NOTD: Color Club Fashion Addict, STAMPED!

Good morning everyone! You may have noticed there's a new look to the blog this morning! I'm trying to keep it simpler, but when your blog is titled "Sparkle and Shine Nails," you have to have sparkles in it! And I'm still fiddling with the color scheme, but I'm loving this purple/blue/pink thing going on (purple is my all time favorite, if you didn't know already, hehe).

So to break in the new blog look, I'm posting a NOTD with one of my all-time favorite polishes thus far: Color Club Fashion Addict! I put it up to vote last night on Facebook, and Fashion Addict was the first choice by everyone. Which I'm glad, because it is purple, and it's my dad's 49th birthday today! Both our favorite colors are purple, and this has a nifty holographic-wrapping paper quality, hehe. But since I'd worn it already not that long ago, I decided to spruce it up with a little stamping!

Now, my stamping technique, like many of my nail art skills, is still being perfected. And I only have the Salon Express stamping kit, with the five plates it comes with. With that in mind, it was hard to try stamping whole-nail designs, because the patterns on the plate are too small for my nails. I'm going to have to get some x-large plates soon!

My next challenge: Finding the perfect color. I've used Sally Hansen Xtreme-wear Celeb City for stamping, it's probably the best one I have FOR stamping. But it didn't show up properly on Fashion Addict. I stamped Celeb City on Revvvolution without a problem, but Fashion Addict is even more shimmery holo, and it blended too  much. My Sally Hansen Black Out was coming out too thin, as was Gunmetal, and didn't want to adhere to the stamp properly. I thought I'd get crazy and try an orange, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed...still too thin! Stamping on this holo color was more challenging than I had thought!

So I start grabbing any dark colors I have, hoping SOMETHING would work! I tried China Glaze First Mate (almost, but still too thin and didn't love the color combo), Color Club Jewel of a Girl (WAY too thin for stamping), and finally...China Glaze Stone Cold. I was like "Matte polish on holo? It's crazy enough to work!"

Closer look at the stamp, with flash.

No flash in artificial light.

A little further away, shows the nice shimmer in Stone cold.

Hand shot!

LOOK AT THAT HOLO GOODNESS!

I was sooo right, it looks awesome! Contrasts beautifully with Fashion Addict, has a neat shimmer when given a shiny topcoat that compliments the holo, and is thick enough to get a proper stamp with! I just had to be quick, because it was trying to dry too fast for me.

So my stamping skills are improving, and I'm learning what polishes I have that will work (I really don't want to invest in Konad polishes if I don't need to). What do you guys think? How have your stamping experiences been?

-Jessica (Sparkle and Shine)

NOTD (or night!): OPI Swimsuit...Nailed It!

Wow, I haven't posted a BLOG post in weeks!! I got caught up in the 31 Day Challenge, check out my Facebook page, there's a 31 Day Challenge album with all the pics. I've also put too much emphasis on Facebook and not enough on my actual blog, I'm such a bad nail polish blogger!!!!

So now that I've had some freedom with my nails and a little time, I've picked up some polishes along the way. One I found for pretty cheap at Ulta the other day was OPI's Swimsuit...Nailed It!! It's a VERY pretty royal blue with what looks like some type of micro-shimmer, giving it a foil-like metallic look. OPI's formula is generally very easy to work with, this being no exception. Two coats to full opacity. Ovearll, LOVE the color and the polish itself!  The pictures get progressively clearer, I promise!

So those were my nails for this evening, I had a church event that I wanted to look presentable for, and thought this color wasn't as OUTRAGEOUS as I may go, but not boring, either!! So it's a short and sweet post for the night.

Future posts:
-Current swatches!
-Polish list!
-Wish list!
-*coughCOUGHcough*giveaway?*cough*

Stay tuned!!

NOTD: Pinkish-silver-blue-purple-sparkle fun!

So my manicure today is a little odd to do, but looks really pretty and got me a lot of compliments at work today :-) Here we have two coats of Savvy French White as a base. On it are two coats of NYC Starry Silver Glitter, which is a pretty blend of silver sparkles with medium blue and lavender hex glittler. On top of THAT is two coats of Color Club Translucent, which is so sheer it only alludes to a very light pink. On on that is my top coat, plus a base coat, adding up to EIGHT layers of polish on my fingers! But its still pretty nonetheless!

Here's the shot with no flash in the florescent light of my apartment.

Here is the manicure with flash, I realize now I never finished cleaning my nails up!

 

So here you have it, a pretty, different, fun manicure for the day :-)