Valentine's Day Sand Art - OPI Liquid Sand

  I don't know about you, but I am really enjoying the new textured polishes that are coming out.  I think the idea is really fun, and thus far the polishes have been really pretty.  While we have seen lots of swatches of the various textured polished, one thing I haven't seen much of is nail art with textured polish.  I was curious how nail art would turn out with OPI's Liquid Sand polishes, so I decided to give it a try!

  For these nails, I used OPI The Show Must Go On and OPI Stay The Night.  Stay The Night is a black based polish with bits of bright fuchsia glitter that dries to a rough, sandy finish.  The fuchsia peeks out like embers under molten lava, it is a really unique look.  Here is two coats of Stay The Night alone.

  For the designs, I used both a dotting tool as well as blue painters tape.  For the index finger, I used the dotting tool to make dots of decreasing size with the Liquid Sand.  For the middle finger, I used small strips of tape and painted over Show Must Go On with one coat of Stay The Night.  On the ring finger, I used the dotting tool to make hearts with The Show Must Go.  I used a similar technique on the pinky finger with Stay The Night and outlined the heart in small dots.

  While I'm not sure the Liquid Sand polishes would stamp well (I didn't try it but I would guess no), there are a lot of other nail art techniques they work well with.  I didn't put a topcoat over any of the sand polish here, but that would also be possible to give it a bit different look.  Lots of fun possibilities!  Of course, lets not forget the beautiful duochrome of the base color here...

Duochrome!

  Have you tried any sort of nail art or designs with any of the Liquid Sands or other textured polish?  If so I'd love to hear your ideas and see what you came up with!  :)

Shimmer Vanessa

  Today I want to share with you another one of the gorgeous Shimmer polishes that Cindy has created!

  For these nails, I used two coats of Zoya Raven as a base and added one coat of Shimmer Vanessa on top.  In the bottle, Vanessa seems to be mainly comprised of silver, red, and black glitters of various sizes.  However, ones you get it on the nail you see that a rainbow of other colors pops up as well, especially blues and greens.  Looking at this in the bottle I knew it would look fabulous over black, and I was definitely not disappointed!

  Vanessa applied beautifully, and as you can see the glitter is fairly dense.  I am sure this polish would build nicely to opacity in 2-3 coats if worn alone, and is also wonderful for layering.  I love that there is so much complexity and diversity in the glitters, yet they all work together so well to form a cohesive look... it really is stunning!  I continue to be completely impressed with these polishes and cannot wait to share more with you!

Direct sunlight

  You can find Shimmer Polish at Cindy's blog, or at her Etsy Store.  I definitely recommend taking a look!

The polishes featured in this post  were provided to Polishology for review purposes and represents my honest and unbiased opinion.

Ringing in 2013 with Zoya Storm

  Happy New Year to all!  Hope the first five days of 2013 have treated you well - and that any resolutions that you made are still going strong!  Mine are... doing okay, haha.  One of them is to post on here more often - we'll see how well I can keep up with that!  To start, here is my New Year's Eve manicure, featuring the lovely Zoya Storm.

Indoors, artificial light

  For these nails, I started with two coats of Zoya Storm, a gorgeous black with scattered holographic glitter.  For images of Storm alone, see below.  I added silver holo snowflakes using plate BM-323 and China Glaze OMG.  While I loved that look alone (and sort of wish I had some pictures), I decided to play off of the bright colors of the holo glitter and add some colored dots to the center of some of the snowflakes.  I used China Glaze LOL, TMI, and Techno Teal for holographic colorful dots.  While I really like the effect of the purple and teal dots, the pink almost seems a bit too bright for the black and draws all of your attention.  But I am still pleased with the outcome!  I topped it off with a silver rhinestone in the center of the large ring finger snowflake.

Outdoors, natural light

  Storm alone is completely gorgeous.  In natural light, it is an inky black with scattered silver microglitter, which on its own is pretty enough.  However, get it under some sun (absent on this overcast, snowy day) or some artificial lights and...

Indoors, artificial light

Indoors, artificial light

  The holographic effect is intense and gorgeous.  While slightly less holo than Aurora, against the black background is is really beautiful.  This is probably my second pick from the Zoya Ornate collection, and my new favorite black holographic.  I would strongly recommend it for the upcoming three-free deal from Zoya!

  I have lots of fun swatches, glitter layering combos, stamping and nail art planned for the upcoming weeks so keep checking back!  I will do my best to keep up this resolution - good luck with any resolutions that you have made for 2013!

Stone Cold

  Another quick post today - still dealing with all of this life-change stuff and to top it off the sinusitis/bronchitis that I thought I got rid of a couple of weeks ago came back with a vengeance.  Ah, life... :)

Outdoors, shade

  Two coats of China Glaze Stone Cold from their Capitol Colors Hunger Games collection.  Gorgeous dark gray/black matte polish.  As with all mattes dries super fast so apply quickly or it can get streaky.  I'm not usually into blacks like this but the matte finish makes it totally awesome.

The Black Knight

  Here is a really fun manicure I wore for several days last week - I just couldn't get enough of it!  I probably would have worn it longer but I absentmindedly picked off one of the thumbnails during a movie - in (almost) one piece, which is kind of fun, haha.

Outdoor, shade

  The base of this mani is Butter London The Black Knight, which is totally and completely gorgeous.  It is a black base full of glitter, mostly pink and blue, but there are also a few scattered golds, reds and greens in there as well.  The glitters are also different sizes, with some normal sized and some very small, which gives it great depth.  It was just a tad thick but mostly applied very well in two coats.  It dries gritty, but two coats of top coat smoothed that out.

Sunlight

  For stamping, I used Red Angel plate RA-102 and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri polishes in Brisk Blue and Flashy Fuchsia.  The Insta-Dri polishes work really well for stamping, they are some of my new favorites!  Below are a few pictures of Black Knight by itself.

 

 

   Isn't it just gorgeous?  I want to go put it back on now.  It came in a cute little set I found at Ulta with another pink glitter polish I will have to try soon.  It is really unique and I am so glad I picked this one up!  :)

  If you haven't yet entered my giveaway, click here to enter!  Deadline is this Friday!

Happy Halloween!

  Originally I was going to do a totally different mani for Halloween... but then I received CG It's Alive a bit early and decided I was going to have to use that instead!

Indoors, artificial light

  For this manicure, I started out with two coats of the amazing China Glaze It's Alive, a yellow-green glitter bomb from this year's Haunting Halloween collection.  It is a perfect Halloween green and I am really glad I finally broke down and ordered it.  On top of that, I sponged on a layer of China Glaze Ick-a-Body on the bottom half of the nail, followed by China Glaze Mummy May I? on the tip.  This was gorgeous alone and I wish I would have taken a picture!  For the final touch, I added OPI Black Shatter to all of the nails.

Outdoors, shade

  While this is not the most overtly Halloween mani I have done so far (I think that honor belongs to the orange and black pumpkin mani), I still really like it a lot!  The glitters look amazing together and the shatter is very fun.

  Hope everyone has a fun, safe, and Happy Halloween!  Dan and I will be watching scary movies and answering the door tonight... what are your plans?  :)

Halloween Marbling/Go CATS!!

  Today is two days before Halloween.  It also happens to be Homecoming at K-State, and I am lucky enough to get to go to the game!  That's right, I am talking about my #10 ranked, undefeated K-State Wildcats!  So what to do, Halloween nails, or KSU nails....?  How about I just combine a bit of both for the ultimate mani?

Shade

  Purple and white in honor of my Cats, and orange and black in honor of Halloween.  I started this off with two coats of OPI Funky Donkey on all nails but ring finger, and three coats of Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Creepy Pumpkin on the ring finger.  Then I did water marbling with SH Xtreme Black Out and OPI Funky Donkey on all nails, including on the tip of the ring finger (using a tip guide).  I then added cute little skulls from BM-225 (index finger) and BM-211 using Konad Special White.

Early Morning Sun

  I love how this came out!  It is a bit different than I originally planned - in my original thoughts for this mani, I was not going to have an entirely orange accent nail.  But then I found Creepy Pumpkin and I had to do it.  It is a gorgeous, squishy jelly orange full of microglitter.  It was a bit of a pain to apply but I love the final look.  And the bottle is completely adorable!

Bottle Shot!

   Have a great weekend-before-Halloween!  I am off to root for my Cats now... it is going to be a tough game for them (we are playing #11 Oklahoma) but I think we can pull it off.  :)

Haunting Silver Specters

  It is almost Halloween!  I love Halloween... although it is second to Christmas on my favorite holiday list, it is a close second.  I haven't actually gotten to decorate yet, which is very sad (I have been SO busy!) but we are decorating Monday after my big toxicology test so that will be lot of fun.  Anyway... the next week and a half are going to be totally dedicated to Halloween manicures!

Outdoors, shade

  First up is a manicure I did with the gorgeous China Glaze Haunting, a black filled with tons of silver microglitter fron their Halloween 2011 Haunting collection.  I have been wanting a black and silver glitter for awhile now and I knew this was the one as soon as I saw it!  Fabulous application at two coats.  On top of that, I added cute little ghosts from BM-223 using Zoya Trixie.  These ghosts are just too cute, and the silver looked very nice with the silver glitter.  A very fun first Halloween 2011 manicure!

Lippmann's Ruby Red Slippers

  Quick post today - I have been sick the past week, and have fallen behind on posting, but I will catch up within the next few days!  Here is a gorgeous polish from Deborah Lippmann, Ruby Red Slippers.

Outdoors, shade

  This is one of the stunning glitters Lippmann offers.  Deep black jelly base full of small round and large hex crimson glitter.  I wore this to my cousin's wedding, went very nicely with my black dress.  Three coats for full opacity, fabulous application.  I just love her glitters!  I need to get my hands on Candy Shop.  To win this polish, as well as several others, be sure to enter my giveaway!

Splatter Manicure!

  Last month while I was catching up on other nail blogs one day, I can across this absolutely gorgeous splatter manicure by Jen from The PolishAholic and I totally fell in love.  I knew I was going to have to try it out myself - and while my results aren't quite as fantastic as hers, I was still pleased with the first attempt!

Left Hand

  For this splatter mani, I started out with two coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Black Out for the base, then used Nicole by OPI "Baby" Blue and Nicole by OPI I'm A Belieber as my two splatter colors.  The way to create this look is to get a bit of your polish color on the end of a straw, aim it at your nail, and them blow a quick puff of air to splatter the paint onto your nails (and the surrounding area, haha... I recommend something disposable to do this over).

Right Hand

  I had a bit of a tough time getting the polish to splatter nicely (or at all) in the beginning, but with a bit of practice I started to get the hang of it more and more.  Some nails turned out much nicer than others, and I am hoping that next time I try out this technique I will get even better results.  But for now, these were really fun nails that I got a lot of compliments on!  If you are interested in creating your own splatter mani, there is a great tutorial at The PolishAholic that helped me. :)

Classic Gold and Black - For Nail Art Contest!

  I was challenged to THE DUEL by Amy over at Starving Nail Addict - which is a really great new blog, you should definitely check it out!  The challenge was to come up with any manicure using gold.  I love gold as a fall color, and decided I wanted to go with something really classic - and classy!

Outdoors, last-bits-of-light shade, no flash

  For these nails, I decided to combine several elements, including marbling, stamping, and the use of some tip guides.  After two coats of Seche Recondition (which is what I have been using the past few manicures as a base coat), I started off with two coats of OPI Glitzerland, which is a gorgeous champagne-gold from the fall Swiss collection.  I then did water marbling with OPI Glitzerland and Sally Hansen Xtreme Black Out.

Indoors, artificial light

  I added a coat of Seche Vite in between at this point for fast drying, and then added black tips using SH Black Out and Orly tip guides, which I really enjoyed using for tips!  As the final touch, I used Konad plate m80 to add an intricate tip design with.  I topped it all off with another coat of Seche Vite!

Outdoors, last-bit-of-light shade, and flash

  I really like the way this turned out.  Black and gold is such a gorgeous combination that it was the first thing that came to mind when I read that the challenge was any manicure involving gold in the design.  I feel like this is so classy, yet also very fun with the whimsical water marbling pattern and the lacy tips!

Close-up in artificial light

  Now here comes the part where I ask you...

Please vote for me!

You may either vote here in my comments, or on STARVING NAIL ADDICT.  The rules for voting are simple: list the designs from your most favorite first!  Here are the other entries:

 Little Grean Heart

Swaafie

 

Starving Nail Addict

 

  

  Here is the official description on how to vote:

   And here's how you vote: Make a list of the designs, starting with your favorite one first. Make sense? List your favorite design first, then your second favorite, and so on and so forth. (I'm giving out points based on the ranking of the designs, but if you are torn between designs, then go ahead and clarify which ones tie for what place).

   Voting is open from now until about the end of the week (so ladies, get as many people to vote as you can!). Just put your votes in the comment box. Oh, and I don't care whose blog you vote on, I will be checking and double checking all of them.

  I would really appreciate any votes for my design you guys think it deserves!  Remember, you can vote here or on her blog, either will do.  Thanks so much, hope you like my classic black and gold mani! :D