Mermaid's Dream

Have you ever felt that amazing "high" when you score a bottle of nail polish that you really could never rationalize paying that much for, but get it for dirt cheap/free? No? Just my addiction? Maybe so. But whatever, this polish is gorgeous.......

This is Mermaid's Dream by Deborah Lippmann. I have been coveting this polish for a while - I'd eye it up at Sephora, and occasionally stroke the bottle yearningly.  When I won a DL 4-pack of polish on Listia, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this was indeed one of those four.

I felt like it was pretty mandatory to stamp something aquatic/mermaid themed on these nails, so I went with some Bundle Monster plates and Dernelect polish in "Phenom." (This was yet another adventure in stamping made easier and more enjoyable by Kiesque.)

Truly, this is a polish that I could wear all by itself -- which does not happen often. What do you think? Have you tried this polish yet? I also discovered that DL polish is 5-free as well as cruelty free (meaning they don't test on helpless animals), so I am really starting to like this line more and more.

What's Cool?

This is!

I won some free ad space over at My So-Called Chaos: an amazing blog that covers a variety of topics, including nail art, and more! It is definitely worth taking your time to check out -- I feel like her topics are of interest to a variety of personalities.

I played around with creating a few banners, and chose to use this one:

Making banners is a lot of fun (at least for a nerd like me), and as I found out, there are plenty of sites online that you can make free banners. I used Bannersnack and was pretty pleased with the results, although I felt like I didn't have as many options with the Text editing as I would have liked. But since it was free -- I really have no room to complain!

I would love to hear any constructive criticizm, or commentary on making banners, especially since I am pretty new at this.  :)

UPDATE: my ad is scheduled to run July 9th. Be sure to check it out over at My So-Called Chaos!

Geo-chic

Can I start off by saying that Liquid Palisade is amazing? In my opinion, it's the second best invention next to stamping for the nail art lover. I am doing much more in the line of stamping and gradients thanks to LP. I could kiss whomever birthed this wonderful idea.

But, let's get back on track, shall we?

I am doing more and more facials in my Esthetics class, so it's becoming more of a necessity to keep my nails on the shorter side. That will not, however, stop me from rockin' some funky designs now and then.

For this mani, I used Indigo Bananas "Taffeta, Darling?" as my base. This is a gorgeous purple glass fleck holo chrome that I was blessed to receive in a giveaway. Then, with my new go-to black, Morgan Taylor's "Little Black Dress," I stamped on the plus-looking design from Born Pretty Store plate #BP25.  My finishing touches were the large pyramid shaped aurora borealis gem and some smaller rhinestones.

I used to not wear anything 3D because it drove me nuts when my gems, etc, would get caught in my hair and clothes. Over time, I have learned how to seal them in more efficiently and have become accustomed to wearing the adornments. My question is this: do you like to wear 3D nail art? If not, why? I'd love to hear your answer in the comments! 

Margarita nails

One of my favorite summer activities is enjoying a nice, refreshing margarita on a hot summer day.

Unfortunately, today was not one of those days. So I put margaritas on my nails instead. :)

My base is "Mint" by LA Colors. On my tips I used OPI's "Lights of Emerald City" to give the look of salt on the rim.  "Lights of Emerald City" is a nice glitter topper from OPI - it has white square glitter as well as small iridescent glitter as well. I think it worked quite nice for this theme. Finally, I added some lemon and lime fimo, in a variety of shapes, and top-coated the h3!! out of them.

Now if I only had some tequila.

Beach Bum (in my dreams...)

If I had a left nut, I would give it to anyone who would take me to the beach right now. To say I need a vacation is an understatement. Until then, I'll just paint waves on my fingers.

This was actually a super easy mani to do, especially with my best friend Liquid Palisade.
I used Floss Gloss in "Tanlines," Salon Perfect "Baby Blues" and Zoya "Ling" to create my gradient. Then I stamped on the waves with Bundle Monster plate #BM509, using Funky Fingers "Gesso" as my stamping polish. Finally I added some nail confetti from Bundle Monster - a cute little anchor - to finish the design.  This mani was cute and easy, and allowed me to drift away for a little bit, if only in my mind :)

Happy Daydreaming!