Nude and Black Lace Manicure

Hi there! Okay, so it was a little longer between posts than I had previously planned, but that's okay! My manicure for today is one that was inspired by a YouTube video from Miss80Million that I will post a link to here. I absolutely loved it and wanted to do the same thing, but it didn't work out that way.  I was still happy with it, but I just loved how her lace overlapped, but either my stamp was too wide or my nails were not long enough because there was no way it would have fit more than once.

So! This is what I ended up with:

I really loved the final result and I finally figured out how to use the stamping plates perfectly! Apparently my nail polish remover was leaving some kind of weird film on the stamp/plate/both and therefore it wasn't transferring properly! Yay! I was getting very frustrated, so I'm super glad it's working better now! The base coat is OPI Tickle My France-y and the stamping polish is the Konad Black Special Polish. I used two different plates, Konad M79 for the ring accent nail, along with a touch of Konad Pink Special Polish for the flower, and a Shany plate SH21 for the main lace stamps.

I did this manicure for a friend's graduation party and I loved the way it turned out! I thought it would be neutral and yet classy at the same time, and it definitely was! Yay! Next up: my first time using dotting tools! 

a-england: Princess Tears

Hello readers! If anyone is out there, I'm sorry for my slightly longer absence, but as long as it's under a year I still think I'm making progress! Today my swatches/review are for a england's gorgeous Princess Tears! I just heard about a england not that long ago, and was immediately intrigued that the names of the polishes were after characters in Medieval Literature. Especially after having just taken a Medieval Literature course this past year, I thoroughly enjoyed how the company had taken the stories behind the characters or aspects and related them to a specific polish colour.


I have a few of these polishes, but Princess Tears is the first one that I have tried, and I absolutely loved everything about it! The formula was amazing, it went on like a dream and levelled itself out, there were no streaks or bumps or anything! The colour was beautiful, I definitely don't have anything else like it. At first I wasn't sure if I would like it was it seemed more on the grey side, but after seeing a few swatches I was intrigued.

From this photo you can clearly see what I meant by grey, which at first seemed a little dull to me, but I couldn't be more wrong.  The photos below are in direct sunlight and you can clearly see the glorious colours, at times greyish or silver, at times very purple and pink- it's stunning.

I know that the pictures are blurry, particularly the one of the thumb, but I was trying to get a distinct picture of the sparkle and the different colours, and my camera was not cooperating very well. It's amazing, and like the a england website says of this colour it is very incandescent. It has absolutely become one of my favourite polishes ever, and I cannot wait to do some stamping with it because the swatches that I've seen of people who have stamped with it look amazing.

I'm so excited about finding out about this company and absolutely cannot wait to try the other shades that I have ordered! You can order from their website with worldwide shipping, or I ordered mine from Nail Polish Canada who ships free throughout Canada if you order over $29.00.  My next post will probably be tomorrow or two days from now featuring some nail stamping that I did for a friend's graduation party last week attempting to give a lace illusion. Bye for now!

Tiffany & Co. Inspired Manicure and More!

Okay readers!! First of all, yay me for blogging more than once in one week! Wooo! I am very excited to be putting up my first manicure pictures! The first time I did this I had some major issues with the stamp and image plates, but my sister and I worked on it and got it to work. So I promptly removed the not so good manicure and re-did it. So, without further ado, here are the pics!

This is the first picture, just to get a general sense of the manicure. I used China Glaze For Audrey for the base coat, the Konad white special polish for the stamping and put a coat of Seche Vite quick dry top coat over top. I then decided to use some sparkles as well and applied a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust before applying another coat of Seche Vite. I'm not typically a blue polish lover, in fact until very recently I basically only owned pinks and reds, but I absolutely love For Audrey! I was very happy with the way the sparkles turned out, and the entire manicure in general. The image plate that I used for the white bows was Konad M84, and the black on the accent nail was Shany plate SH21 with Konad black special polish.

The first picture was with flash, and this one is without just to see the sparkle in different lights.

Again, this picture above is no flash and the one below includes flash.

I had a lot of trouble with my middle finger, which is a long story involving attempting to make popcorn at 11:30 at night (because what is a nail polish party/movie night without popcorn?), and therefore I had to re-do it three times.  I ended up doing the Fairy Dust coat right on top of For Audrey, then adding the stamp which I actually liked the look of better as the white stands out more without the extra layer on top.

I also had an awesome nail polish score at Garage in Square One on Thursday and got a bunch of mini nail polishes for an amazing price!

I got these six mini KleanColor neon polishes for $10.00, which I'm definitely going to use for dots when I get my dotting tools, and the below stash of mini L.A. Colors polishes for $8.00! It was awesome!!

Needless to say this find made my day! During our nail polish party my sister also did her nails and her manicure is pictured below.  She used the KleanColor polishes with a white base coat, then used a Shany plate for the strawberry stamp on her thumb. It looks awesome!

So all in all a very productive post if I do say so myself! That's all for tonight, now it's off the get some ice cream! Yay for summer! Hopefully I'll have a new post up in the next few days because I'm loving this whole experiment with pretty colours and then write about it thing.

Photo Credit to my sister for all of the above pictures!! <3 I especially love the artsy nail polish bottles.

First Post

This is it! This is my first post on my brand new(ly designed) blog! Yaayy! I have decided after much deliberation that I need to blog more! Also, I have discovered the wonders of nail stamping and other nail tools, and therefore plan to use this blog as an outlet for my new fascination. Not to mention an outlet for my other main creative fascinations: scrapbooking and writing. I'm very excited, although as you can see below, my last attempt at blogging resulted in one blog post in over a year so I'm trying not to get my hopes too high.  I can guarantee you that, assuming I keep up with the blogging this time, you will from time to time read rants, as well as see creative aspects, but hopefully they will amuse you instead of offend you and all will be well!

A little bit about me: (not that anyone is reading this or probably cares, but it's my blog so too bad!)
- I am a very recent University graduate with a B.A. in English, dreaming about writing but realistically looking for a job in the editing/publishing field
- I am very much a people person and tend to feel a bit down if I'm alone in the house with no one to gab to for too many days in a row
- I absolutely love reading and writing and will read basically anything, although for whatever reason I tend to lean away from detective or murder mystery kinds of stuff and towards fantasy, classics and historical fiction
- In direct contrast with my last statement, I love watching any CSI, although Vegas is definitely my favourite, as well as Criminal Minds, but my favourite shows are Supernatural, Glee, Modern Family, New Girl, Gilmore Girls, Veronica Mars, The Big Bang Theory, Buffy, Firefly (obviously I enjoy sarcasm and some dry humour), as well as any 90's re-runs! Also, basically anything on TLC involving brides, gypsies, Stacy and Clinton, cakes and bosses, and sometimes coupons.
- I love laughing, and making people laugh and will go out of my way in order to do something that doesn't really affect my life, but that I know will make someone happy or make other's lives easier
- I live in Ontario, Canada with my mom and my sister (both of whom I adore) and one cat, although I do have a contingency plan in the works just in case I end up dying alone and ending up a crazy cat and/or dog lady.

I think that's about it for now! As I blog I'm sure you'll learn more about me, and I hope I'll learn something about you! Although not that much because again, my blog. Just kidding!