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: 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!

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 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 22 Inspired by a Song

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Morning friends!

Today I have some nail art that I am very excited to share with you. I'm pretty much doing these nails day by day right now and I didn't have time to even start these nails until last night around 11pm. I was only supposed to work until 9, but ended up having to stay until 10:30pm so by the time I got home I had very little energy to think about what song I was possibly going to be inspired by. So I texted my boyfriend and said I need a song, pick me one! He immediately said Roar by Katy Perry as he had juuust heard it on the radio as he was coming home from work!

I absolutely love this song and am super thrilled that I created nail art based on it! As soon as my boyfriend said Roar I watched the video and I was instantly hit with inspiration! Check out the embedded video below. It is such a happy, feel good song!



Let's get back to looking at the nail art, because well I love it! :D

My thumb is from the opening scene in the music video, it starts off graphically saying, A Motion Theory Adventure Filmed in Junglescope with ROAR in big orange letters. My index nail is another scene from the music video where Katy is scared in the dark and can see all the eyes staring out at her. My middle nail is my favourite!! It is the tiger ROARING! I'm rather proud of how he came out :D My ring nail is pink and yellow flowers with green leaves quite like the flowers on Katy's grass skirt in the second half of the video. My pinky nail is leopard print to represent the scarf she's wearing that magically turns into a fab bralet lol.

I used waaaaay too many polishes and spent waaay too long on these nails, but I mean come on? They were worth it right? I must sound so full of myself right now! I used 24 polishes and pretty much every colour on my nail was custom mixed to get the right shade that I wanted. If you have any questions about a particular colour leave a comment below and I will let you know :)

I was sure these nails were going to be a giant fail because I was tired after work coming home, but listening to Roar on youtube like 5 times for sure put me in an awesome mood!

What are your thoughts on my Katy Perry nails?! Do these seem roar appropriate to you? Yes I make bad puns when I write posts at 2am :P

Be sure to stop by The Lacquerologist to see what song inspired Emily today! Also be sure to ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY!
Check out last years inspired by a song nails here!

31DC2013: Day 19 Galaxies

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Good Morning loves!

Today's challenge prompt is Galaxies. The usual route of galaxy nails involves sponging on a mixture of colours until it looks like a galaxy and then adding in some stars so it is a very far away perspective. I like galaxy nails, but decided to go for a more 'close up' perspective.

Our Solar System!! I know nails like these have been done before, but I had much more fun making these than I would have doing classic galaxy nails. The base of this manicure is the beautiful Essence Jacob's Protection. This is a deep navy jelly with green and turquoise micro glitter that I thought would mimic stars in the distance.

Pretty much every colour was custom mixed so I will list all the polishes I used below. All the work was done with my smallest cut down nail art brush :D Here are all the polishes used
Sally Hansen Lightening (yellow)
Sally Hansen Rapid Red (red)
Revlon Sorbet (light orange)
Essence Wake Up! (dark orange)
China Glaze Sunday Funday (light blue)
Essie Pretty Edgy (green)
Essie Marshmallow (white jelly)
NYC Sidewalkers (gray)
Sinful Colors In The Mist (green gray)
Pure Ice Bikini (light blue)
Revlon Bare Bones (nude)
China Glaze Desert Sun (brown)
Essie Bulter Plese (cobalt blue)
Sally Hansen Ion (grey white)

SUPER love these and have been showing them to all my friends :D I don't want to take them off today to do watermarble nails. Bleh. Another least favourite :P Do you like my galaxy nails?!

Be sure to stop by The Lacquerologist to see Emily's galaxy nails!
Check out last years galaxy nails here!

31DC2013: Day 14 Flowers

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Good Morning friends!

Today brings us to the 14th day of the challenge, and I think I have one of my favourite manicures yet to share with you! The prompt today is Flowers and I have known exactly what I wanted to do for this day ever since Emily and I decided we were going to redo the challenge! I was at my Grandma's house for a BBQ earlier this summer and she had the most fabulous floral napkins out, at the end of the night I asked her if I could take one and she said yes! So I have been keeping the napkin close by to recreate for this day. I'll show a picture of the napkin later in this post.

For these nails I started off with OPI My Vampire Is Buff my go to nude polish. Then I went at it with my smallest cut down nail art brush to create the flowers and leaves! All the polishes I used will be listed below. Since this was a fairly complex design I won't get into specific details about how I did it other than I looked at the napkin and then tried my best to scale the pattern down to fit on my nails!

The polishes used for these are are as follows,
Cult Nails Evil Queen
Billie Zinfandel
China Glaze Def Defying
OPI Congeniality is My Middle Name
OPI A-Piers To Be Tan
Joe Fresh Caramel
I did a variety of mixing these polishes in different combinations to get the exact shade I wanted! Here is a picture of my nails with the napkin!

I seriously love these and never ever want to take them off! I think it is up there with some of the best freehand work that I've done and I'm super proud :) What do you think of my floral nails?!

Be sure to head over to The Lacquerologist to see what Emily has come up with for Flowers! Also be sure to enter our giveaway!!
Check out last years Flowers nails here!