Navy & Pink Texture Dots

Simple texture mani for today.

Dragon Eggs

Ok, if y'all haven't seen these already TRUST ME, you are missing out! These amazing little balls of awesome are based on a tutorial from Accio Lacquer and I am crazy grateful she made such a great tutorial because I am in love with making these! My 2 year old is also in love with the "Dagon Eggs" :)

Without further ado...


This one was created using Orly Fowl Play & Zoya Opal

MORE eggs after the jump!

Pure Ice Private Show

Today I have a super cheap Butter London dupe :) This is Pure Ice Private Show, with China Glaze Infra-Red on the accent nail.  Private show is an exact dupe for Butter London The Black Knight.  You can check out the comparison at OhThreeOhFour.  The best part? The Black Knight is $15.00, and Private Show is only $1.98!

Birthday Ombre

Hi Y'all! This is the mani I did for my 25th birthday at the beginning of September :)

For this ombre I used Maybelline Silver Aluminum, Pure Ice Flirt Alert, Orly Rock It and then topped it with China Glaze Fairy Dust.

For the accent nail, it's a base of Orly Rock It, and the design is done in Pure Ice Silver Mercedes and Pure Ice Flirt Alert, topped with CG Fairy Dust (crack).

Mint Mani For Talia Joy

Talia Joy  was a thirteen year old girl who was battling two types of cancer, neuroblastoma and preleukemia. She was a very talented make up and nail artist as well.  She has appeared on the Ellen show and was also made an honorary CoverGirl.  She was an amazing inspiration to many people and tragically, she passed away Tuesday.

Her last picture on instagram was a mint green mani so Nail Polish Wars had the great idea for everyone to post their mint manis in memory of Talia.  This is a great idea, wonderful cause and everyone is invited to participate!

If you aren't a blogger, you can still post your manis on instagram, facebook, twitter etc. with the hashtag #mintmanisfortaliajoy and #taliaslegacy

I used 2 coats of China Glaze For Audrey, topped with 2 coats CG Fairy Dust.  My accent nail is one coat Pure Ice Silver Mercedes with 2 coats Love My Nails Milky Way.

Indoor with flash picture shows color best, but still not as green as in person.  Not sure why all my pictures leaned more blue.

 Outdoor, Shade

Valentine Ruffle Mani

Happy Valentine's Day Y'all!

The manicure I did today is a ruffle manicure based on Chalkboard Nails tutorial. This started with a China Glaze White on White base, then i did the ruffles with Orly Rock It!, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Ruby Sequin, Pure Ice Strip Tease, & Zoya Kimber, and topped it off with one coat China Glaze Fairy Dust, a holographic fine particle glitter. I used the largest dotting tool I have, a straight pin, and just placed dots right next to each other in a row, overlapping slightly with each row. I finished this up with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat.  It's not perfect but I love it, I only wish I had used one coat polishes because strip tease was a little sheer.  For some reason my camera would not show the colors right so I took pictures on my phone also so y'all can get the right idea :)  Also this mani is on my new gel nails, which I will have a review of by Monday.

Natural Light 

Left: Blurry shows holo, Right: Macro

 Sunlight

Shade

Sunlight, See the holo?

*** Y'all please take a minute to also check out my jewelry page, the tab is at the top of the page, Contact me if you'd like to purchase one, and thanks for looking***

Valentine's Nails- Dotticure

Happy Early Valentine's Day Y'all!

Here is my first of two Valentine's themed manicures this week, along with a fail nail.

First the fail, this is two coats Zoya Kimber with two coats Jindie Nails Be Someone Cute on the accent, no top coat.  I got this finished and just didn't like it :( BSC  is small pink, black, and white glitters, and it throws a purple iridescent flash.  Kimber is a hot pink glass fleck with gold shimmer. I love both colors, I just didn't like the warm toned Kimber with the cool toned BSC, so I changed it up...

With Flash, missed some glitter in clean up :/

Here is the second mani I did, a dotticure accent mani.  This is two coats of Zoya Kimber, and two coats China Glaze White on White on accent nail.  The polishes used on the accents, in order of dark to light, are: Orly Rock It!, Zoya Kimber, Pure Ice Strip Tease & LA Colors Bashful. One coat is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Top Coat. 

Natural Light

 Natural Light, Accent Close Up

Natural Light

Later this week I will have my Valentine's Day Mani and my Sally's haul from their 50% off Red Tag sale this weekend. Hopefully I can also get a Glitzology post up soon, as soon as I receive my polishes! 

*** Y'all please take a minute to also check out my jewelry page, the tab is at the top of the page, Contact me if you'd like to purchase one, and Thanks for looking :)***

Scallop Mani & Haul Pics

Today I tried a design I've never done before, scallops :) This is a tape mani, but I used painter's tape instead of my usual scotch tape. I've got to say, I liked this a LOT better!

Natural light, Cloudy, Shows the orange flash

I started with a base coat of Orly Rock It, an awesome reddish fuchsia jelly base, with tons of red and golden orange shimmer, however that orange flash doesn't translate well on the nail.  Then I used craft scissors to cut the painter's tape in a scallop pattern, added Pure Ice Silver Mercedes (which Pure Ice is changing the name to Silver Star, per their site), then I added Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris.  I went back and added dots to my ring fingers with the smallest dotting tool.  I had a little bit of smearing with my topcoat from not floating the brush, but overall I'm happy with it!

The scissors I used

This is one coat of all polishes & one coat top coat :)  As far as application issues the only real problem I had was Ebony Hates Chris, i hate the brush, it's really stiff so it either leaves brush strokes & bald spots or it's really thick.  Silver Mercedes applies fine as long as you don't go back over anywhere as (like most metallics I've worn) it pulls.  Rock It was great, this is one moderate coat and it was fully opaque. 

Left: Nautral Light, Cloudy  

Right: Flash

Now for the haul pics I got in today :)

I ordered a Barielle polish earlier this week for 20% off with free shipping, so that puts it around 57% off.  The rest are from Bloom during their 70% off closeout sale.

 All together

 Left: Barielle Lily of the Valley

Center: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Grass Slipper

Right: Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle Forbidden Fudge

 Left: POP Beauty Magenta Muse

Center: Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Rose Amore 

Right: Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Peach Pave

 Left:Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Ruby Sequin 

Right: Comparison in the new one & my old bottle from 8+ years ago

And here are swatches of all of them, in order as I've shown them (minus Ruby Sequin)

*** Y'all please take a minute to also check out my jewelry page, the tab is at the top of the page, Contact me if you'd like to purchase one, and Thanks for looking :)

Christmas Chevron

Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays Y'all!
Here is my final Christmas manicure, a Christmas chevron design :)  I hope all y'all have a great holiday weekend, we will be having lots of family time.

Red is Pure Ice Creme Siren with China Glaze Ruby Pumps.
White is China Glaze White on White with Orly Winter Wonderland.
Green is Sally Hansen Instadry Spring Green, China Glaze Paper Chase and Sinful Colors Call You Later.  Two coats Sally Hansen Insta-dri Topcoat. 

   *** Y'all please take a minute to also check out my jewelry page :)
Contact me if you'd like to purchase one, and Thanks for looking :)
http://steelandsashes.blogspot.com/

Rudolph & Santa Mani

Good morning y'all :)
Here is this week's christmas mani,  Rudolph & Santa nails. I love how they came out, my dominant hand Rudolph is a little wonky but all in all not that bad! 

One coat Pure Ice Creme Siren, one coat China Glaze Ruby Pumps, one coat Sally Hansen Insta-dri Topcoat.

Santa's Belt (middle finger)

Black belt is Zoya Storm, buckle is Pure Ice Silver Mercedes and L.A. Colors Art Deco Silver Glitter.

Rudolph (index finger)
Two coats China Glaze White on White, Rudolph's head is a no name Color Workshop brown, antlers are Ulta Chocolate Kiss, eyes are China Glaze White on White and Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris.

  *** Y'all please take a minute to also check out my jewelry page :)

Contact me if you'd like to purchase one, and Thanks for looking :)
http://steelandsashes.blogspot.com/

Candy Cane Nails

This is my first of (at least) 3 Christmas themed manis :)

This week is candy canes :)

I started out with one coat Pure Ice Creme Siren, over basecoat. Then 2 coats China Glaze Ruby Pumps, one coat was fine but i wanted to build some depth. White stripes were done with L.A. Colors Art Deco. Sally Hansen Insta-dri Topcoat.

Sorry for the picture overload, but i had a lot of matching props :)

 *** Y'all please take a minute to check out my jewelry page :)
Contact me if you'd like to purchase one, and Thanks for looking :)
http://steelandsashes.blogspot.com/

Copper Glitz

This is last week's mani, never got a chance to post it last week!

 

It was incredibly bright and i kept meaning to matte coat it and never got around to it.

 

 This is one coat Pure Ice Iced Copper, two coats Finger Paints Fall of Surprises and one coat Sally Hansen Insta-dri Topcoat. I love how this copper glitter applies, very dense, with no fishing or dabbing to place the hexes.

 *** Y'all please take a minute to check out my jewelry page :)
Contact me if you'd like to purchase one, and Thanks for looking :)
http://steelandsashes.blogspot.com/

We're off to see the Wizard...

This week's mani is inspired by The Wizard of Oz, one of my favorite movies!

Pinky- Dorothy's Dress
2 coats CG White on White
Lines are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away frankened with CG White on White

Ring Finger- The iconic red shoes.
3 coats CG Ruby Pumps. Two coats was opaque, i just did three to block out the magenta jelly base this polish shows on my nails when held to the light.

Middle Finger- The Tin Man
2 coats Pure Ice Silver Mercedes. Heart is Pure Ice Creme Siren and buttons are Sally Hansen Fastdry Ebony Hates Chris.

Pointer Finger- The Wicked Witch's Stockings
2 coats Sally Hansen Fastdry Ebony Hates Chris. White is L.A. Colors Art Deco White.

Thumb- Yellow Brick Road
2 coats Ulta Sun-sational frankened with Ulta Sun of a Gun. Lines made with Ulta Sun-sational frankened with a no name brown from The Color Workshop.

All have one coat base, and 2 coats Sally Hansen Insta-dri Topcoat




I also got my free Zoya Storm in today along with an acrylic nail sample of their Designer and Diva Collection NYFW 2012.  I really like FeiFei, Daul, Toni, Natty, Moot, and Song.

Rekha, Toni, Monica, Natty, Evvie, Noot

 Elisa, Suri, Song, Ray, FeiFei, Daul

 *** Y'all please take a minute to check out my jewelry page :)
Contact me if you'd like to purchase one, and Thanks for looking :)
http://steelandsashes.blogspot.com/