NOTD: Zelda Nails - Happy Birthday Hubs

It's been about a week since I blogged last....life is crazy...sorry.

Today is my husbands birthday and to commemorate the day I used one of my new MJ nail plates from (MyOnlineShop) to stamp the logo of his favorite video game....Zelda!



I didn't take as many pictures of my nails as normal mainly for time reasons, but you get the idea.  Just a plain and simple mani with a small stamp.  I used 2 coats of China Glaze Running in Circles (best green foil fleck ever!!) and stamped with Revlon 24k and MJ plate XIV.

This post isn't really a review post (I will do a more thorough one later) but I did want to show you the plates I picked up from the new MJ plate release.  If you would like to see what the other plates in the collection look like head on over to Spellbinding Nails (Sarah always has the word on new plates - both indie and commercial).

The special edition plate is full of Disney and many more popular characters!! 

 XIX has some really neat full nail images plus a bunch of great text for all occations.  Soo much on this plate to love.  The text images are small and can be hard to read, but they have to fit on your nail afterall.

XIV is popular logo central!!  

 Im not going to lie.  I wanted this plate mainly for the Doctor Who and Mario images, but there are some other really cool ones as well.

All plates are backed, however, if you try hard you could cut yourself, but why would you try to?

Like I said before, I'll do a proper review soon.  For now I would like to wish my wonderful husband a Happy Happy Birthday!

Blue Nails for Autism - OPI Swimsuit...Nailed it

Quick post today of my second Blue Nails for Autism mani

For this mani I used OPI-Swimsuit...Nailed It and stamped with Sally Hansen Silver Sweep and BM-314.  I love this blue! It is my ultimate TARDIS blue (big geek) polish.  I used 2 coats of Swimsuit...Nailed It even though 1 thick coat is probably enough.  It is a perfect metallic blue foil that dries pretty quick.  I topped everything off with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat.

The Hubs and I are running away to the beach this weekend so I probably wont be back til Monday!  Have an awesome weekend.



Light it up Blue! Autism Awareness Month

(Sorry I don't know the creator of the above image - it's floating around the nail community on Instagram)

April is Autism awareness month and the nail community is "Lighting it up Blue" to raise awareness and support for those who have or love someone with Autism.  All month long you are encouraged to paint and post your blue mani's on Instagram using the tag

#bluenailsforautism or #Lightitupbluenails

Here is my first blue mani of the month.  Since many Autism groups use puzzle pieces as their logo/theme so I decided to replicate it as an accent nail using BM-319.  I filled in the puzzle pieces to match using Sally Hansen Rapid Red, Lightning, Blue Away and Pacific Blue.

The gradient was made with Kleancolor Metallic Blue, Sally Hansen Pacific Blue and Breeze Blue and IMN Northern Lights.

I am pretty happy with this mani.  The perfectionist in me wants the puzzle pieces to be neater, but I think it came out pretty good. 

More and more kids and adults are being diagnosed with different forms of Autism every day.  It may seem silly to paint your nails to show support or raise awareness, but every little thing helps...even if it's just to say you are loved and charished no matter what.  Let's do our part to find the missing piece to the puzzle.

NOTD: China Glaze - Turned up Turquoise a la Coach

So I took a trip to Sally's over the weekend, finally grabbed the Avant Garden pieces I wanted, and saw the "Ombre" polish set from China Glaze.  Instinctively I am drawn to turquoise/aqua colors, but realized that I have all the colors in the set except for "Turned up Turquoise."  So here is my mani of the day using new to me Turned up Turquoise.  I used 2 coats of TuT and since it dries matte (and pretty quick!) I used Sally Hansen Insta Dri Top Coat (red bottle).

But since I can't leave well enough alone....I stamped the Coach logo full nail image from my MJ-IV plate.  I'm sure there are all sorts of copyright issues with this logo being on this plate, but I love it....it's one of the main reasons I bought this plate.  I stamped using Sally Hansen - Silver Sweep that I doctored with a Spectraflare alternative (noticeable in person...not so much in pics).  Turned up Turquoise is such a beautiful bright teal with micro shimmer.  I really have no idea why I hadn't bought this color sooner!

St. Pattys' Day mani's - late

So the end of last week/weekend was busy and needless today I didn't get these posted here over the weekend.  If you follow me on Instagram (@ezzimcgee) then you may have seen these already.

My first mani is a chevron version of the Irish flag with an accent nail.  For this mani I used Kleancolor - Metallic Green, Pure Ice - Hot Tamale, and Sally Hansen - White On.  The accent nail was Kleancolor Gold stamped with Metallic Green.

For my second mani I took inspiration from some other nail art pics I saw online/instagram.

I have not had much success with watermarbling, but I decided to give it another go.  I did a rainbow marble on my ring and pinkie finger - rainbow leading to the pot of gold.  Index and middle finger I used Kleancolor Metallic Green and stamped a pot of gold and shamrocks using my Bunny Nails HD-B plate.

I think these last two St. Patty's mani's came out ok. The one MAJOR downside is that the Kleancolor Metallic Green seriously stained my nails.  I had never used this polish (new to me) so I had no idea this would happen.  I was finally getting rid of some staining from a red Valentine's Day mani and now this!!

Yellow!! They are flippin' yellow! ugh.

Happy St. Patty's Day ....late.



NOTD: "Lucky Me" Cheetah

First off - Welcome new followers!!  I would like to thank the lovely Gwenn for giving my little corner of the interwebz a shout out. Please go visit and share the love on her blog Sweet Sugar .

Now on to today's post.  I recently grabbed a set of Glow-in-the-Dark neon mini's from PolishMeToGo and wanted to show you one of them called "Lucky Me"

Lucky Me is a bright neon green glow-in-the-dark polish...much more bright and neon in real life.  I used two coats of white "undies" (you can order a white polish made for these GITD polishes on the site or use your own)  and 2 coats of Lucky Me for full coverage.  The polish is a little on the thicker side but still very easy to work with.  It dries pretty quick with a matte finish. 

I wanted to add something to it so it would have a fun pattern for it to glow through...so I stamped the heart cheetah pattern from my Bunny Nails HD2 plate using Wet 'n Wild Black Creme.  I topped the whole thing off with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat (red bottle).

Ready for the fun part?

I only "charged" my nails for maybe a minute under my lamps and they glowed so bright in the pitch dark for a while.  It was funny when I got into bed...my hubs was like "what is that...are your hands glowing? (I could hear his eyes roll)" It also kinda freaked out the cat....I was petting her (she perches on my hip at night) and she kept following my fingers like she wasn't sure to attack or let the weird glow things keep petting her.  Ha!

This was my first purchase from PolishMeToGo and I am very pleased.  They came quickly and very securely wrapped.  Definitely head over and check out the store or look her up on instagram @polishmetogo

Hope everyone is adjusting better to the time change than I am...Happy Monday!

Erin Go Bragh

Erin Go Bragh means "Ireland Forever"....just in case you didn't know.

And its my name...makes me happy.

Today I have another St. Patrick's day inspired mani. 

I decided to do an ode to the Irish flag with a vertical gradient mani and some gold shamrock stamping.  I used a coat of Northern Lights, but I wish I hadn't because it just made it look like there are bits of dirt or something.  Note to self...NL doesn't look good on white.

Anywho, I like the way it out.

St. Patty's Day is only a week away!!

NOTD: Gilded St. George

I finally...finally broke down and bought some A England and I don't regret it.

I must be the last person in the nail blogosphere to buy St. George and Dragon...but I'm ok with that.  I grabbed mine from Llarowe.com if you are interested.

St. George is a gorgeous deep emerald holographic polish that is so pigmented I was able to get full opacity in 1 coat!! I have also heard it stamps well.

Pardon the lighting....I didn't take these pics in my normal set up.  I will do a proper swatch soon.

I decided to stamp using 2 new holiday plates.  The brocade pattern is from my Bunny Nails Holiday plate HD-B and the Claddagh (on my left ring finger) is from my Messy Mansion MM04 that I showed in my last post.  I used Essie Good as Gold to stamp with.  The full nail images on the Bunny Nails plate are huge.  Large enough that I could isolate different parts of the image on each nail so they weren't all the same!

This week is going to be a doozy for me, but I'll be back soon with more lovelies.

NOTD: Celtic Knots

St. Patrick's Day is one of my favorite holidays...so I have been on the hunt for some good plates to celebrate the holiday.

Today I wanted to show you one I got from Messy Mansion, plate MM04. 

There really isn't anything I don't love about this plate.  These designs are unique to anything I have seen and stamp perfectly! 

I used 2 coats of China Glaze "Cha Cha Cha" for a bright green background and stamped with Wet 'n Wild "Black Creme" (it stamps as well as Konad black but way easier to clean up) using the Celtic Knot full nail design.  The full nail designs on this plate are huge.  As you can see I only got about half of the design on my nail so wide nail bed or long nails wont be a problem.

Look forward to quite a few St. Patty's day themed nails this month!

Erin Go Bragh! (Ireland forever)

Valentines Day Nail Art Challenge Day 5 - Hearts

Only one more day left in this little challenge! 

Today's theme is Hearts.

I knew going into this challenge that I was going to do some stamping, but I also wanted to try water marbling ( i know...i know...how have I not done this before?).  Earlier this week on instagram I saw an awesome heart shaped water marble (@milly_cutenails) and knew that I had to try it myself.  Lets just say its not easy to water marble, let alone capture a heart small enough to fit on your fingernail (tip use a small mouth cup).  I was able to make some successful hearts but once on my finger I realized it was much bigger than it looked in the cup.  Then I smeared a few, once on my nail, and had to re-do...boo.  I think I ended up attempting the heart about 5 times before I settled on what is on my middle finger here....1 finger!!!

So here is my Heart skittles mani

As you can see I only got the humps of my heart! But I think it turned out pretty.  I added some dots and little hearts with a dotting tool to cover any air bubbles and make it look more "heart" themed.  My other fingers were stamped with a mix of Bundle Monster and Cheeky heart themed nail plates.

Pinky - Sally Hansen White on stamped with Rapid Red (Insta-Dri)

Ring - Sinful Colors Truth or Dare stamped with Sally Hansen Pink Satin (Extreme Wear)

Middle - Marble of Sally Hansen Rapid Red, Flashy Fuchsia, White On, Northern Lights

Index - Color Club Miss Bliss stamped with Konad White

All in all im pretty happy with this mani.  What do you think?

Only one more day left and you get to choose what you want for Valentines Day.

Please go check out my fellow participants and share the love:

1. Elena from Ecklipsed by Color

2. Lynette from Pink & Purple Dots

Valentines Day Nail Art Challenge - Day 1 Love Notes

WooHoo it's finally time for the Valentines Day Nail Art Challenge!!

Today is Day 1 - Love Notes.

The first thing that pops into my head when I think of love notes are silly notes or doodles passed back in forth in grade school...."Wanna be my boyfriend at recess? Yes or No"

So I devoted 2 of my nails to that.

I used a combination of stamping plates (something like 10 total..ha).  The notebook paper was done with Sally Hansen White On and some fine point sharpies....yes sharpies.  It was just easier to draw on quick lines then try and tape them off or free hand with a brush.

My ring finger was done with a Sally Hansen Pink Insta-Dri and an all over print of cute little birds delivering love notes.  My pinkie was done with Sally Hansen Rapid Red and the BM love note full nail design (the cheater newsprint).

I love that math equation stamp...my hubs specifically asked that I use that one (he loves math)!

Cute little story about the crocheted heart I'm holding - I made that last week one evening while he was out and slipped it in the pocket of his work pants so that he would find it the next day.  He found it the next morning while I was getting ready for work and thought it was sweet and has kept it in his jacket pocket ever since.  He gives it a squeeze whenever work gets stressfull and it makes him smile.  I know I know....super mooshy.

What do y'all think? cute?

Wednesday is "Roses" and I cant wait to see what y'all come up with.

Please check out the other participants in this Valentines Day Nail Art Challenge:

1. Elena from Ecklipsed by Color

2. Lynette from Pink & Purple Dots

If you would like to join this art challenge please feel free to email or instagram me!!