#33DC - Geometric design

Hi Monkeys! For today's 33 Day Challenge the theme was "geometric design" so I got a little creative.

I first used 3 coats of OPI Peace & Love & OPI from their San Francisco collection. It's a fab duochrome shifter from a gray plum to a steel blue gray... pretty great.

I stamped with a rectangle design using OPI Matte top coat over the Gals stamping plates. I really like this mani. I don't think it would work with a dark like black creme but the shifting color dulls enough to be completely noticeable and interesting to the eye.

Overall, I'd say it was a win. Be sure to check out everyone else's manis!

OPI: A Butterfly Moment + G36 (BOWS!)

Happy Monday Monkeys! I have a super cute delicate girly mani to show you today. I started with a base of two coats of Butterfly Moment from the OPI Mariah Carey collection. Butterfly Moment is a pretty shimmery neutral with peach and gold shimmer.

 I stamped in Milani Black Swift using the new Gal plates- G36. I'm loving this bow design so much. This particular plate has flowers, pencils a tennis shoe and a skull on it... 4 full size patterns and they snuck in the two individual images. Gals is a spinoff company/division of Cheeky so the quality of the plates are great quality. They are a little smaller in image size but they cover well and I had no problems stamping.

Gals has two sets of plates, a Princess and a Fairy set which you can find on Amazon for $10.99 and $14.99 respectively. For the quality and price, you really can't beat them. I linked the set names to the full set images on Amazon for you to check out. There are 25 plates in each set- another bonus! I'll continue to have more manis with these plates for you, the designs are really creative and innovative.

*all products used were sent for review by respective companies*

A Gel Mani with Stamping and Sparkle!

My Blog Sale!

Hi Monkeys and Happy New Year you you all! Love this "holiday" because it's one that everyone in the world can and usually does celebrate :)
Recently I did a gel mani for my neighbor for her vacation over the holidays. I wanted to show you really quick that you can stamp over gel polishes; I'll also tell you how.
I used a Jessica base, top and polish, stamped with Sally Hansen Celeb City, used the Gals stamping plates (more on that in a different post but they're pretty awesome) and another gel that is like Fairy Dust for the sparkle... K, here we go:

 On the ring and thumb fingers I stamped and the rest have the pseudo Fairy Dust gel polish over them. I like the way this mani turned out, I wish I had better pictures of it but it's super hard to take pictures of others' hands, especially at the kitchen table LOL Below I listed the steps for doing this manicure, let me know if you guys like seeing the steps or if you rather just see pictures.

I used the SensatioNail LED lamp for this manicure and the gel cure time was 30 seconds (half the time of UV), I seriously love love love the LED lamp for gel manis, not sure how I did without it before.

1. lightly buff nail, cleanse with acetone
2. put base coat on and cure for time specified on bottle (should be about 30 seconds)
3. do two coats of color gel, cure inbetween- don't make coats too thick or they won't cure
4. for stamping:
1.  take lint free wipe with alcohol and gently take off film of nails to be stamped (surface will look a little dull, that's ok)
2. stamp as usual, clean up cuticles with eyeliner brush and acetone
5. For Sparkles:
1.  paint thin coat of sparkle gel polish over nail and cure for time specified
6. use gel top coat over all nails and cure
7. put rubbing alcohol on a lint free wipe and go over each nail to clear the film

You are done now and have a great unique gel mani!

What do you think? It doesn't take long after you've stamped once or twice over gel. I use an XL squishy stamper so it rolls easily over my nail. 

NOPI: Pretty in Plum & GA41

Recently Cheeky launched a new set of plates under the brand "Gals", which can be found on Amazon. They have a Princess and a Fairy set, each with 25 new plates (click the link to see the images, they retail for $15.99 at the moment). The images seem shorter on these so if you have long nails you will most likely have to double stamp- luckily I'm rocking shorties right now so I had no problems. I love the designs on these plates, they seem unique and I had no problem stamping with Milani Black Swift and White on The Spot. I did some gingerbread men and bells for you with a snowflake for good measure. I like that the images themselves are not tiny, you can clearly see what it's meant to be when it's on the nail.  The plates have a great black backing to them and are not sharp.

 I stamped over NOPI Pretty in Plum from the Selena Gomez collection. It's a medium shimmery plum and I used two coats, had great application and a good dry time. I have the rest of the colors for you over the next few days along with some more Gals plate manis :)

*plates and polish provided by respective companies*