Neon Flowers

I hope you are enjoying your Tuesday! 

Nothing says the warm weather is coming like a bright neon manicure. Claire's Flashy and Milani Fresh Teal go together nicely, especially with the dried flower accent I added. Fresh Teal matches the flower perfectly. I used two coats of each polish. I love these smooth creamy neons, no white needed underneath.

Claire's nail polish retails for $5 at in store and online. Milani retails for $3-5 at various stores (a list can be found on their website) and sites. The dried flowers retail for $6.08 (for a set) at Born Pretty Store, and they offer free shipping worldwide. Use the code AHL91 to receive 5% off your Born Pretty purchase.

Born Pretty Store Dried Flowers Manicure and Review

I hope you are enjoying your Wednesday! I was contacted by Daisy from the Born Pretty Store to review a product for them. I chose the dried flowers. I have been dying to try dried flowers in a manicure for a long time.

Each order contains twelve different flowers, each in small plastic containers. The quantities vary slightly; however, there should be at least five of the small flowers and two of the large cluster flowers. Plenty to do more than one manicure.

I decided on pairing the large yellow cluster flower with Finger Paints Where Art Renoir?. The yellow really pops against the black backdrop. The flowers are very easy to apply, much easier than I expected. They are also sturdier than I anticipated, so I had no issues with crumbling.

I went with accent fingers since this was my first experience with dried flowers. After painting my nails and letting them dry, I used tweezers to pick up one of the flowers. It was large enough to use for two fingers, so I carefully cut it in half through the middle. Each half stayed intact. I painted on a thin coat of clear polish before placing a flower half on my nail. They were easy to press down. I let it set for a minute before adding one coat of top coat. Once that was completely dry, I added another coat to make it smoother.

Application was easy and the flowers stay on very well after top coat. I took a shower, washed my hands several times, and went to work without them budging at all. If you love dried flowers or want to try them, you will definitely enjoy using these.

Dried Flowers (Item ID: 129) retail for $6.08 at Born Pretty Store, and they offer free shipping worldwide.

Daisy even gave me a code to share with all of you for 5% off your purchase. AHL91

Sunshine and Blue Flowers

Its Stamping Sunday! Very late on Sunday, but not Monday yet. The theme is "something with glitter."

What is better than bright yellow glitter and blue flowers? I started off with two coats of China Glaze Sunshine. Its a canary yellow jelly with small and micro holo glitter. Then I stamped on flowers with Sally Hansen Pacific Blue and plate BM12. It stamps very well.

Sunshine is part of the China Glaze Specialty Collection. It retails for $3-6 at various stores and websites (including Head2Toe Beauty, and Amazon. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear retails for $2-3 at Walgreens, Walmart, Riteaid, Target, and Ulta. BM stamping plates are part of a 21 piece set that retails for $18 on Bundle Monster or their Amazon store.

Floral

I hope you're enjoying your Monday! Another Monday Nail Art Challenge is here. This week is Floral. I wish this had turned out better. 

I was inspired by this post on the Nail Nerd. I used e.l.f. Fire Coral as a background for my flowers. The rest of the polishes I used were Sinful Colors Black on Black (outline), Love My Nails Orange Blossom, Ulta Peach Parfait (petals), China Glaze Mahogany Magic, and Julep Olivia (flower center).

Colorful Gradient

Its Stamping Sunday! Two themes were neck and neck for winner. So, we could do either. Stamping over a gradient or using two stamps. I went with the former. I have been wanting to try a sponge gradient for awhile.

I was inspired by this blog post on Laynie Fingers. I did one thick coat of Pure Ice Super Star! as my white base. For my sponging, I used L.A. Colors Phenomena, Kleancolor Neon Green, and L.A. Colors Shock.  I love this technique! Automatic gradient. Now for the stamping. Using plate BM10 and Color Club Blue Topia, I stamped on little flowers. Since Blue Topia is a jelly, the petals are slightly faded. But I like that. Using a dotting tool and Super Star!, I dotted middles for each flower.

Spring Flowers

Its Stamping Sunday! This week's theme is Large Flowers. I tried for something very Spring like.

I used two coats of Cosmetic Arts Sky High, a light blue creme, as my base. Then I used stamping plates BM06 (one flower) and BM09 (two flowers). Both designs have similar flowers. I filled in the green first before the purple then stamped the two colored design on. For the green, I used Ulta The Jungle Look and for the purple, I used Sally Hansen Raspberry Race. Both cremes stamped very well.

Cosmetic Arts retail for $2 at Ross (I'm unsure where else they are sold, if anywhere else). Sally Hansen Insta-Dri retails for $3-5 at Walgreens, Walmart, Riteaid, Target, and Ulta. Ulta Nail Lacquer retails for $6 at Ulta.

Palest Mauve - A Lovely Pink

Sometimes I can keep a manicure for days. Other times, I want to change it everyday. Wednesday I used Vintage Dream (my first franken) and by the next day, I was wanting a different color. I love the polish, just needed change.

So last night, I sat down to wipe off the old and paint on some new. I could not part with my flower design just yet, so I kept it and decided to go with a color from the design. I chose the main flower color, Love My Nails Palest Mauve. Its a lovely shade of pink, think dusty rose.

Artificial Light, No Flash

Artificial Light, Flash 

I still have little bumps on my nails. Which I'm beginning to highly suspect is from my top coat. The bubbles were not there with just the pink polish alone. So either I misjudged and placed the top coat on too soon, or its bubble prone. I plan to buy a new clear polish tomorrow. Even if the problem isn't the top coat, I can always use more bottles.

By the way, I do not know how many people own Love My Nails polishes, but I would highly recommend them, especially if you're on a polish budget. I own eight of them and love each one of them. They are super cheap. I buy mine at Walmart for a dollar. And you can get chrome and duo-chrome ones for two dollars. They have a large selection of colors, more than any other inexpensive polish I've seen.

My First Franken

I've mixed colors before to get a polish a wanted, but its always been one or two drops, enough to last me through one mani. Though I've been wanting to mix a polish of my own. I had a half empty clear polish bottle and intended to just mix powder, but one thing led to another and I was mixing polishes in as well.

I went a little crazy with the adding. I started off with this pretty shimmering blue eyeshadow I've had forever but never use. The polish was too sheer, so I added some light blue polish. Not the right color. I thought adding two drops of light green might give it a nudge toward turquoise or aqua. But apparently two drops of green for the whole bottle forever made the mixture green. Things sort of spiraled down from there. I added in more blues and even some pale colors in an attempt to steer the shade closer to blue.

On top of the powder and clear polish I ended up adding in: Sally Hansen Peach, Petites White, Love My Nails Innocent Pink, Sally Hansen Creme, Pure Ice Wild Thing, Pure Ice Splash, and a dark blue that I no longer have a label for.

By the time I was done, I was very unsure about my franken. But I know better than to judge a polish by the bottle, so I waited until I painted the polish on to vote it a success or failure.

So last night, I set out to see how my polish would look on. One brushstroke in and I was in love. It was a pretty shade of green with a lovely shimmer. I wanted more than just a simple polish so I added an accent nail on each hand. However, given I'm a rightie, the work I did on my right hand with my left was bad. So I ended up repainting that nail and just going with a design on my left ring finger only.

The only thing about my franken that I'm unhappy with is the texture. It painted on smooth. But I noticed after it dried that I had little bumps. Now I'm not sure if its from the polish itself. Maybe I painted it on too thick. Or my top coat caused them. I'll have to see if the bumps appear next time I use the polish. But even with the bumps, I'm thrilled with the polish.

Artificial Light, No Flash

Artificial Light, Flash

The pictures without a flash are a better representation of the color in person. You can't really see any shimmer in the pictures of the polish on, but it is noticeable in person. Though you can see the shimmer while its in the bottle.

Artificial Light, Flash

Artificial Light, No Flash

I'm pretty happy with it. And I absolutely love the little flowers I painted for my accent nail. Though I cannot take credit for the idea. Its a design by CutePolish and the video can be found here. For my little flowers, I used Love My Nails Palest Mauve for the main flower color, No6 Party Punch for the accent flower color, and a mix of Pure Ice Wild Thing and Love My Nails Black Rage for the leaves.

I love the idea of naming one's polish creations. So I came up with a name for my polish. Vintage Dream. The green automatically makes me thing vintage, while the pretty shimmer inspired the second half.

Oh, I almost forgot... I know someone is sitting here reading this entry and wondering what in the world a franken is. Think Frankenstein. A franken is the result of frankening, which is the process of mixing different polishes, pigments, glitter, et cetera to create a unique polish or FrankenPolish.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my little franken adventure. Please comment and let me know what you think about Vintage Dream :)