Brazilian Florals + a mini update

Good morning!

I'm back!  Albeit briefly as I am on holidays next week but for now I'll ease back into blogging.  I've missed it :)

How bout a little update?

On June 28th, the man and I got hitched:

It was a beautiful and insanely hot day.  It went perfectly, but that's because I didn't care if things went wrong.  If they did, I wasn't aware of them because I was just focused on enjoying my day :)

Now that things are winding down, I'm trying to focus on my unfinished grad thesis.  And trying to get back into nail art.  I went months where they were either bare or just plainly painted, but lately I feel like I
got my mojo back ;)

That being said, here's a 'from the vault' mani that I did eons ago.  And because of that I can't really remember which polish I used.

For the base on my index and middle finger, I want to say I used OPI Did you Ear about Van Gogh? but I'm not 100% sure.  The leafy stamp is from the Pueen Buffet set, using OPI AmazON, AmazOFF from their Brazilian collection, which is also the base on my ring and pinki finger.

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I used OPI Which is Witch? for the reverse glitter gradient.  Such beautiful glitter, my bottle is showing some serious use!

As for the flowers on my index and ring finger.. I really can't even guess which polishes I used :/  I should really start keeping a log of each mani in a notebook, it would make life a little bit easier :)

Nude & Gold Stamping

Hi there!

I'm a terrible blogger!  I haven't yet found the balance between working full time, planning my wedding and painting my nails.. sometimes something just has to give, and sadly in this case it's been my favourite hobby.  Boo.

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How cute is this combo though?  Gold and nude just look so good together!

I started with OPI My Vampire is Buff and using Essie Good as Gold and an image from Pueen-33 I stamped over my base.

Then I added some small square studs to my ring finger, and used OPI Honey Ryder as a pinkie and thumb accent :)

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

OPI Planks A Lot & Pure 18k Gold

Hi loves!

Here's a really simple but super pretty combination that I wore for a dinner date with one of my cousins last week:

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How pretty is this polish match?  It's so soft and dainty, perfect for the spring-like weather, no?

The base is the ever beautiful OPI Planks A Lot topped with OPI 18k Pure White Gold flakes.

Simple, yet absolutely beautiful, I think.

Happy Friday!

Another Late Valentine's Mani

Good morning!

This wasn't a mani I was really planning on posting but I'm at my parents house for the week and haven't really painted my nails and so need to rely on older manis :P

I was on my water marbling kick when I came up with this look.  My index and pinky were done using A England Excaliber, China Glaze Hey Sailor and OPI Black Onyx.

These looked so cool but I had SUCH a hard time marbling with the silver.. it dried way too fast.

For the middle and ring finger I started with a base of China Glaze Hey Sailor then stamped an image from Pueen 35 and Konad Special polish.

I actually really liked this mani, but I only realized way too late that there was cat hair on my nails when I took a picture of it, lol.  I tried to edit them out but my editing skills aren't really existent :P

I hope you're all having a good week! :)

Born Pretty Store Water Decal Review

Hi all,

A little while ago I received these water decals from Born Pretty Store.

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I absolutely love water decals.  They're so easy to use, and I find them really tough too.  I use some pretty sharp tweezers to get the decals off the paper backing and I've had absolutely no issue with them cutting or breaking.

I even removed one of them after not being happy with the placement and the only issue I had was that a bit of polish lifted with it.  No decal issue at all.  How cute are these though?  A super easy leopard print mani with a little twist!

I used OPI My Vampire is Buff as my base, then randomly sponged on some of Sally Hansen Satin Glam Go Gold, and then placed the decals on top.  Super quick, and super easy but such an eye catching mani!

Born Pretty Store is your one stop shop for nail art supplies.  These decals retail for $2.86USD and shipping is free world wide.  You can also get 10% off your order by using code UTL91 at check out :)

Peek-a-boo Music Notes Stamping

Hi all!

How is everyone's weekend going?  I'm getting pretty tired of winter to be honest lol.  I try not to complain about the weather since it's out of our control but come on!  The snowbanks that border my driveway are legit taller than I am.  It's time for it to all melt ;)

This is something I did pretty quickly the other week.  It was initially meant to be for a guest post but I decided the quality of the work wasn't something I wanted to send in :P

I started with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and stamped using BM-411 on my ring finger and Pueen-47 on the rest of the nails in Konad Special Black.

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I then freehanded the V's using Zoya Savita and outlined them with China Glaze Crush Crush Baby from the Crinkled Chrome collection.

I really liked this look but it drives me crazy that my lines aren't perfect and that I have no patience for tape mani's lol.  So it didn't last terribly long :P

Happy Sunday everyone!

Soft + Advanced Stamping

Hi all!  I hope everyone's Monday went well :)  I had to shovel a whole lot of snow today.. bleh.

This is a mani I did over the weekend - I was supposed to go to a birthday dinner so I started basing my mani on that. 

I started with a base of OPI Skulls and Glossbones then using the cupcake image from BM-H20 tried my hand at advanced stamping, which is basically leaving the image on your stamp, filling in where you want then while your polish on your nail is still pretty tacky, stamping it!

This was my first try.. and it turned out only OK, but ended up working awesomely on my other hand :)
 

Then I had full intention of doing some double stamping and adding more birthday themed images to my nails but after stamping an image from Pueen-26 with Color Club - Take Me to Your Chateau, I really couldn't bring myself to doing it. 

It's such a soft, pretty look! I absolutely love how this turned out.

I actually debated removing the cupcake image since the birthday dinner outing didn't end up happening.  And I find it doesn't really go with the rest of the nails but eh.. by the time I got around to change it the rest of the polish was cracking so I just removed it all :)

Double Stamping over OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OP!?

Hi all!  Happy Saturday :)

Just a quickie today - I decided to try some double stamping this week, something I'd never done before.  And it turned out to be so fun!

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This look started with a base of OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI? stamped with BM-414 (fingerprint) with China Glaze Dress me Up then stamped again with BM-301 and Sally Hansen Insta Dri In a Blink Blue.

Have a great weekend!

Sparlky Reverse Gradient + OPI Liquid Sands

Happy Tuesday!


I hope everyone's week is off to a good start!  It's pretty cold here today so my plan is to stay in and do some chores around the house - I'm too much of a wimp to venture out haha.

So I finally decided to purchase some of the Mariah Carey holiday polishes the other week.  I was holding off, teetering between needing and then not needing them.  But then Nail Polish Canada sent out an email saying they were limited stock so I finally bought the liquid sands I was eye balling!

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I started with a base of OPI My Favorite Ornament.  I love these champagne-y glitter polishes.. I actually went through my collection the other day and found that I have a few that could almost be dupes but aren't quite there.. I guess I'm just a sucker for them ;)

I did a reverse gradient using Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Rockstar Pink, an awesome glitter polish gifted to me by my fiance at Christmas ;)

On my ring finger I used two coats of the AH-MAZING OPI Kiss me at Midnight.  I didn't expect to love this shade as much as I did, I thought it was 'just' another blue textured polish but it's a perfect shade of cornflower blue that is unlike all other blue textured polishes that I have!  I added dots in OPI Baby Please Come Home and called it a day.

So sparkly!

Have a great day everyone :)

Grey and Pink - CG Elephant Walk and OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender

Good morning!

Last weekend I had the pleasure of watching the Olympic qualifying rounds of figure skating with some of my family - it was so good (and so, so intense)!

While these nails don't really scream figure skating competition, I made them a little sparkly, which so many figure skating costumes are, so it seemed a little fitting :)

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I adore a good colour combo like pink and grey.  It's just the perfect amount of dainty and girly, no?

I used China Glaze Elephant Walk, which is an awesome medium shade of shimmery grey, and used OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender as my accent nail.  These two shades were pretty much meant for each other, I think :)

I then topped Elephant Walk with Orly Embrace, an amazing Pink medium hex glitter polish with smaller pink holo glitter bits.. it's SO sparkly in real life!

Using Elephant Walk and Pueen-08 I stamped the cute dots on my ring finger.  I swear the XL sticky stamper has changed my stamping life so much - I can't get enough of it!

My First Ruffian - OPI This Gown Needs a Crown & Visions of Love

Happy Friday all!

I hope you all have some fun plans for the weekend :)  I'm strapping on my snowboard for the first time in 3 years tomorrow.. I'm actually a little bit nervous, ha!

I've been feeling a little uninspired lately but after seeing these two next to one another I knew they'd look really good together.  I'd also never attempted a ruffian mani before, can you believe it?  They're so cute but for some reason I never thought to do one on myself until yesterday.

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I started off with two easy coats of OPI This Gown Needs a Crown.  I finally decided it was time to purchase this last week from Nail Polish Canada (which only took 2 days to get here, whoa!) and I'm so glad I did!  It's so much prettier in person than it is in swatches :)

Then using OPI Visions of Love I created the ruffian on top.  It was actually a little tricky to get clean lines near the cuticle area but I think for my first time it turned out alright :)  I really liked wearing this.  It's so so simple but I kept catching myself staring at them.

What are your thoughts on Ruffian nails?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Mix 'n Match tape mani

Happy hump day!

Last week I was in the tape mani kind of mood.. These moods don't come all too often, and after being done with this mani I realized why.  They take too. damn. long.  I was so sick of painting my nails after this haha.

I started off with Orly Reflection on my ring finger and OPI Eurso Euro on the rest.

Side note - I can't find ANY information on Reflection - if it's from a specific collection or just regular stock, I can't even find swatches of it.  It's so weird!  Does anyone have any information on it?  It's super pretty.. I don't think I have anything like it in my stash.

 

Once my base was really dry I taped it off and either added A England Excalibur (the silver polish) or OPI Can't Find My Czechbook and waited for those to dry so I could stamp the roses using Pueen-22 and Konad Black and waited for that to dry.

Then I taped off various parts of my nails again and added OPI Vesper to all but my middle finger to which I added Orly Reflection on the tip.

In the end I really did like this look, but due to the time and effort required.. I don't think it's something I will do on a regular basis :P  The tips were pretty thick that the nails on my dominant hand started chipping pretty much the next day.  Boo.

Something Bright

Happy Saturday!  

After all of the typical red/green/gold/white holiday manicures I was craving something bright and cheerful, so naturally I reached for pink.  Totally not 'holiday' nor is it dark and vampy winter shade, just what I needed!

This mani started with OPI Kiss me on the Tulips on my pinky and index finger.  On top of that, I layerd OPI Polka.com and Orly Spazmatic.

My middle and ring finger have the gorgeous OPI Fly, and using the distressed method I added Kiss me on the Tulips.

I then stamped an image from Pueen-15 using Konad black polish.

I initially just wanted the ring and middle fingers to be stamped but after accidentally stamping my index finger and liking the look I just went with it and stamped them all instead of re-doing that one nail.

I felt like this was such a refreshing mani - I kept it on for days!

Have a great weekend, and as always, thanks for reading :)

Black and Silver New Year's Mani

Another super late post but I'm all caught up after this one :) 

I'm not a huge fan of the crazy crowds on New Year's Eve and always opt for quieter evenings with friends and family instead.. but that didn't stop me from sporting some NYE appropriate nails!

These were pretty much inspired by Serene at Copy Cat Claws.. I loved her mani so much that I did something similar :)

This look started with a simple black base of OPI Black Onyx on all but my ring finger, which has a base of Gosh Silver.

Then using Essie Nothing Else Metals, No Place Like Chrome and Blue Rhapsody I stamped the fire works using BM-H14 although you really can't tell the difference between the three shades sadly.

Using the same Bundle Monster plate and Konad Black I stamped the Champagne bottle on my ring finger.  Everyone had a hard time figuring out what that image was until I told them what to look for though.. I feel like it's just too big for my tiny nail, plus I smeared it lol.

And to finish off I I added Color Club Platinum Record to my middle finger, topped it all off with Joe Fresh Matte Top Coat and went out to celebrate NYE with a handful of my aunts and uncles that live in the area :)

Late Christmas mani + Born Pretty Store Review

Happy New Year!

I know I'm super late with this post but it's too cute not to share.

These Santa hats were 100% inspired by @keshialilly on Instagram, I just had to do them after receiving THESE really cute nail decals from Born Pretty Store.

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For this mani I started out with a base of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength - Glass Slipper, a beautiful white mylar flakie in a clear base.  I figured it kind of looked like snow flakes which seemed pretty fitting!

Then using Sally Hansen Hard as Nails - Kiss me Cream I freehanded the red tips, and used a small nail art paintbrush did the floppy portion of the hat.  The fluff on the hat was done using Rimmel's French White then topped with OPI Solitaire, which is also seen on my ring finger.

Because I don't have any nail glue handy I simply adhered the little hat to my ring finger using top coat.  Given that it wasn't actually glued on it lasted quite a while, until the tip of the hat got caught on something and came off. 

The hat is super cute though!  You get a set of 5 for $2.94USD, and they immediately make your mani festive - though I wouldn't sport it for too long as the edges are kind of rough and will get caught in your hair and clothes.

Born Pretty Store is your one stop shop for nail art supplies, and they ship free anywhere in the world!

And don't forget the coupon code of UTL91 for 10% off your total order :)