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 :)

Reddit Challenge - Green

I'm sure I could have done something fancy with this one, but I wanted to do a plain colour.

This is Rimmel Rags to Riches.

A friend gave this one to me a couple of months ago, and when I saw there was a green challenge coming up, I knew I wanted to use this one.
It is a light metallic silvery green. I used three coats to get coverage that I was satisfied with (you could probably stop at 2, but in case you hadn't noticed by now, I like my polish very opaque). each coat dried very quickly.

In other news ... I got back from two weeks in England yesterday!
No, I didn't make the last two posts from there - I did the manicures before I left and scheduled the posts.
Later this week, I'll show you my nails for the trip along with some highlights from the trip!

Reddit Challenge - Delicate Print

I knew this one called for stamping, so I went through all my stamp plates, and finally settled on something lacy.

I started off with three coats of Revlon Nude Beige, then stamped on the diagonal lace pattern from Bundle Monster plate BM-323 using Sinful Colors Snow Me White

Pretty, simple and delicate!

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by Colour

I have really liked blue lately, so I figured, why not choose blue for this challenge?

I started with two coats of Ardene's Elektronika - a very pretty dark blue creme that I've used quite a bit. I used this as a base for the star of this manicure ...
Color Club Total Mystery - a sheer blue base with a blue-purple shimmer. I'd put this as a subtle duochrome - you can see it in the bottle, and you can sometimes see it on your fingers. I like it a lot, it's really pretty. I wish I could get better photos of it.

Reddit Challenge - Half-Moon or Border

The challenge had a choice for this one, and I chose border - half-moons can be really nice, but I had something specific in mind for Canada Day, and the border fit better.

On each finger I did two coats of OPI's Nice Color Eh? - I used this one for last year's Canada Day manicure
Over top of that, I did two coats of Sinful Colors Snow Me White, leaving a border around the top and sides of my nails. I considered closing off the bottom with a strip of Nice Color Eh?, but thought it looked nice without it.
After that was all dry, I stamped on some maple leaves from Bundle Monster plate BM04 (also used last year). Since the design is 3 maple leaves stacked on top of each other, I used the largest one for my thumb, and the mid-sized one for the rest of my fingers.
Unfortunately, I mucked up my pinky after applying topcoat :(

Reddit Challenge - Summer and Galaxy

This is proving to be a busy few months!

I have two weeks for you again.

First up is Summer ... I actually received an email from Butter London with a video tutorial on how to achieve this look using their summer shades. I picked 3 similar shades from my collection and went at it. I'm not that great with my dotting tools yet ... but I'm sure I'll get better at it.
Super bright and super cute!

1 coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White
1 coat of Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine
Blue dots with an unnamed blue from an Ombre set I bought.
Pink dots are Sinful Colors Dream On

---

After I took off the above manicure, the nails on my left hand started to peel really, really badly, so I had to cut and file my nails down to nubbins ...

Next challenge is Galaxy - I wanted to do a single galaxy on all my fingers - I think it worked.

This was done using mostly Essence polishes, so I'll just list the shades.
2 coats of  Black is Back
Using a sponge, I dabbed on (in order) Choose Me!, Walk on the Wild Side, Let's Get Lost, Grey-t To Be Here, and Date in the Moonlight.
On top, I dabbed a bit of KiSS Big Break Blue #3 (glitter in a very sheer blue jelly base) from their blue Gradation kit.
Then I finished it off with Quo silver glitter from their "Nice" Christmas nail polish pack.

phew!

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by a Pattern

My "inspired by a pattern" manicure was actually inspired by a game!

My gaming group is just starting a Pathfinder game set in Ancient Greece, so I thought, why not do a Greek Key pattern on my nails.

2 coats of Sinful Colors White on White - I finally switched over to my new white. My Zoya one is getting a bit thick, and it's also an off-white, so I didn't think it would work as well with this one, especially since I was going to be using a white detail polish.

On my ring finger, I did one coat of It's So Easy Stripe Rite polish in blue.

For the white nails, I used the same striper polish to add the design
On the blue nail, I used my Claire's white striper polish.
I also used these for corrections where needed. Unfortunately, the Clair's polish has a single long hair that sticks out and I couldn't find my nail scissors to trim it down, so it was a bit messy. I'll have to fix that before I try another really detailed manicure.

I think it came out pretty well.

Reddit Challenge - Pastel

I bought some nail studs, so I wanted to do something with them, and came up with this little pattern:

I think it looks a little bit art deco -ish

Anyways, the colours I used were
1 coat of Zoya White (to create a base for the pastel)
2 coats of a miscellaneous pale aqua colour from an 'ombre' set I bought (I'll show the set at a later date)
1 coat of Essence Black is Back, applied with a nail art brush

I pressed in the studs while the polish was still soft, and then I topped it all off with a clear topcoat.

The first stud fell off after around 24 hours (and chores), and I picked the rest off the following day.

It was fun while it lasted!

Reddit Challenge - Text

I knew this one would be a stamping challenge, because I didn't want to do another newspaper manicure just yet.

I used 1 coat of Sinful Colors Rain Storm - I really love this blue. It's got a slight grey tone to it, and the polish is perfect in a single coat.

I used my Zoya white and Bundle Monster plate BM-311 to add the ampersands.
BM-311 has stamping images with numbers, a love letter, "love" written in different fonts and then the ampersands. I figured having little &&&& all over my fingers would be cute.

Next week's challenge is Pastel.
I've been a bit tardy with my posts lately, but that's mostly because work has been wearing me out and we've barely been home. I've always had something on my nails, but haven't had a chance to get nice photos of the manicures.

Reddit Challenge - Yellow

Ok, something simple this week.
I actually have several yellow polishes. This is a bit surprising, because I really am not a big fan of yellow.
They're all different too - pastel creme, scented bright yellow creme, sheer super shimmery yellow and opaque slightly shimmery yellow.

I used my opaque, slightly shimmery yellow for this one - Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine
Since yellows can be difficult to apply, I started with a coat of Zoya White. After the white was dry, I applied a generous coat of the Essence polish. I really like this one. I probably could have gone with two coats, but one worked.

After the yellow was dry, I topped it off with a coat of China Glaze Whirled Away.
One of the many popular multi-sized black and white matte glitters ("matte glitter meaning it's not metallic - it's still shiny though ...)

I had a bit of an issue with this one. It might have been that I put on Whirled Away too thick, or I put on Out The Door (quick dry topcoat) before everything was dry enough, but I got bubbles. You can see them in the photo.

When I removed the manicure, You could really tell it went all the way through the polish!

The rest of the manicure came off really easily with the foil method.

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by Food

I was sorting through ideas for food related manicures, and settled on watermelon.
This is another super easy and cute manicure you can do.

1 coat Wet n Wild Lavender.

1 coat Sally Hansen HD Digital - Like the other Sally Hansen HD polishes, this is a sheer shimmery polish. Digital is a hot pink.

1 coat Color Club Green Scene for the french tip - this is a very pretty bright minty green. I got a mini bottle on clearance at a beauty supply store.

Seeds were added using Essence Black is Back and the small end of the Essence dotting tool.

I know I said way at the beginning that I didn't want to spend the money on dotting tools, but at $2.50, I figured I would give this one a try. It's not bad. I still say you can get the same effect with other tools, but it does what it's supposed to (I actually used it for painting something not-nail-related before I used it on my nails.)

My friend actually did a watermelon manicure as well - we were talking about the next thing we wanted to do, and we both said watermelon! The green on hers is up the side of her nail - super cute!

Next week's theme is Yellow. I'm going to go with something pretty simple.

Reddit Challenge - Animal Print

I grabbed another clearance polish a while back, this time from a salon. China Glaze Desert Sun. It's a lovely light orange-brown shade.

When I saw an Animal Print challenge was coming up, I knew I wanted to do freehand leopard print, because I had never done it before.

I also didn't just want to do plain leopard print.
I liked this tutorial, but didn't want to recreate it exactly, so I improvised and modified.

First, I started with two coats of Desert Sun near my cuticles. I didn't do my whole nail with it, because I didn't want to wait for too many layers to dry.

Then, I went over it with two coats of Essence Nude It!, leaving the Desert Sun visible to create a ruffian.

Once that was dry, I used Desert Sun to create little blobby dots all over the Nude It!.

Finally, I used  It's So Easy Stripe Rite Black to finish off the leopard print.

Normally, I'm not a big fan of animal prints, but I really like how this one came out!

Two Weeks of Reddit Challenges

I'm on a deadline for a couple of craft projects so it's difficult to fit fancy nail art in as well.

Sorry I've been a bit behind!

Also, I wanted to share that my favourite nail blogger (and fellow Canadian) Kayla Shevonne is doing a nail polish giveaway sponsored by Butter London Canada. Today is the last day - go enter!

**** Giveaway ****

This post has two weeks worth of challenges in it, just so I can focus on getting my other projects done.

---

First up, this last week's challenge was "Inspired by a Flag"

I chose the Union Flag (or Union Jack), but I also wanted to show what flags were used to create the Union Flag ...

It's a little wobbly because it was all done freehand with normal sized nail polish brushes. I really need to get a striper brush.

Thumb: Union Flag

Index: Flag of England - St. George's Cross

Middle: Flag of Scotland - St. Andrew's Cross (sorry, I didn't have an appropriate blue, it's supposed to be an azure blue background)

Ring: St. Patrick's Cross. From what I understand, this one is frequently used by the government to represent Northern Ireland. Check out Wikipedia for some information on Flag disputes in Northern Ireland.

I just used the blue on my pinky to tie everything together.

Colours Used:

Blue - Ardene Elektronika

White - Zoya (colour unknown)

Red - Essence Flame Fatal

---

This coming week's manicure is "Flowers"

I settled on daisies.

Two coats of Essence Wake Up!
Then I used my Claire's white detail polish to create the daisy and added a dot of  Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine for the centres.

Reddit Challenge - Grey

This weeks's challenge was pretty open: Grey

I decided to keep it simple and subtle.

2 coats of Avon Concrete (matte polish)
French tips done in Color Club Wild Orchid
I used a top coat to make it shiny, because I didn't like the matte for this manicure.

I love how well the colours matched. Wild Orchid does have a slight purple shine to it in some light, but for the most part, this was a very, very subtle french tip.

Next week's challenge is Inspired by a Flag. I had such a hard time with this one last time I did it, but I think I have something in mind this time.

Reddit Challenge - Stripes

This week is stripes - they are probably some of the easiest nail art you can do!

I wasn't really sure what to do, so I just grabbed some colours, tried a couple of things and finally settled on this:

Two coats of Color Club Wild Orchid - a medium grey with a pink-ish shimmer. In sunlight this polish looks purple. It's really pretty! The first coat was a little patchy, but the second coat fixed it right up.

Off to one side, I did a single thick stripe of Essence Fortune Cookie from their Cherry Blossom line. It's kind of a mustard yellow with a very slight simmer to it. I had to do two coats to get good coverage over the grey.

Then I outlined the yellow stripe using my Stripe Rite black polish. I didn't think it was quite done, so I added a stripe down the middle of the yellow as well.

I keep thinking it looks like a street.

Reddit Challenge - Inspired by a Tutorial

It took me a while to find one, but I finally settled on this Hello Kitty tutorial by Kayla Shevonne

I used Wet n Wild Lavender as my base
Dots were added using Sinful Colors Fusion Neon

Hello Kitty's shape was painted on using Claire's white detail polish
The nose was Essence Wanna Be Your Sunshine, and the eyes and whiskers were It's So Easy black Stripe Rite polish.
The bow is from the Claire's Girly Fimo Wheel.

Reddit Challenge - Violet

This week's challenge is Violet. I wasn't sure if I wanted to just do purple or actually violet flowers on my nails.
I seem to be coming down with something, so I'm tired and I decided on purple nails with some floral stamping ...

I used two coats of Ardene's Stereo Love - a lilac not-quite-jelly not-quite-creme. It's thick but sheer on the first coat, and the second coat makes it opaque, but it has an odd ... depth (?) to it. I like it.

After that was thoroughly dry (and Ardene's polish takes ages to dry), I used my Claire's white detail polish and Bundle Monster plate BM10 to stamp on some little white flowers.

Since the polish is lilac and not violet, I'll use the excuse that the flowers are supposed to be Canadian white violets ... haha

I'm going to try and do a second manicure this week, but we'll see how I'm feeling.
Next week's challenge is "Inspired by a tutorial"
I've posted every tutorial I wanted to try so far ... so I'm going to have to go in search of a new one!

Reddit Challenge - Spring

I've been MIA this last week, because my work schedule has been so weird that I haven't had much time to do anything, let alone my nails.

I managed to squeeze out some time to do the challenge this week. The theme is Spring, and as soon as I saw that, I knew which manicure I wanted to do.

Cherry Blossoms!

i

I used this tutorial from Nails by Kayla Shevone, and it was really easy!

I started with a base coat of Fascino Blue and then went over it with two coats of Sinful Colors Mint Apple.

Once that was dry, I used my Quo by ORLY striper polish in Black to draw the branches. I didn't do anything specific, I just kind of placed them wherever looked good.

After that, I used my Claire's detail polish in white to create the flowers. This polish has both a striper brush and a 'pen' tip, so I could do the dots. I did the dots one by one, because when I tried to do groups of three, the polish flowed into itself and created a blob - so, I did single dots where I wanted to place the flowers on each finger, then went back and did the second dot for each flower on each finger, then the third..

Finally, I dripped a bit of Sally Hansen Pink Blink and Avon Mocha (which is pink ... ??) onto a bit of plastic and used a bent bobby pin to dot those colours over top of the white.

Everyone keeps asking me if they are nail stickers.
The next question is "how much time do you spend doing that!?"
Usually about an hour from removal to final topcoat.

Oh, and bonus kitty legs in the background of the photo - she was sleeping there, but as soon as I brought out the camera, she got up. She does it every time.

Reddit Challenge - Jelly Sandwich

This week's challenge is a "Jelly Sandwich"

Sounds kind of silly, but here is how it works:

You take a sheer pigmented nail polish that goes on without streaks (a "jelly polish"), apply one or two coats. Then you apply a coat of glitter. Apply another coat of the jelly polish over top.

I wanted mine to be a bit more opaque, so I used a creme polish as my first layer. I guess it's not a true jelly sandwich, but it's still pretty.

I started with two coats of my Zoya White.

For the glitter layer, I chose Claire's Scented polish in Sugar Cookie. This is from their holiday set, which I managed to get on sale. Sugar Cookie is a clear yellow tinted polish (not thick enough to be a jelly, but the yellow is strong enough to tint whatever you use as an under coat - I was not expecting this, but it turned out nicely!) with multi-coloured glitter in two different sizes.

For the top jelly layer, I used two coats of Sally Hansen Polar Bare, which is a sheer white. This toned down the yellow, making this manicure a nice creamy colour.

The scent from the glitter coat still comes through the two layers of the jelly polish and the topcoat! I couldn't imagine how strong it would be if I just left it on it's own. It smells a little sweet, which is nice.

Everyone has been comparing this to Easter eggs - I might have to do it again when easter rolls around, but instead, use pastel creme polishes as the base!

Reddit Challenge - Shooting Star French

The challenge theme this week was French manicure.
After I did my Valentine's French manicure, I thought it would be fun to use little jewels to do shooting stars as a French mani.

Just like last week, I used Essence Sweet as Candy on my whole nail, then painted French tips on with Avon Licorice.

I used my It's So Easy Stripe Rite turquoise polish to draw some lines on top of the black.

Then I added some little gems - I had purple and red stars, so I went with purple.

Finished it off with a thick coat of topcoat to keep the gems on.

I think it's super cute - I want to find a red or purple striper polish and do it again.
The gems started popping off my left hand the next day, and lasted about 3 days before I picked them all off.

I've got an attempt at a tutorial I saw to show you later in the week!
Next week's challenge is a "Jelly Sandwich"