Nail Wheel the First

I've been having a blast painting this the last few days!! My first complete nail wheel!! Click to see it larger. :)

NOTD Sep 29/11, and other nail related things

I am SO excited because I got my big bulk pack of nail wheels today and spent the afternoon watching TV and painting! My idea of a great time!! I'm in between jobs right now, and have had this week off - starting the new one on Monday, so the free time is just excellent.

I came up with this design on the nail wheel today and loved it so much I put it right on my own nails, and I'll probably paint them onto a set for my Etsy shop too! I'm really enjoying having it, today I actually was put into a Treasury for Halloween related items! Check it out! Totally made my day! :D Also some other lovely people had added some of my sets to their favourite items. I'm gonna flip when I make my first sale!

Anyways, here are the nails!

Love them!! Here's a bit of a preview of some of the sets I have in my shop right now, since I haven't really showed them off on the blog itself!

Thanks for popping in! :)

presenting... Nail Art by Kayleigh!

Remember how I mentioned a little while ago that I had a big announcement coming up? Well it's finally ready for reveal and I'm very excited!

I've opened my very own Etsy shop! Featuring nail art designs hand painted by yours truly! Go ahead and take a look!

Click to visit. Thanks for checking it out! More designs are coming very soon. :)

Heavy Rotation

These are the items that have been getting some heavy play in my makeup routine lately! For the last few weeks I was getting up very early, so I needed products that made 5:00 a.m. makeup foolproof and fast! These were the winners!

Clockwise from the top:

1. Urban Decay Naked Palette - As you can probably tell from how worn the lettering is, this palette has been well loved. The colours are so versatile, all of them go well together, and because of how pigmented and blendable they are there's no fussing around trying to get the shadows on your lids. This is really the be-all-end-all of foolproof eyeshadow palettes!

2. Wet n' Wild Color Icon Blusher in Pearlescent Pink - This beautiful bright coral pink with shimmer is perfectly buildable and such a flattering shade whether I'm my usual paler than pale self or more tanned!

3. NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil in Iced Mocha - For the mornings when I'm seriously pressed for time, a swipe of this as a base shadow and then a couple of similar taupe powder eye shadows on the lids gives me 30 second eye makeup. Lifesaver!!

4. Urban Decay All-Nighter Setting Spray - Every day my makeup would wear away around my nose and chin, until I found this stuff! This bottle here is just the little travel size, but I would totally buy full size - a few spritzes of this keeps my makeup looking fresh all day.

5. Rimmel Lasting Finish 25 Hr Foundation - If you're thinking this looks like a drugstore sample tube, you would be correct. The last time I went to buy a replacement bottle of this, the store was out of my shade, and I sweet talked the sales associate into letting me keep the tester tube. That's how much I love this foundation!

6. Maybelline EyeStudio Gel Eyeliner in Black - I use this liner pretty well every day, both for tightlining and along the lash line, using a bent eyeliner brush. It goes on so smoothly and does not dry out at all in the bottle, unlike the similar MUFE product that retails for about double the price!

Have you tried any of these products? Love them? Hate them? What have you been using a lot recently? Let me know in the comments! :)

NOTD Sep 21/11

Penguins!! I think penguins are some of the most adorable animals out there - the walk! I die! When I saw this little tutorial for penguin nails from Pantastic I knew I had to try it out! Here's my version with little purple penguins! :) Enjoy!

Review: Urban Decay All Nighter Long-Lasting Makeup Setting Spray

The Urban Decay All Nighter Long-Lasting Makeup Setting Spray has been on my wishlist for a while, because it seemed like exactly the thing I needed! It always seemed that by halfway through the day, my makeup had worn away leaving me with redness showing through on my nose and chin. I desperately needed something that would keep my makeup looking fresh!

So I picked up the travel sized version of this at Sephora the other day to test it out, and so far I'm really liking it!! Although I wouldn't go so far as to say that my makeup looks just like it did when I put it on by the end of the day, there's definitely a huge improvement in lasting power when I use this.

I get up on weekdays and put my makeup on at around 5:30 in the morning, and usually I felt like it needed a touch-up by noon, but now I don't get to that point until about 5:30 in the evening or later, so this is stretching my makeup's longevity out by a lot! If you have tried everything (primers, long-lasting foundations) and still can't find anything that makes your makeup stay where it's supposed to, give this a shot, I think you'll like it!

Nail Art Blog Link Love!

Lately (if you hadn't noticed) I've been really getting into nail art. There are times - wonderful, glorious times - when ideas for nail art are running through my head like a flipbook. Usually when I'm laying in bed about to fall asleep, and by the next morning I forget half of them but still... it's a good feeling! Exhilirating!

Another thing that inspires me nail art-wise are the many, many ridiculously talented people out on the web with nail art blogs. Seriously, some of this stuff just blows me away. Check em out and give them some love too! These are not all the nail blogs I read, not by a long shot - these are just a few that jumped out at me lately!

The Nailasaurus - Lots of nails that are detailed drawings - even her links for social media (Twitter, Facebook etc.) are nail art! Also some really nice stamping manis - I find a lot of them out there suffer from having either boring or bad colour combos but not these ones, she has an eye for colour!

Beauty by Kayla Shevonne - Cute, simple, bold designs - my favourite! Lots to look at here! :) Some great Nicki Minaj themed nails over there!

Nail Nerd - Tons of cool designs, including some awesome gradient and silhouette manis.

Nail Polish Art Addiction - SO MANY cartoon character nails! Seriously, I'm talking HUNDREDS. Among other things!

JeeA Lee's Nail Art - The queen of mixed manis, these are eye candy for SURE!

Nailside - She has mastered the tape mani (alas - I have not yet...) so her designs are always incredibly crisp, and she has such a great eye for colour! Also, she's got me jonesing for a matte top coat!

Nevertoomuchglitter - Check out the original nail art category and prepare to drool. Jus' saying...

very emily - Beautiful mixed and 3D manis along with awesome photography skills!

rebecca likes nails - Great at hand drawing AND stamping - this is where I learned how to do leopard print!

What's On the Wishlist? Vol. 5

Here's some new things that have made it onto my wishlist in recent months! It's got a life of it's own, this wishlist...

Jack Black Intense Therapy Lip Balm SPF 25

I'm on a (hopefully not) neverending quest for the perfect lip balm, and this is another one I have heard raves about, so it has to be worth a shot! I've never spotted this in a Sephora store, just on the website, but then again I guess I've never looked... I'm always distracted by all the "pretties" in Sephora!

Too Faced Matte Eye Shadow Collection

I have a bit of a dearth of matte eyeshadows, and high end mattes can be sooo buttery and nice! I swatched this really quickly at Sephora today when I was shopping for a gift for someone else, and it took mad willpower not to buy this for myself too on the spot! But it will be mine..

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Gilty Pleasure

I'm in need of a good, true gold nail polish and every time I'm at the store this catches my eye! But I like to try to buy nail polishes when they go on sale and these don't seem to go on sale very often! Might need to just bite the bullet and buy it soon...

What are you wishing for these days?

drugstore polish haul!

I stopped in the drugstore when I was up visiting my parents on the Labor Day long weekend, and was delighted to find tons of nail polishes on sale! I picked up a replacement for my white polish, and these three new shades!

Sinful Colors in Hottie (love this shade, my first from this brand and I used it on my last nail of the day!), Sally Hansen Insta-Dry in Bronze Ablaze (gorgeous LE shade, might need to buy a backup! a true bronze, it has a bit of a green cast to it), Revlon Top Speed in Lily (beautiful creamy muted lavender, it's on my toes right now!)

few and far between!

Hey guys! Just wanted to drop a quick note to say sorry about how few and far between the posts have been lately, there's been a lot going on in my personal life lately that's been taking up a lot of my time!

I do have some really cool things in the works over the next coming weeks, somewhat related to the blog, which will be revealed soon! In the meantime I'm definitely going to try to find more time to come up with some posts so thanks for your patience guys!

NOTD Sep 9/11

This is inspired by mermaids!! The background is a lavender shade, then I painted dabs of silver to look like fish scales, then layered a sheer blue-based glitter over top! I like how this turned out. :)

NOTD Sep 1/11

September already!! Holy cow! Hard to believe! I'm clinging to summer with a bright, sparkly nail look like this! Another go with a glitter gradient, this time purple on the tips (although it pretty much disappeared under the glitter) with Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Rockstar pink, a magenta and blue glitter, sponged over in a gradient! I also added a little blue star to the ring finger with a bit of the glitter over it just for a little something extra, I felt like it needed something!

With flash to really show off the sparkly-pretties!