peach nectar

how about another franken? good, i'm glad you like that idea.

3 coats peach nectar franken

i'm not sure what spurred the idea for a peach jelly polish with purple and gold glitter. but who cares, cause it's awesome! the polishes i used are sally hansen xtreme wear coral reef, milani jewel fx lavender, and sinful pinky glitter, which is one of my favorite iridescent glitter top coats!

i really love frankening glitter jelly polishes. they seriously couldn't be easier. the only problem with them is that i tend to get shrinkage around my cuticles when i apply top coat (see my index finger in the above pics). isn't that weird? it only happens with jelly frankens, not jellies made by an actual company. hmmm. . . . but that's ok, because i still love how delicate and twinkly it is. i call this a frankening success :).

golden teal sandwich

this is about as sheer as i go, guys. i have lots of white spots on my nails, and my tips are very opaque. plus i have a lot of staining from all the manicures i do :S. so super sheer jellies are not for me. this look, though, ended up being the perfect amount of opaqueness, while still looking soft and marshmallow-y.

layering order:

2 coats wet 'n wild megalast hush hush

1 coat love & beauty turquoise

1 more coat wet 'n wild megalast hush hush

1 coat colormates nail art opal glitter

i've just decided that wet 'n wild hush hush is the perfect white jelly- both for glitter sandwiches, and for a base color if you use 2 coats. it has a great formula too- long-lasting, not streaky, not too thick or too runny. but (and this is a big but), it's discontinued!! it's part of the old megalast line before they rebottled everything and changed some of the shades :S. sad, sad, kate. does anyone know of another good white jelly with good coverage? it has to be pure white, none of this off-white and cream nonsense. oh yeah, and it must be cheap. anyone? i might just resort to buying a couple of bottles off of ebay. . . .

on a different note, aren't these glitters pretty?? you can buy an exact dupe for the love & beauty one (l.a. girl glitter addict nostalgic) here from cherry culture, and the colormates glitter here from amazon.

electric layering

what do i do with a polish that's too blue-toned? layer a bright green jelly on top!

2 coats opi gargantuan green grape + 1 coat nina ultra pro electric slide

i liked my nina ultra pro polish from last week so much that i decided to bust out my other one! electric slide is a bright neon green jelly with lots of iridescent glitter. the pretty glitter is what convinced me i needed it :). it's so sheer that you pretty much have to layer it over something (unless actually you want your nails to look stained and infected :P). but over a similar green, the neon was just too much for my poor eyes to take. so gargantuan green grape was the perfect base color.

i'm not sure what else i could use electric slide for. . . . but i liked the unusual effect over a mint creme!

purple prism

here's my favorite creation from my recent franken mania. i present to you purple prism, as suggested by the lovely karen from frazzle and aniploish :).

3 coats purple prism franken

for months, i've been lusting after purple jelly polishes with purple and holo glitter, like candeo colors orchid, lacquerlicious strawberry cosmo, and elixir lacquer with a k. but most indie polishes are a bit too expensive for me, especially when i only wear a polish once or twice :(. sad, but true. so i had the genius idea- why don't i try to make one myself with polishes i already own?? jelly polishes with glitter are pretty much the easiest frankens to make (in my opinion). so this is what i came up with, after lots of pouring, mixing, shaking, and testing-

i used a bazillion different polishes to get my final result. here are all the glitters-

born pretty store diamond nail art glequins #1, wet 'n wild wild shine kaleidoscope, l.a. colors color craze glitter bomb and glistening purple, maybelline color show sequins rose bling

and here are all the cremes i used to get the perfect purple shade-

l.a. colors color craze nuclear energy, julie g peep toe pumps, sinful dream on

whew, that was quite a list of polishes. but they combined into exactly what i wanted, which makes me happy. and i didn't have to drop $10 or more plus shipping to get it! my mother would be so proud lol.

 

franken mania

apparently stamping mania wasn't enough. now franken mania has struck me too. i was up late (again) last week, my brain going a million miles an hour, and i started looking through a folder on my computer called "to franken." i had several empty bottles of top coat, so i decided to concoct a bunch of them. . . . after midnight, no less. this is what happened-

i'm not sure about all the names yet, but i do know that i'll be showing you the purple one tomorrow! i'm thinking purple potion. . . . any better ideas?

peach pop

i can't believe it's july already. . . . do you know what that means?? it means that baby girl is coming next month! unbelievable. . . .

2 coats hard candy peach pop

i'm very, very excited about the baby coming, but i'm not so excited about this manicure. peach pop is a light orange jelly polish with red and silver glitter in it. i have to agree with my brother when he said it looks like velveeta. now normally i love velveeta, but on my nails? not so sure. . . . oh yeah, it also chipped really quickly on me :S. which is weird, because my other hard candy glitter (gummy green) wore pretty well.

so what are your thoughts on this one? cute and summery, or reminiscent of prepackaged cheese? you tell me :).

jasmine inspired

i'm sure you've all seen pictures of the princess jasmine compact mirror by sephora. sooo pretty. but unfortunately, i wasn't able to get in on that one before they sold out. so instead, i thought i'd use the compact as color inspiration for my nailz~.

 base color: 2 coats sally hansen xtreme wear golden-i

magenta dots: julie g peep toe pumps

purple dots: l.a. colors color craze nuclear energy

lavender dots: sally hansen xtreme wear lacey lilac

lest you think i'm a creative genius (because i'm not), i stole this design from the polish you pretty blog. such a great design concept! i love discovering new ways to use dotting in a manicure. pretty darn foolproof :P.

well, i still don't have the beautiful princess jasmine compact, but this manicure is a pretty nice consolation prize. i really love the way it turned out. plus, i think purple and gold is always a winning combination :).

stamped stars

would you like to see my magical fairy meets twinkle lights meets outer space mani? please observe my new favorite nail stamp :).

1 coat artificial sea spray franken + 1 coat revlon whimsical stamped with nailz craze plate nc02 (with jordana white)



isn't this stamp just adorable? it makes me think of 60s illustrations (think "bewitched"), or fairies, or stars in space. sooo cute! and it's pretty much idiot-proof for stamping, because you don't have to line the image up in any particular way. if the image is crooked (see my pinky finger :S), it doesn't really matter! love~!



i was inspired by this much better fairy nail mani from the creator of nailz craze herself. wouldn't it be cool to do these stars over a dark base with holo glitter? maybe i'll try that next. i was a little reticent to spend $7 on a single stamping plate, but considering how much i love these stars and how many manicures i have floating around in my head, i say it's worth it! does anyone else have a favorite nail stamping image? i would love to know!



nail junkie

do you know what today is?? it's officially a year since i started this little ol' blog. i can't believe it! i thought wearing a polish named nail junkie was appropriate for the occasion lol.

2 coats sinful nail junkie

nail junkie is a teal jelly polish packed with iridescent blue, green, orange, and gold glitter in 2 sizes- larger hexes and tiny specks of glitter. there's so much gorgeousness going on in this polish. it always reminds me of the ocean, so summertime is the perfect time to wear this. you can find this at any walgreens for $1.99, as well as many target, rite aid, and walmart stores. and yes, this is definitely on my amazing cheap polish list :).



this nail junkie has come a long way since last year :). my nails have gotten a lot prettier- a little longer and less square- and my picture-taking has improved some (at least i hope so :P). take a look at my very first (pitiful) post and you can judge for yourself!



gummy green

here's something i've never tried before- black glitter. i was a little iffy about this one until i actually wore it. i think the awesome mint/turquoise color is eventually what won me over!

2 coats hard candy gummy green

my favorite little piano student geeked out when she saw this. she said it looked like granite. love that kid :P. i still think it looks like mint chocolate ice cream lol.

see? in the bottle it looks pale and minty, but on me it turned much more vibrant, which is a nice surprise. you can get minty green, along with a whole bunch of other crazy hard candy polishes, at walmart for a measly $4.00. can't wait to try peach pop next!

purple pizzazz sandwich

this manicure started out as just playing with polish, which ended up turning into something amazing. don't you love it when that happens?

1 coat sally hansen xtreme wear purple pizzazz + 1 coat milani hot pink + 1 coat sally hansen xtreme wear purple pizzazz

it was hard to get good pictures of these nails, because they were so shiny and murky-looking. it's not as dark in real life, though (silly purples). is this not an awesome combo?? the hot pink glitter ends up turning into the perfect red-toned purple color when purple pizzazz is layered over it. and you can still see the holo glitter, which turned into an amazing blue-ish color! swoon~.

as you can see, purple pizzazz is a dark blue-toned purple jelly with tons of tiny red-toned purple flakies. add this to the list of my favorite sally hansen xtreme wear polishes! seriously, you can't pass on this one. i believe sinful has a dupe for this (daddy's girl), which i should definitely tack on to my "the most beautiful polishes you can get for $2 or less" tab. try it for yourself! i'd bet good money that it would look gorgeous over a royal blue too, although i haven't tried that yet. does anyone have any other good layering combos for this purple stunner?