Happy Saturday!

Good morning!

Sorry for being MIA this week, I've had more than usual early, long days, which makes it difficult for me to want to blog. I finally got time this morning, mainly because I'm off weekends :P I've got a few manis, one a fail >.< to show you!

Let's start with today's. I'm going to a baby shower this afternoon for my cousin, so of course, I had to something for that :) I really wanted to use the baby themed plate from the Bundle Monster Holiday set that I ordered during their Black Friday sale, but I also wanted to do a water marble and maybe use one of my idie crelly glitters. Here's what I came up with!

Ok, I seriously love how this turned out! My thumb and ring fingers were water marbled with all Zoya colors, starting with a base of Purity at two coats with a top of Seche, and marbled with Pippa, Malia, Rocky, and Purity (in that order), and a final coat of Seche.

The other fingers were 3 coats of Above the Curve's Sugar Rush, a coat of Seche, then stamped with Bundle Monster BM H-21 and Sinful Colors Ardoise, and a final coat of Seche. I almost matted the water marbling, but decided against it this time.

Friday was my usual textured mani, using the two new Designer Series from OPI. Now, OPI wasn't exactly pushing them as Liquid Sands, but come on. All their other textured polishes, whether they be sparkly or not, are called Liquid Sands, so it kinda goes without saying that these are, too, even if they put into the DS.

Let me first say that although I love the colors and how they look on the nail, I am horribly disappointed in how badly they wore. I first wore Lapis while I was on vacation in Tennessee. Now, I've never lived anywhere that gets as cold as it did there, so I wasn't sure if the horrible chipping was my fault or because of the weather or what. I wanted to give it another go, so I did my nails up with Lapis and Pewter for yesterday.

I didn't do a thing differently prepping my nails for textured polishes. Everything was fine when I went to bed Thursday night and Friday morning, even through my shower Friday morning. Sadly, though, that was about the end of it. These two, Lapis and Pewter, wear nothing like the other Sands I own. They are so chippy on me, I could have cried. I love the colors, but not enough to keep them, so they're going to a new home today =\

The one nice thing I can say about them is that they both applied nicely and only needed two coat to look like this ^.

Thursday featured one of my untried indies, Candy Lacquer's Unicorn Bubbles. I started with a base of OPI's You're Such a Buda-pest at two coats. From previous experience with her glitter toppers, I chose to sponge Unicorn Bubbles on, so I topped with Seche before doing so. I went it over it twice, trying not to sponge it on too thick to avoid air bubbles, then applied two coats of Seche to smooth it out.

Wednesday's mani featured a polish from Maybelline's latest collection, Street Art. The one I picked up, Wild at Heart, has pink and black matte glitters in different shapes and sizes in a clear base. Silly me, I thought it was red and black, but the pink is ok with me lol. My base color was 2 coats of OPI's Skull and Glossbones, with 2 of Wild at Heart, which applied really nice. The clear base wasn't as thick as I expected it to be, and didn't chip on me. It did need two coats of Seche to smooth it out.

This is the only pic I had that wasn't completely blurred >.> It made be hard to tell, but I matted the thumb and ring fingers with Wet 'N Wild's new matte coat.

And, lastly, Tuesday's mani, which I regard something as a fail lol. Not the base color, I love that. The base was two glorious coats of Darling Diva's Blue Diamonds (that I would have bought just for the name alone, never mind that it's a blue holo, simply because I love blue diamonds). I'm sure if I had applied it thick enough, I could have gotten away with one coat. The fail came in the form of my stamping. I used one of the icicle images from Messy Mansion plate MM27, stamped in Pure Ice's Silver Mercedes. I really should stamped the image so that it was from my cuticle down, not from the free edge up. Plus, my camera didn't want to capture the holo-ness.

So there you have it! Hope you enjoyed this week's offerings!