Golden Snowflakes

Hello!  I know, I have been very slow with blogging lately.  I was inspired to do these snowflake nails because I have been getting so much snow at my house.  I had my third snow day of this college semester today.

I started out with a base coat of Sally Hansen Double Duty.  I then painted two coats of Sinful Colors Black on Black on all of my nails (the middle finger had some accidents, so I painted gold over top.  I had originally wanted everything to be uniform.)

I waited for my base to dry and then I took my Bundle Monster BM-323 stamping plate and stamped the snowflake image on all of my nails with Essie Good as Gold.  I accidentally double stamped my middle nail, so I painted a coat of the gold on it and then stamped it with the black.  

I wanted to add a little extra sparkle, so I took my holographic black and gold loose glitters and applied it with a dotting tool dipped in Sally Hansen Double Duty.  I applied black glitter in the centers of all the gold snowflakes and gold glitter in the centers of the black snowflakes.  I also put a few random contrasting pieces of glitter on each nail (so, the nails with the black base had gold glitter placed randomly on them, and vise versa.)

I finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

I have a Snapchat!  I have had it for months, but I want to get in to using it more for posting random things and my nail art to my story.  Follow me if you like!  My username is margie-jane.  (My sister calls me that as a silly nickname.)  I have written the username under my social media to the right of this page and here is my personal ghost that you can point your camera at to immediately add me (without having to write in my username!!!)

Vintage Lace

I started out with two coats of Milani Rapid Orchid, which is actually a very dark reddish-purple, though it even looks almost black in person.  When that was dry, I stamped on a lace pattern that I found on Bundle Monster's Plate BM323.  I used Sally Hansen White On as my stamping color.  I finished off the manicure with two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

So, the story behind my "vintage lace" is simply that the lace did not come out like I hoped it would.  I wanted it to look crisp and clean, but, for some reason, I was just having a hard time with stamping.  So, I am using my imagination and pretending that the lace is supposed to be old, tattered lace.  Haha!  If I think of it that way, I don't think the manicure looks messed up!

I did use my new Konad stamper, but it was definitely not the new stamper that made my stamping not come out so well.  My conclusion is that the generic stamper that I had always used is just as good as the Konad one that I bought.

Pearl Necklaces

A couple weeks ago while I was at church I noticed a couple elderly ladies sitting together.  They both had on bright sweaters and long necklaces.  That made me think of nail art that I could do:

On my ring fingers and thumbs I used two coats of Rimmel Mintilicious.  On my other nails I used two coats of Sally Hansen Coral Reef.  When that was dry, I used a dotting tool dipped in Sally Hansen Hard To Get to make the necklaces on my coral nails.  Then I used a dotting tool dipped in Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to dot on spots to stick the 1.5 mm half pearls on my ring fingers and thumbs to add more texture to the manicure.  I like to add a 3-D touch to a mainly 2-D manicure to make it look more interesting.  

The way I pick up the pearls (or studs) is by dipping a dotting tool in top coat to make it sticky and then I just touch the pearls with it to pick them up.  

When the manicure was done, I put two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly on top of everything.  

Winter Snowflake Nails

I was super excited to paint my nails for Thanksgiving, but, last minute, I worked all day on the day before Thanksgiving and then I went away on Thanksgiving day and didn't get back home until today.  So, there was no time to do a manicure.  I am really excited about today's mani, though.  I have been looking forward to using Bundle Monster's snowflake image for a long time:

My base color is two coats of Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue.  I used Bundle Monster plate BM323 to stamp with.  My stamping color is Sally Hansen White On.  That polish is actually pretty old, so it got very gloopy.  That's why it works so well to stamp with.  On my ring finger and thumb I used a couple 1.5 mm silver studs from Born Pretty Store.  I used two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly as my top coat.   

Barbed Wire

I am still impatiently waiting for my 2013 Bundle Monster plates to come, so I felt like stamping my nails today:

I used two coats of Sally Hansen Black Out as my base color.  When that was dry I used Sally Hansen Penny Talk to stamp on the barbed wire.  This image is from Bundle Monster's plate BM-323.  The best polishes to stamp with are highly pigmented and of a thick consistency.  Chromes work very well, too.  If you have any old polishes that are a little too thick to paint your nails with, consider saving them and trying to stamp with them.  Thicker polishes stamp beautifully.  I applied a thick coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly to seal in the manicure.

White Roses

Today I decided to stamp my nails.  They came out so well!

I first painted on two coats of Rimmel Black Satin.  I let that dry for a while and them I began stamping.  I used my Bundle Monster Plate BM323 and selected the rose pattern.  I have an old white polish, Sally Hansen White On, that got very thick.  That worked perfectly.  With stamping, thick polishes work better.

After I stamped all my nails I cleaned up around my cuticles with a Q-tip dipped in pure acetone.  I had never used pure acetone before, but it worked so much better than nail polish remover with acetone.  I didn't need to rub my skin to get the paint off.  The acetone took it off effortlessly.

I let the stamped images dry for a long time and then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.  The trick to not smudging the images is letting them dry for a long time and using a top coat with a thick consistency.  Thin top coats do not provide a barrier between the nail and the brush.  If you use a thick top coat, though, and make sure you have a lot on the brush and apply it very lightly to your nails, the design will remain intact.  When I first buy Dries Instantly, it is pretty thin, but when it gets a little older it becomes thick enough to paint over designs.