It's My One Year Blogaversary!

WOW! I can't believe it has been a year sine I did my first nail post here on Sincerely Stephanie. When I started this blog I essentially knew nothing about nails, I kind of just jumped in with both feet and learned as I went. I made a lot of mistakes, but hey blogging is all about learning! I'm learning more each and every day.

For today I wanted to do something special but wasn't exactly sure as to what. So I looked back at my first post and decided to kind of recreate it! What was the first ever post on here, why it was Candy Canes!

Here are my 2012 Candy Canes. I went with Milani White On The Spot as my base and then did my diagonal stripes in China Glaze Merry Berry and China Glaze Running In Circles. I did these with my medium length striping brush!

Looking back I can't believe what has happened this past year. My nail art skills have improved enormously, and I have made some wonderful friends. I've had the honour of winning multiple nail art contests, I've been able to give away some awesome prizes to my fabulous readers and I've even got to meet some bloggers in person.

On top of everything I can't believe that there are over 1000 people that have decided to follow me via GFC! Plus over 1100 likes on Facebook. It honestly blows my mind. All of your comments make my day every day. You should see when I'm with my friends and I get a super awesome comment, I just start smiling big and gushing over how great you guys are.

Let's take a look back at my first ever Candy Canes shall we?

I remember how proud I was of these and I still am! This has been an incredible journey so far and I plan on keeping up blogging for a long time to come!

I have no giveaway planned for today, but you can still enter The Beauty Blogazons Holiday Giveaway! In the next few weeks there is also, Christmas, my birthday and new years eve (which is the same day ;)). So in January to celebrate all this and 2013 I will kick off something great!

I can't wait to see what else this blogging adventure will hold for me. I really hope you continue to follow along and interact with me as I LOVE hearing from all of you always!

With SO MUCH LOVE
Sincerely Stephanie

A Snowman and Some Flakes

Today I have some nails to show you that I did a week or so ago, but I'm just fitting them into the line up now! These were actually the first Holiday themed nails I wore!

I used one of my favourite holiday polishes China Glaze Blue Bells Ring as my base. A one-coater. Love this polish. My original swatch is here. Then I set to work on my ring finger. It's a snowman peeking out from behind a snowbank!

For the snowman I started by adding the white stripe on a third of my nail, I used Milani White On The Spot. Then using a dotting tool I created the basic shape of the snowman. I used Sally Hansen Insta Dri Rapid Red and a small detail brush that I cut down to make the scarf and the hat. I used Revlon Posh and White On The Spot again for the details in the scarf and the pom pom. I used a small dotting tool and my brush to create the mittens holding onto the snowbank. Revlon Sorbet and my favourite little brush to create the nose and finally Wet n Wild Black Creme and a dotting tool for the eyes and buttons!

My original idea had been to do various Snowmen peeking out from different sized snowbanks, but I started these late and decided I would rather get some sleep, so I just drew on some quick snowflakes with White On The Spot and my little brush.

I love this little guy! I kept staring down at him while I was wearing it. And showing him to everyone that I saw LOL!

What do you think of my snowman and his flakes? Have you been doing any holiday themed nail art?

Black and White Challenge: Day 10

We made it! It is the last day of the challenge! This has been an absolutely awesome month and these girls have inspired and amazed me time and time again throughout this challenge!
Today's challenge is manicure of your choice. We decided to pick a mani that one of us has created through the past month and recreate it! This was one of the hardest things that I had to do in this challenge. There were so many amazing ones to pick from! I had such a hard time narrowing it down to even one per person! 


Finally after probably hours of deliberating over which nails I was going to recreate I decided on Sammy's Day 5 nails,

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them

One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

I used Orly's Luxe and black acrylic paint to achieve this look. I think what finally settled me on creating this manicure was that I'm a huge Lord of the Rings fan. I read all the books when I was very young, have reread them and seen every movie multiple times! After I finish this post I'm going to put one on in bed and drift off watching :) 

Mine is not an exact replica of Sammy's, she got some of the detail so small! So it is slightly different lettering, but still has the same idea! 

Eeeee I totally love them!! This challenge has been one of the best things I have done since I started blogging. Chatting with these fantastic ladies has been so wonderful, and they are all amazingly talented, creative and just some of the nicest people you can meet! 



I'm really excited to see what the rest of the sexy6 has recreated! Make sure you go check it out! 

Nails and Noms

Let Them Have Polish (has dropped out :()

The Nailasaurus

Fab Fingertips

The Lacquerologist

Black and White Challenge: Day 9

Day nine of the challenge! We are so close!


Today's challenge is a black and white water marble. I am not a good water marbler. In fact I am a terrible water marbler. I have used filtered, bottled and boiled water at room temperature and it never works for me. Oh yes I can get the polish to spread. And then I can draw a design, but for some reason when I dip my nail into the water all the colours mush together and I end up with a mess. I have watched hours and hours of you tube videos of people doing them and I think I'm doing it right? Who knows haha. Anyway I used China Glaze White on White and Wet n Wilds Black Creme for this mess.

Bleh. Not impressed.

I took these off as soon as I was finished them. And I spent at least 4 hours working on these. Redoing nail after nail and this was the best I got. I know it's awful. If you have any water marble suggestions please help!

*EDIT:* One of my lovely challenge buddies Esther just suggested to me that my nails remind her of this picture, but in gray tones! What do you guys think?

On another note we are almost done! Just the recreate your favourite day. There have been so many amazing and creative nails done that I have no idea what to do! It's going to take some thought.



Don't forget to check out what the rest of the sexy6 did! I'm sure they managed to actually do one lol

Nails and Noms

The Nailasaurus

Fab Fingertips

The Lacquerologist

Black and White Challenge: Day 8

Morning!


This is the eighth day in our challenge, can you believe we're almost done?! It has been so much fun getting to know these wonderful ladies and seeing what they have come up with!  


Today's challenge is sponging with black and white. Do you ever sit down to do a mani and it is kind of born out of nothing? That is what happened here. Friday night there was a package notice on our door and when I picked it up yesterday my striping tape was finally here! I wanted to use is in some way. 

I started off by painting my nails with 2 coats of Sally Hansen's Celeb City which is my all time favourite  silver foil. I let this dry and then started placing striping tape in various patterns on my nails. Then I grabbed a makeup sponge and sponged on a layer of Wet n Wild's Black Creme, then sponged on China Glaze White on White, then went back to Black Creme and sponged on random areas and finished off with a few more random placements of White on White. Finally I took off the striping tape and added a coat of NYC top coat! 

I loved this! I reminded me of granite. I kept looking at it and wondered how it would look mattified. So I grabbed Essie's Matte About You and went to work! 

I love this even more matte! It looks really cool in real life and I got a few compliments on it already :) 

What do you think of my sponging mani? 



Don't forget to check out what the other gorgeous ladies of the sexy6 have done!

Nails and Noms

Let Them Have Polish

The Nailasaurus

Fab Fingertips

The Lacquerologist

Black and White Challenge: Day 7 Glitter Glam

Morning! 

Hope you're all having an excellent day and it's Thursday! So close to being done the week. Today is the seventh day in the Black and White challenge. Which means glitter :)
The nails that I did for today's challenge were inspired by Salla at OMG Polish 'Em. A few weeks back she posted these nails and I knew that they were so cool that I needed to recreate them in some way. My final result looks really different, but I still love it!

I started with 2 coats of Sephora by OPI's Never Enough Shoes. Then let that completely dry. I grabbed my handy reinforcements and placed them on the bottom of each of my nails, then added 2 coats of China Glaze White on White and removed the reinforcements. I added a layer of SV so that WOW would dry quickly. I grabbed my silver glitter Art Club striper and added four stripes on each nail. Finally I took some black and clear rhinestones and alternated them across the half moon. Finish with a coat of SV and I was done!

I really like the final result of this, it feels very red carpet glam to me!

Please excuse my cuticles, they have taken a bit of a beating lately and I haven't been able to use my Burt's Bees as often as I would like.

Do you like my take on black and white with glitters?



Make sure you check out what the rest of the sexy6 has done! I'm sure they have all come up with something fabulous :)

Nails and Noms

Let Them Have Polish

The Nailasaurus

Fab Fingertips

The Lacquerologist

Black and White Challenge: Day 6 Deco Daisy

Good Morning!

This is the sixth day in the black and white challenge. Again I can't believe what the sexy6 have been coming up with! Every night before we post I get all excited because I can't wait to see what they have come up with! I'm sure today's will be just as awesome! 

Today's challenge is a colour base with something white. I completely stumbled upon my inspiration for this mani by accident. I was browsing (creeping) through Facebook and saw some of my friends complaining that their moms had bought them Vera Bradley bags. I wasn't sure what these bags were all about so I Googled them. Now I don't know if I would ever use one myself, but the patterns are so cool for nail art! I picked the Deco Daisy design as my inspiration and went for it! 

I started off with two coats of China Glaze's Make Some Noise from the Electropop Collection. This is more of a bright coral creme colour so then I added one coat of China Glaze's Vermillion which is the perfect red jelly creme. Then I added one coat of SV so that I could get to work on the nail art. Then I took a nail art brush and China Glaze White on White and started creating my flowers. Then I took my black Stripe Rite striper and added the black accents. Then I went back with WOW and filled in some more areas. 

I like the final outcome here! It is close to the Vera Bradley pattern, but still my own. 

What do you think of my Deco Daisy inspired nail art? 



Don't forget to check out what the rest of the sexy6 have done! I'm sure it is awesome! :) 

Nails and Noms

Let Them Have Polish

The Nailasaurus

Fab Fingertips

The Lacquerologist

Black and White Challenge: Day 5 Golden Dots

Good Morning my dears! 


This is the fifth day in the Black and White Challenge. I can't believe we are halfway through this challenge already. These girls have been creating some absolutely unbelievable nail art and I'm sure today is no exception :)


Today's challenge is a colour base with something black. I had so many ideas for this. I literally had an entire page in my sketchbook done with ideas, there were SO MANY possibilities! I put 4 random letters out to everyone on Facebook and Twitter and asked them what I should do. The letter with the most responses corresponded to dots! 

I started with 2 coats of Orly's Luxe, which is a delicious gold foil. It is for sure my favourite gold polish.  Then I took a small dotting tool and Wet n Wild's Black Creme and started creating the rows of curved V's. 

I feel like this is a bit of a nail art fail for me. I just think that I thought it would look a little different on my nails, maybe its my new shorties that are throwing me off lol. Do you like my new nubbins? 

Also my top coat on my middle nail photographed really weird. It looks like its all lumpy, but IRL I don't notice that at all! And the dots ran a little bit on my ring finger. 

I think the above is my favourite picture of it. I had hoped for a little more of a curtain look, but oh well I'll stop judging myself and ask what do you think? Nail art fail or do you like it? 

And don't you dare forget to check out what my amazing challenge buddies have done, the sexy6!!! 

Nails and Noms

Let Them Have Polish

The Nailasaurus

Fab Fingertips

The Lacquerologist

PS. This might not be my only post today! Check back around 5pm EST! :) 

Black and White Challenge: Day 4 Stained Glass

Good Morning!


This is the fourth post in the Black and White Challenge. The first 3 days were awesome and I can't wait to see what the sexy6 have come up with today! Everyone is really blowing it out of the water! 


Today's challenge is a white base with some colour. I have been using mostly cremes for this challenge so I decided to not let myself use them today! I started off with two coats of OPI's She's Golden, which is a white polish with a subtle gold shimmer. It is really pretty on it's own. I really wanted to do a colour blocking mani so I took, Cult Nail's Toxic Seaweed, The Hungry Asian's Sea Creature, Revlon's Mistletoe and my black striper and went to work. 

I started out using my black striper to create the outline of the pattern that I wanted on each nail. Then I took Toxic Seaweed and a small nail art brush and filled in random sections. Then I did the same with Mistletoe and Sea Creature. Once I had filled in all the areas that I wanted I went back with my striper and redid the lines so they had more definition. Topped it off with a coat of SV and I was good to go! 

I'm totally in love with this look! I love the colour blocking and I think all the glitter, shimmer and flakies make this extra special! My boyfriend told me that they reminded him of stained glass the way the flakies and glitter kept catching the light, so that's what I have named these! 

I even managed to do this on my right hand! I didn't take a picture because well it's not quite as neat and I'm a perfectionist haha. 

Again I'm totally in love with this look! The flakies in toxic seaweed keep catching the light and I just love it! 

What do you think of my take on colour blocking, aka Stained Glass?  



Don't forget to check out what my gorgeous challenge buddies have done, aka the Sexy 6!

Nails and Noms

Let Them Have Polish

The Nailasaurus

Fab Fingertips

The Lacquerologist