NOPI: Roughles swatches

My 3 year blogiversary is live, HERE to enter!

Remember the Nicole by OPI Roughles or Ruffles textured collection? I have it for you today and it's awesome. 

onto the individual swatches and review...

#33DC - Lines

You have only a few more days to enter my Winter Nail Art Contest. Details HERE

The 33 Day Challenge is almost over! I'll be starting a winter challenge so keep your eyes out for cute winter themed nail art. Today's theme was "lines". I used all OPI polishes starting with a base of  My Vampire is Buff (2 coats). I taped of my  nail with striping tape then sponged Chocolate Moose over it then a sponged coat of Goldeneye for some warm blingy gold tones. I like the way this turned out, it's definitely different looking. The colors meddle together well and I'm kind of on a brown kick for fall right now so this fits the bill.

#33DC - Based on a Pattern in Your Wardrobe- Purple Stirpes

There's no doubt that purple is my favorite color- it's everywhere from my wardrobe to my polish drawers. I may have a problem. Today's challenge is supposed to be a pattern from my wardrobe. I have purple a purple striped sweater I really love and while it is not the same tones of this mani, I used it as inspiration. 

 I started off with two coats of Essie Using My Maiden Name which has a great pink shimmer to it and is a very cool toned purple/lavender. Formula on this was fine but I want the shimmer to show more! I taped it off and used Sable Collar (a deeper muddy plum) and then NOPI Aren't Families Grape which is one of those purples that doesn't photograph at all purple but rather blue. It's pretty much a blurple anyways. This mani was not that awesome. I thought it was a good idea than it started to fall apart. I should have used all cremes, no shimmers and stayed of of blurple territory. Oh well. Be sure to check out everyone else's challenge manis!

Gold Tape and Sponge Fun!

Hey Monkeys! I have some tape and sponge action for you today! This was another Milani mani and it's amazingly easy, so if you try it, send me pictures!
I started with 2 coats of Dark Coffee, a deep rich brown, then taped off a random pattern using striping tape. Using Signature Gold I dabbed from the back of a nail stamping plate using a sponge, onto my nail over the tape. If you quickly remove the tape after sponging, you get a flawless application and some cool looking straight lines. If you don't have nail striping tape you can use scotch tape, just be sure to make it less sticky before you put it on your nail. Also, a quick dry top coat never hurts either :)

Guest Post: Tape Mani from Simple & Beautiful!

Hooray for new bloggers!! Here's Michele from Simple and Beautiful. She brings fresh designs to the nail world, be sure to stop by and check her blog out and give her monkey love. Thanks Michele!

Hey all, I'm super stoked to be able to do a guest post for Kristin! This is my first ever guest post and I feel very honored because she is one of the bloggers who inspired me to start my own blog.

 For this mani I used 2 coats of Ulta Concrete Evidence, I then taped each finger using my striping tape and painted over with OPI Swimsuit...Nailed It. I reversed the colors on my ring finger to make my accent nail. To finish the look I used 1 coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust. Hope you all enjoyed my post. Thank you again Kristin for giving me the opportunity to do a guest post for you!

Michele

Sally Hansen: Lapis Amethyst striping tape mani

I came across some Sally Hansen Nail Prisms and thought I'd test out Lapis Amethyst over black.  I did one coat of Wet N Wild Black Creme (my favorite black ever) then taped off my nails with striping tape and did one coat of Lapis Amethyst over/between taped off areas. On my accent finger I used an ICE polish that has small purple glitter/shimmer to it. Lapis Amethyst is quite a duochrome, it flashes purple and green/blue. You can see it in some of the pictures but it was more apparent in person. I also included a blurred picture in the middle so youc an see the shiimmer in LA, it's pretty awesome! Since this polish is sheer, I'll probably be layering it over lots of other options. It's great and reminds me of Zoya Ki or Deborah Lippmann Wicked Game.... may be I'll have a comparison for you soon :) 

News: I'm selling nail decals from my Etsy store now if you're interested, I can make custom ones as well!

Teal and Black Striped Mani

Ok, so I'm on a striping mani kick again. I love using my striping tape for it! Here's my YouTube on how to use the tape for designs. I recently went to a NHL (hockey) game and wanted to do the team colors in a mani, this is what I came up with. Diamond Cosmetics "Don't Teal my Heart Away" and Wet N Wild Black Creme. I only had to use one coat of DTMHA and one of Black Creme, so it was quick to do as a full mani. I think the longest part was cutting the tape! You will probably see a few more of these from me, as I had forgotten about them ;-) Anyways, an easy mani once you get the hang of the taping, hope you like!

News: I have added a new item to my Etsy store... custom nail water decals, check them out :)

Blue and Purple With Striping Tape Art

This post is kind of a hodge podge of polish.  I wanted to do nail striping skittles but I also wanted to use some blue and purple polishes... and clearly was too lazy to do a separate mani for each color so.... the striping tape skittle mani was born.

The base color of this circus is BYS Yabba Dabba Blue, now let me take you on a tour through each finger:


Index- China Glaze Blue Hawaiian (color that I'm holding in my hand). Blue Hawaiian is a sheer light blue jelly that has round small holographic glitter in it and it is a great top coat! I'll be using this one to do a full post soon.

Middle- I taped off a design, in this case 3 lines, using nail striping tape and then painted over it with Wet N Wild Stream of Wonder which is a silver shimmery medium blue.

Ring- I used nail striping tape and taped off my nail in a plaid pattern and used Wet N Wild Disturbia over it.  Disturbia is a deep purple with lots of shimmer to it, it really demands attention and was a good contrast between Stream of Wonder and Grape Juice.

Little- Taped off my pinky with nanil striping tape and painted over it with China Glaze's Grape Juice which is a really pretty purple that leans towards being a foil but looks like it has micro glitter in it. This polish is super fun and I plan on doing a full mani with it soon.

For a chance to win striping tape and do your own fun mani, check out my giveaway.


There's also a YouTube I did on how to use the striping tape.

YouTube tutorial!: 4th of July mani pt. 2

This is a cross post of a guest spot I did for Jeanie of Midnight Manicures .  She has a great blog and an awesome giveaway right now too :)

The 4th of July is right around the corner for Americans! It's a day we celebrate our country's independence, grill some hot dogs, have some refreshing drinks and of course.... wear cute manis! I wanted to do red, white and blue (colors of the USA) but did not want it to be boring.  I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White (SMW), Ruby Ruby (red), Ciao Bella (blue), a silver glitter striper, OPI Birthday Babe and a dotting tool and nail striping tape or you can use scotch tape or french tip nail guides (the straight ones).


Check out the video tutorial for a quick step by step how to  and don't forget to enter the giveaway, it ends in a few days!!

Purple Stripe Gradient with Glitter

 This was my first attempt at a gradient manicure.  I wanted to do something fun for Father's Day weekend.  We were going out to dinner with family so I thought this would be a fun mani to wear and match my make up to.

  

This took forever but I think was worth it.  There's a few things that I would change but I'll get to that in a minute..

I used: China Glaze Nova, OPI: Rumples Wiggin', Funky Dunky, Planks Alot.

I started out with 2 coats of Rumples Wiggin' and a coat of SV to dry it fast, then taped off with nail striping tape (did you see I added some to  my giveaway?) and painted the next color from the tape and below to the tip of my nail, then added a coat of SV.  Lather, rinse, repeat....

So the things I would change about this? I would not have put glitter on the bottom because it was such a pain to remove, especially since there was 3 or 4 coats of SV below it.  I really like the way it looks with 4 colors but obviously 3 would be much easier and faster.  I blurred this picture so you could appreciate the bling factor. I guess that's the lazy way of doing the mani is with 3 colors.

The great side to this mani was that it lasted for a long time with no tip wear or chipping. I think it had something to do with the fact my nails were so full of polish they were as thick as gel nails!

I got many compliments on this manicure including someone asking me where I got them done LOL love it!

It did take me about an hour and a half or two hours but I think if I was wearing this more than 3 days, it's well worth it.

I added a little something to the giveaway for reaching 500 followers, you should check it out ;-) as more people follow, more cool things are added, it's just how I roll :-)

Rainbow and Nail Striping Tape Mani

I've been getting alot of questions lately about where I get my nail striping tape and how to use it etc.  You can get it on ebay and most nail art websites, and you can view my video oh how to do this on the Manicured Monkey YouTube channel along with the "Monkey on YouTube" tab at the top of the page.

Onto the mani:
I used Zoya Pheobe (blue), Orly VaVaVoom (hot pink) and Color Club Feelin' Groovy (neon green) and Revvvolution (black holo).  This mani was kind of intense to do and took lots of coats of SV. Here's the order I did this in:

 - 2 coats of Feelin' Groovy
- coat of SV (wait til dry and tape off with striping tape to do pink (tape was placed just on the top side of the pink, and I painted all the way to the nail tip))

-2 coats of VaVaVoom
-coat of SV (tape off again, (tape placed where the top of the blue sits, then painted down)
- two coats of Pheobe
-coat of SV
- cut nail striping tape and strategically place in designs
- One coat of Revvvolution over it all
-Carefully peel off the tape
-final coat of SV


So as you can tell it's a bit of a process but the result, I think, is awesome. 

Don't forget my Giveaway