Shakeup Your Makeup

Hope you all had a nice 4th of July, if you were here in the states celebrating.  Yesterday morning my son and I got up early and made a "firecracker cake" compliments of Betty Crocker (and Pinterest).  I don't usually go for the box cake deals, but this was just too cute to pass up.  If you are interested, here's the recipe, which can obviously be adjusted to fit the colors you would like. 

Four the 4th, I decided to with a simple manicure.  I actually had purchased the Salon Express Nail Stamping Kit (now available at Big Lots for $6) at CVS before Christmas last year, and realized there was a plate in the kit that looked similar to fireworks, so I used the SE20 plate.  I had actually purchased a Konad kit on eBay months ago, and it came with their red and blue stamping polish, so that worked out really well.  To do this look, here is what I did:

NYC French White Tip - 2 coats

Ring Finger: SE20 stamp (red then blue)

Iridescent Glitter - lined as French tip and dotted on ring finger

In retrospect, I probably wouldn't have lined the glitter on the tips like a French manicure, but oh well!  It's for one day, right? 

This was super simple, and not too over-the-top for the day.  What did you do for your patriotic mani?

Every once in a while I come across the L.A. Colors nail polish at CVS.  It's hit or miss on when and where they will carry them, but a couple of years ago I stumbled across a set of four Color Craze Metallic polishes.  This is one of them.  None of the colors have a name, so I have dubbed this one "purple".  Creative, I know.

This purple is a deep blue/purple jelly base with purple iridescent glitter.  When I look hard at the polish, especially in the bottle, I get bits of pink, so there may be a pink or magenta glitter in there as well.  Here is a closeup of the bottle so you can see the color - this is about as true-to-life as I could get. 

Three coats below and I got a really nice coverage.  At first I thought it was going to be difficult to get the full opacity, but once I started the second application, it was smooth sailing.  In the sun the sparkle really comes through, otherwise it is a just a really pretty deep purple.  I would exactly call this metallic.  I consider metallic to me more of a foil effect, but this is pretty none the less. 

Also, my very week and last minute attempt at a stamping on my ringer finger.  Not too bad, but I really need to sit down and figure this whole Konad thing out.  I bought one for my sister and myself for Christmas.  She has used it so much that she is an expert now, so I need to go get a tutorial from her!

Happy Monday to everyone.  Here's to this week being a great week!