Orly - Glam Rock, and nail stickers

APPLICATION: Smooth, but had to be applied quickly as it dries fast.
COATS: 2
TOPCOAT?: After adding stickers, yes
SOURCE: Nail supply store
COMMENTS: I think I liked this mani more before the topcoat. The matte effect is lovely. With topcoat it turned into a color that I'm just so-so about on my nails.

And the gift keeps giving!

COMMENTS: I've had the mani from my last post on since Monday night. It's not that I don't want to change the color on my nails, and I definitely had the time to do so, but this is just too pretty! Well, here it is again - in the sun this time. I was outdoors doing decoupage for the first time on a table and realized it was the perfect opportunity to take more photos of this beautiful polish.  Thanks again Chris. Know that I'm thinking of you!

What I am/was working on:

Gifted Fraanken - My Favorite Creation

APPLICATION: Smooth
COATS: 2
TOPCOAT?: Yes - 2 coats
SOURCE: A franken made by Chris at Lacquerware for Tips and Toes and sent to me as a gift.
COMMENTS: My eyes fell on this one yesterday morning, and I did a quick swatch on a false tip and fell in love. I knew I had to put it on after work, and that's exactly what I did. The photos really cannot capture how sparkly this is, so I made a video. I also switched to using Youtube for the video and the quality is much better than previous videos I've uploaded. Please ignore the music in the background, my hubby had an old Star Trek on TV :)

Before topcoat:

After:

THE VIDEO:

 

Not large enough, but still a win in my book!

COMMENTS: American Apparel - Hassid with stamping done in Sally Hansen Chrome - Copper Chrome. I got the new Bundlemonster plates and with all the gorgeous new full-nail patterns, I was hoping some would fit. Nope, apparently I have gargantuan nails because this pattern only fit on my pinky completely. I had to turn it sideways and double stamp on the rest of my nails.

Although you can see my sloppy  matching, I still love it because I haven't done full-nail patterns with any measure of success before, so this is progress! 

One of the things that really helped was using a stamper that has a much softer surface. The Konad stamper is too firm to handle the curve of my nails

Blush Disco Diva - Hustle

APPLICATION: A little difficult as the polish was thick. Had to add thinner after first coat.
COATS: 2 on index and middle, 3 on ring and pinky fingers
TOPCOAT?: No
SOURCE: Ross Dress for Less
COMMENTS: I picked these up quite a while ago and realized recently that they are all jellies! What with my jelly-fever lately I decided to swatch one. I think the nails with 3 coats are nice, and would look even nicer with topcoat!

Playing Again...

.. with my previous mani before removing it. I'm not sure about the colors, but I'm liking the patchwork look.

ABOP Franken - Speckled Light Blue, and striping tape

APPLICATION: Smooth
COATS: 2
TOPCOAT?: See photos
SOURCE: ABOP Franken composed of: LA Colors Color Craze - Static Electricity (BCC 569) and Energy Source(BCC 561), and black microglitter from TKB Trading
COMMENTS: I've always wanted to make a franken with little specks of goodness in it. I also got the idea of lightening up the gorgeous blue of Static Electricity from loodie loodie loodie in this post on her blog. Well, this franken combines both ideas and I love it!

I wore it alone for a day and then put on some striping tape from dollarnailart.

One coat - and the ingredients:

Two coats, no topcoat:

With topcoat:

Next day, with tape and another coat of topcoat:

ABOP Franken - Entertaining Show

APPLICATION: Smooth
COATS: 2
TOPCOAT?: Yes, after gold added.
SOURCE: ABOP Franken - different proportions of the clear nail polish and the following polishes:
OPI - The Show Must Go On; Let Me Entertain You; Glitzerland
Kleancolor - Green Grass
Love My Nails - Dazzling
NDB - Golden Bikini
COMMENTS: I was looking at the two red-based OPIs that I didn't like so much and decided I wanted to franken with them. This is what I ended up with! The color looked a little muted on me, so I added blingy triangles at my cuticles with NDB Golden Bikini. What do you think?

Zoya - Veruschka and Nyx - Purple Ave.

APPLICATION: Smooth
COATS: 1 thick coat of each
TOPCOAT?: Eventually, yes.
SOURCE: Zoya.com and downtown Los Angeles nail supply store respectively.
COMMENTS: I'm starting to think dark greens like this don't really suit my skin tone.  Either way, the color of Veruschka is still pretty, but I much preferred the way it looked while wet to the matte finish. Purple Avenue turned into gorgeous green and aqua flakies over this. I planned to keep the top part matte, bit didn't like it, so I threw on some rhinestones and topcoat.

American Apparel - Hassid and ABOP Flaky Franken

APPLICATION: Smooth
COATS: 1 of each
SOURCE: American Apparel Store, Flaky topcoat made from Covergirl Boundless Color - Pink Twinkle and multiple Golden Rose Scale Effect polishes.
COMMENTS: I'm not big on putting flaky polishes over black, but to show all the colors in my flaky franken I had no choice but to use black as the base. Hassid is a great one-coat black so served this purpose well. Don't sleep on Covergirl Pink Twinkle people, it constitutes1/2 of the franken! The other half is bits of at least 5 different Golden Rose Scale effects - and I don't remember which ones or proportions, sorry.

The franken is half of this (no topcoat here):

and bits of some of these:

Here's the franken (no topcoat here):

After topcoat:

Up close - the smaller gold-ish flakes are Pink Twinkle: