#falling for nail art Day 3: Crunchy Leaves

Hello polish lovers!

Today is day 3 of the Falling for Nail Art Challenge and today's theme is Crunchy Leaves.  This leave a bit of room for interpretation and I love fall leaves, the various colours; red, brown, yellow, orange, and of course the sound they make under your feet as you walk down the sidewalk or through the grass.  The sound of Autumn.  Makes me think of crisp cool days and nights and hot apple cider(yum, I love cider).  Every year my family goes for a drive to Meaford to pick fresh apples, and I always get cider.  We are going next weekend, the apples we get are needed for the pies we make for Thanksgiving, which is only 2 weeks away.

But enough of why the fall is my favourite time of the year, on to the mani!

Crunchy Leaves

I began with a base of Gosh Rusty.  Can I just say I don't know why I have only worn this once before(welI do, its called polish addiction).  Rusty is a gorgeous rusty burnt orange that is just amazing, opaque in one coat as is seen on my ring finger, while two coats are on my other nails.  It is not overly streaky and dries quite fast.  Once it was dry I used Essie's Good as Gold for my stamping of Bundle Monster's BMH11, which are lovely maple leaves, so appropriate for a Canadian girl!

On my ring finger I created a gradient of China Glaze's Flying South.  This picture does not show the orange metallic glitter that is a part of this micro bar glitter beauty.  I have to say I picked up the polish specifically for this challenge because it is perfect to show the leaves falling off the trees and scattered across the ground.

That is all for today.  I will be back tomorrow with my next 33DC, which is tribal.  Until tomorrow, polish happy!

The Crumpet's 33DC Day 3 Tape Mani

Hello polish lovers!

Today is day 3 of the 33 Day Challenge I am working on.  By the way, things are about to get Crazy because starting October 1 I will be participating in the Hallow e'en challenge that was posted on Crumpet's Nail Tarts and here is the run down:

Mon 01/10 - Trick or Treats (candy corn etc)

Thurs 04/10 - Black Cats

Tues 09/10 - Zombies

Thurs 11/10 - Witches

Tues 16/10 - Freestyle Halloween

Thurs 18/10 - Things That Go Bump In The Night (Monsters Etc)

Tues 23/10 - Pumpkins

Thurs 25/10 - Blood/Gore/Splatter

Sat 27/10 - Influenced by Scary Movie

Wed 31/10 Recreate your fave mani (your own or someone else's)

I am super excited for this because I love Hallow e'en, I mean really love Hallow e'en, the costumes, the candy and most especially watching Rocky Horror Picture Show and Hocus Pocus(Opposite ends of the spectrum but I love them both).

Anyway, on to today's mani and the theme of using tape to create your designs. I will say that I have never used tape before, I have always used stripers but it was a chance for me to go outside my polish box and try something new. It also gave me an excuse to open the striping tape I got in a giveaway from My Boyfriend Hates Makeup.

3 coats OPI's Kyoto Pearls

I started with a base coat of OPI's Kyoto Pearls, which is a sheer pearl-ized white that required 3 coats and still had a slight visible nail line. I liked the polish but it is not a great formula, too sheer and yet very brush stroke heavy, no matter how careful I was. I let that dry then added my striping tape in a variety of interesting Art Deco designs(however I don't think I let it dry enough because I ran into a bit of trouble when I pulled off the tape after applying my secondary colour).

Tape Design and China Glaze Tongue & Chic

I painted over my tape using China Glaze Tongue & Chic from their fall collection(the only colour I have so far but I love it!). Tongue & Chic is a dark teal polish that is perfect for fall and opaque in 2 coats. Unlike the polish, I do not love my finished result, I think the next time I do this I will use my Seche Vite and a more opaque colour to aid in drying time and wait longer before I apply the tape.

That's all for today! I will be back on Sunday with my next Falling For Nail Art Challenge mani, the theme is Crunchy Leaves. Until then, polish happy!

#fallingfornailart Day 2 Early Sunsets.

Hello polish lovers!  Two posts in one day! Whew, and I worked a seven hour shift, man, I'm tired.

Anyway, this post is about my mani for Plump and Polished's Falling for Nail Art Challenge.  Today's theme is Early Sunsets, and I can't think of early sunsets without hearing the sound of numerous Canadian geese honking as they return to their sleeping area.  This thought led me to a bird themed sunset.

please excuse the upside down bird cages, I didn't realize until after I top coated

I began this mani with two coats of OPI's Alpine Snow and waited for it to dry.  I then used China Glaze Sunworshipper, Orly's Fiesta, Orly's Sapphire Silk, and OPI's A Grape Fit! and a makeup sponge to create the gradient(I sponged twice to create more saturated colours).  Once SV was applied and dried I used Messy Mansion's MM14 Bird plate for the images using Wet n' Wild Black Creme to stamp.  I was really happy until I realized my bird cages were upside down.  I almost didn't use this post but mistakes happen and I am definitely not perfect.

Until Friday(For Real This Time!) polish happy!

Crumpet's 33DC Day 2: Mani featuring most used polish

Hello fellow polish lovers!  Its a gorgeously sunny yet cool day in Central Ontario and the perfect day to show off this mani.

China Glaze For Audrey and OPI Vant to bite my neck? with MM20 plate

I didn't even have to think about what I would use because I could see on my rack that my For Audrey by China Glaze has a very visible usage line(one of the very few polishes I own that has that).  I absolutely love the colour and use it often, even though I have polishes by Essie and Orly that are very close matches to For Audrey I keep coming back to it.  My favourite polishes are blues, greens, teals, and aquamarine.  For Audrey has a great 2 coat-er formula, and I love the Tiffany blue.

This is 2 coats of For Audrey set with SV before I began stamping.  I noticed the first time I used Vant to Bite My Neck? that it had fabulous coverage and on shorter nails it was a one coat-er.  I knew I wanted to use it to stamp, and I have on a friends nails before but this is the first time I used it on myself.  The plate I used is Messy Mansion's MM20 plate In The Garden, which is available here(she has new plates that are going to be coming out soon and I can't wait!) this was the first time I used this plate so any inconsistencies that you see are user error and not the fault of the plate, I have used it more than once since and have had no more issues.

Everything is topped with SV as always(I have tried using other top coats like Out The Door but I find for me they just don't work as well, although NailPolishCanada is going to be getting in Glisten&Glow Top Coat, which I know a lot of bloggers like, so I may give that a try.

That's all for today, polish lovers.  Until Friday, polish happy!


Weds 25 Sept – mani featuring your most used colour polish

Crumpet's DC33 Day 1: Dots

Good morning fellow polish lovers!

Today I have the first mani from The Crumpet's 33 Day Challenge for you, and it is dots!  One of the first mani's that I ever did once I got interested in nail polish was a dotticure so I am really happy that the first challenge is the same.

China Glaze VIII, Nubar Lemon Sherbert, China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint, natural light

I started with my dotticure with 2 easy coats of China Glaze VIII(which I found on the clearance table at Sally's and did a little dance).  I absolutely love this colour!  It is such a dark aubergine that in some lights it looks dark, but more sophisticated.  To contrast with the lovely darkness I added a random pattern of Nubar's Lemon Sherbert and China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint, two pastels that I probably wouldn't have used without the darkness of the base to offset them. As usual this is topped with a coat of SV.

Between this challenge and the #fallingfornailart challenge that I started yesterday I am going to be trying to post Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, lets hope work doesn't get in the way too much.  I am a few weeks ahead in the execution of the mani's so I just need to edit and compose my posts.

Until Wednesday, polish happy!

Falling for Nail Art, Day 1 Back to School

Hello polish lovers!

I have been up since 4:30 a.m. so this is going to be a shorter post.  Today is the first say of Plump and Polished's Falling for Nail Art Challenge which can be found here and today's theme is Back to School.  I will say that I already had a history themed manicure done and photographed, but when I looked at the photos the difference between the base colour and my stamping colour was too close for the camera to get a good image, although you could see it in real life, so I decided to redo my mani today.  I decided to start with some bright primary colours, I guess that is the primary teacher in me.

Red, yellow, green, blue primary colours, natural light

The red is Sinful Colours GoGo Girl, very jelly, needs 3 coats.  The yellow is Barielle Lemondrop, very nice primary yellow, 2 coats over OPI's Alpine Snow.  The green is China Glaze In the Lime Light, bad formula, requires 3 coats over white to be opaque and not streaky.  Last but not least is Color Club Bright Night, good formula 2 coats to be opaque.  I covered this in a coat of SV and let dry before I stamped.

Stamping, natural light

I used two Bundle Monster stamps for my images, BMH23 and BM311, I love the science-y feel of BMH23, and the numbers from 311 are great as well.  The white is Konad Special Polish and the black is Wet n' Wild's Black Creme(which I left open for a few days to thicken and now makes a great stamping polish).

I hope you enjoyed my first nail challenge, come back tomorrow to see my first mani for The Crumpet's 33DC2013.

Until then, polish happy!

Lucky 13 Lacquer, No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me, swatches and review

Told you I would be back, fellow polish lovers!

I have a really special treat today.  When I was in uni one of my roommates, Laura, made me watch this little sci-fi fantasy show that wasn't even on for one full season.  That show was Firefly and quickly became one of my favourite shows(I cannot tell you how many times I have re-watched the DVD's and Serenity), along with Veronica Mars and Doctor Who, two others I attribute my fandom to Laura.  Firefly also was the beginning of my love of  Nathan Fillion, which will never die and continues in my love of Castle, but that is another post for another day.

Today I am talking about Firefly and a polish inspired by River Tam, one of my favourite characters from the show, played by Summer Glau.  No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me is from Lucky 13 Lacquer's Ballad of Serenity collection and can be found here.  I was lucky enough to pick this up during her 15% off lady inspired lacquers sale that she had in August(look forward to future posts featuring Bad Wolf and Golden Snitch).

No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me, two coats, one coat Seche Vite, artificial light

Love, love, love, love, love this polish!  So gorgeous! So much depth! So much sparkle! my camera really couldn't handle the sparkle.  The above is two coats only, the polish is thick, but workable, no problem getting the glitter out or distributed on the nail. It's a minty green shimmer base with with tiny silver and fuchsia glitter with larger silver and iridescent fuchsia hex glitters.  This polish is awesome!  It wore like iron on me and I wore it for FOUR days!  FOUR DAYS!  I don't wear any polish for four days! Usually by the second day one nail(usually my wonky thumb nail)has chipped and its all over, but not this polish.

No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me, two coats, two coats SV, sunlight

This polish was also a lot smoother than I was expecting, most glitters that I am used to are so rough you can't even think about top coating them without specialty top coats, which I do not have.  This polish did slightly eat the first coat of SV, but not nearly as bad as I was expecting, and the second coat stayed very smooth and shiny.

No Power in the 'Verse Can Stop Me, bottle shot

I couldn't leave you without a shot of the bottle and all of its gorgeousness.  I really cannot wait to try Golden Snitch and see if the wear time is comparable for me.  Please remember that having a polish last for four days is something that is pretty much unheard of on my nails so someone else's wear time could be much longer than mine was.

Until next time, polish happy!