Ice Truck Killer Nails

Happy Halloween everyone!

My mom and I went to Ikea in Ottawa today so as soon as I got home I raced to get these nails done.  My best friend called me while I was there and told me I had to do the Ice Truck Killer nails from Dexter.  So voila!  This is for you Nicole ;)

I decided to add on a little blood splatter.  Unfortunately I still can't do the splatter technique so its placed on with a dotter.  I had to use my camera phone for this but it gave me the opportunity to give the photo a spookier look.

China Glaze Wicked Collection, Halloween 2012: Cast A Spell

Hi all! Another 2 post day today! I really wanted to wear a Halloween polish today, and I can't resist sharing it with you!

Today I have Cast A Spell from the China Glaze Wicked Collection, an insanely beautiful Golden Olive glass fleck in a deep green base. The base of this polish is so dark that it can appear black at times, but in most light it shows a deep Olive toned green. The glass flecks have a lovely golden Olive hue, and make this polish just glow from within. I've been waiting to wear this for awhile now, and I am in awe of it's murky beauty.

Macro shot: Look at that gorgeous Glass Fleck!

Look at that color! I love how dark, yet vibrant this polish looks. I think this is my very favorite Halloween polish from this years collections.

Formula:
Cast A Spell is a little on the thick side, however I experienced no glopping or additional thickening during use. Very buttery formula on this one.

Application:
Smooth and effortless, Cast A Spell applied beautifully with zero dragging or balding.  Easy to control, this girl needed very little clean-up, but beware! If you are OCD about your lines like I am and always clean up no matter what, this polish will leave glittery residue anywhere your brush touches! As a bonus, CAS could be deemed a one coater, although I'm wearing 2 coats for depth and color.

I am so glad that I didn't pass on this one.  Despite there being very similar colors out there, this is certainly a gem among my collection.

What is your favorite Halloween polish from this year?

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

31 Day Challenge (v.2!) Day 25: Inspired By Fashion!

Morning all! Happy Halloween! I'm pretty excited about taking the kiddos out for some trick-or-treating tonight! One of the houses near us has a full Haunted Mansion set-up that is always amazing. The 2 guys that live there once worked at Disneyland at the Haunted Mansion and has some of the older tech stuff from there. Down the street from them, is the guy that owns one of the original style Batmobiles, and his house is done up like a laboratory, except he has Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees hiding around the house waiting to chase you all the way down the street. I won't be taking the kids there, but I'm certainly going!

Today's challenge is not very Halloween-like. It's the Inspired By Fashion Challenge!

I'm not much for Haute Couture, but I know what I like, so I took my inspiration from that. Outside of Nail Polish, my only other real guilty pleasure is shoes. Namely heels. High, sexy heels.  While perusing the internet one day, I came across these really awesome Lady Gaga Inspired Heels, and knew I had to attempt to align this manicure with them.

I started with a base of NYX Girls Pure Red Pearl, then added the wavy stripe using tape cut with craft scissors and painted with Gosh Black Passion.  Then, since I couldn't find my Silver Studs, I added the gold studs down the other side.

I dig how this turned out, but using this many studs makes top coating a pain! These studs are also the Kiss brand, and they have that annoying sticky tab on the bottom, which means no matter how you place them, they will shift into their own position immediately after you top coat them. I can't wait to get some decent studs! (Probably from Born Pretty Store. Don't forget! 10% off using code KWL91 at checkout!)

I also didn't realize how hard it is to photograph that many studs! It really wreaked havoc with my lighting! I swear my hands are trained to go into my usual photo poses and they tried to resist anything new. Weird, right?

And here are the really killer heels that I used as my inspiration. I believe they are Lady Gaga 4 Red by Lady Couture and can be found at Lulus.com. (Oh yes, they will be mine!)

Image Source: Polyvore.com

Pumps (see more platform shoes)

This was a really fun manicure to create, and I've been having fun wearing BAMF studded nails. I don't know why I haven't played with studs before this, other than I tend to forget that I have them. Time to order some good studs and start wearing those puppies! I do think this mani would look better on longer nails, so I'm sure you will be seeing some studded manis once my nails grow out a bit more. I'm pretty pleased with how fast they're already growing, save for my poor index finger that had to be filed back since it was totally lopsided once the curl popped out of it!

What do you think of studded nails? BAMF or Boo?

Be sure to check in with all of the awesome Varnished Vixens to see their Fashionable manis!

Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish 
- Robin Sparkles  

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Recreate Your Favorite Manicure-Halloween Nail Challenge 2012

Hola!!

Wow ya hoy es el ultimo día del reto de Halloween, no puedo creerlo mi primer reto de uñas fue superado!! jeje.

Bueno el tema que toca hoy es ''recreate your favorite manicure or someone else's''  y en lugar de recrear un diseño mio preferí hacer uno de la maravillosa Robin Moses a la que puedo llamar mi maestra ya que de sus tutoriales de youtube he aprendido muchisimo y he logrado pintar mucho mejor que antes.

Y es que desde hace tiempo vi este diseño tan fuera de lo común, me encanto y no había encontrado mejor ocasión para recrearlo, pero por fin aquí esta mi recreación de ''Neon Horror'' original de Robin Moses.

inspired by Robin Moses

 lo que me fascina de este diseño es el contraste de los colores neón con la zombie blanco y negro!

inspired by Robin Moses

Así se concluye este reto tan divertido de halloween pero seguiré en el club de los sábados ''sat-ART-day club'' haciendo diseños según el tema que nos toque...el próximo sábado toca ''Logos o marcas'' así que no se lo pierdan :D

Y no olviden ver los diseños de mis compañeras de reto:

Haunted House Nails

Happy Halloween Eve Everyone

Hope all you east coasters are doing well.  We had really high winds and some rain here but that's about it.  The power went off some places around town but I was lucky.  The sky is not looking so promising today though.

I have my second Halloween themed mani for you. The outcome was not quite what I had in mind but I had fun trying.  I love playing around with the pin technique!
I used two coats for the base then added random dots all over and very quickly.  Then I took my pin and created the swirls.  Obviously the haunted house is a stamp.  I thought that I would add a bit of black to my tips to create the ground.  Wishing I hadn't now or maybe if I had made them straight lines instead.

Oh well, hope you like ;)

Scorpio

So, here comes the next look in the Zodiac series, Scorpio. To me Scorpio is a dark and mysterious sign and the color I associate with it is dark red. I figured that the makeup look that best would describe this Zodiac sign is a grey smokey eye with sharp, red eyeliner. :)

As eyeliner I have used the rusty, blood-red gel liner Poison by Makeup Geek. I like it a lot, even though it clogs my brush just as Fame did. Another drawback with it is that it doesn't show up as good if you use it on a darker background. I tried doing this look with a darker shade of grey but the red just "disappeared".

For the lips, a burgundy red suits the Scorpio ladies. :) To emphasize it I applied black in the corners of my lips.


Positive traits
*Hard-working and determined
*Intense and vigorous
*Intelligent, intuitive and analytical
*Charming and elegant
*Sexy and mysterious

Negative traits
*Jealous and wants to control their partner
*Introvert and sometimes too secretive
*Suspicious and tends to overblow things
*Often takes life a bit too seriously
*Vengeful, bitter and cruel

Good matches: Cancer, Pisces and Capricorn

Bad matches: Scorpio, Aquarius, Aries and Virgo

Face

*Skin base foundation 02 (Illamasqua)

*Studio Finish Concealer (M.A.C.)*

Eyebrows

*Corrupt (Makeup Geek) 

Eyes

*Milk Jumbo Pencil (NYX)

*Galaxy (Makeup Geek)

*White lies (Makeup Geek)

*Corrupt (Makeup Geek)

*Medium Pencil S.O.P.H.I.E. (Illamasqua)

*Lashes: Ardell #105 

Lips

*Medium Pencil S.O.P.H.I.E. (Illamasqua)

*Burgundy red lip pencil 

*IMPORTANT: Since M.A.C. has decided to start testing their products on animals I can no longer recommend you to buy these products! The reason why I'm still using them is because I bought them before it came to my knowledge that M.A.C. would become a non-cruelty free brand. I won't however buy any new products by them since animals are more important to me than looking good. 

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Well, that's about it! :) I was planning to participate in the monthly theme challenge at sophistiquenoir.com but we'll see if I manage to create a look for it tomorrow or on Thursday.

Thank you so much for reading and hope to see you soon! Have a lovely day, evening or whatever it is where you are! :)

Halloween Manicure!

Hi all! It's almost Halloween, which means the obligatory Halloween mani, right? I don't normally do anything really detailed for Halloween since I'm usually busy wearing colors from Halloween Collections (if I can find them out here) and with 2 excited kiddos it can be hard to find time for intricate nail art. However I did manage to find some time today. When I sat down to work on this, I had one idea in my head. I had no idea this mani would grow into a 2 hour nail art-fest, but I'm glad it did. Not only because the results are kinda cool, but I was also able to really test out some new Nail Art Brushes.

I started this Mani with Wet N Wild Megalast in Toxic Apple as my base color. Then I went in with Sinful Colors Snow Me White,  Petites Vintage Grey, and Petites Eggplant and sponged on some spooky fog type spots. Then I grabbed my awesome new nail art brushes (sent to me by Born Pretty Store), and went to work on each nail. Here is the result:

**Disclaimer** This was a very messy mani to create, and my skin reflects the trauma of pure acetone clean-up. Sorry! It's being babied as I write this!

And here are some macro shots of my fave nails:

Thumbnail: Tombstone with skeleton hand resting on top

Index: Cold, Creepy Tree with strange shadows falling beside it (could it be a psycho with a chainsaw? A Zombie? A 6 armed, chainsaw wielding zombie?)

Ring: Zombie-style Angry Kitteh, standing on a wall in front of a full moon (partially obscured). Note the blank, soul-less eyes.

Not Pictured in Macro: Middle Finger: The Grim Reaper. Note his Scythe and skeleton fingers.

Pinky: Weird spider that didn't come out anywhere near planned.


These are not perfect, but they came out much like I wanted them to, save for my pinky, which came out wonky since I didn't realize that it would be such a pain to try and paint something over the spiderweb that served as the backdrop for that nail. Nonetheless trying to paint it in a chrome polish. It's supposed to be some sort of creepy alien spider, but it looks more like a wacked out disco ball. Oops! I'm happy with them, enough that I'm going to enter them into the Born Pretty Store Halloween Nail Art Contest. 

This mani was so much fun to work on, despite it being done entirely with straight nail polish and nail art brushes. I don't usually freehand this much at once, I'm not all that good at it, but I really got caught up in this mani.

The nail art brushes I used were nothing short of perfection. These brushes come in a pack of 4, and are smaller detail nail art brushes. They have shorter, pointed tips and are meant for precision work. I've been looking for brushes like these for what seems like forever! I've purchased a ton of brushes in the past year, and I'm usually disappointed from the get go. But these? These I love! I initially tried these out for my Inspired By A Book Manicure, and loved them, but decided to really be able to give an honest opinion, I needed to work with them a bit more. Sometimes brushes can be great the first time you use them, and then they fall apart the next. These held up perfectly, even through repeated cleaning, dips in water and acetone and obviously, a ton of use. After I finished this manicure, which consists of multiple layers of color, different sized fine brush work and some blending, the tips of the brushes were as perfect as when I first opened them. The handles are thin as well, giving these brushes a comfortable feel and easy grip. I did not remember to take a pic of the brushes before I used them (Being sick clouds my head a little), but you can find them at Born Pretty Store, Item ID #465, or just click here.  They retail for a measly $3.51, with free worldwide shipping. Your order will ship out within 24 hours, and I have yet to wait over 8-9 days for anything from Born Pretty. For those of you that freehand, I seriously suggest taking a gander at these. I have no idea why I didn't think of looking at Born Pretty for brushes like these before, but they are by far the best brushes I have ever used for fine lines in nail art. 

Also, you can receive 10% off any order from Born Pretty Store using my coupon code, shown below! They carry a large array of nail art products, including this brush set, flocking powder, studs, glitters, rhinestones, etc. 

What do you think of my Epic-For-Me Halloween Manicure? Should I stop bombarding you guys with freehand art now? ;)

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Wet N Wild Megalast: Toxic Apple

Hi all! Late post today since I spent a good portion of my free time today working on my Halloween mani! I can't wait to show it to you later! It isn't perfect, but it did come out much better than I thought it would, especially since I threw it all together at the last minute, not really knowing what I was going to do when I sat down at my polish table. It was a lot of fun, but I made a gigantic mess, and my cuticles are not happy about all the sponging, painting, and cleaning up involved with this one. Having sensitive skin in the desert is not fun. But you're not here to listen to me whine! Let's see some polish!

Today I have another awesome new Wet N Wild Megalast Polish to share with you. Toxic Apple is a fab Deep Blurple polish with subtle pink and purple shimmer particles. I love Blurple polishes, and this one is a definite fave. Toxic Apple is actually a touch more on the blue side in most light, however it does flash the purple often. As a bonus, it's also a good one coater! (Sorry about the Lobster Hands - I didn't want to color correct since the polish is true to color in these shots)

Check out the nubbins! Growing nicely already...oh Qtica Natural Nail Growth Stimulator, How I love thee! But, more importantly, check out that color! Rawr!

Formula:
Toxic Apple has the standard Wet N Wild Formula, simply one of the best drugstore polishes around. Not too thick, not too thin, no glopping, gooping or thickening, and no bubbles, dragging or balding.

Application:
Opaque in a single coat, TA was lovely to apply save for one thing...the brush. This polish has the standard Megalast "Mani-curve" brush, which I usually don't mind. This time around I managed to snag the bottle with the wonky, uneven brush, which led to a very hard time getting anything near a clean line. Which meant more clean- up. Usually not too much of a drag, but this polish is HIGHLY pigmented, and even the smallest swipe of acetone left a blue streak along my skin and nails. Not worth skipping out on this beauty, but to avoid staining be sure to use a good base coat and try to steer clear of your cuticles, even with the edges of your clean up brush.

Overall the good certainly outweighs the bad on this one.  The brush issue seems to be a fluke, and I don't always think of dense pigmentation as a negative, it's just a minor annoyance with cleaning up and possible staining. I use either Qtica or OPI Nail Envy Matte as a base coat and I have had one polish actually stain my nails, and that was a Zoya. Since I always keep my nails polished, not a huge issue. Plus with a price tag of a whopping $1.99? Who can complain? ;)

What do you think of Toxic Apple and the new Megalast colors?

Be sure to check back later on for my "not-really-epic-yet-epic-for-me Halloween Mani", complete with Born Pretty Store Nail Art Brush Review!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Polishing!
-Kimber

Inspired by a scary movie-Halloween Nail Challenge

Hola!

No puedo creerlo pero olvide postear el diseño que tocaba ayer sábado 27 en el reto de Halloween, el tema es ''inspirado por una película de terror'' y pues decidí pintar sobre mi película favorita de este genero ''IT'' (el payaso Eso).

Esta película es la única que en verdad todavía me da miedo jaja, creo que a pesar de ser ya antigua es mejor que muchas modernas que ni miedo dan.

Pues mas vale tarde que nunca como dice el dicho, aquí les dejo mi manicura inspirada por una peli de terror, espero le guste:

''Todos Flotan''

mis inspiraciones

Como ven obtuve inspiración de las imagenes de arriba, a pennywise no lo quise hacer tan realista mas bien como dibujo como en el cartelon que dice ''pennywise el payaso bailarin''