Dyed Easter Egg Nails

Arden: Hi friends!  So, I've been workshopping some Easter designs in anticipation of Easter on Sunday (still not sure what I'm definitely going to go with though!).  This manicure was inspired by this picture of cracked dyed Easter eggs (have you ever done this?  They look so cool!):

More specifically, my manicure was inspired by that pink egg there in the middle. 

I made these my painting my nails white (Julep Bunny), and then sponged on all the additional colors (Julep Paige, Helen, Veronica, and Greta) using Saran wrap!  I then stamped on the eggshell pattern using an incredibly old white polish I thinned a lot and the BM-313 stamping plate.  (Fun tip for anyone who hasn't been successful stamping yet: using a thin polish will help!)

What do you think?  I kinda think these would scream "Easter eggs!" more if I'd done each nail in a different color.  Oh well, I guess that's something to do next time. 

Has anyone else found a favorite Easter nail design?  If so, please share, cause I'm still on the lookout!

Slow Swatching: Picture Polish Monroe

Hi guys! Remember us? Well, me? This is Lisl (in case y'all haven't learned to tell us apart by hand-shape yes).  So we've been absent from the blog recently, perhaps you have heard of this thing called "life;" it happened to us in a major way and we just got too busy to edit pictures and do the typey thing where coherent sentences come out of your fingers.

Anyway we're back!  For my first post back, here is a manicure I did ages ago, and never posted: slow swatching Picture Polish Monroe.

Slow swatching is the term I came up for to describe the act of swatching one polish at a time, perhaps with added nail art if desired!  I don't care for regular speed swatching, because it often involves painting a color on your nails, loving it, and then immediately taking it off and painting on another color so you can get many manicures done in one night.  I prefer to savor my manicures, letting them settle in and age for several days before switching them out for a new one. 

So anyway, this is Picture Polish Monroe!  Arden got me this polish for my birthday (which was in July, which should give you an idea of how long I have been sitting on this manicure).  I did not take any pictures before I stamped over it with Essie Good as Gold (unconscionable, I know). Isn't it lovely? A beautiful deep red with holo glitter for days.  I just love it.  I stamped with Bundle Monster BM 310.  

PS I am terrrrrrible at stamping, but these nails are from back when I was extra terrible at stamping.

This was my first Picture Polish and I pretty much love it.  Any other recommendations for shades we should try? Let us know in the comments!

33DC - Euro Nails!

Hey guys!  It's 33DC time again! Today's theme was European nails so I (this is Lisl, by the by) decided to go for Euro nails, literally.  As in, I used actual Euros left over from my trip to Greece to do my nails!

I started out with a base of Butter London Bit Faker, which I stole from Arden.  It is an excellent, excellent polish. It took me three coats to opacity, and though I dabbled a little to fill in patches with the third coat, it honestly wasn't necessary. I am just obsessive. 

Then, to get the Euro prints onto my nails I followed this coin stamping tutorial that I found on YouTube, with a few adjustments.  For those of you who don't want to watch the whole tutorial it was pretty simply. I used:

1. Euro coins

2. A stamping kit scraper

3. A stamping kit stamper

4. Essie Good as Gold

I painted Good as Gold on top of the coin, scraped it off with the scraper (it took a few light scrapes to get all the excess polish off) and then transferred to the stamper, just like regular stamping. Then on to my nail it went!  I don't know what happened with middle finger up there. Just ignore that I guess.

Overall I thought it looked really cool! The technique was a little messier than normal stamping. Coins aren't really designed to be used in this manner exactly, but it was fun and cool and on theme!  Europe is a huge huge place so there were a lot of places to draw inspiration from, and the manicures that came out of this theme were super cool and very diverse. Check out the other manis below the jump!

33DC My Most Used Color Polish + 100th Post Giveaway!

Hey y'all! It's Lisl!  So it's the second day of the 33 Day Challenge that Arden introduced on Monday. Today's theme was "Your Most Used Color Polish," which was a bit of a toughie for me because I don't actually know which one that is.   So, instead I went with two colors that I am pretty sure I use very very often:  Butter London Blagger (my favorite blue polish evar) and China Glaze Make an Entrance.

Plus, Blagger seemed very appropriate because our 100th post giveaway is going live today and we're giving away Butter London Blagger, as well as Julep Bunny and Julep's Oxygen Nail Treatment!  Jump through to the rest of the post to find out more about the giveaway and enter!