Hi guys!  I want to preface this post by saying that I'm not very happy with the quality of the photos of this mani, and I'm sorry that I don't have something better for you.  It was raining this day and the colors spazzed out my camera in the light box.


The base of this mani is 3 coats of Shimmer Polish Caroline.  I used tape to add the hot pink chevrons with China Glaze Hang-ten Toes, and then I used a striping brush and Illamasqua Baptiste to outline and define the chevrons a bit more.


These looked much cooler in person, but they were quite thick from layering all the glitter on until it was full coverage.

Hello darlings!!  Wanna know how you can have glittery textured nails without any of the textured polishes that are out?  I've done this DIY version for my Bling post today.


So, for these nails all I did was paint my nail with base coat, and while that was still wet I dipped my finger into a jar of glitter.  I did two coats of this, putting more base coat over the first coat of glitter, then dipping again and using an old paint brush to dab the loose glitter over any bald spots.  I sort of pressed the glitter in with my finger as well.


I will warn you that cleaning this up was a complete mess.  I had glitter everywhere, and I was afraid to wash my hands to vigorously because I didn't know if the glitter would come off my nails in the process.  I will also say that I did not wear this for any long period of time, so I can't speak to the lasting ability.  It looked really cool though!

Hello lovelies!  Welcome back to Bling week with The Digit-al Dozen!  Today I've got a really awesome glitterbomb of a polish to share with you, and I've even added a video of it sparkling in the sun at the end.  It is really a stunner.  You know you love a polish when you're sad that you need to remove it.


So, what is this gorgeousness?  Its FeverLacquer I Blame The Fireworks.  It is a silver, holo, micro bar glitter.  I've shown two coats with no undies.  I love that you can build this up to full coverage.  These nails were so blingy that they were almost distracting sometimes... in the best possible way of course.


The above photos were all taken in my light box, now let's see some with flash....



Amazing, right?  Now check out this beauty in motion!


I love this polish!  How about you?  Love it or leave it?

Hi there!  Here we are with Day 2 of Bling week with Digit-al Dozen.  I had a request from a Facebook fan to make a football inspired bling mani... I don't know why but orange and blue definitely feel like football colors to me, so here we are!


My base is two coats of Cult Nails Ay Poppy!  While the second coat was wet I stuck my rhinestones on in a vertical stripe down the center of the nail.  I started from the cuticle and worked towards the tip.


I didn't add any top coat, and look how shiny Ay Poppy! is!  This is a really beautiful orange.


Don't forget to see what my other amazing group mates are up to this week!

Hello my darlings!  Its time for another theme week with the ever talented nail art group The Digit-al Dozen!  This month our theme is Bling.  I have to say, I struggled a bit with finding inspiration for this theme... I found it hard to make this theme "artsy" and not just doing glitter bomb manis.  (You will still see a couple of those!)


This is one of the few where some awesome inspiration struck me.  I had these zipper water decals that my friend Tracy mailed me... I was looking at them and thinking about a leather jacket.  So I decided to make a studded leather jacket on my nails!


This mani started off with two coats of Ciaté Dangerous Affair, and one coat of MASH Matte Polish top coat to make them semi-matte like leather.  (If only I had the leather effects from Nails Inc for this mani!!)  Next I added the water decal of the zipper to my middle nail.


After the decal I used black acrylic paint to make my jacket lapel shapes.  Then I used some top coat and a dotting tool to place my rhinestone studs.  I would have probably used nail glue if I had that, but I don't.  I'm sure it would have been easier that way.


This may have just moved up the ranks to my favorite mani I've ever done.  It is so me.  My only regret is that I didn't get to wear this for longer!

Now you simply must go see what the other super talented group members have come up with this week!

Hi lovelies!  Here we are on the last day of matte mani week, and this was my personal favorite of the bunch.  This is the one I didn't want to take off!



This started with 2 coats of Cult Nails You're My Dandy Lion, which I think is now my favorite yellow polish.  It has a very subtle gold shimmer to it, and the formula is really lovely.  I added one coat of Lynnderella Connect the Dots over top, regular top coat to smooth, and then matte top coat.





I've also got some photos from before the matte top coat.  Connect the Dots has this lovely silver shimmer in the base that looks great over the yellow.





Lynnderella polishes are now sold exclusively through Norway Nails in Europe for 239 NOK each.  As always, you can use my code SMASHLEY10 at checkout to save 10% on your order!

My wonderful friends participating in this week of matte manis are Debbie of The Crumpet, Emma of Manicurity, and Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish.  Please go check out what they have come up with this week as well, I'm sure you will not be disappointed!

Hi again!  Thanks for checking out my week long feature of matte manis!  This one is a mani that didn't quite turn out how I hoped.  But we all have fails sometimes, so I wanted to share anyway.


I started off with one coat of Cult Nails Nevermore, and then added two coats of Finger Paints Twisted, and mattified the whole thing.  Then I decided it would  be cool to stamp black over this, so you just get peeks of the flakies between the stamped pattern.

Maybe I chose a bad pattern... I think it covered too much.  But I also tried with a pattern that covered less, and that got swallowed by the flakies.  Anyway, I stamped with black and Gals plate GA46, then added matte top coat again.


The idea of this mani is better than the execution.  Maybe it would have worked better as a tape mani, who knows!

My wonderful friends participating in this week of matte manis are Debbie of The Crumpet, Emma of Manicurity, and Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish.  Please go check out what they have come up with this week as well, I'm sure you will not be disappointed!

Hey there!  Welcome back to matte mani week!  Today I've got a stamping combo with two more of the new Cult Nails polishes.  These are great to stamp with since they are one-coaters for the most part.  You do have to work fast though, since they are matte they will dry really quickly and you may not get the entire pattern stamped.


My base here is one coat of Cult Nails Let's Get Dirty, which is a very unique polish to my collection.  It is a sandy taupe color with a silvery, multi-colored shimmer.  When it is matte you see a subtle hint of silver shimmer, but I bet this really comes alive with top coat.


I've stamped over LGD with Cult Nails Morning Glory, a gorgeous bright pink matte creme.  I stamped a pattern from Gals plate GA5.


My wonderful friends participating in this week of matte manis are Debbie of The Crumpet, Emma of Manicurity, and Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish.  Please go check out what they have come up with this week as well, I'm sure you will not be disappointed!

Hi there!  Welcome back to a week of matte manis!  I was super excited to win a nail art contest hosted by Cult Nails on their Facebook page a couple weeks back... I won their new spring collection which features 3 matte polishes that you will see this week!  (You'll also see one of the 2 shiny polishes from the collection mattified, in a mani that I absolutely did not want to remove.)

Also, I'm super excited to debut my revamped watermark in this post!  I liked the old one (which was made by my awesome friend Missy from Gnarly Gnails), but we worked together on the revamp and now it looks so *me*.  It won't be changing again, so I hope you guys like it as much as I do!


 I started off this mani with two coats of Orly Preamp as a base.  Then I freehanded the ruffian with one coat of Cult Nails Kiss My Rose Bush.  KMRB is a light-medium pink with no shimmer.  All three of the mattes in this collection are one-coaters if you are careful.  They're great for a quick mani if you don't have time to wait for many layers of polish to dry.


I feel like there must be a trick to getting a cleaner line at the cuticle when I do ruffians... anyone have a secret tip that they want to share for the perfect ruffian?

My wonderful friends participating in this week of matte manis are Debbie of The Crumpet, Emma of Manicurity, and Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish.  Please go check out what they have come up with this week as well, I'm sure you will not be disappointed!

Hi lovelies!  Its time for another theme week with some of my friends, and this month our theme is matte.  Who doesn't love a good mattified glitter?


This is the glorious Happy Hands Metal Heart, which I received as a gift (in a huge package of cheer-up awesomeness from a whole bunch of my polish friends) from Claudia the Holographic Hussy!  As soon as I saw a swatch of this polish on Chalkboard Nails I was lemming it sooooo bad, so I was super excited to find it in my box of amazingness.

This is two coats, followed by regular top coat to smooth, and then one coat of Essie Matte About You.


I think my photos don't properly capture this, even though it was matte, the iridescent blue bits still popped nicely.


My wonderful friends participating in this week of matte manis are Debbie of The Crumpet, Emma of Manicurity, and Kerrie of PishPosh and Polish.  Please go check out what they have come up with this week as well, I'm sure you will not be disappointed!

Hi lovelies!  Today I have a quick comparison post for you... these are two purple scattered holos.  On the index and ring finger I have two coats of Zoya Aurora, and on the middle and pinkie I have two coats of Linda Johansen Razzle Dazzle.


The main difference is that Aurora has a richer purple base, more of a red toned purple.  RD has a more blue toned purple, and it doesn't look so rich since the base has a small holo particle scattered through out it along with the larger holo flakes.


I think these are very similar, and most people won't need both.  If you love purple, or holos, you may want both though.  I'm definitely keeping both since I'm a purple fiend.


You can see in these photos without direct sunlight the difference in the base.  Aurora has a more jelly base, where RD looks like a bit of a metallic purple because of the small holo particles.


I love both of these... which do you prefer?