Orange Shimmer & Stars

Good day, good day :)

Spring is here! It's getting warm and lovely outside, and while I really don't ever stop wearing neons (being confined to seasonal trends is sooo not my style), it seems extra fitting to wear them now! So I've created this bright yet simple mani with neon orange, glitter, and stamped stars!

I Love London! | Born Pretty Store Stamping Plate Review

Good day! I have one more BPS stamping plate to show you today. It's all British-themed, so I used some appropriate colours and as many images from it as I could to create this cute mani!

Sally Hansen & the Blackhearts (BPS Stamping Plate Review)

(with apologies to Joan Jett)

Hello again!

I am sick of being sick. :P

You know what's good for that, though? Rest, hot tea, and having more Born Pretty Store goodies delivered! A few days ago, I received handful of stamping plates and a really cool colour-changing polish :D I'll show you the polish next time! I haven't been stamping as much lately, so I wanted to get my hands on the plates first, and ended up with this little mani I almost called "Garden of Hearts".

Snowflakes on Silver Tips

Hello, my dear readers! Happy Wednesday! Work is about to get hectic as balls for the next couple of weeks leading up to Christmas. I'm going to do my best to make sure my nails stay in good condition, dressed for the season, and photographed for you!

Snowflakes are one of my favourite things in nature. So orderly, beautiful, and delicate... I have about five snowflake necklaces, two pairs of earrings, and of course a nail stamping plate. So for today's mani, I have a soft white/silver gradient with some stamped snowflakes and silver microbeads :)

Checkered Border Nails

Hello, gorgeous!

Today's look is a transparent one with a checkered stamp and a trend I never really liked--a border around the nail. I think the way it looks with this pattern is awesome... but I'm afraid the photos don't do it justice. It was really cool in real life, but I'm disappointed with how the pictures looked when I viewed them on my computer today. I wish I'd taken a look before, and gotten another set before taking off this mani. So be forewarned--this isn't up to my usual snuff and I almost didn't post them! But I think it's good to show nail (and photo) fails, too--it happens to the best of us!

Indoors, flash

Definitely a cool punk-rock/grunge mani, right? Click the jump to see how it's done!

#31DC2014 - Day 15 - DELICATE PRINT

Hellooooo!

Today is day 15 of the challenge, and we're doing pretty delicate nails. This has never been my strong suit. Take a look around--my style is much more bright, glittery, wacky, blingy; some would say "ridiculous", I say lots of fun :D But subtle and delicate is something I rarely do. So I took a deep breath, channeled my inner Marta and Sammy, and came up with this:

Outdoors in sun

I love Lacquer Lust Diamond for looks like this. It's soft and delicate and pretty while still being holo! Two coats covered nicely. The knotty-heart pattern is on Bundle Monster plate BM-406, and I stamped it with Konad white polish.

Then I added some tiny crystals, because I had to have some sparkle ;) Topped with Seche Vite.

Indoors with flash

Outdoors in shade

Another in sun--the bottle looks great in this one :)

Aside from the slight smudge on the index nail, I think these came out really nicely. It's fun to wear something more demure from time to time. Makes me feel posh and sophisticated.

See you tomorrow for a geometric design! xoxo

#31DC2014 - Day 10 - GRADIENT nails

Hiya! Day 10 means gradient nails :)

Sunlight, woo

Atop a white base, I sponged a gradient of three Orly polishes: Fresh (green), Blue Collar (blue), and Frolic (fuchsia). I wish I'd gotten a photo of the gradient alone! It turned out nicely. But I couldn't leave it alone, so I stamped the tartan pattern from Mash plate 39 with both white and black Konad stamping polishes.

I didn't really want to add the flower decal, but I messed up the stamping a little on that finger... so I hid the wonky bit. It's actually not a decal--it's part of one of those sheets of stick-on gems for mobile phones. Cheap and pretty!

Topcoated with Seche Vite, as usual.

Indoors with flash

Outdoors in shade

I love the look! But I also kind of wish I hadn't added quite so much over the gradient. What do you think?

See you tomorrow for day 11! xoxo

Acid Zebra Vacation Nails

Hello, beautiful!

I just spent an incredible weekend in Melbourne! I hadn't been there before, but I'm absolutely addicted to travelling and seeing new places. It was great! I saw Little Penguins, and went to the top of the tallest building in the southern hemisphere, and went to cute little bars and cafes to my heart's content. I might move there next! It's brilliant.

Naturally, I wanted some cute nails for my trip.

You guys know I love rainbows :D so here's my take on the Acid Zebra look!

Spider-Man Nails -- The Lacquer Legion Does Fandom!

G'day, boys and girls! It's time for another Lacquer Legion themed collaboration! This month, we celebrate the things in life we geek out for! TV shows, movies, sports teams, celebrities, comic books, you name it! Whatever you pay to go see, whatever you get excited about, whatever you have posters and T-shirts and collectible tributes to--put it on your nails!

I actually had to think a bit for this. I don't really watch TV, and I've already done manis celebrating my favourite sports teams, movie, book... what to do? Oh, comic books! My two favourites are Iron Man and the Amazing Spider-Man. As you cleverly ascertained from the title of this post, I went with the latter :D

Amor en Buenos Aires

Hiya! Today I have a quick mani using two Soulstice Spa polishes and a bit of acrylic paint.

Nail Wheels for Art Show [pic-heavy!]

Hiya! Today's post will be a first for this blog, and I'm pretty excited about it! But first... *tosses hair* notice anything different? Hehe :) I've been playing with the blog layout and background. I love the blue glitter, and I think the lighter body colour in here will make the pics look better. What do you think?

Okay... *deep breath* here goes!
Last November, the office where I worked held an art show/craft fair. Quite a few of us have artistic hobbies--one lady makes scarves, another does jewellery and metalwork, one of my friends makes the most beautiful soaps, lotions, body products, etc, and yet another friend paints on canvas. There are so many talented people there and it was so much fun!

My contribution was designing some sets of false nails (and sold four of them!), but I also made these nail wheels just for display, and I've wanted to show them to you for a while:

This is a REALLY picture-heavy post (I'm talking like, 15 in total) ... so the rest are after the jump!

Red, Black, & White Party Skittlette*

*with apologies to Marta for the name!

Hiya! I went to a party this weekend, and wore a black top with red, black, and white shoes and accessories. It was the perfect occasion to match my nails to my outfit, so...

...I did :D

The feathery thing you see me holding here is the headband I wore! It has a black band that disappears in my dark hair, so you just see the cool red feather. Très chic, in my ever-humble opinion ;)

But right, you came here for the nails! I'll just go down the list...

Index finger: China Glaze Adventure Red-y & Wet 'N Wild Black Creme, topped with NYC Matte Me Crazy. This matte is actually more of a wax-finish topcoat, and reminds me of Cult Nails Wax That.

Middle and ring fingers: Two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (nice off-white creme), stamped with Konad black and Bundle Monster plate BM-016. The centre of each flower has one individual glitter from Milani Jewel FX Red, except the biggest flowers, which have a small red rhinestone.

Small finger: Base of China Glaze Adventure Red-y, then several sponged coats of the aforementioned Milani red glitter. Not really sure how many coats--maybe 3?--I just went until I felt it was thoroughly covered.

Thumb: Same as the middle and ring fingers, but with Wet 'N Wild Black Creme covering half the design, just for some visual interest :)

All topcoated with KBShimmer Clearly On Top (except for the matte-ified one, of course).

I was kicking myself for not picking up the new Cult Nails Passionate Dreams collection while it was on pre-sale, because Kiss (a lovely red with a wax finish) is SO pretty. However, this NYC matte topcoat with some of my medium reds seems to mimic the effect quite well! I think the red I used here is too dark, but others I played with (Revlon Red, for example) was pretty much dead on.

The different finish of the index nail shows up well here.

One more in the sun. :)

Glitters are so hard to photograph! I wish the sparkle and glow of the small nail had come through in any of the pictures. In real life it's very dynamic and looks like Dorothy's shoes in the Wizard of Oz.

Anyway, that's all for today. As always, I hope you enjoyed this post. Thanks for reading today, and I'll see you soon! xoxo

Coffee Love Swirls

Hello boys and girls :)

Before we get into the nail art, I have one quick announcement--I have finally gotten around to registering my own domain for the blog! You may have noticed the redirect. *points to your address bar* See? :D

I am still happy to be hosting with Blogger, but the URL is now http://www.glittericity.com  :)  feel free to update your bookmarks, although the blogspot address will redirect here as well. I'll be updating my watermark next time I edit photos to match the new site!

Today I have a quick design for you from the vault--I am enjoying my previous mani so much (and it's staying on so well!) that I haven't taken it off yet. But here is a design I wore a month or so ago, featuring Layla Coffee Love (which I've shown off before!) and some simple stamping.

yep, we are back to holos :D

I used Konad black stamping polish and Mash plate 40 for the swirls. Topcoat is Orly Sec N' Dry.

You can see how the image wasn't quite big enough for the nail, and I had to try and fill in the gap on my middle nail. Kind of failed. Oopsie :)

Coffee Love is such a pretty polish!

Just a quick post today, but I hope you liked this combination. Thanks for checking out my blog today! Stay tuned for more tomorrow :) xoxo

Elegant Gold Tips with Black & White Flowers

Hello beautiful ladies and dapper gentlemen! I hope you're having a nice week so far. I think I'm adjusting to this hot weather, and my "nail polish room" is finally coming together, so mine is going fairly well!

Today I have a simple, elegant, refined look for you--some gold tips with flowers I made using the "plastic bag decal" method:

Before adding any colour, I used a new base coat I haven't really tried before, but have already decided will be my go-to as the base for French tip designs, or any where bare nail is showing. It is Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps. I don't normally use base coats labelled as 'hardeners'--I have strong enough nails thanks to biotin!--opting instead for Seche Retain or other ones that focus on holding in moisture for strong yet flexible nails. However, this one is great for occasional use, for me personally at least. The consistency is a bit thicker than regular polish, kind of halfway between a polish and a gel, but it dries quickly and SO shiny and 'juicy'.

I then used two coats of my favourite ever gold polish, OPI Goldeneye, for the tips. Can't say enough about this polish. B-E-A-youtiful!

For the flowers, I finally tried the "plastic bag DIY decal" method. There are many tutorials for this online which a quick Google search will bring up for you, so I won't go into much detail here, but you watch one of my favourite YouTubers show you all about it here if you like! And if you can't watch a video, Marta shows you how with a picture tutorial here, only she uses a nail stamper instead of a plastic bag. This method is ideal if you just want to do one or two decals for accents :D

Basically, I stamped the hibiscus flowers from Konad plate m29 onto my Ziploc bag with Konad white special polish, then filled in the flower with black paint and the leaves with a bit of green. Once that all dried, I added a layer of topcoat over it, let it dry completely, and peeled the 'decals' off to attach to the nail with another layer of clearcoat. And once that dries, one more coat seals it in and makes it smooth and ultra-shiny. (KBShimmer Clearly on Top, by the way.)

See? Ultra shiny!

I am in love with this method already. I can't believe I never really played with it before. It's such an easy way to get a gorgeous and personalised decal, and to use multiple colours with a stamped image. You can also freehand your own patterns with a brush or dotting tool, and you can even pre-make them in advance so they are dried and ready when you decide to change your manicure!

Indoors with flash you get more of that rich glimmery gold <3

And one more. I added a single gold glitter from Born Pretty Store over the centre of the flower on the thumbnail, but decided I didn't really like it, so didn't carry it over to the rest.

As always, I hope you enjoyed this one; I am certainly enjoying wearing them. They're so bright and shiny in the sun :) Have a wonderful hump day and rest of your week, and I'll see you next time! xoxo

Lacquer Lust Birthstone Swatches: Tanzanite, Peridot, and Diamond

Hello hello! Today I'll be sharing with you three of the new Lacquer Lust Birthstone Collection polishes! These babies went on sale a couple of week ago and sold out within the hour, but yours truly took a late lunch and sat there refreshing like a madwoman at work, just waiting... and managed to get the three I wanted!

Unfortunately, one was lost in a tragic accident during swatching :( I'm absolutely gutted. I've never dropped and broken one of my polishes before, and of course the one time I do, it's a rare, irreplaceable, and gorgeous shade. But I did get a few pics beforehand.

This is a super picture-heavy post, so I added a page break. Click the jump to see the swatches!

Easter Egg Skittle Nails: Easter Nail Design #2

Hello lovelies! Super quick post today! I'm heading to the beach for the weekend! I am creating a really special manicure for this trip, one I have been wanting to do for a while. I collected some materials last year and with the release of the new Zoya Pixie Dust shades, I have everything I need to make it amazing! That's all I'll say for now ;) you'll have to wait and see. For now, have a look at the easter-egg nails I wore this week!

Do they look like multicoloured eggs? :)

I used lots of polishes and stamps for this, obviously. Let's go down the list!

Thumb: Base colour is Orly Snowcone. Stamping is from Bundle Monster plate BM-302 in Konad white and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri #220 Flashy Fuschia. Grass painted on with a small brush and Orly Fresh.

Index finger: Base of Zoya Jolene. Stamping with Bundle Monster plate BM-323 in Sally Hansen Insta-Dri #230 Silver Sweep.

Middle finger: Base of Sinful Colors #947 Mint Apple. Stamping with Bundle Monster plate BM-314 in Konad white .

Ring finger: Base of Revlon #325 Gumdrop (scented polish!). Stamping with Mash plate 43 in OPI Gift Cards For Everyone.

Small finger: Base of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear #360 Mellow Yellow. Stamping with Mash plate 45 and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri #220 Flashy Fuschia.

As you can see, the stamping wasn't perfect :( small and ring fingers smudged near the tip... But I still thought these were cute and I had a lot of fun wearing them.

Close-up of the bunny on the thumb. Isn't he just precious? :D

Have a fun, safe, and happy Easter. See you next week! xoxo

Fishnets & Flowers

Hello again! I have a bit of a fancy design to show you today!

SHINY! :D

Yay! I know I always say this, but srsly u gais I loooove this mani :D

I started with two coats of the polish you see in the photo--Sally Hansen Diamond Strength #150 Glass Slipper. It's a clearish base with tiny tiny tiny silver microglitter and then those lovely white-silver flakes! Most of the polishes like this have iridescent flakies, which are also beautiful, but the pure shimmery white of these really caught my eye. It reminds me of like, angel wings :D

Anyway, after that was dry, I stamped the fishnet pattern from Konad plate m57 across the tips with black Konad special polish, and added the strip across the tip with my black Stripe Rite striper polish. I was pleased with how this looked like fishnet stockings. Racy! I used white Konad special polish to add the pretty flowers from Mash plate 43, and then put some tiny rhinestones in the centres (duh... I guess you can see that, eh?) to make them super-fabulous. Careful topcoat of Seche Vite, and, voilá!

less shiny, more.. details.

I was playing Xbox with my super sweet blue Afterglow controller and got a few fun pics with it too. I liked them, so I'm putting them here:

with flash, covering most of the blue glow

in the dark, with the blue glowing through them! I love this one xD

Well, that's all for now I suppose. Gotta go make something interesting of my Friday night--it's still young! See you all next time xoxo

Black & White Roses

Good day, my friends! Today will be a quick post to show off a simple reverse-colour stamping mani I wore a couple of weeks ago. I was debating whether to write about this one--the photos aren't great and the topcoat smudged them so badly I had to throw those pics out. It looked much nicer in person, but in macro photos it was just dreadful. However, the overall effect was really pretty, I think:

(wide image--click to enlarge)

Black and white roses! I wanted to do an "inverted" mani where the colours are reversed from one hand to the next, so I grabbed two Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear polishes--Black Out and White On--and painted each hand one colour (black on the left, white on the right, in case anyone cares). I then stamped the roses from Bundle Monster plate BM-323 with the coordinating Konad special polishes. I got some close-up pics before and after topcoating, but as I mentioned earlier, I only have the "before" pics for you today.

The white roses on black. This was the one I liked better, although it was close--they were both really pretty!

And the black roses on white. The rarely-seen right hand, including my poor broken index nail D:

Despite the topcoat-smudging I did wear them for a few days, mostly because I really liked the effect (and like I said, it wasn't nearly so bad from a normal distance).

I think I'm finally getting better with stamping full nail images :D I really like these roses.
Anyway, that's all for today. See you next time! xoxo

From The Vault #4: Longing for Summer

Hallo friends! It's Super Bowl Sunday! I should have done a football-inspired mani, but alas, I just couldn't think of anything that really did it for me. I ended up wearing a simple black-and-white stamped design today, which I will show you later. But for now, I am pulling out a couple looks from my old photos to show you! I decided on "summer" for this theme, since I find myself wishing for warmer weather today.

As always, I apologise in advance for the picture quality. My camera and picture-taking skills back then were a bit... lacking.

Under the sea, la la la la, under the sea...!

I did these immediately after my last trip to Germany, where I got to go to an Essence store and snag lots of goodies! The base colour is one of them--it's Essence Colour & Go #38 Choose Me! and it's amazing. It's a very sparkly teal with silver shimmer as well. It's lovely, and reminded me of the sparkling blue ocean, so I used white Konad special stamping polish and all the fishies from Konad plate M27 to add the design! After that, I used a random white polish and a dotting tool to add the big dots for bubbles, and dotted back over them with Choose Me! to make them look more bubbly. Over the white it was slightly translucent and gave them a really cool 3D look. :D

om nom nom

And second, the classic watermelon nail design! I can't entirely remember which polishes were used here, but I'm pretty sure it was China Glaze Ruby Pumps for the red, Zoya Ivanka for the dark green, and Orly Fresh for the light green stripes. Standard black and white polishes (can never remember which ones, but they're all pretty much the same) for the other details :)

I love glittery and shimmery polishes all year round, but they look extra-nice in the summer sun. I have several months to go before I can enjoy that again, but maybe you viewers in the southern hemisphere can find some inspiration! Have a good week everyone xoxo

Sexy Santa Nails :D

Hi friends! Man, I cannot believe how quickly December is flying by. Christmas will be here before we know it! So much more shopping and baking to do... And of course, so many more holiday manis! Here's an idea that's certainly not terribly original--I've seen variations of it by many ladies, most recently Robin Moses (a total genius, by the way, she is a true artist in every sense of the word, canvas or otherwise!)--but I wanted to give it a try myself. So without further ado... my sexy Santa nails!

If the sleigh's a rockin', don't come a knockin'?

This look was fairly easy to create, and it was my first attempt at using acrylic paint in a nail design. Can't even tell, can ya? I started with a coat of OPI You Callin' Me A Lyre?, which is a very sheer pink. My natural nails aren't too stained--I am very diligent about using good basecoats--but I wanted to make them just a little pinker for this design instead of starting bare. I stamped the fishnets from everyone's favourite Konad plate, m57, with Sally Hansen Silver Sweep.

Next, I used a small paint brush and some red acrylic paint from Garden Ridge (just their store brand, pretty basic) to add the chevron french tips. It was easier to control and get crisp lines this way than by using the brush that comes with nail polish bottles. I gotta do this more--but red nail polish would work just fine too. The white dots are Ulta Snow White and were added with a dotting tool. (In real life, that red line doesn't show through nearly as much--weird lighting with the flash, I guess!) Last, of course, sealed it all in with Seche Vite. I used two coats to help the acrylic paint stay on longer--it would wash right off without a good layer of topcoat.

Posing with le Santa hat :D I like my nails this length--hopefully I can keep them this way for a while without any incidents! *touches wood*

Ho ho ho, indeed. Santa's got a reason to come to town now. Stay sexy, y'all! xoxo