Monarch Mani - decent amount of pics

So I was perusing Youtube.com for some fun designs to do with my new polish I got on my 12 HOUR polish shopping excursion Saturday... and I came across a mani I see pretty often in blogs and in my FB group. It is the butterfly mani... ABSOLUTELY gorgeous mani if you ask me and I am not a butterfly person (ladybugs all the way!) I picked up a new Fresh Paint red/orange color so I decided to do the Monarch design.

Started with base coat OPI, dries quick and even, I love it!
Base color, Wet 'N' Wild Fast Dry- The Wonder Yellows, semi sheer and shimmery lemon yellow color. Easy application, dries pretty quick so like the others it can get a little tacky so apply evenly and quick for the coat. I did a single coat with heavy application at the part of my nail closest to my cuticles.
Sponge & tip color, Fresh Paint- Lucky. So for the gradient look that I see most of these butterfly manis have.. I  tipped my finger with the Fresh Paint- Lucky and then used a small pored sponge to blend it to the base color. Looked like this:

Once this dries, and it does fast, I got out my black nail art detailing brush. I use Color Club nail art in black. This brush is nice and long and thing, great for detailing. It dries pretty quick and flat so I tried to work quick. Every 2 or 3 nails I like to close up the bottle and roll it between my hands a few times to keep it from drying around the brush and top of the bottle. I started with the outlining and then the veining of the "wing" design. For the tip of the finger, on the black, I dotted with another Color Club nail art pen in white. If my nails were a little longer I would use my dotting tools (which if you don't have a nail supply store you can do what I did ad get them in a craft store near the clay tools). For the white dots on the tip I did... one large, 2 medium, and a few tiny dots to fill in. For a first time go at this mani design, I impressed myself! I couldn't stop showing everyone today and I got pretty picture happy so I won't put all here but a few. I ended up with this as the finished product...

OPI Sparkle-icious and OPI Suzi Skis In The Pyranees

So many posts tonight! Sorry! I really wanted to get these posted and I have meant to been doing these posts for the past few days and since I couldn't log onto my site... well of course that didn't happen! Bummer! I recently bought a bottle of OPI Sparke-icious from the Burlesque collection, off of a fellow member from my FB group Polish-aholics Anonymous, Bee. THANKS BEE! Let me tell you... I AM IN LOVE with this glitter polish it is gorgeous! I'm not a big fan of gold glitters or glitters with a lot of gold but this one is beautiful it has a nice mixture of blue, pinkish purple, and gold hex/octagonal glitters.

Base color, OPI Suzi Skis In The Pyranees (from the Spain collection), not completely opaque but I just needed a semi solid color underneath, very easy to apply thanks to the fabulous OPI brushes now, 1 or 2 coats depending on how much nail showed underneath.
OPI Sparkle-icious is a great glitter to apply it goes on evenly, no clumping, I used about 2 coats and ended up with this.....

Sorry the picture isn't terribly bright lighted when I applied this it was about 12pm EST and I totally didn't think to take pictures today in the crazy amount of sunlight I encountered (after a week of rainstorms and tornados!!!!) but take my word for it... IT IS SUPER GORGEOUS in sunlight!!!!

Close up blur of my thumb with the mani... to show the 3 glitters in OPI Sparkle-icious.

Mother's Day Mani - OPI - Daisy Mani

This Mother's Day (yes I know it's been passed for 3 weeks now but I FINALLY got my pictures to load to the computer) I decided to do a daisy mani. I don't think it turned out that well but it wasn't bad for having a shaky hand that day from my inhaler so I was impressed :)

Base color, OPI Mermaid's Tears. Slightly streaky to apply and a bit sheer, applied 2 coats, some extra on touch ups. Roll to mix, don't shake, causes bubbling... which is no good of course.
Daisy petals, OPI Alpine Snow. Easy apply, nice and opaque color so I used a fine tip 1/4 inch detail brush, 5 petals each finger and left a pinhole sized space in between the petals.
Eye/Disc of Daisy, Wet'N'Wild The Wonder Yellows, semi-sheer but shimmery easy to apply, used a medium dotting tool to do that.

It seemed a little lonely with just the daisy on each nail so since I already had the green background I didn't want to add more green so I went with some little swirlies on either side, which now that I look I am not too happy with and should have left the mani as it was above.
Swirlies, OPI Sparrow Me The Drama, slightly sheer and streaky so the swirlies didn't turn out so hot but I used another fine point 1/4 inch detailing brush to apply.

At least my mommy liked it!!!!

FYI: The green, Mermaid's Tears, and the purplish/pink, Sparrow Me The Drama, are from the OPI Pirates Collection pastels.

Long time no see!

Finally, thanks to my friend Traci, I am able to get into and update my "blog" again! Got a new browser and it is working wonders for my site. Back to the manis! Had a great haul today at Ulta, JCPenney Salon, Five Below, and Sally Beauty! Got some new top coat too... and a biggin' for sure, it should last me a tad bit longer than the .5 FL Oz!

HERE GOES..

Cel Deconail 1st blog birthday giveaway!

Holy crap! This is a haul! Fantastic 1st blog birthday giveaway for Cel's Deconails! Definately add the blog too its fantastic! ENTER AND FOLLOW HERE!!!!!

OPI Alpine Snow & Ulta Pinata Yada Yada (DL Happy B-Day dupe!) and a RANT! woo!

So since I ran out of base coat I decided to check out the labels on my polish JUST to be sure I was using some baby safe ones without the 3 toxins (DBP, Tuolene, and Formaldehyde), but of course I do this after I applied the polish to my toenails already (dee dee dee). I check my OPI Alpine Snow to see it's got Formaldehyde resin, which some say isn't bad like the Formaldehyde used to be.. vey low amount of chemicals, "almost non existant". Still a major bummer to me, I'm extremely strict when it comes to being pregnant and what I put on or in my body... I don't even eat hot dogs! I MISS HOT DOGS and HOLO and HARDENER POLISH! So thanks to some of the ladies in my facebook group Polish-aholics Anonymous put my mind to ease that a few manis or pedis with this will be fine! Now that I have made this a total bummer... on to my post....

The "classic Happy Birthday" mani with Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday dupe, Ulta Pinata Yada & Opi Alpine Snow.

Opi Alpine snow, applies evenly and opaque. 2 coats is fine, I used 3 because baby bell got in the way and I missed a few spots (how painful the process of painting toes while 6 and half months pregnant). Soooo easy to apply.
Ulta Pinata Yada Yada, applies evenly and well, GREAT glitter! Love the colors in it, applied 2 coats, but once again on some I had to do 3 just because I missed or was in pain and had to stop due to babeh belleh.
Very easy mani, shines lovely and gets lots of attention!

PIC-CHA TIME!!!!!!!

Hello toes!

The finished product, loverly yes?! Pardon my messy toes, like I said, VERY hard to polish the toes with a 6 and a half month baby belly in the way.... and often painful!

Close up blur of the glitter... so perty the colors!

OPI Silver Shatter & Planks A Lot

OPI Silver Shatter (left) OPI Planks A Lot (right)

OPI Planks A Lot, creamy pastel purple. Before you apply, do not shake, ROLL IT, then wait a minute! Or you will get bubbles. Applied 3 thin coats. Applies very smooth and easy.

OPI Silver Shatter (lovely lovely lovely!) applied one coat diagonaly on nail tips.

Out The Door top coat, no base coat.

  This mani wears beautifully, no tip wear or chips after multi-day wear. EASY MANI.

What in the food network is this?!

So I might as well take my first post to explain exactly what THIS is and who I am.

My name is Casandra, I live in eastern Pennsylvania. If you haven't seen off to the right... I'm in LOVE with nail polish! My poor husband, Kevin, is SO SO SO SO SO NOT into my nail polish obsession. In fact, my friend Traci (follow her blog TraceFace Philes ) and I call him the polish nazi (like the soup nazi on Seinfeld) because I have to hide my polish adventures and hauls until I get home with the polish :)  I'm expecting my first baby, Violet, in August and cannot wait to paint her nails!

So now to what this is! This is not a "blog", I guess, this is basically as the name says, a mani-logue, to catalogue my manis. To log what polish brand/color I have used, how many coats, how the polish applies, what base/top coats used, any techniques used, and some other fun things I may decide to remember and LOG about a specific mani... and soon pedis once I am no longer pregnant and can reach my feet again!

I now leave you with a picture of my cat, Muffin.

PS. JOIN THE FACEBOOK GROUP POLISH-AHOLICS ANONYMOUS! Link at bottom of page!