Major Stamping Fail W/ Coverup semi-success!

So I have to start by saying that not every manicure will be a great success. Half the fun is the journey and well even though this manicure sucked I had fun in the process and learned a very valuable lesson. Plus it sorta reminds me of trying to coverup a really bad tattoo with another tattoo but it never really looks that much better! So a very big factor on why I had such a hard time with the stamping? Stupid me didn't realize that about 20 mins before I started to stamp I slathered on some cuticle cream all over my cuticles and even though they seemed fine to me at the time my nails were too greasy and the stamping didn't want to stick. It was just painful. I feel a bit bad showing how badly my stamping was but I'm hoping that I can help prevent anyone from doing this since it didn't really dawn on me till I really made a mess of my nails. So at one point I just gave up I just kept stamping and re-stamping. It was so bad that I decided I needed to do a coverup. I pulled out some of the new color club polishes I bought from the wicked sweet collection and went crazy. I had to use a white nail polish under them since they are rather sheer and weren't showing up at first. I should have left the green off because it looked better without it cause you could see more stamping underneath and it looked more like flowers on a lattice. But like always i have a way of overdoing stuff. I ended up using 4 different colors from the wicked sweet collection and the scented polish didn't really bother me, i sorta liked it. Okay enough talk here's the damage I did.

With Flash

With Flash

With Flash close up

With Flash

Outside

My Ultimate Haul : Ulta, OPI, Ebay,& Big Lots! Pic Heavy!

So by now I think it's pretty clear that I have a problem when it comes to buying nail polish... I have been better about the amount I've been buying but for some reason this last week I went a little crazy... Actually a lot crazy! I'm working on my whole Stash post and it's taking a lot more time then I thought it would so I figured to buy myself a little more time I'd share you with you guys all the polish I bought last week since a few of you showed interest in seeing the big haul pics so here they are...  (Note: I bought all of these with my own money except for the OPI Katy Perry polishes, I won those in a contest they had, I'll even tell you how much I spent, heh yes I'm that crazy today! ) I'm starting with my favorite buy out of the whole group! I own these but i am so drooling over this picture! These were an Ebay buy, I've tried to buy the gold and silver polish before on Ebay and i bought them at a really good price but when they came all i got was an empty open envelope. I wanted to cry, the seller gave me a full refund and i gave them a lesson on shipping! Total Price with Shipping : $40.56  A Look @ Some of the Haul

China Glaze: Celtic Sun & Polish Color Organization!

If any of you follow me on twitter then you must have seen that over the weekend I went to Charlotte, NC and visited Ikea to pick up a few helmers. I'll do a post about that very soon and it'll all have complete stash pics. So between Saturday's Mega shopping trip and yesterday being Easter, I haven't really had much time to paint my nails or take any new pictures. So today's post is of stuff I just haven't posted yet. 

I used Celtic Sun in a challenge I did and beforehand I snapped pics of it by itself. I think I used a million coats and i think if I added another million I'd still get the Visible Nail line. I do not recommend wearing this one by itself. In regular natural light it just looked gross to me. I think it's good to have a color like this because you can use it as a top coat over another color or for nail art. I have a few other similar colors like this in my collection but I honestly have not used them yet. hah here's a few pics of liquid highlighter!

Also Below I've included some pictures of when I was separating out my polish so that it was organized by color instead of brand. That was quite a job and once I did it I sorta just put it on the one side table I have in the room instead of putting it back on the rack I was using, just cause well i knew I was gonna get rid of the rack because even though it held a lot of polish it was hard to get to what I wanted and hard to see what all was there. 

Flash

This is what it looked like without a flash. I wasn't a fan of it!

Flash

Flash

This is just a portion of the stash i still kept some polish on the other rack too.

the headache and mess of separating the stash into color groups

Sophie weaseled her way in between the bottles and thought it was a good spot to take a nap. Silly Cat! Oh I'm not sure if I ever pointed this out but Sophie has no tail! Which in this case was good or else she'd knock down even more bottles than she already did. : )

OPI DS Elegance

I can't believe this polish was one of my untried ones, it's crazy delicious! I haven't worn pink in some time so I was itching for some pinktastic nails. DS Elegance scratched that itch without any problems!
I did not have any issues with the application. It went on like a dream, full coverage in two coats but I did like 3 or 4 coats. I have to say that OPI really has mastered making a good quality holo with the DS line. When this polish dries it has a very nice smooth high gloss finish. A lot of other holos out there usually dry with a flat matte finish which if you put a top coat on it kills a lot of the holo. I don't have any complaints about any of the DS polishes i've ever used. In fact they are some of my favorites in my collection!
This polish is Sooo crazy that I ended up take a million pictures of it and of course I had a hard time getting it down to the ones that made it to the post. But in my opinion the more the better : ) !

Enjoy the Eye Candy!

Flash

Flash

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Natural light lamp

Flash... check out all the holo goodness!

Sunlight

 

Sunlight

Zoya Haul & My Entire Zoya Collection

I had semi big plans for the weekend (you know some cleaning, organizing, a new manicure) but I ended up getting a cold so all that went out the window. So forgive me if I get a little "lazy" with new posts. I figured since that was the case I could share with you guys some of the new Zoya polishes I bought in their last two promos. They've been sitting on my desk in the boxes they came in so I took them out and snapped some pics of them. Sometimes I like looking at the bottles more than I do painting my nails. 

Also I wanted to mention I've started up a Facebook page for the blog. Right now there isn't much on there but once  my cold passes and I get a little bit of energy I'm gonna go through and put up a lot of the pics from past posts. I've found the picture viewer in Facebook is a quick and easy way to look through pictures. Also thought it would be a great way to communicate with some of the readers better. Plus it can be a spot where you guys post up some of your manicures! So if you are interested you can "like" Manicure Addict on Facebook! There's box located to the right of this page with the like button ready to go!

Till next time!

The newest Gang to join my Zoya Collection

Zoya Intimate Collection and Zoya Mod Matte Collection
1st row from left to right: Dannii, Gemma, Marley, Lolly, Phoebe, Mitzi
2nd row from left to right: Jules, Dove, Caitlin

Zoya Sunshine Collection & Zoya Summertime Collection
1 row From left to right: Faye, Kimmy, Tanzy, Breezi, Areej, Mira
2nd row from left to right: Rica, Apple, Reva, Sooki, Kieko (I did not get Tamsen)

My Zoya collection minus the newest Zoya haul above

Bonus Pic: Sophie "helping" behind the light box

Bundle Monster Facebook Contest: The Grape Vine BM05 & BM11

So for the heck of it I decided to enter a contest that Bundle Monster is having on Facebook. Right now it is in the voting process and winners will be announced on the 21st. There will be 25 winners who will all win a set of the newest bundle monster plates that they are getting ready to release. If any of you would like to help me get my claws on one of those prizes, then please vote for me : ), that is of course if you want to and like my work. There are lots of good entries up so go ahead and vote for a few others that you like, remember 25 total winners. you can vote once a day for all your favorite ones till April 20th!

Here are the links if you would like to vote for me, just click on the thumbs up to vote!

Link if you have a Facebook account

Alternative voting link for those without Facebook

My Entry Picture for the contest

Here's a look at all the stuff I used for this manicure. I did freehand over the stamping especially on the leaf vines because they didn't show up too well over the purple so i used the lighter green over the stamp and I was really happy with my results. I also went over the grapes with going grape just because that polish has a nice blue sheen that i liked. I love how even though i stamped it turned out looking more freehanded, sorta like a shortcut to an amazing freehand that would have taken so much longer to do!  This method reminds me of a coloring book except I definitely did not stay within the lines!! Not pictured are a small nail art brush and a dotting tool that i also used.

Next day i put one coat of this new polish i just picked up, power up by A perfect "10". love this polish was under 2 bucks!! Crazy purply pink sheen top coat! didn't really translate into the pics since only used 1 coat

Sunlight

Sunlight
So you prob noticed I got a major dragged smear look on my index finger. Sometimes when you use seche vite it can do that. When I saw that happen my heart sank a little and I quickly switched over to some konad top coat I had and it worked so much better. Not really too noticeable unless you are right up on the nail like all these close up pics are.

Happy Stamping to all of you! 

OPI Sand-erella

So I have to start by saying I'm not a fan of small bottles. These long nails of mine can be very thirsty and between the two hands they can easily guzzle up a lot of polish. So a while back I got this giant grab bag of polish so to speak offline and inside was a mini set with polishes from OPI's It's summer for shore collection. I thought okay cool whatever they're cute little bottles of holo goodness maybe I'll use them who knows. I found out later that they are hard to find polishes and that on ebay Sand-erella was selling for 40 Bucks!! It was time to pull out the little bottle and find out what all the fuse was about. 

At first when I saw the bottle I thought it must be like like DS Original. Just because they are both Purple Holos does not make them the same! I haven't done a post on Ds Original by itself other than using it in Nail Art (here's the link to that) so that is gonna be something i do in the future but the biggest difference between the too is that Sand-erella is more of a sleeper holo with a purple/greenish grey duochrome sheen. It's not a in your face holo like Original. From the pics you'll see yes it is pretty holo but compared to original it's more of a subdued holo. 

Application notes... I had to thin this polish out a little it was a little lumpy, it's older and in a smaller bottle so that's understandable, i did 3 maybe even 4 thin coats. Also I was shocked that the little bottles have quite a bit of polish in them. Who knew?

At the bottom of the post I've got a little treat for you guys.... The Poor-Man's Sand-erella!

I painted my left with Sand-erella and for my right I did the "Poor-Man's Version of Sand-erella and honestly I couldn't tell the difference between the two!

Tiny bottles make me feel like a Giant!

Inside with Flash

Sunlight

Part Sun Part Shade, heh sounds like planting instructions for a flower!

Sunlight

Sunlight

Poor Man's version of Sand-erella. Two coats DS Original with one coat Lavender Marquis.
Fun Fact: The Lavender Marquis is one of the few bottles I owned before I became a Manicure Addict, that's why it's so used/beat up looking.

Left to Right: Ds Original plus Lavender Marquis, Sand-erella,  DS Original. On the nail you really can't tell the difference between the two! 

Blue Nail Art Sponging Step by Step w/Konad M41

I did this before Chris's Challenge Tag and I didn't get to post it yet since I wanted to get the challenge post up. I did this on top of the Nubar Baby Blue and I was keeping in the Blue theme for Autism Awareness.  I did this with a make-up sponge and yes it got everywhere but that's part of the fun and you can always go back and clean up. I gotta say the glitter was not easy to clean up took a little bit of time, but hey after i washed my hands a couple of times it was fine. Also you'll notice my stamping was not the best. I was in a rush putting this design together and i think i did it all in less than 45 mins and that was for both hands including the clean up, which took a while! I had a biking date with a friend and i wanted to make sure my nails were more interesting than just the nubar baby blue. hah yes i was sorta late but she was as well so it all worked out.

okay enough chatter here's the nails and what i did....

Sunlight

Blazing blue, unknown, Pure Energy, Sapphire, and Disco Blue Glitter

I took Pure Energy and stamped it on

Then I took my Darker Blue and stamped in the opposite corners

Then I stamped on the Glitters. I put Disco Blue Glitter over the darker blue and the Sapphire glitter over pure energy 

I finished it off by stamping on a butterfly off konad plate m41 with Blazing Blue. Clean up was tough hah the glitter was very stubborn!! 

Shade, here the glitter comes alive! 

Here's  a little magic trick! From Blue to Green! How did that happen?? 

Answer: 1 coat of Celtic Sun! I think i like this better than the Blue!

My 100th Post Giveaway!!! * CLOSED*

I cannot believe this is my 100th Post!! How the heck did that happen?? In order to thank all of my readers I put together this little giveaway to say Thank you for reading and for keeping me going. I seriously am shocked that people are enjoying my blog, It means a lot to me to have found this online community that shares the same nail polish obsession with me and it has been more than a pleasure interacting with you guys.

Good Luck!

From Left to Right: Make Mine Lime, Hidden Treasure, Tip of the Iceburg

From Left to Right: Uli, Eva, 102, 122

Some extras: nail file, toe spacers, and some nail art stickers

Giveaway Rules: 

1. *Mandatory  You must be a public follower of Manicure Addict. 

   2. You can gain extra entries (one extra entry for each of the following and these are optional)    

    - Post about this giveaway on your blog, anything from post, sidebar or on a giveaway page. 

    - Add me to your blogroll

    - Tweet about this giveaway

    - Follow me on Twitter

3. Giveaway is open to all readers so anyone can enter. 

4. Giveaway ends Monday, May 9th at 11:59 PM EST.

5. To Enter fill out the Form Below and be sure to hit submit.

Here's a behind the scenes look at the Giveaway photo shoot :)