Monkey See Monkey Do Monday: Magnetic Gradient

A while ago Laurie from Dressed Up Digits did this awesome magnetic gradient manicure. If you're not following her, you definitely should. She has some awesome manicures. A recent favorite: seashells. Fabulous! Anyways, I saw I had 3 unused Icing/Claire's Magnetix polishes in my untried bin and figured this would be a good way to use them.

I started with a layer of the silver and then did a gradient sponge over with the silver, gold and blue. Once I that was dry I put a non-fast dry top coat over it to make it wet again. I had to use Gelous because that was the only non-fast dry clear polish I had haha. 

Then I held the magnet over it like usual. All my gradients resembled the one of my middle finger, but I didn't hold the magnet to it fast enough, so less of the contrasting particles were pulled up. I still like it even if it wasn't as smooth as Laurie's :)

Check out the other awesome blogs participating in Monkey See Monkey Do Mondays! If you'd like to participate, click on the badge at the top of the page and join the facebook group!

Amber at Amber Did It

Amber at Never Naked Nails

Ana Cris at Esta Cerrada la Drogueria

Arlene at Nails and Vanities

Ashley at Follow the Yellow Polish Road

Basia at Polish My Mind

Carrie at LeSamowen:Life, Love, and Nail Polish

Cristina at The Clockwise Nail Polish

Debbie at The Crumpet

Elizabeth at Nail Polish is My Crack

Emily Esqueleta at Macabre Manicures

Emma at Manicurity

Erin at Erin's Beauty Bumbles

Gwenn at Sweet Sugar

Helena at Nail Wish

Jen at Jens Painted Tips

Jenn at Polished Crazed

Kim at A Polished Addiction

Kirsten at Geeky Owl

Kristin at Manicured Monkey

Laurie at Dressed Up Digits

Layka at Kawaiinize Your Life

Melissa at The (mis)Adventures of a Wanna Be Martha

Misha at Enigmatic Rambles

Missy at Gnarly Gnails

Nayade at Toxic Vanity

Neivys at Maquiclub Girl

Adventures in Stamping: Precious Stones

On the docket for today's stamping challenge: Precious Stone. I decided to use polish names that were stones and then dress it up all classy like with some gold stamping. 

I used China Glaze Emerald Sparkled and Savvy Ruby Slippers. It came out more Christmas-y than I hoped lol. I saw Emerald Sparkled on a blog last week and decided I needed it. It is gorgeous! If you don't have it, seriously, go on eBay and find it now. You need it!

Then I stamped with China Glaze Passion and Bundle Monster plate BM 312. I couldn't get it perfectly centered and straight, but I'm still pretty proud of it. If you need a good gold for stamping, get Passion. Go add it to your Emerald Sparkled order on eBay. You're welcome. (<-- reference to Awkward.. Not being rude ;) )

If you'd like to join in on Stamping Sundays, click the Adventures in Stamping Badge at the top of the page and join the Facebook group :)

Blogger Friends Forever: Girly

Today's challenge prompt is girly. I started with one design, but was just having one of those bad polish days and gave up on it. Then massively broke a nail :( But it's ok because I saved it! Here's my second design. 

I started with three coats of Lex Cosmetics Tuilleries. It's a gorgeous milky pink base with pink, red, orange, white and silver glitter. It's so soft and delicate. I tried to stamp a French tip design, but my nails are just too small for any image to show up well and I had to paint over them. I used paper reinforcement stickers to block the parts of the nail I didn't want painted. I used China Glaze Passion for the tips. I like the result of the technique, but I preferred the look before I added the tips.

I got this polish from sneakpeeq. It's a really interesting website that offers special pricing and lots of specials while you're peeking...or peeqing. Check it out here (referral link).

Here are the fabulous bloggers participating in this challenge:
Thiamere of On Beauty Stuff & What Else's

Pram of My Nail Polish Addiction

Bec of Lacquer Dreams

Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish

Caitlin of Caitlin's Creative Corner

Emma of Manicurity

Alyssa of Fancy Phalanges

Sally Of Nail Pron

And here's what we have in store! (My week is August 23-25)

Blogger Friends Forever: Cartoons

Today I'm started an exciting new challenge with some fellow bloggers. We each get a week in the challenge in which we get to choose two themes. The first week is Thiamere's choice. Her first pick was cartoons. I agonized over what to do for FOREVER! I really wanted to do Futurama, but Bec (also participating in the challenge) did awesome Futurama nails before. I thought of a bunch of cartoons, but could not or didn't want to do more than one character. I finally decided to do skittles!

Here's Brendan from Home Movies, Cosmo (as a fish) from Fairly Odd Parents, Dexter from Dexter's Lab and Bender from Futurama. You might be wondering where my pinky is...after two failed designs (Daria and Fry are really hard to draw!) and a late night, I gave up and just topped it with Black Cat Lacquer Tetris haha.

To do this I used a Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in black, Nailritz pens in various colors and Essence Romeo for Bender. I'm proudest of Dexter. I really like how Brendan came out too, but he's not very detailed, so it wasn't too hard :)

Here are the fabulous bloggers participating in this challenge:
Thiamere of On Beauty Stuff & What Else's

Pram of My Nail Polish Addiction

Bec of Lacquer Dreams

Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish

Caitlin of Caitlin's Creative Corner

Emma of Manicurity

Alyssa of Fancy Phalanges

Sally Of Nail Pron

And here's what we have in store! (My week is August 23-25)

Teal Tuesday: Half Moon

Welcome to another Teal Tuesday! As you can see from the awesome graphic (courtesy of Missy from Gnarly Gnails-linked below), this week is half-moons! I had grandiose plans, but thanks to an exhausting weekend and the arrival of an awesome swap package, there was a change of plans.

I used two coats of Impala Azul Pavão which is a gorgeous teal creme. It applied very well. Absolutely love this polish. I'm experimenting with my nail shape. I can't decide how I feel about it. I hate the middle nail, but that's pretty constant no matter the nail shape haha. With this mani on, it really reminds me of vintage manicures.

Then I used reinforcement stickers to block off the half moon part of my nail. Then I applied one coat of Jade Energy which is a teal linear holo. I absolutely love this polish and I can't wait until I get the rest of the Jades!

Make sure to check out these other Teal Tuesday blogs! If you'd like to join us, click on the badge at the top of my page!

Missy at Gnarly Gnails

Rhonda at Nails Beautiqued

Kirsten at Geeky Owl

Amanda at Mandy's Polish

ColorSplash Nails

Simple-and-Beautiful

Aimee at Persistently Glittery

Nat at No Holos!

Ana at Cherries Sweet

Caitlin at  Caitlin's Creative Corner

Ariane at  The Frenzied Polisher

Kia at  Lacquered Libra