Celebration in the Sky

This manicure took a really long time to complete and required quite a few polishes!

I started off with a coat of Pure ICE Electric!, a black with silver shimmer. Then I used Bundle Monster image plate BM02 and put 2-3 different colors over the image that looked fireworkish and stamped it multiple (maybe too many) times! =P 

The firework colors include Sally Hansen Grass Slipper, Lacey Lilac and Blue Me Away!, Kleancolor Neon Pink and Neon Yellow, and L.A. Colors Sea Siren (pictured left to right in the last photo).

I tried this look out a couple of different ways, with lots of fireworks per nail, and with just a few per nail, but I like both ways, I don't know which I like the most! It's just so colorful and fun!!

From the Vault - Crackle Rainbow

I had recently purchased new nail gems and beads and was playing with them, but I still love the neon rainbow with crackle on top all by itself! It was my first time using crackle, and when I looked at it, I immediately thought it would love amazing over a neon rainbow! I just wish I had gotten pics after I cleaned up, of the plain design by itself without all the beads and crap all over! =P

Glitter Explosion

This was just kind of an in-between, messing around with polish mani that I didn't except much out of. I kind of like how it turned out, but it started getting kind of thick at the tips! =P 

I used Sally Hansen Co-Bolt Blue as a base, with two coats of Pure ICE Strapless (blue glitter), then sponged L.A. Colors Glistening Purple and Treasure Island.

Inside with flash

Rubbery Ruffian

Today I have Mod Mauve to show you. This one is very unique to my collection. It has an almost rubbery, semi-matte finish and I actually like it a lot! This was another surprising 1-coater, so for $1, I approve! =D

Metal Madness

About two weeks ago, I mentioned that I had gotten a set of e.l.f. polishes (and showed you Red Velvet) and Metal Madness was also in the set.

This is a really gorgeous grey almost-metallic shimmer with sparse bits of holo glitter. It was surprisingly opaque in one coat, but took a century to dry, so after 10+ minutes of waiting, I just applied a quick dry top coat. I have no idea how long it would take to dry on its own, but it was still pretty tacky and smooshy after the 10 minutes.

Otros Amores

So... I have this problem. Nail polish? Yes, that is definitely one. But...

There are so many more! =P

Knitting scarves? I make at least one new one every winter for myself and some for friends and family. Knitting blankets? Yep. those too.

Sewing? I have more quilts, pillows, and started but unfinished quilts and pillows than I will ever know what to do with in my lifetime! (Not including the Indian-themed and Elvis-themed ones I have my for my mom).

Painting and sculpting? I have two drawers of imcompletes. I think I have actually only ever finished one sculpture entirely (not including some little magnets here and there) and it was the first one I ever made: a dragon for my mom years ago. He got baked, painted, sealed and all, and took nearly a week to make! =P

Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas! 

This one is my favorite Christmas mani for December:

Treasure Island Doubled

On Thursday, I showed you a franken that I made with L.A. Colors' loose eye shadow called Treasure Island. I never can leave a plain polish alone, so I decided to use L.A. Colors Sea Siren to stamp on top of it (BM 221). Then I did the same stamp, slightly to the side of the first, on top of that in white with NYC French White Tip - it's not too opaque so it gave the stamp a slight two-toned look in some places, which I prefer to a more opaque white in this look - and finished with a free-hand french tip of Sea Siren.

Enjoy:

Furry Friday - Nikki

For my first Furry Friday, this is the "princess" of the house, Nikki (my husband's chocolate lab).

Treasure Island Franken

I picked up an L.A. Colors loose eye shadow called Treasure Island, and thought it would make a great nail polish color. So I put it in a bottle of top coat, and it didn't turn out too bad! =D

*Insert Creative Title Here*

I envisioned this design looking a lot better than how it ended up! =P

The white base is NYC French White Tip, the blue glitter is Strapless by Pure ICE and the blue bottle shown that the snowflake is done in is Sally Hansen Blue me Away!.

Liebster Blog Award

I was awarded the Liebster Award by Taylor from Simply Beauty. Thank you so much!

Watercolor Nails, Take 2

This is my second attempt at watercolor nails. My base is NYC White French Tip with NYC Pink Promenade, Sally Hansen Lightning and Sally Hansen Blue me Away!. The accent nail is done with NYC Classic Coral and a sticker I got off of eBay.

What do you get your zombie for Christmas?

So, Meredith from Polish and Charms did a watercolor nail design, when she guest posted here. I love the technique so much and decided I wanted to try it out, but with Christmas colors...

You start out with a white base and apply a thick layer of top coat on top of that. Then place a couple of dots of your first color. I used NYC Big Apple Red.

From the Vault - Pink Gradient with Daisies

This was my first ever attempt at a gradient. Pre-clean up pics:

I'm a Bee, I'm a Bee, I'm a Beetle

I first saw this polish on Polish and Charms a while back and really really wanted one of my own! However, I looked through every single Hard Candy bottle and came out empty-handed every time.

But... I found one last night! My very own bottle of Beetle!! =D

Singing Silent Night with the Palm Trees Blowing

I figured that my love for blue polish (and since this is a polish blog, the color should reflect that) + new CBOTB snowy, Christmasy blue and white snowflake layout items + boredom with my old layout = the new one! =D

What do you think? I haven't able to fix the wonky adjustments on the dashed, vertical, dividing line to get things away from it in the left sidebar, nor the part at the top of the header where the brown border just cuts off in the middle... but it'll do.

Anyway. I have nails to match! =D

Glitter Badge

I received this great tag from Shannara at Nails and Stuff. Thank you so much!! I do love glitter! =P

Here are the "rules":

- Acknowledge receipt of this award:

- Post a swatch of your favorite glitter polish:

To prove you're deserving, of course :)

- Pass this on to 4 more Glitterati.

The Nail Polish Tag

Here are the rules

1.  Answer 10 questions

2.  Pass this tag to 5 bloggers

3.  Make sure that the bloggers you tagged know about this.

Top 10 Award

I really don't remember where I got this because it was so long ago and I had just copied and pasted it and saved it to finished at a later date and then kept pushing it off.... Anyway.... Here goes it:

An Inspired Glitter Design with Claws Up

Today, I would like to welcome Jacquie from Claws Up. She has a Lady Gaga-inspired guest post for us today! Enjoy:


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Hey there! My name is Jacquie, LittleMonsterx14 from Claws Up.  I am honored to be a guest poster on Amber’s blog today so I hope everyone enjoys my post!

Prospero año y Felicidad

Inside with flash

So I watched 3 episodes of some show the other night where they showed off ridiculously lit up houses done by Christmas light-enthusiasts in the U.S. and Europe. So I was inspired to do this look.

Gifts for the French

This design was semi-inspired by a Robin Moses design in which she did a sort of french tip of presents with Snoopy and such. I really liked the french of gifts and decided to try it out. You can see her video here.

I used Sally Hansen Diamonds as my base and mixed acrylics for the presents, candy cane, tree, stocking and snowman.

Quick! Chain up Your Limes!

Once again, after my first and second Ruffian manicures, I can't seem to stop...

As with the last one, I free-handed it instead of using french tip guide stickers like I did on the first one. I used one coat of Kleancolor Metallic Aqua as the base and two coats of Sally Hansen Grass Slipper on top of that, then stamped with some dark metal color from L.A. Colors and plate BM12. I later decided to add a line (I was bored and had nothing better to do), dividing the blue and green with a cheapo Nail Star pen from eBay that matched the L.A. Colors grey.

I Took Robin's Egg and She Got Franken Mad

I didn't think I would love this one as much as I do! I definitely like it better on the nail than in the bottle! I picked up Pure ICE Splash, looked at  it and wondered about frankening with it. So I grabbed some blues and had at it. I don't remember what all I used for this other than Splash, but it looks sort of robin's egg blue like the Crayola crayon to me. I don't have a name for it yet, but I love, love, love it! =)

I just searched Google for this image:

Someone Put a Ruffian in My Orange Juice

I love love loved my first Ruffian design so much that I immediately started coming up with other color combinations! The only metallics I have are silver, blue and pink. So I got the idea to franken a purple metallic and used it for this mani, along with Kleancolor Pastel Orange. Although, after I finished these nails, I'm not so sure that the orange was the best choice. =P I had been debating between it and a light green, but it looked better on paper with the purple; the green looked more Springish than I wanted. Oh well.

Nail Fail

Rie from Nails and Noms did a design for the 31 Day Challenge based on a pair of shoes by Alexander McQueen called Baroque Angels and I fell in love with her design (which you can see here) so I had to take a shot at it myself!

I was really hoping that I would fall in love with this on myself just as much... but when the first grey polish didn't want to stamp, I should have taken the hint and just stopped there. I had to finish it, though, and stamped on top of that with Sally Hansen Pumping Iron because it's the only silver I have that isn't glittery. At this point, I already knew I hated it, the silver just looked all smudged and awkward and barely showed. I went ahead and added some glitter anyway. I didn't even bother to do a top coat or any clean-up. As soon as I finished taking pictures, the mani came off. =(

Nail Art Friendly

Short and simple post today...

From Whale's Nails is the Nail Art Friendly Blog Badge.

Umm, You Spilled Some Melted Dimes on My Hand, Sir

The title? Don't ask. After 4 hours in a small, closed room with lacquer fumes, this is what my brain comes up with. I looked at my nails and thought "hey that's almost a skin color", then looked again and said "Pumping Iron? WTF did they name it Pumping Iron for? It looks more like melted silver coins to me!". Alas... either I need sleep, or I need to open a window! =P

The  nails? Well, I recently saw a  cute manicure on ChitChat Nails, which you can see here (they are significantly better than mine, but I am okay with that), and I liked it so much that I had to try it out for myself! It is called a Ruffian Manicure.

The Gobble Goes On

Early in the week, I ended up helping my aunt redo her bedroom, wall paper removal and painting, and I kept popping off gems from my original Thanksgiving turkey design (which you can see here) even though they were super glued and had top coat. I couldn't bare to get rid of the turkey's though, as I wanted to make them last so I could sport them on Thanksgiving; so I just redid the other nails with my newest love: Pure ICE Twinkle, a peachy color with gold shimmer that is much more noticeable in the bottle than on the nail.

Although I probably could have used another, Twinkle needed 4 thin coats for opacity. This is with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri top coat. I also added some glitter, Wet 'n' Wild Hallucinate to the turkeys' feathers.

The first two pictures are inside and the last two are outside (although the sun was MIA, the shimmer is still more visible):

From the Vault - Hot Pink and Orange Floral

Another old one. Messy mani and blurry pics, but a hot pink and a bright burnt orangeish floral manicure. All fingers were pink with orange tips and the flowers were done with these flat plastic tear drop things and rhinstones, then the ring finger was bright orange with hot pink rhinestones, but I have no idea what the "design" was.

Five-Point Flowers with Nail Reflections

Happy Thanksgiving!

I would like to welcome back Kimberly from Nail Reflections today! She has another great tutorial for us! =)

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Hi All! 

I'm Kimberly from Nail Reflections! I hope everyone is having a great day! I'm so Happy to be back here at Amber's for a second time! Barely had time for my Guest Posting Hat to get dusty! 

Golds with I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous

Today, Amy from I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous will be showing us some beautiful stamping! So, on with her post...

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Hi Everyone! I'm Amy from I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous. I am so happy to be appearing on Amber's blog today. I hope you enjoy !

Water Colors with Polish and Charms

I would like to welcome Meredith from Polish and Charms today. She has an awesome new technique to show us that I know I will definitely be trying out soon!!

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I want to say a Big Thanks to Amber for letting me do a guest post on her blog! She does some fantastic nail art and has a great sense of humor! Thanks again Amber.  Onto the nails!

Flowers with Nail Reflections

To kick off Guest Post Week here at Nails Like Lace, I'd like to introduce Kimberly from Nail Reflections! She has a simple, but super cute tutorial for us today, so stayed tuned! =)

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Hi All!

I'm Kimberly from Nail Reflections! Today, I'm so very very excited that Amber asked me to Guest Post on her blog!! I have never been a Guest Poster before. So, this is new to me. I only hope I can do Amber, her blog and her readers justice! So, with my Guest Poster hat on and polish in both hands Let's Paint!!

The Versatile Blogger Award

Thank you to Meredith from Polish and Charms for passing this award on to me! Check out Polish and Charms, she has the best colors in her stash and makes the cutest jewelry!! Thank you!

Glitterin' Gizzards

I was doubly inspired for this Thanksgiving design. I loved Dolly's Thanksgiving Sparkle design and thought that JulieG's turkeys were the cutest things ever! Alas, I had to combine the two and got this look.

Spotting Signs of Fall

One of the first designs I did and posted here was a rainbow dot design. You can see that post here. The design was based on video by Love4Nails which you can see here.

I have been wanting to revisit this look for a while now and finally decided to try it out again in fallish colors.

I See a Golden Opportunity in This Metallic Blue

I recently won China Glaze Golden Opportunity in a giveaway from Nancy at The Dark Side of Beauty and immediately wanted to try it out! I had high hopes for opacity in two coats, but alas, it is a three-coater and probably could have even used 4. I was planning on covering a lot of it up, though, so I wasn't too worried about it.

Golden Opportunity is a beautiful gold perfect for fall! However, I decided to pair it with Kleancolor Metallic Aqua (the only Kleancolor I have found thus far that takes less than a century to dry) and tried out the lace technique.

Khloe Had a Little Lam-Lam

From the Nicole by OPI Kardashian Kolors collection, I have this wonderful dark green/dark teal/forest green/dark emerald green color to show you. I can't decide which of these is most accurate. It's not exactly forest, nor emerald, nor teal, but kind of all of them at once. =P

This polish was doable in one coat, but I used two for good measure. Nice consistency, very smooth, decent brush and average drying time. The color of this polish is absolutely gorgeous! It is lovely for fall, winter, St. Patrick's Day and I am sure for many other occasions, too; it's very versatile. I don't own many dark colors, other than black, but I am definitely glad I picked this one up!

The polish is actually a little darker and a little less teal in real life than the pictures show:

Dos Más

I went ahead and got Kendall on the Katwalk, a blue base with blue, purple, green and teal glitter and Khloe Had a Little Lam-Lam, a dark green that some call forest green, but I see it as more of a dark teal (in the bottle, anyway); both from the Nicole by OPI Kardashian Kolor collection.

My expectations for Kendall on the Katwalk were too high, though. Disco Dolls, the gold glitter, was wonderful, but this glitter was less dense and took 2 thick coats for opacity. The more I see it on my nails, though, the more I like it. I don't have another glitter like it, nor have I seen another glitter like it!

There's a First Time for Everything

I have never been let down by Sally Hansen before... Until now. I found a display with their new Diamond Strength line bottles and there were only a few that I liked. Of course Diamonds is my favorite glitter, but I am currently stocked up on that right now.

I realized there's a color that I don't have. A peach. So I picked up Sweetie Pie. It was very peachy in the store, but when I got it home it was slighty peachish pink in the bottle and on the nail, pretty much straight pink. And not even a pink that I would select (Plus it takes 3+ coats to be opaque, it was streaking, it's thin as water and flooded my cuticles like crazy, and the brush wasn't even wide enough to attempt painting my tiny pinkie in one stroke); almost a mucky, nasty, muted, bland pink. I once made a franken that turned out looking like you went to change the baby's diaper and he'd eaten a huge container of red glitter, and it was better than this poor excuse for a bottle of nail polish crap. Just sayin'. It was so bad I didn't even bother photographing it on my nails.

Falling into Autumn

For this look, I started the background with two coats of Confetti Show Stopper, a taupe-ish, pink-ish brown color and sponged on two coats of Chunky Holo Black by Kleancolor. I sponged this because that soaked up a lot of that nasty purpley base that is Chunky Holo Black so that it wouldn't discolor Show Stopper as much,  it was more glittery per sponging and, as we all know, Kleancolors take a century to dry, so this helped alleviate that problem too. 

For the leaves, I used Avon Tangtastic (orange), Nina Ultra Pro Like Butta (yellow) and NYC Park Ave (brown). I mixed each color with a plain black and a plain white to have three shades of each. The stripes on the leaves are done with a Kiss striper in black. 

Green and Teal Glitter Gradient

Today I have another mani that would have been the gradient day of the 31 Day Challenge if I had done it. I am morely picking the ones that I like from the challenge list and wearing them for more than 1 day at a time. =P

I wasn't really sure where I was going with this gradient. I just grabbed the two colors and started sponging. In the end, though, I LOVED this look!

Frenching Frank

Today I have a mani that was inspired by a similar look that Amy from I'm Feeling Nail-Venturous did, which you can see here.

This one is very simple to do and super cute! =)

For mine, I started with a base coat and some Nutra Nails Touch of Color base to hide the stains. I used 2 coats of Sinful Colors Call You Later over 1 coat of Zoya Mitizi for the tips and covered the bottom of the ring and thumb with some plain glitter from L.A. Colors (it is really hard to see in the pictures). Then I used plain black acrylic paint for the stitching.

Hot Wired

Day 2:

Liebster Blog Award

I am a little behind, but I was nominated by Meredith at Polish and Charms and by Kimberly at Nail Reflections for the Liebster Blog Award! =) Both of these Polish Ladies are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! Not just when it comes to lacquer, but when it comes to blogging as well. They are both great when it comes to posting regularly, replying to comments and so on, rather than the type of people who follow a blog for a giveaway and then don't visit it again for a year. =)

Googly-Eyed Little Monsters

I just want to start off by saying sorry I have been so MIA lately. For a few days at the beginning of this week, my Internet quit working and we couldn't figure out what was wrong and then I got sick and had no voice, a fever, swollen tonsils and all that. I'm still sick, but I need to post, I am getting behind. =)

Today, have some monster nails. I've seen this done by multiple other people and decided I wanted to give it a go as well.

I got bored in class one day and started drafting some monsters in Paint:

Lotion Bar from Koelzer Bee Farm

Bleeding Ghosts

I had this idea for a Halloween design: to make ghosts and cover them with glow-in-the-dark polish. Apparently great minds think alike because I have now seen it done a few times, so I figured I'd throw mine in there too.

Bubble Bath in Orange Soda

I did this look in July, which you can see here in my post Feeling Bubbly or Feeling Blue?

I really loved it when I did it before and have been wanting to do it again, so I used oranges and yellows this time, going for more of a look that had a theme, this time, of fall colors, but I think it's a little too bright to be fallish. =P

September Manis

Pastel Palm Trees

So I am still stuck on summer. I wanted to do a fall design, but ended up with a rainbow on my nails instead =P and I decided to mute it down and add palm trees. This time, instead of a black striping art polish, I used acrylic paint and a stiper brush and another small, short brush. I think they came out better this time, for the most part. :)

For the background of this design, starting at the top, I used:
China Glaze - Sun Worshiper (orange)
Sinful Colors - 24/7 (pink)
Sally Hansen - Lightning (yellow)
Zoya - Mitzi (green)
Sinful Colors - Gorgeous (teal with some craft glitter on top)
China Glaze - The Ten Man (muting silver glitter color)

Back-to-School Tag and 7 Deadly Sins of Beauty Tag

Back-to-School Tag

I have a Back-to-School Tag from Pinkbeauty_love for today! :)

1. What grade are you going into? (or what year of college are you going into?2nd year senior in college

2. What are you excited and/or nervous for this year?
I am already stressed with so much homework and it's only the third day. But I am most excited about my Spanish classes. I am taking two that are 300 level so we'll see how that goes. =P

August Manis

Summer Contest Entry Nails

After submitting my contest entry to MadamLuck's Summer Time Nail Art Contest, an epic fail was pointed out to me by a friend: Notice the date says 2001 instead of 2011!! FAIL! Well, here was the design of bright, summery, rainbowness that I came up with for the contest anyway:

July Manis

4th of July, 2011
My Fourth of July manicure. The true sparkliness of this design doesn't even come close, in pictures, to how wonderful it is in person!

Tigre de Fuego Nails