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!

Gradients and Accents Plus Where I've Been

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Hello Polished Friends!

Wow it has been a long time since I sat down and wrote a post on here. I can't believe I haven't talked to you guys in over a month! There have been a number of things going on in my life that have prevented me from blogging recently. I' not going to go into too much detail, but I have been dealing with some personal and familial health issues as well as juggling grad school, and working 4+ days a week in order to pay for everything. It has been a struggle and blogging has been pushed to the back burner. I'm not going to promise that I'm coming back to full strength, but I did want to check in and let you all know I am alive and relatively OK :)

I did these accents and gradient nails a while back now, and I wasn't 100% sure I liked them at the time, and honestly I'm still not convinced lol. It seems like there is something missing... hmmmm. I do love me a gradient though and that is where the inspiration for this manicure began.

For the gradient I started out with Pure Ice Bikini which is such a soft pretty blue. Then proceeded with the gradient using Bikini and Pure Ice Flirt Alert. I did this on every other nail and then added two accents to mix things up a little. On my index nail I started with Color Club Harp On It and then added a coat of Happy Hands Motherboy. On my ring nail I started with my still favourite Cult Nails Tempest and then stamped with PUEEN 20 and black creme.

What do you think about these gradients and accented nails?! I hope I can start posting relatively more regularly soon :) Miss and love you all!

The Digit-al Dozen Does Skittles: Floralesque

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Afternoon friends!

Today I have yet another skittle manicure to share with you as part of the Digit-al Dozen's Skittle Week! I really like this combination of floralesque patterns and think it's cohesive and pretty all at the same time :)

I stumbled upon this and was completely inspired to create my own version. I used a ton of polishes for this look and I'm running short on time writing this post, but if you have any questions about a particular polish just ask!

I did all the detail work with my smallest cut down nail art brush and then added some holographic silver glequins from Born Pretty Store to add a little pizazz!

What do you think of this skittle?! Be sue to stop by the rest of the Digit-al Dozen to see their skittles today!

31DC2013: Day 29 Inspired by the Supernatural

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Morning friends!

We are sooo close to the end here! Today's prompt is inspired by the Supernatural. I think this is supposed to be geared more towards ghosts, goblins and vampires, but I decided to go in the superhero direction! They have supernatural powers!

If you can't tell these are Wonder Woman nails! I feel like she's a pretty awesome heroine with a multitude of superpowers so she's totally worthy of this prompt! If you know nothing about Wonder Woman you can check out her awesomeness here!

For these nails I started off with Cult Nails Evil Queen on all my nails except my ring nail which I used Essie Butler, Please. Then I just started abstractly adding Wonder Womanesque images on all my nails. The other polishes used are Essie Good As Gold, Cult Nails Tempest and Wet n Wild Black Creme. All of it was done freehand with my small cut down nail art brush!

These were pretty fun to do and I think they fit in with the theme! I can't believe there are only two more days to go in the challenge! It's blowing my mind! Do you like my Wonder Woman nails?

Check out The Lacquerologist to see what inspired Emily today! Also only a few days left to enter our giveaway!!
See last years supernatural 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 26 Inspired by a Pattern

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Good Morning loves!

Today's prompt is inspired by a pattern. This is another tricky one to interpret similar to inspired by a colour, a pattern could be anything?! When I'm stuck for inspiration I hit google and found a pretty cool blog with a post on mixing and matching spring patterns! Since we all know I'm a sucker for skittles I got super excited and decided I needed to recreate these patterns into a manicure!

I'm seriously digging these nails and am super excited about all the cohesive patterns! The inspiration for the patterns can be seen below,

I think I did a pretty good job matching them no?

For this manicure I started off with Lime Crime Milky Ways on all my nails except on my ring nail, which is just China Glaze Fancy Pants. I then proceeded to freehand on the patterns using Fancy Pants, China Glaze Budding Romance, China Glaze Snap My Dragon and Sally Hansen Lightening! I had a lot of fun making these patterns, and it's a skittle, come on I'm in love!

All the work was done with my smallest cut down nail art brush, and I actually did this on both hands! But completely spaced on taking a picture of my right hand, whoops!

I think this really fits with the inspired by a pattern theme and I'm super stoked because well I love these nails. Sorry to toot my own horn, but they are awesome! :D What are your thoughts?! I can't believe there are only 5 more days left in the challenge! I can't believe we've come this far!

Be sure to stop by The Lacquerologist to see what pattern inspired Emily today! Also there are only a few days left to enter our giveaway!!
Check out last years inspired by a pattern 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 21 Inspired by a Colour

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Gooood Morning friends!

Today moves us into the 'inspired by' portion of the challenge. Basically if this challenge was a baby we'd be in the third trimester! This portion of the challenge is really fun as it really allows you to get creative! Last year at this time I was feeling really burnt out by the challenge, but this year I feel like it's smooth sailing! So I'm very much looking forward to the next 10 days :D

Today's prompt is Inspired by a Colour. Since we already did so many colours at the start of this challenge I, like many other lacquerheads have chosen to interpret this day as inspired by a polish colour! My choice was Essie Cute As A Button!

How cute are these buttons?! See what I did there, he he :P Ok I'm the only one laughing right? For this manicure I started off with Lime Crime Milky Ways and then proceeded to draw on my buttons using of course, Essie Cute As A Button as well as China Glaze For Audrey and Nailtini Parfait Armour.

After the initial circles had been drawn and filled in I went back with Milky Ways and drew the circles inside the buttons and finished off with a dotting tool and adding two dots inside each button to make it a button! Woah I just said button a loooot :P

These are super cute and I really love them! I hope they fit the theme, even though I didn't use Cute As A Button as my base, it's still in there, as a button :P Ok enough with the bad puns lol

Make sure you swing over to The Lacquerologist to see what inspired Emily today! Also be sure to ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY for one of two $30 gift cards to Born Pretty Store!
Check out last years Inspired by a Colour nails here!