Revel and LynB Designs

Last week I did my manicure using Revel Nail gel polish and then I did some stamping over it. Well, it's been a week and of course, time to change the manicure. I took off the stamping art with some non acetone nail polish remover and here is what I was left with:

 

Still looks pretty good! There's a little wear at the tip but there are no chips and that gel shine we love is still there. However, since it's time for a new color or two, I decided to polish right over the gel. I couldn't see taking the time to remove it when it was still in pretty good shape. And what better polishes to use than some new polishes from Jennalyn at LynBDesigns. She recently had a sale and I couldn't resist. Here are two of the polishes I purchased, Nightmare Revisited and Blue Whale.

 

 

Blue Whale is one of those polishes I've been wanting since the launch of "They say of the Acropolis" collection and Nightmare Revisited is a beautiful holographic polish - need I say more. here is how they look over the Revel gel polish:

 

Not bad! Look at all the glitter in Blue Whale and that gorgeous holographic effect in Nightmare Revisited. Here's a closer look:

 

I know there isn't any nail art this time but I just couldn't put anything over these beauties. Let's see what next week brings!





A Manicure (& More!)

My new manicure was done using Revel Nail gel polish. Someone had posted about this polish on Facebook (sorry, I don't remember who) and said you could get a free sample from their site. Well, I headed on over to their site and it was true, well sort of. The free sample consisted of their base coat, top coat and a color for $10.99. Not exactly free but still an excellent deal when you consider that usually 1 bottle of gel polish alone can cost that much. In addition, these are .5 oz. bottles, not the tiny bottles you usually get. There was no choice in the color but I was very happy when I received my order. The color I received was called Hysteria, a beautiful purple shimmery polish.

 

The application of this polish was a breeze. The polish went on very smoothly and each coat only needed 30 seconds under an LED lamp to cure. I used my Sensationail lamp and it worked great. Here is how they look:

 

 

I love the shimmer in the polish, just enough to add a little extra shine. However, I had to make this manicure a little more interesting so I added some stamping art to it. I don't stamp very often and I only have a few stamping plates. I did order some new ones from the Born Pretty store but they haven't arrived yet. So I used my Konad plates along with some white Konad polish and here is the result:

 

I added a little silver glitter just to add some extra sparkle. I'm happy with the results. It took a few tries on some of the nails to get the stamping right but with gel polish as a base, it's easy to remove the failed stamping attempt and redo it without having to repolish the whole nail again.

 

One of the drawbacks to using gel polish though is how long it lasts on my nails. I have so many polishes that I want to use and when I use gel polish, I hate to take it off after only a few days because it still looks great and it's such a pain to get off. This polish is supposed to soak off in only 7 minutes (unless you use primer) so maybe it won't be so bad!

 

Now for the More part of this post.

 

Recently I've had the opportunity to take some fun acrylic painting classes. They were held in a local bar and were hosted by a wonderful woman, Tammy Hoey. I've never really painted before but she is so inspiring and encouraging that I decided I would try and create my own design. I bought the supplies and after seeing a picture in the newspaper of a beautiful sunset, I felt it was time to try my hand at painting on my own. This is what I got:

 

I think it came out pretty good for the first time on my own. I have some other ideas I'd like to try and I figure with practice, I should get better.

 

 

 





Two Posts in One Week?!

Wow, another post in the same week. What is going on is the world? Actually nothing special. My initial plan was to go to Six Flags Great Adventure with my boys but my older one got his days off mixed up and had to work. It would've been the perfect day for it but we'll try again another time. But since I'm home, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to post about my current manicure. Here is the result:

 

This is based on a design that I saw on the Pointless Café blog. I thought her design looked great and decided to try it on my own. She also has a tutorial that I followed to try and get the same effect. I used Sinful Colors Pink Forever as the base coat and the stripes were done with Wet n Wild Coast to Coast (blue), China Glaze Aquadelic (minty green) and NYC Jacaranda Flower (purple). I put some China Glaze Fairy Dust over the whole nail to add some sparkle. Then I topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite to smooth everything out and give my nails a terrific shine.

 

 

I love the summery feel of this manicure and will probably be a little sad when it comes time to take it off. But then I will have the opportunity to try something new and share with you.

Jordana Nail Art Fun

I've decided to try and use some of the polishes I have that have never been used so what better way than to use it for a manicure with some nail art. The polishes I used for this were Jordana polishes that I purchased in a local "dollar" store. I thought they'd look great together which I think they do. Here are the polishes I used for this mani:

 

 

I thought they were bright, fun, summery colors. I did start out with a plan, however, once I started polishing my nails, that plan went out the window. This is the result:

 

 

 

I was originally going to do all of my fingers like my ring finger but I would've used the bluish polish as my base coat. I decided to have some fun instead and try some other designs. My middle finger was done with a paintbrush and while it didn't come out as I had planned, I was still happy with the result. My thumb is another story. Here is the end result:

 

 

I don't know what my initial intentions were. I just kept adding stripes and this was the end result. I would call it a happy accident. This turned out to be my second favorite nail of the bunch (the ring finger spotted design was my favorite).

 

I haven't done any hand painted nail art in a while as I've been using some of my glitter polishes and don't like to spoil the glitter effect with painting over it. But this was a fun change of pace!





Pink and Purple

Good Morning everyone! I have pictures of this weeks manicure ready to share. I went with some new and untried this week.

 

The polish on the left is Watermelon Sundae by Squishy Face Polish. It's a light pink loaded with small green, silver, red, and white small glitters. The polish on the right is Iris My Case by KB Shimmer. It's a light purple polish loaded with purple, fuchsia, silver, blue and white. There are various sizes of glitter but they are all small to micro sized.

 

 

 

 

 

I found the Watermelon Sundae to be a little thick in the application but I think a little thinner could probably solve that problem. I love the different colored glitters in the polish, that's why I bought it. I also bought a purple polish from Squishy Face (I have a tendency to go straight for anything purple) but I decided to go with the KB Shimmer Iris My Case because it's my first KB Shimmer polish and I heard so many great things about them. Well, I heard right. Application was a breeze. I did find that I needed 3 coats on some of my fingers but that could be because I put the second coat on before the first was dry enough.


All in all, I'm very happy with this week's manicure. I love the way the pink and purple go together, perfect for summer. This will be my mani for the next few days because once I put polish on and it looks good, I don't like to take it off until I have to. I know there are bloggers who change polish very often, sometimes multiple times in a day. I like to enjoy my manicures and share with my family, friends and coworkers who look forward to seeing what new colors and/or designs I'm wearing each week. I will have to try and show each manicure once I've done it for the week. Sometimes I get lazy, the nails get polished but the pictures don't get taken. Sorry about that.

Happy 4th of July

Good morning everyone! I just wanted to share my 4th of July manicure with everyone. I kept it fairly simple but I've received many compliments on it. I even have someone that wants me to polish her nails like mine for a big Fourth of July party she's having.

 

 

I used a base coat of Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl on all of my fingers except my ring finger. I used Wet n Wild Metallica.  The red is NYC Broadway Burgundy and the blue is a polish I recently purchased, Wet n Wild Coast to Coast. But the main reason I wanted to do a July 4th mani was to use Salon Perfect Star Spangled on my ring finger. When I first saw the Salon Perfect display at Walmart, there were many polishes I would have purchased. But I had to be realistic and I decided to only purchase the one I thought would be more unique. That's why I chose Star Spangled. I love that it also has some holographic micro glitter in it to make it sparkle even more.

 

 

 

It was a little difficult to get enough stars out of the bottle for my first coat but when I went to put the second coat on, I was getting more stars than I wanted. However, I was able to get them how I wanted them and I was happy with the way this manicure turned out.

 

 

 

I have many more new polishes that I haven't yet tried and look forward to posting some of those manicures here to share. I'll try to post more regularly but I'm not making any promises.

 

 

I hope everyone has a happy and safe Fourth of July! See you soon!

Spring is here! (?)

The calendar says April 16 but as I look out the window at the snow covering the windshield of my car, I have to ask myself "Is Spring really here?" Of course it is. It's now time for pretty pastels and fun colors to celebrate my favorite season. Here's two I recently created, Spring Fling and Spring Flowers.

 

 

Spring Fling is the purple polish with the bright glitters. Spring Flowers is the pink polish with pastes glitters on my ring finger. Shown is 3 coats over a base of white. I think they're great colors for this time of year, especially with Easter coming up this weekend. My friends have commented that these remind them of Easter eggs or even the malted robin's eggs that my son loves.

 

While I'm posting, since it has been a while, I'd like to show you some other manicures I've done with the polishes I've made. Here is the combination I wore last week:

 

These are Mermaid's Garden with an accent nail of Crocus Time (another spring reference). I love the blue of Mermaid's Garden, it's very bright and sparkly. These are 2 coats with a base coat and top coat. I received plenty of positive comments from my friends with these polishes.

 

 

These polishes are available at http://lipolish.storenvy.com along with many others. Please take a look. If you have any suggestions, I'm open to them. Thanks for viewing.

Purple for Life

Hello all. I hope you've had the chance to visit my store. I've added some new polishes today. One of the polishes that I'm excited about is Purple for Life. Here's a picture.

Purple for Life is a polish I made to help support the Relay for Life organization. For those of you unfamiliar with Relay for Life, it is an inspirational overnight event that honors cancer survivors and celebrates life. Local teams are formed and they raise money for the American Cancer Society. My son has participated for the last several years and I though this polish would be a great way to help him raise money for this worthy cause. The proceeds from the sales of this polish will go to his team, the Avengcures, to be donated. I have listed this polish in my store: http://lipolish.storenvy.com. I will be adding others and also plan to sell them at their Relay for Life event at Newfield High School in Selden, NY on May 16, 2014.

I decided to wear this color this week because I love it. It is such a rich purple and I love purple. I decided to do some springlike nail art because I'm sick and tired of winter and the snow. I got the basics of this design from cutepolish. She posts tutorial videos on youtube that are very easy to follow and look very pretty. Check them out, they're cute!

I used Purple for Life as my base and used Sinful Colors for the flowers and the tips. You can really use any colors you'd like, I just thought that pink and yellow looked good with the purple.

That's all I have for now. I welcome comments and any feedback on my store. I'm new at this so it's still a work in progress but I hope to continue with it. Thanks!

L. I. Polish

I finally did it - I started making my own nail polish. This wasn't something I had planned to do, there are hundreds of people out there already making nail polish, most of them quite good. However, my husband encouraged me to join them, he has great confidence in me. I have to admit, it is fun to do. I love to create things and this falls right in line with that. I don't know if I'll ever see the same level of success as some of the other brands out there but I can only try!

I've opened a store at Storenvy to sell my creations. The address is http://lipolish.storenvy.com.  You'll be able to see what I've made so far. I'll be adding new items when I come up with things that I like. Unfortunately, not everything turns out as expected.  I have received some input from my kids, that's why I have some polishes representing superheroes - I have 2 boys.

This is the latest polish I've added to my store, All That Glitters... My husband is actually the one who came up with the idea for this one. I figured why not! I was pleasantly impressed with how it turned out and everyone that's seen it has loved it.

All That Glitters...

 

 

All That Glitters... is a glitter topper, gold and silver holographic glitters in a clear base. It looks great over a base coat or over bare nails. This is one of my favorites so far. Here are pictures over base coated nails and over bare nails so you can see for yourself.

 



I have some more that I'll be adding to the store, I just need some names. Sometimes, that's the hardest thing.

Please visit my store and let me know what you think. I look forward to hearing from you!

Valentine's Day Mani

Good Morning all! I finally have the opportunity to post the first Valentine's Day manicure I've done for 2014. If all goes well, there will be another later but at least let me show you this one.

 

 

I started with a base of Sensationail Pink Chiffon because I was going to attempt to do some stamping. I wanted a base that I could easily clean off and the Sensationail Gel polish is great for that. A little non acetone polish remover can take off any errant stamping without removing the base polish. For the stamping, I used the Salon Express set for the heart design and Konad M57 for the lacy tips. I used the red Konad polish for the art because it was handy. I was rather pleased with how it came out. My previous attempts at stamping were not pretty. I don't know if I had more patience this time or because I was the only one home and had no distractions (hubby and boys were at a Monster Truck show). I'll admit, I did have to redo some of the nails until I was happy with the design. But all in all, I like the outcome and I will definitely do some more stamping in the future.

 

 

My plan is to remove the design this weekend and do another Valentine's Day manicure right over the Sensationail Gel because I've only had the gel on for 1 week and it's still in pretty good shape. I only have 2 small chips on my right thumb but those were my fault for trying to pry open a small jar with my thumb.

 

 

I do have some exciting (at least for me) new coming up and hope to post about it within the next few days. Please keep checking back. I have also linked this to my Facebook page so maybe I can expand my audience and possibly offer some giveaways in the future.

 

Until next time, Marian

Finally, A New Post!

I'm sorry for such a delay between posts. I guess I let the holidays get in the way. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of my Christmas mani. I don't know how I forgot, but I did. I'll make up a little for that with this post. I have two recent manicures to show. No nail art this time, just pretty polishes.  Here is the first:

 

This is Grape Soda by Liquid Lacquer. Anyone who knows me knows that I have a thing for purples so my purchase of this polish didn't surprise anyone. I love the shade of purple of this polish and the white glitters in it look just like the bubbles in a bottle of soda. I used 3 coats of polish to get the bright purple you see in the pictures. And because it's a jelly base, the white glitters on the earlier coats show through nicely. I received lots of comments from my friends on this polish.

 

 

 

The next polish is from one of my recent purchases from LynBDesigns.

 

 Space Gandalf without flash (indoor lighting)



 Space Gandalf with flash (indoor lighting)

 

 

This polish is from her "Doctor Who" collection. I'm not a Doctor Who fan, I know what it is and I've seen some scenes from the show, but I don't know all the ins and outs of it. I do know that I loved the way this polish looked in her Etsy store so I had to purchase it. I wasn't disappointed. I used 2 coats for the above pictures with no undies. I love the holographic glitter in it along with the occasional moon glitter. The polish is more sparkly in person than in the pictures but you can see the difference with the flash.

 

 

I got plenty of polishes for Christmas so I have plenty to try out. Plus, Valentine's Day is coming up. I hope to get some fun Valentine's Day nail art done that I will have to make sure I post on the blog.