NOTD Mar 23/13 - nude and blue leopard

Sorry for the bit of a gap in updates! I recently got an iPhone and I've been playing around with Instagram (username is kayleighk88 if you want to follow :) ) so I've been a little distracted!

I haven't managed to get a "real" photo of these nails but the Instagram photo turned out pretty good so I thought I would also share here!

I used a couple coats of Barielle in Beaches & Dreams and then for the middle of the leopard spots I used Essie in Butler Please, which I recently picked up on sale! Looove this colour, going to be doing more with it ASAP! The black is acrylic paint.

It seems like pretty much everywhere in North America except here in BC is getting crazy blizzards lately!! It's actually been getting sunnier and nicer here, still a nice little hailstorm the other day though, and even snow about 30 minutes away from my work, where it was sunny. What up, global warming?! But even this little bit of sun is making me hopelessly excited for summer to hurry up and come... I can predict my manis will only be getting more and more summery!

NOTD Mar 10/13 - stripes and negative space

Negative space has been a growing trend with nail art lately, and I really love the look of it. I also really needed to find more reasons to use my striping tape, but I always hesitate to use it because I have to let my bottom layer of nail polish dry for so long before it's safe to put the striping tape over it, and I don't usually have the time! So combining a striped look and negative space was the perfect solution!

I applied the striping tape over my bare nails, and then used a detail brush to paint in stripes of the various colours. The colour palette I picked was black, gold, turquoise and coral. I'm really happy with how this turned out, I think it looked awesome!

The colours I used were Essence in Black is Back, Barielle in Do Unto Others, Sally Hansen CSM in Gilty Pleasure, and Barielle Blossom. My right hand was skittles of these colours because I did eventually get tired of fussing with the striping tape!! :p

NOTD Feb 7/13 - navy and mini hearts

This background colour would not photograph properly and it was so frustrating! It looks black but it is a deep navy! It reminds me of something you would see at American Eagle Outfitters, a pattern on a shirt or something. It's cute for Valentine's Day but it would work any time of the year, and in lots of colour combos! Here is a great swatch by the Polish-A-Holic which shows how the colour REALLY looks!

Background is Barielle in Berry Blue, hearts are Wet n' Wild Wild Shine in Red Red and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On.

NOTD Dec 22/12 - Christmas lights!

It's getting close to Christmas and I feel like I didn't even come close to doing all the Christmas manis I wanted to do! I guess some will just have to wait until next year. :)

These ones turned out great and were worth the bit of extra work they took! I think adding sparkles to the lights was a nice touch, it really made them stand out more.

The background colour is Barielle Date Night, if you're curious about any of the other colours just ask in the comments! :)

NOTD Nov 26/12 - abstract minimalist trees

These nails are kind of inspired by nailside's style! I checked out her tutorial from last year for Christmas tree and it gave me the idea to add rhinestones to this, but I did mine a little different from hers and added even more rhinestones, and less tape lines. :) I like how this turned out! I think it would also look cute with different coloured rhinestones on the tree like different coloured ornaments, but the only rhinestones I had that were small enough were clear ones!

The background is Revlon in Cloud, the trees are Barielle in Date Night, and then the rhinestones and the striping tape I used (which is obviously unseen) are both from Born Pretty Store!

NOTD Nov 8/12 - rhinestone halfmoon skittles!

Got a few different elements going on with these ones! They're bright, fun and sparkly!! Good combo!

The colours I used were (from thumb to pinkie) Revlon Electric, Barielle Swizzle Stix, Barielle Sailor's Delight, Barielle Do Unto Others, Essence Break Through.

Then I added a little silver glitter - LA Girl Glitter Addict in Explosion, and added some rhinestones from Born Pretty Store on top!

Review/NOTD Sep 2/12 - Lush Lacquer's Salt n' Peppa over gradient

I went back and forth in my mind a lot about what to wear under this polish! Since it's a black and white glitter you can wear pretty much anything with it, so it was hard to narrow it down! I thought about some shades, then I thought about doing a different colour on each finger. Then it was a matter of whether to do brights, pastels or ombre from thumb to pinky. I had settled on a selection of colours for each nail, but as I sat down and was about to do it, it hit me that I hadn't done a gradient in a while! So I picked out two of the shades I was going to use and gradient-ized them instead!

I had kind of forgotten the power of a gradient to really give impact to a design and make it look more interesting with minimal effort. I've tried different techniques, but my favourite is still the most basic - paint your nails with the bottom colour (the one closest to your cuticle) and then sponge on the upper colour(s) with a makeup sponge. I also like to go back with the bottom colour to sponge in the middle and blur the line a little better, and then paint a little bit of the tip colour with the brush from the bottle right on the ends to make sure the colour is really opaque there.

Then I topped it off with a coat of my second fantastic shade from Lush Lacquer, Salt n' Peppa! It's an awesome black and white glitter topcoat with all kinds of shapes - bar, hex, square, even vaguely rectangular ones. And there's also some iridescent silvery microglitter tossed in there too, so this has a nice sparkle to it as well as being very graphic and bold looking! It's nice and full of glitter
 just like Mr.Bubble, also no need to fish around for glitter. I did 1.5 to 2 coats anyways to get the coverage I like. The base is not quite as thick as Mr.Bubble too, which is nice.

Colours used for the gradient are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Lacey Lilac and Barielle in Blossom.

NOTD Aug 26/12 - pop art graphic dots

These nails were one of those "pops into your head unbidden" kind of ideas. After I did them, they really reminded me of bright, flashy pop art. I love the way the colours work together!

Starting from the thumb going towards the pinky, I painted my nails with: OPI in The "It" Color, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away! (x2), and Sun Kissed again. Then I added dots in Blue Me Away!, Essence in Ultimate Pink, and Barielle Do Unto Others.

NOTD Aug 16/12 - glitter sandwich!

Another one I can tick off the to-do list, a glitter sandwich! I believe I saw some variation of almost this exact colour scheme somewhere else, so I know this combo wasn't organic from my mind (how many ideas are, really?) but I love it so much! It's soft and girly, almost a vintage vibe in some way. Bright, but still muted. I adore it! I can see this being cute with slight variations, like using baby blue or lavender as the bottom coat.

First I did a coat of Barielle Beaches & Dreams, an opaque peachy nude that just hints at a pink tone too. Then a coat or two of NYX Advanced Salon Formula in Multi Glitter, and then a coat of Essence Sweet As Candy.

For those who don't know the idea behind a glitter sandwich, it basically breaks down to this:
Opaque or sheer base coat + glitter coat + sheer or jelly coat = glitter sandwich. The look is to make it seem like the glitter is kind of floating in the middle of the polish, even though it's actually sandwiched between two other layers. It sort of softens and mutes brighter glitters too and gives them new life. I mean, for something rainbow this comes across as pretty wearable!

NOTD Aug 3/12 - lace, bows and pearls

This one's really girly and takes full advantage of the awesome pastels and candy-feminine trends we've been seeing so much of lately. I love how these turned out, so delicate and girly! I <3 pastels... I really do.

I painted my nails with Revlon Minted (thumb and ring fingers) and Barielle Sailor's Delight (index, middle and pinky fingers). Then I added dots of white in pearl strand patterns on the pink nails with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On, and in half moons on the mint nails. I also added dots of white along the edge of the half moons to create a scalloped edge, then filled in the centre of those with smaller dots of the mint shade. Then I dabbed Nicole by OPI in You're a Star (iridescent white) on top of the pearls to "pearlize" them. Next, I painted on the shape of the bows in white, then covered it with the pink shade, and lastly painted the outlines in black and added top coat!

NOTD May 25/12 - gold round studs on nude

Part two of my reviews for Born Pretty Store! The second product they kindly sent me was a package of their 1.5 mm golden studs. I'd seen lots of cool manis around the web using these, and I knew I needed to get me some! Now I'm so glad I did because I did my first look with them today and I am in love with it!

I started with a couple coats of Beaches & Dreams by Barielle, and then arranged the studs in two rows down the middle of each nail. Very simple, just a bit fiddly to do! And veery fiddly to get the extra studs back in the back! LOL But totally worth it!

I can totally see myself using these again and again! They're a wicked bargain too, only about $4 a bag and you get TONS of them! Definitely try these babies out!

NOTD May 22/12 - gradient and rhinestones

Hey everyone! I'm really happy about my manicure today! I love the look of rhinestones all clustered together, mosaic-style, and I did try it once. Problem was, all the rhinestones I had used were the same size, so it wasn't possible to really cram them all together, just next to each other. It just didn't have the look I was going for and so, I had to scrap that manicure! I knew I needed some multi-sized rhinestones to create the look I was going for, and luckily Born Pretty Store came through for me! They generously provided me with a couple of goodies, the first of which I want to show you today!

I started off with a gradient base, using a new technique for creating gradients I saw at The Nailasaurus! It worked very nicely, I love the results! I need a little more practice to totally get it down but it wasn't difficult at all and the results are great!

Then, I went to work with my rhinestones! The smallest of these are just teeny tiny! Be careful or these will end up everywhere! The rhinestones come in three sizes, the wheel has four compartments of each size. I arranged them in a crescent shape in the lower left corner of each nail, starting with a large rhinstone, adding a couple medium sized ones, and filling in the spaces and the "tails" with the tiny ones. Bit of topcoat on top and voila!

I'm really happy with how this turned out, I hope you like it too! Check out this product at Born Pretty Store and if you like what you can do with them, grab some! The price is awesome!

Colours used:
Barielle in Blossom
Revlon Top Speed in Electric

NOTD May 6/12 - soft glittery gradient

I had been meaning to do a gradient because it had been quite a while! I forgot how long these little guys can take though - no matter how opaque the colours you choose are, sponging them on makes them really sheer so it takes a few coats to build up opacity! And I found to get the proper blur between colours I had to go back and forth between shades and blend into the other colour(s) from both directions. But I think it was well worth the effort! I love how this turned out! And of course for me, no gradient is complete without a quick coat of glitter to really blend it all together and make it look finished.

Colours used (starting with gradient colours in order from cuticle to tip, then the glitter topper):
Barielle in Sailor's Delight
Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Lacey Lilac
Essence Colour & Go in You Belong to Me
Wet n' Wild Wild Shine in Kaleidoscope

NOTD Apr 15/12 - green and gold half moons

These nails came together really quickly - I just wanted to use one of my new Barielle polishes, Date Night! I painted my nails with it and did the ring fingers in Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Gilty Pleasure, and then painted half moons with the opposite colours. I just used a paint brush to create the halfmoons, it was actually easier than I thought it would be! I'd like to get some of the little round hole-repair stickers to try out this design a bit more though.

 You may notice this is my rarely seen right hand! I broke the pinky nail on my left hand and it is the tiniest little nubbin, right down to the quick. :( While I wait for that to regrow you may be seeing more of righty here!

Date Night was a dream to apply, the polish was a perfect texture, two easy coats. It looks even more gorgeous in real life!