Preview of coming events and Before & After: Tubular Wrap

(The products in this post were purchased by me.)

Hello!

Today I have a manicure for you that I did a while back, before the holiday season hit, and it didn't quite fit into the different holiday themes. It features a beautiful polish and some simple nail art.

Before I show you, though, I wanted to quickly mention my general plan for the blog in the next month or two :)

Plate reviews: I have a ton of plate reviews for you in the next month or so, many of them already recorded by awaiting editing and corresponding stamping tests. This includes 2 more Bunny Nails plates, about 10 more MoYou-London plates, and the second generation Winstonia plates. Yep, we're gonna be going on a stamping plate bonanza together, lol!

Got Polish? Challenge: Several of my fellow bloggers and I have realized that we have polishes that we love, but that get put to the side because we do so much swatching, etc. Of course we want to continue to show you new polishes, and no worries, we'll still be doing that. But we also wanted to find a way to make it a priority to use those other polishes we love in nail art, and to hopefully remind you of some old favorites you have collecting dust, too. :)

Monday Blues: I am very excited to be joining the ranks of the bloggers who show you  lovely blue polishes on Monday in honor of the Monday blues. Of course I'll be featuring mine with nail art. :)

Continuing challenges: I will still be participating in my Nail Challenge Collaborative, Llama Nails, and Kimber's challenges, and I will be trying to additionally challenge myself by combining as many of these as I can, to stretch my skills.

As always, please don't hesitate to ask for tutorials of anything you like, comparison posts you're interested in, etc. This really helps me now what you'd like to see, rather than have to guess! Right now I'm currently putting together a post on flakie polishes in response to a reader who expressed interest in that--so if you're a newer reader to my blog, I really do try to respond to any requests I get, if I possibly can. :)

Okay, on to today's manicure!

One of my long-time lemmings that I finally satisfied back at the end of summer was KBShimmer Totally Tubular. This is a vibrant turquoise crelly with purple and blue circle and hex glitters. It's a bottle full of fun and happy, and it completely lived up to my hopes in terms of beauty, application, and formula. Here are two easy coats:

KBShimmer Totally Tubular

KBShimmer Totally Tubular

KBShimmer Totally Tubular

KBShimmer Totally Tubular

As with a lot of high-quality color-based glitter polishes, this doesn't really need nail art to be special, and I didn't want to do too much to it, since I wanted to enjoy the polish as it was. But after wearing it alone for a while, I decided to do some simple nail art with it. I started by doing a little saran-wrap magic on top with a purple polish--I can't remember which...maybe Finger Paints Plum Startled?..bad blogger! Bad!!--and then stamped on the accent nail with Barry M Silver:

I think this adds just enough that it celebrates the beautiful elements of the polish without taking away from it. Sometimes less is more!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope your New Year is off to a wonderful start. :)

Hugs and loves,
M.

First swatch spam post!

Hello everyone!

I just noticed that I have a bunch of swatches that for one reason or another got put into my limbo file, and I thought I'd throw them together and show them to you. This is actually partly in preparation for something I'm excited about that I'll be posting later. In the meantime...Enjoy!

Finger Paints Merry Mistletoe: 

Finger Paints Merry Mistletoe, indirect sunlight

Julep Claudette: 

Julep Claudette, artificial light

Julep Jodie: 

Julep Jodie, artificial light

Julie G Shimmer Island: 

KBShimmer Get Clover It: 

KBShimmer Get Clover It, indirect sunlight

NerdLacquer Home Of The Untempered Schism:

 

NerdLacquer Home Of The Untempered Schism, direct sunlight

 Zoya Midori: 

 

Zoya Midori, indirect sunlight

 

Zoya Midori, direct sunlight

 

Zoya Nidhi: 

Zoya Nidhi, artificial light

Zoya Rikki: 

Zoya Rikki, indirect sunlight

Hope you saw something you liked! Hugs and smooches,

M.

Before & After: Sunfall

Hello!!

Today I have nail art for you using a polish from one of my favorite indie brands, KBShimmer. I love everything about this brand--the formula is excellent, the glitters blend perfectly with the base polish, and every component of every polish is chosen carefully to come together and tell a story. This polish is Quantum Leaf, a mustard-yellow-gold with gold, orange and red glitters:

This polish looks to me like the surface of the sun, so that inspired me to add some little suns to the manicure...I stamped using Bundle Monster plate BM01 and Sally Hansen Rapid Red, and then I finished with a red glequin in the center of each sun: 

Can't get much more summery than the gorgeous golden rays of the summer sun! Speaking of which, where'd I put my sunblock...

Hugs and love,
M.

Before & After: No Balance Left

Hello!!

I'm coming in just under the wire with the last of my May stamping entries for my Nail Challenge Collaborative group, but this is one I'm really proud of. :)

KBShimmer No Whine Left was a polish I had been lemming for quite some time. Sometimes when you want a polish for a long time like that, you build it up in your head and the real thing turns out the be not that great.

This is not one of those occasions.

My darling friend Dina of Secretary's Nail Art introduced me to KBShimmer a long time ago, when she mentioned someone else told her that she should check them out. I did, and I drooled, and finally I was able to buy. I purchased three lovelies, including this one, and was blown away by the quality. It wasn't long before I decided that KBShimmer had to be a part of my Indie Hall of Fame, which I just started to build and is under construction at the moment (see tabs at the top of the blog).

But I digress. This is about No Whine Left, a gorgeous deep purple jelly with a variety of purple and blue hex glitters. It applies like a dream. It covers in two coats. It's one of those miracle polishes that just makes you happy...so happy I built an outfit about it, which was one of my first entries on Instagram. If you've ever wondered if I actually wear my 'before' polishes before I 'after' them (and the tip wear isn't convincing enough, lol), here is the evidence that I actually do. :)

KBShimmer No Whine Left, indirect light

KBShimmer, direct sun

I submit to you that this is not an easy polish to stamp on. There's already a lot going on--what sort of pattern can you use that actually adds to the polish and doesn't distract from it? And...it's um...dark. Other than silver, gold or white, none of which I felt would work for this...what do you do?

After some speculation, I came up with an answer that I think is a pretty darn good one. I stamped it using China Glaze Hanging In The Balance (have I mentioned in the last 5 minutes how much I love China Glaze cremes for stamping?) and used Konad plate m63:

No Whine Left + Hanging In The Balance

= No Balance Left

I. Love. This. Somehow the pattern almost looks like a background and the amazing glitter shines through. And it's like the shade of blue was made to go with this manicure. Sometimes--just sometimes--you accidentally stumble on a win. :)

Thanks for taking a look, and please check out the other participants' manis, linked below. :)

Hugs and love,
M.