Peek-a-boo polka dots

Pinterest is one of my favourite places to find inspiration for nail designs. Recently I found a design by nailmachine that I knew I just had to try, and this weekend I finally got around to it. I must admit, I'm in love with how this turned out!

The colours used were Sally Hansen's "Mint Sprint", "Blue Me Away", and "White Out" as well as Sephora's "Queen of Everything".

Ukranian Easter egg nails

When I was in high school I took a textiles, arts, and crafts class. One of our projects was to make pysanky, or Ukranian Easter eggs. It's a difficult and time consuming craft but I loved the results. When I started doing my nails I got the idea to do a pysanky theme for Easter but I never actually got around to doing them. Until now!

I started with a relatively simple idea, mostly using stamps to get the look I wanted. Of course that didn't work out, so I ended up free-handing the whole thing. I'm a little bit out of practice (it's been months since I last did any proper nail art) so it's a bit rough but overall I'm very happy with how it turned out!

I used a lot of colours, so bear with me. For the darker nails I used Sally Hansen's "Black Out" for a base, then did the design using Sally Hansen's "Lightening", Quo's Instant Artist in black and white, and Tivoli Art Deco polish in red. For the accent nails I used Revlon's "Seduce" for a base, then did the design with the same polishes. All the nails were topped off with the matte top coat from Sephora. 

Now I just need to make these last until Easter is over!

Maybelline Polka Dots

A few weeks ago I was at Walmart picking up some nails supplies and I spotted a display for Maybelline's new "polka dot" nail polish. I really love the look of it, but unfortunately the only colour they had left was orange and I didn't think I would use it that much. I figured I'd find more colours somewhere though, so I decided to just keep my eye out for them. Turns out I was wrong. The next time I went to Walmart the display was nowhere to be seen, and none of the other stores I shop at had it in stock. I looked everywhere and couldn't find even a single bottle. Finally, a Target opened up near my work and had all the colours to choose from! I chose to get the green colour and dress it up for the weekend. I apologize in advance as this isn't my cleanest manicure ever, I was a bit rushed in doing it and it took a few days before I had time to take pictures so there's some tip wear.

I absolutely love this nail polish. It took 3 thin coats to get good coverage, but each layer dried really quickly and it didn't end up being too bulky, and the glitter distributed itself fairly evenly across the nail. I got lots of compliments on them too, even from my boyfriend's friends who were over for a guys weekend. You know it's good polish when boys like it.

The colour I got was "Drops of Jade", and the extra decorations are done with Quo's Instant Artist polish in Black and White.

New nail shape and fancy french triangles

Well, after having spent years trying to get my nails long and strong my goals are going to have to change. I started a new job recently, which is fantastic. However, I'm using my hands a lot and that's not really conducive to having long nails. I'm still going to work at getting them strong, but they're going to have to get shorter again. I decided to try out a more square tip for a while because I think it's a nicer shape for shorter nails. So far I've been semi-successful, hopefully with practice I'll get better at shaping them.

I want to try a french manicure with my new nails and a wedding this weekend should have been a perfect opportunity. Unfortunately, one of my nails has completely lifted in the corner and doesn't look all that wonderful. As my french manicures usually involve a fair bit of nail showing through I had to adapt my plans. I have a grayish-pink polish that I love so I decided to use some white and silver nail art polishes to do something fancy. I think I still had french on my mind though, because the results ended up being rather similar!

The base colour is Sally Hansen's "Gray-t Escape", and the design is done using Tivoli Nail Art polish in silver and Quo Instant Artist polish in white. I still don't have the nail shape right, but I've decided to leave it for now and try to fix it next time. If anyone has advice on how to get this shape it would be much appreciate it!

Happy Canada Day!

I'm going to keep this short because I'm off in Montreal celebrating Canada Day! I made sure to have appropriate nails for the occasion, and what would be more appropriate than a Canadian flag?

I wasn't confident in my ability to paint a maple leaf, I can't even successfully draw one on paper. So I cheated a little bit recruited my boyfriend to do the hard work for me. I think he did a fantastic job! The pointer and ring fingers I did using tape to attempt to get a clean, crisp line, though as you can see that didn't quite work on all of my fingers. I used a nice sparkly red as well, because who doesn't love a little sparkle?

The colours used are Sally Hansen X-treme Wear's "White On" and "Red Carpet". Before I go, I also thought I'd share with you the cool calligraphy my boyfriend did of my initials while he was practising painting maple leafs. Like I said, definitely artistic!

HAPPY CANADA DAY, EVERYONE!

Green to blue gradient

I've been seeing lots of gradients around on other nail blogs and it's made me want to try one on my own nails again. The first tutorial I saw (which I now can not find for the life of me) used a small piece of sponge to dab two different colours up and down the nail. It worked, but it was generally really difficult to make a smooth transition from one colour to another. For today's gradient I tried out swirling the nail polish together on some plastic wrap and then stamping the whole thing on my nail. I decided to try a green to blue gradient so that I could do an accent nail using a blue and green glitter polish that I haven't tried out yet. Overall I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!

The gradient ended up being a little more subtle than I originally intended, but I still like the colour combination. The only downside is that it took a LOT of polish to get the blue to show up. I must of used about half a bottle of each colour. Thankfully I used cheaper polish, which is probably why I had to use so much of it, so if (when) I do this again I'm going to try a polish that I know is a bit thicker.

The colours I used for the gradient are LA Colors "Palm Tree" and "Splash", and the glitter is "Cosmic" by Jordana. I love this glitter, I'm definitely going to have to use it again!

Bumblebee from Transformers!

I love doing my nails, but it can be really hard to come up with ideas for what to do time and time again. A few days ago I mentioned my lack of inspiration to my boyfriend, and his response was "You know what would be cool? Black and yellow stripes. Like a bumblebee. Oh, like the transformer!" So, these nails come to you courtesy of inspiration from my boyfriend. 

This was my first time trying to use striping tape where it wasn't just a straight line across the nail. I'm always in awe of The Nailasaurus and her ability to make impressive designs using striping tape. I did my best to follow her tutorial, and as you can see I haven't quite mastered it yet. I think it was a good first attempt though! I'm also disappointed that the autobot logo smeared a bit when I put the top coat on, but thankfully you can't really see it from a distance.

For the striped nails I did two coats of Joe Fresh's Onyx, laid down the striping tape, and painted a thick coat of Sally Hansen's "Lightening" on top. For the accent nail I did two coats of Sally Hansen's Lightening and then used Konad Special Nail Polish in black to paint the autobot logo.

Sugar spun nails

I've been seeing sugar spun nails around a lot, so I decided to try them out. I'm still job hunting (yay...) so my nails need to be subtle and professional so I can be ready for a job interview any time, just in case. I stuck to more neutral colours and I liked how it turned out!

Painting these nails was a bit of a nightmare though. Not because it was hard, this actually was super easy and quick to do. The issue was I was impatient and didn't wait for my polish to totally dry before I added more layers. I went to cook dinner and ruined three nails in the process. When I went to fix them I realized that on two other nails the polish had either come off the tip or pulled away from it. I was just about ready to give up and take them all off, but thankfully another layer of top coat managed to hid the missing tips and painting the other three took no time at all.

I took a picture with the flash on to try and show the colours a little bit better, it's not the picture but hopefully it'll do.

The colours I used were Sally Hansen's "Gray-T Escape" and "White-On", L'Oreal's "Eiffel For You", and Sephora's "Queen Of Everything".

Professional leopard print

I'm currently on the market for a job, so I've been avoiding painting my nails in case an interview comes up. As much as I love bright, colourful nails, not all companies are polish-friendly so I'm trying to play it safe. I've been dying to do something with them though, and after a week of having them pretty much completely bare I've caved in and settled for a really subtle leopard print.

The base coat is "Bares Bones" by Revlon Colorstay, and has turned out to be an interesting colour. In most lights it's this wonderful sandy beige, which I love, but in some lights it gets a really yellow tinge to it that looks terrible with my skin tone. Overall I like it though. The design is done with NYC in "Park Ave" and the white is done with Kiss Nail Art Polish in white. I topped it all off with a matte top coat to help keep it subtle and professional. I think this turned out just right, I feel like I've done my nails but no one's going to notice them unless I point it out. That should be okay, right?

Colour blocks and basket weave

I've been lacking inspiration lately, and after my last manicure chipped off so quickly I hadn't really had time to think of something new. I've seen a lot of basket weave nails around and thought they would be fun to try. I looked around a bit and ended up stumbling across this design by Exhale Hate Nail Design. Looks interesting and all I have to do is a bunch of straight lines, so I figure I can manage that. These nails are really eye-catching, I've gotten lots of compliments on them already!

Have you ever gotten halfway through painting your nails and then had a sense of dread come over you when you remember you still have to do your dominant hand? I wasn't really having a hard time, but everything was so intricate and delicate and I suddenly realized that there was no way my other hand was going to look good. Thankfully it actually turned out okay, but I definitely make sure to show people my left hand when they want to see my nails.

The yellow is "Mellow Yellow" and the blue is "Blue Me Away!", both by Sally Hansen, and the black is by Konad Special Nail Polish.

Green leopard print.

I did this manicure on a friend once and absolutely loved it! The combination of the bright green with the black and white leopard print is bold and fun. Unfortunately this manicure is already gone. For whatever reason I had serious problems with them chipping and peeling. I did my nails two days ago, and between then and now I had 5 nails get large, irreparable chips in them. I repainted the first three, but when two more nails chipped I gave up and just took them all off. At least I enjoyed them while I had them!

The base colour is two coats of Sally Hansen's "Mint Sprint", and the design is done with Kiss Nail Art polish in white and Konad Special Nail Polish in black.

Fancy French Manicure

I bought a new dress last weekend, and as we finally have some nice sunny weather I'm determined to wear it! So of course I had to do my nails to match. It took three failed attempts at painting my nails before I finally settled on a design I like: a french manicure with blue and green accents. This was my first time in a long time that I free-handed the tips rather than just using tape, and it went surprising well. The rest of my lines are a bit clunky, but practice will make perfect on those. 

For good measure, here's a picture of my nails with the dress itself:

The white is Kiss Nail Art polish and the blue and green are Tivoli Art Deco polishes. The green's a little bit thin for my liking, but I couldn't be bothered to pull out my nail art brushes and make a mess I'd have to clean up. I may be getting some pictures take with the dress, so if I do I'll post them so you can see what it actually looks like. 

Made of marble

After seeing a few water-spotted nails that looked like turquoise, I decided that I could use the same technique to make my nails look like marble! Thankfully, unlike previous inspired adventures, I actually like the way these turned out. I was worried they might be a bit too stark, but the grey breaks the white up nicely. These nails go with everything too, so I feel like they're an accessory to all of my outfits.

I used Sally Hansen's "White On", Joe Fresh's "Fog", and a matte top coat by Sephora.

Beaches and bubbles

Some days, I go to paint my nails and I know exactly what I'm going to to. Other days, I just pick a colour and run with it. This day was a "run with it" kind of day. I started off thinking maybe I'd do some kind of french manicure. Then I thought that maybe I'd do a gradient french manicure, just to mix things up a little bit. I pulled out some white, a light sparkly blue I thought would look good as part of the gradient, a neutral base, and started painting. As I was waiting for my base coat to dry though I looked at the sparkly blue and decided it would look really good with a dark bluey-green I knew I had in my collection, so I swapped that with the white. And once I had the gradient finished, I ended up bringing the white back out and throwing some dots on there, just because.

The colours remind me of the beach or the ocean, and because of that the dots look like bubbles to me. I really like this manicure, it's got a bit of colour to it, a bit of shine, and some fun designs without being over the top. The base coat is "Sheer Me Now" by Sally Hansen, the light blue is "Ocean Mist" and the dark bluey-green is "Sea Siren", both by LA Colors, and the white is by Konad Special Nail Polish.

Heartbeats

I saw this design ages ago on Empress Tang's DeviantArt and knew that it would make a perfect Valentine's manicure. And it did. Unfortunately I am very belated in posting them, but hopefully you won't mind.

The base colour is "Cayenne Pepper" by LA Colors, and the design is done with Konad Special Nail Polish in white. 

Sparkling peacock

So technically I already posted my last Christmas-themed nails, but I've ended up drawing inspiration from my favourite new ornament on our tree. My mom wanted to get new decorations this year and took me shopping with her. I spotted this beautiful, sparkly peacock that you clip onto a tree branch and decided we had to have it. Unfortunately it kind of blends into the tree and it's hard to see from a distance, but it's still absolutely gorgeous. As a tribute to this ornament, I decided to do some sparkly nails with a peacock accent.

The base coat is "Splash" and the sparkles are "Aqua Crystals", both by LA Colors. For the accent nail, the peacock design is done using "Celeb City" by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear, "Ocean Breeze" by Revlon Scented Nail Enamel, and "Blue Lagoon" by LA Colors. On a side note, most of my nails have just about reached the perfect length, which means they'll probably be breaking off any day now. Fingers crossed that I can keep them long for at least a week!

For anyone interested, here's the ornament that inspired the whole thing:

Santa and his elves

Today I'm posting my last Christmas manicure for the year. Unfortunately I had a terrible time trying to get a good picture of these nails, so hopefully you can forgive me for the less than stellar images.

The green is "Voodoo" and the red is "Cayenne Pepper", both by LA Colors. For the belts, I used Konad Special Polish in black and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Golden-I". The green nails actually remind me more of leprechauns than elves, maybe I'll recycle this manicure for St Patrick's Day! Or not.

Well, that's the end of my Christmas nails. I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday season and that you all are getting to spend time with those that matter most.

Sparkly Candy Canes

I can't believe it's only four days until Christmas. Four! I think I'm almost ready for it, just a few more things to take care of tomorrow and then I'm in the clear. In keeping with the holiday spirit, I decided to do some candy cane nails.

The red is "red carpet" and the white is "white on", both by Sally Hansen Xtrene Wear. The red is more sparkly than it looks in these pictures, which makes these nails a little distracting. Still, they're perfect for this time of year!