If you Like it Then You Should Have Put a Stripe on It

I saw this beautiful blue from China Glaze (Sparks Will Fly) in my stash the other day and knew I had to use it. It's a magnetic polish which means that you can put a magnet over the wet polish and it will form into a design (the magnet comes with the polish). I'm not a massive fan of using the magnet; I just love the colour of the polish! I wanted to keep it simple so I just did one coat of the China Glaze and then used a silver nail pen and put in a couple of stripes.

So simple but so effective! The silver lines did get a bit smushed in a couple places but that's only noticeable if you look really closely.

I love this colour as it is really heavily pigmented and goes on so easily. This whole look took me no time at all, yet I think it is stunning. I can see me wearing this in many different shades.

Happy painting friends!

Fall Nimbus

I really love the nimbus design that the Nailasaurus originated. It's so easy to do and makes such a beautiful effect. For this one I used a base of Orly White Out and then three colours from the Essie Fall Collection (For the Twill of It, Vested Interest, The Lace is On) and Essie Under Where? (a light pink).

I love how this turns out and experimenting with different colour palettes. This one is quite beautiful if I do say so myself!

I know I'm going to be using this quite a bit when I get back to work as it's really just as easy to do with your non-dominant hand as it is to do with your dominant hand.

Love!

Happy painting friends!

Happy Thanksgiving My American Friends

Today is Thanksgiving in the USA so I thought I would give a shout out to my American friends and do some nail art for the holiday. Thanksgiving here in Canada is in October but the majority of the shows we watch are American so we get inundated with Thanksgiving images around now. I decided to do something that we consider goes hand in hand with the holiday...turkey!

I started with a base of a glittery brown from Kozmic Colours and then painted on the turkey using a nail art pen and Rimmel Sunny Days and Golden Hour and No. 7 Salsa for the feathers.
On my thumb and pinkie I did an accent of a gold glitter from Color Club.

He's so cute! But the funny thing is that I'm mostly vegan so turkey is not on my dinner plate. I choose to believe that this turkey survived :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy painting friends!

Last of the Zoya Days, Dhara

This is the last of my Zoya polishes that I got (although I KNOW I'll get more!). This one is a bright orange and is called Dhara. It's another textured polish and this one went on in two coats (Sunshine was one and Tomoko was three).

It's quite a beautifully warm shade of burnt orange. I really like it and think it is very fall appropriate (although I believe it was part of Zoya's summer collection). It went on easily and dried to the beautiful texture I've come to like with the PixieDust collection.

I know what you're thinking. This is just screaming for some nail art! I must apologize though as I do not have any with this beauty. I did a pumpkin design which got smooshed at the last moment so it didn't get photographed. I'm on a bit of a tight timeline right now so didn't have time to redo it.

I promise that I have some great nail art coming up though! So watch this space ;)

Happy painting friends!

Zoya Days Pt 5, Combo

I went out for dinner with some girlfriends the other night and needed to do a design that I could replicate on my right hand. Since I'm so in love with my Zoya polishes right now I decide to do a design with two I have featured recently. I did a base of Sunshine and then painted some swirly accents using Tomoko and a dotting tool.

I actually did a top coat of Seche Vite which you are technically not supposed to do with textured polishes but I wanted to get a smooth surface to do the design on (and it gave it a beautiful glittery finish!)

I like this design; I don't love it. I was considering adding some rhinestones to it and I wish I had. That might have given it a bit of oompf.

The above pic is of my thumb which I was the happiest with.

Tomorrow I'll be featuring a new Zoya polish (well, new to me anyway), so stay tuned!

Happy painting friends!

Zoya Days Pt 4, Sailor

Continuing on with our Zoya theme today we have a deep blue creme called Sailor. This was a one coater and the formula is beautiful. I think Zoya is my favourite polish at the price point (generally between $8 and $10 per bottle).

It's such a beautiful colour and of course I had so add some nail art to it.

I busted out one of my dotting tools and Zoya Tomoko and Sunshine. I like this look a lot and I think my dotting is getting better. The accent finger turned out the best and should have followed that pattern more on the other fingers (but it was the last finger I did!).

Happy painting friends!

Zoya Days Pt 3, Tomoko

Ready for a gold stunner? Here is another Zoya polish that I recently purchased. This one is called Tomoko and is from the Pixie Dust collection. Again, I love this polish! It goes on like a dream and is just so stunning I can't stand it. I think this will feature heavily in my holiday nail art.

It reminds me of bubbly champagne and is just so pretty! I off course had to do some nail art with it so I busted out Zoya Delilah and added some hearts.

I'm in love! Again!
I know I'm gushing a lot about these polishes but they are just so beautiful and lovely to work with. I'm sure I'm going to be buying more of Zoya in the future!

Here is the design in the sun:

The first pic is a bit out of focus but you can see how the polish really sparkles in the sunshine.

Tomorrow is another beauty!

Happy painting friends!

Zoya Days Part 2 , Sunshine

Here is my 2nd Zoya nail polish that I again really love! This one is a textured polish called Sunshine which is an interesting name for a blue polish. You would think that it would be a yellow with a name like that but it does feel bright and happy to me.

And here it is in the sun:

How beautiful is this?! Zoya says to use 2-3 thin coats but this baby went on in one coat! Gorgeous.

I had to do some nail art with it and I'm a little in love with this.

This is just some gold striping tape and a gold stud. Simple to do but super cool!

Did I mention that I love the Zoya polishes?! Stay tuned tomorrow for another stunner!

Happy painting friends!

I'm in Love!

Well it's official, I'm in love with Zoya nail polish. I've wanted to get some Zoyas for awhile now but they aren't sold in stores and even thought the reviews had been really good I usually like to try out a polish before buying it. There was a huge sale online however and so I picked up 6 polishes. It only took the first polish to know I was hooked! Over the next several days I'm going to feature a different polish each day with some nail art.

Today's polish is the first one I grabbed, Zoya Delilah. It is an absolutely beautiful red with a gorgeous glitter.

This is two coats with one coat of Seche Vite top coat. I couldn't stop looking at it! It reminds me of Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz.

I wish I had taken a pic of this in the sunshine so you could see it in all its sparkly glory!

With every Zoya polish I'm going to feature, I also want to add some nail art. I thought some black roses would look very classy with this polish.

I used one of my black nail pens to draw in the rosettes.

I did not want to take this polish off! It's just so pretty; definitely something I will be using a lot in the future.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the next Zoya polish!

Happy painting friends!

Foxy Fingers!

I saw something similar to this on Nail It Magazine's website. They have a lot of good ideas so check it out if you're ever stuck for a painting idea.

I started with a basic black from Rimmel and then painted on the purple using Essie The Lace is On making sure to follow the line of my cuticle.

I think this is so simple but super sexy! I might try this again but add some bling to it.

This was actually harder to do than a lot of my designs simply because you need to make sure your curve it exact. 

Love it!

Happy painting friends!

If a Leopard and Green Metal had a Baby

I got this beautiful green metallic colour by Cherimoya called, aptly enough, Green Metallic. It's such a pretty colour and I really wanted to do some nail art centered around it. I decided to make it the central colour and add just a little bit of colour to it so that it was the star of the show.

I added on leopard spots using Sephora X Perplexed and a mahogany nail pen.

I like the simplicity of this design.

You could jazz this one up if you added some rhinestones or some glitter accents. I wanted to keep it relatively plain though as I think the green metallic nail polish is jazzy enough!

Happy painting friends!

Ooh, Sparkles!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go! And so I decided to do some festive sparkly nail art.

This pic is a bit out of focus but you get the idea! I'm still struggling with finding a good camera area to take pictures but hopefully I'll figure it out soon :)

For this look I started with a base of No. 7 Damson Dream. It's one of my favourite colours (and really goes on like a dream!)

I then sponged on a gold glitter from Color Club. I'm really loving the glitter gradients right now. They are relatively easy to do and I love the dramatic effect they give.

Perfect for a Christmas party!

Happy painting friends!

Let the Snow Fly!

My hubby is getting extremely excited for the upcoming ski season (in fact Whistler had limited opening for skiing on Saturday and he was tempted to go!). He keeps checking the weather forecast to see if it's snowing on the mountains so I thought I would do some snowflake nail art to inspire the snow to fall.

I have never done snowflakes as I really only started doing nail art seriously this past summer so I wanted to try a different style of snowflake on each nail.

The base of this design is a dark smoky blue from L'Oreal called VIP Status. It has a beautiful silver shimmer undertone and it reminded me of a cold wintry night.

The snowflakes are done with just a basic white nail pen. I think that it would have worked well with a silver nail pen as well.

I took these photos at night so they are under artificial light. Not my favourite lighting but I had to work with what I had! Now that I'm a bit more mobile I'm going to be experimenting with my photos and lighting a bit more to find a good balance.

Here is each nail individually:

I think my least favourite is the middle finger; it's a bit messy for my taste. My favourite is probably the pinkie. I like how that one turned out.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Happy painting friends!

Studly

Today is a bit of a mash up of two different designs. I like the idea of putting different designs on nails; not having all the nails the same. I am going to play around with it more in the future but here is one I'm pretty happy with.

I wanted to mix something a bit harder (the studs) with something a bit softer (the nimbus design). I started off painting my index finger and middle finger with Jessica Brown Sugar. I painted the other ones with L'Oreal So Chic! (which is a very pretty neutral with a shimmer).

I then went in with some square studs I got off eBay and placed them with a wax pencil (I also got from eBay) on my index and middle fingers.

I then did the nimbus look (follow the link for a tutorial) using Natural Collections Frosted Plum, Lunar Haze and Black Cherry. I also added a light green by Miss Sporty. I topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite.

I am going to have to do more of this type of art because I really love the effect it gives. What do you think? Something you'd try?

My little dog just got her haircut so I thought I'd add a pic of her. Isn't she so so cute?

Happy painting friends!