Gettin' Lacy with AEngland Holy Grail and Big Plate A

I decided to not only do a comparison of AEngland Holy Grail old vs new version, but to dress it up a bit with a beautiful lacy French tip stamp. What do you think of it?

Comparison old and new Holy Grail

The above picture shows the comparison of the old and new AEngland Holy Grail. The top and bottom is the old version which is called Limited Edition (when it's gone, it's gone) and the middle is the New Edition.
I think they are both pretty, but am partial to the new version myself. It is a very true gold foil color, whereas the limited edition version is a more yellow-leaning true goldenrod type color.

In artificial lighting

I then took the New edition and created French tips on all the fingers with the Limited Edition, leaving the accent finger as the New edition by itself. Then, with Funky Fingers Black Knight (my favorite black stamping polish) I stamped the lacy French tip design from the Fauxnad Big Plate A (the image can also be found on Konad m71) on the tips of all except the accent nail.

In natural light

What do you think?

Santa and his Chimney

Here is a photo of the items I used:
-OPI Girls Just Want to Play
-OPI Baby It's "Coal" Outside
-China Glaze Sexagon
-Ulta Set The Nude
-Seche Vite Top Coat (Not pictured)
-XL Stamping Plate A

Started out with OPI Girls Just Want to Play as a base on all nails.
- Took OPI Baby It's Coal Outside with the "brick-like" image from the stamping plate and did pointer, middle and pinky fingers. I then did those 3 tips as well. I put China Glaze Sexagon on my ring finger as an accent to be sort of like snow. I then painted my thumb with the Ulta polish and drew the santa face with a dotting tool. I used Konad White and Red for the hair and hat details.

Here's the finished look! LOVE the holo in China Glaze Sexagon.

Interesting close-up of the holograph in regular evening light. I thought this looked really cool. Kind of like trying to take a photo of fireworks or lights at night.

Here's a neutral eye look I also did. I used some colors found in a pallette I bought around Christmas time at Dollar General.

March for Life 2011 Manicure

This was my manicure for the March for Life last year. I don't remember which color I used for the base, but I think I put some sort of coral first and then a metallic pink on top. I then used a silver polish to draw the baby foot. I stamped the rose image from plate bm14 with Konad red stamping polish. I used the Konad red stamping polish to create the French tip on my thumb.

2 Snowflake Manicures

At the beginning of last year, I did this manicure. It was one of my first attempts at nail art stamping and really got me hooked! The base is Sinful Colors Midnight Blue. I then took Revlon Gum Drop and stamped snowflakes from plate BM14. I put a little bit of silver glitter top coat on as well to give it a nice sparkle.
The Revlon stamped pretty well, but because the blue is so dark it didn't give the result I had hoped for. But it looks cool nonetheless.

I then decided to mix it up and switch the colors around. It looks great this way as well. Same colors and nail plate, just used the blue to stamp. Sinful Colors polish always works well stamping for me. The dark colors are so opaque and work nicely.

October Poker with OPI Absolutely Alice

I used Icing Gargoyle as the base. It is a matte grey. Great for a Halloween poker manicure. Every few months or so my group of friends get together and we have a fun night of poker. It's a $5 buy-in and I usually lose it all by the end of the night, but I actually won $0.40 last time! LOL I only had 30 minutes or so before the evening began, and this is the manicure I did.

I then used the Fauxnad Big Plate B I got on eBay and used Konad white to stamp on the image of the playing cards. I this this in order to fill in the white background so the cards would like white on my nail. I then took Icing Chrome Navy Blue to stamp on the image of the playing cards over where I painted in the white. This was my first time doing this and I learned a few things. First, make sure the bottom color is dry (I got a smear on my other thumb). Second, try to line it up better. And, third, make sure to do the scraping more accurately. I ended up with some of the blue over the white.

I then took OPI Absolutely Alice (which I recently acquired and REALLY wanted to try) and put it on my accent nail. This is a close-up to see the pretty glitteriness!

And a close-up of the Icing matte Gargoyle. See the little hint of shimmer? Makes the grey have some nice depth.