Merlot French Tips with Dotted Flower Accent

This week I did Merlot French Tips with Dotted Flower Accents on each nail. My flowers aren't perfect, but overall I'm very pleased.

I started with a base of Pure Ice "Oh Baby!", a sheer white shimmer with red flash. I think "Oh Baby!" is meant to be used as a top coat on top of blacks and other dark creme colors to create a duochrome flash, but I wanted a sheer color for my base coat. On the French Tips and the Dotted Flowers I used "Iced Merlot", also by Pure Ice. It's a shimmery metallic merlot color. :) Finally, for the dots in the center of the flowers I used Savvy "Chrome", a silver shimmer.

I had originally wanted to do pink tips and flowers, but I found that all my pink shimmers were much too transparent for it. There was one that probably would have made a good base coat for the sheer color, though.

Pure Ice "Oh Baby!", Pure Ice "Iced Merlot", and Savvy "Chrome".

As a side note, when I was doing my dotted flowers I found out not to put the polish on a foam disposable plate. The polish started to eat through the plate and I had bubbles in the dots!

China Glaze "Optical Illusion" & Pure Ice "Not Now"

Today I have on a manicure with two of my favorite things-turquoise nail polish and glitter.

Now... you might say this is green, not turquoise, but in real life it's got a very subtle hint of blue in it that I think qualifies it as a dark turquoise. It's a very, very pretty metallic polish from Pure Ice called "Not Now".

The glitter and stars are China Glaze "Optical Illusion", from their Prismatic Chroma Glitters collection. I have another one from this collection, called "Prism" that I used way back on April 23rd, and I just ordered "Full Spectrum" with my Copious credits, so it should be on it's way to my house. <g> They are all just the most gorgeous glitters I have ever seen.

For this manicure I did a focal nail with the China Glaze glitter, and made stars on top of the other nails with the glitter using a star-shaped hole punch and blue painter's tape.

The picture is a little fuzzy, but you get the idea. This was the first nail I did, and I didn't remove the tape quite quick enough, so it smudged the shape of the stars a little.

Deborah Lippmann "Dancing in the Sheets" & Sally Hansen "Aisle Be There"

This week I have a beautiful combination of polishes to show you. I started with Deborah Lippmann's "Dancing in the Sheets" (from her "Footloose" collection) and topped it off with Sally Hansen Diamond Strength "Aisle Be There", from a line of polishes with wedding-themed names. It's hard to tell from the photos, but the combination really was stunning. I loved it!

Here's a picture of it with the flash on. I really couldn't capture how sparkly "Aisle Be There" is. Maybe it's just my camera. It never wants to focus when my polish is too sparkly. :-/ Not only did it add tons of sparkle, but it added purple flash. "Aisle Be There" retails for about $5, available at most retail stores.

Here's "Dancing in the Sheets" by itself. It's a dark bluish-purple metallic polish. One coat looks dark purple, but the second coat makes it more blue, in my opinion. As you would expect from a high-end polish like Deborah Lippmann, the formula was great and the application was easy. I got this polish on Clearance from HSN, along with "Let's Hear It For The Boy", a light blue creme. 

Outdoors.

Also, Glitter Obsession is having an awesome giveaway! You can win one of China Glaze's OMG polishes. Enter here.

Colorblocking!

Today I have a colorblocking manicure. The base color is Orly "Rock-It". On top of that I layered Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's "Gunsmoke" at an angle. Lastly, I layered Nicole by OPI's "Fabulous is My Middle Name" at the opposite angle. I entered these into a nail art contest from Shelly's Sassy Nails, but I didn't win. I didn't really think I would, but it's fun to enter the contests and connect with other nail polish junkies. :)

Orly "Rock-It", Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Gunsmoke", and Nicole by OPI "Fabulous is My Middle Name."

Orly "Rock-It" is a shimmery magenta that was part of Orly's Mineral FX collection from 2011. It retails for $8.00, but I purchased it at Ulta during a Buy 2 Get One Free Sale. This is the first time I've used an Orly polish, but they are very high quality. Plus, you get a little more polish--Orly bottles hold .6 oz., and most polish brands hold .5 oz. I have a few more Orlys that I need to try some time.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Gunmental" is a dark metallic grey. It retails for $1.99 and is available just about everywhere. As you can see from the photo above, my dog got his teeth on my bottle of Gunsmoke. But isn't he cute?:

Chewbacca

Lastly is Nicole by OPI's "Fabulous is My Middle Name". It's a glitter bomb polish containing small silver glitter, and silver, red, magenta and black small bar glitter. I believe it is a Wal-Mart exclusive color. It retails for $7, and I bought this with a $1 off coupon given to me by my sister Deana. (Here's the shout-out I promised you, Deana!) :)

Here's a shot of Orly "Rock-It" without the other colors layered on top:

Independence Day Nails!

The 4th of July is only 3 days away, so for this manicure I went for patriotic nails, using 4 different types of polish.

On my thumb is Sinful Colors "Hot Spot", a metallic blue, with white confetti stars on top. I kept bumping my thumb when it was only half-dry, so I had to touch it up a couple times, which you can probably see. You can also see the air bubbles that are my fault. I put the top coat on too thickly, too fast to try to cover the confetti stars, causing the bubbles.

My index finger and ring finger have Wet n Wild fastdry "Everybody Loves Redmond", with white stripes painted with Kiss brand white nail art paint. This was the first time I've tried to freehand straight stripes, so they're a little crooked, but I'm happy with them overall. Hopefully I'll get better with practice, and maybe with a better brand of precision polish. I think the Kiss brand is kind of thin and drippy.

My middle and pinky finger have "American Spirit", an indie polish from 365 Days of Color. American Spirit has a red jelly base with silver star glitter; silver and blue square glitter; silver, blue and red hex glitter; small silver, red, white and blue round glitter; and silver, and red, white and blue bar glitter. I did have to fish around for the best glitter pieces, but in my experience that's pretty typical of most chunky glitter polishes, both big brand and indie brand. It was a limited edition that I don't believe is currently for sale on her site, so I'm glad I got my hands on it when I did!

Sinful colors "Hot Spot", Wet n Wild fastdry "Everybody Loves Redmond", Kiss white Nail Art Paint, 365 Days of Color "American Spirit", and my little pot of white confetti stars.