I totally stole this mani from a kid!

So the other day the after school kids were all off school because of Easter so they ended up coming to daycare for the whole day. I was with the kids pretty much the whole day by myself so I took my nail stuff to entertain myself and the kids. I did every single one of the girls nails, I let them pick the colors and designs. One little girl picked Jesse's Girl Baby Cakes which is the prettiest neon pink. She then picked this crackle design and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes. When I was finished with it I was a tad jealous lol cause it was so pretty. I went home and did that exact design on my nails. I went in today and showed her that our nails match which she thought was pretty cool lol :)

Here it is:

I am not ashamed that I stole this mani from a kid and I give full credit to her!

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Mani

So I was going to wear my Milani Holo mani for Easter but decided to do some cleaning on Saturday and completely ruined my mani :( Who knew windex and nail polish did not get along well. I decided to take off my holo which was sad but I decided to use my new Insta-Dri colors to do a mani. I have been searching and searching for a yellow that stamps over darker colors and I finally found it!!For this mani I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Presto Pink. Then I used my yellow Insta-Dri (called Lightning) to stamp the flower whole nail design from MASH plate M61. I really like these Insta- Dri polishes! They are very thick and creamy and stamp well over pretty much any color. The only problem is that they dry really really fast when stamping. If you are new to stamping stay away from these polishes cause they will dry on you.

Also wanted to let everyone know that the new Bundle Monster plates just came out. You can buy them here:  Bundle Monster

I ordered mine and they will be here Friday. I should have pictures of them up on Saturday and I will do a review of them. If you do like stamping then buy these because they are so much cheaper than the name brand konad plates and they do the same thing. Some of the designs are also way better than the konad designs. Here are pictures of all of the designs: (click to enlarge)

A little photography

Sorry this is a short one and it is not about nails. This post is about some of my photography. I really do not have the energy to sort though nail pictures right now and I have to go into work an hour and a half early tomorrow :( so the nail post will have to wait until tomorrow night.

This is my dog Geno!

He is an 80 pound lap dog.

His favorite thing to do is cuddle (all the time)

Yes he is always this happy... unless there is a loud noise, then he cowers in the corner and shivers like a baby. We adopted him from a shelter and it was the best choice we ever made! I love my big drooling puppy even when all 80 pounds of him plops down on my lap!

Clean up Tutorial

I have had several people ask me how I get my nails to be so neat and clean. No I am not perfect at painting my nails. I know there are some girls who can paint their nails without getting any polish on their skin or cuticles, I am not one of them! I have gotten much better at painting my nails neatly, it just takes practice. I am still not perfect at it nor do I expect I ever will be. After each mani I do some clean up to neaten up the look of the mani. I am going to show you how I do it. It seems like so much work but once you get the hang of it, it becomes easier.

Here is what I use:

Acetone, small bowl, angled brush

This is a close up of the brush that I use. It is just a flat angled brush.

So this is yesterdays mani before I cleaned it up. You can see the polish on my skin and cuticles in these two pictures:

Ok here is how I do it:

Step 1: fill the bowl just a little with acetone and dip your brush in it. I usually dab the brush on a paper towel after dipping it, otherwise you will flood your nail with acetone and take off more polish than you want. 

Step 2: Clean the polish from one side of the nail, then the cuticle, then the other side. Or in any order you would like, it doesn't really matter. Make sure you are using a nice sweeping motion and that you are not putting too much pressure on the brush. It does not take very much pressure to get the polish off. 

Here is a picture comparing the cleaned nail to the uncleaned nails. See what a difference it makes:

Here is the before and after pictures:

Before Clean up

 

After :)

I hope this was helpful!

My first Holo!!!

I am in love with Holo nail polishes!! Sadly I only have one holo and it doesn't compare to some of the holos out there :( This nail polish is still gorgeous!! It has not been sunny here, it has just been raining so no sunlight pictures unfortunately. I did however get new full spectrum light bulbs to use with my light box and I really like them. My pictures are not as yellow as they were before.  This is 2 coats of Milani HD in Hi-Res:

You can see the holo rainbows a little more in these next 2. In the first one you can see it in the bottle a little.

After the 2 coats of Hi-Res I applied a coat of SV and then stamped on the tips using MASH plate m56 and the ring finger using MASH plate m61. I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White for the stampin. Then I applied my final coat of SV.

Do you have any suggestions of other holos that I could get my hands on for cheap??

Stamping Tutorial (pic heavy)

Hi everyone, hope you all are having a happy Easter! This is my Easter present to Everyone. I decided to do a tutorial on stamping for anyone who is new to stamping. I hope this is helpful! I used a fake nail for this tutorial so that it would be easier to take pictures.


Step 1: Gather everything that you will need. This is what I use, base nail polish, stamping polish, stamper, scraper, acetone, Q-tip, and the image plate. I actually forgot to picture my SV top coat, I never stamp without it!

 Step 2: Paint on your base color and either let it dry completely or put on a coat of SV (Seche Vite top coat). Then pick out a design that will fit on your nail.

Step 3: I always do my stamping on a paper towel to keep things clean. Use the polish you chose for stamping and paint the polish onto the design. I usually don't paint the entire design only about half as shown in the 3rd pic. 

Step 4: Scrape the polish from one side to the other. I will start scraping on the side where I painted the polish. This way it scrapes off the excess polish and scrapes it into the design meaning that less polish is wasted! When I scrape the polish off I will continue all the way onto the paper towel to remove extra polish from the scraper (4th pic)

 Step 5: This part is pretty easy. This is where you pick up the design onto your stamper. I usually use a rolling motion to pick up the design just to make sure I pick up the whole design. The amount of pressure you apply depends on the polish that you are using. Some thinner polishes will smudge if you apply too much pressure, it is just trial and error.

Step 6: There are several different ways to do this but this is how I prefer to do it. I first line up the design with the edge of the nail. The with the same rolling motion I roll the design onto the nail from one side to the other. There you have it!

 Clean up: Some people say that you should clean the image plate after each use but I don't usually do that. If I am using a regular polish (not quick dry) then I can usually get through about 4 or 5 nails before the designs starts to not work. I also do not clean the scraper after each use besides wiping it on the paper towel. I will clean the scraper if I am changing colors or when I am done. I will also clean the stamper only if there is polish left on it. For all of these things I use a Q-tip dipped in acetone. I really like to use this to clean everything up because it won't mess up my mani!!

I hope this was helpful!! I know this post is already long but I wanted to include some helpful hints for stamping.

• If you are new to stamping do not use a quick dry polish because they can be temperamental
• Make sure you put a top coat over the stamp to extend the life of your mani.
• You do not have to use Konad polishes! Other polishes work too. I have a list of a few that I use here: Stamping Polishes
• If some of the polish gets on your skin around your nail or on your cuticles use a Q-tip or small brush dipped in acetone to clean it up. 
• Most plates come with a thin plastic film on them, please remove this before stamping because it will not work. 
• Do not twist the lid closed on the polish you are stamping with because it takes too much time and will give the polish time to dry. Just set the lid on the bottle. 
• If all of the extra polish did not come off the first time you scraped it just scrape it again. 
• If a design doesn't come out the way you like it you might be able to save it by just scraping it off with another nail. I have done this several times and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't
• Work very fast. Once you pick up the design you should put it on your nail pretty quickly. If the design dries on the plate it won't pick up and if it dries on the stamper it will not transfer.
• Most importantly just practice and you will get the hang of it. Be creative using more than one stamp or more than one color for one stamp. Just have fun with it!!