Sparkly Puzzles

Hey lovelies!

This is the mani I immediately wore after bringing Elmer's glue home with me from the grocery store.  :)

 

I used Color Club Gingerbread and China Glaze Electrify on top of Essie Penny Talk as my accent nails.  Then using one of the new Bundle Monster plates I stamped on the puzzle pieces using Konad Black Special Polish. 

This was so sparkly!  I don't usually wear full glitter manis so this was a little treat and I loved it.  It definitely cheered me up since I did this when I was feeling pretty sick (I'm better now, though :D)

Happy Tuesday, I hope you're all having a fabulous week so far!

Essie - Stylenomics "Skittles"

Happy Monday!

I hope you all had a good weekend :)

For this mani, I started with a base of Essie Stylenomics.  This polish is a super blacked out green but really.. just looks black on the nail.  I stamped the little birds with Essie Blue Rhapsody using one of the new Bundle Monster plates.

On my ring finger I have Orly Mermaid Tail and Spazmatic (I love these glitters so much!), and on my middle finger I added a stripe of Finger Paints flakies in the middle, lined it with a So Easy glitter striper, then added loose holographic hex glitters on each side :)

This was super fun, and now that I've finally bought Elmer's Glue I'll be sporting the glitters a lot more often!  It's so much fun :D

Thanks for reading!

Stamped Chevrons

Hi Loves!

I hope you're enjoying your weekend so far!  It's getting chilly here - I'm hoping that means the leaves will change soon!

Here's a cute mani I did this week.  I started off with a base of Essie Miss Fancy Pants, then stamped an image from BM-314 and Konad Black.  For the chevrons I started off using tape, but actually found it easier to freehand them, so that's what I did!

I used Orly Rock-It (red) and Orly Fowl Play (accent) for the chevrons :)

Have a great weekend!  Thanks for reading :)

Fantasy Fire

Hi all!

Sorry for my absence again - this time I have a cold from hell to blame.  I spent my entire Thanksgiving weekend cooped up in my empty apartment trying to get better.  I slept, sat on the couch and watched movies, and slept some more.  The joys of living a few provinces away from family and having a fiance in the Canadian Navy, no one came to my rescue! :P  Such a crappy weekend, but I'm finally feeling better!  :)  I hope all my Canadian readers had a fabulous Thanksgiving weekend though!

 

A few months ago, a lovely lady that I met through PAA offered to buy a bunch of us the gorgeous Max Factor Fantasy Fire.  At first I passed on it, but then I actually had a dream about it, and so the very next day I sent her payment and a few weeks later it arrived in my mailbox.  And it took me THIS long to try it out.

 

I layered it over one of my favourite polishes, Nails Inc. Baker Street.  These two polishes were seriously meant for each other.  Baker Street is stunning on it's own, but add the extra glitz of Fantasy Fire over it - WOW!  I just comes to life, and glows, and shifts colours, and just.. sparkles.  So, so stunning.

For the accent I used Orly Dayglow, then sponged on Baker Street, and stamped using BM-317 and Essie Blue Rhapsody.

(Sorry for the chipped nail!  I took these photos right before taking this mani off)

Fall Braids

Hi loves!

I know I've been neglecting my blog but I have a good reason (at least I think so!).  I'm trying to finish up my thesis, so that I can defend and be done by the end of this year.  So every time I come near this site I start to feel guilty, and so I've been avoiding it.  I really can't be spending too much time reading and writing posts when I should be reading journal articles and writing a thesis.  *sigh*  I can't wait to be done with this.

(I've also had a crap load of nail fails that weren't even worth photographing so.. there you have it)

I was really pleased with the way this mani turned out.  I had been wanting to attempt the braid mani, but was always afraid it would look awful so I put it off for a while, but when no other idea came to mind I went for it.

 

I initially used China Glaze - Trendsetter for my braids, but it wasn't opaque enough to make this work, so I settled on using it as an accent only.  It kind of doesn't match, but I really like the way it looked.  I added a reverse glitter gradient using Orly - So Go-Diva, which is a lovely brown glitter polish with small and medium sized hex glitter.  It's SO cool, and totally unique to my stash.

 

For the braids I started with a base of OPI - Pepe's Purple Passion, then added 'strands' in Gosh - Forest Green and Orly - Buried Alive and kept rotating between the three polishes until the braid was completely down my nails.

I loved this manicure and the fall vibe it had to it, and I'm really impressed that my braids turned out so well considering this was my first try!  The only important thing to remember for this method is to make sure your polish is SUPER pigmented so that you don't have to use a bunch of coats just to make the strands opaque.

Thanks for reading!