NOTD Mar 15/13 - Minnie Mouse inspired (again!)

I realized this is the third time I have done a manicure inspired by Minnie Mouse! Somehow that little mouse is just so inspiring with her iconic red with white polka dots and black bow! My Minnie Mouse design on my Etsy shop has been my most popular design, accounting for about 30% of my sales!

I recently bought a new red polish from a dollar store line I've grown to love, called Tivoli. This red is no exception, it applied like an absolute DREAM. This was two easy coats! The shade is Tivoli in NP193, and then I used acrylic paint for the dots and the bows!

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 Mar 7/13 - chevrons and dots

I couldn't just leave the chevron look alone! It's a design I really like and I wanted to give it another shot. This time I mixed it up - I did smaller chevrons on the thumbnail and bigger ones on the fingers, and then on my right hand I went for dots instead in the same colour scheme.

Here's a side by side shot of both hands!

The orange is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Sun Kissed, and the blue is Essence Let's Get Lost. White is acrylic paint!

NOTD Feb 25/13 - lavender and chevrons

I finally made my first foray into chevrons! I like the design a lot and although I'm not 100% happy with this mani, I know what I want to do differently next time to make it better.

My only issue with this mani is that I think the chevron stripes are too thick - next time I'll make them thinner. Other than that though, I like it! It's easier than I thought it would be to do - probably largely due to the fact that I used acrylic paint instead of nail polish!

Lavender is Revlon Top Speed in Lily, and the white is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On. Black is acrylic paint!

NOTD Feb 23/13 - 80's abstract!

This was actually from last week but I've been slow in getting stuff done, had a busy week!

My boyfriend really loved this design which was funny, he is supportive but he doesn't normally notice my nails all that much!

I based this off a design I saw on Pinterest, but I'm not sure where it originally came from. I just switched up the colours. This looks pretty 80's to me and I like it! Very easy to do and looks so fun!

The green is Essence in L.O.L. and the blue is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Blue Me Away.

NOTD Jan 27/13 - matte grey, simple and classy

On Pinterest this week I saw a photo of a very simply mattified grey manicure, and I was totally inspired - grey isn't a colour I use a lot. But being me, I couldn't do just matte grey. I wanted to keep it fairly simple and classy looking though, so I toyed around with some different ideas and settled on grey with white polka dots and an accent nail of silver glitter, all mattified.

I love how these turned out!!! They're simple but still different, totally classy but cute vibe to them. This would be cute in any colour combination but I'm loving the grey/silver/white look.

Colours I used were Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Wet Cement and White On, and LA Girl Glitter Addict in Explosion. Top coat is GOSH Matt Effect.

Also, I think my indoor photo taking is a bit better this time. I messed around with the lighting in an editing program a bit and I think it worked nicely!

NOTD Jan 25/13 - funky abstract

This idea was sort of floating in my head for months, but I never got around to doing it. The idea for the pattern on my thumb and ring finger popped into my head and I thought it would look pretty cool, and when I finally decided to make it happen, the perfect colours jumped out at me too!

Now that I look at the pattern in reality, it really kind of reminds me of tire tracks, especially when I was first drawing it on and started it in the middle of my nails. The black rhinestones I added on as a last minute addition to make it a little more balanced and add a bit of pizazz to the plain nails.

The green is an awesome shade I recently picked up, Essence in L.O.L., such a gorgeous chartreuse shade, LOVE! The lavender is Revlon Top Speed in Lily, and the peach is Illamasqua Purity. I painted the designs with black acrylic paint, and the black rhinestones are from Born Pretty Store!

NOTD Jan 21/12 - mint and magenta with studs

This was a manicure that started out totally different and then needed to be resuscitated because it failed SO BAD!

Remember that Aruba Coconut manicure I did the other day? I wanted to carry on the Bath & Body Works Escape Collection theme, so I started the mani with several magenta nails, and then on the middle nails I was going to do a design based on the packaging of another bottle from that collection. But they looked SOOOOOOO bad. Like laughably bad guys. Epic fail bad.

So I wiped off the polish from those two nails and quickly did something simple so I wouldn't spend another eon doing my nails!

Also, forgive my subpar indoor lighting photo-taking skills. My new job is a full time 9-5 type deal, so there are not going to be many opportunities for me to take manicure photos in daylight unless I start bringing my camera to the office and taking photos out the back during my lunch. Which is an idea, come to think of it...

Both of these were polishes I bought yesterday, and both Revlon. The pink is Revlon Top Speed Bubble, and I LOVE it. The formula on this polish is amazeballs. So smooth and gorgeous, perfect in two coats. The colour is straight up BARBIE. <3 <3 <3 I don't usually go this googoo for pinks but what can I say... the mint is a repurchase, it was on clearance at the drugstore, Revlon Minted. Studs are from Bornprettystore.com!

NOTD Jan 19/13 - inspired by Madeline Poole

I saw this gorgeous mani on Tumblr, and something about the simple design and the yummy colours just caught my eye! I had to recreate it!

I tweaked the design a bit for myself, instead of the rhinestones I did a single gold pyramid stud on each nail. Love how this turned out, couldn't stop staring at my hands last night. :)

 The yellow is NYX Salon Polish in Pastel Yellow and I painted the triangles on with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mint Sorbet.

NOTD Jan 11/13 - Aruba Coconut tropical leaves

As many of you may know, I work at Bath & Body Works (although not for much longer!). This week we've begun receiving product for spring/summer, including the new 2013 repackages of the tropical themed Signature Collection products like Aruba Coconut, Bali Mango and Rio Rumberry.

You can already check them out on the website, although they won't be available in stores until after the weekend, but oh my goodness, the packaging is GORGEOUS. I knew I had to do some manicures inspired by them!

I started with Aruba Coconut. This mani is one of those ones I love the most when I see it from a bit of a distance, but when I look at it up close I get really nitpicky about the shapes of the leaves! Next time I try a design like this I'll probably use the sandwich bag method because it was hard to freehand the leaves on my own nails. But overall I really like this mani and the colours especially!

Background colour is a polish I picked up at the dollar store, and I am very impressed by it! I'll be back to grab more shades. It's Tivoli Color Shock NP153 (no real name :( I hate that!). Then the leaves are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Mellow Yellow and Green With Envy, LA Girl Disco Brites in Turntable, Essence Walk on Air, and one bit of the leaves is a mixture of the two previous shades.

NOTD Oct 13/12 - blue sparkle and square studs!

Wheee!! My long awaited package from Born Pretty Store is finally here! I ordered this quite a while back but it apparently got lost in the mail, but BPS were awesome and resent it to me as soon as I reported it! Now it's here in my grubby little hands... I got a few things but the first one I decided to use was my square studs!

I chose the 2mm gold ones, and here's a quick and simple design I did using them.

This polish is one I don't use enough, it really is nice. It looks semi-sheer with one coat so it's good for layering, but two coats (like here) makes it opaque. And it's just sooo pretty to look at!

NOTD Sep 18/12 - matte mixed

I always feel like I'm never doing enough matte manis! I love the way they look and I really love the way they feel (so soft!) but I never seem to make them happen. I especially like how glitter looks mattified but I didn't want to do an all-glitter matte mani because that's all I've ever done with the texture before. So I went for a mixed mani with glitter incorporated for this one!

I painted my ring finger with Revlon Impulsive, and the rest with Revlon Dreamer. I painted Milani One Coat Glitter in Lavender Fizz on my ring finger. Then I used Impulsive to paint on the dots and stripes on the blue nails (I alternated on my other hand, so the dots were on the thumb and so on), then I added highlights of the glitter on each nail as well, and then mattified with GOSH Matt Effect top coat!

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 6/12 - cocktail nails

Hope everyone in Canada is enjoying the long weekend today!

I did these nails the other day just to play around - they didn't turn out exactly how I wanted but I still like them, and I finally got to use one of my new Essence polishes! I love how shimmery it is, almost like glass flecks.

I painted all my nails with a coat of Rimmel 60 Seconds in Green With Envy, then added a coat of Essence in Choose Me! on the thumb, ring and pinky fingers. Then a coat each of Revlon Blue Mosaic and LA Girl Glitter Addict in Explosion on the index and middle fingers.

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 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 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?

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!

NOTD May 30/12 - magenta glitter drips, plus coupon code for Born Pretty Store!

This idea has been sort of brewing in my head for a little while, and in real life I'm loving how it turned out! I wanted to do something drippy and glittery and this so fit the bill!

It's difficult to see but I added a single fuchsia rhinestone to the ring finger. After I did it I realized it would have looked better with a red stone since the magenta polish I used is more red-based and the rhinestone is more blue toned, but minor details, no biggie!

Colours used:
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Naked Ambition
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Frutti Petutie
Wet n Wild Wild Shine in Kaleidoscope
Rhinestones from Born Pretty Store

Also, Born Pretty Store was awesome and let me share this coupon code with you for 5% off your order! Honestly the stuff there is already so inexpensive you hardly need an extra discount, but saving money never hurts right?


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