Snow Covered Windows - Nail Polish Canada's Holiday Nail Art Contest

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Helloooo Everyone!

This is a super late post from me, but I wanted to make sure I could get these nails into Nail Polish Canada's Holiday Nail Art Contest Week 1! The theme this week is SNOW! I couldn't narrow down my idea for this week until I was chatting with my roommate and she came up with snow covered windows! Like when all your window panes have snow built up in the corners. All I can imagine is sitting in a cottage somewhere with a hot chocolate curled up by a fire staring out at the evergreen trees through the snow.

These nails were quite easy to do and pretty cute from a distance! I started off with Pure Ice Bikini on all my nails to mimic the beautiful blue sky I imagined. Then I freehanded on the evergreen trees using China Glaze Running In Circles and my favourite cut down small nail art brush.

I then freehanded on the window sills using China Glaze Desert Sun to mimic wood that would be in this winter cabin I'm dreaming of. Finally I added the snow on the sills using Cult Nails Tempest and then added a layer of Pretty & Polished S'no Mans Land from last years holiday collection to give the snow a little texture.

I had a lot of fun doing these, partly because this is the first nail art I've managed to get done in a long while! I'm really glad I was able to get them done :) If you'd like you can vote for me HERE in the Snow week for Nail Polish Canada's Holiday Nail Art Contest! Or just vote for whomever's nail art you like best! Hope you're all having a fabulous week!

The Digit-al Dozen Does Skittles: Skull Nets

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Afternoon friends!

Today we have yet another post in the Digit-al Dozen's Skittle Week! I was trolling around the internet last night looking for some inspiration when I saw this picture that Rie of Nails and Noms posted of some awesome Black Milk Clothing Skull Net Tights! The design was really interesting and I decided to take that as my inspiration and went from there!

I again stuck with my almost all butter LONDON theme when selecting what polishes to use! I started out with Cult Nails Tempest on my index, ring and pinky nail and used butter LONDON Come To Bed Red from the upcoming Illusionist Holiday Collection (swatches will be up soon), on my thumb and middle nail. From there I started out by recreating the pattern on the Black Milk Clothing Leggings on my ring nail with my smallest cut down nail art brush and butter LONDON Union Black Jack.

On my thumb I added a coat of butter LONDON Stardust, which is also from the upcoming Illusionist Holiday Collection, over Come To Bed Red. On my index nail I added large dots with a dotting tool in Union Jack Black and then painted a gradient with Come to Bed Red and sprinkled some loose red glitter on top. On my middle nail I used an assortment of black and clear rhinestones to create the pattern. On my pinky nail I did a line of black rhinestones up the middle of my nail and then painted a line using Come To Bed Red on either side and again sprinkled glitter over that! That was a lot of explaining!

I love black, white and red together and the subtle skulls make me feel slightly rocker, while still keeping it girly. What do you think about these nails?

Make sure you check out the rest of The Digit-al Dozen to see what skittles they are rocking today!

The Digit-al Dozen Does Skittles: Purple, Green and Glitter

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Afternoon loves!

I only just posted this morning, but this is my effort to catch back up in the Digit-al Dozen's Skittle week! This week was my pick so I am really excited to be posting this week! I just received an amazing package with a plethora of butter LONDON products so decided that one of my skittles needed to use some of these just stunning lacquers!

I picked out two of my favourites from the Rock Your Colour Line which are, butter LONDON Indigo Punk (the purple glitter) and butter LONDON Jaded Jack (the chartreuse green). I felt like these colours were really graphic so I decided to pair them with black and white, using butter LONDON Union Black Jack and Cult Nails Tempest. I was close to using entirely butter LONDON products, but unfortunately I don't own Cotton Buds!

For all the nail art I used the aformentioned polishes and my favourite small cut down nail art brush. I just drew random patterns until I was happy with the result. Also I left my middle nail just as butter LONDON Indigo Punk as that glitter is too pretty to not have a nail on it's own!

I love skittles so much because it allows me to play with combining patterns, which is something that I really wish I could do in fashion! Since I play it safer fashionwise I let it all go nuts on my nails!

What are your thoughts on these nails? Be sure to check out the rest of the Digit-al Dozen below!

31DC2013: Day 28 Inspired by a Flag

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Morning friends!

Wow we are so close to being done this beast of a challenge! Today's prompt is Inspired by a Flag, I feel like whoever wrote this challenge had a specific manicure in mind when they were thinking of this, so like usual I resorted to Google to see what interesting flags I could find! I ended up finding a ton of really cool flags around the world, but ended up choosing the state flag of Maryland in The United States!

I think these turned out pretty cool! Here is the flag for reference if you have never seen it before,

I decided to completely replicate the flag on my thumb and then do each of the crests on my four nails! The Maryland flag is really cool because it is the heraldic banner of George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore. It is the only flag in the United States to be based on English heraldry.It also seemed appropriate to do these nails since my boyfriend grew up in Balitmore!

For these nails I started out with Cult Nails Tempest on my thumb, index and ring nail. I used Cult Nails Feel Me Up as a base on my middle and pinky nails. From there I used China Glaze Adventure Red-y to freehand the crosses and Wet n Wild Black Creme to freehand the stripes and diamond pattern.

I created the above image for easy pinning if you're into that kind of thing :)

What do you think of my Maryland State flag nails?! Are any of my readers from Maryland?

Make sure you head over to The Lacquerologist to see what flag has inspired Emily today! Also if you haven't yet make sure you enter our giveaway! Only a few days left!
Check out last years inspired by a flag nails here

31DC2013: Day 27 Inspired by Art

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Morning friends!

Today's post is Day 27 in the 31 day challenge! I am soooo excited and proud that we are nearing the end! We've almost finished another year! So awesome! I am really excited about today's nails because I have been wanting to do this design since June! One of my really good friends Ashley O'Brien is an amazing artist. She paints beautifully and I got the pleasure of seeing this design in person, so when I was thinking about what to do for today's nails I finally had the excuse to do these nails!

She created this beautiful piece for her cousin's wedding so this is now in Ireland. I love the rough purple gradient and the paisley pattern. The whole thing is really amazing! For my nail interpretation I started out with my go to Cult Nails Tempest on all my nails to have a nice blank canvas to try to replicate Ashley's beautiful work!

The whole manicure was done with my smallest cut down nail art brush and a bunch of polishes! I pretty much just kept looking at the picture of her painting and painting on my own nails and adjusting until I was happy with it. Here are all the polishes used! If you're wondering about a specific one just ask below!
Pure Ice Jail Bait
LAQA & CO. Nookie
Pure Ice No Means No
OPI Miss You-Niverse (review coming soon)
OPI I'm Feeling Sashy (review coming soon)
China Glaze Gothic Lolita
China Glaze Fancy Pants
China Glaze Snap My Dragon
Born Pretty Store Sweet Color #009
Essie Good As Gold


It's a little hard to see in the picture, but on the right hand side of the painting in the purple gradient there were awesome purple rhinestones! So On my pinky and thumb I added a line of purple rhinestones to emulate that! I even tried to get her signature on my pinky! :D

I'm so happy I finally got around to doing these! That you Ashley for the amazing inspiration! What are your thoughts on these nails?!

Make sure you head over to The Lacquerologist to see what art inspired Emily today! Also be sure to enter our giveaway!!
Check out last years inspired by art nails here!

31DC2013: Day 25 Inspired by Fashion

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Good Morning my lovely lacquerheads!

Today's challenge prompt is all about being inspired by Fashion. In all honesty I am not a big fashionista. I love clothes, but my meager student budget does not allow me to buy incredibly gorgeous pieces that I would if I had an unlimited budget. Also the lifestyle of trekking back and forth to campus everyday does not lend itself to gorgeous dresses and heels. So I follow other fashion blogs and wish that I could afford/have somewhere to go in those beautiful clothes! Today's inspiration is from one of those blogs!

These nails are inspired by this Mara Hoffman Open Back Column Dress which unfortunately costs almost $300. Good thing a girl can dream right?! lol

These nails are loosely inspired by the dress. I was originally planning on copying the print exactly, but my nails were just too small and I was too tired after work to do all of that :P
I started off with a white base and then began freehanding on the design with my smallest nail art brush. I did it over a white base so the colours would really pop. For this manicure I used, China Glaze Igniting Love, China Glaze Budding Romance, China Glaze Sunday Funday, Sweet Color #009 along with black and white creme.

I really like these nails even if they aren't quite as crisp as I would like because I was a little on the tired side. But they look great when I hold my hand out far! What do you think about these fashion inspired nails?!

Be sure to head over to The Lacquerologist to see what Emily has done today! Also be sure to enter our giveaway!
Check out last years fashion inspired nails here!

31DC2013: Day 24 Inspired by a Book

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Morning friends!

Today's nails are inspired by a book! I really wanted to do Harry Potter nails, but was struggling to come up with an original way to do it. My 8 year our cousin is absolutely obsessed with Harry Potter and this past summer he went to Universal Studios and to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter! Not only did he make me eat some rather disgusting Bernie Botts Every Flavour jelly beans, but he was so proud of his new stuffed toy Hedwig! So after thinking about him I decided to do some Hedwig nails!

Full disclosure, I did these nails by looking at this photo of Hedwig that I found on Google. After I was finishing I decided to google Hedwig Nail Art to see if anyone else had done something like this before. I found almost the exact same manicure on Coewless's blog! So full credit goes to her for thinking of the idea first even though I didn't know they were similar until after I was finished lol.

I started these nails off with two coats of my absolute favourite white creme Cult Nails Tempest on all my nails. Then I started drawing the eyes with Wet n Wild Black Creme. The yellow of the eyes was done with Sally Hansen Lightening and mixing varying amounts of white and black to that to get the shading. The shading for her feathers and beak were done with black and white creme as well as Revlon Hot For Chocolate again mixed with varying amounts of white creme.

On the rest of my nails I ripped a sponge up and sponged on a mixture of Hot For Chocolate and white creme. I sponged most of the polish off onto wax paper so that the sponging was as light as possible. I also went back and added a little bit of white creme over the brown to give it a different feel. I finally went in with a mixture of Hot For Chocolate and white creme and my smallest nail art brush and added the feathers in U shapes!

I really like these and I really hope that my cousin approves! These are for you Nathaniel! :D What do you think of these Harry Potter Inspired nails?!

Remember to head over to The Lacquerologist to see what book inspired Emily today! Also be sure to ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY for a chance to win one of 2 $30 gift cards to Born Pretty Store!
Check out last years inspired by a book nails here!

31DC2013: Day 20 Watermarble

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Good Morning!

Today brings us to the most dreaded day of the challenge, the water marble. I hate this technique. I have never posted any on this blog that I have not been forced into because of a challenge. Don't get me wrong! I have tried, again and again and watched countless videos on how to properly draw a design and I fail. Every. Single Time. I went into this with high hopes! But yet again I cannot draw a design no matter how many times I try!

For this water marble I started off with OPI Skull and Glossbones an off white gray. Then I proceeded to marble with China Glaze Gothic Lolita, China Glaze Passion For Petals as well as Skull and Glossbones. I went about it the usual way, by dropping dots into a shot glass filled with water and then drawing my design in. One nail at a time.

Well I did it. I'm not sure if I like it, I always get frustrated and associate that feeling with watermarbles. At least I didn't cry this time! There have been many times where I have attempted and after hours just stopped lol. SO what are your thoughts on this water marble?! Do you like it?

Make sure you check out Emily's water marble over at The Lacquerologist!
Check out last years water marble here!