Review

Review on Martha Stewart Halloween Glitter/Glue 6pk.

So I bought these glitters actually in August of this past year, and have become obsessed with her glitters ever since!
Now as you probably know her glitters are priced on the higher range of craft glitter, but let me tell you, THEY ARE WORTH IT!

The quality of the glitter is outstanding, and if you love glitter as much as i do her colors are DELICIOUS and her packaging i super clean too!
 This pack of glitter comes in black, silver, red, green, blue and orange, colors which are perfect for the halloween/fall season.
They are super fine and loose so the glitter never gets sticky and clump together.
Perfect for a light dusting as well as creating a super metallic surface that goes on smooth and clean no matter how many layers. The viles of glitter are generous, depending of course how often you glitter, but mine are still half way full after 4 months!

Note: The only problem with using a lot of layers of glitter both loose and polish is that you need to be prepared to scrub harder when removing it!!

One of the most important things about using any sort of embellishment whether it be craft glitter or micro beads is how the colors hold, and Martha Stewart glitters deliver! Some glitters bleed into nail polish or when your at the end of manicure and it bleeds when putting on top coat... that's the worst!
However I have found that Seche Vite - fast dry top coat is less likely to cause bleeding, and O.P.I.- top coat almost always makes poorly dyed embellishments bleed, which can ruin the design!

Now as far as the glue is concerned I haven't used it, but I'm confident it is more than adequate for crafting on paper and such, but obviously not meant for nails.

All in all if you see Martha Stewart in a craft store next fall I highly recommend buying it! you will not be disappointed! This specific 6 pack of colored glitter is seasonal, however there are other color combos offered all through out the year.

You can buy the 6 pack of martha stewart glitters at Michaels, Jo Ann fabric and crafts, and other craft stores, or online HERE

Tutorials

Hello all,


Three tutorials are now available for trying out on my TUTORIAL PAGE!

If you try any of these I would love to see images of your results! and I ask that you credit and link back to me!

24 days of XMAS Challenge : Day 12

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Hey everyone! So i finished these a few hours ago but had some things to do. so here they are now, my HOLLY themed nails.. day 12 of the 24 days of xmas challenge! What I wanted for this challenge, was have a sort wallpaper effect. I used muted red and green and a white to add to the wallpaper feel,  with interchangeable white, red, silver and gold for the holly, and as you can see a gestural as opposed to tight holly print. And decided to add to it even further and making it a patterned/embellished gold tip french. 
I also included a picture of the nail plate i made which i used to figure out which colors to use

The base colors I used were Ruby Kisses - french white, Love & Beauty - mint and American Apparel - coney island. 

The holly on the white nail i used Kiss - gold glitter striper,  and Nail Star - red opaque, On the mint nail I used Nail Star - opaque silver (#114) Nail Star - red, and for the pink i used Nail Star - white 108 and Nail Star - opaque red again. 

Next I added a line of auburn nail art beads, and then filled in the space between the nail art beads to the top of my nail with Kiss - gold glitter striper... Seche Vite

If you'd like to know which colors i used for a specific nail on the holly wheel, then let me know!

Stay tuned for tomorrows nail art themed CHRISTMAS TREES!

To see a tutorial for this design visit the TUTORIAL PAGE.

More boughs of HOLLY nails can be seen HERE:

❅ nails and stuff ❃ obsessed with glitter ❉ Polish, Oh My! ❇ paint that nail ❄ red hair and black nail polish ✺ Ruby's Nails ❅ finger painted ❃ My Polish Stash ❉ Me, Myself and Nail Polish ❇  KK Nails ❄ My Wet Nails ✺ Life with Salpi ❅ The only way is Nails! ❃

Thanx for stopping by :)

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24 days of XMAS Challenge : Day 7

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GingerbreadMEN, that was the challenge for day 7
Originally I didn't want to do actual gingerbread men, i was looking more at gingerbread houses for inspiration, but i felt my design was missing something....
What I did was have a gingerbread background, and a ring of icing with red, yellow, orange, green and purple gumdrops.... this is the point at which the design felt empty.
The icing motifs included in the gum drop and icing rings are : gingerbread men,  a gingerbread house, spiral and heart! I wanted them to look like they were draw in icing and add to the already playful palette to give it that.... child like fancy? lol

The base color I used was Love & Beauty - cocoa (how appropriate for holiday related foods) i seriously can't say it enough... these nail polishes are SWEET, one coaters nice colors... more more more!

Next.. because alas i still have no dotting tool I used the end of a paint brush and made connecting dots in a ring around my nail, not too close to the edges though, using Ruby Kisses - french white.

For the colors i used Nail star - red, Nail star -  glittery orange,  Nail star - lime green, Nail star - dark purple, & Kiss - gold glitter stripper, and dotted the colors... gumdrops... randomly in the center of white... like gumdrops stuck on with icing. 

To fill the empty space of the design I used Ruby Kisses - french white for the drawings.

need i say it.... Seche Vite - quick dry top coat!

and there you have it, ginger things (title, maybe? ) Tomorrow is CANDY CANES

hungry for more gingerbread? check out these blogs!

❅ nails and stuff ❃ obsessed with glitter ❉ Polish, Oh My! ❇ paint that nail ❄ red hair and black nail polish ✺ Ruby's Nails ❅ finger painted ❃ My Polish Stash ❉ Me, Myself and Nail Polish ❇  KK Nails ❄ My Wet Nails ✺ Life with Salpi ❅ The only way is Nails! ❃

Thanx for stopping by :)

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24 days of XMAS Challenge : Day 4

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It's day 4 of the 24 day x-mas challenge, and todays theme is SNOWMAN (men) :)

I'm posting this on the early side because otherwise I wont be able to do my snowmen nails till late late tomorrow night, and I might as well make use of my night owl habits! As you will see, I was inspired by a still from Frosty The Snowman, although i kept to the traditional lump of coal and carrot face, the color background and framing are similar. I thought this was a perfect opportunity to use a base color other than blue, red and green, the typical December holiday palette, which so happen to be the three colors I were least often. I thought the thistle color was really pretty, but i wanted more contrast to make my snowmen POP! I also thought my snowmen should wear bow ties instead of scarves because i thought it would be cuter!

still from Frosty The Snowman (1969)

                                                 1                    2                   3                 4              5

Okay, first off (post B.C.) i used Love & Beauty - lavendar, the amazing thing about this, was, it was a one coater! unvelievable! I mean i know there are better nail polishes out there, but L&B seriously is one of my favorite brands, so cheap, nice colors, and not too thin! 

ANYWAYS... Next, for the snowmen: Ruby Kisses - french white, coal and hat Ruby Kisses - black eutopia,  carrot Love & Beauty - orange, shading on the carrot I mixed L&B- orange with Orly - bus stop crimson (weird name), and the highlights for the eyes, carrot and hat I mixed Ruby Kisses - french white with Ruby Kisses - black eutopia for various grey tones.

For each of the bow ties i wanted something different (it took every ounce of me to not just bedazzle the crap out of these little guys, can't over do it!) 

[1] Sally Hansen - cardinal, Love & Beauty - Mint (green glimmer), Ruby Kisses - french white, Ruby Kisses - black eutopia.

[2] Kiss - blue striper, Kiss - gold glitter striper, Ruby Kisses - black eutopia

[3] Orly - bus stop crimson,  Ruby Kisses - french white, NYC - starry silver glitter (#105)

[4] Ruby Kisses - french white, Ruby Kisses - black eutopia, L.A. Girls Flare - hunter green

last but not least...

[5] Sally Hansen - cardinal, Kiss - blue striper

All topped off with a nice HEALTHY coat of Seche VITE - quick dry top coat!  (the best!!!)

phew! well, i look froward to seeing the rest of the snowman challenge designs from the other ladies participating, and I hope you enjoyed mine too! :)

For more SNOWMAN themed nails be sure to check out:

❅ nails and stuff ❃ obsessed with glitter ❉ Polish, Oh My! ❇ paint that nail ❄ red hair and black nail polish ✺ Ruby's Nails ❅ finger painted ❃ My Polish Stash ❉ Me, Myself and Nail Polish ❇  KK Nails ❄ My Wet Nails ✺ Life with Salpi ❅ The only way is Nails! ❃

Thanx for stopping by :)

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rock candy

For todays design I was inspired by the diamond shape! i decided to use a clear base which i just got today, and rainbow colors for the stones. I chose to draw them in a loose and pop-art -like style to add to the playfulness of design and color palette.
I  thought the clear base would create a stronger contrast between design and nail, as if it were floating. I also added some differently colored rhinestones to fill in some of the negative space.
Polishes used include 10 professional nail lacquer - perfectly clear (#401)  for my base, and  a variety of Kiss - stripers  in yellow, red, soft purple, soft green, red wine, orange and blue  for the gem stones and Kiss - stripers in white and black to accentuate the facets in the stones  while also adding a "drawn" like effect. :)

long day!

Just spent all morning driving back from vermont and was in need of a pick me up. I was looking through my stash and realized i still haven't tried my Butter London - Rosie Lee that i picked up weeks ago!!! it's the most amazing pink glitter, seriously delicious looking... thus, the inspiration... cupcakes! this nail design includes pink glittery frosting, multicolor sprinkles all on top of soft spongey cake!

Due to the playful theme, and excessive decoration i thought the layout of the nails should remain on the tamer side. For the base color I used O.P.I. - bubble bath (3 coats), Kiss - white for the dots, Butter London -  Rosie Lee (3-4 coats) and of course, nail art beads (my new obsession!!)  adhered with O.P.I. - top coat.

these nails were super easy to do and other than dry time, which is always longer when using these nail art beads (better safe than sorry) the design does not take a long time to complete.

Now  that i am finished i am going to go look for something sweet to eat!  :)

THANKSGIVING part 2.

feast your eyes on more thanksgiving nail fun!

I went a little crazy with the theme, symbols included are maize, cornucopia (with fimo fruits :-)) and a hand-turkey, and two fingers (pinky and pointer) with random designs.

For the base coat i used O.P.I. -  designer... de better, for the designs i used mixed nail art beads, large glitter circles, and Nail Star pen & brush in yellow, bronze, gold and red to fill the beaded designs.

in case you want to attempt your own just know that doing just one hand took well over an hour, not including dry time!

Hope you all had a happy holiday

:)

Garden Party

I've been thinking about what would make for an interesting nail pattern, answer; WALLPAPER.  I checked the internet for a while until i found a few that i liked then interpreted the pattern into my own designs. the first three are examples of the wall paper designs. The index finger is a impressionist garden scene and the pinky well...it was almost 2 in the morning at the point and... accidents happen?!

This is the impressionist garden

1-3 has a base of "all hail to the queen"- butter
followed by mixed colors and glitters. #3 also has a purple flower shaped rhinestone cabochon, just for fun. #4 uses a clear base coat, but a soft creme or pink color would work just as well. Generally for all of the flower vines i used a range of greens blacks and grays to create a little depth. The flowers can be whatever color you want, i stuck to no more than 3 base colors for the flowers so that it maintained that bouquet // wallpaper feeling.  The flower petal accents range from the color of the base flower, to blacks, complimentary colors and whites. These nails are not intended to be worn together, because it tends to look to chaotic with so many different patterns, but are done so just to show some of the flower variations.

Monster Mash

Halloween is the best holiday, no questions about it. what's not to like? costumes, candy, plenty of seasonal activities, and so much more. I get pretty obsessed for halloween, like start decorating first day of october kind of obsessed, and one way i like to begin is with seasonal nails.

starting with the top picture on the left we have Chucky from Child's play (after he came back all messed up looking) a a blue eyed vampire, a zombie patch, a jack-o-lantern, and some dripping blood.
The bottom picture starting on the left we have candy corn, a wound with stitches, IT, a bat and frankenstein's monster.
All of these nails were done using only nail polish, no acrylic (although it probably would have made my life easier)
some of these designs are a lot more difficult than others, and if you would like step-by-step instructions regarding any of these fingers please e-mail me!

fireworks

abstract gradient fireworks.
I had just picked up some new striper nail polishes and was too excited, this became my solution for trying all the new colors but still have some cohesion

represent'n

it was that time of year again.. yep, you guessed it! time for the final installment to Harry Potter.
i couldn't go to the midnight showing without some form of fan-attire and i'm not one to wear the Hogwarts scarf or the full on witch garb, so this was my last minute costume.
Theme: the 4 houses of Hogwarts and Crest

clown suit

These nails were done DEC 2010, they use a mix of solid, transparent and glitter lacquers.
theme: a 5 year olds clown themed birthday bash? i was feeling playful and it was one of those days where i couldn't pick JUST ONE design so i decided to just start and see where it would take me. this design is really simple and allows for a lot of personal touches as well as eye catching party themed flare. All you have to do is pick 6 colors MAX too many and they will look too different. Using a black striper create an "X" fill in each quadrant with a color or a transparent and make sure they alternate fingers. Then begin to "doodle" just like the quadrant base coats the designs should vary, but should be used on more than one finger so that the nails still maintain that "look" without looking too random.