NOTD: Pink Paisley

This design is one of my favorites, yet I use it so rarely. This time I started off with one of my frankens, which I made of a medium warm red creme polish, some white creme polish and my own grey frankenpolish. It turned out to be this interesting dusty pink, like China Glaze Wild Mink. The franken is pretty opaque, and this is two coats. Then I stamped using plate m60 and special polish in Pastel Violet.



With flash:

I have to tweak the pictures a bit, because my camera isn't very friendly with me after the sun goes down =) Indoors it makes the colors look dull and too orange-y.
Türkçe için tıklayın | Click here for Turkish

NOTD: Lubu Swirls

Oh, I'm sooo excited about the upcoming China Glaze Spring 2010 Collection, called Up&Away! It will consist of 12 pastel cremes, including a mint green, a pastel lilac, two yellows and two greens =) I wouldn't be surprised if I'd order the whole collection!

Edit: Yay! See some swatches of the upcoming China Glaze Collection, Up&Away here: http://twitpic.com/photos/ChinaGlaze

I also want to get my hands on the OPI Hong Kong Collection, for sure. But I will always have a special place in my heart for China Glaze. =)
Today's manicure was actually supposed to be China Glaze Atlantis, but I had a last minute mind change and put on Lubu Heels. I was going to leave it that way, but I smudged two fingers. Lubu Heels takes forever to dry! Then I remembered gildedangel's vampy flowers color combination, which I liked very much, and stamped the nails using plate m56 and China Glaze Devotion.



With flash:

I think it looks pretty interesting when french tips are used this way. On my right hand they are placed more diagonally, because I still can't stamp with my left hand as well as I can with my right hand! Grrr.
Türkçe için tıklayın | Click here for Turkish

NOTD: Chick Flick Cherry Blossoms

After yesterdays mani, which frustrated me a bit, I did another mani and I was pleased with it. It started off as blank OPI Chick Flick Cherry, 3 coats. I could have probably gotten away with 2, though.
Taken with flash:


Then I stamped the tips with special black polish and lace design from m71. This is my first time using this plate, I always save things I love for better times =) Sigh... Anyway, it turned pretty decent, as I'm getting the hang of aligning the designs horizontally. Then I decorated my ring fingers with red heart rhinestones. I wanted to add a golden fishnet design to the bottom, also from m71, but the pattern is so tiny, that it dried in a milisecond and didn't wanna stamp. Normally it would, but I used China Glaze 2030 for the stamping, and I had to align it so that it wouldn't overlap the black tip design, and that took me a couple of seconds which made such a delicate design unable to transfer. So I switched to m74, and tried it with the blossoms.


Some blossoms are not whole, I know, but working in a tight space, not trying to overlap, makes stamping more difficult =) And they don't draw too much attention on the nail.


I really like my mani this time, so it's going to stay until it chips =)
By the way, I just realized that the color combination is just like powerlifterchick's Asian inspired manicure! OMG, talk about subliminal! (I loved that mani very much =)))
Türkçe için tıklayın | Click here for Turkish

NOTD: Moody Argyle & Flowers

Seriously, I'm having one of those times where no color, no design, no idea is satisfying enough for me. And I'm not sure if I love or hate todays manicure. I started with my own franken polish, which I made of black and white cream polishes, but the result was not grey. It was more of a really greyed out steel blue. I guess the black polish had too much blue pigmentation in it, and when I lightened it with white, it showed through.


Anyway, I decided to konad it, but wasn't sure what to do, so I took out the red special polish and plate m60 and stamped the argyle pattern in red. It looks like a reddish brown on my franken. Then I thought it was too dull, again, and stamped the nails with pastel pink special polish, and plate m50. Finally I placed pink rhinestones in the middle of the flowers.



IRL, the argyle looks more subtle, it shows up more on the pictures. And I have three flowers on my thumb, which I forgot to take a proper picture of.
That's the moody manicure for today. I guess I'm not taking my polish off until I have inspiration again!
Türkçe için tıklayın | Click here for Turkish

NOTD: Meteor Shower Mattified

This is one of the rare times where I didn't love a China Glaze polish as much as I expected. When I first saw pictures of Meteor Shower, I wanted it so badly that it literally hurt. (lol =) But it's much thicker than I expected, and looks kinda lumpy on the nail. Maybe I applied badly, it's nighttime here and maybe I could have applied it thinner and more even. Of course I love the color and the glitters, and would never toss it aside like I did with China Glaze Tantalize Me (ew!), it's actually a lovely polish. Finally I decided to mattify it to make it even. I used China Glaze Matte Magic and I like the result, my nails look like sparkly dark blue stones.


It felt kinda lonely, and I stamped it using plate m59 and China Glaze Metallic Muse. Does anyone have tips on how to stamp the ribbon images well? They are kinda too big for my fingernails. The only option seems like stamping them diagonally, but that woud be when I have them longer.


Not too horrible. This is without another topcoat, the khromes look even better without one.
After yesterdays manicure brainstorming, I'm out of all ideas. I open my drawer and just stare at polishes, unable to decide what to wear. I love other people's manicures and wanna copy some, is it considered as idea theft? =)
Btw, please vote on my poll regarding watermarks. Thanks =)
Türkçe için tıklayın | Click here for Turkish