Summer Mani Challenge - Summer Stamp

I am one date late with this Summer Mani Challenge Post. This week's theme is Summer Stamp. Unfortunately I did this after I came home from my trip and I had to file down all my nails to little nubs, to top it off I got a cut on my middle finger so pretty much my nails look a hot mess at the moment.

Polishes Used:
-OPI - Nail Envy
-China Glaze - Highlight of my Summer
-China Glaze - Bottoms Up
-China Glaze - That's Shore Right
-Konad - Pink
-Northern Lights
-Pueen 19

Other than my little mess of nubs, I actually like this design. I think that it's fun and summery and really very easy to do. Just a little stamping and addition of a couple dots here and there.

Make sure to check out what the other ladies did for their Summer Stamping Manis!

I'm Back!!! (And some pictures from Brugge!)

Hello Loves!

I hope you enjoyed checking out the mani's from Charlie, Tricia and Katee while I was gone. I am now back in the states with new polish, and am happy to be home. Unfortunately I am a little behind on posts and may not have anything else for you for a couple of days. I got back late Thursday night and my in-laws came into town for the weekend on Friday so I am a bit tied up.

However, I will share with you some of my photos from my trip to Brugge!

It was cold (high 50's F) and cloudy most of the days that I was there but luckily there was one nice sunny day that I got to explore. It was really a great experience and thankful that I got to go. I would definitely like to take my husband back with me sometime for a vacation :)

Guest Post by Katee of A Girl and Her Polish!

Happy Wednesday! Today I have one of, what I like to consider, my close blogger friends, Katee of A Girl and Her Polish guest posting for me while I'm in Belgium! Katee and I have gotten close thanks to our numerous challenges and groups together and I love pretty much every single thing she does with her nails!!!

**********

Hello again everyone!  I am so happy to be back guesting for Stephanie!

For my guest post I wanted to create a simple nail design that anyone can do at home!  I actually did the design on my toes first and liked it so much I wanted it on my nails!

I started with two coats of Bettina Marshmallow.  Bettina is quickly becoming a favorite polish!  The formula is amazing!

It really is the colors that make this design and I recently came into possession of some fabulous shades.
I added my first set of lines using a striping brush and butter LONDON Cake-Hole.  Cake-Hole is the perfect pink neon for summer!

I added a second set of lines using butter LONDON Slapper.  I am loving this blue!

I topped it off with two coats of HK Girl, my all time favorite top coat!

I love simple design like this!  These lines are so easy to create that anyone can do it!

I hope you all enjoyed my quick and easy summer design and that you try it yourself!

**********

Isn't this design so cute! It's simple and I am sure all my lovely readers can re-create it! I know I will be doing something like this when I get back! All of these Butter London shades are really pretty! I have a couple that I recieved as a giveaway prize (ironically from Katee) but I definitely need to get more.

Thanks again Katee for guest posting for me and this super cute design :)

Guest Post by Tricia of The Cat's Claws!

I love Facebook because I get to meet lots of great new people and fellow nails enthusiasts! One of those is Tricia of The Cat's Claws. I recently started following her blog and she has awesome long nails (that I am jealous of) and pretty swatches!

**********

Waiting For Summer!

When Stephanie of A Little Polish asked for a guest post I jumped at the chance. Stephanie showcases some wonderful nail art on her blog that I just cannot emulate. So after the initial excitement I quickly realized that I would have to actually come up with something rather than just painting my nails and then rambling about them on my blog.

My first thought was to just do a swatch rather than a full blown mani of something I do quite regularly, which is a colour and then glitter. So with that in mind I started with OPI Can’t Find My Czechbook, three nails later I had my Eureka moment and changed my mind and decided this was going to be a full nail art mani.

I hope you are enjoying lovely sunny weather wherever you are, and if not, you can easily copy this look with just a dotting tool. I used OPI Can’t Find My Czechbook, OPI My Vampire Is Buff for the clouds and OPI Oy-Another Polish Joke for the sun. And to prove anyone can do this look here is my right hand, please excuse my middle finger I lost a nail fighting with the dishwasher!

**********

This mani is super fun and great for summertime! It's just so cheery! I love that Tricia decided to jump in with the nail art and was even nice enough to show us her right hand (I can't say I have ever done that on my blog so kudos to you girl!)

I want to thank Tricia for sharing this mani with us and don't forget to check out her blog, The Cat's Claws.

Guest Post by Charlie of Popping Nails!

Today I have an awesome mani to share with you from Charlie of Popping Nails! Charlie was so sweet when I  mentioned that I needed guest bloggers in one group that I am part of on Facebook and she spoke right up. She does really cool nail art and I have been following her blog for a while now. So onto her awesome mani!

**********

Hi everyone! I'm Charlie from the blog Popping Nails, I thought I'd give you a quick bit of info before I start, I'm 18 and from England so this may explain some spelling differences and brands that might not be featured here on Stephanie's blog. When I saw Stephanie was looking for someone to do a guest post for her blog, I immediately put myself forward as I love doing guest posts and sharing the nail art love. Stephanie's style is a bit girlier than mine but I had had this idea in my mind for a while now so I thought it would be a great to do them now.

I wanted to do this floral/dot mix and was waiting until I got a good pale green so when I found one the other day, I knew it was meant to be. I did China Glaze Keep Calm and Paint On as my base colour with Barry M Matt White on top half of all my nails. Before putting on the white I made the flowers out of my new Gelly polishes using an unknown Barry M pink colour, Key Lime, Guava Matt White and then a dot of Mango for the inside of all the flowers. Once I put on the white, I then went in with Barry M Lemon Ice Cream, Rimmel Tangy Tangerine, Barry M Berry Ice Cream, Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream and W7 Sheer Blue. I know I used a lot of polishes for these nails but I really like how they turned out. I initially set out doing these as I thought they would be nice and simple but halfway through, I realised they weren't. I also used this silver striping tape down the middle of all the nails. I was going to use chain but when I put it on my right hand it looked awful so I took it off and replaced it with this striping tape.

Hopefully you all like these nails, I know they may seem a bit over the top if you're not used to my style but this was me pulling back. If you like these nails then you can check out the tutorial I did for them and see more over on my blog. Thanks to Stephanie for letting me do this post and I hope you had as much fun seeing it as I did doing it!

**********

This is seriously so cute! I will definitely be trying to re-create this look sometime myself! I have always wanted to do multiple patterns on my nails and Charlie has certainly mastered it! If you're not already following her, you should be!!!

Thanks again Charlie!!

The Nail Challenge Collaborative Presents - Neons - Week 4

Final mani of the Neon theme. While I love me some neons, I realized that I didn't have as many as I thought and was continuing to gravitate to the same colors over and over again. So today I kept it simple and just did a bright pink mani :)

Polishes Used:
-OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls
-Zoya - Tobey
-Gelous

Tobey is a nice bright pink from Zoya. I just happened to have the exact same color star decorations that I hadn't used....until today! This is a nice simple mani but bright and easy too!

Housekeeping: Yesterday afternoon I left from Pittsburgh to Belgium on a business trip. I have never been outside of North America so this is very exciting (and a little nervous) for me. I will be away until late Thursday night but was lucky enough to get a couple guest posts lined up for you, my lovely readers. Make sure to check them all out <3

Summer Mani Challenge - Summer Floral

Keeping up with the Summer Mani Challenge, this week's theme is Summer Floral. I was really looking forward to this theme because I generally like doing floral mani's. However, since I ran out of time before I left on my business trip out of the country, my mani isn't exactly what I had hoped. lol.

Polishes Used:
-Glitter Me This - Can I Walk You Home?
-Essence - Black is Back
-Konad - Yellow
-Konad - Pink
-Northern Lights

I received the GMT polish recently as part of a giveaway, I will be doing a review of the entire collection that I got shortly but I wanted to try them out, so I decided to use Can I Walk You Home as a base. It wasn't very summery, but why not just add some dark flowers to it to make it even less summery (sarcasm). And since it already looks like this, pink dots can't hurt right?

haha - so everyone has a nail fail now and then when you're in a hurry. I really hope that once things slow down for me in July (my summer travel will be over) that I will be able to try out a couple really neat designs I have been seeing lately.

Even though my mani was lame, I saw some other pretty ones from the ladies! Make sure to check them out.

Liquid Lacquer Swatch-a-thon (Part 3)

I hope that you are enjoying all of the Liquid Lacquer polishes that  have been sharing with you! Today we have three more glitter toppers!

First Up, Blurple Nurple, which is currently available on the Liquid Lacquer Big Cartel Site:

Melissa describes this polish as, "A mix of over 20 shades of blue,cyan, and purple glitter in a clear base.". It seriously has so much purple and blue goodness in it. I think it really makes this color combo shine! I have on two coats of Burple Nurple over top of Sinful Colors Ocean Side. 

Next, we have Dirty Watermelon, which is not yet available but will be soon!

This is a lovely mix of green, pink, black and gray matte glitters in all shapes and sizes! I love how the gray base seems to make all of the colors of this glitter pop. I have on two coats of Dirty Watermelon over top of Sinful Colors Slate.

Finally, here is Far Out!, which is not yet available but will be soon!

This is a "totally radical" glitter topper with shades of lime green, electric blue and powerful pink. I have on two coats of Far Out! over top of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. This is a perfect neon topper for summer and I love how the white base makes all the colors pop.

I hope that you liked these shades, make sure to check out the Liquid Lacquer Big Cartel Site and the Liquid Lacquer Facebook Page to purchase polish and stay up to date on restock and release information.

*Products were provided by the manufacturer for my honest review*