Thankfully I had completed my manicure yesterday when it was 5,000 degrees–even my fingers were sweating! Anyway, let’s get the polish show on the road!

For my base color, I used OPI In The Cable Car-pool Lane (press sample) which is simply goygeous. It is so shiny and squishy. I’m still loving the whole San Francisco Collection despite popular opinion.

For my stamped design, I use my MoYou London Pro Collection 18 plate (press sample) and Essie Good As Gold.

I really like how this turned out! I know this isn’t a very Spring/Summer manicure, but I don’t care. I will always wear whatever I’m in the mood for and this is what I wanted to wear yesterday.

It’s supposed to be a lot cooler this weekend (not in the 90’s) so I’m looking forward to not sweating while I sit on the couch and just watch TV. I’m also hoping to get some swatching done but there was a Zoya tragedy at the hands of Peanut yesterday. I’ll leave the story for the actual post. Thanks so much for stopping by today and I hope that you’ll link up your posts if you are participating in Stamping Saturdays. Have a great day, and I will talk to you soon!

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