Belated 4th!!

Happy belated 4th!! It's way too late, but here it is! I did, however wear it for the 4th, I just didn't post it til now!! I used a blue from Sally Girl (from Sally's Beauty Supply) and Magenta Mood from Finger Paints and Konaded the stars with special white polish, and finished with SV.. Voila!!

My first gradient attempt & Konad cover!

Yesterday I decided to head on over to Sally's and purchase the one polish I have picked up and put back down at least 20 times over the past few months, China Glaze Secret Peri-Winkle. I don't know what took me so long...guess I thought it might give me corpse hands or something, but I have to say that I love this color. I also got China Glaze Grape Pop on clearance for $2.99, so I decided to use them both for a gradient mani.

I had been wanting to try a gradient for the longest time, and I've watched/read Colette's (My Simple Pleasures blog...check her out on the sidebar) gradient tutorials many times over. I did forget one important rule of gradient sponging, and that's to let it dry a bit before you sponge over it again. Because of my impatience, a bit of polish actually pulled up on the sponge and lifted, but I continued on anyway.

Without further ado, here's my gradient! I used Secret Peri-Winkle as the base color, sponged on Grape Pop, used the floral pattern from Konad plate M73, and Konad Special Polish in Sky Pearl for the stamp. If you care to, you can enlarge the image by clicking on the picture.

Poolside Safari

For Mother's Day, my boyfriend purchased for me, five of the six of the CG Poolside collection!! Here, my friend and I, (using Sally Hansen "white on" as a base coat) are wearing "Pool Party" (pink), "Sun Worshipper" (orange), "Yellow Polka Dot Bikini" (yellow), "Kiwi Cool-ada" (green), and "Towel Boy Toy" (blue). Over which we have applied the leopard and the zebra patterns from the konad M57 plate in black, and SV topcoat x2.

I love the neon colors!! Very 80's like!! :) Although, the blue is a bit off... it shows lighter in the picture than it is in person, but close.

Cotton Candy Dreams :)

My life is a circus and I am LOVING the cotton candy!! Here I used Essie in "forget me knots" and the french tip Konad plate (m19) with Sally Hansen insta-dry in "brisk Blue" as well as the fluer de lis on the m15 Konad plate. I followed with a crown (m40) on the ring finger using the white Konad Polish and the plate and finished with petites in "stardust" and a coat of SV... Yum!! Hey, Auntie..didn't you say something about a snack??

China Glaze Free Love (and Konad)

This is a color I picked up on clearance at Sally Beauty Supply for a big 99 cents. Even with its tiny price tag, I must have picked it up and put it down about 12 times before I finally reminded myself that it was only 99 cents. I was really concerned that I would hate this color, but it turns out to be quite the opposite...I LOVE this color!

Free Love is/was part of the Retro Diva collection released last year and it's a bold burnt orange shimmer that makes it look like it's somehow lit from within. I find this color extremely pretty.

First picture is in natural indirect light; second picture in full, glorious sunshine!





Since I'm starting a new job tomorrow (yay...GO ME!), I wanted to have kind of a snazzy first-day manicure and decided to do a little Konading (like I need a reason to Konad). Since I didn't want to have a halloween/fall look, nor did I want to have a NY Mets look (that will come later), I chose the only other option that I could think of: white. I also chose the paisley pattern from plate m64.

Here she is in indirect natural light, and in direct sunlight.





Kind of reminds me a bit of a Creamsicle. Hmm....now I'm hungry. Pardon me while I have a snack...

Konad French Tips

I love french tips!! White, pink, blue, black, etc...it goes on... I love them with the konad!! I think the trick is to go quick... hustle, hustle, hustle!! The results are quick, gorgeous, and relatively inexpensive. On the downside, the regular french tip plates are not very wide, so they are not very suitable for really long nails. Also on here, is the princess crown (how fitting!) from the m40 plate. I used the french m19 and for the flowers I used the m29. I love the casual look of the bubbly flowers. For the white i used the konad white, and the konad black for the crown. I finished with a petites in stardust and a coat of SV. Viola!!

OPI Mad as a Hatter, and of course, some Konad!

As I've said in a previous post, I love O.P.I....I truly do, I just don't like the price tag associated with it. Whenever I buy one (or two), I have this conversation in my head that goes along the lines of "I could buy 3 China Glaze polishes, or 16 Wet 'n Wild polishes, or X number of _______ polishes instead of just this measly one or two". But every now and then, there's an OPI polish that I just have to have, so I shake off the other voice in my head and go ahead and buy it. I can because it doesn't break my no-more-than-nine-dollars rule.

So up today, I have O.P.I.'s Mad as a Hatter. It looks like a party in a bottle, and definitely a party on your nails. Easy application (although a pain to remove as all glitters are); this picture represents three coats. First picture indirect natural light, second picture in some sun.





As most sparkly, glittery polishes, it's hard to capture on the sparkly goodness in a photo. I'm working on my photographic skills, but unfortunately, this is the best I can do for now.

Every since my "hot mess konad" post, I've wanted to try some more Konad over glitters, so here's my Konad for this one. I used Wet 'n Wild Fantasy Makers Black for the stamp, and plate M65.





Sorry about the lack of clean-up before the pics, I was kinda in a hurry. I like this one...whatcha think?

Ulta Limelight and a bonus Konad

I redeemed my reward certificate from Ulta today and snagged a few polishes; one of which is a newly released shade of green called Limelight. This polish was surprisingly thick (unlike other Ulta polishes I've purchased), almost a little gloopy. Usually, I take a moment to check the tightness on a cap before I purchase a polish, just to make sure someone before me didn't test the sucker and not screw the cap on back tightly thus causing the polish to get thick. I suspect that's exactly what happened, because there is a bit of polish buildup around the bottle's neck, so I'm going to take a little thinner to it the next time I use it.

Anyway, this color is a yellow-leaning mossy green; very streaky and nasty first coat, evens itself out with the second coat, and becomes opaque with a third coat. This photo was taken in natural indirect light...no direct sunlight could be found!



Breaking out the Konad, I decided not to reach for my two favorite Konading polishes (China Glaze Millenium and 2030), and instead chose to try two others. First up is Limelight with Essie Mint Candy Apple and a design from plate M65 for an art deco kind of look.



For a more subtle, tone-on-tone kind of look, I used Pure Ice Wild Thing over Limelight (note: Sally Hansen Extreme Wear Ivy League stamped identically on this color, so if you plan to try this, you can use this to replace Wild Thing).


I'm not sure if I could keep either of these on my fingers for longer than a day...

I've got sunshine on a cloudy day...

Here's a not-too-original Konad for you today. I used my girl (sorry, couldn't resist the pun) Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away (2 coats), white Konad special polish, and the cloud pattern from plate m79.

First picture is in indirect natural light, second picture full sun. I dunno why it looks like I have a giant gouge in my thumb, I don't...it's a cloud.






This was so easy, a Heidi can do it!

Multi-leopard Konad

I'm so excited to post my first blog!! But, not quite as excited as I was when i was finished with this nail design!! It is inspired by a trip to Claire's... they had a whole section dedicated to multi-colored leopard print..and I was in love!! It was my very first adventure with Konad (thank you aunt Heidi!!) and what started my love affair with it! I now have a growing collection of Konad plates and I am always trying new polishes with it!! Here, I used Sally Hansen Xtreme wear in White On for my base, and I used the leopard print from the Konad M57 plate. I used a dotting tool to fill in the spaces with different neon colors from my Nina Ultra Pro collection, that I purchased from Sally's Beauty Supply. I finished with a top coat of Seche Vite.

Hot Mess Konad

What do you do if you're not really keen on the look of the nail polish that you spent half an hour (more or less) applying? If you're me, you put glitter over it. What happens when you're still not thrilled with the end result? If you're me, you Konad over it. As promised, here is the pics of yesterday's blinged out purple with a ChG Millenium Konad coat (design from M63 plate).

I'm not exactly rockin' it, but I'm not hating on it, either...