Llama Nails Presents the ABC's of Nails : I (And Stamping With Mash 30 Plate)

     Happy Thursday everyone!  How has everyone's week been so far?  Mine has been a little all over the map, hence not posting since Sunday!  What the heck man!  Well I missed the post for last week, which was H, but don't worry, I did it.  I will most likely be posting it tomorrow.  "I" was a tricky letter for me, (aren't they all) but as I was in the shower saying igloo, irritated, irate, intimate, and then icicle I stumbled upon Ireland!  Now that was something I could do on my nails.

     I finally picked up some more Seche Vite Top Coat the other day and I can't believe the difference it makes in dry time on my manicures.  When I have wanted to stamp before I usually have to wait 30 minutes to an hour before I can stamp it. With one coat of Seche on I can stamp after ten minutes, tops.  I don't think I will ever go without.

Base coat: Sally Hansen Advanced Gel Nail Fortifier

Base colors: Pinky, thumb, and ring finger - Superstar from Pure Ice - 2 coats

                     Middle finger: Pretty Edgy from Essie - 2 coats

                     Forefinger: Clementine from Sinful Colors - 2 coats

Stamping colors: Pinky - Heat Flash from Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

                            Middle - Stamp Me White from Essence and Khloe Had a Little Lam-Lam from Nicole by OPI

                            Forefinger - Stamp Me White from Essence

Flage colors: Clementine from Sinful Colors and Pretty Edgy from Essie applied with a striping brust

Image plate: Mash 30

Top coat: Seche Vite

These were taken outside in indirect light

Here are some other "I" inspired manicures!

AIS: Stamping With Mash Plate 41

       Happy Sunday all.  I hope that you are all enjoying your extra hour of sleep.  I haven't participated in one of Sunday's Stamping Challenges in the Facebook group Adventures In Stamping in a few weeks now.  Today's challenge was for us to stamp over glitter.  When I was playing with some of my new polishes last night I came up with this color combination and was very excited to try it out.  It turned out a lot better in my head, but I still really like it.  I hope you do as well.

Base coat: PVA Glue - If you're not sure what I am referring to, you can check out my blog post about it here.

Base color: Skull and Glossbones from OPI - 2 coats

Accent color: Luxe Lavender from Avon - 2 coats

Glitter: Cheatin from Pure Ice - 1 coat

Top coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat

Stamping plate: Mash 41

Stamping color: Stamp Me! White and Stamp Me! Black from Essence

This photo was taken inside with the flash

This was taken outside without the flash

Skull and Glossbones is slowly becoming one of my favorite polishes!  I really like the white over the purple.  I think next time I will use all white instead of the black over the glitter and Skull and Glossbones.

SassyNails Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge: Day 10 - Any Halloween Inspired Mani

       HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!  So, I am not going out with my friends' to take their children trick-or-treating, but we are going over there for dinner.  I tried to take a nap before doing this, but couldn't fall asleep and I wanted to make sure this got posted today.  I would hate to have worked all month long on this challenge and be removed from the list of participants for not finishing in time. :-)  Today's mani is inspired from the lovely Sarah over at Chalkboard Nails.  This is one of my favorite blogs and if you have no idea why, just go, go check her out, you will not be disappointed.  We are not allowed to dress up for work so I knew this would be perfect for the challenge and my "costume."  I really need to get better at doing straight lines.  :-(

Base coat:  Sally Hansen Triple Strong Advanced Gel Nail Fortifier

Base color: Superstar from Pure Ice - 2 coats

                   Ruby Slipper from Avon - 2 coats

Top coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat

Stripes: Cobalt Blue from Artist's Loft acrylic paint

Dots: Ultramarine Blue from Artist's Loft acrylic paint

All photos were taken inside without flash

Here is a list of  all the manicures that we did for the challenge.

Check out all of the NailAween Nail Art Artists!

datyorkLOVES

Erica's Nails and More

DreamyMM Nails & Make Up

 Tes Did It Nails
Sassy Paints 
Nicole gets Nailed 
Wicked Tips 
Fancy Schmancy Nails
Delight In Nails
Polish Groupie 
My Nail Journey 
Get Polished Up! 
Just A Girl and Her Polish
Spellbound Nails
Le nail's corner d'Alex
Hello.Lacquer
Color the world with polish
Cutie Cuticles (nail art by Laraib) 
Wacky Laki 
Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge October 1-31st, 2012 
GLAMOROUS NAILS 
Over The Topcoat 
Polish Gone Crazy 
tragedystipsandtreats
Susy In Color
Countess Nails 
(List includes blogs and FB pages)

SassyNails Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge: Day 9- Pumpkins

       It is almost Halloween and for some of you it may even be Halloween.  Do you have any big plans?  I am going to go Trick-Or-Treating with my friends and their kids.  I love seeing how excited kids get around this time of the year!  Today's challenge in the self paced nail art challenge being put on by SassyNails is pumpkins.  I suffered the same dilemma as I did with the last challenge in that I had already done this pumpkin mani for the Crumpet's Nail Tarts Halloween Challenge and my creativity was as a standstill.  Can you guess where I looked for inspiration?  If you guessed Robin Moses, you would be correct.  I know I say this every time, but I love that she teaches us how to do what looks impossible!  If you are looking to learn how to work with acrylic paints on your nails, I recommend no other than her.  Here is the link to her video that I used for this mani.

     I mixed all of my own colors for this mani with Artist's Loft acrylic paints.  For the darkest orange, almost a brown, I mixed Crimson Red, Lemon Yellow and a dab of Lamp Black.  For the pumpkin color I used the same mixture as the dark orange, minus the black.  For the yellowish highlights I used the same orange base plus a little bit of Titanium White to lighten it up a little.  For the dark green that is on the stem and leaves I used Lemon Yellow and Ultramarine Blue and for the lighter green I just used some of the Titanium White to lighten it a little.  For the grass that I did on the bottom I would dab my brush in black on one side and then the dark green on the other to give it that mixed texture look.  I am super happy with how these turned out.

Base coat: Sally Hansen Triple Strong Advanced Gel Nail Fortifier

Base color: Skulls and Glossbones from OPI - 2 coats

Top coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top coat

All were taken inside without the flash

I added this one because you can see the highlighting towards the top of each pumpkin.

I just really like how the grass and the curly-q turned out on my thumb so I thought I would add it.

I hope you guys like this!  Who do you go to when you are running short on ideas and need some inspiration?

SassyNails Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge: Day 8 - Witches

     Good afternoon everyone.  I hope that everyone is having a great day.  And to everyone living on the east coast, I am praying for your safety.  I can not believe that Atlantic City is underground.  That is so scary to me!  Today is day eight of the SassyNails Nail-Aween Nail Art Challenge and the topic for today's mani is witches.  I was a little stumped on what to do as I had already used all my creative witch inspiration on this mani I did a few weeks ago, so off to YouTube I went.

    Inspiration for this mani came from this YouTube video by IHaveACupcake.  I just discovered her last week and this is the second one of her tutorials I have followed.  I am not too sure how I feel about the outcome of this one.  I tried to do Hello Kitty four times before finally leaving her the way she is and the bat on my pointer finger looks more like a sting ray.  I am so jealous of how easily she can use her dotting tools.  I always try to use them like she does and end up resorting to a brush.  One of the reasons the bat on my pointer finger looks more like a sting ray is because I first painted it grey and it was too dark.  So I painted white over it, lightened the grey and then applied it again and it was still to dark.  Lightening it one more time allowed me to finally see it.  I tried to clean it up a little but the wings came out pointy instead of round and by the time I got to this point I was ready to be done.  I didn't really even clean up around my cuticles.

Base coat: Sally Hansen Triple Strong Advanced Gel Nail Fortifier

Base color: Smooth Sailing from Essie - 2 coats

Top coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat

All artwork was done with Artist's Loft acrylic paint

White: Titanium White

Yellow: Lemon Yellow and Titanium White

Red: Crimson Red

Black: Lamp Black

Grey: Lamp Black and Titanium White

Taken inside without flash

Well, I hope that you like my attempt at this mani.  Please feel free to comment below.  Comments make us bloggers feel the love.  :-)