Sally Hanson Hi-Definition DVD Swatches and Stamping

     I bought this color while it was on sale a few months ago and finally decided to try it.  DVD is a duo chrome that shifts from purple to blue.  The coverage wasn't that great and I had to do three coats.  Next time I may try four coats.  I have actually been wearing this mani for two days, which is not normal for me.  My mani's normally don't last longer than a day at work from washing my hands so much.  Luckily I had today off so it is lasting quite well seeing as how I have been sitting on the couch watching Bones all day.
     I am trying out some new positioning of my nails.  What do you think?

Inside without flash

 Inside without flash

 Outside in natural light

 Inside with no flash

 Inside with no flash

 Inside with flash

Base coat: Chip Skip and Nail Envy from OPI
Base color: DVD from Sally Hanson Hi-Def - 3 coats
Stamping color: Alpine Snow from OPI
Top coat: Out the Door
Stamping plate: Mash 42

Sinful Colors Clementine Swatches and Stamping

     So much has been going on this week that I have had no time to do anything to my nails.  I took part in Mash's nail plate sale they had  this last weekend.  I was able to purchase plates 26-50 for $12.99 with free shipping!  I got them on Wednesday and let me tell you how excited I am to try them all out.  You guys better prepare your selves for a lot of stamping posts!
     I originally used Clementine on Wednesday because I wanted to stamp with it but then ran out of time to actually stamp it.  I ended up redoing it so I could play with my new plates.  The only thing that I do not like about this color is it stained a little.  Not as bad as Why Not but I did have to use some baking soda and water to scrub my cuticles clean.  I did get a lot of compliments when I wore just the color so that was nice.  I am slowly warming up to wearing oranges, especially for summer.

Inside with flash

Inside without flash

 Inside with flash

Inside without flash

Base coat: Clementine from Sinful Colors - 2 coat

Stamping color: Energetic Red from Sinful Colors

Stamping plate: M 42 from Mash

Top Coat: Out the Door

One thing I really like about the image I stamped is that you can turn the image sideways like I did on my pinky for an entirely different look.

I also finished this mani really late at night so I couldn't take any pictures in the natural light for the swatches.

Sunday Stamping Challenge and Avon's Vintage Blue Swatch

    In the facebook group Adventures In Stamping, our challenge for today was the sky is the limit.  I don't have to many stamping plates yet so I wasn't planning on participating but a thought pooped into my head.  I had just bought an Essence plate that had a sneaker and a high heel shoe on it and I remembered when a bunch of kids in my neighbor hood threw a bunch of shoes over the telephone lines last year and I thought, hey, that is perfect.  This is what I came up with.  It seemed like such a better idea in my head but oh well.  It turned out decent but I don't know how long it will stay on my nails.  I spent a lot of time on it and don't know if I want to redo my nails again today, I'm pretty tired. :-)

 Without the shoes and powerline

Outside in natural light

 Inside without flash

 Inside with flash

Base coat: Chip Skip from OPI and Yello-Out
Base color: Vintage Blue from Avon - 2 coats
White clouds (applied with a dotting tool), power line, and power pole: acrylic paint
Red shoes: Ruby Slipper from Avon
Orange shoes: Clementine from Sinful Colors
Green shoes: Not Now from Pure Ice
Blue shoes: Why Not from Sinful Colors
Purple shoes: Midnight Plum from Avon
Top coat: Out the Door

I look forward to your comments.  Don't be shy!

Wet N Wild Beautiful But Dangerous Over Sally Hanson Mellow Yellow With Swatches

     Beautiful But Dangerous is one of Wet N' Wilds new colors that has been released in their Sparks and Stripes Collection.  I really loved this color in the bottle but I really am not sure what color to wear it over!  You should see my table.  There are tons of random blobs of color with this glitter over it as I was trying to figure out what to apply it over.  This was the best one I could think of.  I did get compliments on it so it can't be that bad...  What do you think?
    I am really impressed with the opacity that I received from Mellow Yellow.  This was reached with just two thin coats.  No brush strokes and full coverage is a hard to find object when it comes to yellow so if you're looking for a lovely yellow to wear I highly recommend this one.

                         Inside with no flash                                                   Outside in natural light

                       

Inside with flash

Inside, no flash.

Outside, no flash.

Base coat: Chip Skip from OPI and Nail Envy from OPI

Base color: Mellow Yellow - 2 coats from Sally Hanson

Glitter: Beautiful But Dangerous from Wet N Wild - 1 coat

Top coat: Out the Door

Wet N Wild Spontaneous Combustion Over Avon's Jade Plus Swatches

     As I mentioned in yesterday's post I am going to show you what Spontaneous Combustion looks like layered over something.  I wasn't sure what to layer this over so I decided to use one of my unswatched colors so I could show you two things with one post.  I know, I know, I am THAT cool.  Or ya know, what ever.  Not much else to say about this other than I am glad that I picked it up.  The colors in this glitter as SO me!  I am bummed that the Jade bubbled though.  I think I shook it to soon before I applied it because it isn't that old of a polish.  And in case you are wondering why there is so much glitter at the tips, it is because I did it that way on purpose.  :-)

Outside with no flash

Inside with no flash

Inside with flash

Base coat: Chip Skip from OPI and Nail Envy from OPI

Base color: Jade from Avon - 2 coats

Glitter: Spontaneous Combustion from Wet N' Wild

Top coat: Out the Door

Tomorrow I will show the other glitter that I purchased from the Starts and Stripes collection; Beautiful But Dangerous.  What do you think of this glitter!!??  Love it, hate it, or eh who cares?

Wet N' Wild Limited Edition Sparks and Stripes Collection

     So, as far as I can tell, this collection was released at the very end of April and is so far pretty hard to find.  I spotted it at Fred Meyers, so check there!  Go.  Now.  Need.  To.  Buy.  Well, if you like fun, cheap glitter.   This is what the full display looks like.

Starting in the lower right hand corner and going counter clock wise we have Spontaneous Combustion, Starts and Stripes, Explosion After Dark, School of Pyrotechnics, Beautiful but Dangerous and Light With Caution.

Spontaneous Combustion has gold, blue, green, and purple hexagonal glitter in it.

 

Stars and Stripes has silver starts and bars in it.  Of course in lighting the shift colors

Explosion After Dark has red, black and silver hexagonal glitter in it.

School of Pyrotechnics has blue, gold, purple, red, and green hexagonal glitter in it

Beautiful but Dangerous has black, blue, purple and gold hexagonal glitter in it

Light With Caution... I cant even describe it!

     I bought Spontaneous Combustion and Beautiful but Dangerous.  Have you guys seen these yet?  Are you going to buy any?  Tomorrow's post will contain a mani with Spontaneous Combustion.  I got a lot of compliments on it today!!  Have a great evening!

Essence You Belong To Me Swatches and Sunday Stamping

     Good morning every body.  I hope that you are all having workless, sunny, and fun relaxing weekends.  I worked yesterday but did get to do one of my favorite things last night.  Go to the Cigar Bar at McMenamins, sit around a fire pit, sip a beer, smoke a cigar cigarette, and hang out with good friends.  To me, this is one of the most relaxing, care free things to do.
     One of my girlfriends mentioned that she had seen a blue and brown combination of something the other day and how pretty it actually was.  This has made me want to do a blue and brown stamping combination for like the entire week!  While I was at the book signing for Jen Lancaster on Wednesday I also came across a Konad kiosk and was so excited.  I was finally able to buy my first Konad plate.  I have wanted m65 for a very long time and yay, it would go great with the brown and blue combination!  I almost pissed my pants when she told me it was 7 dollars though!  That seems a bit extreme to me but what do I know, I had never bought one before.  It was also perfect because when I checked what the design was for my Adventures In Stamping Group on Facebook it was to do a design with a plate ending in 5.  The starts were aligning for me!
     The starts aligned until I went to find a nice deep dark chocolate brown yesterday and I COULDN'T FIND
ONE!  I was very distraught over this.  My entire week of do a cute brown and blue mani down the drain.  Sure I probably could have gone to an actual beauty supply store instead of Fred Meyer, but I only had 5 dollars.  I settled for a new blue and figured I could use my Nude It! from Essence for the brown, which is more of a taupe color but they looked really cute together.
     Fail!  I couldn't get the Nude It! to stamp.  It dried way to fast on to the stamp and wouldn't transfer.  Frustration level became very high.  I decided to try the Venus from Avon that I picked up while at the book signing and while I wasn't 100% pleased, I still am enjoying in.

 Outside in direct sunlight

 Inside with no flash

 Inside with flash

     One last thing.  I love the name of the blue I used, You Belong To Me, because it made me think of Taylor Swift, because that is one of the titles to her songs, and then reminded me of a blue dress that she wore in one of her very first music videos.  I'm almost 100% sure this is how they came up with the name for the polish. ;-)

Base coat: Chip Skip from OPI and Nail Envy from OPI
Base color: You Belong To Me - 2 coats from Essence
Stamping color: Venus from Avon
Top coat: Out the door

Wet N' Wild Blazed Swatches with Essie Shine of the Times

     I was in the mood for a summery color so I grabbed Blazed out of my untried pile.  I really liked the out come of it.  It did take 3 coats for full opacity but Wet N' Wild is a quicker drying polish.  I picked up Essies Shine of the Times in the same haul and I have been dying to try it.  It reminds me of the Finger Paints flakie collection.  In the bottle it has SO many colors.  Green, blue, purple, orange, and red.  I LOVE it.  I wish I could have seen more of the blue, purple, and green over the Blazed, unfortunately the red and orange were the only ones that really showed.  At certain angles I did get some of the green, that is why there are so many pictures.  I am trying to show all the wonder that is this mani.  Some of the pictures are larger than I normally post because I really wanted you to see the different color with the Shine of the Times but my camera did not do this mani ANY justice.

This swatch was taken outside with no flash

This was taken inside with no flash

Base coat: Chip Skip from OPI 

Base color: Blazed by Wet N' Wild - 3 layers

Fleck: Shine of the Times by Essie - 1 coat

Top coat: Out The Door

I wish this combo could be seen in all the glory that it really was.

Jen Lancaster Inspired Nails

     In just over an hour I will be leaving on a 3 hour road trip with my amazing friend Megan, kid free, might I add, to go to a book signing with author Jen Lancaster!  We are SO stinking excited.  We both love her and are both just as much as a smart ass as she is.  I can't get in to to many details about who she is because, well, she has written 5 memoirs, so I will just tell you to go check out her blog.  Her blog is what got her noticed.  (Are all of your fingers crossed right now!!)  She was very successful in the dot com era and when it all crashed, like many, she lost her job.  After becoming so bored of temp jobs and re wall papering her bathroom she started her blog, and now she is doing amazing.  If you like what you see, READ THE BOOKS.  If no, do not read the books.  You will probably hate her.  And I can't have Jen Lancaster haters around here ;-)
     For this mani I decided to paint each of her memoir cover designs on my nails.  I am pretty proud of how these turned out, especially since I finished these at 11:30 at night.

And here are the book covers so you can see where the images came from.

One thing I am really disappointed with is the quality of these swatched images.  It was late at night so I couldn't go outside and get a natural image and neither of these really show the true color of Jazz.  This one is inside with the camera flash.

 And this is without the flash.  This picture makes it look way to dark.  I would say the real color is more closer looking to what you see in the above image.

I really hope you like these!

Base coat: Chip Skip from OPI and Nail Envy from OPI

Base color: Jazz - 2 coats from Essie

Top Coat: Out the door

All art EXCEPT the purple lingerie is acrylic, the purple was On A Trip from Wet N Wild

Sally Hanson Xtreme Wear Mint Sorbet Swatches and Stamping

     I picked up Mint Sorbet the other day and I must say, I love this color.  It is just so yummy looking.  Not to mention I got a lot of compliments on this mani.  I picked up some new Essence plates as well and was so excited to try them out.  Back when I first discovered the nail polish blogging community I used to read people posts and they would say they couldn't remember how many coats they did and I thought it was funny that they couldn't remember.  Ha.  Guess what, I can't remember if  I did two or three coats of this.  :-(  I am going to start writing these things down so that  I don't ever have to write this again.

Finished product inside with no flash

Outside with no flash

Inside with flash

Inside without flash

 Outside without flash

My new plates.  The stamp that I used was on the right plate on the bottom in the center.

Base coat: Chip Skip by OPI and Smooth Beginnings from Avon

Base color: Mint Sorbet from Sally Hanson - 2 coats...I think

Stamping color: Why Not from Sinful Colors.  It did not stain when I used it as a stamping color like it did when I used it for my entire nail.

Top Coat: Out the Door

I am really liking stamping.  What about you guys?