The Digit-al Dozen September Spectacular: Geeks

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Afternoon friends!

Today's Digit-al Dozen September Spectacular post is all about GEEKS! I was really excited for this because during the original geek week I was very sick and I ended up breaking my ankle so I did not get to participate like I had wanted. I am a big nerd myself, I'm starting grad school this week need I say more? lol so I was actually a tad overwhelmed when it came to choosing what to do! I had a number of great ideas, and a hard time narrowing it down!

In the end after much deliberation I chose Mr. and Mrs. Geek!

Remember all those stories and books from your youth? Well I sure do and these two jumped out at me so I knew I needed to recreate them. For the Mrs. Geek nails I started off with OPI Chic From Ears to Tail and on the Mr. Geek nails I began with Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-mint. From there I freehanded the bodies in Essence Ultimate Pink for Mrs. Geek and China Glaze Sunday Funday for Mr.Geek.

I did the rest of the details, like the glasses, mouths and hair using black creme and white creme. On my thumb I did a gradient using Chic From Ears to Tail and I Need a Refresh-mint and then wrote Mr + Mrs Geek. Not my best writing ever, but it'll do!

These are super cute and I had a lot of fun creating them! What do you think of my geeky nails?!

Be sure to check out the rest of the Digit-al Dozen's geek nails below!!

31DC2013: Day 7 Black and White

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Morning friends!

Today marks the first week completed of the 31 Day Challenge! I can already see this whole month flying by just as fast as the first week has and I'm looking forward to coming up with the rest of the prompts! Today's theme is black and white. Black and white are the two most common colours that I use in my nail art and are the only two bottles that I have ever run out of multiple times. I've had the idea for today's nails jotted down for a few months, but for some reason I always thought that people had already done it and it wasn't creative! After some extensive googling I think that I'm being creative so here are my birds flying away nails!

I have always loved images of birds flying away from a leafless trees, this was the image that I had pinned a long time ago, of course it wasn't referenced properly so here is the image.

For this black and white manicure I started off with 2 coats of my favourite Cult Nails Tempest and added a coat of Seche Vite to give a smooth surface for nail art as I knew I wanted to wear these for as long as possible.

Once the Seche had dried I went at my nails with my smallest cut down nail art brush and Wet n Wild Black Creme. I had started by creating a random outline of the trees and then going back and adding the branches and the birds on the rest of my nails.

Overall I am really pleased with how these came out! I'm glad I finally got around to doing these nails and they turned out as well as I had sketched them! :)

Make sure to head over to The Lacquerologist to see what she did for black and white nails! Also make sure to Enter Our Giveaway to win one of 2 $30 gift certificates to Born Pretty store!
Check out last years black and white nails here!

31DC2013: Day 1 Red

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Gooooood Morning!

Today is DAY ONE in the 31 day challenge and I am super excited to be starting this again for the second year in a row! Day 1 is Red. Again this year instead of just posting a swatch I have decided to do some nail art inspired by the colour to make things a little more interesting.

When I was in Juneau, Alaska I had the amazing opportunity to go to The Red Dog Saloon. We arrived in Juneau at 7AM and went to see a glacier first thing and were back in town by 10:30. So instead of just walking around we decided to head to the famous Red Dog Saloon and have a beer at 10:30 in the morning! The Red Dog Saloon really is a place to see, they still have a woodchip floor and an old man playing 1920's style music. This place was hoppin' so early! In Canada you can't even serve alcohol until 11AM! We got to sit and enjoy an Alaskan Summer Beer after the magnificence of the glacier. This was for sure one of the highlights of my trip so I thought I needed to recreate the symbol on my nails!

I started off with Sally Hansen Rapid Red on all my nails. Two quick coats and I was ready for some art. On my middle two nails I depicted the saloon doors and the Red Dog symbol in the middle, copying the shirt that I had bought there. On my index and pinky nails I wrote Red Dog and on my thumb I created the Red Dog symbol!

On all my nails the white I used was, Cult Nails Tempest, the black was Wet n Wild Black Creme and the gold I used was Orly Luxe. All of the work was done with my favourite cut down super small nail art brush!

Going to The Red Dog Saloon was for sure one the the highlights of my trip to Alaska and I had a lot of fun creating this look on my nails! I think many of my upcoming nail art looks will be inspired by some of the amazingness of Alaska. I hope you are all ok with that!

Make sure you head over the The Lacquerologist and see what Emily has come up with for her Day 1 Red nails! Also if you haven't already be sure to enter our giveaway! :D

The Digit-al Dozen Does Fashion: Ombre Bark Dress

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Happy Friday Friends!

It is the last day in the Digit-al Dozen's Fashion Week and tomorrow will resume with some awesome guest posts from some more absolutely fabulous bloggers. I found today's inspiration while doing nothing other than just browsing around on Pinterest!

Simple, clean and black and white, based on this dress from French Connection,

These nails were super easy to do, but I love the statement they make!!

I started off with 2 coats of my favourite Cult Nails Tempest and then using my favourite cut down nail art brush and Wet n Wild Black Creme I freehanded on the pattern of the dress! I started in the center and made all of the larger dots first and then went outwards and added the smaller dots in the pattern.

These are one of my favourites! I love how simple they are, yet they are majorly eye catching and I think I did a pretty good job at capturing the dress!

What are your thoughts on these nails?! Remember to check out the rest of my comrades posts below!

The Digit-al Dozen Does Fashion: Chevrons and Dots

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Morning ladies and gents!

Here we are in Day 4 of the Digit-al Dozen's Fashion Week and I am back at it today with another outfit inspired post. I stumbled upon the blog Happily Grey and instantly fell in love with her creative style. I found this post and although I don't think I could ever quite pull off the outfit I thought it would make for some wild nail art!

Now it kind of looks random, but check out the outfit,

Blue polka dotted shirt, with some wild black, white and orange pants!

For the 'shirt' nails I started off with China Glaze Splish Spalsh and then added the dots with a small dotting tool and Pure Ice French Kiss. The 'pants' nails were a little harder, I started off with Cult Nails Tempest my favourite white creme. Then using my small cut down nail art brush I started painting on the chevrons with Zoya Kafuda and Wet n Wild Black Creme. I was careful to leave empty white chevrons so I could speckle them after to get the effect of the pattern. Once they were done I added the white strips in the black and orange chevrons. Coat of Seche and I was good to go!

It might seem random, but I'm actually digging how different these prints are next to each other! The contrast is quite interesting, and I think that's what makes it unique. I never would have paired these together without this week so I'm super happy for the challenge!

What are your thoughts on this contrasting nails?! I hope you're having a great end to your week! Check out the rest of the participants below!

Gradients and Stamping Galore

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Morning Friends!

Yes this has to be the least creative title ever, but it was all I could come up with at the moment lol. I was browsing through pinterest and found this amazing manicure and knew that I had to recreate it. Thankfully it uses all PUEEN nail plates which I just so happen to have!

To get this look I started off with a white base, using my current go to Cult Nails Tempest. Then using a make up sponge I got the gradient going using from cuticle to tip, Wet n Wild Lavender Creme, NYC Lexington Yellow and Wet n Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint. Once I was happy with my gradient I added a coat of Seche Vite and allowed that to dry completely.

Once my gradient was dry I got out my stamping tools. I always add top coat before I stamp over a gradient because you work so hard on a gradient you don't want to screw it up!! I needed 4 PUEEN plates to stamp this skittle look. My thumb is PUEEN 05, my index and middle nails are PUEEN 11, my ring nail is PUEEN 08 and finally my pinky is PUEEN 10. All the stamping was done using Wet n Wild Black Creme.

I absolutely loved this look! And even though it was a blatent copy of someone elses work I'm still pleased as punch with how it came out :) Do you like this bright gradient and stamped look?

I'm headed out for lunch with my grandparents today to celebrate finishing my thesis and being the first grandchild to finish university! I'm also the eldest so that helps, but I'm going to enjoy our lunch regardless! I hope you are all having a lovely day as well!

Do You Like Thimbleberries?

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Hey Everyone, how are you all doing? I hope you are all doing marvellous. If you follow me regularly you may have noticed over the past little while my posting has become sporadic and I am for sure not posting as often as I used to. Well 6 weeks ago I broke my ankle and have been in an Aircast and on crutches ever since. Yesterday I headed off to what I thought would be my last appointment with the surgeon and throw my crutches to the wind and start walking again! Unfortunately this was not the case. The fracture has healed but there is some concern for the rest of my ankle. SOOO I am still in my cast and on crutches for minimum another 2 weeks until we can get an MRI, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later. So please bear with me as I will probably continue to be sporadically posting until I am able to walk and get my life in order again.

Ok, rant ended, you came here to see some nails, so here they are!

These nails are a few weeks old, I think I did them the second week that I was hurt and you can see I have mega super nubs. The day before I banged my index nail against my crutch resulting in these rounded nails. I took these pictures after 4 or 5 days of wear so please excuse the tip wear.

After I hurt myself my fabulous mother had been in Target and bought me two new Sinful Colors polishes! You have no idea how excited I am that these are in Canada :D One of those was this gorgeous coral creme, Sinful Colors Thimbleberry. I had to wear it right away, because I just love it. This was 2 creamy coats.

On my first 3 nails I wanted to go for a saran wrap, but mine was up some stairs in my kitchen so instead I ripped a piece of plastic bag and used that to create my saran wrap nails using Essie Good As Gold. Then added 2 black rhinestones at the base of my nails. On my ring and pinky I added one coat of Wet n Wild Fergie's Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night to match up all the black and gold.

I wore these for 4 or 5 days and quite enjoyed it! I did a similar look last year here in different colours, but this is screaming a little more spring time to me! I hope you liked my Thimbleberry accent nails and are having a great weekend!

The Digit-al Dozen Does Animal Week: Octopus

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Morning loves! Here we are at Day 4 in the Digit-al Dozen's Animal Week and I have some more under the sea themed nail art to share with you. I absolutely love octopuses for a number of reasons. First of all they are incredibly cool looking and amazingly smart animals. I watched a documentary on octopuses and apparently they are on the same level of intelligence as humans but they broke off development somewhere early on and have almost a completely different biological makeup!

I google image searched octopus to get some inspiration and one of the first images that popped up was this post by Sonoma Nail Art. I absolutely loved her octopus so decided to take it as my inspiration but switch up my colours as well as where I placed him.

I started with China Glaze For Audrey as my background and then used a variety of purple polishes and my smallest nail art brush and dotting tool to create my octopus.

On my thumb and pinky I decided to create a glitter gradient using Jordana Cosmic and Icing Disco Ball. I used Cosmic on the octopus nails to create some more visual interest.

Here are all the purples that I used! I almost pulled out every one in my stash ;)
Barielle Grape Escape
China Glaze Gothic Lolita
Nail The B.Y.T.C.H. Fruity Cutie Butte
Zoya Keiko
Wet n Wild On A Trip
Rimmel Night Before
Sally Hansen Insta Dri Vigorous Violet
I'm also trying out this new hand position, what do you all think?

I really enjoyed creating this octopus look, and love having sea creatures on my nails! I am a huge fan of all BBC productions such as Planet Earth, Blue Planet and Life and the underwater portions are my favourites to watch! What are your favourite kinds of animals?

Make sure you come back tomorrow I have some of my best nail art ever to share with you :D Check out the rest of the Digit-al Dozen's posts below!