China Glaze Rare and Radiant with stamping

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 I know, there are tons of versions of this color, the yellow-green gold with flashes of teal, but until now I didn't own any of them. I am such a sucker for duochromes too. One of my favorite nail polishes is Revlon Khaki Zing which was discontinued many years ago. I will be so sad when that polish is gone. In fact, I might have to do an old school manicure using Khaki Zing one of these days just because it is so fabulous . . . But I am getting off track. Today, I want to show you a different duochrome manicure.

I went for a girls' weekend for a bachelorette party a couple of weeks ago. I wanted a flashy, but still elegant manicure and since I didn't know what I would be wearing, the manicure had to be neutral enough to go with any outfit. Rare and Radiant from the China Glaze Bohemian Collection fit the bill. Application was a breeze. I have been completely smitten with the most recent China Glaze polishes I used just because they were fun to apply, so smooth and even. I really couldn't capture all the beauty of this polish in photos. There were these amazing flashes of blue when the polish was viewed at a sharp angle, but you can see the wonderful metallic look of the polish.

The polish looked beautiful by itself, but I really wanted to try out one of the polishes from my Julep August Maven box too, so I did a floral french tip stamping using Julep Stefani. Stefani worked really well as a stamping polish. In the bottle, Stefani is a dark charcoal grey with loads of gold shimmer. As a stamping polish over the goldish colored Rare and Radiant, only the grey comes through, but it will be quite fetching as a full manicure on it's own with the gold showing too.

What discontinued polishes continue to make your heart skip a beat? Did you get any of the China Glaze Bohemian collection? Which colors from the collection are your favorites?

It has been a long time since I linked up with the Nail Files, but I love it. It is so much fun to see what polishes that others are wearing and loving. Check it out.

Happy polishing.
~Alexis

Floral Water Decals

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Hello again! I have a new favorite to share with you today . . . it seems like I say that a lot, but look at this. If you can apply a temporary tattoo, you can apply water decals to your nails. The water decals I have came in packs of 12, so you can make a big mistake on one or two nails and still be able to do the manicure. I bought these from lightinthebox.com and unfortunately the instructions on the website were wrong. I had to do some experimenting to figure out how to use the water decals.

You need a bowl of lukewarm water. You cut each nail decal out and I found that I could place the second decal in the water as I began applying the decal for the first nail. The decals are on a paper backing and will not come off the backing unless they are really wet. I peeled them off with my fingernails and tweezers. I then lightly dried the decal, centered it on my nail and smoothed it on. Once removed from the paper backing, the decals can handle a little bit of abuse, so if it didn't place perfectly, I could move it around a bit. I use a rubberized basecoat and that helped the decals to adhere to my nails. I cut most of the excess decal from the tip of each fingernail. Right after application, the decals didn't look completely smooth.

After all the decals were in place, I coated each nail with a layer of Gelous and wrapped around the tip, tucking the excess decal under the nail's free edge with the brush (I didn't use my fast drying topcoat for fear that it would bubble the decals like it did the stickers last week). The Gelous topcoat kind of melted the decals a little bit into the nail. This was a good thing. It made the decals look more like they were painted on than stuck on. It smoothed out the decals completely. Since the Gelous painted parts were a bit melty, it made removal of excess decal from the sides near the cuticles a little easier and it just peeled off with gentle scraping of a cuticle stick. After the Gelous had dried for a couple of minutes, I added the fast drying topcoat and there was no bubbling, just pretty flowers. I had to shoo little hoverflies away from my fingers all week because they thought my nails were really covered in flowers . . . silly little bugs.

Look at that! Six days and only tip wear. That never happens for me. I am usually a chippy mess by day six. This made me so happy and this mani was so much fun, that I decided to revitalize it with french tips in Revlon Orchid. It gave me three more days with the manicure. Nine days for a manicure. Not bad. I will definitely be purchasing more of these water decals in the future. If you like these, take a look at my giveaway and perhaps you could win a set of these wonderful water decals.

1. Ladybugs:  Ladybugs are spectacular killers of aphids and they are adorable. My daughter and I have been watching the development of ladybugs on our Japanese meadowood bush over the past couple of weeks. She saw and would talk to the larvae that look very little like lady bugs and I took a picture of one of the larvae that was changing into a ladybug. The other day, during a lunch picnic, a ladybug decided that it just wanted to hang out and take a little rest on my girl's hand. She was thrilled!

2. Finally finishing a project:  I had only the tiniest amount of sewing to do on my dress and I procrastinated, but it is finally finished. I really love it!

3. Sea Monster:  I gave my husband this knitted dice bag as a Father's Day present. He had been asking me to make it for a long time, but I knit it in secret. He loves it and tells me that it fits the perfect amount of dice.

4. Strawberry Shortcake:  I need it just once a year and it is perfection, just that taste of strawberry with lightly sweetened whipped cream on a tender biscuit . . . It is a good think that I really only crave it about once a year or I would not fit out my front door. My daughter insisted that we eat strawberry shortcake while watching Strawberry Shortcake . . . Goofball.

5. Shabby Apple:  I just received the dress I ordered using the gift certificate that I won a few weeks back. It fits me perfectly and looks just wonderful. I love it!

Green Ocean glitter gradient manicure

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Hello again. Today I share last week's sparkly manicure. Following the tutorial from The Hungry Asian, I created this green glitter gradient french manicure. First, I painted the white of my nail with Sinful Colors Green Ocean, then a second coat of Green ocean extending a little below the white onto the nail bed. The next layer of polish I added was Finger Paints Twisted and I finished off the glitter with Wet 'n' Wild Kaleidoscope. I then painted the whole nail with a clear gloss polish and finally a layer of quick dry topcoat. I was happy with the effect, but if I were to do it again, I think that using a more opaque polish than Green Ocean as the bottom layer would give an even better effect.

This manicure held up remarkably well, much better than I expected from a glitter manicure. Green Ocean goes on pretty thick, so I expected tons of chipping. At the end of the third day, I had a bit of tip wear and a tiny chip on the edge of my left middle finger. By the time I took off the polish, after six days, there were very small chips on both thumbs and a chip on each middle finger.

I love the look of glittery polishes, but oh, how I hate removing them. It seems to take forever and my hands are covered in sparkles afterwards. By the way, sorry about the blurry images. I will try to be better about that.

We put an unstained door up in the entrance to the family room about two months ago. I knew at the time that I would finish the door with Briwax, a wood wax that leaves a rustic finish with a beautiful patina. Briwax works best when it is a little warmer and you definitely need to open windows. I was finally able to wax the door with the warmer weather and while it didn't beat up my nail polish, it did a number on my fingernails. I wore a double layer of gloves and took off my gloves to discover two chipped nails. I still need to do one more coat of wax, so I hope that my nails survive it all.

I also learned why you should stain or finish wood as soon as possible. You can see little finger marks in this picture. Oh well, I'll have to live with that bit of imperfection.

Next week's manicure will be festive St. Patrick's Day nails. I'll post early to show off the green in time for the holiday. Until next time, take care.

~Alexis