I have another design of Incoco nail appliques to show you tonight, and I think these are definite my favourite. These were my first choice from the huge Incoco range.  This design is called Crown Jewels and the base is a silver foil, then it has lines in purple, pink green and orange, as well as dotted purple bands going the other direction.

What I really love about this design is that it is not something I can create freehand or with stamping.  It is so intricate and so absolutely perfectly printed that it just looks stunning.  

Application was easy, just like the last time I applied an Incoco applique, and also like last time, the wear was really excellent. 

Most of these photos are shown in the shade or partial sun.

As I was stickng my nails on, Miss nearly three came and asked me to do her nails.  So far I've not managed to find anything that will stay on Miss twos nails for more that two days.  I don't know if it's the oils in her nails or what, but every brand of polish just flakes and chips off.

I had the brilliant idea of using the back half of the design from my nails on her nails.  There was plenty of excess that I would have just thrown away otherwise.  I have to say that nail stickers/appliques are just perfect for childrens nails because there is no drying time. Once they are on, they are perfect.

Our nails were such a cute match and she was very proud of her sparkly and patterned nails.  I had very high hopes that these nails would last a lot longer on her than regular nail polish.  On day two they still looked as perfect as they were when I applied them.  Sadly, whilst I was at work on day three, I returned home to discover that she had picked at her nails and removed all but one nail!!  Doh!  I will definitely buy some more appliques to suit her, but I'm going to wait until she is a bit older so she wont pick them off.

Finally, I'm excited to announce the winner of a set of Incoco Nail Appliques of their choice.  I printed out each entrants name on a piece of paper, folded them up, and did a lucky draw for the winner.

I'm so excited for my winner "Rainbowify Me".  I have no doubt that she will see this post and know she is the winner, because she is absolutely be my #1 blog commenter of all time.  I'm really excited that she won!  Please send me an email and I'll give you the details of how to claim your prize.

Also, a big reminder that my Guess that Gold 1000th post giveaway closes at midnight tomorrow.  

I've had this mani planned in my head for months and months and I finally got around to doing it. The background is a simple gradient using Ulta3 Blue Marlin, Picture Polish Violet Femme and Picture Polish Sunset (how can I not use this polish for a sunset design!). This gradient colour mix was so stunning!

Next I used the cityscape image from Vivid lacquer plate VL004 and stamped in Konad black. After it was all finished, I couldn't help myself but add a little bit of holographic silver glitter into the night sky for some stars.  Then I wasn't sure if I liked the glitter, especially cause I smudged my index finger DOH!, so I didn't bling up my right hand.

I've also recently started using craft masking fluid (I bought mine locally off ebay) to paint around and protect my cuticles when doing various nail art.  Basically it's liquid rubber, so as long as you are not allergic to rubber then it works amazingly.  I'm guessing it works very similar to Liquid Palisade in that you paint it on your cuticles, let it dry, do your nail art, then peel it off. I'm also sure that the huge bottle I got was way cheaper than the little tube of Liquid Palisade.  Let me know if your interested is seeing it in action with a bit of a how to.

I have decided to join in the nail art fun being generated by Nail Polish Canada, with their second annual Holiday Nail Art Challenge. There is still time to sign up and join in for either this week, or for the next two weeks. Plus there are some awesome prizes (if you are in the USA or Canada - or I assume if you have a mule who can ship to you).

The first weeks theme is Snow. I love having a theme to work with, it makes it so much easier for me to think of something to do (or more likely, to google image search and come up with something). Let's look at my nail art.

I started with a clean white base for my canvas, I then did a gradient with Ulta3 Spring Shower at the top and bottom, and Picture Polish Wisteria in the middle. I searched through all my stamping plates to find a range of snowflake designs and stamped about 6 different designs and sizes across only the top of my nails. I also stamped the trees and the reindeer. The small trees were from a full nail image of little trees on Winstonia W120, and they were all stamped individually. To finish it off, I applied a layer of top coat and then carefully sprinkled a tiny amount of craft embossing powder. It was the perfect size to create a textured show appearance.

Now like I said above, I love having a theme to work with. When I'm stuck for ideas, the first thing I do is a google image search. This time I googled "snow scene", and as I was scrolling through the results, I found an image that screamed out to me to paint it on my nails. See how easy this is to translate onto your nails? :) Nail art is so fun when the right inspiration hits you.

If you want to see some great nail art you should check out the other entries. You can also vote for your favourite. If your favourite happens to be mine, thank you for the vote! You guys rock!

Today is the final part of my look at the Ulta3 Candy Couture Book of nail polish. Again, there are some really pretty shades in this lot, which means that the whole book actually contains a very nice collection of polishes.

Lemon drop -a beautiful pastel lemon yellow.  I was super impressed with the formula on this one. Yellows are notoriously hideous to apply, are streaky and need way too many coats.  This one was a two coater. Shown here with Seche Vite top coat.

Peach pie - I'm not a huge orange polish fan, but this pastel orange shade with a silvery shimmer is just so pretty.  This is two coats with Seche Vite.

Sugar coated - I had high hopes for this nude shade, and I'm not going to say I was disappointed, I was just expecting it would be something different.  I was expecting a nude creme shade, that was opaque. But as you can see this is very sheer.  This was three coats and you can easily see my nail line.  Like I said, I'm not disappointed, because it's actually a lovely sheer that isn't streaky, so it would work nicely for jelly sandwiches.  This is two coats with Seche Vite.

Mini musks - The last bottle of micro beads are transparent pale pink glass beads.  The thing I really liked about these beads was that because they are transparent, it's means they are reflective when bright light hits them.  I have a T-shirt that has a printed design and glass beads on it like this and it reflects light like a reflective street sign.  These beads do the same thing.  I tried to show you what I mean by using my flash in the last photo.

Over all, I'm really happy that I purchased this book of polishes.  I don't have very many micro beads, so the four little bottles add a nice range of beads to my collection.  I also think that there are enough unique and pretty shades in the book to warrant buying it.

If you are looking for the Ulta3 Candy Couture book, then check the Ulta3 stockist locator. You can now also purchase Ulta3 online directly from the Heat Group, although I can't see the Candy Couture book for sale online.

 

If I get some free time this weekend, I'm going to do some comparisons between some of the similar shades, I'll also hopefully get around to updating my Ulta3 colour guide to include these 12 new polishes.

Continuing on with part three of my look at the Ulta3 Candy Couture Book of nail polish.  These are some of the warmer shades and have a definite Christmas feel to them.

Berry Crush - a rich and dark terracotta brick red creme.  Good opacity and smooth application.  Once thing I've noticed with these newer made in Taiwan polishes, compared to the made in PRC versions from earlier this year, is that the brushes are much softer and the formulas are thinner and easier to apply.  This is two coats with Seche Vite top coat.

Gingerbread - an orange leaning nude.  In the box this one looks quite orange and rather dusty looking.  I was amazed now neutral it actually looked on my nails.  It's definitely a warm nude, but fills a nice gap in my nude collection. Two coats with Seche Vite.

Rock Candy - a very bright pink leaning red, or is a red leaning pink?  I'll definitely do a comparison with some other Ulta3 shades with this ones, although I do suspect it is a unique colour.  This is two coats with Seche Vite.

Liquorice - black micro beads.  I tried a bit of bead placement, made famous by Sammy the Nailasaurus when she did her silver studded version a few years ago.  Kudos to her for her perfect execution, cause I had trouble keeping the lines straight!

One of my readers commented on Sunday that the 100s and 1000s micro beads bleed with top coat.  I did actually top coat these after taking these photos, but I much preferred the look without top coat. The top coat didn't melt and bleed these black ones.

 

If you are looking for the Ulta3 Candy Couture book, then check the Ulta3 stockist locator. You can now also purchase Ulta3 online directly from the Heat Group, although I can't see the Candy Couture book for sale online.

One more installment tomorrow from this Candy Couture Book collection.

Continuing on with part two of my look at the Ulta3 Candy Couture Book of nail polish.  These three polishes are some of my favorite in the box.

Berry Blue - a medium toned dusty blue creme or maybe I should describe it as a dark cornflower blue. Formula was good and it was opaque in two coats.  Please disregard the star burst light reflections on my nails, it was only after I looked at these photos and then checked my camera that I discovered a huge big finger print on my camera lens, courtesy of Miss Two.

Min-tea - a pastel mint green with a very pale silvery green shimmer.  Opaque at two coats, which made me very happy for this pastel shade. I'll include this one in my comparison post to show how it compares to Corsican Rose.

Toffee apple.  A medium toned dusty green, that leans blue. Another that is opaque in two coats. The polish is not streaky, the marks are the clouds in the sky.  I'll do a comparison of this one against Emerald Inten-city and Mermaid Dream.

Sugar sprinkles - Silver micro beads.  The bead size does vary a bit, but that doesn't worry me too much because it means the gaps can be neatly filled with some of the smaller beads if your feeling a little OCD.  To create this look, I just painted a thick coat of top coat down the centre of my nails.  I then poured the beads onto my nails and used the long straight edge of my clean up brush to neaten the edge of the beads on each side.

If you are looking for the Ulta3 Candy Couture book, then check the Ulta3 stockist locator. You can now also purchase Ulta3 online directly from the Heat Group, although I can't see the Candy Couture book for sale online.

I'll be back tomorrow with more shades, and another look with the micro beads.