Drop Anchor Nails with OPI Steady As She Rose

This is another nautical/pirate themed manicure with OPI Steady As She Rose from the OPI Stranger Tides collection. It's really subtle and a great mix of girly and tough. I have pictures from several different lighting situations; the natural light ones are the most color accurate, but I included the flash ones since they show more of the detail.

Steady As She Rose is a grey, dirty pale pink. I have 2 careful coats of it, then 2 stamps side by side in random lengths and spaces of the chain from BM12 in gold, China Glaze Passion. On top of that is the anchor from BM08 stamped in a medium/dark grey from Essence, Fivepocket Grey. You can use China Glaze Recycle if you have it. The gold on the pink is really subtle, much more subtle than in the pictures. It's actually a beautiful effect, a shimmering chain. I love the grey anchors against the murky pink! Many more pictures after the jump!

Fish in Nets with OPI Stranger Tides

I have some news - This weekend I bought a camera! It was a birthday present from my father so thanks Dad! Look forward to clearer, more accurate pictures and hopefully more posts since I don't have to wait for my boyfriend's phone :3

On to the nails. OPI's Stranger Tides may be a strange-looking color in the bottle but is a fantastic shade on my skin tone. Since it's kind of murky and pirate-y I wanted to do something not so cutesy, and I came up with a shimmery fishnet with creepy dead fish, very pirate appropriate! I LOVE this combination. I only have Stranger Tides in the little sample size, I might trade in my full size Mermaid's Tears for a full size Stranger Tides if I don't like it as much.

This is 2 coats OPI Stranger Tides stamped first with OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous and Konad M79, then 2 fish with MAC Blue India and BM04. More pictures after the jump!

Purple Roses manicure with OPI's Skull & Glossbones, Konad m79 and BM14

...otherwise known as THE GREATEST THING I'VE EVER DONE.

If you can replicate this mani DO IT! It is beautiful. I'm coming to realize that the greeny hue in the Stranger Tides collection from OPI makes for the most flattering shades on my skin tone. This grey is stunning on olive skin. I'm going to pick up a full sized bottle of a few of these shades tomorrow if I can find em.

It's funny when you're doing a manicure sometimes and the first few steps you're like yeeahhh, this is not great but once you get the final stamps into place you absolutely love it. When I just had the polka dots on I was not into it but I love it now! It's subtle, flattering, and so so pretty. I haven't been this happy with a manicure in a long time! Skull & Glossbones is really ridiculously hard to capture on this "camera" unfortunately so I didn't get totally accurate pictures. I got the most color accuracy in the first picture, the other pictures are a more clear view of the print though. You have to see this in person to truly admire it I think.

*EDIT: I added some more pictures from my new camera so you could see it a bit better. The color looks more green in some pictures but it is a soft grey in real life.

This is 3 coats of Skull & Glossbones, followed by a white stamp of konad m79, followed by 2 rose stamps from BM14 in GOSH's Wild Lilac. China Glaze's Spontaneous would probably work for stamping too, I tried OPI's Planks A Lot first but it was too light/transparent. More after the jump!

What's the jump?

My sister just asked me a question that I didn't even think of. If you guys don't know what the "jump" means when I say "more after the jump", it means click on the little button under the picture that says "Read More>>".

Where does it come from? There is a button you can click when you're writing a blog that is called a jump break, and it's like a page break in a word document. Wherever you put it, everything above it is on your main page and everything below it is only available if you click that link which takes you to its own page. Spread the word to those that don't know!

But on the topic of jumps, do you guys like them? I like them because you can quickly scroll down the blog and see a glimpse of everything, but when I go on other blogs I like it better when they have all the pictures out so I don't have to keep clicking and going back. Tell me how you feel about jumps!

Now let's practice. Yes it's necessary.
This is the jump
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Chandelier Nails with BM08

Simple but pretty. This is Wet n Wild Sparked 2 coats over Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Rockstar Pink. Sparked is a silvery pink glitter, really pretty. The ring finger is China Glaze Sugar High stamped with BM08 and 2 black rhinestones. I really like the rhinestones on this manicure, looks like the chandelier is hanging :)

More after the jump!

Hot Lips with BM02!

Remembering some old favorites can give you a creative kick sometimes and this is the look that I've been doing for years. It is the look from julieg713 on youtube, and she does it and I used to do it with nail art brushes. But I am terrible at that, they turned out weird on my left hand and pretty much red scribbles on my right hand hah! So when I got the bundle monster plate with the lips it was perfect! They are perfectly formed on both hands.

Now this is a perfect time to break out your mannequin hands polishes! They should be skin toned, not too too pink. I used a Rimmel 60 seconds polish that I got years and years ago called princess pink.

This is such an amazing look, I love it. The ones without flash are much more color accurate. As always, more after the jump.

Subtle accent nail! China Glaze Sugar High and BM14

Hellooooo out there!

Do you ever get into a rut where manicure after manicure you just don't get anything that you really like? I've been in this rut for weeks. I've got like 10 manicures I have pictures of that I couldn't bring myself to post because I just don't feel wow about them. So I'm sorry it's been a while but I don't want to just post any old look on this blog for the sake of posting, I want to only post quality that I'm really proud of.

So on to a manicure that I did months ago. It's a great thing to do if you really like a nail color and don't want to cover it up with stamps, but you do want to add a little bling bling to it.

More after the jump!

Red Roses with China Glaze Ruby Pumps and BM09

Hi all! For some reason blogger/my browser is not letting me post comments from my google account so I can't respond to you right now. This is some nail art inspired by the popular blog Rachel Marie's Nails. She did this with some CND polishes here. I loved the look but didn't have the polishes so I tried to replicate it with Ruby Pumps. Ruby Pumps didn't capture well on the camera but it looked really nice in person. It's a great color combo on my skin tone. More after jump!

Grey Swirl with Konad M63 and China Glaze's Pelican Grey

Hello! It's been a while but life gets in the way sometimes :) Without a real camera and having to steal an iPhone impedes this blogs progress a bit! This is a metallic grey swirl on a medium grey. Pelican grey is not so fantastic on my skintone but this would look soooo pretty on someone a bit lighter. More pics after the jump.