Catching Up

Since I got back from the UK, work has been crazy, with terrible shifts, and when I'm not at work, we've been going out a lot.
It's just been a crazy summer, and I haven't been able to keep up here.

I've still been doing my nails though - so here's what I've got:

Polka Dots:

This was a base of Sinful Colors Rain Storm
Dots were done using two sizes of a dotting tool and China Glaze Holographic in Cosmic Dust and Galactic Grey.
This was for the Reddit challenge "Polka Dots"

Neon:

I started with Sinful Colors Snow Me White to give the neon a solid base.
Three coats of Ardene Neon Yellow - this is a highlighter yellow. It's ridiculously bright.
Over top of that, I dabbed Icing By Claire's Shredded. This one is pretty neat, it's not really what I'd call flakies, but it's shredded black glitter. The clear base has a slight blue tint to it, so it unfortunately changed the yellow a bit. I tried to do a sort of gradient with it, and reversed the gradient on my ring finger.
This was for the Reddit challenge "Neon"

Secret Periwinkle:

oops! this was my 100th manicure on here.
um ... I'll try to remember to do something fancy for 150?
I bought China Glaze Secret Periwinkle, because periwinkle is an awesome colour. Not quite blue, a hint of lilac. This is a really nice polish - 2 coats. I will be wearing this often.

Green Mermaid:

Three coats of Wet n Wild Fast Dry Sage in the City.
For my ring finger, I poured out a small amount of hexagonal glitter on to a piece of tin foil, and added a dab of topcoat next to it (not fast dry!). I applied a coat of the same topcoat to my ring finger, and then used a toothpick dipped in the topcoat to pick up the glitter and applied it one-by-one to my nail. This didn't take as long as you'd think - but I don't know that I'd have the patience to do my whole hand. I had to apply two coats of a thick topcoat to seal it off, and even then, there was some texture.
This was also a giant pain in the butt to take off, even with the foil method.

Jeans:

My friend bought me a bottle of Maybelline Color Show Denim Dash - it's a pretty blue polish with fine silver glitter that dries matte. I used two coats for this manicure.
I added a stud to my ring finger, to look like the button, or the rivets on jeans.

Gorgeous Bling Bling:

In honour of the cooler weather these last few days, and inspired by the pumpkin body lotion I just bought from Bath and Body works, I decided I needed to use an autumn shade on my nails.
This colour is essence Gorgeous Bling Bling (what a terrible name!), but it really is a gorgeous colour. Rusty orange with teeny tiny orange-gold flakies.

phew. OK, I'll try to keep up with this a little better.

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!

Reddit Challenge - Decals

A nail blogger I've been reading for a few months - Rebecca Likes Nails - is having a 2-year blog birthday giveaway ... head on over and enter!!

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This one actually took me a couple of tries - I wasn't happy with either, but here's the one I'm sharing:

I started with two coats of Sally Hansen Heat Flash - a bright neon coral (it matches my site!)

On all but my ring finger, I topped it off with Icing By Claire's Rave Royalty - a gold/orange flakie (I'd say it's more like shards) that has the occasional flash of green. The polish is in a very sheer coral base, which does show if you put it on bare nails, but there is no way you could build it up to opaque. I had to dab the flakies on rather than use it like a normal polish, but I love it!

I added the decals to my ring finger. The decals I have are a little too thick and my nails are a little too curved, so they don't lie flat. They're cute though! I actually got them at a dollar store, so I guess I couldn't expect much.

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I bought a few things at Michael's craft store the other day, and I got a 40% coupon for a single item this week. I decided to go buy a Recollections 3 Drawer Organizer Cube also known in the online nail polish world as a "Melmer"  (It's like a smaller version of Ikea's Helmer cabinet, and it's from Michael's ... so Melmer).

I got it put together in about an hour, and put shelf liner in the bottoms of the drawers (a tip I saw over at A Polished Touch) and started to fill it up.

I have to figure out how I want to put the polishes in ... by colour or by brand? I should let my husband organize it, he loves that sort of thing.

It doesn't look like my polish will even fill up one drawer - and some people have multiple Melmers!!
I'll take some photos when I'm done and share in another post.

Nude and Neon Outline Manicure

Page makeover! Well, new background at least.


When I saw this manicure over on Fab Fatale, I wanted to try it out, but I actually didn't have a nude polish until I got one for Christmas! I added a bit of stamping, because I really wanted to use my new plates.

My nails are sooooo short! I mucked them up while manhandling a still partially frozen turkey on Boxing Day morning - dealing with ice and washing your hands every 5 minutes is not kind to nails.

2 coats of Essence Wake Up! - this is an incredibly bright traffic cone orange. I love it!

After that was dry, I went over it with 2 coats of Essence Nude It!, leaving some orange around the top and sides.This isn't a "mannequin hands" nude for me, but it goes really well with my skin tone.

After that was dry, I went back in with Wake Up! and Bundle Monster plate BM-313 to add a fun effect to my ring finger. It actually looks like a turtle shell! I have an idea forming for a future manicure ...

Finally, I used Wake Up! to finish off the tips and clean up anywhere that I really mucked up the sides.

Essence's formula is really nice for an inexpensive polish. Shoppers Drug Mart carries the new line for $1.99, the old line (which these are) was a slightly smaller bottle for $1.49. I recommended it to a friend, and she loved it. A girl came up to me at work the other day raving about it as well.
There isn't a huge selection of colours, but there are some real gems in both lines.


Now, to figure out what to do on my nails for New Years Eve!

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.

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 - 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.

52 Week Nail Challenge - Fruit Manicure

I got all of my stamp plates on Friday.

I played around with them for a bit over the weekend and I decided that I wanted to use them for this week's manicure.

Please pardon the flash as always. If I remember, I'll bring my camera to work tomorrow to see if I can get a non-flash photo.

I picked up a pack of Claire's Sweet Scents - 5 scented nail polishes

Strawberry (pink), Orange (orange), Banana (yellow), Lime (green) Fruit Punch (turquoise)
I didn't want to choose just one, so I decided to do a skittles manicure.

Back when I worked at Claire's, their nail polishes weren't the best, so I was expecting to have to do multiple coats - these aren't too bad! Neon colours, dries matte, and dries quickly.

2 coats for each, except the yellow - it required 3, and it was kind of gloopy. :( I think if I want to use the yellow again, I'll do a basecoat with another yellow polish first.

Scent-wise, they're pretty standard artificial scents. The orange and lime were pretty 'cleaning supply' scented at first, but then they mellowed out.

Once they were on and dry, I went in with OPI Black Onyx to add the designs.

A strawberry on my thumb, orange slices on my index finger, bananas on my middle finger, a lime on my ring finger and a pineapple on my pinky.
Some of them are off-centre ... I'm still trying to figure out how to position the stamp.

I applied a topcoat to protect everything, which I figured would kill the fruit scent - I am surprised to say that it did not!

Next week is a Splatter Mani - remember splatter painting with straws from when you were a kid - yeah, picture that with nail polish. If it's nice next weekend, I'll do my nails outside. Must remember to keep a couple of straws this week.