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!

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.

Nail Art For Nubs Monday

For today's nails I decided to do some stamping over Avon Saturn with one of my new plates from Vivid Lacquer VL019. At first I thought the image on the plate was a fox but now I'm not really sure anymore. I am just going to go with it's a fox because it matches the color scheme. At some point I will use the stamp for some wolf nails. On my index, middle and pinky fingers I used the image that looks sort of like rainbows and stamped that using Cult Nails Fetish. Next on the thumb and pinky I used the grass image to create a french tip. Next I placed a large fox on my thumb and the small one on my ring finger. I topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite. Make sure to check out all the amazing art work from the girls participating in this!!

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Monday Nail Art for Nubs - The Vivid Lacquer Love Continues

This weekend I just could help myself and did a whole other manicure using the amazing Vivid Lacquer plate VL023 that one of my best friends Linda got me for Christmas. It's so odd that it's Christmas and all I want are mermaid and pirate nails. But...I'm sorry that I'm just not sorry. I do think I will have to switch off and do some obligatory Christmas nails but this mani might just be going right back on after Christmas.

As soon as I saw this plate in the vivid lacquer store the idea popped into my head of exactly what I wanted to do. Somehow I actually was able to get it out on the nail exactly how I envisioned it in my head and that just never happens. Pre-Christmas miracle I guess!!

For this mani I started off with two coats of Zoya Farah on each of my nails. P.S Farah is amazing and quickly becoming one of my favorite Zoyas! I wanted to create the look of an old distressed map so I used Pueen 45 and Zoya Flynn to stamp on a almost splatter type design. Everything else was done using Vivid Lacquer plate VL023. Next on each of the nails except the ring finger I used Sinful Colors Coffee and stamped the map design with script. Using Cult Nails Fetish I added a different design to each of the nails with the plate.

There were just so many great images to choose from but I went with the large ship on my thumb, the small pirate flag on my index (yes, there is a much larger pirate flag on the plate too!), for my middle finger the small ship and a mermaid, and on the pinky a small skull and cross bones. For my accent nail I used Sinful Colors Coffee to stamp the image of the compass. I tried to stamp it at an angle and to the side to leave room for a pirate that I stamped using Fetish. The pirate totally looks like the Captain Morgan pirate...love it!!  The plate is just perfect. Everything stamped great on the first try and just so many great images to choose from on one plate with lots of variations and sizes it's just so versatile for all nail types. I seriously can't show enough love for this plate.

To finish everything off I used one coat of Seche Vite. I think this may actually be my favorite design I have every done! Of course though I had to end up adding matte top coat to it but it just added to the effect!! If you haven't definitely check out the Vivid Lacquer store! Also, make sure to check out the other manis that are part of the Nail Art for Nubs linkup below!

Cult Nails Gradient over Pop Beauty

For this mani I started off with two coats of Pop Beauty Pacific Hoot. I let that dry completely and then added striping tape to each finger. Next using a cosmetic sponge I created a gradient with Cults Nails Riot, Party Time and Time Traveler. I did three layers of the gradient and then immediately removed the tape. I just had to keep adding more so I decided to add some stamping using Pueen plate 22. I was very happy with how it looked so I added a layer of seche vite. But then I decided no let's add more to it so I then added a layer of matte top coat and now I am seriously in love!

Twin Mani

My friend Linda at Linda's Polish Emporium and I decided we wanted to do a matching twin mani so we started searching Pinterest for something cute and simple that we could do quickly and we found a cute mani a lot like the recreation you see here. For the ring and index finger I used a base of Bondi Lady Liberty stamped using Cult Nails Fetish and Shany plate 214. For the middle finger I used A England Dorian Gray topped with two coats of China Glaze Fairy Dust. My pinky I orginally wanted to do matte so I used Cult Nails Fetish but I ended up going for an overall glossy look so I topped it with a coat of Seche Vite.

Nail Art for Nubs Monday

This week this first real cold front came through and the temperatures dipped down below freezing so I thought a winter mani was very appropriate. I wanted to do something with snowflakes which reminded me of a this mani I saw on pinterest that I wanted to recreate here. I started off with two coats of Cult Nails Nevermore. I then added a layer of glitter with D&R Apothecary polish Aquarelle and then topped all that off with a layer of Butter London matte topcoat. For the snowflakes I used Barry M Silver foil effects and Bundle Monster H01, Winstonia W120, Gals GA1, and plate m59 from Born Pretty store. To finish everything off I added small light blue gems to the center of one of the snowflakes on each nail. I used nail glue for the gems so that they would last longer since I didn't want to use a real topcoat. I wanted to have the silver be shining and bright above the matte of the base and I think the overall effect is amazing.

Monday's Nail Art for Short Nails

Lately more often than I would normally like I have been rocking some nubbin nails but they have really started to grow on me. A friend pointed me in the direction of an awesome collaboration of bloggers that every Monday create a post dedicated for the nubby challenged nails which is perfect to get me more comfortable with my new length. For this mani I decided to keep it pretty simple but I think the simplicity adds to the dramatic effect.

I started off with two coats of Loreal She's So Matte and then stamped using Color Club Twiggie and Cult Nails Tempest over it. I used the Bundle Monster Holiday set to create some zombie nails perfect for Halloween and the Walking Dead episode last night but mostly perfect for me because I LOOOOOVVVEEEE zombies!!! For the accent nail I put on Tempest and Twiggie and the same time and just carefully scraped. It's almost impossible not to get the colors to mix a little but either way I still love the haunting effect of the green zombie flesh over a matte black.

If anyone wants to participate in this just grab the gallery code here :) http://goo.gl/8hccTy

Breaking Bad

Just wanted to quickly share my mani from last night for the finale of Breaking Bad. Polishes used were: Cult Nails Riot, Mayhem, Tempest & Fetish, Zoya Yummy & Farah,Sinful Colors Envy, Maybelline Bold Gold, Rainbow Honey Heisenberg, and China Glaze Running in Circles. Decals are from my friend Samantha of Justonemorebottle. Stamping was done using various plates including Pueen and BundleMonster.

NOTD Cult Nails Riot + Mayhem + Pueen = LOVE!!

Today I still have on Cult Nails Riot but I also added their holographic topcoat Mayhem to it. I will post tomorrow what those two look like on their own together but I just had to share this picture right now. I just got my set of Pueen plates in the mail and immediately had to test them out. I stamped using Mash black stamping polish and Pueen plate 24.