Blue & White checked...

This week I decided to try one of another of my new bundle monster plates I received the other week.  Seeing as I've now got over 50, figured I should start trying to make my way through them :)  Ended up using the same one as last week tho haha...

I used one of my older polishes for the base coat - Loreal Jet-Set quick dry in Jet 415.  Sadly cause it was old it was kinda gluggy & took a while to set.  On the plus side it only needed one coat.

I started off with the pretty looking leaf pattern (lower left), but as sometimes happens with these stamping plates, it looked better on the plate than on my nail (still pretty, just not what I was looking for ;)

So I changed to the plaid looking pattern (middle top).  Turned out pretty cool.  Had a few comments at work, with most people thinking it was the stick on nail polish. Sigh.  Stamping maybe a wee bit harder but it looks cooler & is way cheaper.  Those Sally Hansen stick on nails cost NZ$20!

I used the Konad special polish in white for the pattern.

The finished result.

Have a great week - its finally started to warm up here & feel like summer.

Nikki

:o)

Pink & Yellow plus new plates...

So yet again its been a few weeks, due to me going away on my days off.  Today will be a double post, with two sets of nails to make up for missing last week.  Also other exciting news is I finally gave in and brought the other set of plates from Bundle Monster.  These were their original set of 21.  The whole nail designs are slightly smaller (so have to double stamp the thumbs) but there are more small pictures on the plates including a cupcake (which as some of you know how much I love baking, is almost the sole reason I brought the plates;)

Anyway here is a pic of the plates

So many designs to play with.... I now have over 50 plates... good thing I do my nails every week :)

My first set of nails was using my favourite pink, Maybelline Express Finish Fushsia Fever as the base Coat.

Then used Bundle Monster plate BM-224

(the top flower design)

in Konad Special Polish in White

And used a Sally Hasen Nail art pen to fill in the dots on the flowers

Here's the final result

Now for the second set of nails.

I started of with one of my new nail polishes.  They're in pharmacies here and only $4 each.  I found 4 for $10 in Hamilton the other day and couldn't resist :) sadly I already had a very similar colour to the yellow I've used but you can never have too many shades right :P

 They are Miki & in cute little sizes.

Then I used one of my newest bundle monster plates, M19

The pokadot design down the bottom.

With Konad special polish in Wine Red 

And the end result

Pretty pokadot nails :)

I finished off my designs with a new top coat, by Orly which from the looks of other blogs is a pretty good nail polish brand in the USA.

It's called Sec 'n Dry & dries all the layers quickly according to the label. It seems to work really well, perfect for those times I only just finish my nails before :)

Have a great week

Nikki

:o)

Red, Green & Silver - Double Christmas Nails..

After a busy two (or more like 4 now that I'm finally finishing this post!) weeks, Christmas is over and done with.  It's been busy, busy, busy so I've missed a post or two on here but this is a double post showing off my Christmas nails from the last two weeks to show off what nails I managed to get done.

Seeing as gold isn't really my colour, I went for Silver as my base coat & Red, Green & glitter for the designs.

Here's the silver I used for the base coat.  Wet 'n' Wild.  Its the first (and only) nail polish I won from a woman's magazine once back when I was about 14.  So pretty old but still works (due to being kept in the fridge).

I then painted green & red on alternating nails, on an angle across the tips (kinda like a french tip, but angled).

I used Konad special polish in green ($8.99 from a Korean Nail/accessory shop in Hamilton (its called Sexy Catz;)

And my favourite red, Dear Face from a cheap korean shop (W4000)

For the stamping designs I used Konad Plate M12 (the christmas one!), the middle left picture.  I'll upload a picture of the plate as soon as I get a chance to take pictures of my original plates.

And the colours I used were:

Konad special polish in Wine Red & Green.

As well as Silver glitter to add some sparkles.

And here's the finished result.

And here are my nails for Christmas day.

I used the same red & green as above, but used LA Girl Cracked in Silver over the top.

Hope your christmas was good, mine involved too much food & chocolate as well as lots of time with the family :)

Nikki

:o)

Edit 16/01/12 Here's the christmas plate now that i've finally taken pics of all my plates :)

Green, White & Red...

So time for another lot of christmas nails.  This time I had the idea of presents & luckily had the Konad plate to go with it.

I used Christmas colours as my base coats, two red, two green & one white nail.  I used a cheap red from Korea called Dear Face (gotta love their use of English).

W2000 (korean won)

For the white & green I used the konad polishes (although you're not technically supposed to use them as base coats.  It doesn't specify why, but from experience I'd say its because their thicker & take way longer to dry).

The plate is Konad M65, sorry for the crappy picture, there hasn't been a nice sunny day to take pictures yet (so much for a hot kiwi christmas!).

I used the striped looking whole nail plate.

I used multi colours for stamping each nail too & on the middle white nail I used Konad Wine Red, Green special polish & Gold special polish.

Konad wine red (it doesn't come out this dark, but it tends to look like black in the bottle).

W4000 (Korean won)

Konad special polish, white.

$5.99 NZ

Konad special polish green.

(which I also used as a base coat)

$8.99 NZ

Konad special polish Gold.

$8.99 NZ

Those last two polishes are a pre christmas present myself as I realized I was missing two vital christmas colours for stamping my nails :)

Anyway here is the finished product:

I blobbed Green, Red & Gold onto the plate & it seemed to work out okay.

Close up of my thumbs (these are using a mix of Konad plate M12 & Bundle Monster plates BM-213 & Bm-225)

So christmasy!

And view of all my nails & yes I have painted my toes to match :)

Till next week (with yet another set of Christmasy nails)

Nikki

:o)

Red, White, Gold & Green - Christmas Swirls...

Its December - yay! Cause that means 4 weeks of christmas nails :) I had wanted to try out water marbling on my nails for a while so after checking out a few blogs & youtube videos I decided to give it a go.

The first attempts weren't so flash - its harder than it looks!  Here's a run down of a steps I took.

Tools I used

Masking tape + skewers (tooth picks will do but we didnt have any)

plastic cup (or something that it won't matter if it gets nail polish stuck to it) half filled with water.  And of course a piece of newspaper or cardboard to catch any drips.  Also use a table or stable surface, I used my bed & every time I moved, so too did my design floating on the water!

My Christmas colours:

A mixture of expensive & cheap.  The two revlon ones worked best, although cause their were quite thin they spread quickly.  The green was a cheapy from the Korean chain shop, Skin Food & the white is from a french manicure set by Kiss.

Step 1.

Tape masking tape around your nail as close as you can (I used about 4 pieces).  Any skin you miss will be covered in nail polish so tape well :)

Step 2.

Drop colours in one at a time inside one another to create a bulls eye.  I had to play around with this due to the different thickness of the nail polishes.  Also you need to do this fast otherwise the nail polish sets & when you try to stir it, it sticks to the toothpick.

Step 3.

Create pretty swirly patterns using the toothpick.  You don't have to make many lines, as too many may 'burst' the outer edge of the polish & it will get very messy looking.

Step 4. 

Dip your taped up finger into the water.  Once you've submerged your finger, use the toothpick to collect all the extra polish that's floating on the water still otherwise it will recoat your nail as you pull your finger out.  Found out that the hard way :/

Step 5.

Remove the tape once dry & add a top coat to seal in the colour.  The other thing I did was touch up the gold on a few of my nails as it spread a bit too thin on the water so didn't coat my nail very thickly.

Now I have to confess this was the first nail I did & I was quite impressed with it.  Sadly the rest of my nine nails didn't look half as good as you can see below

They look marbled, but not exactly pretty!

So I had another try the next day and they turned out much more to my liking

I didn't use white & had to repaint the gold but at least they looked christmasy this time!

Till the next set of Xmas nails

Nikki :o)