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!

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.

Giving stamping a try

I was very excited when my first mini haul of nail art supplies arrived in my mailbox.

I got the stamp and scraper and dotting tools on eBay and the 25 Mash plates on Amazon.  All were super cheap.  I did end up with two of the same Mash plates, and when I contacted the seller through Amazon to rectify the situation, they sent me a few more plates... which were also duplicate plates, but with bigger images.  Odd.  I guess the bigger images will come in handy because the other full nail images looked pretty darn small, even for my small nails.

For my base color, I used an oldie but goody nail polish Sally Hansen Maximum Growth in "Baby Doll."  It's a shimmery hot coral/salmon.



For stamping, I used Santee Plus in White.  It's not the best for stamping because it's a little transparent, but it did a pretty good job.  The Mash plate I used was m73.

I love stamping!