Harry Potter Nails!

  I went to the final Harry Potter last night at midnight (after waiting in line for six hours) and it was really amazing!  While it of course cannot stand up to the book, it was very nicely done and I was really pleased with the adaptation.  I of course had to do some Harry Potter nails for the event!

I really like how these turned out - so much fun!  Here is what I used to create this manicure:

Thumb: 3 coats OPI Grape Set Match as the base, with stars stamped in Zoya Trixie and Nicole by OPI Not a Gold Bigger using BM21

Index Finger - Gryffindor: 2 coats of Zoya Sarah as the base, with the pattern and tips stamped in Nicole by OPI Not a Gold Bigger using plates m60 and m19

Middle Finger - Ravenclaw: 4 coats of Zoya Kotori as the base, with pattern and tips stamped in Zoya Trixie using plates m60 and m19

Ring Finger - Slytherin:  3 coats of Zoya Suvi as the base with pattern and tips stamped in Zoya Trixie using plates m60 and m19

Pinky Finger - Hufflepuff:  3 coats of Nicole by OPI One Voice as the base with pattern and tips stamped in Konad Special Black using plates m60 and m19

  Hufflepuff looks totally different than the other four nails, haha.  And the gold for Gryffindor should have been more yellow-ish, but I didn't have anything the right color that would stamp well - so I did my best.  :)  The midnight showing was a lot of fun - lots of people dressed up!  It is sad that Harry Potter is now officially over, but I know I will continue to enjoy the books and the movies for years to come.

Happy Valentine's Day!

  Hope you all have a Happy Valentine's Day today!  This is a mani I wore earlier this week for the holiday (I will have to post today's nails tomorrow).

Outdoors, shade, no flash

  This is two coats of OPI Hoodoo Voodoo?!, a great bright berry creme.  Silky smooth application, great coverage and drying!  I used OPI Chapel of Love and Konad m60 to add the faint light pink plaid design in the background, and Konad Special White with Konad plate m59 to add the hearts.  A really fun Valentine design!

Zoya Gemma and Stamping Experiments

  I ordered the Zoya Intimate collection as soon as it came out - what gorgeous colors!  I decided to keep four for myself and give two away in the 300 Follower Giveaway - which was a very hard decision to make as to which to keep and which to give, since I loved every single one of those colors.  Here is one of the colors I knew I would need to keep right away.

Outdoors, shade, no flash

  Zoya Gemma is a really gorgeous muted olive color, with this amazing blue shimmer throughout.  It is a color I never would have thought to wear before, but I find it to be really beautiful.  This was three coats, which covered very nicely with great application.  I was sitting there looking at the bottles from the collection, and thought that Dannii and Gemma looked very nice sitting next to each other, and experimented a bit with stamping...

Outdoors, shade, no flash

  This is Zoya Dannii stamped using plate m60 followed by the flowers from plate m37 in Konad Special White.  The purple did not show up quite as well as I had hoped, but I think it compliments the blue tones of the shimmer nicely (which you can see very well in the bottle here).  I was a little unsure how I felt about this Konad job... mostly I like it but I feel like there was maybe something just a bit off with the colors.  I don't know... what do you think? :)

Waking Up In Vegas

  For Christmas, my sister Christy totally spoiled me.. again.  Some of you may remember that she bought me an early Christmas present of six amazing Deborah Lippmann shades (I have worn 4 of the six and can't wait to try the other two).  However on Christmas Day she got me even more Lippmann!  An awesome set with two colors, base and top coat, polish remover called their "Get Nailed" set, as well as the polish featured here!

Outdoors, shade, no flash

  I went all out Lippmann with these nails - I started with their ridge filling base coat, which I really liked a lot!  I then added two coats of Waking Up In Vegas, which is a "greige" (as I have seen it called, gray/beige), or a kind of taupe creme.  When I first saw this one I wasn't sure if I would like it on me - these neutrals really have to look right with your skin tone!  But I loved it.  Absolutely loved pretty much everthing about the polish, actually.  I really think this is a fabulous color, very trendy and wearable for professional situations.  The application was fairly flawless and was almost a one coater, totally smooth and this held up really with with basically no chipping!  I then added a design with Konad plate m60 for the design in Konad Special White.  I topped it all off with a coat of Deborah Lippmann Addicted To Speed, which is a really nice top coat - just as speedy and glossy as Seche Vite but I felt like there was less tip shrinkage.  Maybe I have a new favorite top coat?

Outdoors, shade - not color accurate

  I wanted to include a picture of the polish alone, to show how perfect and smooth it was!  Unfortunately, I was still figuring out how to use my new digital camera I got for Christmas, so the color balance was a little off because I had it on the wrong setting.  Oops.  The color is much more accurate in the first shot.  I finally think I have gotten the hang of the new camera now and hope it will make some of the pictures on my blog even better!

For Audrey - Preppy Plaid and Flowers

  Today I want to share with you some nails that I think may be up there among my favorites ever - beautiful base color, fun patterns, and a preppy fall look!

Outdoors, shade, no flash

  For these nails, I started out with two coats of China Glaze For Audrey.  I had used this polish as a stamper before but not on the whole nail, and let me just say - WOW!  This is such a gorgeous color, no wonder it has gotten so much attention!  It was silky smooth application, dried well and looked amazing.  It is a tiffany blue color, or a slightly green leaning light blue.  I have a couple of pictures below showing how different this polish may look in different lighting.

Outdoors, full sun

  I used Essie Little Brown Dress to stamp the brown plaid using Konad plate m60.  Mostly this worked out well, although you can see that the pinkie finger stamping was just a tad crooked.  Then I added the flowers using Konad Special White polish and plate m35.  I topped it all off with Seche and wore it all weekend!

  Above you can see For Audrey by itself, looking very blue in low natural light and very green in artificial indoor light.  However, I would say the color you see on the two final design pictures are most representative.

  I loved this mani, thought it was a perfect fall look.  Hope you like it!  I will have some fun Halloween nails coming up soon, like the design I am wearing now... look for it within the next couple of days!

  Also, do not forget to enter my 150 follower giveaway if you have not gotten the chance yet! :D

Ruby Red Bandana - CG Ruby Pumps + Konad

   First off, let me say - WOW!  I have reached 100 followers!  Thank you SO much to all of you who follow, and an extra-special thanks to those of you who comment.  I can't tell you how much I appreciate your support as I have been getting this nail blog up and going!  I will plan to have another giveaway soon, after the current one has ended... ;)

  Tonight I have for you a really fun little mani using China Glaze and Konad.

Outdoors, partial sun, no flash

  For these nails, I used three coats of China Glaze Ruby Pumps, and I have to say, I am absolutely loving this red.  I don't do red too terribly often, so when I do I like it to be fabulous, and as such only have a few really red reds (not burgundy/etc).  This polish may have inspired me to do reds more often; it is just that fabulous.  The sparkly red glitter is delicious and will leave you staring at your nails.  I imagine I can't say anything that hasn't been said about this color, so I will not go on anymore.  All I can say is - if you don't have this one, you really should go buy it.  The one downside to this is that it is hard to catch the glittery awesomeness of this polish on camera, but I tried to pick out a few shots where you can see the glittery bling.

This glitter is amazing

Indoors, artificial light, no flash

  Although I was tempted to leave this one alone with just the base color, I decided to use this pattern that I have been dying to use since I bought this plate.  I used Konad m60 with Konad Special White polish for the design.  You can see my impatience in a few streaks from when I added a coat of Seche Vite - I really need to learn to wait just a bit longer before top coating my Konad designs!

Outdoors, full sun, no flash

  This is a really fun mani, even if it does seem a bit more summery.  I have promised myself to try to do something a bit more fall next - we will see how that goes over.  But it is just a few days until October so I will have to start using some of my Halloween design ideas!

  Remember to enter my follower appreciation giveaway if you have not yet... only a few more days to enter!

Konadicure - Blue Jay

This is a Konadicure from last week - I will call it Blue Jay.  It is only my third attempt at Konad, as well as my first try layering two designs.

Bluejay Konadicure (Outdors, full sun, no flash)

 For this I used Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!, and then Konad plates M60 and M64 for the patterns, with Konad special polish in black and white, respectively.  I feel like the finished effect was almost like a bluejay's wings (although a very brightly colored bluejay).  I really loved the Blue Me Away polish, it went on very easy, covered beautifully in two coats, had pretty speedy drying time and was a gorgeous blue.  I wish I had taken a picture of the blue itself - next time!  Overall I was pleased with this manicure, even if the final product was a big different than expected.

I had some issues with the Konad on this manicure, as well as some of the same issues on previous attempts.  Other than my obvious need to practice getting these centered and covering the whole nail in some cases!  I am hoping some of you that are more experienced with Konad will be able to answer these questions; any advice is appreciated!

1. I notice that when I Konad, the patterns are not always perfectly clean.  You can see some here, especially on the argyle pattern, that there are little black lines or splotches where there shouldn't be.  Is this because I am not scraping the polish off enough before I roll the stamp on the plate, or is it the rolling/application itself?

2. I have also had a problem with Konad smudging when I paint on the top coat.  I have even waited up to 20 minutes after applying the Konad print to top coat, but still it smudges a bit when I apply the top coat.  It is not as bad here, but it was even worse on my non-picture hand.  I have been using OPI Rapid Dry top coat, although I did get some Seche Vite and am going to try that out tonight.  Do I just need to wait longer, or is the switch in top coats going to help?

3.  Finally for my most obvious (to me, at least!) problem of this manicure - I put the white stripes on AFTER the black argyle.  This looked fine until I applied the top coat; then the black showed through the white, with the final result as shown above.  I assume this could be fixed  by applying a top coat after the black, then doing the white, then another top coat?  Or is there something else I should be doing?

Thanks so much for any advice you can give!  Overall I still enjoyed this mani, even with all of its flaws.  Practice makes perfect!  I am off to practice some more now... :)