My Vacation Nails

Hey guys I'm back! Thanks so much for not minding my hiatus, I had a wonderful week off and it was a great break and a wonderful reset. Unfortunately, I ended the trip on a rather awful note when I dropped my iPhone 5 in salt water and it totally died. My wonderful photo taking device, which somewhat cripples my blog.

But onto brighter things, I had several nail art pieces stored in the cloud, so I'll be updating my blog with that in the meantime while I wait to get my hands on another used iPhone 5. Because let's face it, my iPhone 4 (I switched back to) just won't cut if photo quality wise, and using my husband's iPhone 6 somehow distorts the colors a bit. Oh geeze, the trials and tribulations of a nail blogger are so silly. I'll hopefully get this sorted out soon!

Here are my lovely vacation nails! I wore these for the majority of my vacation until I spent a day in the beach and the sand and saltwater just ruined the mani and made it chip like crazy!



I showed you guys a sneak preview of these awesome nails before I left, but I thought it was only proper if I showed them to you in the full. On the thumb, middle and pinkie nail I have a gradient of Indigo Bananas The Uranium Evil (neon yellow), Diva Plumbum (teal) and Carbon Dallas (blue), which were all sent as a press samples, and then did a holo top coat of Spectraflair 35 Top Coat by Spectraflair4U. Then using my new favorite nail stamping plate, MoYou London Doodles 07, I stamped fun sea creatures using KBShimmer Eyes White Open (my favorite white stamping polish)! And no vacation is complete without a bit of holo in your face courtesy of Painted Polish's Drunk on Holo, which I applied with a makeup sponge for that extra glittery holo look!



The nails were perfect on the dolphin cruise I took around Hilton Head Island in South Carolina (where I took my vacation). I had so much fun on my trip. It was a true girl's weekend which I spent with my mom and one of her closet friends!

So I hope that you enjoyed these nails as much as I did! They were the perfect accessory for my vacation!

Moving forward just understand I'll be a little crippled in the photo quality department as I try to figure out how to properly adjust to having unfamiliar photo equipment! I have a ton to review in the next few weeks, but I might wait on that until I can properly get my hands on an iPhone 5 again.

Under the Sea Nails and a Giveaway

Hey everyone, I'm currently prepping to go on vacation. I'll be gone a week, so I won't be posting next week and for that I'm truly sorry. My original intention was to post while I was away, but I won't have my laptop with me and I think I'd have a hard time with social media and stuff while I'm away, so rather than half-ass my posts and quickly put them together, I'm going to take a week hiatus! This is my last post, and to make it up to you I have some AWESOME nails to show you today and a GIVEAWAY at the end of this post, so stay tuned!!!



First off I am going to begin by saying these are by far some of my most favorite nails I have created so far this season and much of it is thanks in large part to the plate I used. For this look I used MoYou London Doodles 07 plate, and it is full of THE cutest sea creatures and crazy designs all over!

Just take a look at those designs, so many possibilities. At first I was overwhelmed, I didn't know where to begin. But when I finally set out to use the plate, I just focused on the creature I wanted to feature on each nail and scraped away. No matter what you choose to do, the design will come together!



Take a look at that narwhal, could anything be cuter?!?!! Let's take a quick look at the full look in different lighting. I seriously could not stop staring at this look, it brought me such joy and happiness. I even got to share it with my niece (who is two and a half) and nephew (who is seven months), and believe it or not they really like them, well I like to think so!







Honestly there is nothing happier to me than these nails. I am currently scheming what to do for my vacation nails. I'm headed to Hilton Head, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia for a little Southern Beach Vacay with my mom and her friend. It is going to be a total girls week! I definitely want to incorporate this plate in some way, maybe the turtle since Hilton Head is a safe harbor for sea turtles!

So on to how I achieved this look. I started first with two coats of Picture Polish Lakodom. This is one of two new Picture Polishes I got, and I have to say, I'm less than impressed. I just thought for the price, the formula would be a little better. I have SUCH a hard time spending over $13 for a polish and when I do I guess I have really high expectations. With this polish and Honey Moon, I found the formulas a bit thick to work with. It's a shame because I covet so many PP polishes, but now not so much I guess.

Anyway, I do like Lakodom the color, it is a white jelly polish with holographic shards throughout. After adding a quick dry top coat and letting it dry, I added a gradient of stamping. Like I said, I had no idea how to tackle this plate because I was so overwhelmed with the awesomeness of it all that I just went to town with it. For the colors I used to stamp, I used a quick swipe of Zoya Edie, Zoya Alexa and Essie the More the Merrier. I just love this gradient combo and will most likely be using this again in the future real soon (who knows maybe even for my vacation nails!).

I finally got some good advice for my Creative Stamper and I primed it with a Mr. Eraser and use it with a light touch in a rolling motion (both for application and picking up the image) and it works great!


 

Now on to the giveaway. I teamed up with some other lovely bloggers from The Nail Polish Blogger Connection Facebook group for a chance to win a $250 prize, and a runner up gets a $60 prize!

Prizes:
• $250 grand prize that can be sent either as an gift certificate to your favorite e-tailer or directly through paypal.
• $60 runner up prize that can be sent either as an gift certificate to your favorite e-tailer or directly through paypal.  

Sponsors:
The Mercurial Magpie
Manna's Manis
Manicured And Marvelous Tales Of Coffee, Lacquer and Beauty
PolishandPaws
BruisedUpDollieNails
Lacquer Or Leave Her!
The Polished Hippy
Delight In Nails
The Procrastinating Polishr
Doctor Crafty
Curb Appeal Nails
 Les Essais Beaute De Schette
Newsie Nail Novice
Lauriestrode's Fun With Nails
Moni's Mani
Lacquered Geek  

Rules & Info:
• The giveaway is open internationally.
• The giveaway will run from today until midnight on Monday, May 18th. The winner will have only 48 hours to respond to my email claiming the prize, after that a new winner will be selected.
• You must be 18 or older to enter.
• No giveaway-only, empty or spam accounts, those entries will be disqualified. All winning entries will be verified.
• No following and unfollowing once the giveaway ends. Unfollowers will be banned from future giveaways. 

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