Week 34 of the Year of Polish Challenge: Bling Mani

So Week 34...Nice to meet you and can I just say, "Wow, girl!"

Week 34 is the Bling manicure and I brought out my neglected rhinestones and studs.  I was thinking gold, and diamonds, and silver studs.

I don't think I will be able to wear these long because I have a tendency to pick at stuff like this as soon as one pops off from wear and tear but I will wear it proudly until that happens. 

Anyway, these are a decent attempt for something I am not hugely into:) 

Teardrop rhinestones and Julep's Charlotte

I recently ordered Julep polish during a two for one sale and one of the polishes I bought was Julep's Charlotte. Charlotte is a light, airy purple and so very feminine.    I happen to adore purple polish and, since my name is Charlotte,  what is not to love?  I painted my nails this pretty purple but then thought...it needs something.  Obviously, this blog is not about polish swatches so I had to go the extra mile here on these nails.

Polishes used:

Julep's Charlotte

Revlon's Gold Coin

Julep's Fast Drying Topcoat

MASH Rain Drop Rhinestones*

These nails were very simple.  I painted my nails with two coats of Charlotte after applying a clear base coat.  I then uses a small nail art brush dipped in Gold Coin to paint a rain drop shape at the top middle of each nail.  I then applied a small amount of an old topcoat I had (that has dried out and thicken a bit) to each rain drop shape and applied five different colors of tear drop rhinestones to each hand.  Loving the rhinestones and Julep's Charlotte.  Now what to wear to show off these nails!

*Tip*  If you have a steady hand, you might try doing the gold surrounding each rhinestones after you've glued them to your nail, especially if you think you might make the gold raindrop smaller than the rhinestone.  You want the gold polish to appear like the rhinestone is set in gold.  There is no set way to do this but without a steady hand you are better off free-handing the larger gold rain drop first and then applying the rhinestone.  Good luck!

*You can get a great deal on rain drop rhinestones here.  These are the exact kind that I used on the nails above and for $2.99, you'll be be-dazzling tons of nails for pennies!

New Polish + Excitement = New Nail Art

Don't you love when you finally find polish you have been drooling over and pining about for weeks?  The other day I finally found Revlon's new polish, Scandalous, at Walgreens for $4.99!

One can never tell from pictures exactly what the glitter polish consist of so I am happy to report that yes, Scandalous does have an inky black base.  Still, I wasn't taking any chances because the swatch I made on white paper was pretty sheer.  I painted all basecoated nails with Xtremewear's Black Out as a base color.  I then applied several swipes of Scandalous on each nail once the base color dried.  Not to be outdone, I also added a coat of Sally Girl Gold glitter.  Last, I pulled out my rhinestones and decorated each ring finger nail with black rhinestones on one hand and fuchsia rhinestones on the other.  Black polish, glitter polish, and rhinestones:  three favs in one nail art session!

Scented Polish and some cute Rose nail art!

Had a lazy Saturday but we did venture to Walmart where I finally bought some of Revlon's scented polish.  I chose Revlon's Mon Cherry.  It says to use two coats but I was able to get great, solid coverage with one coat.  It does smell like cherries!

So, while I love this color by itself, this is a nail art blog and I am a nail art fanatic so I broke out the stamping and rhinestones again.  While playing with a clear 3D rhinestone and four black teardrop rhinestones I formed a sort of rose look.  I searched through my stamping plates and found the scrolling design on Bundle Monster plate 201 and stamped it on to my thumb nails in Konad White stamping polish.  I then put a clear topcoat to seal the stamp and placed my rhinestone design on each thumb.   I really think that doing this on every nail would be a bit of overkill but Im sure it would look cute if you want to try!  I added green teardrop rhinestones to act as leaves for the roses.  Last I added one more layer of topcoat in hopes to seal the rhinestones to the nail.  We'll see how well they hold up!  Hope you like them:)

Shooting Stars: A first attempt at confetti and rhinestone application

So I received the package today with all my new rhinestones and glitter confetti and had to break it out right away.

For these nails, I did two coats of Sinful Colors Midnight Blue followed by a coat of Sinful Colors Frenzy.   I then glued silver and light blue stars on each nail in a random pattern. I topped off the two largest stars on each thumb with an accent rhinestone and then used concentrated Xtremewear In the Spotlight glitter strips to simulate a shooting star effect.  I think they turned out fun!