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.

Mint Apple Caviar

I'm a big fan of deals on nail stuff - so, when Urban Planet started carrying nail stuff at 3 for $5, I had to look.

I mentioned the Nabi 3D Rainbow Effect polishes in my last post, I'm hoping to pick up the rest of them, because I really like them.

They also have other bits and pieces - I've wanted to try the beaded "caviar" manicure for a while, and they had a pack of 5 little vials of different coloured beads.

The blue-green beads were an almost perfect match for Sinful Colors Mint Apple.

Each finger got two coats of Mint Apple.
I used a normal topcoat on my ring finger and then poured the beads over top into a little dish,
I used my normal quick dry topcoat on the rest.
It looks kind of cute, but the beads did start to pop off the next day, so this kind of a one-night manicure.

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 - 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!

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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.

Turquoise Nails

After seeing them over on Reddit, and after a tutorial was posted, I knew I had to try.

Mine didn't turn out the way I wanted, but they're still really pretty.

I started with one coat of Fascino Blue as a base, then went over it with a coat of Sinful Colors Mint Apple.

Once that was all dry, I dripped some Sally Hansen Golden-I into water, as if I was about to do a water marble, but instead of adding more colours and swirling, I spritzed it a couple of times with rubbing alcohol, then I dipped my nail in.

After I finished the gold on all my nails, I did the same thing with Avon Licorice.

Here's where I made a mistake - I used two drops of black, but you only need one.

I highly recommend taping your fingers if you're going to do this, because I didn't, and I had to do a LOT of cleanup.

I'll definitely be doing this one again - I really like it.

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"

New Year's Manicure

This week's Reddit Challenge was New Years - even if I wasn't doing the challenges, I'd still want pretty nails for New Years Eve.

I knew months ago that I wanted to do a glitter gradient, and it seems that they're the 'it' thing right now - which is pretty awesome.

I tried it with the glitter at the top of my nail this time and I went with a subtle colour combo.
Please pardon the tip wear - my nails are too short for me to wrap the tips and the top coat I used seems to be causing the polish to shrink (you can see on my thumb where I didn't quite get it all the way to the edge, so the polish cracked vertically)

I used two coats Color Club Blue-topia - it looks black, but it's actually a deep inky blue. First coat is pretty sheer, but it would be hard to do this one as a single-coat polish because wherever you overlap, it gets darker.

The gradient was done using Essence Choose Me! a teal glass fleck polish. I dabbed it on near the cuticle and dragged it down my nail to create the gradient effect - I used a few layers to build it up closer to the cuticle.

This one was really hard to photograph - the contrast is much more obvious in person.

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 - Winter Nails

I had a really pretty blue to white gradient in mind, and wanted to try a sponge gradient. Problem is, the colours I chose were all way too sheer, so I had to improvise.

I started with two coats of Zoya White to create a solid base.

Working one finger at a time, I dabbed on some NYC Turquoise Seas at the cuticle, then dabbed some of it off with a sponge. I bought this polish so many years ago when I had turquoise in my hair, and a lot of turquoise in my wardrobe. It's a really pretty shimmery sheer turquoise.
I added some Sinful Colors Cinderella in the middle. I am still in love with this blue. I keep looking for more, because I'd love to have a backup bottle.
Then I finished the gradient by dabbing on some Sally Hansen Polar Bare, a white jelly polish.

While the polish was still a bit sticky, I added a coat of Wet n Wild Hallucinate - iridescent glitter - to help blend it even more.

I like the icy look of this manicure.

Next week is glitter ...
I found out that some people are using white glue as a basecoat when dealing with glitter polishes - it sort of turns it into a peel off nail polish. I think I'll give it a shot!

52 Week Challenge - Two Again

OK, I've been lazy again ... I did two manicures, took photos, but never bothered to upload them or post about them.

Bleh.

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Crackle Manicure:
I guess the person who made the challenge wanted to give people a bit of a break?

I had a lovely vision in mind for this one, but it REALLY didn't work.
I used Avon Golden Twilight (black with golden-bronze flecks) and topped it off with Icing by Claire's gold crackle polish ... what a mess! The Avon polish was very pretty. The crackle polish? It was thick and goopy - If you put on a thin coat, you could see brush strokes, and it didn't crackle well at all. If you put on a thick coat, it was a nice colour, but still didn't crackle well.

Here's what I did instead:

2 coats of Revlon Stormy Night

Random dark teal crackle polish that I've used once before. XOX Cosmetics colour #N72. It's a very odd polish, thick and goopy as well (I remember it being thinner before), but this one crackled pretty well. It smells like paint / permanent marker when you apply it, but afterward, it's a sweet almost floral scent.

OPI Topcoat to seal it all off and shine it up - I would have just left it matte to have that shiny / matte contrast, but when this particular crackle polish dries, it lightens as well - some of the areas where it went on thicker remained shiny and dark, so I figured the shine would help mask some of the stripes, and it did!

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Rainbow / Pride Manicure:
I moved this one to this weekend, because Vancouver's Pride Parade was on August 5th. I missed the parade, but I did wear it downtown afterward.

I was trying to figure out how to approach this one, and I saw someone with vertically striped rainbow nails somewhere (I'm pretty sure it was in one of the blogs I read, but I can't find it)

I thought it looked really cool, and it would give me the opportunity to do ROYGBV (yep, I left out the I)

I really didn't have the patience to do sponging this weekend, so I did a few thin coats, and overlapped the colours. I used cremes for the primary colours (red, yellow, blue) and shimmers for the secondary colours (orange, green, purple)

Colours are:
Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers Venom
NYC Pumpkin
Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow
Wet n Wild Craze Jade
Fascino Colour #47
Icing By Claire's KTDID

phew!
I'm sure it would look better with the sponging, but I think this is pretty cute as-is.

Next week is a Galaxy Manicure - another one that I'm a bit intimidated by, but I'm sure I'll make it happen.

Filler Manicure

I'm still trying to figure out which flag to paint on my nails.
I'm thinking of just saying 'to hell with it' and doing the flag of Libya (it's solid green)

Anyways, my Ombre was chipping pretty badly, so I removed it and did another manicure before going to a family get-together yesterday.

2 coats of OPI Cuckoo for This Color (3 coats on a couple of nails, just because it didn't want to cooperate)

Then I chose Bundle Monster plate BM21 for the fancy filigree pattern and stamped it using Color Club Boho Mojo (seen in my very first post!)

It took a few tries, because the scraper wasn't getting all the polish off of the plate, so when I went to pick up the design, it was blobby.

I like how subtle the effect is - it's very delicate and pretty.

I'm providing two photos, because I chipped one of my nails while making dinner tonight (no, the nail polish didn't end up in the food - I'm more careful than that!), and because it was hard to get a photo.
Unfortunately, the tips are chipping already as well :(

52 Week Nail Challenge - Splatter Manicure

Splatter manicures ... another one I wasn't too sure about.
The Husband was even less enthused at the prospect of nail polish getting everywhere.

Anyways, to achieve the look, you're supposed to dip the end of a straw in the nail polish and blow on the straw to, well, splatter it on your nails.

I decided to just do a feature nail.

To start, I painted my nails with Wet n Wild Craze in Rustic - 3 coats. I probably could have gotten away with 2 coats.
I decided to use Maybelline Express Finish in Be Scene in Green - turquoise with a gold shimmer as the base for my feature nail. Turquoise and copper always look good together. 3 coats of this one as well.

Once those were dry, I went into the kitchen and cut up a plastic bag to lay out on the counter. Then I drank a juice box, so I had a straw to use. heh.

I took Rustic again and dabbed a little puddle out onto the plastic. It took a few tries to get a splatter, but I discovered it works best if you make sure to get a 'film' over the end of the straw.
It's not as pretty as others - I think the nail polish was a bit thick, but I sill like the result.
I don't know that I will do this again, but it was fun to try.

Next week's manicure challenge is an Ombre 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.

Magnetic Star

So, after a couple of days, I had to remove the yellow and pink - it started to chip pretty badly, and I wasn't really a fan of the colours.


I decided to use the polishes I got for my birthday to do something fun.
Pardon the state of my cuticles (especially my thumb!) - they have been super super dry, and nothing seems to be helping.

Two coats of OPI Cuckoo for This Color on each nail, except my ring finger. One coat on my ring finger.
Then I used the China Glaze Magnetix You Move Me and the star magnet for a fun feature nail.

I took the photos on Tuesday, so I've had this manicure most of the week.
Tomorrow, I'll be doing a floral manicure for the 52 week challenge.

I totally forgot to mention - when I had my "Earth appreciation" manicure, I got asked if I had my nails done professionally - yay!

Blue and Teal Crackle

I did a deep, dark brown manicure earlier this week, but ruined it before I could share it - I'll try it again another time.
Also, pardon my extra short nails - they peeled really badly after the glitter removal.

So, this week's manicure is a super cheap easy manicure!

Basecoat, as usual is the Revlon Post Trauma Nail Treatment.
2 coats of a robin's egg blue creme. It's by Fascino - never seen it before, but it was $2, so why not - right? Colour #47
Then I topped it off with a dark teal crackle by XOX Cosmetics (colour #N72). Also $2
Added Color Club's topcoat, and done!

Not bad for cheap nail polish!

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Holy cow is the glitter syrup mani popular with my coworkers.
One painted her nails with a lovely mint green creme, and did the glitter over that.
I lent the polish to another girl who just had her gel nails removed.