Candy Corn and Sugar Skulls

First Halloween manicure of the month.

Not sure I'll do another one until Halloween itself - I just really wanted to try this one.

Candy corn is my favourite Halloween treat, and sugar skulls are very pretty.

I saw a whole manicure of sugar skulls dinner with different coloured fimo flowers, but I only have the yellow ones - so I figured they would go well with candy corn nails.

Then I saw a manicure that used OPI's spotted topcoat over orange, and thought it looked great. The polish was super limited, and I'm not sure if it was available in Canada at all, so I don't have it.
Thankfully, you can recreate this look by floating black polish on water (as if you were going to do a water marble) and then spritzing it with rubbing alcohol, before dipping your finger(s) in.

Polishes used:

Sinful Colors Snow Me White

essence wanna be your sunshine

NYC Pumpkin

OPI Black Onyx

essence tattoo nail art pen

Claire's fruit Fimo wheel - flowers

Valentine Mix

I'm pretty late posting this - but this is what I did for Valentine's Day:

We don't celebrate Valentine's Day - both TheHusband and I feel that romance should be spontaneous, not expected.
But It's a good excuse to do fun nail art, so yay!

Thumb, middle and Pinky finger all started with a base of Sinful Colors Snow Me White. Over top of that, I added two coats of Sally Hansen Digital (from their HD line from a few years ago). Digital is, as you can see, a hot pink. It's fully of shimmery frosty goodness. I'm not a big pink person, I was actually planning on using red for this manicure, but I hadn't used Digital yet, and I thought I should.

On my thumb, I used a dotting tool to create a pattern (from an image I saw on Reddit), and applied a gold heart charm.

On my middle finger, I used my trusty Claire's striping polishes to add racing stripes down the side of my nail.

On my pinky, I added random dots using a dotting tool - first in black, and then white over top.

For my index and ring fingers, I started with a base of OPI Black Onyx.

On my index finger, I applied a coat of Claire's High Maintenance - a mini polish that is a fuchsia jelly base filled with fuchsia glitter.

Finally, on my middle finger, I created a french tip using Sinful Colors Snow Me White, then applied two coats of Sally Hansen Digital. I cleaned up the line using the Claire's white striper, and applied a black heart jewel.

It was a bit time consuming (and I actually redid my middle finger - I had it completely different, but it didn't fit in at all), but I liked it for a couple of days :)

Let's Talk About Gwen Stefani

So, one thing I'm a fan of, that I don't talk much about, is No Doubt.

Loved them since Tragic Kingdom came out (I was 13!). After listening to that album to death, my cousin and I had to find their other albums that were available at the time (No Doubt, and Beacon Street Collection), and I've picked up every album since - including Gwen's two solo albums (

When I saw in the Sally Beauty flyer that Gwen Stefani teamed up with OPI to put out a line of polishes, I knew I needed to at least check it out. I went to a different local beauty supply store - one that actually supplies for salons, so the prices are MUCH better. I grabbed two bottles.

I painted all my nails with two coats of 4 In The Morning (a song from Gwen's second solo album, The Sweet Escape). It's a beautiful satin-finish black with a hint of shimmer to it. Satin finish isn't quite matte, and it's not a gloss. Unfortunately, you can't really use a topcoat with it, so I had some tip-wear within a few hours (cooking dinner and all that), but it didn't get too much worse over the next few days.

On my ring finger, I applied a coat of Lay Down That Base (missed opportunity to use "Underneath It All"?) - a special baecoat included with the next polish. I left an outline of the black.

After Lay Down That Base was dry, I applied two coats of Push & Shove (from No Doubt's latest album of the same name).
This is a special polish - it's an ultra shiny chrome silver. Back in the day, Sally Hansen released a line of chrome polishes. This is that but both better and worse.
The finish on it is amazing, super shiny and smooth. It does show every imperfection in your nail, and apparently, it doesn't work over other types of basecoats - maybe use a ridge-filler and then Lay Down That Base?
Anyways, it's also worse than Sally Hansen's old line, in that it's advertised as one-day wear. You aren't supposed to use a topcoat on it. Other bloggers seem to have had good luck with applying a topcoat, so next time I use this polish, I'm going to give it a shot.

The other shades are:
Love.Angel.Music.Baby - a satin finish gold
I Sing In Color - a dark oxblood shade
Hey Baby - a hot pink
In True Stefani Fashion - holo glitter. This one has square glitter!
Over And Over a Gwen - classic red - this one only comes in a box-set with nail studs and gems.

There is a mini box-set that includes Love.Angel.Music.Baby, I Sing In Color, Hey Baby, and 4 In The Morning - I may pick this up, but I kind of want the full size bottles. I just can't justify buying anything other than the satin finish gold, because I have something like all the other shades already.

Emerald Eve

I wanted to do something with a glittery feature nail, so I went looking at my glitter polishes, and saw one I hadn't used yet. I paired it with a complimentary shade for the rest of my nails.

I started with two coats of OPI Cuckoo For This Color - this was a gift from a friend with great taste - haha! It is a shimmery dark teal. I guess you could describe it as an emerald green with a hint of blue. I don't even know what to say other than that; it's just really pretty.

On my ring finger, I applied a coat of Hard Candy Emerald Eve. Hard Candy polishes always surprise me - they are with glitter. This polish has tiny round emerald green glitter and larger round holographic gold glitter. I applied a thick-ish coat, and then remembered something else about Hard Candy polishes ... they dry fast!

I applied two coats of topcoat to the glittery nail just to help smooth out the texture.

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by a Book

This was another tough one - I have a lot of trouble with imagery apparently.

I was going to just do Harry Potter, but it's been done so many times, I didn't want to end up with exactly the same thing as someone else.

Granted, this design does use 3 designs from other manicures, I haven't seen them all combined into one.

I give credit for this one to a co-worker. He found out I do my nails and have this blog, and when I told him that my next manicure was supposed to be inspired by a book he said,
"can I pick the book?"
and I replied,
"sure, why not?"

Without further ado - here is my Interview With The Vampire manicure:

I haven't read the book in ages, and I haven't seen the movie in ... well, probably longer, but I figured a vampire theme would be easy.

For my thumb, I did a coat of Sally Hansen's Burgundy Child from their No Chip 10 Day line (long discontinued), which I went over with a coat of OPI Comet Loves Cupid. I (for some unknown reason) don't actually have a proper vampy red. I went over the middle of that with OPI Black Onyx and used my Quo by ORLY black detail polish to even it out. Then I went over that with my Claire's White detail polish to create the teeth.
Burgundy Child is a very deep plum colour with a bit of shimmer. I really like it, but rarely wear it.

For my index finger, I did two coats of Zoya White and stamped on some roses from Bundle Monster plate BM-323 using Comet Loves Cupid and Burgundy Child. I was hoping it would swirl together, but it didn't at all. The Comet Loves Cupid was quite sheer over the white, so it came out almost pink. Oh well.

For my middle finger, I used 2 coats of Essence Modern Romance. I created vampire bites using a q-tip first dipped in Burgundy Child, then Comet Loves Cupid. I added black dots in the middle of the splotchy marks and then did blood drips (again with the burgundy then red over top)

For my ring finger, I did 2 coats of OPI Black Onyx and stamped on the diagonal lace pattern from Bundle Monster Plate BM-323 using my Claire's White detail polish (it's more opaque than the Zoya).

And finally, for my pinky I did two coats of Zoya White, then I scraped most of the polish off the brush of the Burgundy Child and dragged that over the tip, then I did the same for Comet Loves Cupid.

This was all rather time consuming, because I did all the base colours first, then decided to change the order of them, then I kept messing it up. Since it took so long, I gave up on my left hand and just painted them all black (except my pinky, which is the white with red streaks).

I really like each nail - I think the index finger would fit better with a deeper red, but it still looks good. If I was to do it again, instead of the roses, I might go for the theatre masks from Shany Plate SH02, to represent Louis and Claudia arriving at the Théâtre des Vampires.


Next week's theme is decal / transfer - looking forward to an easy week! (I'll probably jazz it up a little, but after this week, I need something easy!)

Glitter Polish and Revlon Selects

First up - my first Revlon Selects review!

I received Revlon's ColorStay Ultimate Suede Lipstick in Backstage - a burgundy shade.
I was happy to receive this colour - It's probably the one I would have bought.

Packaging: The lid is secure and the tube clicks a couple of times when twisting it. I've had a few lipsticks in the past that have popped open in my purse (yuck!) and some that have twisted up and smooshed in the lid, so I'm a fan of both of these features.
I store my lipstick upright in a box, so the clear lid is handy.

The lipstick applied very nicely - smooth and not quite sheer. I was a little worried that I would have to keep reapplying it all night.
After a few minutes, the lipstick set. Some longwear lipsticks dry out so much that you have to keep applying lip balm to prevent your lips from cracking. The Ultimate Suede was a bit dry, but I didn't feel like I had to do anything extra.

I wore it to my company Christmas party and am happy to say that it lasted through the entire night. I think I had it on for about 8 hours (through dinner, drinking, etc).
When I got home and wanted to remove it, I had some lip balm ready to soften it, but wanted to try just a tissue first. I was very surprised when it all came off with just a couple of swipes.

I think this is going to be my go-to lipstick from now on!

Unfortunately, I didn't take any after photos (I was too sleepy to think of it), but I've got another party on Friday, so I'll try to remember then.

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 Now for the nail polish!

Reddit challenge this week was "Glitter"
I decided that I was going to try the white glue basecoat to see how well it works for removal.

Some people put the glue in an old cleaned polish bottle, but I just put some onto a piece of scrap cardboard and painted it onto my nails with a brush. Once it was dry, I added my base colour - OPI Black Onyx - and my glitter - one coat of Wet n' Wild Rest in Pieces.
I really like this polish. I've seen a lot of reviewers put on multiple coats, so you end up with this sort of grey-red mess, but I think one coat over black shows how pretty this one is.

The glue removal method? I'll do it again! It worked so well - just peel the polish off from the cuticle and wash your hands well to remove any residue.

I only did my thumb, because I had to do my nails for my company Christmas party, and I didn't want to do a whole manicure just to take it off.
I'll share that manicure a little later - I've got another challenge and another party - so many manicures!

The next challenge is "Inspired by a Song"

Rainy Saturday Nails

I've wanted to try a cloud manicure for a while, and I figured that today would be a good day to do it.

Here is a tutorial - it's super easy!

I started with two coats of OPI Black Onyx. I need more of this. It's the best black I've ever had.

One coat of Mark. Trend Industrial - this is from a set of two mini polishes, the other is a faded purple. I'm not a big fan of these polishes, I've tried using them once before and they took forever to dry. I love the colour though.

One coat of Avon Matte Concrete. I used this one before for the Spun Sugar manicure. It's a bit thick, but otherwise, I really like it.

On top of the Concrete, I did a coat of Wet n Wild Hallucinate, an iridescent glitter.

I really like the way it came out.

Reddit Challenge - Black and White

I was wrong, Movember manicure is next week. :)
I was supposed to do a Remembrance day manicure, but to be honest, I didn't do anything on the 11th, let alone paint my nails. And now the moment has passed, so I'm not doing that one this time. Maybe next year?

So, black and white.
I wanted to do stamping, so I found an image that I thought would go well with the theme - houndstooth.



2 coats of Zoya White
Houndstooth from Cheeky stamping plate CH08 - stamped on with OPI Black.
1 coat of Sally Hansen Polar Bare over top.

The pattern smudged a bit, but I think it still looks pretty.

So ... next week is Movember (I promise) and the Reddit challenge is Saran Wrap.

52 Week / Reddit Challenge - Candy Corn

I combined the challenges again this week - Reddit was "orange" and I'm Simply Complex was "Halloween"

My index and ring fingers are two coats of Zoya White, then I added a coat of Sally Hansen Sun Kissed and finally Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow on the tips. My favourite Halloween treat - Candy Corn!

My thumb, middle finger and pinkie are a coat each of OPI Black Onyx, Joe Twilight (black with flakies - it's a little sheer, which is why I did the OPI first, but it was an awesome find at Superstore!), and finally Essie Shine of the Times (clear base with flakies). I love the green-orange colour shift.

Once that was all done, I added my GOSH Matte topcoat.

This is another one where I was in a rush, so I wasn't able to clean it up - I did it last minute before I had to start prepping for trick-or-treaters!

52 Week Challenges - Slime and Spiderwebs

The Reddit challenge this week is Gradient or Ombre.
The I'm Simply Complex challenge is Spiderwebs.

It's the week before Halloween, so I figured why not combine the two challenges?
I didn't do any cleanup on this one, because by the time I was finally finished, I was so frustrated with it, I just wanted to take the pictures and be done with it all.
I had to do it several times - due to bumps, colours not working properly together ... you name it - ugh.
I do love the manicure though!

For the Gradient portion, I decided to do a green syrup manicure.
I started with a coat of Wet n Wild Jade covering 3/4 of my nails.
I added a second coat about half-way down.
For the tip, I didn't think another coat of Jade would do it, so I used Sinful Colors Show Me The Way.
To blend it all together, I went over it with OPI Firefly
Then, to give it that extra Halloween "oomph" I used Wet n Wild's Glow in the Dark topcoat.

Once that was thoroughly dry, I stamped on a spiderweb using Bundle Monster plate BM13 and OPI Black Onyx.
I added a spider from the same plate on my thumb.

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by Reddit

I've actually only been on the nail polish board on Reddit, so this was a bit tough. I was going to go with the main colours of Reddit (blue orange white) and do something with that, maybe draw the alien.

Then, I volunteered to help someone out by taking a series of photographs of how I do my nails, step-by-step, including any sketches or inspriation.
Well, I figured this was good enough - it was a manicure I've been meaning to do, and had a sketch of (I never do that), but just never got around to it.
Reddit inspired me to go for it.

On my thumb and ring finger, 1 coat of OPI Black Onyx

Other fingers 2 coats of ORLY Rock The World - I really like this one, it's a wine colour with gold shimmer.

Then comes the detail ... using my Claire's white detail polish, I painted blocks and stripes on my thumb and ring finger, and large french tips on my other fingers.

I painted over most of the white with Clare's Scented Banana and ORLY Rock The world. Then I used QUO by ORLY Instant Artist Black and Claire's White detail polishes to clean up the design.

The design is actually inspired by something - a dress I think? I haven't been able to find it since I did the original sketch.

It was a lot of work, but it turned out well!
There are several layers in some spots, so I'm not sure how long it will be until this chips.

52 Week Challenge - Animal Print and Thanksgiving

Two challenges here... both from the old 52 Week Challenge

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When my friend and I split a couple of orders of stamping plates, I let her have all the animal print ones, because I'm not a huge fan, but I ended up with a zebra print stamp.

2 coats Zoya off-white
1 coat Sally Hansen Polar Bare

OPI Black Onyx used to stamp on the zebra print from Bundle Monster plate BM16

It was a little too plain, so I went in with Wet n Wild Lavender Creme (bright pink) and added a french tip.

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My husband's family celebrates Thanksgiving a little differently - they do hamburgers (not turkey burgers and thanksgiving fixings ... real hamburgers with all the fixings). It makes for a fun, relaxed Thanksgiving.
This year, his parents were in Africa, so we volunteered to host his sister and her family for dinner. It was a LOT of fun.

So, in honour of our strange Thanksgiving ... I did a hamburger feature nail.

I "cheated" and used acrylic paint because I don't have a tan nail polish.

I finally managed to get my hands on a bottle of Sinful Colors Cinderella - it's a gorgeous pale blue jelly with a pink/gold iridescent shimmer. So. Pretty. I think that this is one where, if I spot another bottle, I will buy it.
I decided to use it for this manicure, and it will be making a reappearance later this week for the Reddit Challenge Theme

Guest Manicure - Stormy!

This is a super busy week - I'm going to fall behind on my weekly challenge (I have two now - check out the links in the sidebar)

Anyways, to help me out, one of my friends, Manpreet, did a very pretty stormy manicure for my blog!

Without further ado ...

The base is a Sally Hansen black polish, the clouds were done using a Konad stamp (the stamp is actually cranberries), the lightning bolt was free-hand using a yellow OPI polish and the rain was done using an iridescent Wet n Wild glitter polish.

Love it Manpreet!

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In other news ... Here is how the nail strips turned out after a week - not bad! Just nail growth and some tip wear. I could have worn them longer, but I wanted to take them off because the edge that was at my cuticle kept catching on my hair.

I don't know if it was just these particular ones, but oy, what a pain in the butt to remove.
There is a yellow layer, and then a black layer. I held the cotton ball over top of the nail for a minute or two to soften the polish, then I pulled it off. The yellow polish came off, so then I had black squares - after scrubbing for a bit, it finally came off, but I had little black flakes around my fingers, and occasionally a little ball of adhesive.

At the price these things are, I don't know that I'd get them again - they are REALLY cute, but for the price of a bottle or two of polish you get one manicure. For people who are into nail art, but can't / don't want to do their own, they're a great option and I would highly recommend them ... for me? I don't really think so.
(bonus: if you have really short nails, cut the strips in half, and only use one pack - save the second pack for a second manicure later!)

52 Week Challenge - Patchwork

When I did a google search for patchwork manicures, two styles came up.
One that looks like a patchwork quilt, and another that just involves taping at angles.

I went with the quilt one and used the tutorial over at Kayla Shevonne's blog - easy to follow, great photos.

I skipped the white base step, because I was going to be doing greyed tones, and I didn't think it would help (if I were doing brights, I would definitely add it though)


I've been really bad about cleanup lately - this one is probably the worst! The black detail polish got everywhere (it was blobby and I accidentally got some on a finger, and it went downhill from there ...), so after spending the time getting that off and re-doing the ruined nails, I just really didn't want to spend any more time on it.
The topcoat caused the black to streak (worse on my other hand). Then, I bumped my middle finger on something and the polish rippled at the tip.

I love the look of this manicure, and it was super easy to do ... but this one was a bit disasterous.

I used my Claire's black detail polish and drew on the pattern (Kayla's worked really well, so I went with it - eep!). Since my nails are short, the patches weren't very square.
I elected to go with just my thumb and ring finger - I really seem to like doing the feature nails lately - don't know what it is!

The colours I chose were OPI You Don't Know Jacques, OPI Steady as She Rose and OPI Stranger Tides. I think the You Don't Know Jacques was a little too dark, so if I were to do this combo again, I'd pick a lighter colour. It still worked though - the greyed down colours are all pretty together.
I dabbed the polishes into the patchwork pattern, working one colour at a time. I ended up doing two coats of each.

Once the patches were dry, I went back in with the detail polish, re-drew the black lines and added "stitches"

For my other fingers, I just did two - three coats of each polish (index was Stranger Tides, middle was Steady as She Rose and pinkie was You Don't Know Jacques)

This week was actually supposed to be "Remember September 11th" or somesuch thing. I really couldn't bring myself to do something like that on my nails because a) I'm Canadian and b) I think it's a bit tacky.

Next week is magnetic or metallic ... I think I'm going to go with magnetic since I haven't done one in a while. Maybe I'll add metallic accents? We'll see!

Another double post

I really wasn't sure how the Galaxy manicure would turn out, and I've been busy this week, so I didn't actually get a chance to sit down and make an attempt until tonight.

I decided that while I was at it, I would do the "bling" manicure for next week. More on that later.

I could not believe how easy this was to do and how pretty it came out:

2 coats OPI Black Onyx.

Then I put a bit of Sally Hansen Pink Blink onto a palette (my temporary tape-on-a-lid palette!), and used the edge of a makeup sponge to dab it on in patches
I did the same thing with Sally Hansen HD in Laser - only this time I did it over my whole nail. It's too sheer to show up much, but it toned down the pink very nicely and added a nice bit of shimmer.
I went in with OPI Nice Color Eh? and dabbed it over the pink in smaller patches.
I finished the sponging off with Sally Hansen Heat Flash in the very centre of each nebula.

After it was sufficiently dry, I dabbed on a bit of Claire's Glitter topcoat for the stars.
Then topocat to smooth it all out and voila!

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Now ... the "bling" manicure. I bloody hate that word, and I'm really not into having raised things on my nails - so I skipped adding jewels.
Unfortunately, you can't see the sparkly / iridescence in the photo at all, but here's what I did instead:

I painted all my nails with Sally Hansen Heat Flash - 3 coats on all my nails except my ring finger, which received 2.

I obtained a few tiny vials of hex glitter when buying some cheap-o clear polish to use for a project. One of them is an iridescent coral, so I thought I'd try placing it on my ring finger to look like scales.

Heat Flash is a quick dry, so I didn't expect to get anywhere with that. I did a small amount of topcoat at the very top of my nail, and planned to do further small blotches as I placed the glitter. Well, the glitter was too small, the topcoat was drying too quickly,and I was too impatient, so I just slapped on some topcoat and dumped the glitter on top. I really knew I shouldn't have done that, but thankfully I didn't get much glitter outside of my workspace, and it was fairly easy to clean up. I honestly think I'm just going to chuck the rest of it in the garbage.

Anyways, I added one more coat of topcoat, then I went over it all with Essie Luxeffects Shine of the Times.
It resulted in a super shimmery iridescent feature nail.
Good Enough.


And yes, I totally cheated and have a galaxy manicure on my right-hand and the neon glitter on my left-hand.
Hah!

52 Week Challenge - Water Marble

I actually gave my nails an entire week to breathe ... sort of.
I wore the black rock star manicure for a few days, and took it off on Monday when I posted the blog entry.
I used my Revlon Calcium Gel Nail Hardener to see if it would make any difference. My nails didn't peel any further, so I guess that's good.

Anyways, super early post!

I spent a long time looking at my collection of polishes to find which colours I wanted to use on my water marble.

Here is what I went with:
OPI Steady as She Rose - dusty pink with a hint of lavender. I used it with my needle marble manicure.
Icing by Claires KTDID - metallic purple / maroon shade.
Sally Hansen Golden-I - gold glitter polish (super dense)

I started with 2 coats of Steady as She Rose over top of my Quo by ORLY rubberized basecoat.

I used Brita filtered water brought to room temperature - I had grabbed a couple of those little paper cups they give you at takeout sushi places for your soy sauce.
I taped my fingers around my nails so cleanup would be easier.

Into the water, I added 1 drop of my Zoya white - just to get started without wasting my colours.
Then I did 1 drop each Steady as She Rose, KTDID, Golden-I, and a final drop of Steady as She Rose to create a nice "bullseye"

I dragged a toothpick through the polish to create a design.
Once I was happy with the design, I lowered my finger in, and used a toothpick to pick up all the excess polish on the surface of the water.

I smudged my pinky a bit, which sucks, but I didn't really want to take it off and do it again. Cleanup was a bit of a pain - the gold is not easy to get off (you can see it's still a little messy), but I couldn't imagine what it would be like without the tape!

Pretty and surprisingly easy! I don't think I'd do it often, but for a special occasion? Definitely.

52 Week Challenge - Rock Star Manicure

Apparently to do a "rock star manicure", you do a clear coat and while it's still wet, you pour loose glitter all over it, then seal.
Yeah ... no. I don't have any loose glitter in the house, and I'm not about to go buy some. That stuff is evil.

Here is what I did instead:

First, I filed my nails pretty short, because I like short nails with dark polish. I was going to buff them too, but then I realized when I try to take this manicure off, I'm just going to dry out my nails and make them rough, so I'll buff them before the next one.

I used Quo by ORLY Strong Bond rubberized basecoat - I'm hoping this creates enough of a barrier that the glitter is easier to remove.

Two coats OPI Black Onyx.
One Coat Claire's Glitter Topcoat. I used this one for my glitter syrup mani. It was hell to remove.
Then, I dabbed on some of the black & holo polish from the Claire's Precious Metals set. You can't see the black glitter very well, but that's ok.

Cleanup was surprisingly easy - the only "tough part" was a few pieces of the large glitter that pooled at the edge of my nail - I used a bit of remover to soften it, then lifted it off with a cuticle trimmer.

I wasn't going to put a topcoat on, because the Claire's Precious Metals polish is pretty thick, and I didn't think another layer would be smart. It dried quickly and solidly enough that I figured I could chance it. I went with my Color Club topcoat, because it's not too thick and it dries quickly. I'm glad I did, because it brightened it up a lot.

I really like the holo glitter polish. I'm glad I didn't try the loose glitter ... I don't think it would have turned out as nice.

After sharing last week's blog post on Facebook, my mom suggested a Jem and the Holograms manicure for the rock star theme - since glitter is so hard to remove, I didn't want to do another full manicure, so I did some bonus Jem inspired polish on my thumb (pardon my dry cuticles, I *just* finished removing the black):

Started with Sally Hansen Insta Dri Pink Blink - 1 coat, just to give a bit of a base.
2 coats of Claire's High Maintenance mini polish. It's a sheer pink base with pink glitter.
Then I dabbed on my Claire's Precious Metals holo polish.


Next week is a Water Marble manicure. They're so pretty, and they look easy enough, but for some reason, I'm afraid to try them!

52 Week Challenge - Gradient Nails

This week is a gradient manicure - there are three main styles:
The first is the ombre, which I did about a month ago - a different shade on each nail creating a gradient across the hand. The other two are very similar - it involves creating a gradient on each nail. The syrup mani, which involves multiple layers of a sheer polish and the sponged or layered gradient like what I did for my Earth appreciation mani.

I decided to do a layered gradient - I tried sponging, but it didn't quite take with the nail polish I chose.
It was really hard to get a good photo of this one - I took about a dozen in different light.

I chose these colours, because I wanted to wear the manicure to a steampunk concert. I dressed up, and I figured why not have my nails match my look?

Started with Color Club Boho Mojo, 2 coats for the base - I've used this one before in a couple of manicures - obviously I like it!

I painted and sponged on OPI Shim-merry Chic from their Christmas '09 collection - I did this in two thin layers, one starting lower than the other to help the gradient along. I like this one - it's a sheer brown with red-green flakies and blue, green and orange iridescent glitter - fun! I grabbed the 'mini merries' set on sale after Christmas. I wish I had realized how pretty Shim-merry Chic was at the time so I could have picked up a full size bottle. Oh well! I'll just have to use my mini sparingly!

Then I finished off the tips with Color Club Nouveau Vintage, which is a nice shimmery bronze with some red-green in it as well.

Next week's is a Rock Star manicure ... not too sure what makes a manicure a "rock star" one ... hopefully google is my friend!

52 Week Challenge - Canada Day

I really meant to post this at the end of last week, but I've been so busy lately.

So, like I said at the end of last week's post - this was supposed to be a 4th of July manicure, but being a Canadian, I'd like to be a bit patriotic and do a manicure for Canada Day.

I grabbed the one colour I knew I HAD to use ...
OPI Nice Color Eh? (hah, they could have made the effort to spell it "colour") It's from their 2004 Canada collection. I believe it was added to their regular connection, and was discontinued sometime in 2010. I found it for $4 at a sidewalk sale in a mall a couple of years ago, and this is actually the first time I've worn it! (I don't normally do that)

The polish is a pale red / dark pink with a shimmer - it really is a nice colour!
I think my dark red carpet influenced my camera to pick up the red. In most light, it was a dark pink.
I painted it on all but my ring finger using 2 coats.

On my ring finger, I used my mystery Zoya off-white.
3 coats for nice non-streaky coverage.

Once that was thoroughly dry, I stamped a maple leaf  from Bundle Monster plate BM04 over the white using the Nice Color Eh?
The plate image is actually 3 maple leaves stacked on top of each other - small, medium, large, top to bottom. I just used the largest bottom leaf.

Next week's manicure is a gradient manicure ... trying to decide on colours!
And I'm going to try to get it posted earlier this time.

52 Week Challenge - Two weeks at once!

Yep, I'm a bit late posting.
I was super busy last week, so I didn't actually finish the manicure until Thursday afternoon. When that manicure didn't work, I decided to take it off and do this week's manicure on Friday morning.
Then I didn't get a chance to update, because we took in my sister's cat, and had to spend a lot of time helping her adjust.

But, anyways ... here are two manicures for you to (hopefully) enjoy:

Last post, I said that the next manicure was rainbow/pride and according to the list, it is.
I thought about it a bit and ... well, pride parade and festival (at least here in Vancouver) isn't until August 5th, so I swapped the August 5th manicure into the June 17th spot.

So, this week I'm doing a needle marble manicure.
Here goes nothing!

2 coats Steady as She Rose - I'm not much for pinks, but I really like this one, it's a pale dusty rose with a hint of lilac. I let it dry very thoroughly.
One finger at a time, painted the top half of my nail with You Don't Know Jacques and then - while it's still wet, working quickly - the bottom half with Steady as She Rose.
Again ... while it's still wet, working quickly and carefully, use a pin to drag the two colours into each other and create swirls.
Once it's all dry, apply topcoat to smooth it out and protect it.

My layers were too thick, and I got some bubbling. They took hours to dry - 3 hours after topcoat, I ended up peeling the still soft polish off of two nails.

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Onto the next manicure ... Neon
Neon polish is incredibly hard to photograph - you never get true colour. I haven't tweaked this at all in photoshop, but I took it in a very well-lit area (hence the different carpet - I was at work, in front of giant windows)

This is the summer trend this year. I have the Sally Hansen Instra-Dri limited edition colour Heat Flash.
I think I'd call it a neon coral - it's a very red orange.

Oh Insta-Dri ... I don't much care for the formula or the brush.
The brush and stem are flat, so you can't wipe off excess polish very easily. The polish itself is thick, but it goes on streaky. I used 2 coats, but I could have easily gone with 3.
The best thing about this polish? I haven't used a topcoat, and while it has started to chip, it has a super high shine.

I added black crackle to my ring finger just to break up the brightness a little (random dollar store brand).
It's cute! I don't know that I'd jump on the neon trend and get more shades, but this one is nice.

Next week's manicure was supposed to be 4th of July, but since I'm Canadian, I'll be doing a Canada Day manicure.