This is what happens!

Whenever I make a blog I never update it regularly. I'm. A. Bad. Blogger. But I will continue to blog anyway cuz why not? 

My birthday rolled around on the 7th  and I got 80 dollars to play with. What did I do with it? Blew most of it on nail polish of course! I have several packages arriving next week and tomorrow and HOPEFULLY Will get my booty in gear and do some posts about them.

I also got the Winstonia 1st generation stamping plat set. AND a set of the Winstonia 5x2 Dotting tools that actually has 10 different size dot tips! My last set (a generic bought on Amazon) had 6 sizes on a 5x2 set, how rude. So today after the mail arrived (quite late due to a substitute mail lady) I had the fun job of reorganizing my stamping plate sin the place binder thing I have AND removing all those blue films... which wound up with these results:

Nails are not tools they tell me, don't use them for anything they say... THEN WHY ARE THE SO GOOD AT PICKING AT THINGS?! (that's a big chip in the tip of my actual nail not just the polish in the first image in that collage)

Anyway will update eventually with something interesting I'm sure, hopefully sooner rather then later.

Sincerely, 
Emily the Bad Blogger

Shopping Spree on November 30th!

Yep. Spent over 40 dollars at Sally Beauty on stuff for myself and for gifts. As well as a few dollars on stuff at Rite Aid for myself. Most of the "stuff"? I'm not saying it was nail polish... but it was nail polish. As a side note because I spent so much at Sally I got a free flat iron. Which I might never use becasue curling with it is a pain and my hair is pretty durn flat/straight anyway. MOVING ON!

Sally now carries OPI. HOORAY! But it is still like 8 bucks a bottle. So the four I got are probably the only four I will get for a looong time. But they are so pretty! The first paint job I did with the new polishes was using the dark blue OPI and stamping a lighter blue atop it and it was gorgeous:

This is OPI Incognito in Sausalito as a base with Sally Hansen Xtreme Blue Me Away for the stamps. I love the deep blue of the OPI. I can't begin to tell you HOW MUCH love I have for it.

The next paint job was a gradient, or ombre if you wanna use fancy talk, using two OPI colors. I have three pictures to share:

 

First you make a mess here....

Then you make a BIG mess on your fingers!

 And finally! BEAUTY!

This was done with OPI Teal the Cows Come Home and OPI Purple with a Purpose. Both are beautiful colors and both are great to work with in a gradient! I have not used the fourth OPI yet or any of the polishes I got form Rite Aid. All in due time though... all in due time.....

"Advanced Stamping"

This was fun to do. It was also mildly difficult. It's a nail stamping technique that I have been wanting to try but wasn't sure how to do it until I stumbled across a blog post (link here) that explained it and made me giddy. I used the stamper I had, and it worked great but I don't know how squishy or not squishy different stampers are. My stamper came with the Salon Express kit my mom got me last year.

Anyway this was my first attempt:

Like I said this was super fun but also fairly hard since I was painting with a nail polish bottle brush not a fine nail art brush (which I have a set of now! WOO!). I really liked it and everyone I showed in the real world were impressed, which was fun.

Anyway if you have stamping supplies and a stamp plate with a design that lends it's self to this technique, DEFINITELY try it at least once. It's pretty awesome.

Polishes Used:
Base: Finger Paints Pink Patina
Stamp: Finger Paints Pretty as a Portrait
Stamp Flowers: Sally Hansen Xtreme Lacy Lilac
Top Coat: Seche Vite

Day 28, Inspired by a Flag. American Flag

Not that I am super patriotic but I knew I could pull off an American flag with the colors and stamps I have.

I used red base color on my fingers and a blue base color on my thumb, then stamped white striped on the red fingers and a white star on the blue thumb. Very quick and easy.

Combined Days 23+24: Inspired by a Book & Movie

So because I have fallen behind I combined days 23 and 24, my Harry Potter nails are inspired by books and movies! Yaay! I'm such a cheater.... ANYWAY.

I chose to do house colors on my fingers and A skull and snake on my thumb to represent the Death Eaters/Voldemort.To achieve this particular manicure I used 10 polishes. Plus top and base coats.  I wound up doing the design twice because I didn't like how the lines on the original house color nails turned out. I had hoped it would turn out more plaid but it didn't. Then I learned a new way to use my stamper to pick up the image and avoid smearing the polish on the plate. YAY! it made it so I am able to pick up my ACTUAL plaid stamp without it smearing all over it's self. So hurrah for do overs. Also the ring finger (Ravenclaw) had to be redone three times total because the first color I used for bronze came out WAY too orange. I will share all the different "finished" designs so you can see the evolution.

First off with the overly orange Ravenclaw ring finger:

Next we have the "fixed" ring finger but the wrong stripes:

And finally we have the PERFECT house colors! Except somehow I got a black speck on my index finger that was in my top coat's brush. Weird right? But at this point I am pretty much thinking "Redo? NOPENOPENOPE" Anyway here is the final Harry Potter paint job:

An all the colors used were:

Thumb: PureIce Black Out, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mint Sorbet
Index: KleanColor Metallic Yellow, KleanColor Metallic Red
Middle: Pure Ice Silver Star, China Glaze Agro, 
Ring: KleanColor Metallic Mango(1st) Pure Ice Fast Lane (2nd), KleanColor Metallic Sapphire
Pinky: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, Pure Ice Black Out


So, there we have Days 23 and 24, Inspired by a Movie and Book!

Tomorrow I will be combining Fashion and Pattern! Once again I will be a sneaky cheater!

Days 14&15, Floral and Delicate.

So once again time got away from me. So I doubled up. Flowers and delicate in one paint job. Hooray for work ethic! Or cutting corners ya know whatever works.... Anyway here they are:

I started with a none too fancy base coat, then used Salon Perfect Baby Blues for the base color and stamped with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac, topped with Seche Vite. The stamp plates were Mash-42 for the fingers and Mash-40 on my thumb. As you can see I am picking at and chewing my thumb a lot again... sorry for the unsightliness of it.

The Lacey Lilac was pretty bad for stamping with it wanted to stick to the stamper when I needed it to transfer to my nails, resulting in my rocking the stamper which smeared it a bit on my index and middle fingers. It also resulted in incomplete stamp transfer in other areas but my index and middle finger bugged me the most. So probably won't be using it for stamping again. Which is sad because it is very pretty.

Honestly? I only painted the one hand due to being so cranky with the stamping failure. :C

Anyway, look forward to my tribal later today, it turned out pretty rad for my first try at tribal prints! 8D