Stamped Gradient Using OPI Euro Centrale Colours + QA28

Hey guys! Today I have a mani to show you that I did using my new OPI Euro Centrale mini set. :D
I skipped Aussie Nails Monday this week because I had a super busy weekend and then I just couldn't be bothered doing the theme this week LOL.

For the base colour I used You're Such a Budapest, which is a light periwinkle-ish purple. It's super pretty! :) It has a little teeny bit of a shimmer in it but it's not very noticeable at all! I did 3 coats of YSAB.

Then I used Can't Find My Czechbook with YSAB to create the gradient. I have a gradient tutorial video HERE if you are interested. :) This is a light sky blue colour.

Over the gradient on my ring finger I used Gloss n Sparkle "Cotinga" :) I've been looking for the perfect polish to use this with for AGES and I think it works over both these colours! :D Unfortunately I don't think Gloss n Sparkle sells this one anymore. :( I did get it probably about 6 months ago, though.

I then stamped over the gradient using plate QA28 from Born Pretty Store with Sinful Colors Snow Me White. :) How cute are the moustaches! :D I think the Born Pretty plates work great for the price! They're only around $3 each!

UMM LOOK AT THOSE GLITTERSSSSS!
Kinda fell in love with this photo ^_^

Bonus bottle shot of Gloss n Sparkle "Cotinga"

What do you think?! :D I love the moustache stamp, it's so funny and cute haha!

China Glaze - Tart-y For The Party + BM315

Hey guys! Today I have a polish from the China Glaze Spring 2013 Avant Garden collection to show you, and my first stamped mani using my new BundleMonster plates! :)

China Glaze Tart-y For The Party (+ stamping with BM-315)

Tart-y For The Party is a really pretty purple creme. It's not quite pastel but I wouldn't call it a mid tone purple either... And I can't quite decide if it's more cool toned or warm toned. :/ You can be the judge of that LOL. I thought it was quite unique to my collection when I bought this, but I actually do own a few similar shades haha. I'm just a sucker for purples (which is weird because I don't wear them that often and can feel like they look bad on me).  This is actually quite similar to OPI Do You Lilac It. I haven't swatched them side by side but in the bottle they do look similar. Tart-y For The Party is definitely brighter, however. So not dupes IMO, but similar :)

I then stamped using my brand new BundleMonster plates! :D I'm still pretty new to stamping so bear with me! I've been practicing a lot since I got them and I'm having a lot of fun with it.
I used BM-315 with Sinful Colors White On White.

Close up - you can see the stamping isn't perfect close up but from a distance it looks fine! :)

OH, I want to ask you guys about my photos. I don't know whether I prefer my photos taken in my light box (the ones in this post), or the photos taken outside (in my previous post). Let me know which ones you like better because I want to be more consistent with my photos since I switch it up pretty often haha. I think I prefer the light box photos - they look a bit more professional IMO but yeah let me know please! :)
And I know I have been changing up my watermark a lot LOL. I think I'm really happy with this one though. I might make it a bit more opaque though... You can't see it much lol! I'm kinda tired of the around-the-cuticle watermark. :P

Have you picked up any colours from the Avant Garden collection? Or will you be? I'm still not sure if I want to grab any more... I can't decide lol. I might pick up Mimosa's Before Mani's and Keep Calm Paint On. Still undecided, though. :P

Thanks for reading! I hope you have an awesome weekend :D I have a pretty full on weekend so I may not have a post up until the end of the weekend... We'll see. :) ♥

My Valentine's Day Nails ♡

Hi guys! Not really sure what happened to this post before... lol I published it a couple of hours ago and then just went on my blog and it wasn't there? Weird.
I hope you had a really nice Valentine's Day yesterday! My boyfriend and I don't do anything super fancy for V Day but we had a good night. :)

This is what I wore on my nails for Valentine's Day!

On all my nails except my ring, the base is Revlon Colorstay Rich Raspberry, stamped with plate QA28 from BornPrettyStore in white, and on my ring is Ulta3 Lily White stamped with the same plate and Rich Raspberry.

I can't believe how well this turned out! Usually I have to redo each nail a few times before the stamping looks good but I didn't have to redo ANY of my nails! :D

OPI - Red Lights Ahead...Where? + stamping with QA18 - Mission Untrieds #15

I wasn't planning on sharing my weekend manicure on here because it was just a plain red (and I only have a mini bottle of this polish I didn't feel like photographing it LOL), but then I added some stamping for Saturday night so I decided I'd show it! :D

Let me tell you to start off - I'm still new to stamping. I should practice more lol. I had to redo each nail twice I think but it wasn't too bad compared to other times haha.

My base colour is OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where? and I did the stamping using Ulta3 Lily White and stamping plate QA18 which I bought from Born Pretty Store.

I've worn Red Lights Ahead...Where? before but it was aaaaaages ago, almost a year ago actually, when I first got into polish! :) It was one of my first OPIs!

Everyone says that Ulta3 Lily White is great for stamping but it doesn't seem to work for me. :( Maybe I don't stamp hard enough or something? But when I transfer the polish from the stamp to my nail, half of it is still on the stamp (which is why it looks so faint on my nail lol). o.O

Do you have any tips for me, or recommendations for good stamping polishes?! :) I'm getting more into nail art lately and I really want to get more into stamping because it's so cute and there are some ADORABLE plates out there! Plus I'd imagine it's much easier when you get the hang of it and then you'd be able to do it super quickly! :)

Btw - how cute would this design be for Valentine's Day?! Even the other way around too, red stamping on a white base. That would be sooo cute! Maybe I'll try it next time! ^_^

Aussie Nails Monday 21/1 - Skittles

Hey hey! :) I just wanted to start by saying thank you soo much for 100 likes on my Facebook page! So awesome! Thank you! :) I also got to 4000 followers on Instagram this week!! :D
AND, I'm almost at 200 blog followers! Which is soo exciting! I never ever thought in a million years that anybody would want to read my blog! :) I am thinking about doing a giveaway in a couple of months to celebrate and thank you, so keep your eyes peeled. ;)

Today for Aussie Nails Monday, the theme is Skittles! I think some of the ladies in the ANM group will take "Skittles" literally and do a mani inspired by the lollies. :P A "skittle manicure" is usually when you do a different colour on each nail. Or the same colour on each nail, but a different nail art design on each nail. I don't think there's really any "rules" when it comes to skittle manicures ... I hope. Hehe.
I did more of a mix and match manicure than skittles but I hope it still counts. I just don't feel right wearing a completely different colour on each nail haha. So I did something using 3 colours. I wanted it to all tie in together.

On my pointer and middle nails I'm wearing OPI Stay The Night from the Mariah Carey collection. This is one of the new Liquid Sand polishes! I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the Liquid Sands but I think they are so cool!
Stay The Night is a black base with black and pink-ish red glitter. And as the name "Liquid Sand" would suggest, it dries to a sand-ish looking finish. But it's not overly rough or scratchy like I thought it might be. The texture does make me shiver a bit to touch though lol!

On my pinky and thumb I am wearing a berry-ish pink colour by Rubi Shoes (by Cotton On) called It's Getting Hot In Here and I added a little black rhinestone at the cuticle. :) This is the closest colour in my collection to the glitters in Stay The Night, so it doesn't exactly match.

On my ring finger, I did some stamping! I used my favourite white, Ulta3 Lily White as my base and then I used the lips design on stamping plate QA28 that I bought from Born Pretty Store and a random black polish.

And here is a close up of what Stay The Night looks like! I think it looks so awesome! The red glitters still sparkle a lot even though the overall look is matte.

This is something so out of my comfort zone but I love it so much! I want to try more mix and match nails!

Check out the other awesome Aussie Nails Monday ladies! :)

Nail Gun XS - Marie’s Manicure Madhouse - Shatter Me Claire - A Polished Prance - Shades of Phoenix - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams - NananaisNails - Enamoured With Enamel - Adelle1985 - Kelly's Kolors - Polished Peripherals - Every Little Polish - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - Erinzi’s Nails - Lovessweetas - Jas’ Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh - Maedaynails - Lili_Bete - The Reluctant Femme - Jibber Jabber - Messy Mansion - Nailovelogy - Ronda - It's All About The Polish - Pretty Polish Please

Aussie Christmas 21/12 - Gold

Hey hey! 4 sleeps till Christmas! :D I am so excited! Usually I don't do anything Christmas-y until the night of Christmas Eve when I'd usually go to church but this year I'm doing Christmas-y things every day starting Sunday (possibly Saturday..?) which will be awesome! :)

For my "Gold" nails I decided to do some stamping! I'm obviously not great at stamping, and I only own 5 or so plates but I love the look of it.

My base colour is Essence Walk On The Wild Side, a nice dark green with a lighter green shimmer. I then stamped over it with Essence A Piece Of Forever from the Breaking Dawn pt 2 collection. It's a warm metallic gold. I would never wear it on its own but I heard it was nice for stamping so I kept it for that purpose. :) I used Fauxnad plate M57 from Born Pretty Store.
Now I know that my stamping is not very good! But I actually also think it may be the quality of the plate I used. Please also excuse my index finger. I screwed it up a few times. :( I still need a lot of practice with stamping I think!

I can't remember if I mentioned it, I don't think I did, but I'm probably not going to post any "new" nail posts for a week or so after I finish the Aussie Christmas Challenge because I am just not liking my nails right now. :( I'm never happy with the shape or length. This doesn't mean I won't be posting  anything, it'll just be NOTDs I never got around to posting, etc. :)

Aussie Nails Monday 10/12 - Delicate

I'm sorry this post is going up much later than usual! I sort of got myself in over my head with the challenges I'm doing LOL. I have the Aussie Christmas Challenge every second day, and Aussie Nails Monday every Monday (as the name would suggest...) so I totally forgot about ANM until 11pm last night. :P I hadn't even decided what exactly I was going to do yet! Usually I have my manis done at least a day or two (if not more) early for things like this just so I'm ahead of time and not rushing! I need to get more organised. Usually I am so I feel stressed out being unorganised!

Disclaimer: Please don't judge my stamping LOL.
The base is OPI Don't Touch My Tutu topped with Pirouette My Whistle. I need to see if I can find full size bottles of these online because I only have minis and they're both about half gone!
I stamped over this using a lace pattern from a plate "M57" which I purchased from Born Pretty Store, about a year ago. I do recommend this plate from there if they still have it; I didn't check lol. Another that I bought from there ("M65") isn't so good however.
I used Ulta3's Black Satin polish to stamp with. And it worked really well! Black Satin is awesomely opaque. I'm just not the best at placing stamps in the right place. :P I think it turned out the best on my ring finger, that was the look I was going for on all of my nails.
I mattified the whole mani with Rimmel's matte topcoat! I really like this look with matte topcoat!

I'd love to do some more stamping manis! If you have any stamping plates you recommend or any techniques that help, let me know. :)

Check out the blogs/accounts of the gorgeous ladies joining me for Aussie Nails Monday:

Nail Gun XS - Marie’s Manicure Madhouse - Tales From The Makeup Bag - Shatter Me Claire - A Polished Prance - Tee Bee’s Nails - The Epitome of Superficiality - Lacquer Dreams - NananaisNails - Enamoured With Enamel - Pretty Polish Please - Adelle1985 - Kelly's Kolors - Polished Peripherals - Nicki - Every Little Polish - Mel My Issta - Walk In My Eyeshadow - JennLojko - The Polish Haven - Nails In The Desert - Erinzi - Strawbrie - Lovessweetas - Jas' Blingtastic Nails - Mckfresh - Jessica - Elizabeth

31DC2012: Day 14 - Flowers

In this post you get to see my sad, short, baby nails. :( I was happy when I first filed them down because I was over having super long nails but now once I've done a mani on them; not so much. Ugh! Just can't win. ;)

Anywho. I'll just get right to it. Today's theme is flowers. I had a hard time coming up with a flower design. I couldn't think of anything so I just ended up doing some stamping instead.
I'm not gonna lie, you may have already seen this stamping design on my blog. I can't remember if I've shown it or not but I've definitely used it a gazillion times because I don't own many plates. :(

This design was done with a Fauxnad plate M65, I think I bought it from Born Pretty Store almost a year ago. I used Konad Special Polish in white.

The base is Sally Hansen - Coral Fever! This was also given to me by the lovely Natalie from Instagram. :) I loooove this coral! :) It's not a totally orange-y which I love because I am not a fan of orange polish on me. :P Thank you again Natalie!

Please excuse the boo-boos in this mani; I nicked it a couple times and I'm trying a new top coat which I guess isn't as good as I'd hoped... :(

So I hope my baby nails aren't too ugly for you to look at. LOL. Actually, my pictures make them look a bit longer than they actually are. I don't want to call them 'nubbins' because they technically aren't. I do have a bit of free edge. But I miss my long nails. Boo hoo.

Elissa

31DC2012: Day 8 - Metallic (FAIL)

Soooo, today the manicure I have to show you is a fail. :( I was looking forward to today's mani but it sucks!  I'll just get it over and done with... :(

Today's theme is metallic. I am not a fan of metallic nails just on their own but, metallics are good for stamping! So I decided to do some stamping with a metallic. That's why this was a fail. But everyone has their bad days okay? :P

As the base colour, I used a franken I made the other night! I don't have a suuuuper light baby blue in my collection so I decided to franken one. :) It's a little bit on the minty side of blue under some lights, rather than a true blue.

I then stamped over it with Sally Hansen - Celeb City. I don't know if it's just this polish that made the stamping a fail, or user error, but I'm gonna show you anyway. I use the Konad M63 plate. I stamped using swirly design, it sort of looks like ribbon to me. I didn't wear this mani for long at all but my boyfriend said the ribbony design looked cool so maybe I'll have to try it again soon.

So I'm sorry that I had to show you this fail mani but I promise I'll have better ones to show you coming up! :)

Elissa