Gingerbread & Sprinkles

Hey ladies!

Today I have cute nails to show off.. except.. except I stamped them backwards! lol!  But whatever, I'm doing this to keep track of my cute nails so, here they are anyway :)

 

 

Sally Hansen Diamond Strength

China Glaze - Holly-Day

Color Club - Perfect Mol-Ten

OPI - Designer... de Better!

Color Club - Backstage Pass

Color Club - Wish Upon a Rock Star

Color Club top coat

So, some of the photos are awkward since I rotated a few of them to make the ginger bread men upright lol.

 

The mister and I put our tree up this weekend.  It's so gorgeous!  I love Christmas lights, and Christmas decor.  Our apartment doesn't look like Christmas puked all over it either so it's just a nice touch.  Who else is looking forward to doing a whole lot of Christmas nails?  I joined the Purple Crumpet Fairy Christmas challenge, which looks something like this:

Now I admit I won't be able to do all of them since I have exams, and I'm flying halfway across the country for Christmas but.. I'll do my best :)

Snowflakes

Hey everyone!

I just (mostly) finished putting together a presentation for a class I have to teach.. phew.. I've been locked up in my office plugging away at it for quite some time.  And now that it's done, it's time to post what my nails look like right now :)

The boy always asks me if I get complimented on my nails, and my answer is typically "nah" because well.. I see the same people day in and day out, they're not going to compliment me every single time I have a new mani, right?  But today I got a few while we were out shopping, so he was pretty proud.  I think he loves my nails just as much as I do :)

Anyway!

Here's what I used:

 

Sally Hansen: Diamond Strength

OPI: Wocka Wocka!

Color Club: Perfect Mol-ten

Orly: Meet me under the Mistletoe

OPI: Fresh Frog of Bel Air

Seche Vite

I think it turned out pretty cute!  I'm a bit sad that the stamps overlapped on my pointer finger but I wasn't about to redo it just because of that, so I just went went it.  I LOVE Wocka Wocka!  It's such a festive red.  And can I say that Fresh Frog of Bel Air looks absolutely AMAZING over Meet Me Under the Mistletoe?  It's only one coat of Fresh Frog over 2 coats of MMUTM.  I can't stop staring at it.

If you notice that little blue dot on my middle finger... I was experimenting with a nail art polish, and hated it so that's the only one there, lol.  Eh well!

I'm in a Christmas mood!  If only December 6 could come sooner so I would be done with this last class of mine...

Hope you're all having a fabulous weekend :)

Current Nails: Slight duochrome + Stamping & Glitters!

Hey everyone!

I have been super swamped lately with school (my last credit for my masters degree!!), and I haven't had much time to post.. I even have some manis where I didn't take a single photo!  Sigh.

These are my current nails.. tipwear and all.  I'm on day 3.. it'll likely come off after the boy and I put the Christmas tree up tonight (I'M SO EXCITED!)

What I used:
Sally Hansen: Diamond Strength
Wet 'n Wild: Gray's Anatomy
Sally Hansen Insta-Dry: Emerald Express
Color Club: Holiday Splendor (From the Beyond the Mistletoe collection)
OPI - Park de Triomphe
GOSH - Gold
OPI - RapiDry Top Coat

 

I painted all nails except for accent nail with Gray's Anatomy, accent nail of Emerald Express, and did a glitter gradient on accent using Park de Triomphe.  I left it like that for one day, then stamped all nails using Emerald Express with a bundle monster plate.  And hid some of my stamping mistakes using CC Holiday Splendor on the tips.  There is also a gold star stamped on my accent nail but it's hard to see :P

Now.. I'm still trying to prefect my stamping.. every single nail turned out crooked!  At least it was consistently crooked haha.  Gray's Anatomy is pretty, I just wish the duochrome showed up better on the nails.  You can kind of see it but it's not as obvious as it is in the bottle.

I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving!  I'm in Canada so ours has come and gone a little while ago :)

Gradient + Zebra Stripes

Hey everyone!

I'm excited about showing you today's post.  This was my first polish gradient ever, and my first decent try at a full nail stamp.. and I really liked the outcome.  I have issues with my polish chipping so this only lasted 2 days, but now that I've learned to wrap my tips and I'm more careful with my SV top coat (read: no more shrinkage!) my manis will hopefully last a little bit longer.

Alright.. no more words, just pictures:

 

What I used

Sally Hansen: Diamond Strength

Color Club: Dress for the Parade

Color Club: Not Just for Kelly Green

Color Club: Boys Wear Blue

Color Club: Express Yourself

Nicole by OPI: Make a Comet-Ment

GOSH:  Deep Purple

GOSH: Silver

Sinful Colors: Red Ocean

Seche Vite

I painted my entire nails yellow, then created the gradient using a makeup sponge and first applied the green, then the blue, then the purple (all from CC).  For my accent nail I put 2 coats of  Deep Purple.  I let them dry, then stamped the zebra print using OPI black onyx (which I just now realize I forgot to add in the photo), and silver on the accent nails.  I added the NOPI to all fingers except the accent finger where I added Red Ocean, then covered it all with a nice coat of SV.  Voila!

Weird photo, but I wanted to show off the holo-ness of the NOPI glitters.. they're SO pretty!

 

If you look closely there are already chips and tip wear, and this was taken maybe 24 hours after it was done.  So frustrating, but I'm hoping that wrapping my tips will fix this!  If not.. I'll blame it on the lab work.. Being a lab rat isn't really conducive to a long lived mani.

Simple Glitters

Hey everyone!

I've been feeling completely uninspired to do any kind of cool nail designs lately, and from previous posts you can really tell how in love I am with the Holiday Nicole by OPI glitters.

And so I present you my NOTD, more NOPI (Imagine that!):

Nicole by OPI - My Sleigh's in the Shop with an accent nail of Orna-Ment for each other.

These polishes apply so well, and only two coats were used for both colours.  Both are made up of microglitters in the dominant colour, with a splash of beautiful gold glitter scattered throughout.   Seriously, I'm so in love!

I'm in a huge Christmas mood lately.  I'm even half way done my Christmas shopping which never, ever ever happens.  Usually I wait until AFTER I fly home to do all shopping, but I'm ahead of the game this year.  Shocking!  Anyone else in the Christmas spirit yet?

Glitter Stripes

Hey everyone!

Quick post showing what's on my nails right now.  I freakin' LOVE it!

  

OPI Natural Nail Base Coat

NOPI - Orna-Ment for each other

NOPI - Snow-man of my dreams

NOPI - My sleigh's in the shop

NOPI - Glitter in my Stocking

OPI - Excuse Moi!

Seche Vite

 

I painted one colour on each nail, then painted on some stripes using all colours except for Excuse Moi!.  I love how this turned out SO MUCH!  I can't stop staring at my nails.. they're so shimmery and shiny and yummy.

Glitter clean-up was a biatch, but I did my best, and then.. macro picked up some lovely kitty hair haha.   I am so in love with the nopi holiday glitters.  What do you think?  Are you thinking of picking any up?  Thanks for looking!

NOTD: GOSH & glitters.. yum!

Hey everyone!  I hope you're all having a fabulous weekend so far.  I'm attempting to do a whole lot of homework but I'm not getting very far.  There are just way too many other things I'd rather be doing.. like writing a blog post.

First, today's mini haul.  I put myself on a no-buy since Christmas is coming up, and I was doing good.. I have some polish coming in the mail and figured they'd satisfy my need/want for new stuff.  So we're out Christmas shopping today and I ask the boy to go into Zeller's just to look.. and I was walking out empty handed until HE spotted these pretties:

Glitter in my Stocking, Snow-man of my Dreams, Orna-ment for Each Other & My Sleigh's in the Shop

The Nicole by OPI holiday collection!  He initially wanted me to choose 2, so I did, and he wasn't happy with leaving any behind so he grabbed all four and spoiled me :)

Onto today's nails.  I used more untried polish that I have sitting around.

 

OPI - Natural Base Coat

GOSH - Fairytale, a deep teal blue creme

GOSH - Deep Purple, dark vampy purple creme

Revlon - Blue Mosaic

OPI - Rainbow Connections

Seche Vite

I was in the mood for a tape mani, and I like the way this turned out.  So cute and sparkly.  The pictures are a bit wonky, I'm still playing around to find a good way to capture my nails.  I'll get it eventually!  Thanks for looking!

Quo by Orly: Turquoise Moonlight

Hi everyone!

Happy Friday!  Every time someone mentions the word Friday, my boyfriend turns into Rebecca Black and manages to get the song stuck in my head ALL. DAY. LONG.  Here's just a quick post showing off the mani I did the other day.  The boy sent me a tutorial video that he had watched, and he was all amazed at what one could do with nail art pens so he insisted we go out and buy some.. and so we did!  Milani polish at Lawton's were buy one get one free.. so we took advantage of that.

What I used: 

OPI - Natural Base Coat
Quo by Orly - Turquoise Moonlight
Orly - Rococo A Go-Go
Milani Nail Art - Black Sketch
Milani Nail Art - Art of Gold
Milani Nail Art - Purple Outline
Seche Vite top coat

My very first mani with nail art pens!  :P  I wasn't feeling very inspired so this is what I ended up with.  Not terrible, I really liked the purple nail art polish.. it had little flecks of blue glitter that I really loved!  I've been doing an accent nail for years now, and Rococo A Go-Go was still sitting in my untrieds pile so I threw it on there.  How did I wait so long to use this?  It's beauuutiful!

These are just taken under regular light.  I hardly get home before sun set, this will have to do for now. 

Thanks for looking!

Halloween Mani

Hi all!

Our camera finally came back from repairs, meaning I'll hopefully start posting regularly.  This particular mani however was captured by phone.  I was at work (school), and it was nice and sunny in my office so I decided to take a quick cell phone shot.  It's decent, but the colours aren't quite accurate, and by the time I got home there was no way I was getting a good natural light photo. 

So!  Here is the only Halloween anything I did this year.  No costume, no decor, just nails on the day of so I could at least say I celebrated a little bit.

 

There is some tip-wear or shrinkage due to Seche Vite, my apologies ;)

What I used:  OPI - Natural base coat

Orly - Orange Punch 

China Glaze - Haunting (black polish)

NOPI - Such a Go-Glitter, the blue-ish glitter layered over CG Haunting

OPI - Black Onyx (what I used to stamp the webs and spiders)

And the stamps are from Bundle Monster plates

Seche Vite top coat

Thanks for looking :)