Before & After: Presents, presents, presents! (featuring Sassy Pants Polish & Charlie's Nail Art)

(Press samples ahead!)

Hello!


Okay, so. See, what had happened was? Well...let's just say this one might have gotten away from me.


When I received a set of little fimo presents to review from Charlie's Nail Art, I figured Christmas was the perfect time to do it, and I figured that the colors would be a refreshing change from typical Christmas colors. So I lined up my plates and my polishes and everything, sang a happy tune, and put it all together.

Fimo presents from Charlie's Nail Art

I started with a base of Sassy Pants Polish Luster Of Midday, from her 'Twas The Night Before Christmas collection:

Sassy Pants Polish Luster Of Midday

Then I stamped it using UberChic Beauty Christmas 02, and Lina Nail Art Supplies Can't Wait For Xmas! plates:

I stamped with Hit The Bottle Polish Aubergine (also available at Beautometry), then I added my fimo presents. Finally, I added some dots with Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow:

Fimo presents from Charlie's Nail Art, UberChic Beauty Christmas 02 and Lina Nail Art Supplies Can't Wait For Xmas! over Sassy Pants Polish Luster Of Midday

Fimo presents from Charlie's Nail Art, UberChic Beauty Christmas 02 and Lina Nail Art Supplies Can't Wait For Xmas! over Sassy Pants Polish Luster Of Midday

What do you think? I can't decide how I feel about it. Every component is super cute, but together I'm not convinced it fully works. Maybe I was just more optimistic about the combination of yellow and purple than I should have been, or maybe I should have put the dots under the top coat of Luster Of Midday. I'm not saying I don't like it--when I make a mani I don't like it doesn't make the blog. I'm just not completely sure about it. I will say I love the sparkle it gives, and the present theme, and the fimo slices are super cute! Just maybe I'd put it all together differently next time.


You can find the fimo slices in Charlie's Nail Art's shop (I think the blue and pink ones in the set would be super cute for a baby shower mani--and for $0.64, how can you go wrong?). Use my code LOLAM10 for 10% off your order. And don't forget to follow them on Facebook and Instagram for updates and tons of inspiration!


Happy stamping,
M.

Before & After: The Lady Varnishes Give Me What I Want + UberChic Beauty Christmas 01

(Press sample)

Hello!

Today's theme in the Winter Nail Art Challenge is: Christmas sweater! I love Christmas sweaters, and defend them vociferously--they aren't ugly (most of them), they're beautiful expressions of holiday joy! That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

Despite that, I don't think I've ever done a Christmas sweater manicure on the blog, so this was past due.

To start with, I used The Lady Varnishes Give Me What I Want, a deep plum scatter-fleck holo from the Maleficent collection (see my full review here):

The Lady Varnishes Give Me What I Want

I chose this lovely because I wanted the undercoating of my 'sweater' to have a beautiful sparkle to it. Next I used two images from UberChic Beauty Christmas 01:

UberChic Beauty Christmas 01

I stamped the images with Barry M Cotton, and finished off with some three-dimensional snowflake accents, because when you go out in your awesome sweater, you're probably gonna get a few flakes of snow on it! Here's how it turned out: 

Awesome Christmas Sweater manicure

That's right, I said AWESOME, not ugly

Awesomest Christmas Sweater mani ever!

What do you think? Would you wear that sweater? What about the mani?


Happy stamping!

M.

An InLinkz Link-up

Before & After: Zoya Savita + Born Pretty Store BP-59

(Press sample; affiliate links)

Hello!

Today I have a quick before & after for you inspired by this month's theme in The Nail Challenge Collaborative: Pets. I have the perfect plate for this theme sitting by waiting to be used, so I had to pull it on out!

I started with a base of Zoya Savita, a gorgeous deep purple matte with pink flecks:

Zoya Savita

I pulled out Born Pretty Store plate BP-59:

Born Pretty Store BP-59

Since of my pets 4 are cats and one is a dog, I thought it was only fair to start with a kitty manicure...I adore all the kitties on this plate, but the kitty up on the wire was just calling to me. So I stamped using Sally Hansen Lively Lilac, on my ring finger and thumb. And I asked myself, why would a kitty be up on a wire like that? Because he's chasing something, of course...so I added a lavendar fimo butterfly on my pinkie for him to chase:

Kitty on a wire

Kitty on a wire

Topcoat finished the whole thing off; I love Savita in the matte form, but I also love how the amazing flecks come out when you put topcoat over it. And I love these cute kitties!

I did a video review of this plate along with several other Born Pretty Store plates, which you can see here:

As always, you can use my code to get 10% off of your non-sale purchase at Born Pretty Store:

Happy Stamping!
M.

An InLinkz Link-up

Before & After: Butterfly Trellis

Hello!

I was recently inspired by a fimo cane manicure done by my friend Inky over at Inky Whiskers Musings... I'm not a huge fan of fimo manicures, but I've had these butterfly fimo slices that I've been wanting to use, and when I saw her manicure, this look just popped into my head. :)

I started with a base of Barielle Dusty Lavender, because I've been busy trying to get a few of their collections swatched for you recently:

 

Barielle Dusty Lavender

Then I stamped using Barry M Silver Foil and the BuNa-A plate, using my partial distressed technique. Then I did a quick saran-wrap of Zoya Chita up the ring finger and a little on the middle finger, to look a bit like ivy climbing up a trellis. Then, I stuck on my fimo butterflies:

 

I love this as a soft, pretty look for spring. If you're worried about catching the fimo slices on something, make sure you attach them along the wings and not just the body of the butterfly (which is how I did it here), and you can also cover them with topcoat to be extra super duper sure. :)

By the way...I'm doing a writing prompt boot camp with a friend of mine and am posting some of my silliness on my other blog; if you want to take a look, you can find it by clicking here. :)

Hugs and loves,
M.

Before & After: Butterflowers

Okay, look. It was much nicer in my head.

Remember I said I had another 'Inspired By Dali' manicure in my head, one that was more inspired-by than reproduction-of? Well, here it is. It's not bad. But it doesn't look the way I hoped it would. See, the problem is...well, let's hold off on that for a minute. 

Here's the artwork that inspired the manicure, Dali's Butterfly Rose:

Pretty cool the way the butterfly wings are used as leave, huh? I thought so, anyway...

For my mani, I started with a base of Orly's Pretty-Ugly, and soft robin's-egg-blue with a pretty blue shimmer (I don't understand the name, I must admit):

Orly Pretty-Ugly, artificial light, 3 coats, excellent formula.

Here is my manicure. I used Sally Hansen Rapid Red and Pueen 14 for the rose (for my review of this collection, click here); the butterflies are fimo slices:

So how exactly did this go so wrong? Well, Bob, let's take another look at the tape:

1) This needs to be done on longer nails, so I can have space between the butterfly 'leaves', and maybe even add one more in. 

2) The rose is too big, and has too much visual weight compared to the butterfly wings.

3) The stem is too dark. What was I thinking?

4) I should have stuck with yellow for the rose, because it needs to have less visual weight than the butterfly wings.

5) I picked the wrong color butterflies to go against the background (the blue washes out the green butterflies) and the rose (the red makes the orange look funky). 

That said, and all of those mistakes listed, I do like this okay, particularly in theory, and I will do another version at some point in the future on my other hand (which has longer nails most of the time). Or maybe I'll do it horizontally over the length of all 4 nails. So this here manicure is a great example of learning by doing--sometimes you have to make the mistakes to figure out how the elements will work together, right?   

Yeah, yeah, I planned it as a learning lesson...yeah...>.>

Thanks for looking! Hugs and loves. :)

M.