Robots in Love!

Do you know about my other obsession?? I like buying cute iphone cases. And I like matching my nails to them! You can see the examples here, here, and here.

I bought this case a while ago just before the Valentine's day and I thought it was cute!!! However... it didn't look cute once I put it on my phone...

I thought the heart would cover the apple and also you can see the writing at the lower part of phone, that is not so nice looking... 

It had the potential to look cute if my phone was black or if it wasn't transparent... Maybe... (I just put it over my black iphone 4 to see what it could look like...)

My iphone case was a fail but at least, I got an inspiration for my nail design! For this look, I first painted my nails with Essie Dress To Kilt (red) and Essie Urban Jungle (off white). I stamped a robot design from Bundle Monster plate BM-415 and a heart from BM-411 with OPI What's Your Point-settia? (red).  I painted over the heart with OPI Red Fingers & Mistletoes to give a little shimmer. 

Do you like matching your nails to your phone case? Or am I the only crazy one??

Love,

Little Dot

Modern Art in the City!

Let me show you what my beloved daughter did for me!

She did my nails beautifully! According to her, she wanted to create a feel of modern art and a bit of industrial theme. The end result - very sophisticated grown-up look!! I loooove it!!!

For this look, she first painted my nails with Essie Stylenomics (greenish black) and OPI French Quarter For Your Thoughts (grey). She used Bundle Monster plate BM-414 and stamped the city skyscraper with Essie Stylenomics and the pattern with Essie Jiggle Hi, Jiggle Low (silver gold). 

She changed up the color for my right hand. Excellent job with stamping the city skyscraper straight!

It was really nice to be pampered and having my nails done by my beloved daughter! 

Do you like the modern art look on your nails?

Love,

Little Dot

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Happy St. Patrick's Day to you!  To be quite honest, I don't even have a drop of Irish blood in me... But I'm Irish in spirit on St. Pat's Day! 

To have some fun on this occasion, I made this rainbow decal! It took a loooong time to make it!! Look at the amount of polish it took to make this rainbow color!

For this look, I first painted my nails with OPI That's Hula-rious! (minty soft green) and Quo by Orly Green Meadow (bright jelly green). I stamped the clover design from Bundle Monster plate BM-723, using Chelsea Bridge Road (gold) as stamping polish. For the decal, I used the part of the design under the bicycle on Bundle Monster plate BM-704. I am still loving the Bundle Monster Secret Garden plate set! You can read my review here on these buffet-style plates! For the tutorial of decal making, check out this previous post! I don't think I need to list the names of the polish I used for the rainbow. I basically opened my polish drawer and picked up each color as I see fit! You can use any color you like for the decal and you don't even have to worry too much about how thick and pigmented they are. Just have fun with it!

For my right hand, I kept it simple and just used the clover stamp. Not just because it would be too labor intensive to make another decal, but more because I felt one decal accent was the way to go without looking like too much going on!

In the end, I'm not sure if the clover design and the rainbow decal would match the overall feel. But since I put such an effort on the decal, I'm sticking with it. And you know what? It started to grow on me!

Do you celebrate St. Pat's Day? Have fun everyone!

Love,

Little Dot

Essie Cashmere Matte Review!

When I learned about Essie Cahmere Matte collection, I got obsessed! I ran over to local stores but they didn't have them yet (being in a smallish town sucks!) Finally, I found them when I was out of town the other day! 

I bought 4 colors, Coat Couture, Comfy In Cashmere, Just Stiched, and Spun In Luxe! I passed on All Eyes On Nude and Wrap Me Up because these two, I heard, were not easy to apply (needs 3 coats or more!) and didn't have the shimmer like the other 4 I purchased.

The color I just had to have was Coat Couture! This deep smoky purplish blue is beautiful with or without top coat. I don't own any color like this. To me, it is very unique! 

 I really love this color and the matte finish. 

I was surprised by how much I loved Comfy In Cashmere. I almost didn't get this one. In the picture, it may look like brown but it's not. It is more of smoky mauve color with blue shimmer. Again, it's unique color and I love it matte!

This lovely pale pink is Just Stiched. The satin-like shine is so beautiful! 

And here is Spun In Luxe. Matte black with blue shimmer. It's a bit hard to see the shimmer though... You can see it in bright light. Or wear it with shiny top coat!

I didn't want to cover this beauty with too much stamping, so I only applied one accent to it. For this look, I first painted my nails with Essie Coat Couture. I stamped a feather design from Bundle Monster plate BM-419 with Essie Jiggle Hi, Jiggle Low. This is two coats of Coat Couture over a base coat. No top coat. 

The only down side of the matte finish is the wear time. It lasted almost intact for a couple of days, though. Just a bit of tip wear that might not be noticeable unless you are really up close. Am I still happy with it? Yes! I don't mind the short wear time because it dried super fast (Correction! If you apply thick coats, just make sure you wait long enough! It's not dent-proof until completely dry!) and no need of top coat shortens the application time significantly. Also, you can apply top coat if you like and the polish still looks beautiful in a different way. The blue shimmer in the polish shows up more with shiny top coat! Or you can apply matte top coat over HK Girl top coat or Seche Vite for longer wear like I did here.

Have you tried Cashmere Matte? Which color is your favorite?

Love,

Little Dot

Bundle Monster Secret Garden Review!

I got Bundle Monster Secret Garden plates recently and I am very very happy with the product!!

These are buffet style, which means each plate has etching on entire surface as continuous design. There are quite a few companies make these type of plates but this is the first buffet style from Bundle Monster. And they did very well! The part I love the most is that they made the design smaller/finer so that they are very usable for small nails like mine! It is also great for large nails because the design spreads out quite large area. 

Here you can see the design size comparison with Pueen Buffet plate. 

And here is another example. See how much smaller/finer the designs are on Bundle Monster plates? They fit a lot better on my nails! 

I used BM-718 for this look! I first painted my nails with Essie Spun In Luxe (cashmere matte black). I stamped butterflies from Bundle Monster plate BM-718 with Mundo de Unas stamping polish 42. I applied HK Girl top coat and mattified the look with NYC matte top coat on top.  

I tested all the plates on paper and they transferred great without any issues. Even very fine lines transferred perfectly! 

The theme of this set is floral and garden as the name Secret Garden set suggests. Because I have quite a few floral plates already (and you get to the point of being picky when you have so many design plates...), I hesitated a bit before ordering, but I'm so glad I decided to get it. The set has good mixtures of designs from cute animals (a fawn, a headgehog, squirrels, bunnies, a duck, and kittens!) to a hula girl, and of course, tons of florals!

You can order this set from Bundle Monster site here and you can use prome code JOLLY2014 to get 15% off until March 31, 2015. 

Did you get this set? Which design is your favorite?

Love,

Little Dot