Hiatus

Very sorry but I need to take a hiatus from polish. Something has happened in my personal life and I need to take some time.

SMYTC Holiday Nail Art Challenge! Day 5: Reindeer!

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer.......

Hi everyone! Today marks the halfway point of the Holiday Nail Art Challenge and todays theme is Reindeer! I was a bit intimidated by this challenge because I knew I would have to freehand it but I think it went pretty well! I took my time and proceeded with muchos caution.

The base color is two coats of OPI Alpine Snow with one coat of Happy Anniversary on top. Happy Anniversary gives insane amount of pink and green shimmer. It looks like glistening snow. I wish my pictures picked it up better!

Then I did the reindeers with:
-China Glaze Mohogany Magic for the fur
-Wet n Wild Black Creme for the outline & antlers
-Red loose extra fine glitter for Rudolphs nose
-OPI Alpine snow for the eyes
-HK Girl topcoat to smooth it all out

I love that Rudolphs nose adds some sparkle on the accent nail! I first saw this awesome design on www.thenailasaurus.com I believe!

Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out the awesome nails of the other gals in the challenge!

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SMYTC Holiday Nail Art Challenge! Day 4: Bells!

Hello polish people!

Welcome to Day 4 of the Show Me Your Top Coats Holiday Nail Art Challenge! The theme of today is Bells! Now this was indeed a challenge. I do not own a stamping image plate for bells so I had to wing it and freehand this beotch. Let me know how you think I did!

My base color is Rimmel Camouflage. I haven't used this polish in at least 2 or 3 years! WHY NOT? Its awesome! Its a darker green gold and green shimmer. One coater! It has too short of a brush though :(

I freehanded that bell on my accent nail and I am actually pretty proud of it. It took me quite a long time and quite a few tries. I found it super hard to fit the bell on my nail and also super hard to make it look not too "cartoony".

So to finish it up I added gold and red dots on the index and middle finger and for some reason I liked how it looked with only red dots on the pinky! The Red is OPI Danke Shiny Red & the Gold is my all time favourite, a-England Holy Grail. Et voila! There is a bell on my nail!

 

& Just for fun here are some pics of the Rimmel Camouflage! I have fallen back in love with this color! 

 Alrighty and that is it for today! What do you think of my bell nails?!

Don't forget to check out the other awesome nails on the great ladies of SMYTC below!

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SMYTC Holiday Challenge! Day 3: Snowflakes!

Hey everyone!

It is day three of the Holiday Nail Art Challenge! Today is snowflakes!

I decided to do some stamping. Now if you follow me, you know that I am not talented with stamping but since this is a "challenge" I thought I would give it a try anyway and I am actually really happy with the results! Check it out!

I started with a white base, OPI Alpine Snow.

Then I thought that was too boring. So I attemped a gradient. I am not good at gradients. I find it to be one of the most difficult nail art techniques. I sponged on NARS Kutki, one of my favourite light blues. I wish the colours blended a little better but the more I practice, the better I get.

Now for the stamping. I have different snowflake stamps from Konad plate m59. I did them with Sally Hansen Silver Sweep. I find the smaller stamps way easier to transfer and apply than the full nail designs so these turned out pretty good. But it looked boring.

So I added a few more snowflakes in Color Club Cold Metal. I loved how it looked. I was proud of how my stamping has gotten better with practice :)

To add some sparkle, I used a coat of China Glaze Fairy dust, a fine holo glitter topcoat. I thought it looked a lot like glistening snow!

Then just for fun, I put rhinestones in the middle of each of the blue snowflakes! I thought it was pretty cute!

Here is one with flash!

I am actually pretty darn happy with how this manicure turned out! I improved on two of my nail art techniques! Both gradients and stamping. Its not perfect, but its definitely better than I could have done before!

Don't forget to check out the other awesome ladies' nails from SMYTC!

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SMYTC Holiday Challenge! Day 2: Candy Canes!

Happy Tuesday Everyone!

Today is Day 2 of the Show Me Your Topcoats Holiday Nail Art Challenge and the theme is Candy canes! 

I tried a few taping manicures with my striping tape, but they all came out really messy and not quite what I wanted! So then I decided.. hey! Why not just use the striping tape to my advantage and actually leave it on and incorporate it into the manicure? So that is what I did :)

I started with base of a-England Percival, a very glowy deep jewel toned red. Then I added holographic striping tape in a diagonal line pattern on each nail. At first it was pretty time consuming but I got quicker as I went along. In the pictures the striping tape just looks silver, but I promise it was color-changing holo in real life! It made for a pretty flashy manicure. 

I am wearing 2 layers of HK Girl topcoat and have been wearing this manicure for about 24 hours now and the tape is still stuck on there pretty good. Color me impressed :)

So there it is! I hope you liked my Candy Cane manicure for Day 2! I hope you'll check out the other awesome ladies' nails from Show Me Your Top Coats below! Thanks for reading and have an awesome day!

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Minecraft Creeper Nail Art & Tutorial! :D

Hi everyone!

I am really excited about my post today! I have a nail art picture tutorial for the minecraft fans out there! Do I even have any minecraft fans who follow me?! Anyway these are my creeper nails and how I did them :) For those of you who aren't minecraft fans, creepers are the worst hostile mobs out there and they will explode and destroy all of your hard work. I have a passionate hate for them. Why did I put them on my nails? I do not know. Perhaps it is an obsession.

This is a picture of a creeper:

Photo source: http://blog.wirebot.com/2011/08/22/10-of-the-most-annoying-game-characters/

I started with base color of Color Club Twiggie, one of my favourite greens.

Then to do the pixels squares I used striping tape from the born pretty store and placed it on my nail in a checkerboard pattern. Then in the squares I applied Elevation Torres de Paines (Darker green) and China Glaze Tree Hugger (Shimmery light green)

This is the result.

Finally I added the creeper faces with a toothpick and a plain black creme. Added topcoat, and voila! CREEPER NAILS! Run!! Light torches!!! Hide!!!

I hope you liked this post!
Thanks for reading!

SMYTC Holiday Nail Art Challenge! Day 1: Red & Green!

Hi everyone!

I am super psyched about today's post! I am starting my first ever REAL nail art challenge with a wonderful group of girls from "Show Me Your Top Coats"! There is even an awesome blog for it which you should totally go check out right now: www.showmeyourtopcoats.com :)

Here is some of the key points from the SMYTC blog:

The rules: It's simple. Every other day we'll have a theme and you do a manicure based on that theme. You can use stamping, paints, stickers, or any other means of art to create your mani. The first post will go up on December 2nd and will run until the 24th. You can do your manis ahead of time and post them early if need be. You have until 3pm the second day to get your post up. Have fun and be creative!

Please feel free to join in on the fun!

So today's challenge is Red & Green. Simple enough right?  Well I couldn't really come up with anything. So I started by picking a base of my favourite ATM red: OPI Danke Shiny Red from the Fall '11 Germany collection. It is a great one coat red shimmer. It is a beautiful color. Perfect for the holidays!

So then I needed some green. I decided to be sort of simple of the first day and do a green glitter gradient using Lynnderella's Funny Money & Crows Toes Jingle Balls (what an awesome name!). Funny Money is a mish mash of darker green glitters with a splash of some other random colors & Jingle Balls is primarily a medium green glitter with gold bars and even some holo gold stars! I managed to get a star on each finger and I moved them around to be in the same place on each nail :)

 

& There you have it! My first day of the challenge is complete! I hoped you liked my manicure!

Thanks for reading and don't forget to check out the awesome posts from the other great and talented ladies from Show Me Your Topcoats!

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NOTD OPI Gone Gonzo! over OPI Ogre The Top Blue!

Hello everyone!

Today I am showing you what I layered over Ogre The Top Blue. I can't leave anything alone, and you all know by now I have a thing right now for the OPI Muppets glitters! This is Gone Gonzo! One coat over Ogre the Top Blue. Small blue micro glitters and medium silver hexes. Exactly the same easy formula as the others that I have worn recently, very nice. I like the versatility of these glitters. They add just enough sparkle over a complimentary base or you can build them up and wear them alone!

 Hope you like it!
Thanks for reading :)

OPI Ogre The Top Blue Swatch

Happy Thursday!

Today I am wearing a blue that I have been hunting for quite some time. This is Ogre The Top Blue from the Shrek Forever After Collection. In my opinion, it is the perfect shade of medium blue. I found the whole collection on ebay for a reasonable price surprisingly from a wonderful seller who included a bunch of fun extras. I would recommend buying from her. Her ebay name is gunnyg1.

The formula was on the thin side for me, but not unmanageable. Two coats would have been fine for a manicure but I did three for photos. I love the color. This is without topcoat so you can see it dried creamy, smooth and shiny. I also found it flattering against my skin, which is not always the case with blues for me. I am very happy with the color, it definitely lived up to my expectations and I think it will move up in the rankings of my most-worn blues.

Thanks for reading :)

NOTD OPI Fresh Frog of Belaire over Julep Leah

Happy Wednesday!

Today I am showing you what I wore over Julep Leah from yesterday. I can't leave anything plain. For today's manicure I added one coat of OPI Fresh Frog of Belaire (what a hilarious name!). This polish came out with OPI's 2011 Holiday Muppets Collection and I've worn it a lot in the last year. Green micro glitter with medium silver hexes. It can give a few different looks to it whether you wear it layered or over different shades of green. Wearing it over Leah kept it bright and funky. I liked the overall look of this manicure! One coat was plenty for some sparkle, but it can be opaque on its own in three coats :)

Now that it is getting near the holidays I am finding myself wearing the glitters from last years OPI  collection quite often! I like it when I rediscover older favourites!

Thanks for reading :)

Julep Leah! Swatch :)

Happy Sunday!

Today I am sporting Julep Leah. I was looking for this polish for quite a while. I am not a Julep Maven, so I would have to pay full price for their polish and I cant justify spending $14 dollars on 7ml. So I hunted blog sales until I finally found it for $4! What a great buy that was!

Julep Leah is a bright grass green with shimmer! The shimmer isn't in your face or anything but its noticeable, and quite pretty. I needed three coats to get it smooth and opaque but I think if I had of done thicker coats, two might have been okay. I did have a little bubbling so next time I will try and keep it to two coats. I have noticed with Julep polishes that when I am painting, polish often drips off the top of the brush onto me or the surface I am painting on. I think it is because the tall shape of the bottle.

I really like the end look of the polish though. Green is one of my favorite colors and this shade didn't disappoint.

 

Have a nice day :) Thanks for reading!

Elevation Torres del Paine

Hello everyone! and Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends! Are you all planning to do some "black Friday" and "cyber Monday" shopping this weekend? I sure am! Hoping to score some deals on some Christmas gifts!

Today I am sporting Elevation Polish Torres de Paine. This is a very awesome shade of green. Mossy but clean medium green. It is a gorgeous shade. This is my first Elevation polish and I was very impressed with the formula. It was soooo saturated with colour, and incredibly pigmented. This is just one coat and I felt no need to do another. It did dry a little dull. These pictures have no topcoat so you can see the finish. Topcoat added plenty of shine though. Here are some photos in both natural and artificial light.

I am a fan of this polish! What do you think?

Thanks for reading!

KB Shimmer Toucan Touch This

 Happy Wednesday!

Today I am showing off KB Shimmer's Toucan Touch This. This from her fall collection. I love the name of this polish. It is a  limey green jelly stuffed with multicoloured hexes, microglitter, and teeny tiny micro bar glitters. The formula was a little thick for me. This is three coats for opacity. It dried a little dull and bumpy.. definitely needs topcoat. But look at it! It is its own glitter sandwich in a bottle! I liked the look of the end result!

Thanks for reading!

NOTD KB Shimmer Berry Patch & HITS Apolo

Happy Monday!

Today I am showing you a quick NOTD I wore a few days ago. In the pictures are three coats of KB Shimmer Berry Patch with an accent nail of HITS Apolo.

I was really impressed with Berry Patch. Milky pink crelly with pink, holo, & a splatter of navy glitter. It had great application. HITS Apolo is a fantastic dark blue linear holographic. It had an excellent formula and the holo was WAY better in real life than in my crappy lighting in these pictures!

I liked wearing this look!
Thanks for reading :)

Gradient Fail!!!!!

Hello everyone!!

Today I am showing you a gradient manicure fail. Okay, so I usually pride myself in my glitter gradients. I think I am pretty good at doing them! But just colour gradients... WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS? It is difficult!! There is definitely a learning curve to this technique. But I told myself I was going to post my fails as well as my trimumphs on this nail art adventure! So here is it!

I saw a couple tutorials and I went with the Make up sponge technique. I used Color Club Poptastic and American Apparel Neon Violet and sponged away over a white base. First let me say, I got polish EVERYWHERE. Clean up was not fun. And I used chapstick around my fingers to try and make it easier but I think the chapstick got on the sponge and then the polish wouldn't stick to the nail. I ended up with this incredibly messy, translucent, grainy pink/purple thing. Lookin' a little weird, right?

I think I need some practice!!!!
Thanks for reading :)

OPI Divine Swine over Nfu JS27!

Happy Saturday!

Today I am showing you what I put over Nfu Oh JS27.. OPI Divine Swine! This glitter came out in OPI's 2011 Holiday Muppets Collection. Its pretty awesome. I loved the fact that OPI did some unique glitters as a mainstream company. This is just one coat. It is a clear base with magenta/fuchsia micro glitter and medium sized silver hexes. I find it gives it just enough bling and sparkle in one coat over a base colour without being too "blingy" for an average day. It applied really well. No fishing for glitters or anything which is always nice. This glitter can also be built up to opacity on its own in three coats, but I really like the look of one coat over a base colour :)

Thanks for reading!

Nfu Oh Jelly Syrup JS27 Swatch

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you had a good week! Mine wasn't too bad :)

Today I am showing you Nfu Oh JS27, one of their Jelly Syrups! It is a medium purple jelly, and my picture shows three coats! It applied nicely (no streaks!) and dried fast and shiny! This polish is the perfect consistency for a glitter sandwich which I hope to try soon :) 

I swear there were not baldy patches in real life. This is just the way the light was hitting my nails and the camera I think :( It was squishy and shiny and great in real life! I love jellies and I was not disappointed in this one at all. It is quite lovely.

I got my bottle from www.nailpolishcanada.com! I love having a Canadian website that sells Nfu Oh and I highly recommend Nail Polish Canada. They have great shipping rates (free over $25!) and I got my package in just a couple of days! They carry lots of Nfu Oh and tons of other brands typically unavailable in Canada. I love them. Check 'em out!

Thanks for reading!

Blue Nails For World Diabetes Awareness Day! OPI Russian Navy Suede

Hello everyone!

Today is World Diabetes Awareness Day! This is a disease that hits close to home for me. My best friend lives with type 1 diabetes, and she will for the rest of her life. I see what she goes through on a daily basis and I commend her because she deals with it incredibly well. Type 1 diabetes used to be called Juvenile  Diabetes because typically people are diagnosed as kids. This type of diabetes despite all the research that has been done is not curable and not preventable. It is a disorder of the cells of the pancreas that causes a lack of or improper production/utilization of the hormone insulin, which regulates blood sugar. Unfortunately it is now referred to as Type 1 diabetes because so many children are now being diagnosed with Type 2. The majority of the time Type 2 is caused my diet & lifestyle but can also be linked genetically or be onset by age. Diabetes itself can be managed but comes with an array of life threatening complications. Anyway sorry for rambling on but I think the cause is incredibly important. Between 1/3 and 1/2 of people with Diabetes do not know it, and have not been diagnosed yet.. and so I think awareness is something that really needs to be focused on. I'm glad the nail polish community is coming together to raise awareness for such an important cause!

The colour for Diabetes awareness is blue. Since I have been rocking the OPI Suedes lately, I decided to wear another. This is OPI Russian Navy Suede. A matte navy with shimmer. It applies perfectly. This is one coat. I love how it looks. Like most of the other mattes/suedes I own... it wears terribly (at least OPI warns you about this on the label). But I really like it.

Thanks for reading!

Happy Monday! OPI We'll Always Have Paris Suede

Happy Monday polish people!

First of all I hope you all took a moment to remember and celebrate our veterans yesterday. Both of my Grampys fought in the war, and I am still lucky to have one of them in my life. My dads father passed away three years ago, and yesterday my father laid a wreath down for him a ceremony held in town. It was lovely. The sacrifices our veterans made are the reason we have our freedom today. It is good to remember that and show our gratitude and respect.

Todays NOTD is OPI We'll Always Have Paris Suede. I love the OPI Suedes.. I think their formulas are excellent! This is just one coat, and it dried so fast. Plus they are super interesting to look at, like velvet or something... (or suede haha!). The combination of shimmer with a matte finish is just so cool. This is a cross between pink and purple and it is awesome. Looks pretty awesome with topcoat too when the shimmer really comes out to play!

This wears like shit though. I put it on last night after I got out of the shower before bed.. and by 10pm tonight it was completely ruined. Unsalvageable. Chipped away everywhere. I did go swimming but lots of my polishes stand up to the pool just fine! I am sure with topcoat it would do better but I like the look of it matte :)

Anyway, I hope you all had a great Monday!
So long for now!

Franken Friday!! I call it.... "Come & Claim Him"

Hey polish people! I should have posted this yesterday.. since it is called "Franken Friday" but the news of NL upcoming return had me too excited. Anyway.. onto the post.

Now that I have finished work for the season I have found myself feeling bored and aimless as I search for a winter job. So I have started a new hobby that I am quite enjoying... frankening! It is awesome! Have you ever dreamed of a colour that doesn't exist? Or dreamed of a polish you can't afford/not sold in your area/is discontinued? Well frankening can solve those problems and squash some lemmings while being fun and rewarding too :)

Anyway, this is a polish I made inspired by a Lord of the Rings moment. More specifically the moment where Arwen is riding to Rivendell carrying a very injured and ill Frodo while being chased by the Ring Wraiths. She crosses a river and taunts the Wraiths (who detest water) by saying "If you want him, come and claim him!". The Wraiths advance through the river as she whispers an elvish phrase... calling violent waves in the river forth and washing away the Wraiths. It is a triumphant moment and I made this polish to capture it.

Its a medium to dark blue jelly base with luminosity fine glitter shimmer. Then I filled it with small white circular glitter, medium baby blue matte glitter, and a splash of very sparkly medium sized ocean blue hex glitter. I like to think it captures the violent tumbling waves in the water, with the baby blue squares representing Arwen.

I really like how it turned out. It applies well and its proven to have good wear time.

What do you think of my new franken?

Amanda from NL is back

Hey polish people!

Those of you who know me know my favourite and most coveted bottles of polish were made by the very talented Amanda from NL. I have 14 bottles of her polish, and I love each and every one of them. Then as most of you probably know, she disappeared. Her shop disappeared off etsy, stocks depleted, Google+ page inactive. No one could find her. And trust me, many people looked. Her last etsy update had let her customers know that life was hectic for her due to a big move and taking care of her mother, who had been ill. Months passed. People still wondered. Even more months passed. People were paying 100+ dollars for a bottle of her polish. I admittedly payed stupid amounts of money for three of those bottles to complete my Star Wars and Star Trek series. Somehow though I had a feeling she would be back. People questioned why she disappeared.. if NL was all a scam of if something bad had happened to her. But there was love and inspiration in her creations, not just glitter tossed in a bottle. I really believe she loved creating polish that other people loved just as much. She had always been fabulous at customer service and always went the extra mile when I ordered from her. And that is why I was scared that something truly horrible had to have happened for her to just vanish. Although I hoped it was not anything that she couldn't come back from.

Anyway, this is not my story to tell.
Read it from Amanda herself, she is back. And she is right here:

https://plus.google.com/116841400682752320050/posts?hl=en

I just want to extend my support to Amanda. I can't imagine what she has been through. I send her strength and I truly wish her all of the best. I want to let her know I'll still be a loyal customer. I also want to commend her for her courage. I can't imagine how difficult things were and are for her in this last year and to be able to come back & share her story with our community is commendable. I think most people would have hidden, too overwhelmed to face the reality of the situation. But Amanda didn't, even with everything that has happened, and I think that is something to applaud.

Anyway, I missed her, and I am happy she is back. I can't wait for Nerd Lacquer to be back too.

I'll leave you with a picture of the first NL that I tried, and the one that got me hooked :) Hyperspace Bypass!

Eradicate H8 In The Nail Polish Community

Hey! Look at me go! Two posts in one day. I think the cause is worth the second post.

This is my purple manicure to show that I too, am against bullying in the nail polish community. I am in no way a large part of the community. However, even the smallest person can make a difference. I've been bullied, and unfortunately, I have bullied. I wont get into details because that is in my past. I've learned.. others can too. In no way does anybody deserve to be put down, belittled, made fun of, or made to feel less than. Especially in such a colourful community like the nail polish world. We are all different. We come from different countries, backgrounds, races, religions, sexual orientations and we all have different likes, dislikes, morals, values and beliefs. We're a colourful community, but with a common passion that brings us together, and that is something special. 

So here is my manicure to stand up for the good in all of us.. in hope that as a community we can stand together. Lets celebrate each other and what we love. 

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
Buddha

The same can be said for kindness. Lets pass it on.