Stamping: Old Man Pants

I'm not sure, but this could be a total fail here gals.... all I can think of is Old Man Pants. I'm pretty sure my Uncle Butch had a pair of pants in this color and pattern. My husband was also oddly fond of buying plaid old man pants from thrift stores when we were in college and he might have had a pair in brown with pale blue stripes.

Anyway, I just received Essie Parka Perfect from the Winter 2013: Shearling Darling collection. Such a pretty yet understated blue, love! I think it is more gray in real life than it is showing in my photos, but screen settings differ so much I try not to mess with the colors.
After a day of wear I decided to do some stamping and thought about snowflakes or polka dots, something wintery, right? Well then I saw Vivid Lacquer plate 001 and Mentality Prim in my stamping box... this is what happened:

Mentality Prim is a beautiful deep brown stamping holo from Mentality. I don't know how Mentality stays in business because their polishes are such high quality and yet inexpensive! Their stampers are unique, beautiful, and flawless.

As I am sure you remember, Vivid Lacquer makes my favorite stamping plates ever. I found for this image it helped to brush the polish on up and down then left to right to fill in the lines.

I'd really like to point out that this stamping is NOT perfect. I fudged camera angles to make my lines look more straight than they really are. This is my first attempt at straight line stamping--it's hard. But is it good enough to enjoy? Hell yes! Not every mani has to be perfectly executed to be fun. I think it's easy for us nailphiles to look at the top bloggers and feel nail envy (Will Paint Nails For Food--I'm looking at you!). Get inspired by them but have fun, don't be afraid to experiment, and when you have a total fail just take it off and slap on a holo :-)

You can purchase Vivid Lacquer here.
You can purchase Mentality Nail Polish here.
Essie is available just about anywhere and winter polishes are available now.

Any questions, comments, rude remarks about my old man pants?
Remember, moisturized cuticles make any skill level look lovely :-)

CrowToes: Shoot The Butterfly

Posting will get back to normal next week while I'm focusing on getting my life back in order before starting my new job Monday (!). I was telling my husband my cleaning plan for my week off and he decided I shouldn't kill my back, which I admit I would not have been able to move at the end of each day. Anyway, he found a great deal on a cleaning service and they cleaned my house top to bottom, light fixtures to baseboards, moved furniture, and even cleaned the INSIDE of the microwave which was horror-movie scary (I had a latte explosion that morning and I kind of left it for the cleaners... I tipped them very well, don't worry). I suppose the house will need cleaning again in a week though *sigh*

Anyway, onward! I have a stunner to show you today, CrowsToes Shoot The Butterfly from this past summer collection One Mad Crazy Summer. It is a beautiful interpretation of a monarch butterfly for your nails. Shoot The Butterfly is a black jelly with orange metallic glitters along with small matte white and holographic glitters. Alas, the holo glitters were the only shy part of this polish in my photos.

I used just one coat of Shoot The Butterfly over a black creme for this mani. While it came out this summer I think it is a gorgeous fall polish, don't you? I couldn't believe the amount of glitter in each stroke and it applied so easily, I only dabbed and smooshed in a few places.

I topped it with two coats of KBShimmer Clearly On Top, which to me is like the Seche of the indie world only better. It's not as stinky, doesn't get gloopy, and is like glass on top of your mani.

This was one of those polishes that got noticed by all kinds of people. It also photographed perfectly--if you take pictures of your manis you will know what I mean, every picture was dead-on!

You can purchase CrowsToes from Llarowe or visit CrowsToes website for more stockists. Llarowe is having a restock Saturday the 16th and Shoot The Butterfly is currently in stock!

Have you tried CrowsToes? I have a few colors by them and I love how unique their polishes are!

Remember to moisturize :-)

Hare Polish for Fall 2013: The Coin Operation

I just wanted to write a quick note that my first giveaway is over, the winner has been notified and the prize sent! Thank you to everyone who took a look and decided to stick with me, it means so much :-)

How is it that my week off has become so busy? While I have been getting a lot done, unfortunately nails are not one of them. So I looked into my photos to see if I had any nail art to share and I found some Hare stuff I did in September, yay! I literally own every HARE polish, I can't get enough of what Nikole does! And also bunnies. I did these before officially blogging so I don't remember all the specifics and I think my color-adjusting was off.... I also think I ended up having to pull the green-blue one off of Pinterest because I lost it, too, so photo quality isn't the greatest. But I still love these manis and think they are fairly easy concepts for most people to try or get inspired from.

The polishes I used in today's nail art are from The Coin Operation. All of these beautiful polishes have "flakies of gold and silvery white" (in Nikole's words). These all have excellent formula and coverage, paint carefully though because the flakies can be tough to clean up.

Peepshow Magique & Test Your Love!

Peepshow Magique is a baby pink and Test Your Love! is a bright raspberry pink, both have the lovely gold and silvery flakies. I used a basecoat of a pale pink creme and painted Peepshow on, then sponged Love! closer to my tips with a cosmetic sponge. Love! isn't as bright as alone but I liked the look. I decided to go crazy and add gold studs, too.

So remember how I said earlier flakies can be tough to clean up? Yeah, I had flakie herpes BAD when I was done. I photographed these the next evening after clean-up, showering, and gently scrubbing to get the flakies off. I even used an Elmer's shield around my cuticles. So yeah, won't be doing that again, but isn't the gradient beautiful? If you are afraid to try gradients practice on paper to get the feel of it first. I use cheap-o sponges from Wal-Mart that I cut in half and then cut into even more smaller triangles.... I'll have to take a picture for a future gradient post.

Read My Biorhythm & Zoltar Speaks

Read My Biorhythm is a grass green jelly and Zoltar Speaks is a teal-leaning blue jelly, again both with the gold and silvery flakies. This was my favorite look, and possibly one of my favorite manis of all time.

Index: Read My Biorhythm with pale gold studs
Middle, Thumb (not shown): Read My Biorhythm
Ring: Zoltar Speaks, stamping with Vivid Lacquer plate VL005 and Revlon Gold Coin
Pinky: Revlon Gold Coin
I never tire of skittles--quick, easy, and high-impact!

I also noticed I used different hands for each set of photos. Some days the right hand somehow turns out better than the left, weird! I hope some of you feel inspired to try some nail art looks with indie polishes. If you come up with anything inspired from these manis post them on my facebook wall :-)
Have you loved your cuticles today?