Cheeky Rainbow Skittles

 

 Yes, I stayed up WAY past my bedtime.  For a rainbow XL stamping frenzy! Photos taken  in a hurry the morning after I did this because we were driving into the city and I had a feeling I would ding them up while we were gone.  And I DID.  Badly.  L.A. COLORS BASE/TOP, you make me sad.

 Base L.A. COLORS BASE/TOP

Colors: OPI Pamplona Purple, SH X-Treme Wear Sun Kissed, OPI Green-Wich Village, OPI Off With Her Red!, SH Complete Salon Manicure Thinking of Blue, Nina Ultra Pro Like Butta

Stamp: SH Hard as Nails Black Heart

Plates: Cheeky XL plates A, B, D

Top: Seche Vite.

 

I wanted to play with all the different images, and had done a similar manicure with BM plates on my friend Jenna a few Christmases back, because we couldn't decide on just one.  My favorite is the pebbles on my pointer finger on the above image.  That was my instinctive choice for a full mani, and now I know I could have gone with it. Personally, I think it is the most successful combo.

 Glad I took these before I left, even though I wish I'd been able to get better shots.  The first image (flash) is actually quite nice and gives a good idea of how it looked overall, but it really made me shiny.

I LOVE MY NEW PLATES!   

Happy painting y'all!

 ♥

JQ

NOTD ORLY ANDROGYNIE MATTE

 ...I had Orly good time.  ;p

I picked up some new polishes and couldn't wait to try something on last night. Annnd no sooner than they were dry I had to soak my poor 4 month old in a vaporizing bath to relieve his super bad congestion.  Then of course, my 3 year old got jealous and decided he wanted a bath. I have tip wear, but that's my life and I'm down with it.  I'm hard on my nails on the best of days; I peel stickers, grate veggies, knit and crochet. Occasionally I clean as well. Occasionally.

Revlon Quick Dry Base Coat

2 Coats Orly Androgynie

1 Coat Orly Matte Top 

Thanks for popping by!

&hearts:

JQ

Cheeky Image Plate Review

GUYS. I got some seriously CHEEKY mail a week and a half ago. ;p

I splurged and ordered these fabulous rectangular nail plates from Cheeky.  AND THEY ARE SO BADASS.

I am a Bundle Monster gal.  I have 6 Konad plates from when I first started and the rest are all BM. I LOVE THEM. 

But a good friend and fellow nail head let me in on the fact that you could get these other image plates through amazon.ca  And that they had pretty much a whole plate full of PAISLEY. I got 8 plates. The price has even gone down slightly from when I bought these, but my order averaged to less than 10$/plate, which I think is pretty reasonable.  I did the math, counting all the images over 8 Cheeky plates. There are 563.  In the 3 BM sets there are 440. I also took the average images per BM set.  (140, 150, 150) which is about 146.5.  Then divided the number of images in the Cheeky set by 145.5 to see how many BM sets it is the equivalent to. 3.84.  Anyways.  I'm not a math wiz by any stretch, but that was enough to tell me I got a pretty decent deal. SO. PICTURES.

The packaging was great.  Inside the bubble wrap lined envelope, each plate had a little sleeve of bubble wrap.  I got a cute little card congratulating me.  It's a party!  A nail art party! 

 

They all had that nice protective blue film that just peels away, and a really cool touch is that each plate is backed with pink plastic and it extends beyond the plate, so it gives a really nice finish, while keeping your paws, the table, and the other plates from getting scratched.

Shiney!

 

Another thing I really appreciate is the size of the full nail images.  They are nice and big! Big enough that I can select the area to paint and transfer to the nail. Every full nail image has one concave edge that makes them very versatile;  It eliminates the need to have separate images for french tips, and gives me the option for a moon manicure effect as well.I have decent sized fingernails, and I really dislike trying to double stamp.  It's so hard to get a good seam. 

For reference here is a picture of the large Cheeky images next to a larger BM image and the original BM full nail image:

I also like that a lot of the images have reflections so you can stamp the other paw, or mess around with mirroring.



Not only do they do reflections, but also a few different sizes of the same image.  So you can do that darn pinky finger the same as the others, or give the thumb a big one.  :)

 

 Thanks Cheeky!



I'm a fan!



Here are a few pics of the manicures I have done so far:

 

The very first one was the celtic image.  I absolutely HAD to find out what that looked like.

Base: China Glaze Concrete Catwalk 

Stamp: GOSH Metallic Green.  

Plate: Cheeky D

Top: Seche Vite



Manicure #2 kinda reminded me of circuit boards.
Base: Finger Paints Go Van Gogh
Stamp: Essie Good as Gold
Plate: Cheeky B
Top: SV



 Manicure #3 was subtle. I only got a quick shot in the evening, but irl it looked way prettier.
Base: Sally Hansen CSM: Wet Clay
Stamp: Billie Cosmetics Reign
Plate: Cheeky B
Top: SV



Currently!

Base: Sponge gradient OPI Off With Her Red, CR #89, Billie Cosmetics Orange
Stamp: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Black Heart
Plate: Cheeky A
  Top: SV


Thank you so much for popping by!  Happy painting!

♥
JQ

Golden Kisses Valentine Mani

 Happy Valentine's Day!

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 Base: 2 coats Orly Decades of Dysfunction

Sponge tips: Sinful Colors Vacation Time

Full nail: 1 Coat Sinful Colors Glass Pink

2/3 nail: Cover Girl Pink Twinkle

Stamp Polish: Essie Good as Gold 

BM Plates: BM02, BM03, BM-303 (large thumb Kiss)

Top: Seche Vite

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Thanks for stopping by!  May your Valentine's Day be filled with the loving company of your friends, family, and partners.

Give yourself some TLC today!  You deserve it!

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

JQ

Acid Butterfly

Greeting fellow nail geniuses!

I was inspired by Dressed Up Digits'  rainbow water marble, which came from the tutorial by the incredibly talented and marvelous ProfessionalDQ and this manicure  by Chokoreto to produce my own version, which I have dubbed The Acid Butterfly. 

I have had oodles of trouble with water marbles in the past, but this one worked awesome!  I made sure to use filtered water that was room temperature, and the sheers were pretty runny which helped when I was making my bulls eye. OR it was pure magical coincidence that I managed this one.  ;p 

Sorrrrry!  My eczema is actually getting better now, but this manicure is from a week ago, and it was still bad then.  I know it's ugly, and the camera makes it uglier than it really is.  I would not have bothered photographing that hand but each nail was unique.

Base: L.A. Colors basecoat/topcoat

1 coat Sally Hansen HD4070-04 Hi-Def

Sponge gradient (moon to tip): 

Sally Hansen HD4070-04 Hi-Def, 

Sally Hansen HD4070-13 Resolution, 

Revlon 340 Ocean

Marble: SH Hard as Nails 4860-28 Black Out,

Finger Paints 806618 Merry Mistletoe

Dots applied after using SH Hard as Nails 300 White On

Topcoat: Seche Vite

I got nail mail yesterday and I am dying to show it off!  Working on the review post for it tonight.  MADE OF WIN.  

And that giveaway IS coming.  It's just that I've been away from the internets awhile.  I'm trying to familiarize myself with rafflecopter. The giveaway is actually getting bigger as time goes on and I find more cool stuff, which is ok...right? :P  

Happy Painting!

♥

JQ