30 Days of Color Challenge: Recreation ft. Bundle Monster Work It

Hello Readers!

It's a new week over at the 30 Days of Color Challenge group, which means a new prompt! This week's prompt is "recreation". When I read this prompt, the only thing that came into my mind was sports, games and hobbies... though the blogger Olivia Jade Nails pointed out that that word could also be pronounced "re-creation". Actually though, I am happy to use this prompt as I originally pronounced it in my head, because I have some plates from the Bundle Monster "Work It" collection that have yet to receive any love and they are definitely recreation themed.

I bought this plate because last spring I put my 5-year-old in soccer, though I think we will skip it this year because he is a lot busier now that he is in school and he spent more time running around kissing the referee's feet than playing actual soccer. Also, for some reason they have the games kind of late at night for small children. Like, at 8:30 on a school night? For five year olds?

Today's mani is soccer themed, and my untried polish is Sinful Colors "Queen of Green", which can be found at Walgreens and Kmart right now in the St. Patrick's Day collection displays. And it is a beeeeeuatiful green! I feel like it looks exactly like the sunlight shining on a dewy soccer field. I love the gold shimmer running through it!

Simple Sunday 1/29/17

Hello Readers!


Today I am here with a super simple Sunday mani, which ended up quite differently than what I had planned out, and also is being sported on much shorter nails.

Originally I wanted to use the Bundle Monster Secret Garden plate that features beautiful koi fish, but unfortunately when I went to use it I found that mine is defective and only half of the plate would pick up on my stamper head at all. So I abandoned that idea and grabbed the other plate I already had  taken out of my organizer (because my nails were newly painted and I didn't want to smudge them) and I came up with this.

I just used two polishes here- my favorite white by Sinful Colors and a Revlon Color stay I found the other day at a discount store. I was excited to find this because I really like the formulas on the polishes I have tried in this line; I've found them to be very nice quality. 

My images come from this Bundle Monster plate, which is from the Create-Your-Own 2014 collection.

What do you do when things start to go wrong in the middle of a mani? Do you power through it and make it work or switch gears entirely? Let me know in the comments!

Lunar New Year Nails

Hello Readers!


Today I have a holiday mani for Lunar New Year, which begins today.

This year is the year of the Fire Rooster, and though I decided not put a Rooster on my nails, I always think it is interesting to learn what each animal symbolizes, so here we go:

"Roosters are characterized as observant and hardworking. Active and talkative, Roosters tend to enjoy social events and being in the center of attention, according to Chinese astrology. They also typically enjoy sports, according to traits set by the astrology."
-from Time's Article about the Year of the Rooster

 I decided to pair paper cranes with my Lunar New Year mani, even though they are not usually associated with the holiday. My reasoning is that until more recent modern days, Lunar New Year was the official start of the New Year in Japan as well as China, and the paper cranes are a Japanese symbol that represent good luck, healing, and wish fulfillment. I feel like that is a good sentiment for going into a new year- the hope that it will be full of those things.

I used my new favorite red for this mani, since red is a symbol of good luck in China and is traditionally a color associated with Lunar New Year.

My paper cranes come from this MoYou London Origami collection plate. (That paper airplane in the upper left corner!!) I used the reverse stamping method to fill in their little crane bodies with white before stamping them onto my gold nail.

The lanterns come from this Bundle Monster plate from their original holiday collection.

Do you do anything to celebrate Lunar New Year? Although I don't do anything too elaborate, I always enjoy seeing what the zodiac animal for the year is and reading a little bit about Chinese culture this time of year. It's always fun to explore other countries, even if your budget limits you to doing it from your computer chair. ;) Also, do you know what your Chinese Zodiac sign is? Mine is a rabbit- a fire rabbit, to be specific. If you want to find yours, this site will help you out with that. :)

Nail Crazies Unite: Blue and White

Hello Readers!

Today over in the Nail Crazies Facebook group, we are doing "blue and white" manis. Blue and white reminded me of delicate china teacups; of something light and fun. I decided to use a plate from MoYou London's Enchanted collection because of the sweet dainty images.

I really love how this one turned out. The cat and dog images on this plate are so adorable! 

I used Essie's "Saltwater Happy" as a base, which almost has some a bit of a periwinkle tint to it.

30 Days of Color Challenge: Treasure Chest

Hello Readers!

Because I was inspired by the theme, and because we are encouraged to make as many nail art looks for each prompt as we desire for the 30 Days of Color Challenge group, I decided to do a second mani for the prompt "jewels". I thought it would be fun to use some jewel toned polishes for this prompt, and I also thought the a little bit of treasure would fit in with the "jewel" theme.

I used two untried polishes for this: The green duo-tone, which is a new polish from the Kandee Johnson line called "Mermaid Tail", though I think it looks a lot like "Kameleon" from the Kylie Jenner line, I don't own that polish so I can't really do a close comparison. The other untried is the JLB "Creme Burlee", which I used to fill in the treasure chest.

I have to admit, the name of the "Mermaid Tail" polish was a big inspiration here. It is a perfect mermaid polish, after all, so I felt compelled to use it with a mermaid theme. And for literal mermaid tails, on my middle finger. This polish has a great formula; I could have probably gotten away with just one coat but I put on two anyway.

The two plates I used for this mani are both from the 2016 Bundle Monster/Blogger Collab collection, and they are two plates that seem to be made for each other. The treasure chest image comes from this plate, in the bottom left hand corner.

And the mermaid tails and silhouettes come from this plate. I've been wanting to use that mermaid tail image for quite some time now, so I'm pleased I finally got around to it.

Be sure to check out some more jewel-themed manis in the link-up below!

An InLinkz Link-up

30 Days of Color Challenge: Channeling Rarity

Hello Readers!

Today marks the start of a new week, so a new prompt in the 30 Days of Color Challenge! This week's prompt is "jewels". Now, I guess this can be interpreted a few different ways, and I like that. I thought of using those little nail rhinestones for this prompt, of going with jewel tones, or of using jewels as a theme. Since I like to do themey, quirky manis I decided to go with jewels as a theme and eventually decided to theme the mani around one of the My Little Ponies, Rarity.

For those not familiar with the show, Rarity is a pony who loves her shiny things, especially gems and jewels! I went off of her color scheme and tried to play up the sparkles a little bit. Here's a picture of the pony herself for reference:

from deviant art

Simple Sunday 1/22/17 with NEW Kandee Johnson Sinful Colors

Hello Readers!

This week's Simple Sunday features a brand new polish by Sinful Colors, which is part of a collab with the Youtuber Kandee Johnson. About a month ago I spotted the first release of these polishes in my local Walgreens, which features candy colors and this fun textured pink polish. But yesterday I noticed a new display with a lot of iridescent polishes and some duochromes, and I picked a couple of them up.

The one I have on here is "Dripping With Pearls", and it's a lovely iridescent kind of champagne color. I actually thought it was going to be more white, but it ends up leaning more towards gold. This took a few coats to build up to full opacity (like 4ish), and I think if you put it over a white it will be more of a pearl color, but I wanted to see how it fared on its own.

I used this deep plum LA Colors polish to stamp with. I've used this to stamp before, and it is such a great stamper!

This was a super simple stamping mani, just using this MoYou London plate from the Kaleidoscopic collection with a clear stamper to do a french tip look.

30 Days of Color Challenge: Calm

Hello Readers!

Today's post is for the facebook group 30 Days of Color, where nail enthusiasts are encouraged to reach into their pile of untrieds and follow a prompt. There's a new prompt each week, and you can do as many manis for each prompt as you wish. This week's prompt is "calm".

I used an untried plate and an untried polish for this prompt. I picked up this Essie polish at my local discount store at a deep discount. It's a really unusual polish- it's the only kind of forest green in my collection- so I was happy to find it. I paired it with a plate from Bundle Monster's "Into the Woods" fall collection for 2016, as well as a couple of other plates. I though the deep green would go well with a calm, serene forestry theme.

I wasn't super excited about most of Bundle Monster's fall release this year. It was pretty, but I felt like I already had similar images as a lot of the plates. This plate, however, is so beautiful and unique I decided to pick it up. I wanted to use all the images on my nails today, but I decided that wouldn't be very "calm" so I settled on just one. The lovely hourglass, mostly because I wanted to feature the roses nestled up against it. So lovely!

One thing about this image, however, is that some of the fine detail lines on it are very dainty. I wasn't able to use my usual Sinful Colors "Black on Black" to stamp this; it just wouldn't pick up the tiny details of the sand inside the hourglass. So I broke down and used actual stamping polish. I normally prefer to use the Sinful Colors just because this Born Pretty stamping polish is so highly pigmented that it is a huge pain to clean up off your skin after stamping.

The roses on my middle finger come from this Bundle Monster plate from the Time Machine collection. This is one of my favorite rose images- so nice and big for decals! I used it for this purpose once before during the 31-Day Challenge last year to do yellow roses.

Finally, my tiny vines come from MoYou London's Enchanted collection.

You can check out some more calm manis for this challenge in the link-up below!

An InLinkz Link-up

26 Great Nail Art Ideas: Red and Pink

Hello Readers!

Today's post for 26 Great Nail Art Ideas is based around colors: red and pink. Although it's not quite February yet, red and pink together made me get stuck on Valentine's Day themes so I went with it.

I also decided to try a little bit of assisted freehand because it's been a while since I've done any kind of freehand on my nails. This is another mani that uses a few plates, but let's get into the polish first:

So pretty simple here. The OPI "Red My Fortune Cookie" goes on a bit sheer at first; it's a sort of jelly formula, but at two coats it was enough for me and super shiny! 

Wintery Orcas ft. MoYou London Animal and Enchanted

Hello Readers!

After last week's tropical mani, I was ready to come in from paradise and create something a little more winter-themed, to pay respects to all those caught up in snowstorms right now. We have no snow on the ground here- and likely won't, considering it's in the 50s-60s, so I put a little bit of snow on my nails instead!

Also, Orcas. Because all of the animal images make me smile. 

For this mani, I started off with a peel-off base coat because I sure don't want to bother trying to remove a heavily glittery polish with acetone. It's been a while since I have used Wintermint, and I'd forgotten how sheer it is! It's super thin though, so while I lost count of how many coats I put on my nails at about 4-5, it doesn't seem heavy on my fingers. It's a good thing it's pretty! Also, now my nails smell minty-fresh.

Simple Sunday 1/15/17 ft. MoYou London Trend Hunter

Hello Readers!

Today I have another Simple Sunday using the Trend Hunter 01 plate by MoYou London, which is one of my favorite plates to use for Sunday appropriate nails (like this one and that one) because of all the lovely florals!

Today's mani plays with a new Sinful Colors polish, "The Full Monte", which I found on the "new for 2017" display at Kmart. It's a really pretty kind of crelly polish with lots of flakies. It does have a tricky formula, unfortunately- it's kind of chunky with the flakies in there and a thick-ish consistency.  I'm thinking maybe it was a bit too sheer for the reverse stamping I tried to do with it on the daises, because they ended up a bit muddy, but you live you learn.

I also was pleased with how the plum polish, "Readie or Not", from this year's Valentine's Day release stamped. It's nice to find shimmery polishes that stamp well, because it's fun to stamp with glitter!

Toucans ft. MoYou London Tropical

Hello Readers!

Even though it's technically winter here, I felt like bringing in a little bit of paradise to my nails this week and playing with some of MoYou London's Tropical collection. I kind of figure that tropical places close to the equator don't really have winter anyway, so tropical is always in season!

Beside, I just couldn't resist that toucan image.

I started off with two nails painted Lime Basil and two painted Unicorn. I find Unicorn kind of a pain to work with- it takes 3 coats and it is a really runny formula, but it's the only color I have like it in my collection so I deal with it. ;)

Nail Crazies Unite: Silver and Gold... and purple!

Hello Readers!


This week in the Facebook group Nail Crazies Unite our prompt is "Silver and Gold". This is a color combo I always seem to have trouble with for some reason, so this time I decided to pair it with purple since gold and silver are both such regal colors and purple fits in with that "royal" color grouping. I thought it would be fun to play with my new MoYou London Trend Hunter plate and I added in a little monster because I thought he would play well with these darker, moody colors.

Lots of metallics going on in this mani:

The polish I'm holding in the mani shot is a new Sinful Colors for the Valentine's Day collection. Oh my gosh it is so shimmery! I have it on my ring finger so I could appreciate it in all its glory.

Little Fishies with *new* MoYou London Animal Collection

Hello Readers!

I'm so excited to be playing with MoYou London's *brand new* animal collection because it is absolutely adorable and you know I love playing with cute images. Today's mani focuses on the beautiful fish. I just fell in love with these fish, mostly because of the tiny little patterns on their sides.

The details on those little swimmers! I can't stand it. 

I find myself reaching for my white as a base so often. I decided to use a sort of muted color palette for this mani. 

Pizza nails with MoYou London Hipster and Cookbook

Hello Readers!

Who doesn't like pizza? When I saw the MoYou London Cookbook plate featuring "vegan" images, pizza was actually the first thing I thought of. Probably because mushrooms are one of my favorite pizza toppings. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to go all-out-quirky and put some pizza along with pizza ingredients onto my fingernails.

And I think it's funny.

Here's a quick look at the polishes I used for this:

My purple onions are stamped with the "wild violets" polish, which turned out to be a great purple stamping polish to work with!

This mani is easier than it looks, since only one of the nails actually uses reverse stamping/decals- all the rest are just basic stamping.

Simple Sunday 1/8/17 with Bundle Monster Shangri La

Hello Readers!

This week's Simple Sunday follows a nude-y, soft color palette that is mostly lifted straight from a five-pack of JLB polishes I found at Ross before Christmas. I added a little shimmer via Sinful Colors and a dark polish for stamping and voila! Easy color combo.

Here's a quick peek at my polishes:

This was the first time using Chocolate Truffle for stamping, and I was pleasantly surprised by how dark it turned out. Perfect for as an alternative to black for a bit of a softer tone. 

I had a lot of fun coloring in an area of this plate from Bundle Monster's Shangri la collection. I have really been enjoying these color-me-in images lately! They are just a ton of fun.

For my middle finger, I stamped an image from the MoYou London plate from the Kaleidoscopic collection:

This plate is intended for overlapping, so you can actually fit the smallest images inside the arch of the larger ones for a really cool multi-colored look, but I just used one of the smallest ones for a little accent next to my cuticle.

26 Great Nail Art Ideas: New Year New You

Hello Readers!

Today over at Crumpet's Nail Tarts we are invited to explore an interesting theme: New Year New You. I like that this prompt really makes you think! Every year I like to go along with Ali Edward's one little word prompt and choose a word to focus on throughout the year. Actually I think I forgot to do it last year, ha ha, but this year I am excited to get back into it.

This year's word for me- or phrase, really- is "Radiate love". This comes from some soul-searching I've been doing over the last few months that involved me going back and reading some of the extensive journaling I did back in my high school/early college days. Reading about how happy and fulfilled I was when I was focusing on uplifting other people and feeling and projecting love to people around me made me realize how much I wanted to reconnect with that person I used to be.

So my mani is based on my intention for this year- to focus on spreading love to others around me.
I chose colors that are happy to me and that are some of my favorites. I wanted the mani to feel light and happy.

So I started with two coats of white for a base and stamped in gold and a mint blue color. I decided to do a gradient type stamping technique for the hearts by putting both gold and blue onto my stamping plate and then scraping. Though the colors don't really fade into each other, I'm pleased with it.

I really wanted a sunburst-type pattern for the background on my middle nails to represent a motion coming from within and going out into the world. I found my sunburst on this Bundle Monster blogger collab plate.

The adorable little hands forming a heart come from this MoYou London Hipster plate. Loving this plate!

My little hearts come from a different Bundle Monster Blogger Collab plate, this super versatile one by elleandish.

Finally, I thought the little speech bubbles from this Born Pretty plate would represent my desire to make an effort to try to brighten the day of strangers and look for ways to show kindness in smaller and simple ways. 

I can't wait to see how others interpret this challenge! Be sure to check them out in the link-up below!

An InLinkz Link-up