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!