Essie Shearling Darling winter rose nails

Hey everyone! Do you remember a few weeks back when I was participating in a holiday nail art contest held by nailpolishcanada.com ? Well, thanks to all of your votes I won week 2 for my holiday underside mani!  Thank you so much to all my readers and also to Nail Polish Canada for the sweet prize pack!  I never won a nail contest before!! Here’s what they mailed me…

2 Enchanted Nail Polish – Hello New York & The Youth
Butter London 2 pc Double Take Ice Duo – Bluecoat Lacquer & Leccy Topcoat
China Glaze 3 pc Dash Of Dazzle Set
Zoya 6 pc Zenith Collection
Essie 6 pc Shearling Darling (Winter 2013) Collection
OPI 10 pc Take Ten Mini Set

I’d like to show you my Essie pics first since that was the collection that I’m really excited about. For today’s manicure I used the following four polishes from the Essie Winter 2013 Shearling Darling collection: Mind Your Mittens, Warm & Toasty Turtleneck, Shearling Darling, and Parka Perfect.

Prior to this prize pack,  I only owned two bottles of Essie so getting the entire 6 piece winter 2013 Shearling Darling collection was really fun for me!  I wanted to do some nail art that incorporated all 6 colors but that manicure didn’t turn out very blog-worthy.  It was good for me to test out those polishes though- to see which ones are opaque enough for some nail stamping, and also to practice with the Essie brush.  I’m not used to applying Essie so the combination of the runny formula and the skinny brush kinda threw me for a loop.  The first mani came out really messy but I think I got the hang of it by the second manicure.  Slow, thin coats did the trick.  Here are the final blog-worthy nails:

For these nails I used the above-mentioned four polishes along with my MoYou London Pro Plate 04 for a romantic rosebud pattern.  It’s funny, it looks like I used one design for all my nails, but I actually used two different designs: one stamp imprints the roses, and the other stamp imprints color OUTSIDE the roses.  For the maroon nails it may appear like I stamped light colored roses over top of the dark color.  But really, the nail is painted the lighter color, and then I stamped the dark maroon over top.  This worked out well since dark colors stamp much better than light colors, but I still get the effect of light colored roses.  Does that explanation even make sense ? I hope someone out there sees what I mean. LOL

Do you notice how these nails coordinate with my blog-header?  That must be why I like them so much!  I’d also like to add that I’m happy to have 400% more Essies in my stash now!  Thanks nailpolishcanada- this collection is so warm and luscious!

Do you girls own any of this winter collection?

How to apply water slide decals to your nails- a quick tutorial!

There are mainly two types of nail decals: 1-STICKERS which are traditional sticky-type decals with adhesive backing and 2-WATER SLIDE DECALS which must be dipped in water to become adhesive.  I have only recently tried water slide decals and they’re so much easier to use than I expected!  When compared to traditional stickers, water slide decals are much more forgiving, especially for beginners.  They’re not very sticky which means you can move them around as much as you want to get them positioned just right.  On the other hand, traditional adhesive stickers are very sticky so you better place them carefully- you only get one shot at it!  Most of us know how to use sticky stickers….but in case you’ve never used water slide decals before- I’d like to show you how!

I was recently sent some rose Moon Sugar Decals to test out.  I’ve only tried water slide decals once before, but these Moon Sugars applied very similarly to the others- so here’s how I did it….

1) Paint your nails whatever base color you’d like.  Wait for your nails to dry a bit.  They don’t have to be totally dry, but you don’t want them wet and tacky either.

2) Cut out your nail decals with scissors so all you have is the design without much clear border around them.

3)  Do your decals have a clear plastic protective coating?  If so, you’ll want to peel it off after you cut your decal to size.  Moon Sugar Decals do not have a protective layer, but some do.

3) Grab your decal with tweezers and submerge it in water.  Hold the decal under the surface of the water for about 15-20 seconds.  See photo below.

4) Remove your decal from the water and it should easily slide off of the paper backing.  I like to grip the decal between my pointer and thumb fingers and it should slide right off the backing.  If the decal does not slip off when you do this then that means you didn’t submerge it long enough.  Simply dunk the decal for a few more seconds and try again.  When it’s ready it will slide right off the paper with barely any pressure as seen below….

5)  Then place the decal on your nail.  You’ll see that it’s not too sticky so you’ll have the opportunity to slide it around on your nail ’til you find the right spot.

6) After placing your decal then apply some pressure to help squeeze out any water that may be under the decal.  The pressure caused by pushing down on it will also help it stick to your nail better.

7) Wait a couple minutes til you know any droplets of water have dried up and then apply topcoat to get the decal to really stick!  That’s it.  Here’s my finished product….

This brand seemed easy to apply.  They are also pretty tough so you don’t have to worry about tearing them if you rough ’em up or re-position them on your nail a bunch of times.  My only problem was that I got some bubbling around the corners of my decals after applying my topcoat.  I used seche vite topcoat for this mani.  I’m not sure how other topcoats would work.  One of my decals also lifted up a bit on the edge of my nail since I didn’t trim it enough.  So if you are using large decals make sure to snip them a bit so they fit your nails well (you don’t want any overhang).

What do you think of this rose design?  Because my nails are pointy I didn’t quite know how to position them.  I think they were designed to be worn on the tips of square nails, but they still look really cool.  Moon Sugar has a bunch of other awesome decals to choose from too.  Here’s a few of my faves– Rainbow Nature Girl and Dream Catcher.  Since they’re only a few bucks each I’m tempted to try them both!

→If you’re interested in purchasing some Moon Sugars I have a wicked discount code for you- use code 25CRAFTYNAIL ’til December 31st, 2013 to save 25% at moonsugardecals.com.  It’s also good to know that they offer everyday free shipping in the US.

So what do you think?  Do you wear water slide decals?  Do you apply them the same way?  These are kinda new for me, but I like them!

Black Roses

The theme of Day 29 of the nail art challenge is ‘inspired by a song’.  The song I have chosen is a reggae song by Barrington Levy called BLACK ROSES.  Here’s the song on youtube.   I love this song!  It’s part of my reggae playlist and iTunes says that I’ve played it 42 times… but I know it has to be way more than that!  I love how he says Oh Ay!  at the end of the verses.  It totally gets stuck in my head!

I used the Konad M53 stamping plate along with my Konad special polish in black.  And my lovely pastel pink polish is my new Wet N Wild Megalast called Sugar Coat.  I got it at Walgreens and made out like a bandit.  I got 5 polishes all for the low price of $7.22 total!  And one of them was an Essie flakie topcoat from the luxeffects collection that was on sale for $2.00!  Thank you Walgreens!    I am enjoying this mani- sometimes it’s nice to go with a simple stamp design.  It’s quick and easy and the color combo came out so delicate and feminine.  Oh Ay!