NOTD: Barielle Mint Ice Cream Cone and Nail Art

For this manicure I used a base of Seche Clear, and 2 coats Barielle Mint Ice Cream Cone, then a wide stripe of Sally Hansen X-treme Wear Sun Kissed and a thinner stripe of Essie Little Brown Dress, then once it was dry I masked off all but a thin strip of brown and stamped using BM 214 And GOSH Metallic green.  Topcoat: Seche Vite.

I aimed so that one stripe of the full nail design transferred onto the brown.  Definitely more successful on my left hand.  My right looks smudgy! 

My camera doesn't do yellow tones well, so this is not an accurate representation of Barielle MICC.  These look a bit washed out, to be honest.
 

Thanks for checking out my blog!  Happy painting!

♥

 JQ

Cheeky Image Plate Review

GUYS. I got some seriously CHEEKY mail a week and a half ago. ;p

I splurged and ordered these fabulous rectangular nail plates from Cheeky.  AND THEY ARE SO BADASS.

I am a Bundle Monster gal.  I have 6 Konad plates from when I first started and the rest are all BM. I LOVE THEM. 

But a good friend and fellow nail head let me in on the fact that you could get these other image plates through amazon.ca  And that they had pretty much a whole plate full of PAISLEY. I got 8 plates. The price has even gone down slightly from when I bought these, but my order averaged to less than 10$/plate, which I think is pretty reasonable.  I did the math, counting all the images over 8 Cheeky plates. There are 563.  In the 3 BM sets there are 440. I also took the average images per BM set.  (140, 150, 150) which is about 146.5.  Then divided the number of images in the Cheeky set by 145.5 to see how many BM sets it is the equivalent to. 3.84.  Anyways.  I'm not a math wiz by any stretch, but that was enough to tell me I got a pretty decent deal. SO. PICTURES.

The packaging was great.  Inside the bubble wrap lined envelope, each plate had a little sleeve of bubble wrap.  I got a cute little card congratulating me.  It's a party!  A nail art party! 

 

They all had that nice protective blue film that just peels away, and a really cool touch is that each plate is backed with pink plastic and it extends beyond the plate, so it gives a really nice finish, while keeping your paws, the table, and the other plates from getting scratched.

Shiney!

 

Another thing I really appreciate is the size of the full nail images.  They are nice and big! Big enough that I can select the area to paint and transfer to the nail. Every full nail image has one concave edge that makes them very versatile;  It eliminates the need to have separate images for french tips, and gives me the option for a moon manicure effect as well.I have decent sized fingernails, and I really dislike trying to double stamp.  It's so hard to get a good seam. 

For reference here is a picture of the large Cheeky images next to a larger BM image and the original BM full nail image:

I also like that a lot of the images have reflections so you can stamp the other paw, or mess around with mirroring.



Not only do they do reflections, but also a few different sizes of the same image.  So you can do that darn pinky finger the same as the others, or give the thumb a big one.  :)

 

 Thanks Cheeky!



I'm a fan!



Here are a few pics of the manicures I have done so far:

 

The very first one was the celtic image.  I absolutely HAD to find out what that looked like.

Base: China Glaze Concrete Catwalk 

Stamp: GOSH Metallic Green.  

Plate: Cheeky D

Top: Seche Vite



Manicure #2 kinda reminded me of circuit boards.
Base: Finger Paints Go Van Gogh
Stamp: Essie Good as Gold
Plate: Cheeky B
Top: SV



 Manicure #3 was subtle. I only got a quick shot in the evening, but irl it looked way prettier.
Base: Sally Hansen CSM: Wet Clay
Stamp: Billie Cosmetics Reign
Plate: Cheeky B
Top: SV



Currently!

Base: Sponge gradient OPI Off With Her Red, CR #89, Billie Cosmetics Orange
Stamp: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Black Heart
Plate: Cheeky A
  Top: SV


Thank you so much for popping by!  Happy painting!

♥
JQ

Golden Kisses Valentine Mani

 Happy Valentine's Day!

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 Base: 2 coats Orly Decades of Dysfunction

Sponge tips: Sinful Colors Vacation Time

Full nail: 1 Coat Sinful Colors Glass Pink

2/3 nail: Cover Girl Pink Twinkle

Stamp Polish: Essie Good as Gold 

BM Plates: BM02, BM03, BM-303 (large thumb Kiss)

Top: Seche Vite

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Thanks for stopping by!  May your Valentine's Day be filled with the loving company of your friends, family, and partners.

Give yourself some TLC today!  You deserve it!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

JQ

Excuses!

Hello Jellos!
I'm still here!

Point form update/excuses:
1) Prepping for the big November sale
2) Prepping for Christmas
3) Eczema outbreak from hell (I love you winter!)
4) Hosting meetings and gatherings/being gone all through the holidays
5) CLEAN UP

Did I mention I have a 2.5 year old boy? :P That's busy all by itself!

ANYWAYS. I did manage to paint my nails with something fancy ONCE this holiday. I did a white french tip, then a coat of a clear polish with opalescent sparkles suspended inside, and finished off by stamping a snowflake image from the first bundle monster set, using Gosh metallic Blue. Seche Vite top coat. Sorry about the super dryness of my skin! It's been real torture this winter, so I've basically given my nails and skin a break from polish and remover, and have been applying my hypo-allergenic lotion non-stop.

Christmas was a blast and I did wind up purchasing a few new polishes and getting a couple as gifts, so I'll try to get in over the next few days and at least post about my small haul. I also have a little surprise!

Hope the season has been good to you!
♥
JQ

Silver Glitz!

Hello0000ooo000ooo!


2 coats China Glaze Cheers to You and 1 coat of Wet n' Wild Party of Five Glitters, Seche Vite and voila! Space dinosaur disco nails! Silver gilded, jewel encrusted bling nails! Eye popping fun.


Thanks for stopping by!
♥
JQ

2 different full nail stamp images...

Hi everyone! Sorry for the delay, but things have been pretty hectic 'round here. :) Just a quick set of photos of two manicures I wore around mid May:

OPI Ski Teal We Drop and metallic silver eyes:


2 coats OPI Ski Teal We Drop, image plate BM212, Sally Hansen Chrome Crystal, Seche Vite.


OPI Off With Her Red and metallic copper curlicues:


2 coats OPI Off With Her Red, image plate BM 201, Sally Hansen Chrome Sizzlin' Bronze, Seche Vite.



We've been super busy landscaping (I'm surprised I've been able to keep my nails this long!) and I've been picking up momentum again on my tapestry. It's nice to see progress again!

Have you checked out my 200 follower giveaway yet?

Thanks for taking a peek!
♥
JQ

Metallic Diamondback

Happy Happy Happy Dance!
I Squee!!
I did a dance around my living room yesterday when my plates finally arrived! And then sat down to try and figure out what manicure to try first!

Here is the result!


I used 2 coats of an olive green franken with gold shimmer in it for the base. I then lined up Sally Hansen Chrome Copper, Revlon Golden, and GOSH Metallic Green. I took the image I had finally decided on BM 215--Diamondback!!. I striped the polish on in the order I mentioned above. I scraped the image twice, just to blend the colours a LITTLE. I was going for a sheen-like effect.


This is my other paw. My right hand is the one the eczema gets bad on and this is a gross pic of my cuticles but the light just caught it right so I wanted to share it with you. :P LOVE.



I finished off with a coat of Seche Vite and actually managed to contain myself from taking pictures and then removing it to try something new. :P I might not have the self control to get through this afternoon though. We'll see. I really am in love with this pattern. I am imagining all kinds of colour combinations for it.

My Happy Thought:



Thanks everybody!

♥
JQ

Blended argyle with GOSH Metallic

Happy Friday everybody!

Lately I've been playing with stamping using my GOSH Metallics over similar creamier base colours. ABOP left me a note last entry saying it would be cool to see some stamping with more than one colour on the plate. I had been thinking the same thing! I've seen some pretty awesome multi-coloured stamping around the blogs and I figured I'd give it a whirl!


I'm THRILLED with it! I decided I'd use a dark base so that I could really see the contrast this first time. For my base I used a frankened black Wet n' Wild that I made into a slightly shimmery charcoal grey. I don't own a single charcoal colour! What?? The closest I have is OPI My Private Jet and it's more brown-y, plus I thought the holo sparklies might detract from my pattern.



Left to right: Seche Clear, frankened charcoal colour, GOSH Metallic Green, Blue and Pink, Seche Vite. Konad Image Plate M60. I painted a coat of Seche Clear, then one thick coat of my frankenpolish (it was teh gooey but it dried fairly quickly), then dragged the brush from each GOSH metallic across the image horizontally first with pink, then blue, then green. When I scraped I did it in the same direction I brushed on the polish, and I did it a few times just to blend the colours together a bit. I stamped so that the pink is at my tips every time. Next time I want to try diagonal.



Once again with the scaly look. I DIG. It's fun because I'm trying for a very reptilian quality with the tapestry I am currently working on. It actually distracted me from weaving yesterday because I kept admiring how my nails looked next to the leaf of my rose at the lower left hand corner.


Here's a couple more shots of the polish outdoors and indoors. The colors are actually a bit deeper in reality so the transition is quite visible. I just can't get enough of it!


In the two shots where you can see my thumb, you can see that it gets a bit messy on the one side. Even the Konad full nail images are not wide/long enough for my thumbs. The tip and the right side I tried to stamp on a little extra and it's gibbled but from a distance it doesn't draw attention. :P

Thanks everyone for stopping by and I hope you all have a great weekend!
♥
JQ

Brocade Filigree

Hi everyone!

I couldn't wait to try another brocade style manicure with metallic pink and some filigree. I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Commander in Chic, and then stamped using GOSH Metallic Pink and the filigree image on BM21. Seche Vite top coat and voila!


Honestly my cuticles don't look that scary in RL. Yay macro!

The colour is off in all of these shots. I couldn't capture how ridiculously pretty/purple/pink this mani is. This next one just looks grey and silver on my laptop.


I am super proud of the results, because I was using a BM full nail image and those are too darn small for my nails so I had to double stamp every nail but my pinkies. It's pretty much seamless! Woohoo!


I don't know why my camera decided to go all artsy with this shot. Must have been because I opened up the blind to the left and the light was just so. I included it because it's rad. it makes me wish I had some super fine holo polish to use for stamping.

Thanks for popping by!
♥
JQ

Minted Brocade

Hello everyone!

I wish I could be making more frequent posts but I've been working on a large scale tapestry project and it wreaks havoc on my polish, so I haven't been playing with my nail art lately. Yesterday evening I took a little time out to pamper myself.


Because I have been weaving a lot I have had fabric on the brain. I adore the richness of handwoven or otherwise hand manipulated textiles. One of my favorites is that brocade type fabric where the pattern is metallic or shiny and the background is matte.


More often than not it is a floral pattern but I went with a retro bubble stamp from Konad image plate m65. I used 1 coat of Seche Base, and 2 coats of Revlon Minted. Then I stamped using GOSH Metallic Green. I finished with a coat of Seche Vite.


I'm really digging the metallic stamps over a similar matte colour. I think next time I'll actually use a floral motif.

Hope everyone is gearing up for a fabulous week. Thanks so much for visiting!
♥
JQ

Spring Bling

Hello jellos!

Anybody else wishing for spring? Well it already sprung on my nails. :P

I just want to begin by sending out mad props to Ainos at Glammed-Up for all her deliciously layered manicures. They remind me of those intricately hand painted silks I saw when I was in the fibre department of my art school. She's really inspired me to look at every polish for stamping purposes, to layer stamps and polishes and to try for partial stamping too! This is my first purposefully layered manicure. Not ONE special stamping polish was used!


I started with a base coat of Seche Clear, then one coat of Sally Hansen Insta Dri Lickety-Split Lime. When that was dry I sponged on three layers of OPI Green-Wich Village three quarters of the way up my nail, then a few layers of Sinful Colors Show Me The Way just at the tips.


My next step was to stamp a leaf pattern horizontally across each nail at about the halfway mark. To do this I used Revlon Matte Suede Emerald City and Bundle Monster image plate BM11 (the outline leaf rather than the solid leaf pattern). I was pleasantly surprised at how the stamp showed up, plus I was excited because I knew that matte polishes have a subtle glimmer after top coat is applied so I knew it would be purdy. :P


I then used GOSH Metallic Green and BM10 to stamp a random spray of little flowers. It also hinted at a dewy sparkle.


After that step I thought I failed my nail. I used GOSH Metallic Purple and BM06 to stamp the Dalia-esque flower. There wasn't very much contrast at all and it just looked like a light metallic pink blob on top of all that work! But I have seen stamping done over top of smudges of color-especially with flowers-before so I hurriedly chose the Revlon Matte Suede Ruby Ribbon and stamped on the flower image from BM03 over top. SAVED! And it looked prettier than I could have hoped!


I only placed the pink flowers on every second nail, then I placed rhinestone stars in the center of every pink flower, and a flower rhinestone coupled with a tiny round rhinestone on the other four remaining nails just to even out the sparkle.


Come on Springtime! :D
Thanks again for stopping by. I can't believe how my list of friends has grown and I thank you all for you support and comments! I want to say that I am on a hunt for GOSH Holographic and if I find some I'll buy two! One for me and one for my giveaway! Still working on that puppy.

♥
JQ

Christmas Haul

Hi everybody,

This is just a big picture post of all the goodies I locked down by doing fun manicures for family and friends. I'm really excited to show it all off, but really this is just filler while I go about collecting photos from all my friends of their funky nail-dos so I can do a guest mani post. Sorry it's winding up being about a week between posts here. I think that's going to be the norm until April, as I am working on a tapestry submission for an upcoming touring exhibition.

Also I promise PROMISE I am working away at my first giveaway. I'm pretty excited about it. I put my little stash together and I've decided I want to add a few more polishes to the mix, so that will probably take until after my next payday. But it's in the works!

Okay here are the pics :P

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in: Lightening, Brisk Blue, Lickety-Split Lime, Whirlwind White

I found out that the white, and the yellow will work for stamping. the yellow one, of course only really works on some colors, but I look forward to trying out the blue and green as well. Hey, I can do some fun manicures on light backgrounds. :D You can see I've used quite a bit of the yellow and white already. :) I actually picked up another bottle of white and I have a slightly different yellow which hasn't got a name just the number 04.


Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in: Gray By Gray, Thinking of Blue, Wet Clay, and Commander in Chic. Drool. The Thinking of Blue I've actually used as a one coater under full nail stamps. I love one coaters. Also the bruses are really wide, and I found they worked for me, especially when painting other people's nails.

SH Xtreme Wear in: Black Out, Sun Kissed, Lime Lights, Emerald City, Blue It, White On, and three frankens using 3 bottles of White On and a few drops of more saturated colors. Sorry I can't remember which ones!

Left to Right: Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Diamonds and Brilliant Blush, Joe Moss, L'Oreal Luminescence and Party Hop, Revlon No Shrinking Violet, Minted, Totally Toffee.


Sally Hansen HD Hi-Def, Digital, and Resolution, Red Girl-dollar store finds by the hubby-Star (holo hearts and circles) and Illusions (holo bar glitters), Cover Girl Disco Dazzle, and Pink Twinkle.


OPI Top Coat and Drip Dry, China Glaze Cheers to You and Midnight Kiss.


My first OPI! Green-wich Village, Ski Teal We Drop, Pamplona Purple, Malaga Wine, Off With Her Red and My Private Jet (Fweeee! SOOO spoiled)


Gosh is my new best friend right now. All four of these stamp and stamp well. Left to right: Nero, Metallic Purple, Metallic Green, Metallic Blue. I went out and picked up a second bottle of Nero already because stamping black is a staple for me.

And the IsaDora!

Graffiti Nail Top in Subway Green--Which is this most amazing dark teal YUM. and Plain White for the base color.

OHHHH Boy that was a lot of spam. Sorry for the lame color quality!

Cheers and have a great week!
JQ