Luau

Though it's chilly on this February night, back in September when I was sporting this manicure, the weather was much better suited to daiquiris than hot cocoa.

The first stage of this manicure was a great dollar store nail polish, L.A. Colors dark teal.  On top of it, I stamped Santee white with Bundle Monster plate BM19.



Then I painted in the negative space with a blue nail art pen from Big Lots.  And then I topped it with a couple of coats of Revlon clear top coat.



And from afar:



Mahalo!

Faux Peridot

This delightful greenish gold manicure came into existence by surprise.



It actually started out as the blue/gray/taupe/pink oddity from this post, China Glaze In The Mood Pink Shimmer to Purple Shimmer, shown below on the right.



After adding some Ulta Moody Blues, Revlon Orange Flip, and just a touch of Nabi Purple Glitter, it turned into this crazy franken.



The orange flashes are pretty intense indoors and give this polish almost magenta undertones.



But outside it becomes a slightly more subdued purple. Still an unusual color though.



Then I topped it with a sheer no name key lime green, and that's when the magic happened!  It turned into an awesome greenish, goldish, purple-ish duo-chrome.



It looked completely different in every lighting condition.  Dare I say it is Chanel Peridot-"esque"?



J'adore!





I was actually tempted to leave this manicure unstamped because I loved it so much... but I couldn't do it.  The compulsion to stamp is too strong!!  Here it is topped with Wet & Wild black and stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM-208.





And from afar:



I took my nail stamping plates and some polishes to a friend's place for a girls' night.  This was the result:





So much fun!

Brunch nails

I decided my gray/blue/pink/taupe nails weren't quite right for a Saturday morning brunch on a hot summer day. So I decided to revisit my obsession with pretty blue greens.

I've been loving OPI's Mermaid's Tears from the Pirates of the Caribbean collection. I don't actually own it, but I saw it earlier this summer on the toes of an acquaintance and couldn't get it out of my head. I had recently purchased the Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mint Sorbet, and I figured I could franken a rough approximation.

Sally Hansen Xtreme:



I added a few drops of China Glaze Concrete and Ulta Moody Blues.





Not bad eh?



Then I stamped with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mint Sorbet. The plate I used was MASH plate m63.





I enjoy the subtlety.

Floral filigree

After the craziness of my last rainbow dots manicure, I was in the mood for something a little more delicate.

I layered two coats of City Color mint green and stamped it with Urban Outfitters silver. The plate I used was Bundle Monster BM-221.



I'm not usually a girly girl, but I love how feminine it is.



And from further away:



After a few days I decided to top it with OPI shatter. Instead of brushing from the bottom up, I brushed in from the outside edges. I think the resulting look was an interesting pewter/brushed metal effect. I liked the matte finish too, so I didn't put a top coat on.

Franken fail

Oh how quickly one's franken dreams can die.

I'd been wanting to franken a glittery robin's egg blue for quite a while.  After my blog sale haul, I was excited to get started.  I used Etude House's very very sheer mint green as my base color and was off to a promising start after adding some Urban Outfitters blue and green and Santee white.  It looked like a creamier, bluer version of the City Color mint green.

Pretty good, in the bottle at least.



Unfortunately, things started going wrong when I added the glitter.  Despite a successful sample test, the glitter color started to leach once it had been in the polish for a little while, turning the whole thing into a slightly grayish, gritty, and not particularly glittery mess.



Oh well.  Maybe next time.