The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Tomorrow is the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and I am so excited so I wanted to do some nails for the occasion. I used A England Perceval on my thumb, index and ring finger. On my middle and pinky finger I used A England Tristam. I stamped spider webs using Vivid Lacquer VL013 and Sally Hansen Insta-dri in Silver Sweep. I stamped Spider-Man's face on my index using Fab Ur Nails plate Fun11. On my ring finger I stamped a spider with Shany SH206. The spider had a cross on it's back but I filled it in with black and then added a blue rhinestone.

Powerpuff Girls

So when I set down to do my nails today I didn't have the intent of doing Powerpuff Girls nails but when I was searching my Fab Ur Nails plate Fun 11 the idea just hit me. I love the Powerpuff Girls so I knew I just had to try to get the idea down on my nails and thankfully it worked out just how I pictured it. I used so many polishes that I will just list them at the end of the post.

The first thing I did was make the stamping decals with three different stampers. I used the images of the Powerpuff Girl faces from Fun11 and stamped them in black. I filled them in using nail polish and a dotting tool. As I waited for them to dry I worked on my nails. I painted my index, middle, and ring finger in the light colors of blue, pink, and green respectively and then stamping in a darker version of each of the colors using Winstonia W111 to add a sunburst type pattern. My pinky I painted with one coat of white to prepare for an entire nail stamping decal.  I chose to Mash 56 to make a stamping nail for my pinky to make it look like the color trails that is left behind when they Powerpuff Girls fly through the sky. Working one nail at a time I applied a layer of topcoat, let it dry for about a minute, then rolled on the stamping decal of the Powerpuff Girl face into the center of the sunburst. I did the same for the full nail image on the pinky. I topcoated it all with Seche Vite.

Polishes used for Bubbles: Sally Hansen Insta Dri- Blue-Away and Blue Streak, OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana, Zoya Chantal. Blossom: Cult Nails Falling Hard, Zoya Lara, Arizona, and Chantal, and Sinful Colors Picante. Buttercup: Sinful Colors Olympia, Zoya Josie and Chantal. I used Cult Nails Nevermore for the black on all the nails. The pinky nail has Zoya Josie, Sally Hansen Blue-Away, and Cult Nails Falling Hard.

Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetle......

Beetlejuice is one of my all time favorite movies!!! I do realize that his actual name is spelled something like Betelgeuse but that is just pretty strange and since the title of the movie is actually
Beetlejuice I am just going to go with that. Anyways...I'm pretty sure most people are very familiar with this movie since it is pretty much a classic at this point. I recently got a Mundo de Unas plate with images from the Beetlejuice cartoon on it and decided I just needed to do something with it immediately. I tried to keep it pretty simple but I am still loving how it turned out. I started off with a base of white using Cult Nails Tempest on all my nails. On every nail but the ring finger I stamped stripes using Bundle Monster 411 in black using Cult Nails Nevermore. I wanted to make those nails a little distressed so I did a rough scrape and let the image sit a little longer so parts wouldn't transfer. I also added matte top coat right after stamping know that it would help smear the polish. I wanted to create a contrast with the matte so I added Cult Nails Deal With It in drips on the tips and left them gloss. On my ring finger I sponged some of Deal With It on the tip and then I stamped the Beetlejuice logo using Mundo de Unas Handy plate H2.

Nail Art for Nubs Monday: Seahorse

This weekend I had so much fun playing around with all my new toys aka polish and plates. Whenever I get a new Cult Nails collection I am always super excited and I also got my first Messy Mansion plates this week. I already had on Cult Nails Intriguing and when I asked my friend what I should stamp she said something ocean themed. The first thing that came to mind was the waves pattern on Messy Mansion MM29. I chose Cult Nails Wack Slacks to stamp the waves with. For my accent finger I wanted to use the seahorse image. I decided to make a stamping decal that I filled in with Cult Nails Casual Elegance. I topped it off with Seche Vite and then I decided to matte it with Butter London matte top coat.

The Walking Dead

Today I want to share my nails that I did for the season finale of The Walking Dead. OMG was that an intense season finale or what!!!! I'm already going through some zombie withdrawal and October is sooooo far away! It's a good thing the unofficial start to the summer movie season kicked off this weekend with Captain America 2 being released. Starting now I will pretty much be living at the movies for the next four months. Gotta love a good distraction!

On my thumb I started with a base of Cult Nails Grunge and then created a gradient with Grunge, Zoya Normani, and Zoya Noot. I added a skyline using Bundle Monster 414 and then some blood spatter with Cult Nails Kiss.

On the index and middle finger I used a base of Zoya Normani and then did the saran wrap method with Zoya Kelly. Next I added some blood spatter using Cult Nails Kiss and Vivid Lacquer plate VL018. On my index finger I wanted zombies but the only image I had with people was disco people from Winstonia 216. I had to improvise a little so wiped away and pointed up hands in that classic disco pose and some of the bellbottoms. I then roughed them up a little more with some black acrylic paint and then some blood spatter.

On my middle finger I wanted something Daryl Dixon since he was a huge part of the show for the second part of the season. The only guy I had with a bow was a native American Indian from Winstonia 213 so again I had to improvise. I colored in the headband and stripe down his pants with black and removed the feathered headdress. I smudged it some more with black acrylic and added some more blood spatter.

My ring finger I did a base of Pretty Serious Gruesome Groom and added some zombie hands with Bundle Monster H08. My pinky was a reference to one of the most shocking episodes of the season and Carol telling Lizzie to just look at the flowers. I used a base of Zoya Caitlin and added spatter again using VL018. I then stamped a flower using Winstonia 212 and finished with just a few more dots of red from Cult Nails Kiss.

I started off shiny by adding a top coat of Seche Vite but in the end went matte because it just added to the gritty feel of The Walking Dead.

Cult Nails - Intriguing

The Casual Elegance collection was originally intended to be released in February but ended up coming out in March. I actually won my set in a nail contest from Cult Nails and just received it this weekend so thank you so much Cult Nails!!!!! I actually think this is the perfect collection for March/April. The color I had to try first just completely embodies April showers perfectly! We have been having rain pretty much all week which I love but I am so glad the sun decided to cooperate for me to get this amazing polish out in the sun. Just take a look at this bottle shot!!

Intriguing is a periwinkle blue holograhpic that reminds me of an April sky right before the downpour. I mean come on it even has a rainbow just like an April shower! The color of this polish really does vary though depending on the lighting. So far I have seen it range from a greyish blue to baby blue and then to periwinkle. The holographic effect is not as strong on the nail as it is in the bottle. It is much more subtle on the nail but I actually like that about this. The formula on Intriguing was great and I only needed two coats. Clean up was a breeze because of the formula I didn't have any flooding of the cuticles. I topped it off with one coat of Cult Nails Wicked Fast top coat.

Watercolor Sugar Skulls

So I have been seeing manis everywhere of people making stamping decals with jelly type polishes or the new OPI Sheer Tints that just look amazing. They look like watercolor paintings on your nails. I was about two seconds from buying the Sheer Tints when someone said they would just make their own if they wanted them. This seriously intrigued me and I had to try making my own too.

 I started off with just my thumb because I had no confidence that I could get it to work. I have just barely got the hang of stamping decals so I felt like this was a little beyond my reach. To my shock it worked like a charm and I had created I think my favorite nail of all time!

The technique I used to create the sheer tints was to put down a large drop of top coat onto a nail plate and then mix it with a tiny dot of any polish color you want. Then you just have to mix it up and paint it inside your image. I just used an OPI topcoat I had sitting around that wasn't being loved and that I got for free. Yeah, I will end up using all of it now!! You could use any topcoat though. To mix and apply the polish to the image on the stamper I just used a dotting tool.

So with the sweet taste of success I went on to the other nails and created what I think just may be my favorite mani of all time!! If not my favorite easily top three. I used the same sugar skull on all my nails that came from Cheeky jumbo plate Viva Mexico.

This mani was a great way to test out a bunch of polish I haven't tried yet and the list is super long so bare with me!! There are a few in here that I have used like Cult Nails Tempest as my base but the majority were untried. Polishes used are: Pop Beauty Mint Magic, China Glaze What a Pansy, Grass is Lime Greener, Metro Pollen-tin, Zoya Yummy, Pippa, and Darcy, OPI Hey Baby, Color Club London Calling and Pardon My French, Cult Nails Party Time and Sinful Shine Mardis Gras and 24/7. I think that is all but my desk is literally covered in polish so sorry if I missed one!

Nail Art For Nubs: Blue Daisies

It's spring!! It's Spring! It's finally Spring!!! With a 50% chance of snow tonight and freezing temperatures. *womp* *womp* *womp* I did get to wear flip flops one day this week though so it's getting there just super slowly. This week I decided I wanted to put one of my favorite flowers that reminds me of spring on my nails. Daisies!!! More specifically I really really love blue daisies. Not sure if that is a real color they come in but I see them everywhere so that's what I'm going with. I also decided to push my comfort zone a little and actually paint the daisies and not stamp. I am so happy with the way they came out!!! I used two coats of OPI 4 In the Morning and then painted on the daisies using acrylic paints. Of course I had to try it out both shiny and matte. This one I definitely love matte more but both ways just make me so happy and even more excited for the rest of spring to finally show up.

Vivid Lacquer VL022

Today I thought I would do a little review on Vivid Lacquer plate VL022. Plate 22 is an Asian themed plate with Japanese cherry blossoms, ninja throwing stars, daggers, and nun-chucks, and dragons. One of my favorite things about Vivid Lacquer plates are all of the great variations of designs and sizes. The throwing stars come in multiple sizes and designs and the dragons also come in three different sizes from a small one to one that can span the size of several nails. There are also a couple of full size nail designs such as the dragon scale design.

For the mani I did using this plate I started with two coats of Smitten Polish Mintmallow. Next using Sinful Shine My Kyrptonite I stamped the dragon scales on all of my nails. I decided to use the largest dragon stamp and placed it across three nails from my index to ring finger using Mash black stamping polish. On my pinky I stamped a few throwing stars in black. Next I worked on my thumb and placed the smallest dragon in the middle. I decided to add cherry blossoms to the top and bottom as accents. I wanted to integrate more cherry blossoms into the design to tie it all together so I added some to my middle and index fingers. I topped everything with a coat of Seche Vite. Like always I had to add some matte top coat too. I really love it both ways!!!

VL022 is another amazing plate from Vivid Lacquer! This plate was super easy to use and I had zero issues picking up the image. Vivid Lacquer plates can be purchased from her Etsy store HERE.

Neon Dinos Inspired by NailStamp4Fun

Last week I saw this amazing manicure and tutorial by @NailStamp4Fun on IG that I fell in love with and knew immediately I had to do my best to recreate it. Retro neon dinosaurs?? Yes, please!The tutorial can be found HERE and you really need to check it out because it's just amazing! All of her work is just gorgeous!

I didn't have any of the the colors that she used so I had to improvise. The colors that I used are Color Club Pucci-licious (purple), Sinful Colors 24/7 (pink), Zoya Robyn (blue) and Zoya Mitzi (green). I painted two coats of each on the nails and then stamped the spiraled image with Winstonia 216 and Cult Nails Tempest. I top coated with Seche Vite and pulled out all my stampers and worked on the decals using Winstonia 220 while waiting for it to dry. Her tutorial is really great so I definitely recommend following closely to it. My main tip is going to be patience. Be patient for the decal to dry and to wait til the top coat is just barely tacky to the touch. If it's too wet your whole nail will smudge off. Trust me! I decided I wanted to make this design matte so I added a layer of Butter London matte top coat to finish it all off after that final coat of Seche Vite.

I am so ridiculously excited for how this turned out!!!!

Nail Art for Nubs Monday

Last night before I went to bed I decided to put on Zoya Stevie because I am so ready for spring and that is a perfect pixie for spring. All day I was thinking about what I wanted to stamp and for some reason octopus jumped to my mind. The octopus stamp from the Bundle Monster CYO set is probably one of my favorite images and I thought trying it over a pixie would be something different. I started off with three coats of Zoya Stevie and then used Bundle Monster plate 401 with MASH black stamping polish to create the octopus on my accent nails and then the tentacles on the rest of the nails.

When Pigs Fly!!

Today someone said to me the phrase "when pigs fly" and that had me thinking all day of how I wanted to put that on my nails somehow. I knew Winstonia's new set had a cute little piggy with wings that would be absolutely perfect. I started with a base of Cult Nails Nakizzle's Shizzle and stamped little clouds using Cult Nails Tempest and Mash plate 37. Next I made stamping decals using Winstonia plate 217. This is only my second time trying out the decal method but I am so happy with how it turned out this time compared to last. I am excited to try out decals again now. It's so rare for a design to turn out how you envisioned it exactly but this one did. This mani just makes me super happy and I hope it at least puts a little smile on your face too!

Nail Art for Nubs: Oscar Nails

I hadn't planned on doing nails for the Academy Awards but it just kinda fell into place that way. I was so excited for the Oscars this year though so I am really happy this worked out! I started off with three thin coats of OPI Love. Angel. Music. Baby which may be my new favorite gold polish. I will have swatches of that alone soon. Staring at it though and then looking through plates and stumbling upon my Vivid Lacquer plates, the idea really just hit me. I used Vivid Lacquer VL021 for all of my nails to create a black and gold hollywood movie themed mani. I stamped with Cult Nails Fetish which is a matte polish so I could keep a matte look without having to use any topcoat.

Smitten Polish Shamrock Shake

Today I have one of the new Smitten Polishes from their St. Patrick's Day collection called Shamrock Shake. This is my first Smitten but after this I am pretty sure I am going to need to go back for more. First of all this makes me want a shamrock shake just talking about it. I had one the other day and it so soooo good and got me even more excited for this to show up in the mail. Shamrock Shake is a minty green holo that applies perfectly in three thin coats. The formula is a great consistency not being too thick or thin. Like with all holographics they do dry quicker so you don't want to keep going over the same spot a bunch or it will drag. I didn't really have any issues with that. I was so excited that even though it was freezing today the sun came out so I was able to capture just how gorgeous this polish really is. I did use a topcoat of Seche Vite for the picture below.

Mariah Carey Pure 24k White Gold Topcoat

I purchased the Mariah Carey Pure 24K white gold and silver topcoat a few months ago when I found it at Ulta on clearance and it has seriously taken me this long to use it. I don't know why but something about real gold on my nails scared me like I would be wasting it or something. I wanted to add something over Rimmel's Barmy Blue and I honestly couldn't think of anything better than Pure. I am so glad I finally decided to use it because it is absolutely gorgeous! It isn't an over powering glitter topper but it is just the right amount of glitter. It has smaller flecks as well as some larger ones. I still feel like I am going to be sad when I wipe the REAL gold off with acetone and toss it in the trash like I am being wasteful or something but I gotta get over it because this polish is gorgeous and demands to be used again!

Rimmel Barmy Blue

Today I have one of the polishes from the new Rimmel line the Rimmel London Salon Pro with Lycra. They discontinued the square bottles and brought back their older type formula that has Lycra in it and in a really cute round bottle with the crown on top. The only one I was really drawn to was a gorgeous blue called Barmy Blue. Formula is great and this was just a two coater. The brush is a little bit on the wide side but was still pretty easy to control. Now the thing that really impressed me is that you can totally get away with not wearing topcoat because it dries so glossy. My pictures show this polish all on it's own with no topcoat. I really hope they expand this line soon because I need more of this formula because it is awesome!

Nail Art for Nubs Monday

So I missed last Monday and all of last week unfortunately and I apologize for that. I had a loss in my family this week and really needed a week away from basically the world. So I have something for today that is super simple and I am going to keep it short and sweet. The posts this week may be a little more short and too the point too so I apologize in advance.

For my base I used A England Briar Rose. I thought the only thing really fitting of that name was to stamp roses so I used Cici & Sisi plate 3 and MASH black stamping polish.

Dinos in Love

I don't know how this got stuck in my head but on Valentines day all I could think about was that I wanted dinosaur Vday nails. I think maybe it reminded me a little of the cheesy little valentines cards that you send when you are little. So I thought since the idea never went away this is what happened and honestly I think these are my favorite Valentines Day nails ever.

I started with two coats of Zoya Julie on all nails. For my stamping colors I used Cult Nails Morning Glory which is a lot more pink toned by turned very purple-y over Julie. For my black I just used a MASH stamping polish. The main plate I used for all my dinosaurs and the randomly cute little dragonfly is Vivid Lacquer plate VL014. The other plates I used are Bundle Monster BM H16, BM 303, and Shany 214. I finished with a coat of Seche Vite. I ended up adding a matte top coat but I actually think I prefer this one glossy but will show both ways here. Hope everyone is enjoying all the sweet candy sales in stores post Vday! I love the day after a candy holiday a little too much but I am just not sorry at all. Chocolate is freaking amazing.

Happy Valentines Day

I hope everyone had a good Valentines day whether you celebrated the holiday or not. I didn't celebrate it in the traditional way but I did have a great time watching Resident Evil and painting my nails. The nails I have today were not painted tonight but I will have the ones I did tonight as my last vday mani actually on the 15th. I didn't expect to do another but it just kinda came out that way.

Anyways, on to todays mani. I started off with two coats of Cult Nails Bad DN and topped it with a layer of seche vite. Next using Cici&Sisi plate 03 and Cult Nails Kiss a red wax finish polish, I stamped a rose design on all the nails. My goal here was a tone on tone color to create a background that would be interesting but not too overpowering because I wanted to use black to create the main focus of each nail. Starting with the thumb I used Pueen 43 and on index to pinky I used:BM H16 & H17, Winstonia 102, BM H17, and BM H16. The black I used on all the nails was Mash Black stamping polish. I top coated everything with a layer of Seche Vite followed by Butter London matte top coat.

Red Coat Tuesday

This weeks episode of Pretty Little Liars is a black and white episode so I decided to go for black and white too but with a little red thrown in. I started off with two coats of Milani White On The Spot as a base. After letting that dry I stamped a flourish design on all my nails except my middle finger using MASH black stamping polish and Bundle Monster plate 314. I chose to do my middle finger as my accent finger and using Pueen 70 stamped a girls face. I used the same black and in the lips I used Cult Nails Kiss. The girls face even kinda reminds me of Hannah or Ali. I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Zoya Mitzi + Pueen Stamping - Nubs Monday

I don't know if I am super ready for Spring after all this snow and subzero temperatures or if I am just in love with this toxic green neon right now but I just don't want to take Zoya Mitzi off. For this weeks mani I decided to leave it on and play around some more with my new Pueen plates. I used Pueen plate 63 from the new buffet set along with Cult Nails Fetish to stamp. I chose to use a matte polish to stamp with so I could keep a matte finish without having to use any kind of top coat at all. I really love the contrast between the neon green and black. I also love that with a single plate I created so many different designs on my nails. I can't wait to play around more with this set!

Zoya Mitzi

I am just going to cut straight to the chase and not sugar coat this one bit. 1. I absolutely LOVE the color of Mitzi. 2. Mitzi's formula is terrible!!! Mitzi is a toxic green apple colored mattevelvet polish. I adore just how toxic it looks in that frosted bottle like a tiny bottle of poison. Even the color on the nails I am in love with. Application was a complete nightmare though. Mattes are notorious for kinda crap formulas but this was the worst one I have worked with in a while. The first coat was so thin and streaky. The second coat was again super streaky and I had a big problem with dragging and balding. I had to do three coats on all nails except one where on the second coat it completely took all the polish off the top part of my nail. My most helpful tips to work with this are to try to stick to the three stroke method and resist the urge to go over anything twice. I think that is where most of my problems came from. In my pictures you can still see some streaks but overall I'm still happy with this. I will say that it is worth the hassle for the color.

NOTD Cult Nails Kiss + Stamping

Just going to do a short little NOTD post for today. The second part of my nail mail this week was the new set of Pueen plates. I am so freaking excited for them! So right after I painted my nails with my new Cult I just had to test out the new plates too. This is something I think would be great for Valentines Day. I started off with two coats of Cult Nails Kiss and after it dried I stamped with Cult Nails Tempest using Pueen plate 73. I am super impressed with this set after using just one plate. I love how all the nails except the accent nail are similar but not identical. I think that is my main complaint on most stamping plates is sometimes I don't want them all to look identical. With the new plates it's possible to get lots of different variation because the image is so big you can choose to go at the image from any angle. I seriously can't wait to play around with this set some more this weekend.

Cult Nails Kiss

I am so excited today!! I've been down sick the past couple of days but I got some serious nail mail to cheer me right up. Today I received the Cult Nails Passionate Dreams collection and you better believe I was stalking the door for the mailman all day. I purchased this on the last day of January as my final justifiable birthday present to myself. I think I might have broke some records for just how fast I had that box open and those burritos ripped apart to get to the amazing polish underneath.

While I was looking forward to every single polish in the collection, Kiss was my most anticipated polish by far. Cult Nails has the absolute best formula when it comes to their wax finish polishes. Kiss also reminds me of a polish that I have been lemming for a while, Illamasqua Aorta, which is a red rubber finish polish. Kiss definitely squashed that lemming!

Kiss is a almost blood red wax finish polish. It's close to a real red but with a little bit of darkness to it as well. I was really impressed with the formula on this because it was almost a one coater. I think if I would have done a little bit of a thicker coat it could have been. It goes on super shiny and glossy bu within a few minutes dries to the wax finish. I didn't have any issues with dragging or flooding when applying the second coat. I didn't use any kind of top coat for this because that would just defeat the purpose of the amazing finish on Kiss.

Stay tuned because I will be reviewing more of the collection as the week goes on. I will also be doing some stamping with my new stamping set that came this week from Pueen. The Passionate Dreams collection is now available for sale individually at http://www.cultnails.com/ for $12 a bottle.

Beyonce Grammy Inspired Dress - Nubs Monday

Today I have for you a mani based on Beyonce's dress from the 2014 Grammy Awards. I am not the biggest Beyonce fan in the world but her dress at the awards was just stunning.

Image credit to CelebBuzz.com 

To start off I used Cult Nails Baker which is a great caramel colored nude with a little bit of shimmer to it. I used three coats because the formula is a little sheer but it builds up really nicely and is so worth it. Next I did some stamping using Cult Nails Tempest and plate Pueen 44 and 22 and Gals GA30. I finished with a coat of Seche Vite.