Chocolate Dipped Nails

Hi everyone,
Whew, what a week!  I'm glad to finally get a chance to sit down and get to the important stuff - nails! :)

I was hoping to get some good sunshine to take this picture, but we've had cloudy days all week.

This was a fun second attempt at using the "drip effect".  It's my go-to pastel pink, Essie Fiji, painted with delicious globs of a Nail Savvy pearly chocolate brown.  I wanted to add some additional color, so I made "sprinkles" with Kleancolor Barbie Pink, Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet, MyOnline Shop Stamping Yellow.

Overall, it was not very difficult and a fun design to wear.

I have actually been wearing the same polish all week (gasp!).  I'm going into polish withdrawal!  I had better get to polishing!

Thanks for stopping by!  And, by the way, in case you ever wonder about what happens when the skies finally open up over the dry and thirsty desert, this is it!  What a commute!

Hello Kitty: Camo Kitty

Hello, everyone!
Hello Kitty reporting for duty!  I received my new MJ HK image plate (I ordered mine from Etsy but you can also get them at the MyOnlineShop Facebook store).  The plate has 50 (gasp!) Hello Kitty images.  There are some that I probably won't use - like an Emo Hello Kitty and a Darth Vader one - but it's lots of fun to have so much variety.

I was intent on using the "army" Hello Kitty image from this plate.  I decided to try a camouflage design for the other nails.  As a side note, apparently I misspelled "camouflage" so badly that my spell check suggested "guacamole" (geez).

The camouflage is made of a base of Essie Fiji.  I used a nail brush and three colors to paint in the irregular shapes that became my camouflage.  I started with the lightest of the three, L'Oreal Walk on the Beach, and then used Milani Cherry Pie and Kleancolor Military Green.  I had to experiment a little with the size of my shapes in order to get a look I was happy with.

For the stamping, I used the "decal" method.  I stamped with Military Green and used a nail brush to fill in the image with Konad Special White for the face and Walk on the Beach for the helmet.  Once I had the image transferred from the stamper to my nail, I streaked a little pearly pink under her eyes.  The image transferred well, but got a little streaky when I added topcoat.

Well, Konaddicts, thanks for reading!  It was fun to try a different look with Hello Kitty.  Hope you're having a great weekend!

Drops of Sunshine Ombre

Hi, everyone!
I wanted to try an ombre manicure and since I'm hooked on peaches right now, I used these.  I wanted to add to the plain polish, but instead of stamping, I tried out the drip effect using a color a few shades darker.

Here's how it turned out:
Thumb: Insta Dri Butter-fly Stroke and Inst Dri Man-Go Team
Index: Sinful Pull Over and Color Show Sweet Clementine
Middle: Man-Go Team and China Glaze Life Preserver
Ring: Sweet Clementine and Sally Hansen Royal Red Creme
Pinky: Life Preserver and Orly Mind's Eye

So...not sure how I feel about this one.  I've never tried the drip effect before, and with a little practice, I think this could be a fun technique to use!

Hope you are having a warm and colorful day, Konaddicts!

Festive Fourth Nails

So...I don't usually do 4th of July nails.  Typically, they turn out to be a great big mess.  This year, I thought I'd give it another try and, well, I just couldn't stop - stars and glitter and flags and the Statue of Liberty and dots!

In my head, I had some kind of lean and sophisticated look going, but in fact, it's like The Party Store exploded all over my nails...and I kinda like it. :)

I used Wet n Wild Red Creme and Revlon Urban as the base colors.  I went about it the easy way and polished the whole nail red, stamped my stripes with Sally Hansen Whirlwind White, painted the blue tips, and stamped the stars over that.  Cheeky CH4 provided the perfect stars and wavy stripes.  I used Cheeky CH51 for the star image on the thumb and Essie No Place Like Chrome for the stamping.

My favorite part of the mani is the way over the top image of the Statue of Liberty on the accent nail.  This plate is Winstonia W114 and, boy, is it cute! Decorated with a little red glitter and silver dots, it's a fun added touch!

Well, thanks for stopping by, Konaddicts!  If you're reading here in the US, I hope you have a wonderful and safe holiday!