Under The Sea Nails.

This week's challenge in AIS on facebook was Under The Sea. So I wanted to do some stamping decals, I don't do stamping decals as often as I would like.... Why, you ask.... Well, it takes longer to do stamping decals. I only did one hand and I worked for a bit over 1 hour and 45 minutes, not counting the nail care routine and applying the white base color.
I applied 1 coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. Then I pulled out my acrylic paints (in white, blue, Light Mocha, brown, purple, yellow and orange they are mostly by FolkArt & Apple Barrel), my brushes and a paper cup with water and started working. I mixed blue and white to get the desired light blue shade I wanted and painted 2 coats over my white base, letting the first coat dry before applying the second color of light blue. Then I picked a nude color of acrylic paint and mixed it with white to get a light sand color to be the sandy seabed shade, and applied 2 coats of this as an uneven French tip. I wanted to add some dimension to the seabed so added some of the nude acrylic paint on it's own to random areas of the French tip. But couldn't really see it that well, so I got my brown acrylic paint and added a tiny bit to the nude & white mix. Then applied it to random spots on the French tip area.
I did a coat of top coat to seal in the acrylic paint and get a smooth surface for my stamping.
Then I picked Winstonia W-01 and Infinity Nails 11 by Dashica and my Jade green stamping polish from Dashica and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Mint Sprint and stamped 2 images of sea weed on two of my nails. And applied an other coat of top coat over the seaweed images, and my background was done.

Stamping decals are a lot of fun but they take so long to do if you want to do more then just 1 or 2 nails. I use Konad stamping polish in white and all of my firm stampers. Then to fill in the decals I used acrylic paints and a detail brush I got from the craft store. And the top coat I used to seal in the decals on my stampers was NYC Grand Central Station.  To glue my decals onto my nails I used Glisten & Glow HK Girl top coat and also used this to seal it all together at the end. I have to say, I really love this top coat it is my new favorite fast drying top coat. So happy I got 3 bottles of it right away, so it will last me for a few weeks..... LOL.

Looks like youtube and google won't sync again so my video tutorial box won't come up when I add it as a youtube link here. So I have to wait and see if it will come up tomorrow and add it then. But for now, here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG9yfdelTXo&feature=youtu.be

Final Look

As always thanks for stopping by.

Fun With Hello Kitty! A Stamping Decal....

I thought it was time to do a stamping decal tutorial. I haven't done many of these, last one I did was for Easter a few months ago. I like doing the stamping decals, but to make sure I don't mess anything up with kids bumping into my work table or climbing all over me.... So I have to do these while they are sound asleep in their beds. I don't dare to think about what the decals would look like if the kids were climbing all over me while filling in the colors.


So are you ready??? Here are all the items I used for these nails.

• Base color:  OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender
• Image Plates: FUN 9 (Hello Kitty Plate) & Dashica Big SdP F    
• Konad stampers (standard & double sided for decals)
• XL Stamper
• Konad Special Polish: Black
• China Glaze: Purr-Fect Plum
• Acrylic Paints: Oumaxi
• Detail brushes
• Water in a glass to clean your brush
• Topcoats: NYC Grand Central Station & Out The Door
• Tweezers
• Fan brush

Here's what I did for the decals:

1.  Apply 2 coats of  base polish and let it dry. Then I grabbed my Konad stampers, special polish and my FUN 9 plate.
2.  Pick an image that has mostly outline of a character/item/logo, like an image in a coloring book. Apply the stamping polish to the image, scrape and stamp.  Leave the stamped image on the stamper!! And let it dry on the stamper for a minute or two before moving on to the next step. 
3. Fill in the image with acrylic paints or polish in any color of your choice. I find it easier to do with acrylic paints than polish. Let it dry for a few minutes and do a second coat of paint/polish if needed. Let the image dry completely.
4. Apply topcoat over and around the image. Let it dry. For this I used the NYC topcoat.
5. When dry, gently start peeling off the decal from the stamper. But don't remove it completely.
6. Apply a coat of topcoat to your nail and before it dries......
7. Remove the decal from the stamper and place it on your nail.
8. Apply a coat of your favorite fast drying topcoat.

Between step 4 & 5 while I was waiting for the decals to dry on the stampers, I stamped the background image on my nails.  

Here's my youtube tutorial of this mani. Step by step how I did these nails.

Final look

Time to go to bed, before I turn into a raccoon... Takes time making video, snap pictures, editing, uploading and blogging. Thank goodness I don't think I have to go any places today, if I do thank goodness for concealers.... LOL.

Hope you liked this one. 

Have a great week.

Happy Stamping.

Contest nail stamping designs.

For the last 3 days I have been working on designs for Konad Ireland FB contest, theme is Black & White. You have to use one of the 19 photos they posted to make a mani, and yes you can only use Konad plates. I don't have that many of those like 13 or 14. I decided to do this on my nail swatch sticks, because I knew it would be a mess if I did it on my own nails. Still a hassle since the images on Konad plates are so small, so had to double stamp on the Black & White animal dress mani.  I used images from 6 plates, I will list the plate numbers I used under each design.
You can see all the entries for this contest here:
https://www.facebook.com/KonadIreland

M64, M19 & M56

M71 and dotting tool.

M69 & M78

Have a great weekend.

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The joy of stamping, Korean noodles and Korean TV dramas.

After the kids had their breakfast and was playing nicely with their stuff I thought it was a good time to do my nails. A few weeks ago I won 3 Julep polishes so I decided to try one out, I picked Grace since it's also my daughter's name. Then I pulled out one of my Dashica Dash 15 plates and Konad white and m19 for French tip for my left hand. On the right I used Grace as base again, but used Maybelline's  Amethyst Ablaze  for stamping. Then I just used some nail stickers to add as finishing touch for my mani and some rhinestones.

Then it was lunch time and to warm me up since it's so cold outside I did some Korean noodles, and a few rice cakes and some dumplings. And of course some Kimchi on the side, both the normal napa cabbage kind and radish. And there's no doubt little Grace is half Asian, she loves noodles and rice. But turn her head to potatoes.......

And while I was slurping my noodles I decided to watch some Korean drama on hulu. Right now I am watching Kimchi family. And they have managed to make Kimchi making look like an art, I just wish I could jump into the screen and taste all those yummy foods they show. Also I haven't had much Korean food since I was adopted years ago, so when I tasted the rice cakes the other day I guess it triggered something. The taste and the soft chewyness was so familiar, I must have eaten rice cakes when I was a toddler.

Right hand.

Left hand

You like my owl nail file??

Korean noodles, rice cakes and dumplings  topped with radish kimchi.

Sunday 21th Challenge in AIS.

The theme for today's challenge in AIS was something spooky & scary or in other words Halloween.
I used Wet N Wild Black Creme as base color, then I decided to use one of my Halloween polishes I picked up a couple of weeks ago Fantasy makers (makers of WnW) called Once Upon A time. Very sheer black with red glitters in it. But I picked out the polish because of the bottle, it's shaped like a tomb stone.
It's pretty, but really hard to get the red glitter to show on pictures and video.
Yes, I have a few more plates now. But was hard to figure out what plate to use for this challenge. For some reason I am very picky these days. Guess that's why I haven't done any Halloween nails until now.
But finally I decided to use Dashica's Dash plate 17 (one of the plates from the set) and Konad Special polish in White.

My youtube totorial of this look.

Review and Testing Nail Craze NC 02 Plate.

I have said a few times that there are some amazing people in Adventures In Stamping on facebook. One of them is Natalie, the designer behind Nailz Craze. She has made 2 plates so far, I didn't get the first one. But when I saw the preview of this plate I knew I needed to get my hands on this plate. The plate and full nail images are bigger than Konad's. So what are my thoughts about this plate?
The only thing I didn't like about this plate, it doesn't have a backing on the back. So the edges are really sharp, so if you have little ones like me. DON'T LET THEM PLAY WITH THIS PLATE. My 6 year old likes to count all my plates, so I have to make sure he doesn't grab this plate. Don't want any cut fingers.

I tried 4 images on this plate, and they stamped really well. I really like the images on this plate, they're really magical. My favorites are Pegasus and the unicorn, but I have always loved horses. Even hubby liked how I did Pegasus with golden wings and tail, rest white. I stamped with Konad special polish in White, Maybelline Bold Gold and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes.

Left hand.

Right hand.

Natalie did an amazing job designing the images on this plate, I love the whole Magical theme. It is truly magical. Can't wait to see what she'll do next. If you want to buy this plate or the NC 01 you can find them at the link below.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/nailz-craze/purchase-faq/312586412154289

Thanks, Natalie for designing this amazing plate. So happy I decided to buy it.

Until next time, take care.

Hope you all have an amazing & safe Independence Day..

So are all my American readers getting ready for tomorrow? We just have a few more things we have to hit the store for tomorrow's menu. I  am going to make a feast with out care pack from Omaha Steaks, then take it easy and watch fireworks around our home. Will just be us and grandma and a bunch of food.

I have had a few 4 th of July celebrations over here, and my least favorite was Arizona. Was way too hot, to be outside. My favorite one was when hubby and I drove up from AZ to St. George UT with a big ice chest filled with homemade burgers, hotdogs to see his best friends Seth and his family. I had some Norwegian candies for his kids, and Seth and Kev went nuts getting fireworks. We had an amazing day with them.

An other one was when we lived in Long Beach and we walked down to the beach and it was crowded with  happy people, and we had the perfect view of the fireworks. Fireworks, beach and the ocean can you really beat that??

Anyways, I did my nails and they are ready for tomorrow. I used 2 colors from Nubar Ruby and Sapphire, then I was bummed that I didn't have an image plate with a full image with simple stripes. So I went digging for my white Striper polish, and it was all dried out. I don't know what it is up here in UT. But I have noticed that polishes dries out after a few months. Makes it hard to make a collection of polishes here, even the ones I got 2-3 months have gotten thicker. I have a polish thinner, but it's getting low. Anyone else have this problem??

But back to my 4 th July mani, only image I found that had stars and some stripes was this angled French image on my Dashica XXL Big SdP1. So I decided to use that with Konad White. Granny likes my nails and so does little Grace. She pulls on my hand and fingers to get a closer look at my nails and then she pulls on my nails like she's trying to pull them off...... 

She is saying a few words these days she says shoo and bubb bubb a lot, can you guess what the words are? Shoe and bubbles, she is all crazy about shoes. She loves walking around in her pink shoes or her sandals all day long. And of course bubbles she loves them so much she starts shaking, waving her arms and making happy sounds WEEEEEEEE. Hubby and I call her our little vibrating baby, it's really funny. I have to see if I can get it on camera.

Hope you all have a great day tomorrow with your loved ones. And be safe, and check the regulations in your area on fireworks. Don't drink too much and if you have kids, remember seeing their mommy or daddy too drunk will scare them. Not saying don't drink at all, don't let it go too far and out of control.  Remember it's a fun day for everyone of all ages.

Happy Independence Day.

Swatches and stamping.

The last days have been a struggle, I still can't believe she is gone. And sometimes I forget and think I have to take Rikku out or check her water and food. I  also wanted to put my plate down the other day so she could lick it after we were done eating. And talk about having mood swings like crazy, can go from crying to laughing in 0.3 seconds.... And I haven't had much appetite, I have to force my self to eat anything. I am glad that I have had the kids to keep me busy tho. Anyways......  I decided to do my nails yesterday morning, the chipping of my old mani was getting really bad. So I decided to do my nails and some stamping for this Sunday's challenge in Adventures In Stamping. The lady who started the group, Debbie asked if we could do one for her daughter Beth's birthday. And why not? Debbie started this amazing group so of course we were happy to do so. Here is my entry, I used OPI Into The Night from the new Spiderman collection. Then I applied a coat of my Wet N Wild topcoat w/ SpectraFlair and used Konad Special polish in White to stamp. And some images from Dashica XXL Big SdP1.

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From left to right: present, Hello Kitty, flower,balloons and full nail Hello Kitty.

I also decided to try out OPI Just Spotted The Lizard, also from the Spideman collection. And did the topcoat w/SpectraFlair again and pulled out my Konad Special Black polish and Dashica SdP 38 and XXL SdP 1. 

Hope you all have a great week. And are enjoying nice sunny summer days.

/hugs

Inspired By Music Stamping Challenge.

This week's Sunday stamping challenge in Adventures in Stamping was Inspired by music. This could be anything favorite within music: song lyrics, band, music style, song title, music video........ I thought this one was going to be easy, and I was thinking lyrics at first. LOL, yeah right, and I couldn't come up with anything on music that didn't have like notes, piano keys and so on. And then it hit me, a music video. Then the trick was to find the music video, but I decided to go with my favorite band of all times Duran Duran. And what are they known for??? Besides their music that is..... They always have models in their videos. The latest video that I can't get enough of is filled with them. So my entry for this weeks challenge is inspired from their music video Girl Panic.

For my nails I used my Ebony Hates Chris with SF and Silver Mercedes as base colors. Then I stamped with Konad Special Black, Silver Mercedes and Outrageous. The image plates I used was Konad M71, Bundle Monster 207, Dashica XXL Big 1 & Dashica SdP 40.

I am sorry about the pictures, I had a hard time finding a good angle and good lights without messing up the foil colors or the holo effect in the SF in Ebony Hates Chris. I deleted 53 pictures of this mani on my camera....

Happy Stamping.

Sunday April 15 Challenge.

This weeks stamping Sunday challenge in the FB group Adventures In Stamping was a tie between:
More than 2 images on nail or Stamping over gradient base. And since it was a tie we could do either one or both. I decided to stamp over gradient base. So I looked at my polish collection and I guess lack of sleep lately   is not making it any easier to decide what colors to use or what plates to pull out.
But I ended up with my 3 crappy holo's from Nubar, they worked well as gradient. Still can't see much of the holo efffect, even thought about applying a coat of my top coat with SpectraFlair in it to get some holo. But decided against it, so I can show you why I don't like my Nubar holo's.

I used Brilliant (not at all), Treasure (the purple in this is nice) and Absolute (crap?)...... Sorry, can't really help my self. And then I used Dashica SdP 12 and Konad special white.

Other than that I plan to go to Walmart today and hunt down some Pure Ice polishes to stamp with, and look for other polishes I just have to get. And of course get my polish removers and see if they have SH Triple Strong. Oh, and check if my Walmart has any of those stamping kits.

Happy stamping.

Golden Friday??

Here in Utah I can't do like many of you get lottery tickets and hope to win that HUGE jackpot, so I do the next best thing. A gold mani with some stamping nail art.... Hahahaha, I know it's not really the same, but if I had some sushi and sake it would be a party.
Besides I need something to cheer me up with all the stress and having my grandmother in law in the hospital and all. Not easy to see someone you care about in pain. But the doctor said she's doing better today, and she may be coming home soon. So I get to play nurse again for a while. I have the greatest respect to the people who work in health care, I wouldn't be able to. She has been a handful to the nurses and her doctor tho, she doesn't like the side effect from medications so she keeps vital information from them. So my husband have been the source of information about her medical history and such. And they can hardly get her to eat, she has a few soda crackers here and there. She won't like that we have to change her diet, she's going to have a fit about that big time. Not looking forward to those discussions at all. But anyways back to the mani.

Since I couldn't use Pure Ice Jaguar for stamping I decided to use it as base color, so applied 2 coats.  Then I pulled out one of my Dashica plates again SdP 40 and Konad special polish in Chocolate to stamp with.
I have noticed on the Dashica plates I don't need as much polish on the image, if I do too much it smudges when I stamp it on my nail. That's a good sign tho, my polishes will last longer (always a bonus, more money on new nail stuff.)

And I went over to 7 eleven to get a snack and the girl there really loved my nails, YAY!!!

Hope you ladies have a great weekend.
Happy stamping.

March 25 2012 Challenge Black & White.

This week's Sunday challenge in the Facebook group Adventures In Stamping was black and white.

I decided to add some SpectraFlair to Wet N Wild's Ebony Hates Chris, and use that as my base color and stamp with Konad Special polish in Black and White, and my current favorite image plate brand Dashica XXL Big SdP 1, SdP 32, 35 and 47.

Right hand: SdP 47 for the background SdP 35 Hello Kitty

 Left Hand: SdP 32 starry background and XXL Big SdP1 and Playboy bunny.

Ebony Hates Chris that I mixed a pinch of SpectraFlair.

Happy it's Friday mani.

Good morning ladies. So little pumpkin and I were up super early, think we're getting 2 new teeth so not easy being an almost 15 months old. I got to do mani without anyone hanging over my shoulder. But when mommy pulled out the camera, a little girl got BIG eyes and rushed over to take a closer look. So in some of the photos you may see a pink belly, foot or little hand. I got to snap my pictures of my mani, and then she she was on my lap so I had to snap a funny one of her too.
Hope you all have a great weekend! Relax, eat, drink, have fun and so on.

Very short post today, since she's still on my lap wanting to hit every key on mommy's laptop.

Early Thursday morning mani.

I have figured out if I want a cute mani, do it while the rest of the house sleeps. Why? So there's a good chance for mommy not to get up all of a sudden with wet polished nails to run after kids, answer the phone, tell dog not to steal kids snack and so on. Today I decided to do a French tip mani with some stamping. I used my Sally Hansen Triple Strong as base, then China Glaze Dance Baby (Yeah, I know I have been using that a lot lately, I just like it.), then yeah you guessed right my top coat with SpectraFlair AGAIN over the pink, and used Out The Door to seal before I used Konad Special polish in White to stamp. I decided to do French tip on all fingers but the ring finger, then I used two Dashica plates. A tiny flower from Dashica SdP 12 for the French tip, then a full nail image for ring finger from SdP 38. Then as normal sealed the images with a coat of Out The Door top coat.

Hope you like it.

Have a great day, ladies.

2 Dashica mani

So here are the 3 mani's I have had on my nails since Friday.

I had some fun with SpectraFlair and my new Dashica stamping plates, I just love using these. I am afraid I am going to run out of SpactraFlair, because I can't stop using it. Needless to say I am a holo junkie, I can't help it. So far the images I have picked from my Dashica plates have all been really great, the image gets picked up on my stamper and goes really clear on my nail. I haven't had many failed images, like I do with Konad or Bundle Monster. Next time I will try one of those other images with very fine lines and details again.

China Glace Dance Baby, top coat w/SpectraFlair, Dashica XXL Big SdP 1

& stmaping Essie Miami Nice

China Glace Dance Baby, top coat w/SpectraFlair, XXL Big Dashica SdP 1

& stamping Essie Miami Nice

Wet N Wild  Caught Red Handed, top coat w/ SpectraFlair,  XXL Big Dashica SdP 1

& Konad special Black 

Have a great week, people!

Nail Stampin Haul

So I finally decided to get the Bundle Monster plates Set 2. After seeing so many nail bloggers and youtube nail gurus using them I ordered my own set. I am still trying them out, and so far I have noticed some images are better than others. I have had a couple smudge on me and some not getting the whole image on my stamper, and I have only been using Konad Special polishes.
Then I was so tired of damaging my plates with my normal scraper and tired of not getting even scrape off's with my old credit card, so I got the plastic scraper from Konad. And Oh My!!!! I love it it scrapes off the polishes nicely and without damaging my plates. I am getting a couple more for backup later. I also got two more Konad plates and 2 polishes in the princess size and 1 normal sized. I was almost out of my white so I got that in princess size along with Pop Green and a standard bottle in black. The plates I got was M84 and M85 and I just love these two plates. I am so happy I have some more plates to play with now I only need a few more polishes to play with too. I got one so far Essie's Bbf

 Bundle Monster set 2 & Konad M84 and M85

M84, M5, Special Polishes in Pop Green, White & Black

& Plastic scraper.

First BM stamp with BM-206

Revlon Hot forChocolate and Konad special polish pearl grey

For my two girls.

So I decided to do a mani in honor of my daughters. And I guess you can't get more girly with pink, glitter and Hello Kitty. I started off with my base coat, then OPI Princess rule, Wet'n Wild 345G, my Out The door top coat, Konad special polish in white, M71, Konad IM 78 & Konad top coat.
I only did Hello Kitty on my left hand and used IM 78 on the right hand.
And I'm sorry the photos didn't come out as good as I wanted, I so need a new camera. But here are the stuff I used and the final look.

Princess Rule, 345G,OTD, White, Konad top coat

The famous Hello Kitty plate. M71

Konad IM78

My right hand with IM 78

Lefty with Hello Kitty.

Apple, apple, apple!

So got bored with my nails again, and decided to do some very late night mani. As I said in the post before this one I got 2 new Zoya polishes Phoebe and Apple. I used my base coat from Finger Paints, then  it was time to try out Apple. It went on so nice and even, and I only needed 2 coats. OMG I love it, it's my fav green glitter polish. I used my Out The Door top coat from Sally's, I love this one.... NO MORE SECHE VITE for me.
Then I decided to do some nail stamping, I used M71 the famous Hello Kitty plate. Where can you get that???
Here's the link, and you get it with a stamper and scraper for a really good price. I know an other site only sells the plate for like almost the same price, and the shipping cost more from them. So go with www.bornprettystore.com, they have more nail art goodies too. Here's the direct link to the Hello Kitty plate:

http://www.bornprettystore.com/nail-lovely-hello-kitty-stamp-template-p-582.html




I decided to use the two flowers on this plate on my nails, so grabbed my white Konad special polish and got to work. Sealed the stamps with Konad top coat.
So even if there's snow outside I can look at my nails and hope spring is around the corner.

Some Konad and trying out a new Zoya.

So I got my 2 polishes from Zoya from the summer collection. And just loved the look of the colors in the bottles. I got Apple and Phoebe. So I decided to try out Phoebe first, it kinda looks like Brisk Blue from Sally Hansen but Phoebe has a matte finish. I didn't like how it goes on tho, it applies very uneven. I don't know if anyone else has the same problem. But smack on some Konad and you don't really see it on the nail. Maybe I'll try an other base coat. I'll keep you all posted but heere's how it turned out, my first Phoebe nails with Konad plate M71 and special polish in white.

Have a great day.

Going wild for chocolate!

So who doesn't like chocolate? We all get this hunger that only chocolate can fix. So I decided to some on my nails, while of course eating a few bites of Norwegian chocolate my parents had sent me.
I used the base coat from Finger Paint, then Hot for chocolate from Revlon that I just got and used 2 coats. It looks like melted dark chocolate on your nails, yummy. I use Out the door top coat before I start stamping, in case I make a mistake and have to remove it with some polish remover I won't rub away the color. Then I decided to use the animal print stamp on Konad plate M78 and their special polish in grey pearl. But while I was using my scraper I saw that the color isn't really grey it's more like gold..... SO why they call it grey pearl on wowsocool.com I don't know. Oh, and a quick tip, I don't use the Konad scraper anymore. I didn't like the fact that it leaves scratches on your plates, so I use an old credit card. But back to my nail art design, I sealed the animal print with Konad top coat.

But here are all the products I used for this design and the result. Hope you enjoyed my Going wild for chocolate look. Have a great weekend.

I used the image on the top left.