ASBMF #11 Eggs and Chicks

I have been on a roll with with my Spring Challenge mani's.  I am up to number 11, Eggs and Chicks.  I wanted to do something a little different.  I also wanted to try out a new polish and it hit me, Golden eggs!.  You know, like the ones from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  I know those weren't chicks in the movie, but the idea is the same.  So here are my golden eggs with white chicks

Base Coat:  Seche Rebuild

Base Color:  OPI Just Spotted the Lizard 

Chick:  Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Chick Accents: Sinful Colors Cloud 9, WnW Ebony Hates Chris & 

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

ASBMF #10 Butterflies

Can you believe that I got two challenges done so close together?  I cheated.....hahahaha....I did one challenge on one hand and then another on my other hand.  Trying to catch up makes for fun double mani's.  This challenge is butterflies.  I have a lot of butterfly stamps, but I wanted to try these free hand monarch butterflies I keep seeing.  I did this design completely free hand with a striper brush and a dotting tool.  I used this video tutorial.  She has some cute and fun stuff, if you haven't seen her channel, check her out.
When I was deciding what color butterflies I wanted, I just couldn't make a decision.  So I went with all the Metallics in the Kleancolor Metallic collection.  I was able to purchase the entire set on Amazon.  When I purchased the set, it was 8.88 plus 2.95 shipping.  Now looking at it, it sells for 4.24 plus 5.49 shipping.  It's a little cheaper now even with more shipping.  Might even be able to get the set from eBay for even less.  OK, back to the mani.  I painted my nails in this order starting with my thumb:  Metallic Aqua, Metallic Sapphire, Metallic Fuschia, Metallic Purple and Metallic Green.  I am really glad that I did it this way.  Now I know which colors work well with this kind of art.  My favorites are the Metallic Aqua and Metallic Green.  All the others are just too dark and it's hard to see the contrast in colors.
After I was finished with the design, I thought it needed a little POP....so of course that means some glitter.  I grabbed my silver glitter striper and added it to the top of the wing.  Next it was time for the white dots.  Super easy,  I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White and a dotting tool.  Some thing weird happened when I put on my top coat.  All my white dots turned the same color as my base color.  Which I thought was really weird.  I had painted my base colors earlier in the morning and applied my top coat.  I didn't get to the design until the afternoon.  So I had to go over the white dots to make them really white.  I added another top coat and all seemed fine.  Until I saw that there were blue dots on my index finger :(  No clue why it happened, but I wasn't messing with it any more.  Here is the final product

Base Coat:  Sech REBUILD

Base Colors:  Kleancolor Metallics-Aqua, Sapphire, Fuschia, Purple & Green

 Butterfly Wing Design: Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris

Glitter:  L.A. Colors Silver Glitter Striper

Spots:  Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Top Coat:  Sech Vite

I hope you will try out a butterfly mani

Happy Friday!!

ASBMF #9 Fresh Cut Lawns

Today I did an attempt on one of my April Shower's Bring May Flowers Challenges, Fresh Cut Lawns.  This looked good in my head.  Not so good after I was done.  In my defense, my kids woke up with so much energy this morning, they just couldn't be contained.  I also used a polish I had never used before.  The Nabi Magnetics.  My thought was that I would be trying out some thing new and getting in a challenge mani.  The formula on the Nabi is really good.  You just have to make sure that you get a nice even coat.  Not too thick, not too thin.  Also, it's best to get your nail as close to the magnet as possible.  It makes great lines the closer you get.  I held my magnet to each nail for 30 seconds.  I wish I had taken a pic of my thumb.  The lines are so cool and defined!  I wanted to add a pretty butterfly, cause that is what I think of when I think of bright green lush lawns.  Remember when I said my kids were a little crazy this morning?  It messed up my stamping mojo.  I didn't get my butterfly center and at that moment I didn't care and surely didn't want to re-do it.  So I decided to wing it and try to add a partial butterfly to fill in the empty space.  Here what I ended up with.  Be honest, what do you think?

Base Coat:  Seche REBUILD

Base Color:  Nabi Magnetics in Teal

Stamping Plate;  Red Angel RA 119

Stamping Polish:  Kleancolor Metallic Yellow

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

ASBMF #8 Matte Magic

It's time for another spring challenge mani.  Number 8 is Matte Magic.  I have to admit, I was a little worried about this one,  I didn't have a matte top coat and every time I hit the store, there weren't any Essie's Matte About You.  Luckily, when I ordered my set of Kleancolor Holos, it came with a matte top coat, YAY!!  What is the best type of matte mani?  In my opinion, a flakie one!  I have just one flakie, Essie Shine of the Times.  I love this flakie.  It looks so different over different colors.  I chose to use blue as my base color.  It's nice and sunny here, a bright blue seemed fitting.  Here is what it looked like

Base Coat:  Seche REBUILD

Base Color:  Sinful Colors Midnight Blue

Top Coat:  Kleancolors Madly Matte

ASBMF #5: A Rainbow after the Rain

It's another mani from the April Showers Bring May Flowers Challenge.  This one is a rainbow after the rain.  I really wanted to do a rainbow.  But I don't have any yellow or orange polish :(  So I had to come up with some thing else.  I recently received a new polish is the mail.  A England Order of the Garter.  It's such a fantastic blue.  I thought it would make for a nice background.  I had to layer it over black, it's pretty sheer on it's own, but I only had to do one coat :)  Now to my rainbow issues.  I had this awesome idea to use rhinestones to do my rainbow.  After thinking about it I didn't want to use a bunch for one nail design.  And I am not a huge fan of tons of stuff on my nails.  I had some square rhinestones I hadn't been able to use yet.  So here is what I came up with.  What do you think?

Base Coat:  Seche Retain

Base Color #1:  Wet N Wild Ebony Hates Chris

Base Color #2:  A England Order of the Garter

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Rainbow:  Square Rhinestones

ASBMF #3: Glitter Sammy

It's time for another April Showers Bring May Flowers Mani.  Today I am sharing a glitter sammy.  I had heard of these, but never done one or even knew how to do them.  After a little googling, I found out they are super simple.  Or so I thought!  The technique is layering glitter polish with a jelly type polish.  Of course I have a few glitters laying around, not jellies though.  I did a little more googling and discovered that a gorgeous red I have is a jelly, YAY!!  No need to buy more or try to make one.  I chose to use CG Snow globe for my glitter.  It took me 2 tries to do this and I am still not even sure it's right.  I did a coat of SH Extreme Wear Red Carpet, a coat of Snow Globe than another coat of Red Carpet and topped with SV.  Seems easy enough, right?  Well, the 1st time around I wanted to make sure I had LOTS of glitter, so I did 2 layers.  But I didn't wait for it to dry, so after I added my top coat of Red Carpet, it was super squishy and any little nudge left a huge hole in my nail.  Failed attempt number 1.  The 2nd time I just did one nice thick coat of the Snow Globe and let that dry completely.  As best I could.  This stuff takes forever!  Aaaaand I had to get my kids ready go pick up my son from school.  So had a couple dings.  I just smoothed it out the best I could.  I wasn't going for round 3 LOL  After I got home, I layered on the Red Carpet and topped with SV.  I think it looks ok.  It isn't perfect cause of the dings, but I refuse to go at it again.  I may have to get some more jellies in my collection and try this again.  Until then, this is what I ended up with.

Base Coat:  Seche Retain

Jelly Color:  SH Extreme Wear Red Carpet

Glitter:  China Glaze Snow Globe

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Thoughts or suggestions?



Check out the other Gals doing the Challenge:
Hannah (Our Creator) from Polished Prisms
April from Munia's Nails
Heidi from DIY Polish & More!

Sue from Creative Nail Design by Sue
Sarah from All This Polish

Katee from A Girl and Her Polish 

Charlotte from Charlotte's Nails
Tess from Football and Fingernails
Karine at Karinea0a
Victoria from Manicurator
Ashley from One Nail To Another
Dani from Rustic Comfort
Amanda from Counting Down to Bliss
Kayono from Neues vom Kellerkind

ASBMF #2: Lady Bugs

Today I have the 2nd challenge from the April Showers Bring May Flowers Challenge, Lady Bugs.  Yet another nail art task I have yet to try.  You are seeing my first attempt.  It's ok.  Not great, but I am happy enough with it to wear it for the rest of the day :)

The process I used was this:

1.  Red french tip (2 coats with sticker guides)

2.  All red accent finger

3.  Holo top coat over all red polish (2 coats)

4.  Stripe down center of accent finger

5.  Black dots on all red polish

6.  Black accent over french tips (by hand)

7.  Top coat over all nails

8.  Added black french tip on accent finger

9.  Added eyes to my lady bug

10.  Top coat over accent nail

Seems like a lot of work.  It kind of was.  I think it will go faster if I try this design again.  There are a couple things I would change, like adding the spots after doing the black tip on the accent nail.  I would also pay more attention to the placement of the eyes.  She looks a little cross eyed LOL  You learn by doing, right?  What are your thoughts on this design?

Base Coat:  Seche Rebuild

Red French/Accent Nail:  Sinful Colors Ruby Ruby

Holo Top Coat:  Made by Me :)

Black:  L.A. Colors Striper

White:  L.A. Colors Striper

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!

ASBMF #1: Spring Pastels

I decided to join in on another challenge.  This is a Spring Challenge called April Showers Bring May Flowers, with 14 different themes.  The first theme is Spring Pastels.  I don't own a lot of pastels, they don't really look good on me.  But I do have China Glaze For Audrey, it's the first China Glaze I ever bought.  Also the one that led me to the discovery that I can't wear pastels.  Go figure.  But, I keep it around just in case.  So today is a day I needed it.  I know this is supposed to be a Spring Pastel, but let's face it.  I am not going to go out and buy a bunch of colors for one Mani Challenge.  So I went with what I had.  Pretty much nothing hahahaha.  Since I have just this one color, I decided to do some pretty flowery stamping.  Look springy enough?  It's does in my book!

Base Coat:  Seche Retain

Base Color:  CG For Audrey

White Stamping Color:  Konad Special White

Black Stamping Color:  Konad Special Black

Stamping Plate:  Flirt B65

Top Coat:  Seche Vite