31DC2013 - day 27

Hey guys! Yet another last minute post for me. Apparently I am just not good at time management this month. September was probably a bad month for me to do this challenge...

Today's theme is Inspired By Artwork.
I thought all day about it, and almost resorted to just using a water decal and calling that art, but I decided to tough it out and do the idea I had been thinking of.

I thought about tattoo art... I thought about watercolor art... And I decided on watercolor tattoo nails.
Have you guys seen all the beautiful photos of watercolor tattoos floating around on sites like Pinterest? I'm obsessed with the look.
You take simple black tattoo linework and add light and watercolor-esque coloring, and you get a gorgeous result.
I took that style of art and turned it into nail art!

I used some stamping images that mimic tattoo styles that I like, used my favorite colors for the watercolor, along with a favorite nude polish, and BAM pretty nails.

The stamping image on my middle finger is from Konad m77, and so are the small star details on the thumb.
The other two images are from Bundle Monster - the big star on the thumb is from BM-206, the bow is BM-317.

I started with a base of OPI - My Vampire Is Buff and I used jelly polishes to create the watercolor effect of coloring within the lines and also outside the lines.
I picked four of my usual go-to jellies...
China Glaze - Are You Jelly? (purple)
China Glaze - Keepin' It Teal (teal)
China Glaze - Heat Index (pink)
China Glaze - Ride The Waves (blue)

I'm really glad I decided not to be lazy and actually did these nails because I really enjoy them! It's just too bad I'll have to take them off tomorrow.

old school tattoo mani

Hey guys! I know I've been slacking on the nail art lately, so hopefully today's post can make up for some of that! Because this is probably one of the coolest things I've ever done.

Let's get right to it!

Boom! Old school tattoo style! I'm still wearing this mani right now and I can't stop staring at my nails.

I even managed to do it on my right hand! (Aligning all those stamps is tricky!)
This hand isn't as good though so here are some more photos of the other hand.

The base color for this manicure is Color Club - Nomadic In Nude from the Back To Boho collection.
(I previously stated that this was a dupe for Lippmann's Waking Up In Vegas but I have since learned that while they are dupes in the bottle, the Lippmann dries much darker.)
This is my favorite nude! I chose a nude base so it would look like black tattoo work on skin.

I used a whole bunch of different plates for this look. I'll try to list them all:
-Konad Q1 (sparrows, leopard print on thumb, some of the stars, lightning bolt)
-Konad m3 (stars)
-Bundle Monster BM-12 (spider web, some stars)
-Bundle Monster BM-206 (nautical star)
The diamond, rose, second web, and some stars all came from faux-nad plates from eBay.

You can't see this side of my thumb in the other photos, but this awesome guitar is from a Nail Art Diva plate. Their website is not working right now so I don't know what the plate is called and in advance - no, I can't get anymore of this plate, but if the website were working I think you could order it there.

I dotted into some of the empty spaces with a toothpick just to bring the whole thing together.
All my stamping was done with Wet N Wild Black Creme.

Apart from this being just a really cool mani, there happens to be a special reason behind it.
A lovely lady I met in the polish community, Brenda, has a very sick daughter, Dyan. Several of us have decided to create manicures showcasing Dyan's favorite things in hopes they will help raise Dyan's spirits in her recovery and let her know that we all love her and are thinking about her. Dyan loves tattoos so I came up with a tattoo mani!
Dyan is recovering miraculously and I wish her all the best in her journey back to health!
You can check out more "Team Dyan" manicures on Sonoma Nail Art and Polish Ninja.
I'll add more links here as they are posted.

experimenting with my new bundle monster plates + a scraping tip!

Hey guys. Today I'm going to post some pictures from my first time playing with my new Bundle Monster plates! Warning, this post is lengthy and wordy. Hah.

I won these plates in their contest - I ranked #8 out of about 150. Pretty cool! Thanks for voting for me if you did.
So thankfully all my plates were perfect and they all were there - some people had issues with missing or damaged plates. Bundle Monster has awesome customer service and of course helped out all those people with issues.

I'm really happy to have won them because I probably wouldn't have bought them on my own, as I don't love this set as much as I loved the last one. But there are some pretty cool images and overall I still love them.
And as you've heard, they made improvements to the plates with bigger images to cover your entire nail better, and they added a backing to the plates to make them less sharp.

The first image I tried was from BM-207.

This is over Color Club Rule Breaker. I really like this image. I alternated it as I went along for more visual interest. Hah!
I stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Silver Sweep, as you can see from the bottle in my hand. As I showed you in this post, Silver Sweep works just as good for stamping as China Glaze Millennium.

Next up, my favorite full-nail image from the set, from BM-203.

This is over Color Club Wild At Heart, again stamped with Silver Sweep.
This is where I discovered the tip I'm about to tell you. See how on my pinky, some of the lines aren't solid?
I tried about 10 times to get it to work properly but I couldn't. And then I tried scraping differently.
I guess where the lines are so thick, when you scrape straight down them, you end up taking too much out. So I tried scraping diagonally.

And it works perfectly! Next time you have issues getting an image to transfer fully - try scraping a different way.

Here is the image I was most excited for:

Nautical Star! I love nautical stars. This is from BM-206.
I stamped this in black over white, and using a sheer red jelly I filled in the open spaces with a toothpick.
I plan on making a full mani out of this sometime!

Here is the mani I ended up wearing after my experimenting was over.
It started with 3 coats of China Glaze Flying Dragon.

Neon purple filled with blue and pink glitter. Really cool polish. It dries matte, but I forgot to take a picture of it before I added art and top coat. But some nails are still just solid purple, so I guess this counts as a swatch post. Hah!

I stamped from BM-208 with Silver Sweep.
A bit hard to capture the color but I think I got it!

See all the glitter? Here's a closeup!

I believe this is still in the permanent collection at Sally's if you're interested.

As you can see, it totally covered my thumb! (The top right corner isn't covered but that was my fault, not the plate.)
This image is awesome.

Diggin' these plates for sure! Thanks Bundle Monster!


Now for some rambling that you need not read. Short version: I'm trying to go on an almost-no-buy.

Today I was out shopping with my mom, we went to Sally's, and I bought a bottle of Seche Rebuild because I was out, and then if I spent 31 more cents I would get a free bottle of China Glaze. So I picked up a mini Sally Girl polish (99 cents) that I think I will use in the franken I plan on making later. And so I got Fairy Dust for free!
And then we went to Chatters, and I literally found 5 polishes I want. But I was feeling major money-spending guilt, so I only bought one. (China Glaze Harmony!)

You see, I am going on 2 trips this summer, and the second one was supposed to be nearly free for me because it was going to be a roadtrip, but then my aunt found a seat sale and we bought plane tickets because it would work out cheaper in the end. However, not cheaper for me, as I had to pay for my own flight instead of just tagging along in the car.
So that was $400. Plus I feel bad about the $23 on DS Original last night.

Anyway, I think I am going to try a no-buy or almost-no-buy again.
Lately I have just bought way too much. Everything I've made in the last month and a half has been spent on flights (2 of 'em) or concert tickets (Katy Perry! NoFX! Weezer!!!) or hotels or nail polish.
Even though I have a lot of money saved up, I just hate seeing my bank account not growing! I am seriously a penny pincher. 
So I am really going to try to buy very little nail polish between now and my Montreal trip, which is the 30th of June.
I know there are 3 that I want that should be arriving soon - the 2 glitters from Orly's new Pin Up collection, and OPI Turquoise Shatter. I will get those without feeling bad. Glitter and turquoise, you know me. But I don't want anything else.
I am going to avoid checking out Walmart or Lawtons or Shoppers or Winners or Chatters or Sallys between now and then.
...And then I can go to Montreal and Ottawa with my besties and buy lots of clothes and polish without feeling bad.

And once I get home from that trip, I have almost exactly a month until I go to Toronto with the fam! So again, I will be penny pinching and I will try to buy very little before leaving. And then buy lots there, including a helmer!
(I was originally bummed that we weren't going on a road trip because I obviously can't fit a helmer in a suitcase. But then I realized that the airline allows 2 pieces of checked luggage for each person, and I checked the dimensions of the box it comes in on Ikea's website, and it fits the limits! So I will be taking home my suitcase, which I think you should know is ZEBRA print, and a big ol' helmer box.)

And so begins my almost-no-buy. Wish me luck this time? Better luck than before?