Diamond Rows

Hi Everyone! Today I have some stamping nail art to show you. I recently received a few gorgeous UberChic Beauty stamping plates for review and I've been playing around with them whenever I can. UberChic Beauty is the newest brand to enter the stamping plate game and they came out with a bang. Gorgeous, well thought out images that I find myself completely drawn to. I'll show you a few manis that I created before I give you my full review soon...

Falling Leaves

Hi Everyone! I can no longer deny that Fall is now in full swing so I've been pulling out all of my leafy stamping plates to ogle at and play with. Fall is actually my favorite time of the year for nail art and all the rich colors that it brings. This simple stamped manicure fits the mood perfectly.

Tempting Half Moons...

I had a really bad dream last night, I dreamt that I was filing my nails and I went too far. I'm talking all the way down to nubs on my index... of my swatching hand. Oh I know, the horror! I don't know how long I spent trying to figure out ways to remedy the situation with all sorts of crazy ways to fix it. I finally woke up and realized it was just bad dream. Now I sit here wondering if my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Have I lost my mind? Inhaled too many polish fumes? Have you had any crazy nail dreams?

Crazy dreams aside, I'd like to show you a manicure that I created with Glam Polish Temptation. I love the purple and gold combo (and not just because those are the colors of my alma mater), so I had to play them up with a little bit of stamping...

Exotic Illusions Peacock

Good Morning! Afternoon? Evening? When do you all usually take the time to read/look at blogs? Well regardless of what time of day it is, I wanted to take a moment to show you a manicure that I created with the two Glam Polish Exotic Illusions shades that I showed you a couple of days ago. The two of them reminded me of peacock feathers so I really couldn't resist and this happened...

El Corazon Shine of Jewels

Hi Everyone! Today I would like to show you nail art that I created recently while I was swatching an El Corazon beauty. Although I didn't have anything specific in mind when I started out, I was mesmerized (and I'll show you why) by a dragon featured on the bottle label. I picked a stamping design that reminded me of dragon scales and embellished from there...

Happy Chinese New Year!

I want to wish those of you who celebrate this holiday, a happy and wonderful new year! Although I don't partake in celebrating the Chinese New Year, I'm always fascinated by the beautiful traditions surrounding it and the meaning behind each year's animal sign. I wanted to create a bright and festive manicure to welcome the year of the Horse!

El Corazon Floral Featuring Messy Mansion Stamping...

Today I've got a floral manicure to share with you. It was inspired by the beautiful Messy Mansion floral pattern which I think looks beautiful and very royal all dressed up in purple and gold...

Golden Snowflakes...

I've got another snowflake manicure to show you today because that is just about all that I want to do at the moment. I have been wearing OPI Ski Slope Sweetie solo for the past few days because I'm seriously in love with it. It is so beautiful and sparkly on it's own, but I finally decided to add some subtle nail art yesterday so I could enjoy wearing it for another day...

In My Santa Suit...

It doesn't happen often, but I was itching for a new manicure and at the same time I didn't want to part with the previous one, so I compromised... with myself. Yup! I'm pretty sure that's allowed/possible/not crazy at all. In any case, I changed most of the manicure while leaving my favorite ornament as an accent nail. I really like how this turned out and think that having the ornament as an accent nail makes it pop even more...

My Favorite Ornament

December seems to be flying by at rocket speed and I'm realizing that I don't have much time to execute a lot of the ideas that have been floating in my head. This is one such idea that I'm happy to have found the time to create. It was in one way or another inspired by a number of talented ladies, so I thank Beaching Nails for the idea of using nail studs for ornaments, Drama Queen Nails for the idea that studs can be painted with polish and Eeek! Nail Polish! for the idea of stamping onto rhinestones. Sheesh! Feels like I'm making some sort of acceptance speech here, but truly I learn so much from seeing everyone's manicures that even though my manicure doesn't resemble theirs, I did get the idea from their beautiful art. And now without further adieu, my ornament manicure...

Coffee Time!

I would like to show you this yummy coffee manicure that I wore a while ago, but didn't get a chance to post about until now. I'm hoping this coffee manicure will perk me up since I've been really tired lately...

31DC2013 Day 6 - Violet

It is time for Day 6 of the 31 Day Nail Art Challege and the theme today is a violet manicure. I just had to play with my most recent favorite PixieDust violet, Zoya Carter. It seemed to be just the type of color that pretty little gold dragonflies would be drawn too...

31DC2013 Day 5 - Blue

It is already day 5 of the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge. The theme for today is blue and I couldn't resit doing some nautical nails. This has been on my to do list for a while and like most things on that list, it is hard for me to find the time to do it. This challenge has been a great motivation so far to actually make time and attempt the ideas floating around in my head...

Gone Hexy...

I'm not sure what it is that compels me to incorporate studs into stamping, but I've attempted to do it again. While I have already shown you some of the round studs from the Winstonia nail stud wheel, today I would like to show you the larger hex pieces which I have been eyeing since I first got these studs. Of course I paired them with a matching hex stamping pattern...

Bold Gold Stamping...

If you follow me on instagram, then you may have already seen a sneak peak of this manicure. I'm not in the habit of giving sneak peaks, but I'm just a bit a lot hooked on instagram right now and it makes it so easy to share even when I don't have time to process all the photos or do a full write up. Now I'm not even sure why I resisted for so long. Sidetrack aside though, I got the most perfect stamping gold polish as an unexpected gift from a friend and I was so excited to try it out...

Mint Mani for TaliaJoy

I'm a day late with posting this, but I really wanted to take part in Nail Polish Wars' wonderful idea to create a mint manicure in honor of Talia Castellano aka TaliaJoy18. If you have not heard of Talia, she was a beautiful 13 year old girl, a talented make-up and nail artist, honorary Cover Girl and an all around sweetheart who never stopped smiling. Sadly, she lost her battle with cancer last Tuesday. Her last Instagram pic was a mint manicure, so to honor her here this is my mint mani...

Maybelline Sunshine with Zoya Dovima and Born Pretty Dried Flowers

Sometime you just need a little sunshine in your life and while Seattle has had some wonderful days, they have not all been sunny. To compensate, I used Maybelline Sunshine and little yellow flowers from The Born Pretty Store. I think this was just what I needed on an overcast day...

Day 4 - Green - Maybelline La La Lime

See how fast my nails grow? It is like magic... ok, so maybe more like slightly cheating because this is a manicure I wore a few weekends ago (pre nail break). When my bf and I went out of town for his birthday I asked him if he had any color requests and much to my surprise it was "lime"... I was happy to oblige, it was his birthday after all, but have not gotten a chance to post about it since we came back. I figured it would be perfect for the 4th day of the challenge which is green.

The color is La La Lime from Maybelline. The formula is nice although needs a pretty quick hand as it starts to dry and get stringy. I applied three coats + a topcoat for full even coverage. It has a gorgeous micro-shimmer when the sunshine hits it...

In the shade...

Brand: Maybelline Collection: Express Finish Color Name/Number: La La Lime, 634

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)

Day 2 - Orange - Maybelline Sweet Clementine

I'm back to shorty short nails for the 2nd day of the challenge. This time it was not at all intentional as I discovered that shopping can be dangerous to the nails (although fun!). I broke three of them in one day :(. One in actually twice, so they had to go...

For the orange I chose Maybelline Sweet Clementine. It took two coats to be opaque, but I applied three to even it out. Also, when applying the formula kept getting a bit stringy, similar to the way fast drying topcoats get stringy.

Just for fun I thought the orange needed little dizzy tiger foot prints which I really like :)

UPDATE: Tutorial for this manicure available here!

Then I added some tiger stripes to finish it off. I really can't decide if I like it better with or without the stripes. What do you think?

This is in full sunshine...

In the shade...

Brand: Maybelline Collection: Express Finish Color Name/Number: Sweet Clementine, 620

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)