Sweet Tone on Tone Peach

Hello, everyone!
I've been feeling like something a little different - and I love how this turned out!  After all the bright shades, it's nice to wear a sweet, mellow peach.

My base color is Revlon Peach Petal.  The stamping color is the pearly Revlon Bronzed Rose.  The curlicue designs are from Gals plate GA37, the stripes from H-series plates H12, and the flower is the classic from Konad M31.  I finished off with a little rhinestone in the flower.

I've noticed more and more manis with different designs on each finger.  I didn't feel quite that adventurous this time, but I think the stripes add a nice touch.

BTW: have you seen the new Holiday set of Bundle Monster plates?  They have some very cute designs!  At some point, I'm going to have to stop buying plates and get busy using all of them!

I hope you are having some sweet, summer days!

Burberry Nails

Hi, everyone!
I have been obsessed with wanting Burberry print nails.  I have seen nail foils for them, but foils are about $8/set and I would rather buy polish or stamping plates with that!  So, I poked around online and took a look at how other people were doing it.  I decided to try out recreating the print with nail tape.

I bought a ton of nail tape from eBay - about 30 rolls for $4 (now that's a deal!) - and grabbed one of my very favorite colors, L'Oreal Walk on the Beach.

There's plenty of tape on each roll, so they turned out to be perfect for experimenting.

Then, I went to it.  I used two coats of Walk on the Beach for a base and added the nail tape.

So...this turned out to be, um, not the best idea.  It took me so long to get the nail tape on (in retrospect, I should have cut each of the pieces in advance).  And then, I didn't cut the nail tapes well enough so pieces were pulling up in a very short time.

Sigh...
Well, I don't give up easily so I may either track down those nail foils or figure out another method.  Hmm...thinking cap, activated!

See you later, Konaddicts!  If you've got cold and stormy weather, I hope you stay safe and sound!

Bronze Tiger

Hi everyone, and welcome to all the new subscribers!
Well, I've been waiting for the Halloween mood to settle in, and this year I'm just not feeling it.  The past six months have been the most "challenging" of my life.  Losing my father in April was, unfortunately, just the beginning of some pretty heart wrenching and difficult times.  I may post more on this later.

For now, I'm feeling pretty subdued and not especially festive.  It is beginning to feel like Fall outside, so at least I've gotten a lot of use out of all the browns and bronzes in my nail box!

Today, I've got tiger stripes.  I don't wear stripes very often, so this was a nice change.

I used a very old bottle of L'Oreal Jet Set Move Out,  a brownish, almost purplish color.  I stamped the stripes using Mash 38 and China Glaze Hi Tek.

Take care, Konaddicts, and have an awesome weekend!

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 8: Metallic Nails

Metallic nails...hmmm...  What does that mean, exactly?  I use chromes and metallics a lot when stamping so I decided to go for a mani that reminded me of sheet metal.  I tried a bunch of different things until I finally found something close to what I had in mind.

The base is Love My Nails Silver Bullet, a silver chrome.  I used (another!) pattern from my XL Image Plate B which seemed to perfectly fit the bill.  I stamped over the silver with a Pure Ice Kiss Me Here, a gray chrome.  It's the exact combination I used before in my Silver and Gray mani, except in reverse order.

I pulled out my striping polish that I bought at Sally's a million years back to add the yellow stripe.  I used my cheapie Nail Star nail pens to add the dots on my "caution tape".  Theoretically, I could have used a combo of tape and stamping to get something that more resembled an actual caution tape, but the combination of drying time and trial and (lots of) error time made me go for the simpler approach.

I had so much fun trying to put this together!  It really got my creativity flowing and I finished with a mani I liked and bunches of polish strewn all over like there had been a nail polish tornado.

Overall, it was a fun stamping night!

Next up, "rainbow nails".

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 3: Yellow Nails

Yellow nails!  I haven't had yellow nails in a while, so this is a fun change.  I decided to stamp this one, too, but I decided to go with slight variation on the yellow.  Too bad I didn't notice that I didn't stamp the whole nail (look at that "blind spot" on the index finger!).  

The color is a lovely, soft yellow - Sinful Colors Unicorn.  The stamping polish is a pearly peach, Rimmel 60 Seconds Extreme Polish in Va Va Voom (a polish I recently used in my Citrus Sunburst mani).  The pattern is from Bundle Monster plate BM201.

I love this!  I don't know if it's the subtlety or the warmth of the yellow, but I really like it.  I guess I won't get to wear it long, since tomorrow's challenge calls for green nails!

See you next time, Konaddicts!  Have a very warm weekend!

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According to the Bundle Monster Facebook page, it looks like the new plate set will be released on June 20th!

The new set of Cheeky plates - which look awesome on the Cheeky Facebook page - should be out soon, too, although I didn't see a release date.

Save your dollars, polish friends!  It's going to be an exciting month!

Easter Nails

Happy Easter, everyone!
I've got a pink and sparkly manicure for this Easter Sunday.

I started with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Pink Blink.  Next, I added a coat of Pure Ice Spit Fire, a holographic sparkle in a pink base.  Cheeky Plate CH8 has candy cane-type stripes, so I used that plate to stamp the stripes in Insta Dri Spring Green, Insta Dri Fuchsia Flare, and Kleancolor Lavenbaby.

For me, Easter is about God providing hope and victory, even in the darkest and most desperate situations.  I pray that you have a blessed Easter and that God may grant you hope and peace.

Christmas Candycanes

I'm back with another Christmas manicure!

For these simple stripes, I started with a base of Pure Ice Siren and used Revlon Top Speed Emerald for the accent nail.  Once those base coats dried, I used a thin coat of Out the Door top coat before stamping the stripes in Sally Hansen Insta Dri Whirlwind White (just to try to keep the white and red from smearing when the final top coat went on).

I used Bundle Monster plates for the stripe.  The pattern on BM 20  is pretty small, so I had to try to match up my lines in some places in order for the pattern to fit the whole nail.  It wasn't always perfect, but the final product turned out okay.

I freehanded the tips in white.  I found that if I tried to stamp them, the polish wasn't thick enough to cover the bottom of the stripes.

I intended to leave things there but I felt like something was missing.  I added a few rhinestones (I didn't have any in red!) for a little contrast.

As a side note, I'm almost 80% done with my Christmas shopping!  Woo hoo!

I hope you like the design.  Be well, Konaddicts, and remember to be good.  Santa will be here in no time!

More Cupcakes Step-By-Step

In my second attempt, I tried to create a more interesting background for the cupcakes so I applied a base coat and stamped swirls in a slightly darker pink before stamping the cupcakes.  There was a little bleed through with the colors, but I liked the overall affect.  I'll walk you through how I did this one.

Elegant Emerald and Stripes

I'm so excited to post my first blog entry!
The change in seasons and beautiful Fall colors inspired me to create this mani.  It's hard to fully capture the colors, but I like how the color combination turned out.
Hope you like it!  Thanks for reading!

Base color: Revlon Top Speed Emerald
Stamping color: China Glaze Hi-Tek
Plate: Konad S6

Here's a peek at the base before the stamping: