Marsala Wallpaper

You know me!  I like to do combo mani's and this time I did a wallpaper design (more like a border) along with a Marsala-like color combo.  I have to say, I wasn't impressed with the 2015 Pantone selection until I saw KB Shimmer's take on it with Men Are From Mars-ala.  That color is amazing!  I used it as inspiration for this:

As my collection grows, I feel more and more guilt so I went to my stash to find something I hadn't used yet.  Here is what I used for this mani - I kept it very simple!

For once, I didn't use a white polish as an undie for this manicure.  I used my usual base coat and followed it up with 2 coats of Tan Lines and 3 coats of Quit Meatal-ing as my base polishes.  After that was mostly dry, I added a coat of Seche Vite to harded the layers and prepare for the taping process.

I worked on each nail individually to get crisp lines when the tape was removed.  Once the tape was down on the nail, I did 2 coats of the reverse polish and then quickly removed the tape strips.  This is my first "wallpaper" look this month.  I think it looks more like a border pattern.  Once the polish was dry, I finished it off with a final layer of Seche Vite.  This one was pretty rugged...I wore it for over 2 weeks!

2014 Holiday Nails

Time to wrap up 2014 with my holiday nails.  I just wanted something simple but it didn't end up that way.

It was a great Christmas this year.  Mostly because I was actually in the spirit of it.  I haven't really participated in the festivities for several years but this year I wanted to.  I just wanted to be charitable to others.  I even adopted some seniors from a tree at work.

I used a white undie to get the colors brighter.  Saucy went on like a dream.  It has to be one of my most favorite reds in my collection!  I only shop vintage was tougher.  It was hard to get good coverage and I managed to get it in 3 thick coats.  But the color!  It just makes up for it in the end.  Once my colors were done, I added a layer of Seche Vite in preparation for stamping.

All of these images are from plate BM-H03.  My MDU's stamped really well but, man, that wreath was a challenge!  It's one image and you have to be careful with the MDU's as they will muddy up really easily when using more than one color on the stamp.  That took some practice, but I got it.  The red on the gold color is DIVINE!!!

Happy Holidays and welcome 2015!

Dots and Christmas Trees

Dots, dots and more dots!  Dotticures are awesome!  They look so simple to do and maybe they are for other people. I tend to over think things like strategically placing each dot and what size to make each dot and what color to choose for each dot and making sure that they are nicely spaced and that I change up the colors and sizes of the dots on each nail.  Yeah, I have issues...  It's Christmas season and I love my tree this year so I put one on my nails to make me smile when I am not sitting in my living room admiring the awesome tree my husband picked out (on his own).

OK, so my tree turned into something a little misshapen, but it is still my tree.  :)

Once again, I used a white undie over my base coat to make Minted really pop.  This polish is rather thin and it took 3 coats to get full coverage.  I put a layer of Seche Vite on top of that to harden up the polish to prepare for all of those dots!

I used a little bit of Sinful Colors Snow me White for dots too.  I used a gold star embellishment to top my tree.  I have so many of those things and I should use them more often!  The red was a perfect Christmas red!

Above is a photo of my other hand, which I normally don't photograph because it is hard to push the shutter button on my camera with my left hand and there is no place to attach a remote shutter button.  Anyway, this is also usually my practice hand.  It is rare that the practice hand looks better than the photo hand...but, this tree is much more shapely.  :)

Winter Camo and Dots

I, like many women, have a husband obsessed with camo.  I swear he has a radar for it or something!  We could be in Home Goods and he will find the one thing with camo on it!  Anyway, it was his turn to pick my polish and he wanted camo.  So, he chose some Russian "winter" camo pattern for me to emulate.

This is my masterpiece (not!):

Here is the pattern I was supposed to copy.  Let's just say that my first camo attempt was not as expected...

I'm not entirely sure how I didn't grasp the horizontal line concept here and got so far off track.  As it was a "dots" challenge month, I had to incorporate some and they turned out to be my favorite part of the mani.

Here is what I used for this look:

I started with a white undie over my base coat to help the holo pop.  It's too bad I haven't learned how to properly capture holo polish with my camera and a light box.  Something to work toward in 2015.  This is a photo I took with my phone when there was a glimpse of sunshine while at work.

Take A Trek was slightly disappointing in application as it was streaky on the first coat.  I was thicker with it on the second coat and it evened out fairly well.  The shimmer is beautiful on it!  So much so, that I decided to put it on my toes.  Too bad my toes aren't seeing any kind of sunshine or publicity these days (winter).  LOL!  I tried my camo technique with the other colors and used them for dotting as well.  I topped everything off with a coat of Seche Vite.