as seen on... All Lacquered Up

Good morning all! I hope you've enjoyed my scheduled vacation posts, today is the last one!
I've saved a very very pretty mani to show off as my last "as seen on" post and I think you'll all like it.

I'm sure the majority of you are familliar with the blog All Lacquered Up.
She's one of the veteran polish bloggers, and although her posting is sporadic nowadays, her blog is still an amazing resource.
In September, she showed a really cool technique with CND Effects called the "Mood Ring Manicure."
You may remember that I picked up a ton of CND Effects for $1 a few weeks ago, and I was lucky enough to find all the ones you need for this manicure! So of course I tried it out.

Layering a few of the Effects together creates this amazing blend of colors and the shimmer is just insane.

I was worried it might be a nightmare to photograph but luckily, I think I got some great shots!

Here's what it looks like before it's done.
You start with a dark base - I used Wet N Wild Black Creme.
You paint a stripe of one effect down the middle of the nail - CND Ice Blue Shimmer.
Then you add two more effects on either side - CND Emerald Shimmer & CND Violet Shimmer.
It helps to overlap the colors a little to blend them more and create more colors!
To finish it off, you add a coat of CND Copper Shimmer.
I thought adding the copper might ruin the look (because it looked really cool before it) but really the copper layer made the look so much better, and gave it more depth.

I bet there are a million combos you could do with all these effects. I'd love to own all the effects but they're too expensive when they aren't on clearance! Hahaha.

At some point, I think I will wear Ice Blue Shimmer and Violet shimmer both layered over black because the part of the nail that they overlapped on was just beautiful.

I love that last photo! Look at all the colors!
Thank you ALU for your many years of manis! Hahaha.

As I said already, I hope you guys enjoyed this series as much as I enjoyed making it! And so long as I make it home on time, I will see you tomorrow! (Probably with a haul post!)

as seen on... Nailed It.

Today's mani is a great one. It is so "me," it's a shock I didn't come up with it myself.

This mani comes to you by way of Katy from Nailed It.
I don't know Katy personally but what I do know, is that she does some ballin' nail art.

As soon as I saw these nails on her blog, I knew I would have to do them myself!
I mean seriously. I should have come up with this.

I didn't use the same colors as Katy but I think our manis are equally satisfying.

The pink is NOX Twilight - Crush which is a freaking amazing hot pink, borderline neon. I'll be showing swatches of this color soon (I've already done it but haven't posted it yet.) I got this from my friend Anissa and it is just fantastic. The formula is dreamy, 2 coats that apply like butter.

The purple is Color Club - Pucci-licious which has always been and probably always will be one of my favorite polishes. I painted first with Crush and then freehanded Pucci-licious onto the top half of my nails.

The stamp is from Bundle Monster BM-11 and I used Wet N Wild - Black Creme.

Sadly I only wore this for about 10 minutes (I did most of this series in one night!) and I need to wear it sometime for several days. I adore it.

Katy, thank you for doing super cute manis. I look forward to the next time you read my polish-mind and come up with another very "Rebeca" mani!

Nail-Venturous Lacquers - Floam! (+ stamping!)

I've got a great polish to show you today. I'm sure most of you are familiar with this awesome "indie polish" already but now it's my turn to show it to you!

I remember quite some time ago, a girl by the name of I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous was commenting on my blog posts. She followed me, so I followed her. Then somewhere along the way, we became friends via Facebook, and then suddenly, Amy started making frankens, and she quickly became one of the most popular "indie polish" makers around! And she deserves it, too.
I'm glad to be friends with Amy and I'm so happy for her success!
I'm also very happy that she swapped me this polish for my own franken, Rebecca Likes Cupcakes. (Amy loves frankens. All of them.)

Nail-Venturous - Floam
Check out this neon glitter! This polish is just so cool and original, I love the color combo.
Here I layered one generous coat of Floam over Color Club Twiggie but you can use it without a base color, too. I was just too lazy to do 2-3 coats of glitter. Haha!

Adding Twiggie underneath makes it a little bit brighter but I like the effect! From afar the polish looks mostly like a nice shade of neon green but then when you look close, you can see the two different colors that merge together to create the polish!
It is of course a little bit textured but 2 coats of topcoat solves it.

I haven't done stamping in a long time, so I decided to try some stamping over my Floam! And I'm glad I did because it turned out great.

I stamped this cool abstract image from Konad m65 using Wet N Wild Black Creme.

I love this mani and I am definitely going to keep it on for a few more days!

If you haven't been able to get your hands on this yet, keep an eye on Amy's Etsy store as well as on Ninja Polish. But beware of Floam-impersonaters! Hahaha. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery I guess!

i have a chevron problem

Morning everyone!

Today I'm gonna take a break from showing European polishes and I'm gonna show you a nice OPI from their most recent collection, and the nail art that I did when I wore it.

I'll pre-warn you - I had the cold from hell when I wore this mani and I think it screwed up my camera talent. Haha! My skin is totally washed out in some of them and in another I've got serious tipwear. They're still nice but I'm just picky.

OPI - I Have A Herring ProblemSo far I've only picked up 2 polishes from the Holland Collection and this is one of 'em! I love this dusty blue with the awesome silver shimmer.

This kind of shimmer is my fave. It's more textured looking than other kinds of shimmer and I think the effect is really cool.

When I was wearing this polish, I decided I wanted to try out a chevron mani, like this one from Jane of Nailside.

I loved how chic this looked!
The trick to getting the perfect lines is using scotch tape to create the triangles.
I used the same 2 pieces of tape on all nails to make sure the angle of the chevron was exactly the same. (You just have to wipe the tape off between uses!)

The first color I used was OPI - Suzi Skiis In The Pyrenees Suede, a lovely shimmery gray matte/suede polish. I then used a small brush to freehand the black pieces with Wet N Wild - Black Creme. You could use tape for the third color but I didn't want to risk ruining it, so I just did it freehand.
I added topcoat to make the whole thing shiny and there you have it!

I only got one good picture of this manicure before ruining it at my job, and I needed more than one picture so here is my tipwear. Haha! It's not so bad.
I really wanna try this again with bright colors!

That's all for today ladies (and gents?)!

neon leopard french!

The world must be coming to an end - I've been wearing a french manicure since Sunday.
And I love it!

No, I'm not going crazy. I just did a really great modified french mani!

Tada! Neon leopard french!
For some reason, the stains on my nails recently disappeared. They're just gone. I did nothing to make them go away, but they are gone.
(I think it is from all the times I have peeled off my polish in the last month. I must have taken off the stained layer.)

So, with my stain-free nails, I knew I had to do a french because I think I've ever only done it once before.

But of course, I couldn't do a normal french manicure. I had to make it more fun! And more me!
So I added leopard print. (Shocker.)

This design was loosely inspired by these nails from my friend Leslie at Polish Art Addiction.

I love this look so much it's ridiculous. I can't believe how much I am enjoying a french mani!
And because I love it so much, you're getting pic spam!

Here's the polishes I used to create this look:
- Zoya - Loretta (sheer nude to cover any nail imperfections or staining)
- Zoya - Carey (gray for the french tip)
- Color Club - Twiggie (green dots)
- Color Club - Pucci-licious (purple dots)
- Color Club - Peppermint Twist (pink dots)
- Essence - Let's Get Lost (blue dots)
- Wet N Wild - Black Creme (black detailing) 

I did the tip directly with the polish brush, and I did the leopard with a small dotting tool.
I finished it off with a thick coat of Seche Vite to even it all out!

I've been staring at my nails since I put this on. I'll have to change it tomorrow after I inevitably ruin it at my job, but 4 days is a pretty long time for me to wear something! (Especially something that doesn't involve glitter.)

Okay that's all my picture spam.
I really hope you guys enjoy this manicure as much as I do!

I'll have to come up with some more awesome french ideas to do while my nails are still all healthy looking!

old school tattoo mani

Hey guys! I know I've been slacking on the nail art lately, so hopefully today's post can make up for some of that! Because this is probably one of the coolest things I've ever done.

Let's get right to it!

Boom! Old school tattoo style! I'm still wearing this mani right now and I can't stop staring at my nails.

I even managed to do it on my right hand! (Aligning all those stamps is tricky!)
This hand isn't as good though so here are some more photos of the other hand.

The base color for this manicure is Color Club - Nomadic In Nude from the Back To Boho collection.
(I previously stated that this was a dupe for Lippmann's Waking Up In Vegas but I have since learned that while they are dupes in the bottle, the Lippmann dries much darker.)
This is my favorite nude! I chose a nude base so it would look like black tattoo work on skin.

I used a whole bunch of different plates for this look. I'll try to list them all:
-Konad Q1 (sparrows, leopard print on thumb, some of the stars, lightning bolt)
-Konad m3 (stars)
-Bundle Monster BM-12 (spider web, some stars)
-Bundle Monster BM-206 (nautical star)
The diamond, rose, second web, and some stars all came from faux-nad plates from eBay.

You can't see this side of my thumb in the other photos, but this awesome guitar is from a Nail Art Diva plate. Their website is not working right now so I don't know what the plate is called and in advance - no, I can't get anymore of this plate, but if the website were working I think you could order it there.

I dotted into some of the empty spaces with a toothpick just to bring the whole thing together.
All my stamping was done with Wet N Wild Black Creme.

Apart from this being just a really cool mani, there happens to be a special reason behind it.
A lovely lady I met in the polish community, Brenda, has a very sick daughter, Dyan. Several of us have decided to create manicures showcasing Dyan's favorite things in hopes they will help raise Dyan's spirits in her recovery and let her know that we all love her and are thinking about her. Dyan loves tattoos so I came up with a tattoo mani!
Dyan is recovering miraculously and I wish her all the best in her journey back to health!
You can check out more "Team Dyan" manicures on Sonoma Nail Art and Polish Ninja.
I'll add more links here as they are posted.

badass pink leopard mani

Yes, the mani I'm going to show you today is badass.

But, before I show you it, let me answer a question dozens of you are asking me in my giveaway form.
Yes, I will make a polish-jewelery tutorial!
I'll start working on it ASAP and hopefully have it up in a few days.
(For now, check out this one from Chalkboard Nails, where she shows how she made her particular style of earring. And she sent me some for Christmas. Be jealous.)

Okay, now that that's been said, let's see this badass mani.

Here's one of the pictures you saw of this mani in my giveaway post.
(And if you haven't seen my current giveaway, check it out because you can win that ring, plus lots more!)

This mani was actually inspired by a prom dress! Prom dresses aren't usually what you would call badass... But this one is. Let me show it to you.

Yeah, did I nail it or what?
I came across this dress on a Pinterest board called Prom Dresses You Will Regret.
Sorry, board-maker, I would not regret wearing this. I want to go to a grad again just to wear it.
Maybe I should get married in it. Is this not the most Rebecca-appropriate dress you've ever seen?
(I disagree with a lot of the dresses on the board actually. I think a lot of them are amazing. I'm sorry but I have a thing for leopard print. No shame.)

You may notice that the dress has little shredded-leopard areas. And you may notice that my thumbs and ring fingers do, too. That's because I recently splurged on the Konad Q1 plate, AKA the Charming Nails plate. It couldn't have been more perfect! (I had to buy it from a Swedish webshop and spend $15 on it but it was worth it.)

The other nails were stamped from Bundle Monster BM-221.
As usual, stamping was done with Wet N Wild - Black Creme.

The dress is blingy so my nails had to be too.
The base color is Color Club - Hot Like Lava which is the perfect hot pink foil.
The sponged glitter gradient was done with Hits - 388 from the Glitter Forte line.
Then I added a coat of China Glaze - Fairy Dust for some more sparkle!

Sparklyyyyy.

There you have it. Badass pink leopard mani. You dig it? I dig it.

OPI DS Original + stamping!

Good morning everyone, quick post for you today before I begin studying for my last exam of the semester!

I've posted about OPI - DS Original once already (here) but it deserves more pictures!
This is 2 coats of Original over 2 coats of China Glaze - Gamer Glam which is the perfect underwear for Original.

I added a little bit of stamping as an accent nail - can't cover up too much of the holo!
The image is from Konad m64 and I stamped with Wet N Wild Black Creme. I also added a 3mm rhinestone!

DS Original is one of my favorite polishes ever. It's just so pretty!

Speaking of favorite polishes, I'm soon going to be posting a list of my top 10 favorite polishes of 2011.
So far I have it narrowed down to about 20... Haha. Too many good polishes were released this year!
Help me decide! What are your favorite polishes from 2011?