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 - 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 - 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"

Black and Pink French

I tried the purple/green duochrome comparison, but my house is too dark and the skies were too gray to take photos, so I'll save it for another day when I can take photos in sunlight.

So, I present to you instead, a pink and black French manicure with bonus hearts!

I started with a base of Essence Sweet as Candy on my whole nail. As you can see, it's super sheer. It's a pale pink in the bottle, but just gives a slight milky look to the nail. Perfect for a French mani.

I did the tips of my nails with Avon Licorice and let that dry.

Then I used my Claire's detail polish in hot pink to add the stripes and hearts. The fun thing about this detail polish is that it not only has a super skinny brush for doing lines, it also has a 'pen' tip. It's a little metal tube that the polish flows through when you squeeze the bottle.

To do the hearts, I squeezed one drop on my nail and let it dry, then I squeezed another drop out right next to that one and dragged the polish down and back up to create the bottom of the heart.

I think If I were to do it again, I'd do the heart in two layers - a black layer and then the pink layer over top, so it stands out more.

Next week's challenge is actually also a French manicure - I've got something in mind and I hope it works!

Christmas Haul

So, of course I asked for nail polish for Christmas ... here's what I got:

My sister-in law bought me:
It's So Easy Stripe Rite polishes in turquoise, blue, black and hot pink
Nail Bliss spiderweb nail stickers
Cina nail art pen in white

I did this manicure while we were opening presents:

My mom bought me a ton of polish - I asked her for the whole Essence collection (since it's pretty inexpensive). She wasn't able to find many of the new ones - I guess her Shopper's got all the old stock - but she bought me all of the old ones she could find, plus more!

Essence new collection:
110 Modern Romance (shimmery peach)
128 Let's Get Lost (bright blue)

Essence old collection:
04 Space Queen (iridescent glitter)
05 Sweet as Candy (sheer pink)
26 Break Through (purple with a slight hint of gold shimmer)
34 Walk of Fame (purple-brown-grey)
38 Choose Me! (teal glitter)
39 Lime Up (x2)
43 Where is the Party? (purple/green duochrome)
46 Wake Up! (traffic cone orange)
59 Black is Back (x2)
68 High Spirits (olive green / gold)
70 Nude It (brownish nude)
75 Gleam in Blue (shimmery light blue)
83 Luxury Secret (pewter?)
95 Wanna Be Your Sunshine (shimmery yellow)

Sally Hansen HD polishes (just the shimmery ones, not the duochromes):
Digital (hot pink)
Blu (um ... blue)
Pixel Pretty (turquoise)
Three D (orange)
Lite (yellow)

Sinful Colors neon mini polish collection, which comes with Dream On (fuchsia) Pink (derp), Irish Green, Neon Melon (surprisingly, yellow) and Fusion Neon (a bubblegum pink)


My husband bought me the Bundle Monster stamping plates 2012 Collection.
I didn't take a photo, but he even tagged the package "To: B2" haha!
I'm just trying to figure out which image to use for my nails right now.

Reddit Challenge - Rainbow

I've wanted to do a rainbow water marble for a while, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity.

Except, I didn't want to do it on every finger. I thought, why not do water marble tips?

A few tries and lots of nail polish remover later ...

2 coats OPI Black Onyx on each finger, except my ring finger. Then I taped off the tip and painted on a coat of Zoya White.

2 coats Zoya White on my ring finger.

Water marble: 

1 drop Zoya White, 

1 drop Wet'n'Wild Red, 

1 drop Sally Hansen Sun Kissed

1 drop Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow

1 drop Claire's Scented Lime

1 drop Ardene's Electrified

1 drop Essence Break Through

Swirl and dip!

For my ring fingers, I taped off around the edge of my nail to help cleanup and dipped the whole thing.

While my other fingers were still taped from the white, I dipped them 2 fingers at a time (to save time and polish). I did my index and middle finger, then my thumb and pinkie. 

I did not wrap the tape all the way around, so there was a LOT of clean up on those ones.

The photo shows some spots that I missed on cleanup - darn it - there was nail polish all over my hands.

I think it looks really neat! I don't think I'd do it again with that many colours, but if I was to do a water marble with 3 or 4 colours, just doing the tips would work really well.

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

52 Week Nail Challenge - Bows Mani

Trimmed my nails down and used a cuticle remover gel, moisturized and finished off with a cuticle oil. Left it all to soak in for a couple of hours, and then manicure time!

As I said last week, I'm not very girly, so flowers one week and bows the next is not for me!
However, I found a cute way to avoid girly bows:

The Tuxedo Manicure! (inspired by Zooey Deschanel)

Three coats of a white Zoya polish - I don't know which one it is - it's the only Zoya I own, there are no labels and it's an off-white.
I honestly don't like it - I find it to be a very 'fragile' polish. It rubs off so easily until you put a topcoat on it.

Claire's black detail polish for the design bow and the tip.
I half followed the tutorial at Nail Art 101. I found it easier (and faster) to do an "X" on each nail instead of "> <" and then adding a dot in the middle.

OPI Black Onyx for the 'buttons'
The detail brush from the Claire's polish was too fine and long to make nice round dots (and the 'pen' applicator clogged long ago), so I needed to freehand the 'buttons'.
To create a disposable palette, I put a bit of tape on the lid of a body butter pot (the closest flat thing I had), then I added a blob of polish and used an old concealer brush to paint on the dots.
Once the polish is dry, peel the tape off the lid and toss it.

Color Club topcoat to finish it off.
Unfortunately, I got quite a bit of drag from the black. I really should have waited to add the topcoat, but I wanted to finish the manicure off quickly.

I'm very undecided on this manicure - it's super cute, but it really highlights the differences in the shapes of my nails. My index finger looks wide and squat compared to the others.

Next week's theme is a Fruit Manicure. I've seen lots of cute ideas already ^_^

52 Week Nail Challenge - Floral Manicure

I was trying to figure out what to do with this one - I'm not a very girly person, so flowers are not something I'd normally put on my nails.

I decided to go with something subtle, in colours I wouldn't mind:

1 coat OPI Fireflies - I love the shimmer on this one. It was actually my first OPI polish :)

Then I taped my nails and used OPI Stranger Tides, a beautiful pale grey-green creme, to give myself french tips.
For the tape, I just used regular scotch tape - I stuck it to the back of my hand and peeled it off (to reduce the stickyness a bit), and then cut each piece into 3 thin strips. No need to buy nail guides!

Once that was all dry, I used Sally Hansen Pink Blink and painted a blob on the outer corner of each of my thumb nails.
After that dried, I used my Claire's neon pink detail brush and painted on a few lines to turn the blobs into roses.
To finish it off, I used Sinful Colors Show Me the Way to make little leaves for the roses.

Topped it off with OPI topcoat, and voila!

Next week's challenge is a "Bows Mani"

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One of my co-workers and I wanted to get some nail stamping kits - we figured we would order a couple off of Amazon.com and then split them. Unfortunately, the vast majority of them won't ship to Canada, so we were a bit discouraged.
We were discussing nail stuff with another manicure buddy co-worker, who shared that she has a US P.O. box and said we could use it anytime we wanted!
So, we ordered this set by Cheeky, and this set by Shany. We also ordered a couple stamper/scraper sets from Cheeky.

Then, since it was my birthday, my mom gave me some money to cover my half of the order above, and so I could order the Bundle Monster set as well! (they ship to Canada, thankfully!)

I got the Bundle monster ones today, and the other two are at the P.O. box awaiting pickup. We'll be getting them in the next week or two.

I can't wait to try them!

^_^