More easy frankening

As you may recall, I've posted about a few frankens that I've made before: Candy Store and Glitter In the Sky. Last night I decided to make a few more! One of them is this Deborah Lippmann - Forget You "dupe" that I am calling New Years Eve. I put "dupe" in quotes because it is similar; however, my black is darker than the one in her polish.

It was simple - start with a base of Milani Jewel FX - Gems. Pour out about 1/4 of it (into an empty bottle if you have it, NEVER down the sink!) and pour in some China Glaze - Liquid Leather. Shake it shake it shake it! That's it. Can you believe it!? ;)

Super sexy New Years Eve frankenpolish

Traci-style close up

Dark and dangerous

Arizona Cardinals Inspired

Hello! Yesterday I had the chance to go to the Arizona Cardinals first preseason home football game! I had so much fun, and OBVIOUSLY I had to take the opportunity to do a Cardinals-inspired manicure!

I decided to try out a Nailside-style tape manicure. I started with a base of OPI's Manicurist of Seville, and then once that was dry, I randomly added strips of tape across my nails. I then added Revvvolution on top by Color Club (which, by the way, is a faint holo polish!) and peeled the tape off. Finished it with Seche Vite!

I had intentions to try to freehand a cardinal logo, but ran out of time. Coulda woulda shoulda! I love the way it turned out as it is. <3

P.S. The photos were taken on a Fitzgerald jersey. :)

OPI - Manicurist of Seville
Color Club - Revvvolution

New leopard freehanding

Today I had some time to get some nail art done. I decided to go for the leopard design again. The first time I did it, I had almost no experience in nail art, my color selection was limited, and my techniques were only just starting to develop. Not to mention, my photo technique for nails needed some work!

Here's what I did today. I used the same tutorial that I did last time, written by Molly McAleer at HelloGiggles.com. I used a dotting tool to put on the colors this time. The Skull and Glossbones was put on with a large dotting tool, and the Liquid Leather with a small dotting tool.

China Glaze - Street Chic
OPI - Skull and Glossbones
China Glaze - Liquid Leather

 If you will recall, the first time I ever did a leopard design it looked like this:

My OLD leopard design.

I think I have made some great improvements since the last time I tried this!

Random swatching

Hi guys! I haven't had a lot of time for any cool nail art (until today!), so I've been wearing plain ol' polish. Here are a two colors I've had on in the past few days.

China Glaze - Sun Worshipper is from the Poolside collection. It's a gorgeous neon orange. I put on three coats, but unfortunately still had visible nail lines. I should have put it over white, but it didn't bother me TOO much.

China Glaze - Sun Worshipper

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Pumpkin Spice is a new Fall 2011 release from the brand. It's a sheer brown base with lots of orange glitter. Very pretty, but it does take some time to build up! This is three coats. You'll have to excuse the sloppiness, I took this picture of my right hand (my bad hand for nail polish) because I had already done some other stuff with my left.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Pumpkin Spice

What do you guys think of these? Do you own either of these colors?

Pirates of the Caribbean Collection...ish

I stopped by my favorite wholesale nail supplier on Friday and picked up some random colors that I thought were pretty. Among those colors were two more from the Pirates of the Caribbean: Stranger Tides collection by OPI. I picked up Sparrow Me the Drama and Planks a Lot, to go along with my Skull and Glossbones!

OR SO I THOUGHT!

As it turns out, one of the polishes had been misplaced in the store, and instead of grabbing a Planks a Lot, I ended up with a Do You Lilac It?. I was dismayed at first, but then I realized that DYLI is a beautiful color and I liked it so much that I didn't even mind. I did my mani with my two other Pirates colors, anyway.

OPI - Do You Lilac It?, Sparrow Me the Drama, Skull and Glossbones

BLING

I snatched up OPI's Crown Me Already from the Miss Universe Collection fairly recently. It is by far the blingiest polish that I own. I wanted to layer it on top of something that would compliment it's shine, so I went with Deborah Lippmann's Believe, which is a frosty gold color. Very pretty, but obviously hard to see underneath all this crazy silver!

I used two coats of each polish, and ended up with an effect that looked something like wadded up foil, but prettier. I absolutely love this mani and I might even keep it on for more than a day! Haha!

Deborah Lippmann - Believe
OPI - Crown Me Already

Ink In the City

I have been wanting to use my CG In the City for a while now, but I had a bunch of other things that I wanted to do lined up before it... anyway, I got around to using it last night! I had seen some swatches of it and it was pretty sheer, so I layered it right away.

Two coats OPI - OPI Ink and two coats of China Glaze - CG In the City. It's quite lovely if I do say so myself.

Fowl Play

So, I got my hands on Orly's Fowl Play, which is a dupe for OPI's Merry Midnight, a well known but hard to find polish. This polish applied GORGEOUSLY. I needed two coats and they went on so easily, and they dried lightning fast.

In case you can't tell in the pictures, Fowl Play is a deep purple, jelly base with orange flakies and tiny pieces of glitter.

Not much to say since this is only a swatch of one color and not some fancy schmancy nail art. I was at my boyfriend's house and his roommate looked at my nails and said "Wow, those are pretty simple nails for you, Sarah!" Hah! He was so right, though. I do want to add that these photos probably don't do this polish justice. It looks so squishy and is a lovely deep purple. I fear that it came out darker than it is in real life, in the photos.

Pink lemonade

Yesterday I had my first experience with fimo slices.

Jury is still out on whether or not I like them! They are a great, adorable addition to a mani, but they just feel so weird on my nail! I've definitely gotten used to it more and more as the day has gone on, but still... it's a very foreign feeling.

Also, I freehanded this French. They got a little thick but it added to the boldness of the mani. 

China Glaze - Happy Go Lucky and High Hopes

Tangerine party!

Here's a quick update for you! This weekend I was going to a friend's going away party, and wanted to do something fun and sparkly but still unique. She's going away to China for a year to teach English! She's always been a real adventurous spirit, but I'm gonna miss her so much!

I did a quick two coats of Zoya's Tanzy, and then another two of Ulta's Pinyata Yada Yada. Then I did a coat of China Glaze's Matte Magic Topcoat, and voila! Instant fun.

Zoya - Tanzy
Ulta - Pinyata Yada Yada
China Glaze - Matte Magic Topcoat

Delicate little flowers

I've been jonesing to do more nail art lately! So last night I decided to try a pretty, romantic floral design. I used a large dotting tool and a small dotting tool to do this design. I tried using a brush for a little bit but I just couldn't control it well enough, so I swapped it out for the small dotting tool.

The flowers are a little more "loose" than I was expecting them to turn out, but I think it's pretty cute and I'm happy with them! I'm sure I will be making this design again in the future!

Base: China Glaze - Peachy Keen
Centers: China Glaze - White On White
Petals: China Glaze - Sky High-Top
Leaves: China Glaze - For Audrey

Yesterday's skittle, mattified!

I was so pleased with my skittle from yesterday, I just couldn't take it off! However, I did want to do something different with it, so I added some China Glaze Matte Magic Topcoat to it. I'm very happy with the results!

I did learn though, that this topcoat will shrink your polish if you put it on over a dry mani. I didn't think to wrap it when I was putting it on, so maybe that would solve the problem next time.

China Glaze - Matte Magic

Bright and cheery skittle!

Yesterday I went on a wild hunt for a beauty supply store that had been suggested to me by another Facebook group member. First I found a DIFFERENT nail supply, and checked it out… the selection there was not great, but I did find an OPI Ink and snagged that. At the checkout, the man told me that from now on, there was a $200 minimum purchase! First of all, yeah right! I saw how much dust was on those bottles, he'd take whatever business I'd give him! Second of all, it didn't matter because I don't plan on going back there.

Then after some mad searching and a Q+A with a Walgreens clerk, I found Hollywood Beauty Supply! Not the cleanest and most organized place ever, but you don't have to have a license to get in, and it's SO. CHEAP. China Glazes are $3, OPIs and Crackles are $4. So I went a little nuts! Here's what I bought, including the OPI from the first supply shop.

• OPI Ink
• OPI Crown Me Already
• China Glaze Metallic Crackle Latticed Lilac
• China Glaze Mrs. Claus
• China Glaze Sugar Plums
• China Glaze High Hopes
• China Glaze Peachy Keen
• China Glaze Sky High-Top
• China Glaze CG In the City

I promise I'm getting to the mani here, I really am!

Since I was so excited about my new polishes, I wanted to do a bright skittle that included three of my new colors! So here it is! I added in Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow and China Glaze For Audrey to round out the bright set.

China Glaze - High Hopes
China Glaze - Peachy Keen
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Mellow Yellow
China Glaze - For Audrey
China Glaze - Sky High-Top

(sunlight)

Nubar - Reclaim

Nubar's Reclaim is my second of their brand (the first being 2010, of course). It's a deep green holo and it is seriously a showstopper. There's not a whole lot more to say about this color. Just look at the pictures, and then go buy it! I got mine on Amazon, but you can buy Nubars at bynubar.com.

This is two coats of Reclaim. I probably could have gotten away with one, but I wanted to make sure the color looked dense and rich. It applied so smoothly, it was like a dream!

Nubar - Reclaim

What I've been up to today.

Rocked a drips mani - I added drips in China Glaze's For Audrey to my old Skull and Glossbones mani with some dotting tools.

(nevermind this color balance :X)

 Created a Glitter in the Air by Deborah Lippmann franken out of these polishes:

NYC - Starry Silver Glitter
China Glaze - White on White
OPI - Skull and Glossbones 
Love and Beauty - Sky Blue

I know it's not totally on point, but it's definitely close enough to satisfy me! Maybe I'll continue refining at a later date, but this was a pretty quick and easy mixing job!

(nail swatch to come at a later date!)

Skull and Glossbones + HOLO!

OPI Skull and Glossbones is a polish that I have been lusting after for a while. However, every time I'd go to buy it, I'd look at it in the bottle and be pretty unimpressed. Then, I'd leave without it, and once I'd get home I'd want it again.

I finally caved! I'm so glad I did, it is a lovely shade of warm grey. I coated it with a thin layer of a Spectraflair topcoat called gLORIous that was made by a woman named Lori in my polish-lovers Facebook group. It's barely visible in the shade, but in the sun... HOLO!

I did get some bubbling from all of the shaking I had to do with the topcoat. I should have let it settle longer! Thankfully, the bubbles didn't show up as much in the sun.

OPI Skull and Glossbones
gLORIous Spectraflair Topcoat
(inside)

(sunlight)

Candy Store - A step into frankening

Recently, I've been getting into frankening. I'm sure most of you are familiar with that term, but for those of you who aren't crazy into nail polish, it's where you mix your own custom colors by combining different polishes. It's really fun and you end up with some great, unique colors.

However, frankening can also be used to create duplicates, or dupes, of certain *coughEXPENSIVEcough* brands. Inspired by Rebecca and other nail bloggers out there, I set out to make a dupe of Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop. It's a lovely pink base with Happy Birthday style glitter mixed throughout. When you put it on, the pink is kind of sheer, so you get a lovely glitter layering.

I called my dupe "Candy Store," because it's close but not exact. :)

Candy Store and Milani Gems

On the suggestion of Rebecca, I started with Milani Gems, which is a pretty close substitute for Lippmann's Happy Birthday.

I also used:
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Twisted Pink
China Glaze - White On White
A few drops of some various Lippmann pinks that my sister is lending me

If you plan to make a dupe yourself, start by pouring out some of the gems. If you have an empty polish bottle, you can pour into that and save it to make another franken with! Add in some pink and shake shake shake until the pink is incorporated into the Gems.

Add some of your white color and shake it all up good. Keep adding in white until you are pleased with the lightness of your pink. There's really no wrong way to do it! As you can see, I added in a few bits of some other Lippmann pinks that I had borrowed from my sister, but I barely used any so I'm sure it's not necessary for your franken if you don't have any.

And that's it! Here's what mine looked like on the nail. It's just divine, really.

My franken - Candy "Store"

Orly Cosmic FX - Space Cadet

Let me spin you a tale here. I had gone to get my oil changed one afternoon, and I realized that the Ulta in my area was on the way home. I stopped in to look at some polishes, and happened upon a beautiful miracle that was on my polish wishlist: Orly Cosmic FX in Space Cadet. I held it up like Rafiki held up Simba in The Lion King and the people around me looked at me like I was some sort of leper.

The last part was a lie. Sorry.

I tested the polish a bit when I got home and found it to be VERY sheer. Since I didn't want to spend all night layering on 4-5 coats of this stuff, I put 2 coats on over a coat of China Glaze Liquid Leather. (Side note, I'm always impressed by how shiny LL is on it's own. Go CG!)

So, Space Cadet is a "rose/copper/mauve with olive green flash multi chrome, foil micro glitter." WHEW! But, that description ain't lyin'. Its got so many colors to it and is seriously gorgeous. It should also be noted that the base is a sort of sheer, dark tealish aqua. Here are the pictures I took of it. Keep in mind that this is all the same mani! I'm just photographing it in different lights and at different angles.

Also, now I want more Cosmic FX polishes. Oh, to be a millionaire.

China Glaze - Liquid Leather (1)
Orly Cosmic FX - Space Cadet (2)