Before & After: Foxy Ferns

(Nothing to disclose, products from personal collection)

Hello!!

Just a quick post today to show you a beautiful polish and a fun technique. :)

Here is Mentality Foxy, a raisiny-brown  polish with an stunning blue-green shimmer:

Mentality Foxy

Mentality Foxy

The shimmer in this is defies reason--depending on the light, it almost looks like a second polish has drifted to the top. :)

One of the reasons I bought this polish is from Mentality's 'stampers' line, polishes that are designed to stamp well (and it does). I've been wanting to try an idea I had that involves putting a textured saran-wrap effect over a base polish, and then stamping over it in the same color, for a subtle, layered effect.

On top of the base polish, I used saran-wrap to apply dabs of Enchanted Polish Hey Jude and Sally Hansen Chartreuse Chase. Then I stamped over that with Mentality Foxy on three nails, and with Sally Hansen Coco A-Go-Go on my accent nail, using MoYou London's Artist Collection plate 04:

Foxy Ferns

On the non-accent nails, depending how the light hits this, you get the blue flash from the Mentality polish, or the leaves shine through. It's sort of like an optical illusion that peeps out now and again. :)

I hope your week is off to a wonderful start!

Hugs and loves,
M.

Before & After: Orange Feather

(All products purchased with my own money.)

Hey there!

I have a ton of stuff I'm trying to put out on the blog in the next couple of weeks, and I'm extremely excited about the start of the Halloween season...I may regret it, but I'm going to do two Halloween challenges again this year. :)

But before I do, I've been in the mood for fall...so today I have a very fall manicure to share with you. I've had it in the queue for a while, and I want to get it out before I go all crazy into the Halloween stuff. :)

I started out with A'dor Unseelie, a glowing greyish-brown polish with a green-gold shimmer that borders on a metallic; I accidentally deleted my swatches day-of, so here is an older one to show you the base color:

A'dor Unseelie, two coats, direct sunlight

I wanted to turn this into a duochrome, so I added a coat of Enchanted Polish Special Sauce. I did this back when my cuticles were in bad shape, so please forgive me that...:

Enchanted Polish Special Sauce over A'dor Unseelie

And finally, I did a simple feather stamp with Kleancolor Metallic Orange:

I hate that the logistics of this post were such a disaster, because I love this manicure so much! I love the deep fall colors, and the way the stamping enhances the Special Sauce; it almost seems subtle against that hauntingly rich duochrome. Definitely an attention-catcher, in a good way. If you love fall colors and Special Sauce hasn't made it onto your lemming list yet, I highly recommend it. :)

Thanks for stopping by! Big hugs,
M.

(All products purchased with my own money.)

Before & After (& After): D is for Duochromed Stamping Sandwich

Hello!!!

Today's theme for this week in Llama Nails, we're on the letter 'D', and my 'D' is for Duochromed Stamping Sandwich. :) This manicure was an awesome happy accident that I'd love to claim I had planned out from the start, but I didn't...it evolved into something that I finally loved. :)

This started out with an awesome discovery as I was looking for shoes at Payless Shoe Source...a brand they sell there called Brash. There were a number of colors, but the one that I had to have was this one, Sergeant Khaki:

Brash Sergeant Khaki in the shade

Brash Sergeant Khaki in partial sun

Sergeant Khaki is an olive green with a silvery-green glass-flecked finish. I love the texture on this and the deep shade of green. I wanted to add a metallic stamp to complement the finish, so I stamped over it using China Glaze Passion and Cheeky plate CH16; to give it some definition, I put Lush Lacquer Camo Queen (Indie Alert!!) on the ring finger:

Lush Lacquer Camo Queen over Brash Sergeant Khaki

I liked this, and I wore it this way for a day, but it just felt a little too stark and chaotic to me, and I wanted to put something over it to mute the effect. And then Enchanted Polish Hey Jude (Indie Alert!!) came in the mail and I decided it would be perfect! So I threw a coat on over the manicure, and here's what I got:

Enchanted Polish over the stamping and glitter

Enchanted Polish over the stamping and glitter

Enchanted Polish over stamping and glitter

I've done glitter sandwiches before, but I've never thought before now to do it with stamping--a stamping sandwich! But rest assured, I'll be doing this again. I love the way the duochrome shines but the stamping still peeks out from under it, and the stamping is now calm enough to be enjoyable. And how amazing is that Enchanted Polish to be able to keep that gorgeous color shift even when it's sheer enough to have something else visible under it? Beautiful.

So there it is, my duochromed stamping sandwich! Thanks for taking a look, and please check out the other 'D' manicures by my fellow Llama bloggers! :)

xoxo,
M.

(UPDATED) Haul: Happy Birthday Part 2

Hello!!

A couple of weeks ago I showed you the first half of my birthday haul, and promised you that there was a part two coming...I'm finally able to post it today! Have a look:

So excited to play with all this awesomeness!

One of the things I was really excited about was getting my first Enchanted Polishes; these are normally out of my price range, but they're so gorgeous!:

Enchanted Polish 'Hey Jude' and 'Secret Sauce'

And of course I had to have some glitters:

Lush Lacquer Camo Queen, Sizzling Hot, and Fuzzy Peaches

My first Impalas

And no stamping fanatic's birthday would be complete without some cool plates! I finally was able to order some plates from Magno Nails, and get the new LeaLaC plates. I've already reviewed LeaLaC plate A (if you're interested, you can find the review by clicking here), and will be reviewing the other plates shortly:

LeaLaC Plate A

LeaLaC Plate B

Magno Nails Plate M

Magno Nails Plate O

Magno Nails Plate T

UPDATE: I've had a question about pricing here, and I should have put it in the first place! Here is pricing/ordering information:

I got the LeaLaC plates, the Enchanted Polish, and the Impala polishes Llarowe:

The Impala polishes are currently $4.50 each.

The Enchanted Polish line can be found here and have currently been reduced to $13 each.

The LeaLaC plates  can be found here; there are different sizes, but the ones I bought are $20.

The Lush Lacquer line is here, and her full-sized polishes are $8.75 each (she also has minis available).

Last but not least, the Magno Nails line is here; this is a German store, but don't let that stop you from ordering from them. I got the best customer service from her, and they are very on top of the packages they ship. When the *US* post office temporarily misplaced my package--not the German post--she filed a complaint that day and I got my package the next! The large plates that I got go for 15 euro, which came to about $20 American when I bought them.


So, just a hint of some of the things I'll be featuring in the blog soon, or am in the process of featuring! And if there are any images in particular you'd like me to test from the plates, please do let me know. :)

Thanks for looking!

xoxo,

M.