stripey POTC mani!

Nail art for you todayyyy.

If you don't know what POTC means - it's Pirates of the Caribbean! This mani was done with three shades from the POTC collection from OPI.

This mani made me sad that I only bought the minis of these colors. :'(

Before I show it to you, I want to point out that I took this design from Bright Lights Big Color! She recently posted a bunch of nail art pictures and I saw this manicure and knew I had to do it.
Her colors were in a different order but I had to use Mermaids Tears first as that is my only full sized bottle so I didn't mind doing my entire nail with it :P

OPI - Mermaids Tears, Planks A Lot, and Sparrow Me The Drama.
I stamped from Konad m57 with Color Club - Worth The Risque. In Landa's photo the stamping wasn't too harsh and I didn't want mine to be either, which is why I went with the less opaque silver polish for stamping.

If you're familiar with these colors you know that they photograph a little too brightly - so here is a photo without flash that shows the true muted tones.

I liked this mani so much that I've had it on for like 5 days now. I even cut down my nails, and half of the pink is gone, but I'm still wearing it. Haha!

I didn't use tape between the lines - I am too impatient for that and I always end up doing the tape too soon and pull off the polish.
So this was freehanded, but it was with the mini polishes so the freehanding was probably a bit easier with the small brush. Here's what it looked like before the stamping:

A bit Easter-egg-like I guess, but I still love it.

Luvvvvv it.

I'm going to some beauty supply stores meant for professionals today, I wonder what I'll return home with?

OPI - Burlesque collection glitters - swatches and review

This was a very good day for me so far so I decided I would make a nice glittery post for you guys, and show you all the glitters from the Burlesque collection. And do 2 comparisons.
This is super pic heavy.

(Yeah that picture has the Alice glitters in it too but you get the point.)

Before we get to the swatches:
Why has today been so good?
I got German nail mail. 18 bottles of it.

Martina was so sweet that she even included 2 color&go's from my wishlist. Thank you again, Martina!!

They were all  wrapped up in German flyers in this big box of packing peanuts. It was like a nail mail treasure hunt!
Swatches to come in the upcoming days, I'm sure!

And then I got awesome blink tickets. Awesome ones.

I'm in row 11 of section 201. I'm pretty sure the 100 sections are going to be open floor.
So. Delighted. So much closer than the last time I saw them!! :D

Okay, now that's out of the way.
Keep reading for the glittery goodness!

my new favorite polish technique: glitter sandwich

Good morning! Happy Monday!
This is a happy Monday for me because blink-182 tickets go on sale today. Well, pre-sale.
So I am happy yet also VERY STRESSED.
I'm at work! So I am relying on internet from other stores. I'm closing the store for a half hour, 15 minutes before the presale starts. Lol. I am not letting customers stop me from getting tickets!! (I am a good manager, hehe)

Tickets go on sale in about 3.5 hours. Not all the dates are on Ticketmaster yet. Only about half of them are showing up. (Which of course does not include my date.)
But I'm hopeful. New dates keep showing up every few minutes. They just need to get it done before 10:00AM Pacific!
Stressin'. (But also so excited.)

Okay, on to the nails!
These are some freakin cute nails I have to show you today.

After the success of my franken, Rebecca Likes Cupcakes, I realized I wanted to make one in green too.
But I didn't have any more supplies. And then it dawned on me.
I will make a glitter sandwich.

But, you may ask, how does a glitter sandwich work?
Well, dear readers, you put a layer of glitter polish between layers of a sheer or jelly polish. Like so:

So. Awesome. This is Milani Gems.
So cute and colorful and not harsh like the glitter is on it's own over light colors.

It's still nice without the sandwich... but so much better after.

So cute. Now I need sheer polishes in every color to keep doing this effect.
The color I'm using here is Essie's Turquoise and Caicos. I'm not sure if I just have a bad bottle, but it seriously took 5 coats for opacity.

That picture is 4 coats and it is still streaky as you can see. I left it streaky because I knew I would be adding another coat after the glitter.

For fun, I buried the glitter even further to see what that would look like.

It's still cool but I prefer only one coat on top of the glitter.

Next time I try this, I think I'll do 2 coats of color, one glitter, one color, one glitter, one color. That way there will be two levels of glitter and it will have more depth.
:)

Love this so much. Try it out guys!

Oh, and I noticed that Turquoise and Caicos is like the non-"dirty" version of OPI's Mermaids Tears.

Mermaids Tears has that darker, murky, "dirty" quality to it while Turquoise and Caicos is just vibrant.
I like both but I'm not sure if I needed both.

Now I'm back to worrying about tickets. I'll let you guys know in my next post how I do :)

subtle stamping

Hi guys! My post earlier didn't involve actual nail art or anything so I decided to post again.

Before I start talking about the nails, I have some information! Some of you suggested in my giveaway form that I create a gallery of my nails for an easy way to see them all at once.
Your wish is my command, and I now have a photo gallery on my facebook!
It doesn't include all of my posts, just the good ones ;)

Check out my facebook! facebook.com/rebeccalikesnails

On to the manicure.
This started with 2 coats of Color Club's Uptown Girl.

Uptown Girl is a muted purple creme, sorta mauve-y. This is from the Rebel Debutante collection, but mine came in my Catwalk Queen set randomly. If you have Catwalk Queen, from a store like Ross or Winners, this might be in your set too! (Instead of Fashion Addict - the star of the collection.)

It's almost a one-coater!

So lately I have been seeing a lot of awesome subtle stamping. So I decided to try it!

I think it turned out cool!

The colors might have matched a little too well - it was really hard to see the stamping unless you looked close!

The last picture shows the image better.
The image is from Bundle Monster BM-205, and I stamped with China Glaze's Harmony.

While we're here...
Have you entered my giveaway?
Have you voted for my franken?
Have you voted for my nail art? (you don't need to be a follower to vote in this one!)
;)

Good night!

reorgazing my stash, without melmers or helmers :(

Good morning lovelies, this morning I'm going to show you what I spent 2 hours doing last night: reorganizing my stash.

I've been debating getting an Ikea Helmer or a 2 Michael's "Melmers" aka JetMax storage cubes.
After a lot of thinking, and mostly the fact that I could drive 15 minutes to get Melmers vs. waiting 2.5 months to go to Ikea in Toronto, I decided to get one Melmer and see if I liked it. (With the option of returning it should I decide it wasn't good enough.)

So I went to Michael's. No 3-drawer storage cubes. None currently ordered for the store. Unknown if more will ever come in.
So that totally burst my bubble.

I needed to do something - my stash was overflowing.
Here is a before picture: (click to enlarge)

That is what you call overflowing.
Notice one of the drawers is not even in the tower because it was too full. Plus all the stuff on the shelf. And the separate cases for China Glaze and OPI. Plus stuff on the floor.

And now:

I had the second tower in my closet holding various things. A lot of things you don't want to throw out but don't really use/look at... I'm sure you know what I mean. It also held my sunglasses.

Now everything has a home.
Blue tower:
Top - mostly drug store brands.
Middle - nail wheels, tools, brushes, cuticle oil, etc.
Bottom - packaging and cosmetic bags and just stuff I don't want to throw out but are not really useful.
Pink tower:
Top - Sally Hansen
Second - China Glaze
Third - my OPI case is in here (I left them in the seperate case just so they don't bang around,) along with a case full of rhinestones/etc, my box of Qtips and the large bottles of acetone and remover.
Bottom - Color Club, Orly, Sinful Colors, Milani, and a few other things.

My nail art pens still sit on top in a separate case and I like to keep my small bottles of remover/acetone and my base/top coats and treatment there, too.

Much neater now.
I don't particularly like the way it is now, but it is better than before.
It'll stay this way until Michael's restocks their cubes or I go to Toronto.

Now, what to do with all my Wayfarers...

Hahaha. I think I have sunglasses hoarder disorder on top of polish hoarder disorder.

I look forward to the day I get better storage and will be able to return these plastic units to their original uses - yarn, crafts, sunglasses, and random sentimental items.

Whenever I get my new storage I'll work on new collection photos, because I know how much everyone likes those!
I would do it now if I didn't have at least 32 polishes on the way to me from swaps and the giveaway I won... Heh.
(Where are those polishes going to go?!)

P.S.
Swaafie is holding a nail art contest, and everyone can vote for their top three favorites!
Then the top six will be judged by a panel she chooses. Check it out here.
Vote for me if you like my design :)
I'll do a post on my mani in the future - I really liked it!