Diagonal Taped Manicure

I was so excited to find China Glaze Atlantis at VyVy's.  They had a lot of stuff my local Sally's doesn't have.  I wanted to layer it over one of the other blues I picked up and thought it would look good over OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue.  They are both really pretty, and I wish I'd taken a few pictures before I used the matte top coat on it.  My new matte top coat is seriously awesome.  It dries fast, it works great, and I'm pretty much obsessed with it.

I really liked how this turned out, I love mattified glitter.

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Colors Used: OPI Yoga-ta Get This Blue, China Glaze Atlantis, with Orly Satin Seal Matte top coat
Technique: Taping
Purchased: All at VyVy's!
Verdict on the colors: How much do I love my new matte top coat??  The others are good too. :-)

CAPITOL COLORS!

Here is my first Capitol Colors manicure!  The day after I brought them home I did a quick swipe of all of them over my nails, and decided from that I wanted to use Dress Me Up and Stone Cold together.  I love the look of glossy/matte combos, so I wanted to do something there.  First, here is a swatch of Dress Me Up.  I love this one, it's neutral and elegant looking without being boring.  It's a little pinker than this picture shows, I think I would call it a dusty rose.

Aaaaand here it is with Stone Cold stamped over it!  I used a BM20 plate, and as many, many other bloggers have pointed out, the first set of Bundle Monster plates have smaller "whole nail" images that don't really provide full nail coverage.  In this case, I think the fast drying matte polish also contributed to the stamp not stamping the entire way.  On my smaller nails the stamp is definitely big enough, but even moving quickly it was dry by the time I stamped.  It was a little like if you took a roll of corrector tape and tried to use that to stripe your nail.  Despite that, I really like this manicure and I LOVE the way these two colors play together.

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Colors Used: China Glaze Dress Me Up and Stone Cold
Technique: BM20
Purchased: Sally
Verdict on the colors: Love both of them.  I think Stone Cold might be my new favorite.  My finger nail looks like it's made of smooth asphalt.  Love love love.

Dotty Flower Manicure and OMG I HAVE A MATTE

Last weekend my sister discovered that one of the new Spoiled polishes I'd picked up was...a MATTE!  I was super excited, I love all the matte polish pictures online and they are high on my list of WANTS.  I found Seche Natural at the CVS by my house and had been hoping it would work as a matte top coat, but alas it does not.  I decided to use it as a base for my first dot manicure effort.  I was hoping I would be awesome at this from the get go and could use this as a submission in the Chalkboard Nails dotting contest, but...no.  I'm not displeased with it for my first try, but definitely want to practice before the March 5 deadline.  Here it is!

Spoiled Distant Memory.  I would say this is actually "matte-ish."  Is still has a little sheen, but is much less glossy than a regular polish.  The finish is almost plastic-like.  You can still see some of the micro glitter flecks in it, even with the less than glossy finish.  It's very pretty, and I love teal shades!

 

 

And the dotty flower manicure:  This has a top coat over it, you can see the difference in finishes on Distant Memory.  I like it with a top coat too!

  

I meant for these to be 3 petal flowers...it's a less defined than I was going for.  I think it's still cute!

 

My husband and I are currently redoing out living room and den, so naturally 30 minutes after I finished this I went to bring cans of paint in from the car and smudged my flowers all to hell.  This did teach me that you want FLAT dots though.

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Colors Used:  Spoiled Distant Memory (base), Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On and Hot Magenta (spots).  I used 2 coats of Distant Memory, but it was pretty thick with 1.  Making mental note to try it with stamping.

Technique: Dotting tool

Purchased: I got Spoiled at CVS, and Sally Hansen's from CVS or Kroger.  I know those are super common, but whenever I see colors I like on a blog I always wonder where they got them (for less common brands) so I decided just to make it a regular part of mine.