February Nail Art Challenge Day 9

Holy cow, the February Nail Art Challenge is coming to a close already 😦  Where has the time gone?!  I want to send out a big congratulations to all the girls who participated in the Challenge, you all did awesome!!

Today’s theme is Recreate Your Favourite.  The idea is to either a) recreate a design from the rest of the days of the Challenge that you want to do-over or because it was your favourite to do, or b) recreate a design that one of the other participants did.  A couple girls asked if they wanted to recreate their tutorial day, could they use a different tutorial.  I decided that this would be OK, as I know there are so many wonderful tutorials out there!

Today’s design is brought to you by the lovely Sarah from Faithfully Polished.  Her Day 2 Half Moons had me falling head over heels in love, and when I saw what colours she used, I knew I would be able to recreate it because I had them in my stash too 😀

Here is her original design:

Source

My dots are bigger, and I didn’t have the cute 3D bow that she put on her ring finger, so I improvised and used a flower nail art sticker instead 🙂

For this design I used Julep Carrie as my base colour, and Essie Turquoise & Caicos for the half moons and dots on my middle finger.  The dots on the half moons were done with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On.

To create the half moons, I used French tip guides, and I have to say, they worked SO much better than hole reinforcements so I will be using them from now on for half moon nails rather than hole reinforcements.  I like the radius it creates too, the hole reinforcements leave too tight of a radius, in my opinion.

I want to give a big THANK YOU to all the ladies who participated in this Challenge, and I hope to see you all joining in on the next one (hint – it will be in May).

Now, for Day 9 designs, the lovely Laura from Ruby White Tips approached me before the Challenge started and wanted to sponsor the “winner” for this Challenge.  So for all Day 9 entries, they will be put into a photo album on my Facebook page on Wednesday and we will do a vote.  The picture with the most likes after ONE WEEK will receive one Ruby White Tips polish of their choice.

document.write(”);

February Nail Art Challenge Day 8

Howdy readers!!  It’s Thursday, my last day of work – yippee!!!  Bring on the weekend so I can sleep in 😀

Today is Day 8 of the Challenge, can you believe it’s almost over?!  Only one more day to go, what ever will I do when it’s all over?!?!  Day 8 is all about Polka Dots 😀  I love me some dotticures, they are so easy to execute and the combinations are seriously endless!  All you need is polish and something pointy.  Personally, I use a tailor’s pin stuck in the eraser of a pencil, an unfolded paperclip, or a toothpick, or a combination of them all, to create my dotticures.  You could also use a dried up ball point pen or the lead end of a pencil.  No need to buy those fancy schmancy dotting tools when you have so many around the house 😉

Yep, I’m playing with watermarks again 🙂  Rachel from Top Coat It inspired this one, though I don’t want to pay $800-$900 to buy Adobe PhotoShop, so I just used my photo editing program to do this 🙂

I love this mani!  For this I used another gel polish, Gel II Rip Tide, as my base colour.  This is a SUPER FUN gel – it’s colour changing!  I will be doing a post about this on its own tomorrow.  It’s “cold” colour is this lovely dark blue, and it has a slightly purple tint to it that wouldn’t capture on camera.  Then my polka dots are Zoya Rica (my untried) and Julep Mystery Yellow.  These are dotted with my tailor’s pin in a pencil dotting tool 🙂

What is your favourite form of nail art?

Make sure to come back on Sunday to see what nails I recreated!  *hint* I recreated another participant’s design that I fell head-over-heels for!

document.write(”);

February Nail Art Challenge Day 7

Afternoon ladies and gents!  I hope all my readers in provinces that observe Family Day are having a good day off work (I know I am), and those of you in the US are having a good Presidents’ Day.

I have for you Day 7 of the February Nail Art Challenge – can you believe that it is almost over?? 😦  Today’s theme is Inspired by a Tutorial, and I mosy’d on over to cutepolish’s YouTube channel and watched her Black Spotted video again to make sure I remembered how to do it.

Here the the video I went by:

Rather than using neons, as I only brought white and black polishes with me for the weekend, I used white as a base colour, and then did the “spotted” marble with black.  I used 70% rubbing alcohol in a spray bottle rather than the hand sanitizer because I didn’t have any hand sanitizer in a spray bottle on hand.  My black marble polish didn’t do the spotted effect like hers did, my polish kind of freaked out when I sprayed it with the alcohol.  This is what it looked like when I dipped my nails.  I used 2 coats of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On for my base and Jordana Black for my marble.

So while this didn’t turn out like the “traditional” black spotted look, and as Amber from And Then There Was Polish said, this is the best nail fail ever, hahaha!  I’m pretty impressed with this, and love the look of it, I will be doing this with more colour combinations in the future 🙂

And, just for kicks, I tried adding some pink to the design…  The pink I used is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Twisted Pink.

I think this turned out pretty awesome even though it’s not exactly the way I hoped it would turn out.  The pink added a little something extra to the design, and it made the black look more like a deep plum purple 🙂

Love it!  Have you tried cutepolish’s Black Spotted tutorial yet?

document.write(”);

February Nail Art Challenge Day 6

Happy Friday polishers!  I haven’t done much today besides shovel the driveway which took me about an hour.  We got some more snow last night 😀  Tyler told me to tell it to stop, but I won’t, hehehehe!  Tyler said that because I wasn’t going to the gym today that I could shovel the driveway while he went to work – deal!!

Today I have for you my Day 6 design for the Nail Art Challenge – Gradient.

My design didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted it to, but that’s ok 🙂  There is always that mani that doesn’t turn out quite like you pictured, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t post it anyways 🙂

For this I have Gel II Blue Blue as my base and then used Julep Alicia for my gradient.  I then stamped over top with Julep Fina (metallic light blue) and Bundle Monster plate BM-307.  I wanted to stamp this with white polish, but my Konad Special polish is almost dried up 😦  So I tried a bunch of polishes that didn’t work, but they all didn’t work.  I knew that Fina was good for stamping so I decided to do that and though I like the the way this turned out, I wish I was able to use white for this.  I am going to try this again after I get a white stamping polish.

document.write(”);

February Nail Art Challenge Day 5

Good morning my loves!  What is everyone up to today?

I have for you today my Day 5 design for the Nail Art Challenge – Valentine’s Day Nails.  I have never really been “woohoo” about Valentine’s Day, I think it’s important to make sure to let your loved ones what they mean to you every day of the year.  Also, stores way over-price stuff like flowers and chocolates for Valentine’s Day.  Just gimme my chocolate at it’s regular price, please and thank you 😛

So.. since I did my gel polish the other day with Gel II Blue Blue, I had a challenge ahead of me to make my nails Valentine’s-y enough.  Blue isn’t really a good Valentine’s Day colour, I didn’t really think that through to well, lol.  So, off to Pinterest I went, and found this pin and I knew I could make it work if I altered it a little bit 🙂  Pinterest is great for bringing out your creativity!  I find myself looking through them for ideas, then end up altering them for what I like, or with the colours I have/want to use.

For this, I used Gel II Blue Blue for my base colour, then using my homemade dotting tool (tailor’s pin stuck in the eraser of a pencil) created hearts using Julep Deluanay and Carrie, then randomly placed dots of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On.  Sorry if my cuticles look super dry!  I didn’t notice that until I was watermarking 😦  I swear I use Pure Cuticle Oil EVERY DAY, 3-5 times per day 🙂  That reminds me, I have to put some on! 🙂

So for having a blonde moment about the blue background, I think these turned out pretty alright for Valentines’s Day 😀  I love the little hearts!  I heart them 😉

And look how well the gel is standing up!  The thing I am loving about the gel is that you can do nail art over it all you want, and when it’s time to take it off, or if a design doesn’t come out the way you want, you can just use acetone-free remover to take it off and ta-da!!  Your nails are ready, with a base colour, to have nail art applied again!  This is going to be especially helpful for stamping when you can’t get the stamp placed just right on your nails 🙂

document.write(”);

February Nail Art Challenge Day 4

Happy Sunday ladies!!  Did everyone on the eastern US seaboard survive the snow?  What about all of you in Ontario, Québec and the rest of the eastern provinces?  We got about 20-30cm over Thursday and Friday 😀  The snowbanks are piled high, and it’s making it hard to see around corners while driving.

Today I have for you my Day 4 design for the Challenge – inspired by a pattern.  There are SO many patterns out there, but there was really only one that I knew I had to do.

Here is where my inspiration came from:

This is my bedroom.  I decided to repaint it over 2 years ago and this is what I came up with – light purple walls with dark purple stripes outlined with thin white stripes.  This paint job took me a whole week to do, and about 1360 feet of tape.  Patience is key! 😉

Onto the nails – 

So while I didn’t use tape for this, I still think it turned out pretty awesome 🙂  First I painted my nails with OPI Rumple’s Wiggin’.  Then using a nail art brush I painted my white stripe on with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On.  Then using a nail art brush again, I painted on the thin dark purple stripe using Zoya Monica.  I think the colours match my wall pretty well 😀  I probably should have used tape for this one, but I was too lazy to, lol!

I really love the way this turned out 🙂  I love the colour purple, as you can tell, lol!

document.write(”);

February Nail Art Challenge Day 3

Good morning lovelies!!  Today’s my last day of work for the week, I get to sleep in tomorrow 😀  We are also expecting a BUTTLOAD of snow tonight and into tomorrow – there is an Alberta Clipper coming through and it’s meeting up with a Texas Low over the Great Lakes!!  YAH-HAH-HAH-WHOOO!  The weather man says Toronto is to expect about 30cm (12inches) tonight 😀

Today is Day 3 of the Nail Art Challenge, and the design for today is Glitter Loaded 😀  I will admit, when I put this as an option I was going through a glitter obsession and didn’t really think about how to do nail art with glitter.. but that’s OK.  Looks like there are some ladies that have accomplished this already 😀

I decided to do a glitter sandwich seeing as the only other one that I have tried was a fail 😦  Thanks to Kara from Never Gonna Give You Up, I think I have accomplished it, and her instructions are simple – jelly, jelly, jelly, glitter, jelly, glitter.  So here we go!

This is Essie Marshmallow and Sindie POP! Champagne Glitz.  I started with 3 coats of Marshmallow, then put a coat of Champagne Glitz on.  Once that was dry, I put another thin layer of Marshmallow over top, then another coat of Champagne Glitz.

Thanks to Amber at And Then There Was Polish, Champagne Glitz is in my possession 😀  This is a stunning, stunning glitter polish gold and royal purple mini and small hex glitters in a clear base, I think it’s my new favourite :D.  She also suggested that this would look like a “peanut butter and jelly” jelly sandwich with Essie Marshmallow, and it does!  🙂

Jelly Sandwich for the win!!  😀

document.write(”);

February Nail Art Challenge Day 2

Good evening ladies!  I meant to have this up earlier today, but had to do some homework before being able to “play” tonight, so here I am, posting late again.

Day 2 of the Challenge is already upon us, I can’t believe it!  Today’s theme is half moons, and I have to say, from what I have seen already, the ladies joining me in this Challenge are pretty awesome at half moon manis.  Mine didn’t turn out as crisp as I had hoped – sometimes using those hole reinforcements is trickier than it looks.

For this I used Julep Annie and Brandt, both from the Trina Turk Fall 2012 collection.  These are both untried for me, and I love the look of the two of them together!  And believe it or not, they were both opaque in one coat, which is even better! 🙂

I didn’t get these originally with my Julep Maven box, but I love these more than the colours I did get, which were Gunta and Popova.  I have already swapped Popova because it was too close to Emilie which I already had.

Do you like half moon manis?  Do you like to have a bold contrast between the colours?

document.write(”);

February Nail Art Challenge Day 1

Good morning my loves, and welcome to Day 1 of my February Nail Art Challenge!!  I can’t wait to get started on this Challenge, there are so many participants this time ’round, there are going to be SO many different designs to look at! 😀

Day 1 is Galaxy Nails!  Galaxy Nails are one of my favourite forms of nail art because it looks different every time, and it’s such “large scale design” on a small canvas 🙂

I have been intrigued with space, and all things astrology since taking the “fill in” course at the end of my grade 9 science class.  They used it as a “just in case there aren’t enough snow days” unit to fill in the last couple weeks of the semester, but I would have rather taken astrology than biology 😉

For this design, I used Elixir Lacquers Smokey Coat (my untried), Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On and Sunkissed, Julep Mystery Yellow, NYC In A New York Minute Pier 17, and Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in White.  Everything is topped off with Jordana Crystal Glitter to give it a little sparkle 🙂

document.write(”);

Nail Polish Canada Nail Art Challenge Week 3

Hello lovely ladies!  I apologize that I haven’t been posting regularly the last few days 😦  December is proving to be a busy month 🙂

I went and got some Christmas shopping done yesterday, I’m pretty well done, just need to do a little more thinking to come up with something for one more person and go get a couple more things and I’m done 🙂  Then I get to wrap them!!!  That’s my favourite part!  I just have to think about how I’m going to bling out my gifts this year 😀

Today is the last day of the Nail Polish Canada Holiday Nail Art Challenge.  This has been lots of fun doing these designs 🙂  This week’s theme is “Trim the Tree”.  I knew I had to do a full mani with the water marble Christmas trees I did from last week.  I also received Ninja Polish No Peeking this week, so I wanted to incorporate that too!

This didn’t turn out quite like I pictured in my mind, I definitely like the trees I did in my “Presents” mani for last week, but I have run out of time and can’t re-do it, so I just rolled with it 🙂

For my marble I used Sinful Colors Exotic Green, Avon Electric Green and OPI Who the Shrek Are You?. I think that Exotic Green and Electric Green are too close in colour to marble together for a Christmas tree.  For the trimmings I used Avon Ruby Slippers and rhinestones.  I also fished for some star glitters from Ninja Polish No Peeking 🙂

My accent nails are Zoya Logan with Ninja Polish No Peeking.  This is an awesome Christmas glitter, and I love it!  I would love to wear this every day of December!

Don’t forget head over to the collaboration of all the bloggers participating in the Nail Polish Canada Nail Art Challenge to vote for your favourite 🙂

Thank you to Nail Polish Canada for hosting this Nail Art Challenge, it’s been a lot of fun!  And congratulations to all the girls who participated in this Challenge, everyone did a great job!