Nude Lace Nails – Delicate and Feminine

After the bright green of my St. Paddy’s Day manicure, I needed my next design to be toned down to balance things out. I’ve seen a few other examples of white stamping over nude colored nails and decided that would be the perfect combination of subtle yet playful I was craving…also, I have a meeting coming up at work so super jazzy nails wouldn’t cut it (even though my bosses love my nail art for meetings with visitors I like to tone things down).

I’m really pleased with how the designed came out. The Sephora by OPI Bare To Be Different polish was very translucent. The first coat was so clear that I decided to switch to Milani Creme Brulee for the second coat. On my ring finger I used Sally Hansen Nail Prisms South Sea Pearl, which is a duochrome (color shifting) topcoat, but it didn’t photograph well. The color adds a green shimmer that can shift to pink depending on the lighting, but the photo just shows glare :\. Apparently it also looks fantastic over black, so I’ll share when I attempt that.

The stamping plate is QA65 from BornPrettyStore.com, which I got on sale for only 99 cents, regular price is $2.99, but keep an eye out because they regularly have amazing sales. The plate stamped clean and all of the images are great designs, I can’t wait to try the others. As you can see in the photo my nails are currently short, the images were large enough to cover my nails, one of my thumbs I had to double stamp for full coverage. If you have long nails you will probably need to double stamp with these images which are under an inch long.

Originally, my ring finger was just going to have a single diamond pattern, but since I stamped it on my nail REALLY off-center I decided to just stamp it all around and make a pattern. As Bob Ross would say, there are no mistakes, just happy little accidents. Or as I would say, it’s a mistake, but also an opportunity to get creative!

Either way I love it! I think the stamped pattern would also look really pretty in green with little flowers added or stamped and staggered in two different colors. Have you tried stamping over nude? How’d it turn out?

Sally Hansen Double Duty Base and Top Coat
1 Coat Sephora by OPI Bare To Be Different
1 Coat Milani Creme Brulee
1 Coat Sally Hansen Prisms South Sea Pearl on ring finger
Stamping with Sally Hansen Xtremewear White On (note, my bottle is older and thicker, stamps better than when brand new, but new still stamps well)
1 Coat INM Out The Door Top Coat and another coat after stamping
Stamping plate QA65 from BornPrettyStore.com

Groove Is In The Heart Neon Nails with Stamping

January 29, 2014happyjoylove Dotting, Glitter/Holographic, Stamping, Tutorials Leave a comment

Where to begin? You may have noticed that I haven’t posted in about 3 months and that my last post was something to the extent of “I don’t feel like writing, here are pictures”. Well, when it rains it pours and unfortunately my father passed away from cancer along with another close family friend within a month of each other. To top it off, these sad events happened during the holidays (I hosted Thanksgiving too)…oh yes, and I got a horrible full body rash (from stress I’m sure) that was unbearably itchy and horrendous and I would never wish it on my worst enemy! I’m hopeful that the scarring will go away :\.

Point being, I fell off the bloggy wagon (even though I did continue to paint and photograph my nails) and so now I’m hopping back on, full speed ahead!

I’m jumping back in with a super bright manicure I did to match my dance performance costume. I have been taking an adult hip hop class and this past weekend we had our performance – we danced to the song “Groove is in the Heart” by Deelite so I went for 60’s style bubbles with a heart on the accent finger.

I did my nails on Monday so they’d be ready for both dress rehearsals (plus group photos) and figured I’d have to do them again before the performance. Well guess what? I didn’t, because they lasted for the whole week. Look at how they held up, the photo below was taken on Sunday.

Not only do I give credit to my Making Your Mani Last techniques, but I’ve also been doing a newer process which makes a big difference. Do a layer of topcoat in between each layer of color for extra wear time! This mani was done with cheap LA Colors and Sally Hansen polishes, so it’s not that I was using some amazing expensive magic polish. I will give credit to Poshe Top Coat, though, because I used a super thick layer on top, so I’m sure that helped too.

The process was one layer base coat, one layer white, two layers neon colors, one layer INM Out the Door top coat, stamping with black, glitter on accent nail, dotting tools for pink and white circles, 1 layer Black Tie Optional on thumb and then a thick layer of Poshe Top Coat.

Sunday nails that were painted at the beginning of the week, look how they held up!

I shared my neon polishes with some of my dancing buddies 🙂

Shout out to everyone Studio Gray for an amazing show! I had so much fun and maybe I’ll post some action dance shots when I get them.

Polishes and Supplies Used:

Sally Hansen Double Duty Base and Top Coat
1 Coat Sally Hansen Xtremewear White On
2 Coats generic LA Colors neon pink and yellow (got a mini set from Ross, no color names)
1 Coat INM Out The Door Top Coat
Wet n Wild Black Creme for stamping
Salon Express stamping plate for the heart and Konad M85 stamping plate for the bubbles (I have a knock off konad plate from BornPrettyStore, but they are no longer selling it, same design)
LA Splash Baby Octopus for the holographic silver glitter on the accent nail
1 Coat Hard Candy Black Tie Optional on the thumb
Poshe Top Coat

Spooky Spiders and Wicked Webs – Halloween Nails

October 7, 2013happyjoylove Dotting, Glitter/Holographic, Holiday/Theme, Stamping 2 Comments

All weekend I was thinking about doing some kind of witch theme on my nails, but come Sunday evening I flip-flopped into designing a black widow spider and webs.

The spider is hand painted – first I made two dots to form the body and head, then used a fine paintbrush to do the legs and the distinctive red mark. The web design is from my stamping Cheeky Jumbo Plate A – it was initially a pattern I didn’t think I would use, but it is actually one that I gravitate towards the most and it was perfect to give the spider web vibe. I think a cute alternative to doing webs on each nail would be to do black and white stripes; still very Halloweeny.

This was my first time using a mint Nailite polish that I got on clearance for a whopping 42 cents (directly from their website). It took two coats to be opaque, and although it seemed a little streaky when applying, the color became even after drying. The brush is pretty thin so you can’t cover your whole nail in one swipe, but nonetheless it turned out well.

Now all I need is a Spider WOman costume :).

Polishes Used:

Seche Vite Base Coat
Sally Hansen Xtremewear Black Out for the black base
Nailite Polish Mint Green for the accent finger green base
Sally Hansen Xtremewear White On for the spider web stamping
Sinful Colors Under 18 for the red marking on the spider
China Glaze Fairy Dust over spider web nails
Poshe Top Coat

Cute Animal Stamping Plate From BornPrettyStore.com Review

August 14, 2013happyjoylove Brand/Product Reviews and Comparisons, Glitter/Holographic, Stamping, Tutorials, Uncategorized Leave a comment

From the time I was a little girl going into Hello Kitty stores to my adult life watching anime and visiting Japan I have always loved the kawaii (meaning cute in Japanese) culture and characters.

I recently got the S10 “Cute Rabbit Cat Animal Design Nail Art Stamp Template” from BornPrettyStore.com and using this adorable stamping plate was high on my priority list after a week long trip to visit my dad in Canada… it’s true, I was suffering some nail art withdrawals from being away :D.

The stamping plate has 7 different little characters on it – bunny, kitty, teddy bear, chick, panda, giraffe and the seventh is what I like to call the “mystery animal”; I think it’s a sheep? My confusion lies in the fact that what would appear to be horns and ears look more like two sets of ears – I think it’s a cute character either way, but would love to hear your guesses!

I started out with a different color on each nail, all topped with the beautiful, glittery, pearlescent Ulta Diva (I love putting this over a bunch of different colored nails because it ties them all together and makes them look a little more pastel).

Each nail is also stamped with a different color, none of them are made specifically for stamping. I used a combination of thick quick-dry polishes and thinner shimmers to see how both turned out.

The thin outline images on the plate (the chick, bunny, kitty, panda and mystery animal sheep thing) seemed to work better with the thin nail polishes. When I tried to use the insta-dri polishes on the thin outline images they didn’t transfer well; I think this is because the lines are so fine that the thick polish dried almost instantly. The Insta-Dri polish worked great on the bear (which doesn’t have thin lines) and pretty well on the giraffe where there are big spaces for polish to fill.

Overall I’m really pleased with the plate and for 99 cents and free shipping I don’t think it can be beat!

A total of 11 colors plus Seche Vite Base Cout and Poshe Top Coat

Ulta Peach Parfait
SH Insta-Dri Petal Pusher
Ulta Cream of the Crop (on clearance in some stores)
Ulta Mint Condition
Ulta Bam-Blue-Zled
Ulta Diva
SH Insta-Dri Sonic Bloom
SH Insta-Dri Snappy Sorbet
Chi Razzle Dazzle
Ulta Dance Teal Dawn
Ulta Ultra Violet Femme

On a side note I’m really happy that I picked up the Poshe Top Coat, it’s very similar to Seche Vite, but without the toulene. It didn’t smear the polish underneath, not much shrinkage and no chipping as of day 3. Much better than the Orly Top Coat I recently purchased!

If you get anything from their online store use the code EAG10 for a 10% discount.

As an exciting bonus if 10 people place orders with that code BornPrettyStore will sponsor a free giveaway contest for my website! If it’s for free, it’s for me :D.

Coming up next will be holographic polish and nail stud reviews!

Disclaimer: I received the S10 stamping plate as a free promotion, however all opinions expressed are my own!

My recent BornPrettyStore goodies – Holo Polish, Metallic Studs and Cartoon Stamping Plate!

August 1, 2013happyjoylove Brand/Product Reviews and Comparisons, Glitter/Holographic, Stamping Leave a comment

I just received some awesome products from bornprettystore.com today. First, they arrived in just a week when I was told to expect 2-4 weeks, so you can image how happy that made me! Second, the holographic polish is gorgeous, although I will admit that at first glance I was sad because I thought it wasn’t really holographic, that is, until I stepped outside into the sun and BAM! Very holo rainbowy (yes I know that’s not a real word). Third I love the metallic studs (my first!) and Fourth, the stamping plate I got is definitely going to be one of my favorites because the little Japanese style cartoons are ridiculously kawaii (just like everything in Japan I’ll add; let me know if you want to see photos from my trip).

I’m going to have a hard time deciding what to get next from them because they seriously have a million cute things for super cheap with free shipping. Stay tuned for upcoming displays/reviews of the items I got below. I would have done my nails tonight with some of this stuff if it wasn’t for the fact that I just did them!

Born Pretty Holographic Holo Glitter Nail Polish Varnish Hologram Effect 9#

Cute Rabbit Cat Animal Design Nail Art Stamp Template s10

Heart Square Round Star Stud Rhinestone Acrylic UV Gel Nail art w/ box

Recycle, Reuse, Reduce – A Manicure Refresh

July 19, 2013happyjoylove Brand/Product Reviews and Comparisons, Dotting, Glitter/Holographic, Stamping Leave a comment

The polish from my “Holo Racing Stripe” manicure stayed on so well after five days that I decided to just do some stamping on top to give it a fresh look. I’m not sure whether it lasted so well because of the polish, the topcoat, my “Making Your Mani Last” procedure or the perfect storm of all three. Each hand is a little different, but I think they both turned out fun. The two colors I used for stamping are Pure Ice “Silver Mercedes” and Sally Hansen’s “Sonic Bloom” – both work really well with stamping, although the Sonic Bloom stamping on the glitter accent came out textured. The stamping plate I used was the Cheeky Jumbo Plate A. No topcoat on these bad boys.