Butterflies and Flowers Mani + Video Tutorial

*Some products were sent to me for testing and review, completely complimentary, from OPI and Preen.Me. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Hello lovelies!! I'm really excited to share today's post with you. I received a really nice sampler box of OPI Infinite Shine polishes as part a collaboration between OPI and Preen.Me. Those of you who follow me on Instagram will have seen a sneak peek of these polishes in my 15 second unboxing video. I immediately had my eye on the two pinks in my sampler and since it's now Spring (Is it? Is it really??? -_- The snow here says different) I went with what I think is a very Spring themed mani.

Along with the polishes I also received the OPI Infinite Shine base coat and top coat as part of the sampler. These polishes are said to have a hi-def gel like shine that wears up to 10 days without the light or the soak needed for removal!

I used the base coat on all nails but wanted to test the durability of the top coat so I used the OPI Infinite Shine top coat on my pinky and middle nail but my usual Seche Vite top coat on my other fingers.

First thoughts: I love the base coat. It went on smoothly, dried quickly, and didn't bubble or anything like that and my mani held up really well which is surprising because I've only found one (now discontinued) base coat that works well with my body chemistry. It was a light colored mani so I didn't really expect it to stain and it didn't.

However, I'm iffy about the top coat simply because it smeared my stamping long after I allowed it to 'set' for a few minutes. It also took a long time to dry - feeling tacky and not set long after applying. I know Seche Vite spoils me with how quickly it dries but the nails I used the OPI Infinite Shine top coat on still had me worried about bumping them about half an hour later. However, once it dried it had a really nice shine - on par with my Seche Vite so that's saying something! And it held up really well. I'm not easy on my nails but there wasn't much, if any, wear showing on any of my nails after the 2-3 days I wore it. Would I use this again? For a simple one color or gradient mani: yes. For nail art I've spent hours on: NO!

Woohoo!! I had a credit card offer come in the mail today so I have myself a much better scraper than that bit of cardboard from the video. This means I get a better and more complete image lol.

I still don't have the set up for a video, but I rigged up much better lighting for this one at least. :) I also realized I paint over (and over and over) my nails way too much while editing this video given how much painting I had to cut out lol.

I have so many more polishes to try out and a few more manis already done and waiting to be posted to stick around or scroll back to the top, look to the right, and follow me so you don't miss a post!

Until next time,
Ashley

*Some products were sent to me for testing and review, completely complimentary, from OPI and Preen.Me. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

A-Z Weekly Challenge - O is for Old

Hello again lovelies! You saw New yesterday and what's New without Old? You may recognize this from a long ago post. Seriously, the design I'm redoing today is such an old, old design. I did it the year I started my blog so my nails and my style of art have really changed since then.

Not only is it an old design redone ... it's a vintage design!!! Double the old!

I think the matte mani has a more victorian feel to it but it's really pretty shiny!

Between 2012 and now I seem to have forgotten how to draw roses. I struggled like crazy to get them to look even this nice. And I've discovered a terrible horror with my polish collection - I don't have a minty mint!!! I actually had to custom mix the color I used and it's far too blue for my minty tastes. But overall I'm actually very happy with this design.

Oh how very far I've come in 3 years. Here is the original design and my new ... and improved design? I don't know. Which is your favorite?

Until next time,
Ashley

An InLinkz Link-up

Vintage Valentine Nail Art

Woohoo, more V-Day nail art! Today's mani is by far one of my all time favorites. I just love vintage-y nail art for Valentine's Day... anytime really. This mani is just so simple but still so elegant. :)

This mani was done with polishes from my Valentine's Day collection (Victorian Romance) and a little help from Born Pretty Store rose decals. I started with a base of My Own Sweet Valentine with an accent nail of Parchment & Lace. Once MOSV was dry I sponged on some Cheeks Tinted Red and a little more MOSV to really blend it together. The shimmer on this gradient was insane! I used top coat on Parchment and Lace and then used a Born Pretty Store water decal. (These decals are only $0.88 right now! Plus if you use the code BPS2014 you'll get 15% off sitewide! I say these are more than worth every penny!!!)

The decal was so easy to use. Just cut it out, dunk it into water (warm water if it's winter) for 10-15 seconds and the decal will slip right off the paper and be easy to position on your nail. I lightly wet the nail and placed the rose. I used a paper towel to blot the excess water and then gently used a finger to press the decal down, getting rid of wrinkles and bubbles until the decal dried completely. Then I topped it with more top coat and it was perfect!!

I couldn't resist trying the glitter of Love & Devotion over the gradient. It's nice, but I found I preferred the simplicity of the gradient alone.

What's your go-to nail art for Valentine's Day?

Disney Challenge: Bambi

Welcome to another Disney Challenge post. We've hit the mid-way point in the movie inspired portion of this challenge. Another 5 manis and it will be time to start the princesses.

Today's mani is Bambi inspired. Bambi is my mom's Fox and the Hound. She refuses to watch this movie, so I've probably only watched it once or twice. I went with a pure green background using my watercolor effect. Then I created flowers along the tips of my nails and finally drew in Bambi's nose with a butterfly resting on it.

I seem to slowly but surely be falling behind in these challenges. I am really starting to hate the rush to finish a mani the day it's supposed to be posted!

Up next in this challenge: The Lion King

Up next: Medieval for the Time Periods Challenge.

Until next time!

S is for ...

I was really inspired this weekend; I've really missed doing nail art! This is actually a design I sketched up and then realized that it worked perfectly for S in the ABC Challenge.

S is for ... Spring Scene.

You should be expecting this by now, but I used my eyeshadow applicators and Revlon Garden and Sinful Colors Exotic Green to create a leafy texture as a base. The white picket fence came next, hand drawn with a nail art brush, and the flowers were started with a dotting tool and finished with a nail art brush.

With recent temperatures reaching into the single digits, I'm really longing for some flowers!

Be on the lookout tonight for another ABC Challenge mani as I finally get caught up. :)

Nail-Aween Witches & Pumpkins

Today's post is being turned into a double post. While we are not in the direct path of Hurricane Sandy, we are feeling the effects. We've had rain, snow, and power outages just to name a few. We've spent all night and most of today with no power and no heat. I am beyond thankful that the power is back up and the house is finally getting warm again. All the other people and families experiencing Sandy are in my thoughts. Take care!!

I was so excited to see witch inspired nail art in the Nail-Aween Challenge. What better inspiration for witch than The Wizard of Oz?? It's one of my all time favorite movies. With this in mind, I created black and white stripes for the socks worn by the Wicked Witch of the East, shown under Dorthy's house. I did an accent nail using Sally Hansen's Green with Envy to match the Wicked Witch of the West's green skin and added a pointed black hat. I decided to add some red poppies to the striped nails to complete the mani and tie it all into The Wizard of Oz.

For the pumpkin nail art, I thought briefly of doing Jack-O'-Lantern nails but finally decided against that. Jack-O'-Lanterns seemed overdone, and you know how I love thinking differently! I decided to do actual pumpkins. I used Sally Hansen Sun Kissed as the orange base. The shading was done by mixing black and white with Sun Kissed to create the dark and light colors. Green with Envy was used the same way for the leaves. I took this picture slightly from the side in an attempt to trick the eye into seeing width and roundness.


Also, if my Halloween nail art just isn't enough for you, check out this nail art video from Swagbucks to learn how to create some really awesome skeleton nails for Halloween!!

Elegant Border Nails

Hello everyone. I'm in the midst of a cold and debated even doing a post today, but thanks to some help from the lovely women on my Facebook Page I was able to beat the sore throat and tone down the other symptoms of my cold. You can totally thank them for this post!

I've been waiting to post these nails for a while but there were always other posts that needed posted first. Well, I'm making today the right day. Lustrous Lacquer wanted to see border nails and this is what I came up with.

Start out with a base color. This will be the color of your borders. I used two coats of L.A. Colors Black. The next step is to paint your nails again, but leave a border around the edges. I found it easier to simply use the nail polish brush and be a little more careful around the edges, but you could use a nail art brush or a dotting tool to lay down an outline first if you don't feel comfortable jumping right in. You'll go back later and create a tip so don't worry if the tips look messy or the black shows on the edges. This picture shows one coat of L.A. Colors White. I used three coats to completely cover the black.

Here's where you complete the border by repainting the tips with your border color. Remember to round the edges of this tip to give a nice oval shape to the borders. I let this part of the mani dry completely and then put on a layer of top coat to give myself a nice stamping surface.

I used the rose image on m65 of my Born Pretty stamping plates. This is the one and only time I got such perfect images on all my nails. I'm sure it has something to do with the L.A. Colors polish I used. It's a very slow to dry polish, and I worked extra fast. Be sure to let your nails dry completely before stamping and be sure it's completely dry before using any top coat. With the black and white even the smallest amount of smudging or running will be immediately visible!

My Coffee Obsession

My not-so-well kept secret is that I love coffee. I would drink it all day, every day if I could. And to me, the cup is just as important as the coffee. I can't just put my coffee in any cup. My family knows this and they are nice enough to get me some of the prettiest cups. Today's nail art is inspired by one of these cups.

Here are the (not so perfect) finished nails. I can't for the life of me get my stamper to work consistently. Though it hardly ever stamps this bad. This likely had something to do with the fine and delicate etching for the flower petals.

And here is the cup that inspired these nails. I started with three coats of Lightening from Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri line of polish.

 It's one of the most perfect yellow polishes, in my opinion. I have owned light yellows and sheer yellows but before Lightening I have never owned an actual, true yellow.

To get the yellow gingham pattern from the cup I used tape and China Glaze's White on White.

I used three strips of tape from cuticle to nail tip and three strips of tape from side to side before painting over the nail with white. This is such an easy design to do and creates such an amazing affect!!

My coffee cup has such gorgeous flowers in various colors, but the ones that catch my eye most are definitely the blue morning glories. To complete this design there just had to be flowers. Sadly, the only flowers I can do without a good deal of time are swirly roses and daisy-like flowers using a dotting tool. I had to use my stamper. I want so much to be good at stamping ... but I'm just not. :( I did manage to get one nearly perfect flower and it really did make the design come to life! It makes me all the more longing of a deft stamping hand.

I could definitely see this gingham pattern being used in a picnic nail art. Use red in place of the yellow and a dotting tool with some black to create an ant or two scuttling their way over the picnic blanket. If you have fimo fruit slices it would certainly add life to the design. :)

Spring Fling

Another day, another post. I know I mentioned it somewhere before, whether here in a post or on my Facebook page, but I was asked to do a set of nails for my niece for her Spring Fling dance. I'm happy to say I got them completed and didn't mess them up while helping her glue them on. They looked amazing with her dress!

She was my personal hand model for the day and was nice enough not to complain when I twisted and repositioned her fingers into what was surely uncomfortable positions. :)

The nails also looked adorable with her enormous ring and oversized earrings!

Alright, gals, say hello to my niece. She was finally all decked out for Spring Fling and ready for pictures.

Can you imagine dancing in those shoes???

The Mommy Mess

Happy Mother's Day  to the mothers out there. Today's post is for my own mommy.

I thought long and hard about this design. I didn't want a generic Mother's Day design. What I really wanted was something personal to my mother. Well, my mom's favorite flower is the lilac. Best of all? Her favorite color is also purple! Talk about perfect.

Sadly, I found the lilac flower almost impossible to recreate into something people would look at and think, "Oh, that's a lilac!" In my opinion, it's a bit of a mess.

However, my mom was kind enough to point out that her knowing what it was was all that should matter. This mani was created for her after all, and she loves it.

I started with these nails. I'm not usually one for a French mani. I always end up with streaks when using a 'natural' polish, which was no different with this mani. But I became pretty fond of these. I used two coats of OPI Bubble Bath with one coat of OPI Alpine Snow on the tips. I was feeling very steady handed that day so I went ahead and free handed the tips.

These last two pictures are of my left hand. This is the hand I usually use for my pictures, but I found myself liking the nails of my right hand better. But, I guess the lack of precision worked better for this mani. Go figure.


Polish Used
Borghese - Brilliante
OPI - Bubble Bath
OPI - Alpine Snow
OPI - Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window
Sally Hansen - Green with Envy
Sally Hansen - Lacey Lilac
Pure Ice - New Lilac
LA Colors - Purple
Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri

Pretty Camo

Hello, girlies! I tried my hand at stamping again today. I still haven't got it down yet, but I might be getting better. What do you think?

I think of this mani as deconstructed camo or my attempt at 'pretty camo'. While doing this design, I kept in mind the camo that uses various shades of green and tan to create leaves and a wood texture. I think it turned out very nice with this flowery, girlish stamp.

For some reason the middle nail smudged horribly when I stamped the design. Can you push too hard while stamping?

The two polishes used come from the Revlon Colorstay collection which just arrived in my small town. They are Bare Bones and Spanish Moss. I picked them up with a slightly different mani in mind but they looked far too much like camo colors to do anything else with them. :)

I'm still not sure how other bloggers get such perfect and whole stamps, but I'm just happy to see more than half the stamp on my nails this time!

Vintage Inspired

Can I just say thank you for all the wonderfully sweet comments on my Spring mani? I know I don't answer the comments as often as I should, but I just want you guys to know that you really know how to turn a bad day around and make a girl happy!! I treasure each and every comment.


I decided to stick to the theme and do something with flowers again. I know this has been done a thousand times before by others but this is a mani I haven't tried before.  So, I figured, why not give it a try? Vintage inspired, here I come!

Natural Evening Light

I tried to keep everything soft without bright sunlight. It just felt right with these nails.

Yep, that's a broken nail. Both index nails broke yesterday and contributed to my very bad day. Sadly, this hand, my left, is by far the worst. And it just grew out from the last break too!! :(

I did a Google search for vintage and came up with this vintage floral wallpaper. That and the tons of other vintage floral nails are where this idea comes from. With this design, I really don't think I can claim anything as mine since it's all been done before. So I give credit to all the nailers out there who have done this design before me!!

I think I'm finally getting the hang of swirled roses. It only took two days of near non-stop practice.

Is there anything you guys would like to see me do on this blog? I'm open to suggestions. :)

Polish Used

• Borghese - Brillante
• Sinful Colors - Beautiful Girl
• Wet n Wild - French White Creme
• Sally Hansen - Mint Sorbet
• Sally Hansen - Green With Envy
• OPI - Uh-Oh Roll Down The Window
• Hard Candy - Matte-ly In Love

Hello Spring!

And hello to all you wonderful followers, and happy spring! I became oddly attached to my 'Feeling Blue' mani, so I left doing a Spring mani to the last second.


Forgive me for at least some of the messiness of this design. My beloved nail art brushes are beginning to fray. They are old and I knew this was coming, but I'm still terribly sad to see them go. I've been putting off get new ones, but I think it's finally time.

I had a lovely sun going on my thumb but bumped it while it was still wet and sloughed off half the polish. :(

Today was a lovely day to begin spring in my small town. Slightly cloudy at various points in the day but it reached into the low 70's so I can't complain. I had the blinds and the windows open enjoying the sun and cool breeze. It's turning into a perfect evening as well.


How is the weather in your part of the world?


Polish Used

• Sally Hansen - Blew Me Away!
• Pure Ice - Free Spirit
• L.A. Colors Art Deco - Bright Green
• Sally Hansen - Green With Envy
• Sally Hansen - Mint Sorbet
• OPI - Uh-Oh Roll Down The Window
• Wet n Wild - French White Creme
• Revlon - Cloud
• Sally Hansen - Sun Kissed
• Sally Hansen - Fuchsia Power
• Revlon - No Shrinking Violet
• L.A. Colors Art Deco - Yellow (unseen sun)
• Pure Ice - Siren (Whoops, forgot this one)