The Lacquer Ring: Under The Sea

Purchased By Shelby Lou

Today is another fun and exciting prompt for The Lacquer Ring which is "Under The Sea." I had some ideas planned out..... but then I came home on Wednesday (why yes, I do like to wait until the last minute\) and my OPI Color Paints had arrived! Of course I needed to play with them immediately. I went with the blue and greens and decided to sandwich some stamping for the ultimate deep-sea look. So here is my first go nail arting with these fantastical jelly nail paints!

Shelby Lou Nails
The Lacquer Ring: Under The Sea
OPI Color Paints: Indigo Motif, Turquoise Aesthetic, & Landscape Artist
MoYou London Sailor 05 & Rica Whiteout
INM Northern Lights
(lightbox)

For this mani I started with a base of OPI This Gown Needs A Crown. Using little 1/4 chunks of torn make-up sponge held with tweezers, I dabbled on two layers of OPI Indigo Motif, OPI Turquoise Asthetic, and OPI Lanscape Artist. Over that layer I stamped an image from MoYou London Sailor 05 (I love this plate!) with Rica Whiteout and my Creative Shop Stamper. I dabbled on a third and fourth layer of the same OPI colors. And then I may or may not have topped everything off with INM Northern Lights.

Shelby Lou Nails
The Lacquer Ring: Under The Sea
OPI Color Paints: Indigo Motif, Turquoise Aesthetic, & Landscape Artist
MoYou London Sailor 05 & Rica Whiteout
INM Northern Lights
(with flash)

I love this look so hard. It's got this motion to it like currents in the sea and it's all chaotic and murky but bright--just how I imagine being under the sea would be. I can't even get over how amazing the OPI Color Paints are. I just whipped this up having never used them before. I can see a lot of people at all stages of nail art abilities having fun and being successful with them. So if you have been on the fence (like I was) just give in. I can't wait to play some more with them!

You can check out a macro of this mani on my instagram here!

Check out the other deep-sea inspired manis from the other ladies in The Lacquer Ring! Have you loved your cuticles today?

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping Saturday: Soft Swirls

Purchased By Shelby Lou

I survived this last week of work being two people--go me! I only worked like 3 hours overtime and my husband said I wasn't a psycho when I got home and everything. Plus this will be my third post this week. I feel like such a winner. Except that I slept in way too late today. Anyway, it's been awhile since I did a Stamping Saturday. For today's edition I have a lovely soft look using mostly KBShimmer polishes. KBShimmer just released a ginormous summer collection that I have been drooling over. I'm actually so overwhelmed with trying to pick what I really want and need that I haven't ordered yet. But I do know I need some of their new mani bombs!

I started with KBShimmer Meow Or Never on my thumb, index, and middle fingers. Meow Or Never has all soft shades of grays, blues, purples, and white glitters. Fabulous formula as always, I did just three thin coats and no placement of glitter. On my ring and pinky I did KBShimmer Hugs And Wishes, the most perfect Lavender creme ever and just three thin coats.

Shelby Lou Nails
Stamping Saturday
Soft Swirls
KBShimmer Meow Or Never, Hugs And Wishes, Eyes White Open
Vivid Lacquer VL 022, INM Northern Lights
Without Flash

For my stamping I used an image from Vivid Lacquer VL022 with KBShimmer Eyes White Open. Eyes White Open is a really nice soft white, not too bright or blue and not too gray. I must use it more for stamping, it was good!

Shelby Lou Nails
Stamping Saturday
Soft Swirls
KBShimmer Meow Or Never, Hugs And Wishes, Eyes White Open
Vivid Lacquer VL 022, INM Northern Lights
Without Flash

Meow Or Never has a lovely dusting a holo so I used some INM Northern Lights over my stamping. I feel like it overpowered that in Meow Or Never, but ah well, there it is.

Shelby Lou Nails
Stamping Saturday
Soft Swirls
KBShimmer Meow Or Never, Hugs And Wishes, Eyes White Open
Vivid Lacquer VL 022, INM Northern Lights
With Flash

Products:
KBShimmer

Have you loved your cuticles today?


get the InLinkz code

An InLinkz Link-up

You Polish Dolphins Tell No Tales

Omg Dolphins! I can be such a novelty whore. Once I pulled my sh!t together I decided I really only needed one dolphin polish. Because dolphins... but how often can I wear dolphins? I chose You Polish Dolphins Tell No Tales. It is described by You Polish as "A matte, iridescent, and holographic mix of blue, teal, turquoise and green with silver holographic DOLPHINS!"

You Polish Dolphins Tell No Tales
Shelby Lou Nails

I tried DTNT over a light color first and I really hated it... it just looked like glitter vomit, in a bad way. So I went for the darker color and hello! Gorgeous. All the glitters are displayed for your viewing pleasure. I decided to really go for the novelty and do some nautical stamping and studs.

You Polish Dolphins Tell No Tales
Shelby Lou Nails

I found for me doing a thinner coat of the DTNT and dabbing my dolphins was better than dabbing a big glob on my nail and smooshing it around. There's a lot going on and the base is packed, which is good! I did add some thinner to mine, but I really think it's because I am thinner-happy anyway.

Here's the other polishes and stuffs I used for this mani. I hope this gives you ideas on how to mix all your stash items together for a look!
China Glaze Man Hunt
You Polish Dolphins Tell No Tales
MoYou London Sailor 05
Pure Ice Silver Star
INM Northern Lights holographic TC

You Polish Dolphins Tell No Tales
Shelby Lou Nails

Overall I think this version of the dolphins is about as sophisticated as dolphins can get. I can also use it and keep the dolphins off my nails if I was so inclined. I like having a cutesy polish for the rare occasions I have need of it, but unless you are an avid dolphin collector or lover you might not need more than one. Okay maybe two because I had a hard time leaving Dolphins Are A Mermaids Best Friend out of my cart... I think I might keep a small decant of DTNT and give most of the bottle to my dolphin-and-general-animal-lover little cousin. The dolphins might be too big for her dainty nails but we shall see. Anyone else succumb to the power of the dolphins?

Products:
You Polish

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Girly Bits Perry-twinkle & Messy Mansion Scales

Ok, I am getting back on track with blogging. Promise. Ha! Everything seems to be going so friggity-friggin' crazy for me right now so hopefully that stops soon. Also, I can't stop saying frggity-friggin'. Try it, I bet you'll like it ;-)
If you haven't already make sure you enter the giveaway I am hosting with six amazing bloggers. Seriously, I love these girls! You can get the rafflecopter link to the Spring Spectacular Giveaway here.

Today I have Girly Bits Perry-twinkle. I fell in love with Girly Bits from the March A Box, Indied and was so excited to see they had another one coming in the April edition. Perry-twinkle is a periwinkle holographic polish with pink shimmer. I can't have my holos without the colored shimmer now. The formula is perfect, I used three thin coats for my swatch.

Girly Bits
Perry-twinkle
A Box, Indied Exclusive

I took the photo of the swatch after I had worn it for a day at work. I've been wearing this since Sunday night and I still have no chips, so decided to refresh Perry-twinkle because it was too beautiful to take off. I used Messy Mansion MM21 and Sally Hansen Insta-dri in Silver Sweep. And, because why only go halfway when you can go all the way, then I added INM Northern Lights.

Girly Bits Perry-twinkle
Stamped with Messy Mansion MM21 & Sally Hansen Silver Sweep
Topcoated with INM Northern Lights

Remember The Rainbow Fish? I feel like I have magical fishy nails!

Girly Bits Perry-twinkle
Stamped with Messy Mansion MM21 & Sally Hansen Silver Sweep
Topcoated with INM Northern Lights

Products:
Girly Bits
Messy Mansion
Llarowe

Have you loved your cuticles today?

Warm Winter Flakes

Hello out there! I apologize for my absence this past week, sometimes life just gets in the way. Anyway I have a bunch of things lined up for this week, I promise.

I thought it was about time I got some winter going (it's snowed quite a few times in my neck of the woods already). I had on Essie Warm & Toasty Turtleneck from this year's Winter collection, which is very work appropriate but still fun. I decided to stamp it with snowflakes even though my first impulse is to only make blue and white flakes.... I like the snowflakes over the warmer color very much though!

I did the snowflakes using Vivid Lacquer 006. I was initially having some problems getting the image to transfer onto my stamping. Usually I dab a line of polish on one side of the image and then scrap it across to fill in the design. After some experimentation I realized I had to dab the polish over the whole image and then scrape--this made sure all the fine lines were filled in. No problems after that!

I topped this mani with INM Northern Lights. Here's where I messed up... WHY did I not seal the image with HK Girl?! I know I mess around with my polish too much and INM was just a nail art-smudging nightmare. I messed up my ring finger the worst. So after a little swearing, I decided to leave it. I try to balance my inner perfectionist and not let it suck all the fun out of nails.

Purple flakes, yay or nay?
My cuticles are looking less than stellar after a week at work which is dry dry dry. Remember to moisturize!