Avon Olive Green Stamped with China Glaze 2030

Happy Thursday my lovelies! Hope you are all having a fantastic day so far =) Today I have a stamped manicure for you. It's kind of festive, but in a subdued way. I really like it, and I hope you all enjoy it as well!

For the base, I used Avon Olive Green. Olive Green is a supposed dupe for RBL Orbis non Sufficit, and though I don't own the RBL color to compare, I can tell you that Olive Green is an amazing color! The name is a bit of a misnomer though, because it's more or a dusty blue-leaning green than a true olive green as it has no brownish tones in it. Anyways, it's an awesome shade, olive green or not! Formula-wise, it wasn't my favorite. It was somehow thick yet runny at the same time, and I flooded my cuticles like woah while applying it and had to do some major damage control. However, the finish was smooth and dried amazingly quickly with a coat of Seche Vite, and since the color is fantastic, I'll be keeping this in my stash.

I did the stamping with China Glaze 2030 from the Khrome collection, which is the perfect gold stamping polish. It is a cool-toned gold as opposed to a more yellow gold, and I just adore it. If you are new to stamping, I suggest you seek out some colors from the both the Khrome and Romantique collection from China Glaze, they are superb for stamping! I used XL Plate B for my stamping designs. The pine green background with the gold circles kind of reminds me of ornaments on a Christmas tree. I really am digging how this turned out!

Here is Avon Olive Green, stamped with China Glaze 2030.

And here is 2 coats of Olive Green before the stamping.

Thanks for stopping by! See you all tomorrow =)

Pink Wednesday: Revlon Victorian with jelly snowflakes!

Happy Pink Wednesday everyone! Today I have for you one of my favorite jelly polishes, Revlon Victorian from this summer's Just Tinted collection. For those who don't know, a jelly is a polish that is sheer yet pigmented and creates a wonderful, almost juicy effect on the nail. Jellys typically dry quite shiny on their own, but Victorian dries to a satin finish so I had to use a topcoat to really bring out the juicy jelly-ness in this polish.

So, I woke up today and it was SNOWING! I was so excited, as it is the very end of November and we still hadn't really had more than a dusting of snow. I wanted to incorporate the first real snow that I have seen this year into my manicure today, so I stamped a few snowflakes on my ring finger and thumb as accent nails!

A popular manicure technique making the rounds out there is called a "jelly sandwich." A jelly sandwich is when you layer glitter under a jelly polish, giving the glitter a subdued, milky look to it. So today, I decided to do a Konad jelly sandwich! When I stamped the snowflakes on with my white Konad polish, it almost seemed too stark against the delicate shine of the jelly. To cure the problem, I added two more coats of the hot pink Victorian on top of the stamping and I absolutely LOVE how it turned out. Subtle, shiny, with a hint of winter goodness lurking underneath.

So here we have today's NOTD, 4 coats of Revlon Victorian with accent fingers stamped with Konad Special Polish in White. Enjoy!

These were taken indoors, with diffused flash to show the juicy, shiny jelly quality of Victorian. It appears a bit more red in the pics than it does in real life.

Here are a few outdoor shots to show the true hot pink color of Victorian =)

Thanks for stopping by! See you all tomorrow =)

Pink Wednesday - Spiderwebs!

Hi everyone! This is going to be a quick post today, as I have a migraine and am not really feeling up to a full blog post.

As I mentioned at the beginning of the month, this October is my first wedding anniversary.  Since I've been feeling nostalgic about my husband's and my relationship these days, I decided to base this manicure on a tank top that I wore on our first date =) It's kind of ironic because this shirt has spiderwebs on it - perfect for October!

Here is the shirt:

As I base, I used Essie Can't Filmfest, an old non-3-free blue-leaning magenta pink. It went on perfectly in two coats and the formula was awesome. They don't make them like this anymore, folks. I used Can't Filmfest partly because it matched the shirt, but also because my husband is a videographer and often makes films and submits them to filmfests =) Can't Filmfest is a play on Cannes Film Festival, which is the most prestigious film festival in the entire world. Here is Essie Can't Filmfest alone:

Stamping with black polish is always a bit of a pain because the black polish will often stain the cuticles. So I apologize in advance for the staining and yucky cuticles. I stamped using Wet n Wild Black Creme and a plate from BF-beauty.com.

Ugh. This would have been really cool if the black didn't stain the crap out of my fingers.

Have a great day everyone =)

- Jacqui

Pink Wednesday: Sally Hansen Pink Insta-Dri Polishes and Stamping

Hello again, and welcome to my very first Pink Wednesday! It will be very quick post today, as I have a ton of homework to go before I head on up to school this evening.

Anyways, I decided to start doing Pink Wednesdays because I seem to have accumulated a boatload of pink nail polishes, but I never seem to wear them. I'm hoping this will help me test out all the lovely pinks in my stash.

For today's nail, I used two pink Sally Hansen Insta-Dris. I really have a love/hate relationship with these polishes, as they are fantastic for nail stamping, but as far as regular polishing goes they really fall short for me. First of all, they have that horrendous "pro wide" brush that seems to be all the rage these days. I know a lot of people like them, but for me, it makes it really hard to control application. Since these polishes are so thick, it would be nice to have a smaller brush for easier control. I suppose they would be good if you were in a pinch, but I prefer to take my time with my polishing and be precise about it. It's just so hard to get a nice, thin coat with the brush and the thickness factor of this polish.

In conclusion, for regular polishing, the Insta-Dris get a C-. For stamping, however, they get an A! I think I'll keep these in my stash just for the stamping purposes.

For the base, I used Insta-Dri Pink Blink from the limited edition Spring 2011 collection. This is two of the thinnest coats I could possibly muster with that damn pro wide brush.

And here is Pink Blink stamped! I used another polish from the LE Spring 2011 collection called Fuchsia Flare. I love these tone-on-tone stamping designs! I used an XL Chez Delaney plate for this stamping pattern. Not my best stamping attempt, but I think it's rather acceptable. From far away, at least =)

Thanks for stopping by today! I have something VERY EXCITING in store for you all tomorrow so I hope to see you then =)

- Jacqui

A Water Marble and a Konad

Good morning everyone! It's been a week since my last post and I'm mad at myself! I really need to post more, for real! School is crazy this semester, I'm taking six classes and none of them are easy. Not even one cake class! It has been nuts, and I have been seriously bogged down with homework. However, I need to remember that doing my nails and blogging is actually a stress reliever so if I take the time out to do those things, I should be more productive with everything else, right? At least, that's what I'm going to tell myself!

First up today, I have a water marble for you! Water marbles are one of my absolute favorite things to do with my nails, and I have done a gazillion of them. Generally, they turn out pretty great but unfortunately, this one was a semi-fail for me. So why am I posting it? It still looks cool!

For this marble, I used three Misa polishes: Sorry, Just Can't Help It; Office Polish-tics; and Dirty, Sexy Money. They are all fantastic, dusty cremes and I thought they would be great for an end-of-summer to early-autumn marble. I absolutely adore Misa polishes, the application is phenomenal and the colors are amazing. However, they are just not ideal for water marbling. I tend to use thinner polishes for marbling, such as Sally Hansen Xtreme Wears or China Glazes, but I thought I'd give these a go! Well, though the colors looked great together, they bubbled horribly in the water! You can see in the pics below, especially on my right hand that my manicure looks like it has a case of measles...

Usually, I can eliminate bubbles in the water, and if one does happen to show up on my nail, a quick blow on the nails nine times out of ten does the trick to get rid of the bubble. This time it seems that the bubbles were unavoidable. So, although I love my Misa polishes, I do not think I will be using them again for marbling anytime soon. So, without further ado, my water marble fail!

L-to-R: Sorry, Just Can't Help it; Office Polish-tics; Dirty, Sexy Money

The left hand - not quite as many bubbles as the right hand

Ugh! Bubble city. Still, I like the patterns on my right hand better than the left. Bummer that it bubbled so badly.

So, there you have it. If anyone out there has any ideas on how to eliminate those bubbles, let me know! I would greatly appreciate it, because I really love this color combination. And for all of you wondering how in the heck to do a water marble, I hope to post a tutorial for you guys soon =)

Next up is a slightly less fail mani. Now who out there is on Pottermore? I am, of course! I was sorted into Ravenclaw and wanted to do a manicure for last Friday's Ravenclaw Pride day on Twitter. Blue and Bronze, baby! Now this manicure I absolutely LOVED.

I used OPI DS Fantasy for this manicure on all fingers except the accent finger. I am obsessed with DS Fantasy, it may be my favorite blue of all time. The DS Collection is OPI's "special" collection. It contains holographic and foil polishes that are a bit "higher end" than their normal line. DS Fantasy, while it is not a linear holographic polish, contains a teensy bit of the holographic powder in it. It's enough to really make it stand out. Isn't it gorgeous? The bronze that I used on the accent nail is OPI Sonata in Bronze from the 2004 Holiday Harmony Collection. I purchased this polish back when I worked at a salon in the mall, when OPI polishes were still $7.50! I stamped over the bronze with a Bundle Monster plate and DS Fantasy.

Hope you enjoy this one!

Love this blue so much!

Well, that's all for today! I vow to post at least every other day, if not more often, from now on! Thanks for reading!

-Jacqui