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!

Discreet designs

Pretty often the nail art plan I have in my head doesn't quite turn out as I envisioned once it gets on my nails.  But I usually enjoy the results anyway, especially when they are subtle and give a texture effect.  Here are a couple from a while back.

For this one, I used Color Club Electro Candy neon purple with blue shimmer as the base nail polish color.  On top of that, I stamped Color Club Electro Candy neon blue with green shimmer with Bundle Monster plate BM-203.  I topped it off with Revlon clear top coat.   The result was definitely not noticeable from very far away, but looked pretty neat up close.

On this one, I used L.A. Colors gunmetal gray (BCC 558?) as the base nail polish color, stamped Nabi Neon Purple with Bundle Monster plate BM-214, and stamped Nabi Purple Glitter over that with plate BM-201.  On top is Revlon clear top coat.  I liked how the colors mixed into a metallic gray purple from far away.  I took these pics a few days into the manicure, so my nails are showing some edge wear.    

Chain nail

This was a quick and fun one. I started with L.A. Colors metallic blue as the base nail polish color. I stamped an accent nail with Urban Outfitters silver (Bundle Monster plate BM12), and topped the other nails with Sally Girl mini glitter polish, which is made up of silver hexagons and small circles.

Patriotic polish

In honor of Veteran's Day, as well as my husband's new U.S. citizenship, I present American flag nails!



The nail polish I used was Santee white as the base color, L.A. color metallic blue (BCC 566?) for the stars, and Maybelline Cherry Rain for the stripes.

I used the stars tips from Mash plate m44 and the diagonal stripes from Bundle Monster plate BM20.

I did the stars first, let it dry a little bit, then covered the stars with blue painter's tape and added the stripes.

This manicure was actually surprisingly quick and easy.  In retrospect I should have used a darker blue such as Ulta Moody Blues to get a truer American flag blue.  Next time!

Cheetara

As a child of the '80s, I was all about Thundercats and Cheetara in particular because she was such a freakin' badass.



I mean c'mon!

So when I was invited to a Thundercats premiere watching party, I thought I should have a manicure that reflected my affinity for the fastest Thundercat of them all (who's also pretty good with a bo staff).

I used Urban Outfitters in yellow, Revlon Orange Flip, and L.A. Colors in gold. Base coat by L'Oreal and top coat by Nicole by OPI. The stamping plate I used was Bundle Monster BM-221.



I must admit, it was a bit of a rush job and it shows. And in retrospect, it probably would have looked better if I'd incorporated black. But oh well!



And from afar:



A Jem t-shirt completed the look. :) After watching the premiere (good, but not as good as the original), we watched the She-Ra/He-man movie. All in all, a very fun '80s cartoon night.

Red and gold nail stamping

My next attempt at stamping involved a little more pizzaz.

I used the following colors: a mystery brand in Rock-On Red as my base color, a mixture of Revlon Top Speed in Reddy and Revlon Cherries in the Snow for stamping, Nicole by OPI top coat, and L.A. Colors Art Deco in a fine gold glitter for detailing.  I picked the gold up at Dollar Tree for a dollar!



The results were like so:



And here's one with flash so you can see the stamping.  I stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM10 (which I got as a single plate on eBay to test out the Bundle Monster plates before I committed to the set).



The gold tips were inspired by Jessie J's nails at the 2011 Glamour Women of the Year Awards, as seen here.

Although the results of the stamping were very subtle and definitely not noticeable from any distance at all, I really liked the fact that it added texture as opposed to color.