new stuff to stick on my nails: hot pink nail art studs from Born Pretty Store!

In posts past, I have professed and undying love for sticking junk to my nails. Glitter, poly clay slices, rhinestones, wee bits of metal--if it is small enough for nail art, you better believe I'll be featuring it in a mani. So, of course, when I was contacted by the folks at Born Pretty Store requesting a review for one of their products, I jumped at the chance to snatch up some brand new studs to experiment with. 

If you are not already familiar with Born Pretty Store, they are an amazing etailor of everything from jewelry to makeup to nail art supplies. They are an excellent source of all things sparkly and shiny and reasonably priced--nail art rhinestones and glitter, stamping plates, flocking powder, nail foils just to name a few items--and they are always adding new products to their inventory. Oh yea and they offer FREE worldwide shipping, too..sa-weeeeeeeeeet!

So, here's a pic of the studs I got. 

They're 2mm hot pink studs and HERE is the official link to the item's listing. The studs are completely smooth, domed and hollow on the underside. They come in the resealable plastic pouch they are pictured in above and you get TONS of them. The amount pictured in the bag  is actually AFTER I had done 2 different manis with the studs. I'll have these for a long time!

The above is a shot of a mani I created with the studs. I wanted something fun & obnoxiously girly, so I went with a dotticure using a base of China Glaze Creative Fantasy (a neon purple hot mess of a polish--don't even get me started on the abysmal formula). The white dots were made with a dotting tool and Finger Paints Papier Mache. I then used the same dotting tool dipped in a bit of clear polish to pick up the hot pink studs and place them where I wanted them while my polish was still wet. A quick coat of Seche Vite sealed the deal and I was done. Altogether, it took no more than 20 minutes start to finish for me to do both hands. 

These studs are SUPER neon bright. Because of how saturated the color was, I was a bit afraid that the studs  might bleed when I applied topcoat, but amazingly enough, they were totally colorfast! Win!!

shot to show height of the studs

One thing I need to note about these studs is they DO have a higher profile than any of the other rhinestones or studs I've used before. That being said, though, I was amazed at how well they stayed on my nail. I wore this manicure for 3 days without losing a single stud. Probably has something to do with the hollow dome shape filling up with the clear polish & getting everything all good and stuck down when I put the studs on my nail (yes this is me trying to sound scientific--scary isn't it?)...

So do I recommend these studs? Without a freakin doubt! In fact, I'm planning on getting the other neon colors Born Pretty Store offers. They are cute, bright, don't bleed, stay put and I can't wait to do more manis with them!

If you, too, feel moved to give some moneys over to crazy fun bright nail art, then be sure to use this coupon code the peeps at Born Pretty Store created especially for The Awesome People (aka, all you fine readers of my blog).

(disclosure statement: yes products in this post were provided to me for review. no that does not mean I lied about liking them)

Crumpet's Nail Tarts Halloween 2012 Nail art challenge--day 1 "Trick or Treats"

So guess who decided to finally join a nail art challenge....I figured since I want to do tons of Halloween theme manis for the month of October and could use a little impetus to keep me going, why not hop on board this nifty little challenge that starts today? I learned about it in this nail-related Facebook group I'm in and the minute I saw it I was like "I'm SO on board with this!" I love the prompts and I love that everything is staggered out over the month of October because I know for a fact I could NEVER keep up with any kind of daily challenge (too many kids and too short of an attention span for that kind of nonsense)...

So anyfrickinway, onto the pics!

Crumpet's Nail Tarts Halloween 2012 Nail Art Challenge Day 1: Trick or Treats:

(please ignore the chip in my index nail...I whacked it on the screen door on my way out to snap these pics)

So the prompt for today is 'trick or treats'--basically sugary candy goodness. We all know I am a stampaholic but I am massively inexperienced when it comes to other forms of nail art--especially anything free form, so I wanted to push myself to do more free form stuff. I figured I could pull off something nice and simple like a candy corn manicure, so that's what I went with. 

I started off with a base of Finger Paints Papier Mache. Then painted Maybelline Sunshine half way up each nail. Next I painted Sally Hansen Extreme Wear in Sunkissed a quarter of the way up. I guess it's not that bad...right? It could have been worse...

So that's my installment for day 1 of this challenge. I am SO excited for all the upcoming prompts! I LOVES me some spooky things and am looking forward to painting all manner of ghoul and gore on these 10 little canvases on the tips of my fingers!

Btw, is that dancing skelly not the awesomest thing you've ever seen? Seriously, I want to tatt it on me somewhere!

Jupiter nails!!

My kids are on a huge outer space kick right now. In the past few weeks, we've made 2 model solar systems, watched pretty much every space show on Netflix, stayed up til all hours of the night to watch live coverage of Curiosity's landing on Mars and we're very excited for this month's blue moon on the 31st and the upcoming meteor showers...

Somehow,  my kids interests always get translated into manicures for me--partly because I just get inspired by what we are consuming at any given time and partly because I love how they get such a kick out of seeing their favorite things painted on mommy's nails. Their favorite planet is Jupiter, so I did my first water marble ever to make Jupiter nails. Yes I am aware of the  geekdom involved in rocking Jupiter nails. I own it and love it. Snort.

left hand

left thumb

rarely seen right hand

almost never seen right thumb

posing with the big model Jupiter from the solar system mobile in my boys' room

posing with the little Jupiter from our mini solar system model

It's not that bad for my very first water marble, right? I mean, I accomplished what I set out to do--I think my nails do look rather Jupiter-esque. Post-mani clean-up was hell, though. Frickin polish EVERYWHERE. I'm messy to begin with no matter what I do, but when I use a messy nail art technique, then it's like mess on Steroids.

I don't know if I'll be attempting a water marble again any time soon. Aside from the mess (did I mention it was messy?!?!), I was kind of perturbed by how much polish this mani used up! Not that I have any kind of polish shortage in my life, mind you. I just hate seeing 4 bottles of polish 1/4 of the way gone just to do 10 little nails. 

Polishes used in this mani:

Finger Paints Papier Mache (white--used as base color and in the marble)

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sunny Side (yellow)

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Red Rebel (orange--yea I don't know why she's calling an obvious orange red, either)

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red (now THAT'S a red, Sally)

Seche Vite top coat

Of course now that they've seen this mani, my kids want me to do all the other planets on my nails. So don't be surprised if this blog features more finger nail geekery in the near future...

Have you ever tried water marbling? Thoughts? Tips?

Green nail polish is awesome...

Kermit might have issues with the color, but I LOVE me some green--so since it is March and St Patty's day is coming up, I thought I'd do a post about my favorite green polishes. I managed to narrow the list down to 10 --yes I said 10. At first I wanted to include pretty much every green polish I own cuz I'm excessive like that. Anyway, I present to you, crappily photographed in no particular order :::shakes fist at grey, foggy weather::::, my picks:

no flash

flash

1. Sinful Colors San Francisco--gorgeous forest green shimmer

2. Orly Here Comes Trouble--bright. green. glitter. need I say more?

3. OPI Jade is the New Black. It's like the Stairway to Heaven of green polishes. There's no denying it's a classic.

4. Zoya Apple. That gold shimmer gets me every time. 

5. Finger Paints Guggen-I'm Lime-Lime green is my favorite shade of green and this one is so lime, I can practically taste the zing just by looking at it.

6. China Glaze It's Alive--this spot in my heart used to be occupied by Zombie Zest but the multi-sized glitter in that murky base is just too stunning, so poor ol ZZ got pushed right off the top 10 list.

7. Pure Ice Wild Thing. Guggen-I'm Lime's creme cousin. Lip-smackingly tangy.

8. Nubar Reclaim. Green + holo = AWESOME.

9. Sinful Colors Irish Green-a near-neon green squishy-as-hell jelly. Perfect for jelly sammiches!

10. One of my favorite polishes of all time--Color Club Glitter Envy from their awesome Starry Temptress collection--so unique with its bright green base and that odd but awesome speckled glitter!

Yes, Kermit it IS easy to be green infact...if you're finger nails, that is. 

So what do you think of my picks? Did I forget any?