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 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!

NOTD Jun 20/12 - rhinestone strawberry

Strawberries on my nails! Finally! I've wanted to do it forever! But I wanted some blingy-bling on it, so the ring fingers have rhinestone seeds! And I mixed it up by making some of the strawberries pink. I'm in love with these!

Colours used:
 Revlon Top Speed in Pink Lingerie
Wet n Wild Wet Shine in Red Red
custom green mix

NOTD Jun 3/12 - Diamond Jubilee

Hey everyone! I've been pretty happy to see how many people have been doing nails in honour of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this week! For those who don't know, it is the 60 year anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's reign. Although I'm not British, I am Canadian which makes her my Queen too! I've always been very interested in the royal family both past and present, and I find the Queen herself to be a really admirable and wonderful person! I saw a special about her on TV the other night and fell in love with her all over again! I knew I had to do a manicure for the occasion of her Diamond Jubilee.

Fairly simple in design, I'm so happy how it looks! It's very bright and striking... my bus driver even commented on them hehehe!

Colours used:
Essence in Walk on Air
white striper polish
Wet n Wild Wild Shine in Red Red
rhinestones from Born Pretty Store (use coupon code KK5W21 for 5% off your order!)

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?


KK5W21

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 Apr 9/12 - Russian Opulence (Jewel Encrusted)

These nails kind of came together without any plan.. I just kept adding elements until they looked finished to me. When all was said and done, they had kind of a Russian opulence feel to them, all sparkly and covered in rhinestones. Obviously, these were made on a set of falsies!

I feel very fabulous wearing these!

Rhinestones were generously provided from Born Pretty store!

NOTD Jan 15/12 and a Born Pretty Store coupon!

I had to try out more of the awesome rhinestones I got from Born Pretty store - I admit before I got these I wasn't too into the whole rhinestone thing so I didn't think I'd get a lot of use out of them, but now that I have them I love them! I want more! Different shapes! MOAR!

Hehehe aaanyways! Here are the nails... a peach background, little red and white flowers with gold leaves and red rhinestone accents! I love how these turned out... I tried them out on a nail wheel first a few days ago and knew it had to be on my nails next!

I also have some other cool news! Check out the sidebar to the right to see a coupon code you can use to get 5% off at checkout on Born Pretty Store.com! Their prices are already a heck of a bargain as is, but every bit counts so who can say no to another 5% off? Enjoy! :)

A Very Merry NOTD, with rhinestones!!

Merry Christmas Eve everyone! It's a quiet one for me this year, most of my family visiting will be next month due to work restrictions on my time right now - but that gave me time to do a nice mani tonight!

I wanted something that was still in the holiday spirit but wouldn't be too Christmassy and immediately out of date come Boxing Day! So I settled on a mixed metal glitter mani with rhinestones!!

First, the pics:

I love how these turned out!! They look festive but I would totally wear them any time of the year. Funny enough, taking these pics I learned a great way to take indoor pictures of my nails - I always had trouble taking indoor pics in macro mode because everything would turn so yellow in the picture! But for these, I used my camera's "food" picture setting! LOL So weird but hey, it works! Now I don't have to wait for a sunny day (not many of those this time of year) to take outdoor pictures.

The rhinestones were generously sent to me for review by Born Pretty Store. There are 12 colours included and they come in a great little case that lets you turn the window to get at whichever colour you need. I'm very excited to finally have my hands on some of these and I can't wait to do more manis with them, especially with having so many colour options! Definitely try these out if you want a good variety of rhinestones, it's less than $4 for the package and they ship worldwide! See them here!

Excel Gum Character nail art

You know those seriously adorable commercials for Excel gum with the little onion, garlic, coffee and donut? You know, these ones? I've been obsessed with these commercials since they came out - the little mascots are SO cute! My boyfriend suggested I do some nail art of them and I thought it was a great idea!

Although this is definitely the straw that broke the toothpick's back - meaning this mani made me realize I need to get some detail brushes for nail art, because these were kind of a pain to paint using only the nail polish brushes from the bottle and toothpicks! But I'm very happy how they turned out nonetheless! Hope you like too!

NOTD July 12/11

Sorry for the no updates lately! Work's been keeping me busy and wanting to do literally NOTHING on my down time!! But I have found some time to do my nails! Another one I got the idea for from a Tumblr blog (the manicure inspiration folder on my computer is growing at an alarming rate!) for some flowers on a black background!! I think I still need to get the hang of scaling patterns to the size of my nails... I didn't intend it to be this big or have the flowers overlap! But I still like how it turned out!