Christmas Sweater Nails.

I got my first plates from MoYou and one of them is filled with Christmas/Winter sweater nails. So I wanted to my nails with that plate. I painted my nails with Nubar Emerald and Romanticism Ruby from Finger Paints. Then on my ring finger I did one coat of Sinful Colors Gold Medal and topped it off with a coat of OPI Goldeneye. I used Konad White to stamp with and MoYou Festive Collection plate 04, and picked 2 images for the green and red nails.
Oh, and for you who are wondering what topcoat I use it's Poshe Fast drying topcoat. I like that one way better than Seche Vite. I signed up for a group buy for a XL stamper from Magno with some replacement heads. I removed the white stamper insert and out in one of  the red replacements instead. Makes it so much easier to see the white or light polishes when you stamp. It's XL and soft and squishy. And of course easier to show up on camera when I make video tutorials.
Then on my ring finger I picked out red and green rhinestones and placed them in a circle.
And there some easy festive Christmas sweater nails were done.

video tutorial.

Right hand

 Left hand

Get Up And Dance, Dance, Dance Nails!!!

Only a couple more weeks left of summer vacation here, and then it's back to school for kids.
It's still really hot here in Salt Lake City.
Anyways, for this Sunday's challenge in AIS it's: Plate ending in 8.
So I had to pull all my plates out and pull out all the ones ending with 8. Not that many in my collection, tho.
I wanted to do some pastel nails again, been doing those a bit this summer. So pastel Skittle nails was what I ended up with.

Sally Hansen
Mint Sorbet
Lacey Lilac
Mellow Yellow

Julie G's White Orchid with 3 coats of OPI I Think In Pink

And my franken Sinful Colors
Snow Me White that I turned into a pastel blue (I didn't have one in my collection).

Then when all the coats of base color had dried I added a thin coat of China Glaze Techno (My favorite glitter polish, it's freaking stunning DISCO BALL in a bottle).

The plate I ended up with was one of two I picked out from a contest I got 3rd place in. Konad S8 has a few girls dancing images and a french tip image on it. And I used my Wet N Wild Black Creme as stamping polish. It didn't turn out as well as I had imagined it to be, but oh well.

Now to get ready for a busy day, tons of shopping. No, no fun shopping grocery stores, Sprout's and the Asian market.

Have a smashing weekend.

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.

OPI Bond Collection part II, The Bond Girls

When OPI released the James Bond collection I knew I just had to add them to my collection, and I got all but The Man With The Golden Gun.
So when I saw they were going to release a Bond Girl collection, well then I just knew I just had to have those too. The Bond Girl collection is just 6 polishes and all of them are in the liquid sand formula. Compared to the Julie G Gumdrops these have a finer feel to them, and not as much glitter heavy as the Gumdrops. 5 of the colors are nice for spring and summer, Vesper is more for fall and winter.
Also I had to apply 3 coats on all of them, so that is the only minus with this collection. After the swatch pictures there will be some pictures of some of these polishes used as base for stamping, as test to see how they work as base polish for stamping. And so you're warned an other picture heavy post..... Let's take a closer look at these babes.... LOL... Sorry, I couldn't help it.

L-R:Solitaire, Jinx, Vesper, Honey Ryder, Pussy Galore & Tiffany Case.

Taken with flash

Under my LED craft light.

Swatch L-R: Solitaire, Jinx, Vesper, Honey Ryder, Pussy Galore & Tiffany Case.

Solitaire from Live and Let Die

When I applied Solitaire it reminded me of mother of pearl with silver glitter in it. When it dries it looks like white pearl to me. It's really stunning and delicate, so if you get a nice summer tan and wear this polish.... WOW. 

Jinx from Die an Other Day

Jinx a stunning orange glitter, one of the polishes in this collection that has the most glitters in it. I applied 3 coats. This one is the runner up of favorites in this collection, but I can't decide if I like this or Honey Ryder  more. They share the runner up spot, and if you can't get Jinx Sugar Rush from Julie G is a perfect dupe for it.

Jinx and random images from my new Winstonia plates.

Vesper from Casino Royale

Vesper is a very dark purple, and doesn't have glitter in it. I think it's too dark for spring and summer, more a fall and winter color. And even tho it's dark purple I had to apply 3 coats. Also Vesper is a bad girl, because she's a pain to get a good picture of. I snapped over 30 pictures and most of them look more blue or black than purple.

Some random images from Pueen Love Elements, the full nail images are a bit too small for my nails. So if I want to use these plates on my current nil length I have to do a French tip.

Honey Ryder from Dr. No

Dr. No was my first Bond movie, I remember it well. I was at a friends house and his step dad had all the Bond movies at the time. And asked us if we wanted to watch one with him, we we're 12 years old.  Honey Ryder is a stunning gold glitter, I think I have to get a backup for this one. No doubt one of my favorite golds. Even tho it's a liquid sand it looks very delicate on your nails. Because it's a light gold shade with gold glitters in it. If you go out to dinner and wear a black dress and have this polish on your nails, that will be a stunning date night look for sure.

Tiffany Case from Diamonds Are Forever

I think this one is my favorite in the collection, and this polish like Jinx has a lot of glitter in it. I couldn't stop staring at my nails when I was wearing this polish. I didn't think I would like this color on my nails, don't ask.... You know how it is, you have this in your mind that certain colors doesn't look good on you. For me that has been blue and yellow, and not only on polishes clothing in general....

So who's my favorite Bond? It used to Be Sean Connery, but I just love Daniel Craig's Bond. My favorite Bond movies??? Hmmm, Dr No and Skyfall I think. Favorite Bond movie song A View To A Kill by Duran Duran (it's my favorite band, so that one was easy.) My favorite Bond villain?? Oh, an other hard to pick.... Max Zorin I think, but the Christopher Walken plays those creepy guys really well. Bond girls? Well, I like them now since they get skills and brains. No longer the screaming no good in skimpy outfits..... 

And there you have it. Hope you liked this post and random Bond chit chat in the end.

Have a great day.

Haul Part 1, polishes.

I went to my local nail supply store, Lee's Nail Supply. My go to place if I want to get OPI, China Glaze, Orly, Color Club, nail wheels, swatch sticks etc.
They sell OPI for $4, China Glaze and Color Club for $3. I called in and asked him if the OPI Bond Girl collection had arrived yet, and he got it 2 days before. So I popped in to pick them up, I also wanted to look at the Texture collection from China Glaze and wanted to get my first yellow polish. I only picked up one of the texture polishes, but walked out with all 6 Bond girls, and  China Glaze Sunshine Pop. Then a few days ago I noticed I was running low on my Konad White so I ordered a Princess size from amazon.

I have added the my new liquid sand polishes and the texture polishes to the same wheel I have the Julie G Gumdrops. I have noticed that the OPI liquid sand polishes have a finer feel to them. Not as rough as the Gumdrops. Also not all 6 have a ton of glitter in them, the Chine Glaze Textured polishes don't have any glitters in them. But only one of the screamed out to me. Guess it's because it looks like Dance Baby, so I just had to grab it.

All the polishes I got this week.

Konad White & China Glaze Unrefined

Unrefined looks like Dance Baby to me, have to look at them side by side.

L-R: Solitaire, Jinx, Vesper, Honey Ryder, Pussy Galore & Tiffany Case.

(Taken with Flash)

Under my LED craft light.

L-R: Unrefined, Solitaire, Jinx, Vesper, Honey Ryder, Pussy Galore & Tiffany Case

I will do a blog post on the Bond Girl collection alone, in a day or two. Also I am doing some on the new plate sets I'm getting from Winstonia and Pueen, so keep an eye out for those posts too.

As always, thanks for stopping by.

Yay, it's Friday.

Happy Friday!!

A short post about the nails I did today. I used 2 polishes for my base color, on thumb and ring finger I used White Orchid from Julie G. It's applies really well, I only needed 1 coat. The other fingers I applied 2 coats of OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender. Then I pulled out one of my Bundle Monster plates BM 301, and picked out the lavender stamping polish from Dashica and stamped over the white polish.
Then I used 2 coats of my SpectraFlair topcoat and added some bling to thumb and ring finger nails.
The trick was getting a good picture of the finished manicure, not easy when you have holo and bling on your nails.

Have a great weekend.

Bad wisdom tooth, nail stubs & noodles.

The day after Thanksgiving I I got the worst tooth ache in history, and normal pain killers didn't do s***.
Got an appointment to a dentist yesterday, and I have to say this dentist was really  nice. Wish I had him back in Norway, he was way better than all of them combined. Anyways, it was a bad wisdom tooth and it had a crack in it, so double bad. So here I am all doped up on some stronger pain killers he filled out a subscription for.

So needless to say I haven't done much nail stuff because of it, and looking down at my short nail stubs was just too depressing..... But finally today I did my nails.
Base color is OPI Die An Other Day (Bond collection), stamping polish Maybelline Bold Gold and I used Dashcia Big SdP T.

It''s a cold day today here in Utah, so I made a bow of my favorite noodles (Shin)  with an egg and topped with some chopped green onions. And I have some Bulgogi meats in marinade, that will be tonight's dinner.

Have a great weekend.

SkyFall Nails

I was 11 years old when I saw my first James Bond movie, and it was Dr No with Sean Connery as Bond.
Since then I have been a James Bond fan. So I got most of the OPI James Bond collection, so today I decided to do short stamping tutorial to celebrate the opening of Skyfall in theaters this coming Friday. This also is 50 years of James Bond movies, the first was Dr No in 1962. So I decided to make it very simple.
For base I used OPI Skyfall as base color, then I used Maybelline Bold Gold for stamping and Dashica's Dash 6.

So who is my favorite James Bond? I have to say Sean Connery and very close to him or even tied maybe is Daniel Craig, then Pierce Brosnan. The best Bond theme song in my book A view to a kill by Duran Duran (my fav band). LOL.

OPI Skyfall this will look stunning with gold flakes.

Final look

Kids are finally starting to get better with their colds and coughs, so is granny in-law and hubby. Right now I have a meatloaf in the oven filling the home with yummy smells. And later I am going to try and plan out the next tutorial. Have a good night.

Cloudy Blue Sky Nails

I have been planning this nail art for a while, this is the first part of the look. This is the background for the upcoming nail stamping tutorial, so stay tuned.

For the cloudy blue sky I applied 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow and let it dry before I started mixing the acrylic paints. I used water based acrylic paint I got from the craft store in white and light blue, so I mixed the two colors until I got a sky blue color. And applied 2 coats on my nails, letting it dry after each application. Then I cut off  a piece of sponge and dotted it on my nails to get the cloud effect. And finished off the look with my Poshe fast drying topcoat. Then I just washed off the acrylic paint that got onto my skin and cuticles, no need for polish remover to remove water based acrylic paints.

                                    

So can you guess what I am working on??? Anyways I hope you liked this. Have a great week.

My Name Is Bond, James Bond.

For the first time there was a collection from OPI I just had to have. The new James Bond collection just released for Fall/Winter. There are 13 polishes in this collection, I got 12 of them. They are all named after James Bond movies (cool right?), the last one that I didn't get is a 18 K gold flakes topcoat The Man With The Golden Gun. That alone costs $30.00. I find my OPI's at a nail supply store and I get them for $ 4.00 each.  I went in there yesterday and asked if they had this collection, the owner doesn't speak English very well. Lucky for me his son was there, and they point to the Muppet's display saying the latest polishes up there..... So me thinking they claim that the Muppet's polishes are the newest one, tell them No, James Bond.  So the son pulls one down and shows me, and it was The Spy Who Loved Me. I swear I did a little happy dance and they both laughed. Needless to say I giggled and squealed all the way home.


Here's the video of the polishes and nail swatches of all of them. Hope you like it. Tried my best to get good lighting so you can see the colors and the glitter effects.

You can hear little G in the back, she is 22 months old and loves to say OUCH and then giggles.

L 2 R: Moonraker, Die An Other Day, Tomorrow Never Dies, Skyfall, On Her Majesty's Secret Service & Casino Royale.

L 2 R: Spy Who Loved Me, Live And Let Die, You Only Live Twice, Living Daylights, The World Is Not Enough & GoldenEye.

On other note, since it looks like Fall has finally hit us here in Salt Lake City we went to Costco yesterday. And they had a stand with taste samples of a clam chowder, was so good so we picked up some that will be on tonight's menu with some good bread on the side. Then we stopped at Honey Baked and got a couple of jars of their Black Bean Salsa, so we'll rent a movie and snack on some chips and dip.

Have  a great weekend!!

Striping Tape & Stamping.

Today I spent almost 2 hours testing every image on each Bundle Monster 2012 set. So I needed some nail therapy tonight. LOL
So I picked OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender ( I know I have used this a bit, it's just so pretty and I am crazy about purples and lavenders these days)
Then I grabbed one of the striping tapes I got when I ordered from Dashica earlier this year.
But just the tapes wasn't enough, so I grabbed my Dashica XXL SdP 1 and WnW Black Creme and did some stamping too.
Right now I really like this one, so maybe it can last more than 1-2 days....

On other note, tomorrow is picture day at my son's school so he got a hair cut from daddy. Now I have to find something nice for him to wear. And crossing my fingers that we'll get some nice pictures that can be gifts for Christmas this year.

Have a good night.

My Ovarian Cancer Awareness Manicure.

September is Ovarian Cancer Awareness month, so I am doing my manicure to support this cause.

Every year 20.000 women in the US get diagnosed with this disease, and about 15.000 die each year of Ovarian Cancer. And that is just in the US alone, just think of how high this number is world wide.... 

For this manicure I used OPI Teal The Cows Come Home as base color, then I applied 2 coats of my topcoat w/SpectraFlair, and Bundle Monster plate 321 and stamped with OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui.

It looks amazing in the sunlight, but is a pain to get the effect on a picture. To end this post I am adding two links:

http://www.ovarian.org/index.php

https://www.ovationsforthecure.org/index.php

Have a good night.

3 mani's in one day.....

Why  only do one manicure when you can do 3...

Just one of those days, you can't make up your mind on what polish or image to use. So when it hits me I change my manicure just after a few hours. 

First I used one of the polishes from China Glaze's Safari Collection as base color.Purr-Fect Plum, then I did  a coat of Orly Too Fab on my left hand. On my right hand I did some stamping with Bold Gold from Maybelline and picked CH 44 from Cheeky's summer collection. 

I kept the stamping mani, but removed the glitter one.....

\

My 3 rd look I used OPI Jade Is The New Black as base and stamped with Bold Gold again and used Dashica SdP 35. Today's challenge in AIS was leaves. I also did a French tip with Matte top coat, but it's kinda hard to see in the pictures.