The Digit-al Dozen Does Skittles: Neon, Nude and Studded

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Good Morning friends!

This week is yet another Digit-al Dozen Week here on Sincerely Stephanie and we are welcoming some new members this week! This week is also very exciting because I chose the theme this week, and it is my absolute favourite kind of nail art, SKITTLES!! If you are looking for more information as to just what skittles are you can check out my post on The Digit-al Dozen blog here.

My post is a day late starting as yesterday was a holiday here in Canada and I was finishing up spending time with my family and boyfriend whom I won't see again for over a month, so please excuse the late start!

For this manicure I started off with OPI My Vampire is Buff on all my nails except my index nail. I then grabbed my favourite small cut down nail art brush and some gold studs from Born Pretty Store and started skittling. Yup I just made that a verb.

The gold glitter on my index nail is OPI Liquid Sand Honey Ryder and all the neon line work was done with China Glaze Sun of a Peach. The neon looks really washed out here, but it was soooo bright in person and the contrast was fantastic. I think my favourite nail is the gold cross, what do you think?

I can't wait to see what everyone else is coming up with! Hope you are all having a lovely start to your week :)

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 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!

31DC2013: Day 13 Animal Print

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Good Morning loves!

Today brings us to day 13 in the 31 Day Challenge with today's prompt being Animal Print! I just did an animal themed manicure for the Digit-al Dozen September Spectacular, so I did a bit if researching to find something interesting to do for today's prompt. I found myself on National Geographic's website looking at Dangerous and Deadly Sea Creatures! There are so many amazing animals out there but I decided to go with the dangerous theme once I saw the Textile Cone Snail.

Here is the snail if you're wondering how close I got to it's print!

The textile cone snail looks innocent, but is actually one of the planet's most toxic creatures. They "harpoon" their prey with hollow teeth, through which they inject a lethal venom. Their most common victims are mollusks, though they have been known to eat their own kind!!

These nails were pretty simple to do! I started off with OPI My Vampire is Buff and then mixed OPI A-Piers To Be Tan with acetone on wax paper to thin it out. Then I applied the thin mixture in random splotches on my nails. Then I used Revlon Hot For Chocolate and my small cut down nail art brush to create the lines over the brown patches and the V's over the rest of the nails. When I was topcoating instead of floating the topcoat over my nails, I dragged it a little over the brown patches to get the same effect as the snail!

I created the above image for easy pinning so people can see that this actually is an animal print!! What do you think of these animal print nails? Do you like the snail print?

Be sure to head over to The Lacquerologist to see what Emily has done for Animal Print! Also be sure to enter our giveaway!
Check out last years animal print nails here!

31DC2013: Day 12 Stripes

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Good Morning friends!

So full disclosure before we get to today's nails. When I was painting these I completely thought that the prompt for today was lines instead of stripes.So my manicure is a little more linear than stripey, but it still kind of fits in with the theme! Right?!

I actually really love these! I started out with OPI My Vampire Is Buff on my thumb, index and ring nails, Color Club Metamorphosis on my middle nail and Orly Luxe on my pinky. Then I went to work with my smallest cut down nail art brush and Wet n Wild Black Creme and just drew lines changing directions every so often until my whole nail was covered!

On my middle nail I did a gradient with Metamorphosis and Color Club Sky High and then created the small triangles with Luxe and outlined them with black creme. On my pinky I tried to do the opposite and created the triangles with Metamorphosis and Sky High and then outlined them in black.

I really liked wearing these nails! I'm also quite proud of my fine line work here :) What do you think of these nails?! Do they fit the stripe theme?

Be sure to check out The Lacquerologist to see what Emily has come up with today! Also be sure to enter our giveaway!
Check out last years striped nails here!

31DC2013: Day 11 Dots

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Good Morning!

Today brings us another installment of the 31 Day Challenge, this time the theme is dots! I went for a simple bold gradient of dots in some bright earth tones. I actually love how graphic this ended up being so let's get to it!

My inspiration for these nails came while browsing Pinterest, seriously it's how I find 85% of my inspirations. Unfortunately like many pins this was improperly sourced so here is the link to the image.

For these nails I started off with Cult Nails Tempest, what else really. Then I started dotting using a number of polishes which I will list below!
China Glaze Sunday Funday (bright blue)
China Glaze Def Defying (chartreuse green)
OPI A-Piers To Be Tan (caramel tan)
Essie Mesmerize (dusty blue)
OPI My Vampire Is Buff (light nude)
Revlon Midnight Affair (deep blue)
Pure Ice Bikini (light blue)

I always somehow forget about dotticures when I sit down to do my nails so I am really excited that I had another chance to try one! These were fun to do and to wear. What do you think of this dotted gradient?!

Be sure to check out The Lacquerologist to see what Emily did for dot nails! Also be sure to enter our giveaway :)
Check out last years dot nails here!

The Digit-al Dozen September Spectacular: Love and Heartbreak

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Afternoon friends!

Today's Digit-al Dozen post is all about Love and Heartbreak. I decided to go with the love side of things because love is always more fun than heartbreak!

I originally started these nails in black, white and red, but I felt like the stark white and red was a little too much so I swicthed to a nude and a pink. I started out by painting OPI My Vampire Is Buff on all my nails and then waiting for that to dry. I proceeded to use Essie Watermelon and Wet n Wild Black Creme to create my love skittle.

On my thumb I freehanded Love in italics in pink and then added the rest of the loves in black creme. On my index nail I started writing love in black and then kept going with it making the letters larger as I went down my nail. On my middle nail I started by writing LOVE in black creme and then adding the hearts in pink on either side. My ring nail was just little hearts in pink and black creme and finally my pinky started with the pink heart and then the black outline. The details were done in my cut down nail art brush as well as a size #000 for all the hearts.

You all know I love my skittles, and these are still super fun! What do you think of my Love nails?!

Make sure to check out the rest of the Digit-al Dozen's love and heartbreak nails below! And enter our giveaway! Tomorrow is a day off from the Digit-al Dozen, but make sure to check back on Monday for the next recreation in the September Spectacular!

31DC2013: Day 5 Blue

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Morning friends!

I hope you are all enjoying the challenge so far! I know I am, and Emily has been knocking it out of the park! So if you haven't had a chance yet you should definitely make sure you check out her posts!

Today's theme is blue. I actually struggled a little with this one. I had this idea originally, but after doing one nail it didn't work out so I went in another direction which ended up turning out even worse! I decided to go back to my original idea, but changed it slightly and I am super pleased with the results!

This manicure started out with OPI My Vampire is Buff which I still have a mega crush on. It's just a wonderful nude polish. Then I used the watercolour technique with pure acetone and Essie Butler Please, China Glaze Sunday Funday, and Nailtini Blue Carnation. This created the interesting backdrop to do my little bit of art on.



I then went in with my small nail art brush and black creme to create the pattern. I used MVIB to fill in the top piece, and Butler Please and Sunday Funday to fill in the bottom triangle. The rest of the details were done in black creme!

Once I was done, I thought this might look really interesting matte so I pulled out OPI Matte Topcoat and added a layer!

So which way do you prefer my blue nail art?! Matte or glossy? I think I prefer it matte, but I can't quite decide! Make sure you head over to The Lacquerologist to see what Emily's blue nails look like!
Last years blue nails can be found here.