NOTD Jul 30/12 - home, haul, glitter!

Hey everyone! We got back home on Saturday after our AMAZING trip to Disneyland! I had sooo much fun and I wish I could go back right now! I'm slooowly working my way through editing all of our photos. I'll be sure to throw a few up here on the blog!

The day after I got back I managed to haul a few things! Three nail polishes and a blush (the blush I'll do a seperate post for) and I replaced my poor beat up Disneyland manicure with a fresh new one! I had been wanting a multi-coloured glitter for ages, and when I saw this NYX one at the store I had to get it. The other two just called out to me, so they had to come home too!

Left to right they are: Wet n' Wild Wild Shine in Sparked (silver and rose microglitter in a clear base), NYX Advanced Salon Formula in Multi Glitter (various sizes of silver, red, blue, yellow, green, pink, purple and orange glitter in a clear base), and NYX Advanced Salon Formula in Disco Inferno (silver holo microglitter in a clear base).

Here they are up close.

And here's the mani I made layering Multi Glitter over black! A simple mani and I'd seen it before, but never tried it myself, due to lacking the multi coloured glitter!

NOTD Jul 21/21 - Disneyland!!

WAHOO!!! Tomorrow morning we leave bright and early for Disneyland!! This is seriously the culmination of years of yearning to get back! I haven't been since I was 11! I had to do my nails for the occasion! These are loosely based on my Minnie Mouse set, but a version that's easier to paint on my own nails!

Be back in a week! :D

Small absences!

Hey folks! Just a quick note to let you know - the reason I haven't posted lately is because my poor camera suddenly stopped working this past weekend!! Luckily I have been able to buy a newer (and much better!) one, so I should be posting a new manicure by this weekend - and after that I'll be going on vacation for a week to Disneyland!!! So expect a Disney themed manicure coming up before I leave!

NOTD Jul 11/12 - colourblock meets drippy

That was really the best title I could think of for this because honestly, it's kind of random and abstract! It was one of those "comes to you while sitting in bed" kind of ideas, and I'm glad it came because I really like this design! I feel like it lends itself to lots of different colour palettes, and it's not a really difficult design to execute but it does have visual impact. And it's just fun to look at!

First I painted my nails with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On. Then I added a stripe of LA Girl Disco Brites in Disco Diva to the middle third of my nail, and then Wet n' Wild Wild Shine in Red Red to the top third. Then I just did stripes of the middle colour (pink) down into the lower third of white, pulled red stripes down into the middle third of pink, and added white stripes and a thin white tip to the top third of red!

NOTD Jul 9/12 - matte blue glitter

I love matte nails, but I never seem to actually do matte manis! I was playing around on my nail wheels though and I came up with this great colour combo and I had to do it on my nails. In real life this is actually a lot darker, it showed up really bright in the photo, but that's fine because it shows of the glitter better when the photo is lighter.

First I painted on a thick coat of Essence in Walk on Air, then a coat of Sinful Colors in Hottie (LOVE this glitter, if you don't have it, get it - so gorgeous!). Then a coat of GOSH Matt Effect Top Coat and voila! Very fast and so pretty! I love that soft, velvety feeling of a matte topcoat, I'm always running my fingers over my nails!

Essence mini-haul

I got a few new Essence nail polishes the last couple days, just wanted to present them!

From L-R: Glamorous Life, Sweet as Candy, Choose Me!

All three of these are fairly sheer - I think Sweet as Candy is good for if you need a nice soft, sheer light pink, or for layering - Spektor's Nails did a great glitter sandwich with it not too long ago. Glamorous Life and Choose Me! would probably be best layered over a similar, more opaque shade to save on polish since these are such little bottles. Or you can just buy 2 bottles in the first place, since these will only set you back $1.49!

NOTD Jul 5/12 - splatter!

The day has finally come... I finally tried some splatter nail art! And I love it!!

I didn't want to go the extra messy route of blowing nail polish all over my hands (I used the straw method) so I used my sandwich bag decal method for these. I made them yesterday and applied them today and I'm really happy with them! I want to try out some other colour combos!

For a basic how-to on the sandwich bag decal method, see this post. I started with a background colour of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On (white creme), then splattered on Revlon Dreamer (periwinkle cream) and Revlon Top Speed Cupid (blue-toned pink creme). Easy!!

Also on a side note, I'm very excited to say that tomorrow is a really happy day for me... it's my boyfriend and mine's five year anniversary! I'm so happy to have spent five years with my best friend and the person I love and trust so much! <3 <3 <3

NOTD Jul 3/12 - white, pink and yellow stripes and dots

Hey everyone!! Loving this design today, something simple but really summery and fun, it brightens up my hands a lot. I really enjoy light and bright looks like this!

Started with a coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On, just got this shade of white today to replace my empties and I like it a lot! Only two coats needed. Then I striped on the pink - originally it was just Essence in Sweet as Candy, which I also just got today and is a really beautiful colour, but for what I was going for it was too light and sheer, so I mixed in some Revlon Pink Lingerie to deepen the colour a bit. Then I striped on Revlon Electric, and added multi-sized dots of LA Girl Disco Brites in Disco Diva. Top coat and voila!! Bright, fun, happy summery nails! Which totally don't match the weather outside which is grey and rainy... doesn't it know it's supposed to be July out there?

FOTD Jul 3/12

The last few days I've been mostly just hanging around the house makeup-less, so today I have some errands to run and it was so nice to get to get made up again! I always miss it after a few days without (which isn't often) and then it's even more fun to do it again.

 

 

 

I went for a gold eyeshadow with some more neutral tones in it as opposed to brighter yellow-gold tones across the lid (Essence Eyeshadow in Party All Night) and then dabbed a little white-pink pearly shimmer in the middle of the lid (NYX Ultra Pearl Mania in Pearl) and also on the inner corners and on the browbone. Then I added a little bit of darkness in the outer corner for depth (mixture of Urban Decay Buck and Darkhorse) and a little bit of Buck under the very outer corner of the lower lashline. No eyeliner for this look (except the usual tightliner) and a couple coats of mascara!

My blush was a soft peachy pink (Essence Silky Touch Blush in Babydoll) topped with a dusting of a no-name coral blush. I added a little powder highlighter to the top of the cheekbones (Too Faced Shimmer Veil). Then a little bit of sheer pale pink shimmer gloss! (Sephora Glossy Gloss in Precious Pink)

Thanks for checking it out! :) Hope you're all getting better summer weather than I am here - rain, rain, and more rain!!

NOTD July 2/12 - starry sky

First of all, I have to say a big happy belated Canada Day! <3 <3

Next up, a new mani finally! I haven't been feeling all that inspired when it came to my nails lately, any nail art I was doing was for sets for my Etsy. So when I'm having phases like that I do the sensible thing and use polishes that don't get a lot of love with nail art. My manis for the last week or two have been using glitter polishes that I haven't used in a while. It's good to give them some love too!

But the other night I finally had a strike of inspiration for some nail art! I call these ones "starry sky" because well, that's what they look like! Sort of like galaxy nails, but more like what they'd look like from here on Earth! I like how they turned out, very sparkly and kind of ethereal!

Colours used:
Sally Hansen CSM in Navy Baby - a shimmery deep navy, did one coat as background
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Deep Blue Sea - pictured above, a medium blue foil, added one coat on top of the navy blue
Nicole by OPI in You're A Star - shimmery, pearly white, drew on crosses and dots for stars diagonally across each nail
White striper polish - added accents to some of the stars
Wet n Wild Wild Shine in Kaleidoscope - silver and iridescent glitter in clear base, swiped it over the stars concentrating on the middle of the "galaxy" and thinning the glitter on the edges
Then added top coat and voila, all done!

Hope you like!