Chinoiserie

The other night I put on Zoya Shay, and last night, inspired by a little jaunt in Chinatown, I added some Konad:

left hand

right hand

base:  Zoya Shay
bamboo:  Konad plate m66
with Sinful Black on Black
circular design:  Bundle Monster plate BM208
with Zoya Sooki

I love the look of stamping on "mannequin hands" colors.  Sooki turned out to be a very good color for stamping too - it's very opaque.

Fancy Shoe Friday. On Saturday.

I was so excited about all the sewing stuff, I already got sidetracked!  So I'm doing my Fancy Shoe Knitting today:

Fancy Shoe Knitting

I'm working on finishing up Mandarine.  I've completed all five pieces of the body, and am at the point of doing the (separate) collars.  I've got about half the first collar done, so I may be able to finish this weekend, if I can keep from getting further distracted!  I'll need some buttons though, which probably requires another trip to the fabric store.  Uh-oh!

J. Crew Penelope Mary Janes

I'm wearing my "PMJs," as they are known among a certain sector of Gleeks.  These babies have only ever been worn for FSK.  That's right - I have never worn them out in the wide world.  I love them though.  I bought them when they were in the store, years ago, but I believe they have become quite the sought-after item now.  Here's another peek:

PMJs

I actually sort of wish I had bought the blue/red combo - one of the reasons I've never worn these is that I have a hard time figuring out what to pair them with.

OK, now I'm just teasing you.

And here are some nail pix.  I put on Zoya Heather last night:

A really lovely color.  Zoya lists this as a 3 on their opacity scale of 1 to 5, but I'd call it a 4 myself.  I was expecting it to be sheerer.  This is only two coats.  It was a little tricky to apply, but evened itself out with the second coat.

Today I added some Konad:

I'm dubbing this "Fredericks of Hollywood."

This is Konad plates m57 (fishnet) and m71 (wallpaper).  I'd seen a few other bloggers do this look, and I liked it and wanted to try it.  It's one of the reasons I bought the m71 plate, although it has lots of great designs I see myself using.  I stamped with Sinful Black on Black, and boy, was clean-up a hassle.  I still haven't gotten off all the residue around my cuticles, and I killed one of my brushes trying to get it off.

I'm sure you've figured out by now that the shoes and nails are all a ploy to distract readers from the lack of tangible knitting content  . . .

Bamboo.

I'm really thrilled with this mani, but my photos don't do it justice:

Here's what I did:  I started with Essie First Base basecoat, then did one coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White.  Then I added one thick coat of Essie Topless and Barefoot, followed by one coat of Seche Vite. The white polish under the nude made it nice and opaque - a trick I don't often take time for, but which is actually a time saver!  After letting all this set for about ten minutes, I stamped on the bamboo design from Konad plate m66 using Sinful Black on Black, the topped it with a coat of Essie Good to Go.

Leopard and Lace

An unlikely, yet rather charming combination:

Essie Cute as a Button
Sinful Colors Snow Me White
Konad plate m57

I've been trying to decide if I need to buy the Konad Special Polish in black and white.  I read somewhere that Sinful Colors are good for stamping, and I've had varied success with the white, but the black seems to work pretty well.  This one looks just OK, as you can see in the close-up picture:

The color is slightly splotchy, but the overall design is readable.

Any thoughts on KSPs versus other polishes for stamping, especially in black and white?