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!

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 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 18 Half-Moon

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Good Morning!

Today's manicure prompt is half-moon. I had a hard time coming up with something because last year's half-moon nails are still some of my all time favourites. So I literally spent hours thinking of things that are round, and images with the moon in them and after sketching out about 5 ideas I finally settled on the wolf howling at the moon!

I actually love these! I started off with Pure Ice Bikini on all my nails as this was what I wanted the base of the moon to be. Then I pulled out Revlon Midnight Affair and freehanded the moon shape using my medium length striping brush. Then I used the brush from the polish bottle to fill in the rest of my nails with Midnight Affair.

I then used Essie Butler, Please mixed with acetone to mimic the effect of the surface of the moon. I wasn't entirely happy with that so I went back with Bikini and acetone over that in some areas to get a more layered look. I then went in with my smallest nail art brush and Midnight Affair to draw the wolf howling and some trees to give it a scenic feel! I almost used a deep blue creme instead of Midnight Affair, but I am really glad that I went with the blue shimmer as I feel it adds to the look!

I quite like this manicure and am happy with these even though I don't think they come close to topping last years nails! :P What do you think of my wolf howling at the moon manicure?!

Be sure to stop by The Lacquerologist to see what Emily's half-moon nails look like! I am sure they are awesome as she has been kicking this challenge out of the park! Also ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY!
See last year's half-moon nails here!

Digit-al Dozen September Spectacular: Fashion

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Afternoon my friends!

Wow! Today is the last day in the Digit-al Dozen's September Spectacular! It is a bittersweet moment for me, on one hand I am happy it has come to an end because now I can get back to posting only once a day! The past two weeks have been a little nutso :P On the other hand I am sad to see it end because everyone has been knocking it out of the park! It has been a lot of fun to recreate past themes, it goes to show that there are endless possibilities within a single theme!

Today's theme is Fashion, it is the week that we most recently did this past August. I ended up going for a simpler look with some standout accent nails!

This look was inspired by this outfit that I found on Pinterest! Here is the image of what it looks like,

I would totally rock this outfit, and since I do not own pink pants, or a fully sequined shirt with an anchor on it, I was forced to create the look on my nails! On my non-accent nails I started off with Pure Ice Flirt Alert to match the pink pants!

For my accent nails I started off with Color Club Beyond and then freehanded some anchors in in Color Club Harp On It. I chose to substitute sequins for holographic polishes because I felt that it still gave off that shine, without having to hand place glitter!

I really like my anchor nails, and maybe I will have to bring them back in some form sometime! What are your thoughts on this look?

Be sure to check out the rest of the Digit-al Dozen's Fashion inspired manicures below! Also make sure to ENTER OUR GIVEAWAY! It ends tomorrow!

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!

31DC2013: Day 10 Gradient

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Goood Morning loves!

Today's theme in the 31 Day Challenge is gradients! I really enjoy gradient nails and don't find myself doing them enough. For today's nails I wanted to try and add something a little extra to the gradient. I was stumbling around the internet and found this image of shadows jumping over a lake at night. I decided to try and recreate this image!

I started off with a white creme base using Cult Nails Tempest just to give a good base for the gradient. Then I painted directly onto a makeup sponge using Sephora by OPI Never Enough Shoes, butter LONDON Giddy Kipper and Pure Ice Bikini on top.

I sponged the polish onto my nails until I had a gradient I was happy with. It's not the most perfectly blended gradient, but I still really like it! Then using Sephora by OPI Never Enough Shoes I freehanded the figures jumping in the air! I tried to make them all a little different in shape and size to give the effect of how it would look if a real group of people were jumping!

These were really fun to do and I'm glad I went a little bit of a different route for the gradient theme! I can't believe we are already a third of the way through this challenge. It is flying by and I'm really proud of some of the manicures that I've come up with already :)

Make sure you are checking out Emily over at The Lacquerologist! She has been coming up with some absolutely killer manicures! Also be sure to enter our giveaway :)

Check out last years gradient nails here!