Snowfetti Sandwich

I distinctly remember trying to make a wintery jelly sandwich this same time last year. It was right after the holidays, early 2013, and I tried probably 4 different white jelly sandwiches (all of which were complete fails and they never made it to the blog)!  But in the last year I’ve accumulated a few (ahem) new polishes… so let’s try it again!

I wanted my jelly sandwich to be white, shimmery, and with some slight multi-colored glitter effect to look like snowflakes.  Let’s see what I came up with…

It has many layers (8 layers to be exact), but I love it!  I will call this my snowfetti sandwich.  It also pairs perfectly with the winter weather advisory that we’re having in upstate NY right now!

Here’s what I’m wearing…

♥ Sally Hansen Maximum Strength (one coat) as my base coat

♥ OPI Alpine Snow (one coat) as my white base color

♥ Funky Fingers Jawbreaker (one coat) for some colored glitter w/a creamy base

♥ Wet n Wild Megalast Break The Ice as a sheer white topper (three coats)

♥ OPI Lights of Emerald City (one coat) for some fun square glitter on top

♥ Seche Vite topcoat (one coat)

I just love Lights of Emerald City by OPI!  It’s probably my favorite glitter topper ever!  My boyfriend’s mom got it for me for my birthday over the summer and I’ve worn it three times so far on the blog.  The square glitters in there are so unique, and the fact they’re white helps soften them so they blend perfectly into your manis.  I hope OPI keeps making glitters like this one!

A quick FYI… the January Nail Art Ideas Linkup themes are coming out real soon!  So keep your eyes peeled for the announcement!  The January N.A.I.L. linkup will start Jan 5th 2014.   

Double-stamped nails!

Hey ya’ll- I’m over here having fun with my new MoYou plates! I reviewed one of their plates and stampers in my last post, and I had to pull them out again for more stamping fun. This time, I had double fun! Have you ever tried stamping the same image onto your nails TWICE? Well, that’s what I did and the results look wicked! Check it out!

For this look I am wearing a basecoat, three coats of Blue Flame from Brijits Digits Boutique and seche vite topcoat.  I wore this beautiful blue polish for three days (no chips!) until I decided to spice it up with some double stamping effect!  On day number four I stamped a shimmery white polish called Ginessa by Zoya using my MoYou London Pro Plate 5 XL stamping plate.  Then I used that same plate but stamped China Glaze Liquid Leather (black) over top of that.  The designs didn’t match up, which makes it look cooler I think.  I like how they overlap!  It sorta looks like the bottom of a swimming pool. 🙂

Wanna see what Brijit’s Blue Flame polish looks like before I stamped over it?  It has a lovely jelly quality to it and it’s bluer than blue.  I love how blue it is!  It took three coats to get to this opacity and so far I am very happy with it’s durability.  I’m on day four with no chips yet!  Look at what a live wire this polish is! Yowzer!!!!!!

Blue Flame is on clearance now at Brijit’s Etsy shop!

Have you ever tried double stamping?  If not, do it to it! 

Zoya Frida Swatches

Frida is a sheer teal jelly from the Fall 2012 Gloss collection.  Yes, it’s from last fall, but I don’t care since I’m loving fall right now!  The crisp air, the cool mornings… it makes me so happy and also kinda reminiscent.  I can’t quite explain why, but fall makes me feel all warm and fuzzy about the past.  So today I’m more than happy to wear an old fall release.   Here’s how Zoya describes Frida: A sheer, dark, warm-toned teal blue with a buildable jelly gloss finish. The jelly gloss formula can be worn alone or layered to create an endless variety of custom colors and effects.

I’ve been longing for this polish (or any part of this collection!) since they came out last year.  Well lucky me!  Julie, aka Short & Sweet in Texas, just sent me this polish in a swap.  Yeah!!!

As you can see it’s very sheer.  I could’ve done more coats, but I thought I’d bask in it’s teal translucence!  Still, I was a little curious to see how the jelly would build up, so I did a couple nails with 3 thin coats, and a couple with 2 thick coats.  Surprisingly, you can’t tell which are which!  So I vote for two thicker coats!

This last photo below was taken in the bright sun.  You can really see how transparent it is here!  And extremely glossy too!  I’m not even wearing topcoat with Frida and look at how shiny it is!

So what do you think of this kind of polish?  Would you flaunt Frida or would it annoy you to have visible nail line?

Super Shiny Smooth Berry Swatch

I have a beautiful AVON Nailwear Pro polish for you today called Smooth Berry.  I spotted it in the avon catalog and ordered it on a whim.  What a nice surprise when my order came in…. Smooth Berry turned out to be a jelly!  Well, I suppose it could technically be called a crelly… but still, it has that nice glassy translucent effect that I love. 

I used 3 coats of Smooth Berry to get it nice and opaque.  I’m not too keen on how this dark maroon shade goes with my skin tone though.  I think it makes me look like I have pale skin and long vampire fingers!  But this polish has something that I absolutely love….  SHINE!  It’s super duper glossy and shiny!  It didn’t need a topcoat at all, but I did apply some seche vite just so it would dry fast.  Honestly, I can’t remember the last time I wore a polish this shiny!  I have been wearing it for two and half days now and even though I have a bit of tip wear- it looks just as fresh n shiny as when I first applied it!

Do you have an AVON lady in your life?  If not, their website can link you up with one!  Or if you’re not into the personal service part of avon… then you can always order online too.  Last week they had free shipping on orders over $10… so check back to see what deals they have coming up.  I have toyed with the idea of becoming an avon rep myself… It could be kinda fun!  I could hand-model all the products to get better sales numbers lol.  I’m a little afraid to invest a lot of my time if I’m not sure of the monetary payoff though. So for now I will flip through the brochures and email my orders to my avon lady!  How easy is that?  I just ordered 5 different spring polishes for $3.49 each!  Can’t wait til she drops it off on April 4th!

My Green Mystery

This is one of my absolute favorite polishes of all time!  I’ve had this Orly bottle for a while and the sticker on the bottom is ripped off.  That means I don’t know what the shade is called!  After much web research I found that it could be Green with Envy.  A lot of other swatches of this color look teal, so I wasn’t quite sure.  Mine is a beautiful green shade with a touch of aqua.  I would describe it as a deep dark sea foam green.  And it’s the perfect shade for St. Patrick’s Day.

The craftynail in me originally planned to do some purple nail art on top of this.  But after applying 4 coats of this green Orly (it’s a jelly so it needed several coats) I realized that it’s just perfect as is!  I’ve got no craftiness for you today, but maybe you can revel in this jelly beauty with me.  Orly has Green with Envy listed online as part of their ‘permanent collection’ so it shouldn’t be hard to find if you are interested.