Christmas Gifts Manicure

Finally, a current manicure!  The tree is up, the Christmas music is on the radios, the malls are operating on extended hours starting today, and therefore the Christmas manicures must begin!  This manicure is for the Nail Polish Canada nail art contest, and the theme for this week is gifts! Last week's was Snow, but I didn't hear about the contest in enough time to enter, so I decided that I would do this week's theme for sure!

The colours I used were:

Thumb: OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons with China Glaze Ruby Pumps, Barry M Spring Green and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the wrapping paper holly pattern, and a Misa silver striping polish for the bow.

Index finger: Cult Nails Coveted with OPI Goldeneye for the bow.

Middle finger: W7 Purple Paradise with A England Excalibur for the bow.

Ring Finger: OPI You Don't Know Jacques, with the wrapping paper pattern being the Misa silver striping polish again with Barry M Gold Foil, and OPI Live and Let Die for the bow.

Pinky: China Glaze Hey Sailor with MAC Everything That Glitters for the bow.

Although I do love my thumb, I think my favourite combination is the green and gold. I used tape to get the bows straight as I had originally attempted to free hand them, which absolutely did not go right. I will definitely have to do an entire holly manicure as it's kind of a running joke in my family that the only thing that I can draw that looks like it's supposed to is holly! I was glad to know this skill also transferred to nail polish designs :-)

If you'd be so kind as to vote for me, you can do so and check out all of the other amazing contributors here. I don't have any illusions of winning with all of the awesome competitors that I'm up against, but for me the point was more about having fun.  As this is the first Christmas where I've been really into nail art, it's also a fun excuse to try out some different designs.  This will be the first of many!! 

25th Birthday Manicure

This is the manicure that I did for my 25th birthday, and I absolutely loved it and was sad to see it come off! I don't remember all of the colours, but I do remember that the pinky is A England Perceval with Cult Nails Nevermore over top and striping tape, the ring finger is China Glaze Ruby Pumps, the gold on the middle finger was OPI Goldeneye, the blue base colour of the pointer finger is Cult Nails Living Water and the gold flake top coat on the thumb is OPI Man with the Golden Gun.  Red is one of my favourite colours, especially on nails, and so I couldn't resist making the colour the base of my birthday manicure.

Halloween Nails

Okay, now on to my Halloween manicures! I had so much fun with all of the different Halloween designs that I could come up with! My first one was meant to be a Candy Corn gradient, but I didn't even realize until after I had this on my nails for two days or so that I had put the colours in the wrong order! Oh well, I still liked the manicure! :-)

 The next one I just called Halloween dots. I believe I just put down a black coat, then a coat of sparkles before doing the purple, green and orange dots with a dotting tool. I really liked this one as well as I didn't find that it screamed Halloween, yet was still festive.

Next is my Jack O' Lantern face manicure. I thought this was super cute, even if it does look a little juvenile.  I did it all free hand and was very happy with the result.

The next one I call Halloween frills. It's a nude base colour with a dollop of Lush Lacquer Hey Jack at the base of my nail. I then did overlapping lines of dots in black, orange and purple to cover the edge of Hey Jack. The picture below this one is of my right hand where I just wore Hey Jack on it's own over a nude colour because I couldn't do the frills with my left hand. 

For this picture, I used the OPI So So Skullicious mini halloween set. I loved these colours! The skull on the thumb is one of the decals that came with the set. It was also my first foray with striping tape. It was very fiddly, but I thought the end result was pretty good for a first attempt.  It's supposed to be spider webs, hence the spider on my pinky.

This is a collage of the Halloween manicures that I had taken pictures of with Instagram and made with InstaCollage.  If you haven't tried those apps yet, you absolutely should, they're super fun! 

The middle one on the right hand side is another gradient with a stamped pumpkin that I did, but for some reason I can't find those pictures!  Oh well, at least I have a snippet of it! :-)

Essie Fall Collection and W7

For this manicure I used the Essie Fall Stylenomics mini set which came with a mini bottle of Don't Sweater It, Head Mistress, Recessionista and Stylenomics, all of which can be seen on my accent nail. This was also my first experiment with tape. I used blue painter's tape, and learned that top coat in between layers is of the upmost importance. On the thumb is my first and only W7 polish called Purple Paradise, which I absolutely love! I don't know that it's available anywhere in Canada, but I ordered it from Nail Polish Direct which ships from the UK.  The shipping cost was more than reasonable but they're UK prices so make sure to take the exchange rate into account. 

I really liked this manicure, it's so pretty for the Fall and yet still bright. I've always liked Essie and this Fall collection is no exception.

Lush Lacquer Afterall It's Fall

This is my first post of many about indie brand Lush Lacquer, I have absolutely fallen in love with this brand and basically all of their polishes. They were the first indie brand that I tried and I have had nothing but good experiences with them. This is Afterall It's Fall over top of OPI Wooden Shoe Like to Know. It's the perfect colour for fall, and yet it's still sparkly and therefore can cheer up basically any colour. It has all of the colours of the leaves in the fall when they're just beginning to change.  You can see the colours more prominently in the bottom photo as I used a flash.

Lush Lacquer can be found on Etsy here, and also on Harlow & Co. and Llarowe.  Be sure to check out their holiday polishes!

Long Awaited Galaxy Nails

Well that was a much longer break than I had originally anticipated! Oh well, stuff happens! Just incase you've been wondering for months now what my out of this world comment meant, here is the answer! It's Galaxy nail time!! Wooo!! I did these months ago and I absolutely loved them! I first saw the idea of doing a different colour "galaxy" on each nail on Very Emily here. She is an amazing blogger and not only does she have lots of nail art, but she has tons of makeup reviews as well. Without further ado, here are my galaxy nails!

This is my left hand where I attempted to do small stars in silver, but it didn't turn out quite as I had hoped. I left the stars off of my right hand, the pictures of which are below.

You can tell from the light which of the pictures were taken outside in the sun and which were indoor photos. The picture below contains all of the colours that I used, obviously I used a few on each nail. 

If I hadn't done it myself I wouldn't have been able to tell that I had used all of those colours.  Even looking at the pictures now I have a hard time believing it.

Meet Me On the Star Ferry

Okay, last post for tonight! Now I'm all caught up as this is the polish that I am currently wearing! I have one more manicure to post, but I haven't uploaded all of the pictures yet so I'll do that another day. I'm really excited about it too! I've been dying to try and and I finally had the time and I absolutely loved it!! Here's a hint: it's out of this world!

On to this colour! This is OPI Meet Me On the Star Ferry, which when I looked it up was apparently from the Hong Kong collection. I picked it up about two weeks ago at a buy one get one half off sale at Trade Secrets.

I was drawn to it for the purple colour and because it seemed to be pretty shimmery, but I could not believe how sparkly it was when I got out in the sun! It was amazing! I could not stop staring at it! The pictures show some of the sparkle, particularly the bottom one, but definitely do not do it justice. It's so gorgeous. I seem to be going through a very purple phase lately.  Considering that when I started my recent nail polish obsession I had no purples, I'd say that over half of my most recent purchases have been in the purple family. I just can't seem to get enough! 

Pink, Brown and Purple Tape and Dot Manicure

I really liked this manicure and I was proud to have thought of this idea by myself! Most of my manicures are inspired by others that I have seen and then reproduced or tweaked a bit to make it my own, whereas this one is all my own doing! The first two pictures are inside, and the bottom two are also inside but are in a jewellery store with high amounts of lighting which really brought out the shimmer of the brown base colour.

You can really see the shimmer of the base colour, which is OPI Wooden Shoe Like to Know from the Holland collection.  The pictures just don't do it justice, but you can see the shimmer a bit on the thumb nails.  I could not stop staring at it in the jewellery store though, it was so nice! The pink tips were done with tape and are Barry M Bright Pink, and the dots I did with a dotting tool and Barry M Bright Purple.  I am loving having found the Barry M polishes on the Harlowe & Co. website which is in Kitchener and therefore ships across Canada!! Wooo!! Also, I have started using a new base coat. I was running out of my OPI and decided to get China Glaze Strong Adhesion Base Coat which so far I am really liking!! 

Cult Nails I Got Distracted

This is my very first Cult Nails purchase, and it'll definitely be the first of many. I absolutely love this polish!! I did experience some shrinkage with it, but I find I experience shrinkage with most of my polishes, especially if they're thicker.  I couldn't believe the colours and glitter in this polish, it is so gorgeous. Flashes of green with all different colours of sparkly glitter, I could not stop looking at it!

I don't really know what else to say, except that you should all buy it, especially if you like glittery polishes. I got a couple more in this order, and just recently placed another order that I am waiting for, so definitely keep a look out for more Cult Nails manicures! The first three pictures are in the sun, and the bottom picture is indoors. If you can, zoom in on the pictures a bit and get a look at all this glitter! 

New Konad Special Stamping Polishes

I basically did this manicure to try out the new Konad special polishes that I got.  I had already had the white and black, and I just recently purchased the red, orange pearl and violet pearl and absolutely love them! I got them from Nail Polish Canada, I always love shopping from their website as they have such speedy delivery and very adequate pricing! 

The above bottle shot is all of my base colours.  From left to right we have my base coat OPI Natural Nails Base Coat, my thumb polish Orly Lift the Veil, my index finger OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, middle finger Barry M Berry Ice Cream, ring finger China Glaze Peachy Keen and a england Camelot on the pinky finger. At the end is my Seche Vite quick dry top coat. The plate I used was Bundle Monster 205, which was super cute and kind of reminded me of a hippie print. I wasn't sure about all of the different colours, but I ended up really liking it, although I must admit I believe my favourite nails were the white on black and vice versa.

Cloud Manicure

Okay! So it's a little later than I had originally anticipated, but tonight I will post the rest of my manicures that I had backed up! I really, really liked this one. I left it on for as long as I could, but eventually I had to take it off.  I originally saw the tutorial for this on nailside here -once again another blogger to definitely check out as she has some amazing ideas and great tutorials! This was super easy and lasted a long time.

For this manicure, my base colour was China Glaze For Audrey, the bright pinky colour is China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy and the purple is a england Avalon. I loved the way these colours looked together! It all worked out really well and I was super happy with it.

First Finger Paints Polish with Stamping

Just to give you all a break from the pink and purple monotony of the last few posts, I decided to leave off my massive update tonight with this lovely emerald/teal colour! This is my very first Finger Paints polish and I loved it!! I'm thinking this is Go Van Gogh.  I remember it looking more emerald green in the bottle, but then on my nails I was thinking it was more of a teal.  However, now that I'm looking at these pictures again it does look more emerald-y.

Whatever colour you want to call it, as soon as I put this on I envisioned a silver stamp on top.  After much perusal of my newly arrived Bundle Monster plates (the 2011 and 2012 sets), I decided on this one and I know that I will be using this stamp a lot more.  It kind of reminds me of leaves, but crossed with peacock feathers! I used the Konad Silver Special Polish and was in love with the outcome.  Part of my wished that I could wear this manicure every day, for some reason I felt happier and brighter whenever I looked at it, and I seemed to even hold my head a little higher all day.  Yes, I know how ridiculous this sounds, but it's the truth none the less.  Sometimes a gorgeous manicure is just the little pick-me-up that you need to put that extra spring in your step! All you other polish obsessed people will know what I mean ;-)

Gosh Polish with Stamping

I seem to be going through quite the pink and purple phase lately! This base colour is a Gosh purple called Wild Lilac.  I really liked the purple on its own, and I have to say this is one of those very sparse times where adding the glitter on top did not enhance the look! Normally I love glitter and will put a layer on everything, but after I did that here I wished that I hadn't.

This is a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust on top of the purple, and then a Bundle Monster stamp with Konad Pink Special Polish on the accent finger.  I did love the butterflies, but I'm still wishing that I had forgone the glitter.  I was also wishing that the pink had stood out more, so I will definitely have to try the butterflies on a lighter base colour.

Pink(s) Konad Stamping

So in keeping with the last pale pink post, here we have another pale pink as the base colour.  This time the base colour is an Orly polish called Life the Veil, which I love! It is such a soft, pretty colour.  This was my very first Orly and I am absolutely in love! This manicure lasted for ages, much longer than my typical manicures! 

The stamp is a Konad plate and I stamped with Konad Pink Special Polish.  I really like this stamp, I've seen it done in other colour combos and it always looks good. I would definitely do this exact manicure again, it was bright without being in your face, and so fun!