My Nemesis Stamp

This manicure features a stamp that I can never ever get to work properly no matter how hard I try! Does anyone else have an image like this, where you just can't for the life of you get it to work?!

Stripes…my stamping nemesis. Doesn't matter what brand I try, none of them work for me. I ordered a squishier stamper so hopefully that will help, I'll see when it gets here. Any other tips for mastering this stamp?

This disaster of a manicure is one coat of Sinful Colors Southern Belle and three coats of OPI Solitaire on the pinky. I used Konad white and CH10 for the stamping. It's not perfect and I can't seem to get it right, but I wanted to show it anyways. This blog is about nail art, success and failures included!

Any helpful suggestions out there?

Thanks for reading!

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 16 - Ruffian/Half Moon

Hi everyone! It's hump day of the challenge!! After today we're officially on the later half of the challenge...but the themes get more complicated :)

Today is Ruffian/Half Moon and I decided to go with a Half Moon manicure. I've never done one before and I quite like how it looks :) It won't be the last one I do!

I decided to go with a very geometric look. I started with one quick coat of Wet N Wild Black Creme and then I stamped it with Gals plate 17. Once that was dry I used page protectors and went over the top portion of my nails with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Just in Lime! which was opaque enough to cover both the black and the white. I really like the juxtaposition of the triangles peeking through the curve.

A side note about the Gals plates, with the curved cutout at the bottom they're too small for my nails unless they're filed to their absolute shortest and even then it's a very precise operation to get the designs to fit. It's super disappointing because I really love some of the designs. Half moons seem to be a decent way to utilize some of the designs though, it's a good way to make them work. The plates are really challenging my creativity to use them...which is good in a way but sad because I just want them to work as full nail designs like they're intended. If they didn't do the little curved cutout at the bottom they would be much better :(

Thanks for reading!!

Check out the other mani's here

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 12 - Dots

Today is Dot day and Friday, double yay!

I've been using a LOT of dots in this challenge so far so I decided not to do another one of the same style I've already done. So today I have 3D dots! I really like the way they look like they're trying to escape off my nails!!

I started with two coats of Essie Smooth Sailing as a base. It's a gorgeous blue with a delightful shimmer! Once that was dry I used Wet N Wild Black Creme to do the dots, then I went back over them with Barielle Going to the Chapel and offset the second dots a bit to make them look 3D. I really enjoyed these nails...I'll definitely be trying this again!

Thanks for reading!

Check out all the other awesome challenge manis here

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 11 - Stripes

Ugh...this manicure is not what I was hoping for. It took FOREVER (over 2 hours!) and didn't turn out the way I had envisioned it.

Anyways, with that small rant over...I started on all nails with two coats of Barielle Going to the Chapel (white). It's a fairly decent white, I use it quite a bit; two, sometimes three coats is all you need. Once that was dry I painstakingly applied striping tape in random thicknesses to both hands (yes, both hands!). I then painted two coats of OPI Skull & Gloss Bones. I had to use two coats because it couldn't cover the white in one... Then I taped AGAIN and added a random stripe of China Glaze Pool Party (which also didn't photograph well at all!). It was ridiculous how long it took to do this, and it was sooo thick with all those coats by the time I was done, I had a serious case of chubby nails going on!

I liked the end result but boy did it take a looong time. I have some ideas on how to do something similar in a quicker fashion. Perhaps I'll give it another try one of these days.

Thanks for reading!

Don't forget to check out all the other manis here

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 5 - Skittles

Happy Friday everyone! I hope your Friday was great and you're looking forward to your weekend!! I'm going to be doing my best to keep up with the challenge so fingers crossed that there will be two manis from me this weekend.

Today is Skittles day in the 31 Day Challenge. I have a pastel polka dot skittle mani for you! Here's what I used:

• Thumb: two coats of China Glaze Something Sweet
• Pointer: two coats of Julep Renee
• Middle: two coats of Julep Shenae, it has a slight shimmer
• Ring: two coats of Pure Ice Bikini. I LOVE this blue, it was so smooth and the perfect dusty pastel blue.
• Pinky: three coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls

My thumb, pointer, middle and ring finger are all dotted using OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. The dots on my pinky are done using the base colors on the other finger.

I really liked this mani, it was delicate and fun at the same time. Not really season appropriate, it was more springy, but that's ok I still loved it!

Thanks for reading!!

You can see the other participant's manis here

OMD 31 Day Challenge - Day 4 - Black and White

Today is black and white! I love black and white mani's, they're so sharp and eye-catching.

Unfortunately my mani today is neither sharp nor eye-catching. I attempted to do an ombre saran wrap look, but I think my color choices could use a bit of work.

All fingers started with three coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. Here's what I used on each of my fingers for the saran wrap effect:

• Thumb: Sinful Colors Tantalize
• Pointer: NYC Sidewalkers
• Middle: Maybelline Express Finish Cool Couture
• Ring: China Glaze Concrete Catwalk
• Pinky: Wet N Wild Black Creme

I'm kind of meh about this whole manicure. I feel like there's not enough difference between the shades when I used the saran wrap. I think this would be a neat look but needs better color choices than the ones I made. Maybe I'll try it again sometime with different polishes. Lots of potential, bad execution. Oh well, part of blogging is about sharing the good with the not so good right?! 

 Thanks for reading!

You can find the other participants mani's here

Daisy Dotticure Accent

Hi everyone!

Today I have a manicure that I loved! I wore it for four days straight which must be some kind of record for me. I even wore it through a pseudo softball practice. Thus the tip wear...please forgive me, this manicure had four days of hard wear before I took a photo!

The base of this manicure is two coats of OPI Don't Mess with OPI. It's a lovely dusty bright green if that makes any sense (I'd wager that probably didn't make much sense!). For reference the second picture is more color accurate than the first. On my ring finger and thumb I used a dotting tool and Barielle Going to the Chapel and Joe Fresh Pineapple to create the daisies. My boyfriend said they sort of look like eggs...but I prefer them as daisies!

Thanks for reading!