The Mothership....

Snow days are great!  So I live in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex and we have this incredible nail supply store about 20 minutes from me.   Its seriously the mecca of nailpolish....my husband calls it my new mothership.  Since school was canceled today I decided to go on a hunt for my latest lemming, Merry Midnight (which I somehow missed last fall).

The store is literally walls of polish, and everything you could possibly need to open your own nail salon.  The specialize in discontinued OPI polishes but the also have a ton of discontinued China Glaze, Orly, Essie, Color Club, Jade, CM, and New York Summer.  They have most of the current collections of CG, OPI, Essie, Orly and, CND.  I have been meaning to bring my camera by the store so I could share its awesomeness with everyone but I keep forgetting.  These were snapped on my cell phone.

 OPC Nail Supply

 

The Discontinued OPI Aisle

They didn't have Merry Midnight, I think I am out of luck on it, but I did find a bottle of OPI My Private Jet.  I am pretty sure it's the good one, it looks amazing in the bottle I will have to try it out this week.

I also stopped by the Korean supermarket on a hot tip that they carried Konad plates.  Amazingly the Hello Kitty store at the local Super Hmart does in fact carry Konad plates and some basic special polishes and stampers.
 
Here is my haul for the day

 Plate M3, M51, M54, M66, and M69

Franken of the Week and Valentine Konad #2

I am a little behind on posting Valentines manicures so I am using today's snow day (yay) to catch up a bit.  Earlier this week I decided to work on a franken a little outside my comfort zone....light pink.  Well actually I made two frankens this week, one is a dark pink and the other is a much paler version of the same color.

Materials:

• Sinful Colors Social Ladder
• OPI Marooned on the Subway
• Fingerpaints Chroma Coral
• WnW French White Creme
• Pure Ice Gold Mist
• random clear topcoat
• 2 bottles
• Ballz

 Franken 1 (dark pink):

1. Mix 1/3 of a bottle of Social Ladder with 1/5 bottle of Chroma Coral and 15 drops Marooned on the Subaway.  
2. Add 30 drops WnW French White Creme
3. Shake well

Franken 2 (light pink)

1. Pour 1/4 of the mixed franken into a new bottle
2. Add 1/4 of a bottleclear
3. Add 1/5 of  Social Ladder and 1/4 of a bottle of French White Creme to lighten the polish.
4. Add 20 drops of Gold Mist 
5. Shake well

 

Bubblegum (left) and Bugbite (right)

So the polish on the right is really outside my wheelhouse, its very ummmm....pink.  When I first put it on I thought is was a pepto bismol color, but then I smudged my thumbnail and had to take the polish off to fix it.  The polish on the cotton ball looked exactly, and I mean EXACTLY, like Calamine lotion, so I am calling it Bugbite.  The darker polish is pretty much the color of bubblegum.

 

Bugbite in sunlight, it has a slight shimmer from the Social Ladder and Chroma Coral

I frankly couldn't handle this color solo for an entire day (really, really pastel pink) so I decided to Konad over it. First I stamped the fishnet pattern from M57 using the Konad Special polish white and then used the flowers from the same plate with the Bubblegum franken.

Bugbite base coat, Konad White, and Bubblegum

Always remember that nail polishes don't always play well with each other.  If you are going to play mad scientist proceed at your own risk and use proper safety procedures....yes I am a science teacher.  I am not suggesting that frankening is risk free and my franken recipes are just me recounting how I mixed up my latest potion. I take no responsibility for your mad scientist experiments.

Diamond Cosmetics Naughty Intern and a Valentine's Konad

Ok I am going to try really hard to get into the whole Valentine's Day thing and do holiday themed manicures.  I am not sure that Valentine's Day counts as a holiday, I mean who determines holiday....Hallmark?  Regardless its an excuse for themed nails and trying out some of my unused polishes.

My first attempt at holiday cheer is a simple konadicure using Diamond Cosmetics Naughty Intern.  This is a beautiful wine colored polish.  It makes me want to go open a bottle from my wine closet now....that could be the long day at work too but any excuse that combines wine AND nailpolish can't be all bad.  Anyway, this is a really good color for me.  Truly epic on me, made all the better by the fact that it matches the maroon in a lot of the spirit wear for the high school I teach at.  The first coat was pretty streaky but a second coat seemed to even everything out.  In certain lights I may have had a bit of uneveness, next time I will do three coats.

Naughty Intern (2 coats) with topcoat in sunlight

I stamped the hearts french tip pattern on M73 with New York summer Hot Metallic gold.  I am really awful at stamping the French tip patterns on the tops of my nails...its pathetic, so instead I tried stamping across the bottom of the nail.  A couple of the nails looked nice but all in all it wasn't great.  I think the interlocking heart pattern is a bit to abstract for the base of the nail, you couldn't tell what it really was on smaller nails.  The color combination is a winner though...how can you go wrong with gold and red.  As a side note, Hot Metallic Gold is a pretty close dupe to Bling Dynasty I think.  I am going to test that out later.

 

Obviously yellow lighting, this is an awful picture but I had a really difficult time photographing this mani.