My first adventure with Bundle Monster!!

Good Morning!!! Hope you all are well where ever you are.

Today I bring you my first experience with my new Bundle Monster plates! I have been lemming the Bundle Monster plates for a looooonnnnngggg time, I always was looking at them on Amazon and on Bundle Monsters own website wishing for them to be mine. That wish came true this Christmas when my Aunt and Uncle were very kind and gave me a gift card to amazon. I immediately knew that I wanted to buy nail art related products, I narrowed it down to the 2011 BM set and 2012 BM set, both sets I had designs I knew would be useful for up coming nail art.

First off I want to talk about my experience with Bundle Monster as a company. I have always been leery about buying off of Amazon due to the sellers; who can you trust who can't you trust, same with EBay and Etsy. I have heard some stories and it just made me a hell of a lot more cautious. So when buying the stamping plates I was pleased to see that the plates shipped straight from Bundle Monster and not a third party seller.

Each set cost $21.99 each which is not a bad price point since you get 25 plates and at least five-six designs per plate. Shipping was fantastic too, if you chose the standard shipping which was 3-5 business days it was free. Now I know that sometimes Amazon will offer free shipping with qualifying items but this free shipping was straight from the seller! So of course I chose the standard shipping and placed my order. I waited patiently for my shipping conformation email ( which means me checking my phone once an hour) and I saw the plates were being shipped from Hawaii which is where BM is located, I seriously thought it would take the 3-5 days or more to get to me since it was on the other side of the country. 

I placed my order on a Friday morning and it got to me by that Monday night! How Crazy is that!??? I have nothing but praises for the Bundle Monster Company and will definitely be placing an order for more stamping plates if they make any!

Ok so on to the manicure that I tested out my first plate with.

I started off with a base color of Nicole By OPI Selena. I love this color it most certainly helps me get through the winter blues.

Once my base color was dry I was unsure what color to stamp with so I pulled out all the contrasting colors I thought would look nice over Selena. The final two were Essie Penny Talk and Sally Hansen Ruby Rush. After stamping some on to a napkin to see what looked better I thought Penny Talk would be nice, since it is metallic color and the stamper really picked it up well from the plate.

 

 

 

 As you can see I used BM plate 201 and the swirly design in the close up shot. I wanted a delicate print and this one fit the bill well. It would cover the whole nail but not take away from the base color. Now looking at the plate I even think the sweeping lines on the left side of the plate would of been nice too.

Here is how the manicure came out.

I did come out really light and you could only see it if you got up close or was in the sunlight. But since I usually suck at full nail stamping designs I was pretty pleased how this came out. I do think next time thought I will use a slightly darker color that will contrast a bit better I also think that I might invest in a Konad Stamper since the only one I have is from the Salon Express kit and sometimes it doesn't pick up the designs well unless I give it a good file with a emery board. I would say these are office appropriate nails since no one will notice the design unless they shove your hand in their face.

If you want to invest in either your  first set of stamping plates or just add to your collection than I suggest ordering the bundle monster plates plus a Konad stamper ( if you don't already have one) , which all can be found on Amazon. If you want a quick fix for some stamping the Salon Express stamping kit by As Seen on TV is available at quite a few retailers. If you want to see my post about that kit click HERE.

I hope you enjoyed today's post and I will talk to you soon!

<3 Nicole

Red Cheetah Nails. Rawr!

Hello! Happy Thursday!

Today's post is inspired by the concept of the Jelly Sandwich. I've explained what a Jelly Sandwich many times here on the blog, take a look at this post here if your not sure!

Taking the concept of the jelly sandwich I decided to try encapsulating a stamp instead! Same general idea just using a stamp in place of what would be glitter. It also makes me think of the amazing nail polish jewelry out there in the world!

Starting off I used one coat of Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby, a brilliant red jelly polish that is readily available in drugstores and now even Walmart, that's where I got mine from! Of course you do need to start off with a base coat before your polish so you can protect your nails. I recently purchased Orly Bonder about a month ago and have been using it in every manicure I do and it is wonderful! The coolest thing though is I've even gotten my mom to start using it, and now that she is retired (what a lucky duck) she is testing the waters on different color polishes too!

Bonder is a rubberizing base coat, at least that's what its described as being on the bottle, it dries super quick and definitely makes the polish smooth and stay on longer ( not that I keep my manicures on for longer than 3 days anyway).

OK so back to the manicure. Once the first coat of Ruby Ruby is dry, I took Wet 'n' Wild Black creme, my holy grail black polish for stamping, and stamped the cheetah/leopard print from the Salon Express Kit. Normally at this stage you would be done, add a top coat and bam, but no I went and added another thin layer of Ruby Ruby once the stamp was dry. It does dull the stamped design just a little but that's okay its what we want, the black creme is still very much see-able but it looks like its encased in the nail!

I tried this with a few other color stamps and white actually would of looked really cool, it gave a very subtle effect but not what I wanted. Once your top layer is dry add you top coat and you are done!

Take a look at the pictures if my long winded response confuses you!

Okay so I hope you liked this post! Stay tuned for more soon!

Nicole  

OPI Pink Friday, With a bit of stamping and some explaining.

Hello! Happy Friday! I hope that your weekend will be sunnier than mine! The forecast is for it to rain all day today and into tomorrow morning. Sunday will be a nice day but I have to work that night so I won't be doing to much :(

So I feel like a Starburst, you know how in the Starburst candy commercials they call them a contradiction... yeah that's how I feel lately. I know I said I was going to do the Summer Challenge... I don't think that its going to pan out :( and I know I said I would continue with the Sprinkles collection from Nails Inc, I have two more of those to swatch still. So I feel like a contradiction saying one thing then doing another...

I don't like contradictions or people who present them... but I guess I could say its being  hypocritical right? I hate that too. Anyway I'm sorry and I thank all of you for who take time to read my blog and dealing with my randomness. I think that's just how it might go for a little while until I get myself organized better.

Okay so enough of the pity party for one in the paragraphs above, I DO have some exciting news to announce! My Nails. My Polish has hit 100 followers on Twitter!!! When I saw that last night I got super excited! I told my mom about my little blogs land mark and she just went.."ohhh". Its okay she doesn't follow the whole social media thing and how important it is to bloggers like us! Anyway though a HUGE thank you to everyone who follows!

Now if I could get 100 likes on my Facebook Page??? Could we see that happen? Maybe even 10 likes as a more realistic goal right now. My little page only has two likes :(

Okay okay so on to the polish, that's why you all came here for right?

So today I am going to show you a fun bright manicure that I hope will melt away the rainy blues.

I started with 3 coats of OPI Pink Friday from the Nicki Minaj Collection. I have the mini version of this polish but I might have to get the Nicole by OPI version from the Kardashian collection.

I then stamped some pretty flowers  using Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme And Pure Ice Superstar from the Salon Express Stamping Kit. I seriously need to get either the Shany 2012 plates on Amazon or The Bundle Monster 2012 plates or the Cheeky ones, Which do you prefer??

Pink Friday is such a pretty baby pink color. The first coat was a little streaky and if your not careful you definitely get brush drag, but that could also be from the tiny little OPI brush. Upon Second coat I had opacity but it was still a little streaky so I went for a third. I am definitely going to say that Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme and Superstar from Pure Ice are my go to drug store stamping polishes. I have never had a problem with Black Creme and this was the first time using Superstar for a white stamp.

So that's it for this Friday post. I hope you enjoyed it! Don't forget to hit the BECOME A FAN button at the top of the blog to like my Facebook page!

Thanks so much and talk to you soon!
Nicole

Zoya Savita

Hello! Happy Friday to everyone! Hope you all are having a fabulous Friday!

Today I have a manicure I did over Easter weekend. Its what I wore on Easter and was supposed to post it on Easter as well, sadly the holiday got in the way and I didn't have time to get to the computer! I do hope you all had a lovely Easter too!

My untrieds are starting to generate more and more, I think right now I have about 25 or so if I were to go and look right now. I purchased two Zoya Polishes for the first time back in January when they had the get two free polishes and just pay shipping. That promo was good, so many people participated that my polishes didn't get to me until the end of January!

From that promo I got Zoya Savita and Zoya Flora! I have used Zoya Flora in the 31 Day Challenge. I plan on doing a full post about Zoya Flora soon. Today though I have Zoya Savita, to share. It is a matte polish, my first one actually! Mattes are growing on me more and more, I actually just bought a couple more from different brands over the last couple of months,

Savita is a matte purple , Zoya has it labeled on their bottles as a Matte Velvet Lacquer.

I'm surprised I never wore any purple matte before! I do love this polish in its natural form. However with the way matte polishes chip so easily because obvious use of top coat would defeat the purpose!

Here is Savita with a top coat. I had no idea Savita had a ton of pink/orangish shimmer in it!

Of course I couldn't leave it like that. Lately I have been about stamping, so I added some silver daises with Sally Hansen Celeb City.

In each photo Zoya Savita is two coats although with a little thicker coat one could be just fine! The formula is really easy and isn't runny at all and allows for the optimum control!

Zoya Polishes can be found on Zoya's website and I believe at Ulta as well! Hope you all enjoyed this ! Talk to you all soon.
Nicole

NOTD: Follow the butterflies!

Hello!! Happy Thursday!

Is anyone here a Harry Potter Fan? I am! I prefer the books to the movies, but that's a discussion that would take up a lot of time! Anyway for those of you that are fans know that in the second movie Chamber of Secrets, that when Harry and Ron are following the spiders, Ron says " Follow the spiders? Why couldn't be follow the butterflies?"

 I don't remember if its the same in the book or not and I have no idea where my copy is to cross reference. Today's manicure is inspired by that line. It came to me while I was changing my polish this afternoon.  I wanted something bright but with a pattern. Pulling out my stamping plates I started wanting   alternating flowers and butterflies but then the first set of butterflies ( which looked like little cartoon butterflies)  smudged and all went to pot. So I took it off and tried a different type of butterflie that looks more elegant. Viola! Success!

For my base color I went straight for my China Glaze Aquadelic, the bright blue is exactly what I needed to make this icky weather seem more bearable. Not to go off track here but... yeah the nice weather got me sick. Allergies and a cold all packed in my body together. There are times I feel fantastic and other I just want to curl in a ball! Thanks to Flonase though I am doing much better and think I will live.

Anyway, Aquadelic is an awesome two coat bright blue creme that just makes a perfect palette for a black stamp. Breaking out my Wet n Wild Black Creme, I went to work.

Here's the result!

All of these photos are with out flash, in natural sunlight coming through my window. Its too cold and windy to go outside today :(

The little dots around the butterflies are free handed with a toothpick!

Hope you all like this! Thanks for stopping by and reading!

Talk to you all soon!

Nicole.

P.S. I just noticed that my blog turned 1 back on Sunday the 18th and I never acknowledged it! I'm so excited that my little blog is a year old. I have accomplished a lot and met so many new amazing people and made some awesome friends as well! With out readers or my new polish friends I don't think my blog would of made it to a year old! So Thank you to everyone who has visited-read-and subscribed! 

Nails Of The Day: A Teal Zebra.

Happy Saturday!

Hope all of you are having a fabulous weekend! It snowed here back on Wednesday and Thursday, so the ground is covered in white stuff. I thought it was all over yesterday because it wasn't snowy anymore and BANG when I'm leaving work at 10pm its a freak blizzard. It was that blinding snow that is coming right at you when you drive, so it looks like that really old Windows screen saver of stars. Roads were covered and I did about 30MPH all the way home praying to just be able to see where I was going.

I hate New York! No snow all winter and then this! On a brighter note it will be 65 as of Thursday!

Today I bring you a Nails Of The Day post. I have so much stuff to share with you lovely readers over the next few weeks, about sixteen untrieds to get through. Plus of course purchasing new polish when I see it. I feel like I need to catch up to everyone who has like hundreds of bottles and I'm only up to maybe 150, (I haven't counted in a long time).

Today I started with my absolute number one of teal cremes, in fact I think its the only teal I own that's a creme, Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Fairy Teal! It is by far the best teal ever! I applied two (not thick) coats of the polish, if you really wanted to you could try just one.

This polish is not runny its just perfect. I think it has to do with the brush size too. My other SH Completes have a much bigger brush and this one is smaller and makes it easier to keep from getting polish on the sides of my fingers. The color I would describe is a dark and dusty, but its shiny and in the sun it really stands out even though there is no shimmer.

Then to bring it alive some more, I stamped on it using the Salon Express Kit plate  SE11 the zebra stripes. I stamped them with China Glaze's Aquadellic. The contrast of the light blue against the dusty teal is nice. Its not over the top stand out, it just gives it that extra kick.

I had a lovely surprise yesterday in the mail, from Adri of Morie's Nail Art. She sent me a package with 6 lovely holo glitter polishes, five of which are exclusive to Costa Rica where she is, called Adoro. Adrianna if you are reading this I wanted to say again the polishes are beautiful and a huge THANK YOU!!

I hope you all have a fabulous second part to your weekend!
Nicole.

Valentines Day Manicure!

Happy Valentines Day everyone!!!!

I hope you all are getting to spend it with the one you love even if its your cat!

I came up with this design after posting my Simple Valentines Day French Manicure, I loved having a french manicure but the red was too bright for me, so to tone it down I started with Aquadellic as my tips. I was fairly pleased with it too, most of them are all the same length and I didn't mess it up. So to make it Valentines Day-esque, I stamped two different heart designs from the Salon Express Kit. For the stamps I used Love is a Racket! I do love this color for stamping and my toes, it has such pretty red glitter flakies throughout that just give it that right sparkle!

At this point I thought I was done, topping it off with a coat of SH Insta Dry Top Coat and SV to even it out.

Here is what I came up with!

Okay I love this design the way it was... but I couldn't help myself so I added one coat of Finger Paints Twisted, from the Special Effects Collection. I did take pictures but you can't see the flakies since they are not on a dark background. Which is fine but trust me its so pretty in person.

Now that I have practice my french manicure skills I think wearing one every so often will become a regular thing! French Friday's perhaps? Who knows.

I hope you all enjoyed this manicure. I can't wait to show you stuff from my shopping haul on Thursday! Talk to you all very soon!

Nicole

Simple V-day French manicure design!

As Valentines Day nears I am starting to hate it more and more. I have never been a huge fan of the holiday. Being diabetic, there is not much choice when it comes to a box of chocolates. Walk though Walmart the other day not a single box of sugar free chocolates, so I'm left craving chocolate but come home empty handed. :(

So to get me out of my mood, painting my nails always helps! I have had this idea in my head for sometime now, at least the last week. It turned out nice but I would like my nails to be a tad bit longer when I decide to fully wear a french manicure. Last night I broke a nail and I am now back to semi-nubs. I had to file them down quite a bit. :( but now they are all the same shape and size so I guess that's the upside!

I recently got a Serena Glam Slam Duo from TJMaxx for...wait for it... $6.00!! We have these wear I work ( well the most recent ones anyway) and they run $14.99. This was one of the first ones that Serena Williams released I believe and it came with Love is a Racket, which is a bright red shimmer that is just stunning in the bottle, and Pros and Bronze and goldish bronze color with tons of shimmer, I swear I saw lime green shimmer and that just made love it even more!

Love is a Racket is a little to bright for my finger tips after using it in this manicure, but I plan on using it for stamping and for my toes for the summer! It is however one of the perfect Valentines Day reds out there!

Here is what I came up with! Click the read more to see the pictures!

31 Day Challenge. Day 26 Inspired By A Pattern

Happy Thursday!

Soooo... today is all about patterns or what inspires us. I've been feeling springy lately only because we still have no measurable snow fall this winter. Its crazy! It snows, then rains and gets washed away, I'm not complaining though. I haven't had to call out of work yet due to weather!

So for today's manicure I used my new Zoya polish and new favorite pink Flora. Its a bright bubblegum pink creme that is gorgeous! I cannot wait to wear this more for spring time! I purchased Flora when Zoya had their get 2 polishes free as long as you pay the shipping. I plan on doing a review of my Zoya Polishes after the challenge is over.

After applying my base color I stamped with my Wet n Wild Black Creme polish the argyle stamp from my Salon Express Kit.

Nail Stamping Plates: Old and New ones!

Wow two post in one day I must be on a roll or something. Looking back at my Tribal Nail art I don't think I got the meaning of it, but I like the tribal stars, I'm not good with the whole tribal thing. Just another part of this challenge that has made me grow and learn what I need to practice at!

But on to a better subject! Back before Christmas I bought the As Seen On TV Salon Express Nail Kit from my local Rite Aid and was super excited to use it. Well...it say for the rest of December until I got involved in the 31 Day Challenge.

31 Day Challenge. Day 15 Delicate Print.

Hi all!

 I'm so glad to be back on the computer today after yesterday, it was just not fun. Anyway, today is Day 15 we are officially half way through this challenge!!! Today is delicate print, now I went about this by either wanting to used fishnet print or lace, and well the fishnet didn't work out so well so I went with lace, then I though about using some piece of old fabric with lace that we don't use and sponging it to get the effect on my nails. I had seen it once in a tutorial and thought it was cool... nope that didn't work either. This whole process has been trial and error and I love that I am discovering new things everyday I work on these challenges.

31 Day Challenge. Day 9 Rainbow Nails.

Holy potatoes, I cannot believe it is day nine! It feels like we just started this challenge yesterday!

Today is Rainbow Nails. I think this is the challenge I have been most excited about and the one that I like the most so far!

For this challenge I literally stayed up till 12:30am back on Saturday night trying all different types of designs. I tried sponge gradient, painting stripes, but nothing seemed to work. Then I thought maybe I could stamp something and BINGO that was the ticket!