Do French!

I love all variations of the french manicure. From the crazy to the simple pink & white. I feel like it makes my nails and toes generally look better, and it can hide tip flaws when the rest of the nail looks nice. I usually work with a white tip and a clear coat. Sometimes I go a bit wild, when I can.
My main problem with French manicures is that I chip my nails often. I hate spending forever trying to do a perfect french, to only have it chip within 24 hours.

A fun french manicure

For these nails I used square french tip guides, which didn't come out perfect as I removed them too soon. They should be left on just long enough for the polish to begin to set but not to completely thicken/dry. Remove too soon and you'll smudge, remove to late and you'll pull strings or chip. I usually leave the guide on about 60 seconds after painting the tip. You also want to try to get as little polish on the actual guide as possible.

Oops, I painted on a hair :(

For the colors I used MAC Earthly Harmony for the base, and OPI Ski Teal We Drop for the tips. It makes for an amazingly lovely combination. These two polishes were born to co-exist!

In this photo, you can kind of see the orange sparkles in Earthly Harmony

It needed a tiny bit more pizzaz in my book. After painting I used a water decal on my middle fingernails only. I found one in my Viva La Nails setup where the colors matched perfectly, at least the teal did. The flash made the blues look lighter but in real life they looked exactly the same.

Working with water decals is a pain, I'll do a how to post soon

I finished with Rimmel London 10 day lasting finish. Which as of now is my new favorite top coat. My manicures have been lasting anywhere from 2 days to over 1 week longer (on my toes, where I change things less often). I kept this design on my nails for about 4 days before the chipping began on my thumbs. During that time I got quite a few comments.

So what do you think? Posh and pretty?  Or over the top?

Polishes were purchased by me. Water decal was part of a blogger review pack from Viva La Nails.

ELF Moonlight and MAC Earthly Harmony GCOCL m10

It's my friday! Somehow I ended up with not one, but three bottles of E.L.F. Moonlight nail lacquer. Figures? I guess I really liked it.

I was going to stamp with black, but I realized the tiny bits of my MAC nail polish would look much better. I actually am beginning to think my little one only poured out about half the bottle.




E.L.F. Moonlight ($1) is much like OPI Kyoto pearl, only a warmer color. It has a slight golden hue to it which is beautiful.

The Earthly Harmony ($13), which was recently sported on Lady Gaga, perfectly complements it for a stamp. It also stamped exceptionally well, even though it has sparkles.

For the plate, I used my E-Bay image plates to find something that reminded me of cherry blossoms. This design is on plate m10. Although I don't enjoy most of the images on GCOCL plates I was surprised by this design.

I did mess up a little trying to fill in some gaps, but overall am pleased with the outcome. My short nails have not been fun lately, but I've begun using Mavala Nail Hardener. I hope they start growing soon!




Have a great weekend! I hope it's warm enough to go fishing.

Konad image plate m60 on M.A.C. Earthly Harmony

I've been wearing the last of my M.A.C. Earthly Harmony polish. I did a swatch and full review in August. It makes me sad that most of the bottle is gone after the toddler disaster. It's a lot of fun to Konad stamp on though!



The bottom of the bottle gets very very grainy though, which is disappointing. It really needs a top coat to look smooth and even then.

I used Konad special polish in black to stamp. On the ring finger I used the plain pattern that is also found on image plate m60, which as you can see is "off". I've tried this stamp several times and never once have gotten it right. I decided to wing it for the pictures because I liked the way the rest of the nails turned out and I ran out of time.



I really like this flowery stamp, it looks much better on the nails then on the plate. I played with placement so not every nail looks the same. This pattern stamps amazingly well.



If you haven't tried Konad yet, you should enter the contest we have going on(there is a link at the top of the page). The last entries will be taken tonight and the winner will be announced Wednesday. The coupon for $5 off $75 is still valid for the time being.