prom nail wheel

Hi everyone! Sorry for being so inactive this week - I've been working a lot at a new job but after this week it'll slow down! (Thankfully because if I keep working this hard I might die! Haha!)

I don't have time for a long post so I'm gonna show you guys an awesome nail wheel that I made for my cousin Megan who was having me do her nails for her prom. Her dress was black and her shoes were red, so I stuck to those colors and added some silver and gold for accents. Before she came over, I made this wheel so that when she came, she could easily pick what she wanted!

Tada! It was a lot of fun making this wheel.
I'll put a list of the polishes I used, but if you have any questions about a particular nail, leave 'em in the comments and I will answer you later tonight after work.

OPI - Comet Loves Cupid (all the reds)
Essence - Black is Back (all the black)
OPI - Getting Miss Piggy With It (red glitter)
China Glaze - Blonde Bombshell (gold glitter)
Essence - Make It Golden (gold glitter)
Urban Decay - Superfreak (gold)
China Glaze - Millennium (silver)
Milani - Gold Glitz (gold glitter)
Deborah Lippmann - Happy Birthday (rainbow glitter)
Essie - As Gold As It Gets (gold flake)
Glitter Gal - Red Sparkle (holographic red)
Lynnderella - Connect The Dots (black and white glitter)
Color Club - Nomadic In Nude (nude)
OPI - Black Shatter
OPI - Red Shatter
Sephora by OPI - Blasted Gold Shatter

Phew! That was a lot of polishes.
Megan chose to wear Glitter Gal Red Sparkle and a black accent nail with a row of red rhinestones. It looked great!

Doing wheels like this really help get my inspiration going. I hope you guys like it!

More about → prom nail wheel

BOOBS AND NAILS ( . ) ( . )

Everyone likes boobs. And quite a lot of people like nails. So I like to join the two forces sometimes, and photograph nail art on boobies. Massive thank you to Louise Nimmo for owning such insanely large and beautiful fun bags. 

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i'm home! / april haul!

Hey everyone! Back to live posting here from RLN headquarters.

I had a fantastic time on vacation, spent a ton of money, ate a whole bunch of good food, and of course brought home a lot of polish.

I'm gonna start this post with my usual monthly haul list, and then move on to the stuff I got while on vacation!
Before I left for vacation, I wasn't really being as good as I should have been...

I got a bunch of Color Club at Winners:
Color Club - Hypnotic
Color Club - Clean Break
Color Club - Daisy Does It
Color Club - Wing Fling
Color Club - Metamorphosis
Color Club - Fly With Me
Color Club - Sparkle and Soar
Color Club - Sky High
Color Club - Diamond Drops
Color Club - Blue-Ming
Color Club - Blushing Rose
Color Club - Lavendarling

I did a review for piCture pOlish:
piCture pOlish - Peacock
piCture pOlish - Monroe
piCture pOlish - Mask-A-Rade

I got two polishes from my friend Briana:
Icing - The Golden Age of Glitter
Icing - After Party

I bought two polishes from Pretty and Polished:
Pretty & Polished - Party on my Yacht
Pretty & Polished - The Amazing Technicolor Topcoat

I got a bunch of OPI on clearance for $1.99! (Such a good deal!):
OPI - Paint My Moji-toes Red
OPI - Pedal Faster Suzi
OPI - I Don't Give A Rotterdam
OPI - French Quarter For Your Thoughts
OPI - Vampsterdam
OPI - Give Me The Moon!
OPI - 18K Ginza Gold
OPI - Skull and Glossbones (backup!)


I also got 2 OPI's from AveYou that my friend Marissa kindly helped me get:
OPI - Lincoln Park After Dark Suede
OPI - We'll Always Have Paris Suede

Other stuff:
LCN - Love Me Love My Polish (99 cents!) 
LCN - Sweet Serenade (99 cents!)
Born Pretty Magnetic - L-001 (sent for review)


Okay, I did pretty bad before leaving. And I'm sure you know how it goes from here...

I picked up a bunch of Color Club's from a few different places! Good prices, too. I'm trying to complete the Poptastic collection (because there are way more than just the 7-piece set) and I almost have all of them now! As well I hope to finish my Glitter Vixen collection (3 left to find.) And I was totally excited to find the other purple glitter (the mini) as I've been lusting after it!
Top row:
Color Club - Where's The Soiree? 
Color Club - Peace Out Purple (mini)
Color Club - Youthquake (mini)
Color Club - Too Violet (mini)
Color Club - Magic Attraction
Bottom row:
Color Club - Feelin' Groovy
Color Club - MODern Pink
Color Club - Koo-Koo Cachoo
Color Club - Peppermint Twist (full size backup!)
Color Club - The Lime Starts Here
Color Club - Mrs. Robinson

Of course I splurged on some Sephora by OPI polishes. I told you that more Betsey's would come home with me! And a shatter did, too. It was on sale.
Sephora by OPI - Sparkling Personality 
Sephora by OPI - Opalescent Blasted
Sephora by OPI - Cartwheels on the Catwalk

I picked up a few random things along the way, of course.
OPI - Lemonade Stand By Your Man (I am in love with this name! And it was on sale. So I got it.)
Love & Beauty - Orchid (Saw this at the cash at Forever 21 and I figured hey, I'm buying half the damn store anyway, this can come home with me too.)
Sinful Colors - Dream On (I picked this up at Walgreens, my first time ever inside one. It was on sale for 99 cents so picked it up. Later on I regretted it because CC Mrs. Robinson is the same color and I bought that too.)
Nails Inc. - The Thames (OMG, this was on clearance so of course it came home. The bottle is so awesome, it's a nice collectible to have. They sell for $24.50 at Sephora in Canada and it was on sale for $11.)

These pretties came to me from the lovely Hayley from Here Comes The Sun. We've become friends online over the last year or so, and we decided to meet up and do some polish shopping!
Hayley picked me up and we hit up a few malls and had a great time. She brought me these three beauties (as well as Color Club The Lime Starts Here as seen above to complete my Wicked Sweet collection that you may remember came with a wrong color.)
Sally Hansen Nail Prisms - Blush Diamond (I think that's what it is, no name on it.)
Maybelinne Colorama - Ruby Rays (flakie!)
Sally Hansen Nail Prisms - Emerald Amethyst (duochome!)

Thank you so much for taking me out Hayley, and for bringing me these pretties! It was lovely meeting you and also nice getting a break from all the family time! Hahaha.

I came home to two amazing nail mails that my dad kindly rescued for me while I was away and unable to stalk the mailman.
Cover Band - Sticks and Stones (from Ninja Polish! Love those girls!)
Sonoma Nail Art - Sonoma Sunset (be sure to stalk Michelle's Etsy store! Love this girl too!)

Okay, that's all the polish.
Count? 55.
Some were for review, some were gifts, some were super cheap, and vacation stuff never counts, right?

I'm also gonna show you some of the other exciting stuff I got while on holiday!

I bought a freakin' ton of clothes. There's no Forever 21 or H&M in my province so whenever I get to shop there, I go crazy! I could have bought like five times as much but my mom might have shot me if I made her go into anymore F21's.
You'll notice I got a lot of leopard print... a lot of dots... a lot of hearts... a lot of bows... Life imitates nail art? Haha!

Hello Kitty clock for $8? Yes please.

I love sandals! Especially ones that are sparkly purple or ones that have bows.
I also picked up some black pumps for $10 and some Nike sneakers but I didn't take a picture because they're not as special as these.
The purple ones are American Eagle but they are from Payless and the bows Steve Madden from DSW. In love!

I made my very first MAC purchase...
I was lusting after this item for a while after seeing it online but I wasn't sure if it would work with my skin tone.
And then the lovely guy at MAC said "Are you kidding me?! It's perfect for you!"
He convinced me after complimenting my hair/eyes/skin (as I'm sure he does for everyone) but I felt special, okay? Haha!

What is this mystery item?

MAC Viva Glam Nicki Lipstick
I figure, if I'm spending $17.50 on a lipstick, it might as well be crazy, and even better that the money goes to charity.

I bought Lush's Lemony Flutter cuticle butter as well but forgot to take a picture. That was a splurge too but you know, vacation, guilt-free, etc.

Now you've seen pretty much everything.
But I've saved the best purchase for last...

I went to the Betsey Johnson boutique in Toronto. What's inside this hot pink bag?

A hot pink box. And what's inside the hot pink box?

A hot pink bag. And what's in the bag?

A beautiful ring!
OMG, I love it. I'm so happy I found it, and I got it for a steal. 

Holy crap, it makes me so happy.
(Manicure featuring Color Club The Lime Starts Here and MODern Pink - done while on vacation!)

Okay, you've seen my polish and my splurges and my Betsey ring. I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed shopping for all the things in it. Heh. See you guys tomorrow!

More about → i'm home! / april haul!

as seen on... Chalkboard Nails

Bonjour! Today's scheduled post is probably my favorite out of all the ones I've got planned this week, because I love the nails and I love the girl behind them.

I'm sure you all know Sarah from Chalkboard Nails. If you don't, you must be living under a nail-art-rock because she is insanely popular nowadays!
I'm pretty lucky because Sarah is my homegirl.
Even though our timezones are 5.5 hours apart, we still find time to chat every day and we're pretty much in love, I think. We also like to make fun of each other. It's a pretty good relationship.

Of course I had to recreate one of Sarah's manis, or else she'd probably think she's too good for me. And we can't have that.

Not only did I recreate her nails but I've stolen her hand poses and her watermark. Take that!

I get a kick out of these photos. Plus the nails are totally badass!

A little while ago, Sarah did these nails for a collaboration with the blog What I Wore. I love them a whooooole lot. Enough to spend an hour doing the four striped nails. (I did both hands!)

This is the mani I chose to wear on my vacation so I'm still wearing this as we speak! Hopefully it will last me through most of my trip. (Don't worry, I packed my Nail Envy and Seche Vite for a mid-vacation mani change with some new polish I will surely buy!)

The base color of the leopard nails is Sephora by OPI - XOX Betsey.

The center of the leopard dots is Color Club - Love 'Em Leave 'Em.

For the white, I used Sally Hansen - Whirlwind White and the black is Essence - Black is Back.

I did the leopard print with a dotting tool.

I've found lately that the Essence polish works nicely for nail art because it doesn't dry as quickly when you're using it for dots and stuff and it isn't so much of a nightmare to clean up!

I used striping tape for the stripes, painting white first, and then adding the tape and painting over it before removing the tape. The thumbs came out perfectly but sadly I had some issues with the ring fingers.

Nobody bats 1000, right?

Tada! I'm in love with this mani and I'm pretty sure I'm going to get a ton of compliments on it.

Thank you Sarah for the great idea and thanks for bein' my bestie. 

B-face.

More about → as seen on... Chalkboard Nails

Tiger Stripes

It's Thursday and that means you should pop over to Polish Art Addiction to see my latest Peculiar Polish (I did Family Guy nails this week)!

In line with my new love for animal prints I thought I would do some tiger stripes. I've seen these gradient tiger stripes before and figured I'd try them out myself! Every time I looked down at these nails I was reminded of one of my favorite childhood books: How the Tiger Got Its Stripes. The book is originally a Viatnamese folk tale and I'm not sure which version I used to read, so I can't tell you an author. Another great book in the series was How the Peacock Got Its Feathers. Anyways, I loved these simple nails and wore them for ages. I used a special top coat on them which I'll be posting about soon. It is a special hardening top coat that doesn't need to cure under a UV light but acts like typical gel top coats. 

Here's the nails before I added the stripes. You can see that I put a holographic coat over the gradient to really make them pop!

More about → Tiger Stripes

More Animal Print

I might be addicted to animal print right now. I liked these but after I took the photo I added a thin brown line separating the white tip with the animal print and they looked way better.  I wore these for much longer than I typically wear any given nail art, they made me feel elegant and trashy at the same time. Hope you enjoy!

More about → More Animal Print

neon leopard french!

The world must be coming to an end - I've been wearing a french manicure since Sunday.
And I love it!

No, I'm not going crazy. I just did a really great modified french mani!

Tada! Neon leopard french!
For some reason, the stains on my nails recently disappeared. They're just gone. I did nothing to make them go away, but they are gone.
(I think it is from all the times I have peeled off my polish in the last month. I must have taken off the stained layer.)

So, with my stain-free nails, I knew I had to do a french because I think I've ever only done it once before.

But of course, I couldn't do a normal french manicure. I had to make it more fun! And more me!
So I added leopard print. (Shocker.)

This design was loosely inspired by these nails from my friend Leslie at Polish Art Addiction.

I love this look so much it's ridiculous. I can't believe how much I am enjoying a french mani!
And because I love it so much, you're getting pic spam!

Here's the polishes I used to create this look:
- Zoya - Loretta (sheer nude to cover any nail imperfections or staining)
- Zoya - Carey (gray for the french tip)
- Color Club - Twiggie (green dots)
- Color Club - Pucci-licious (purple dots)
- Color Club - Peppermint Twist (pink dots)
- Essence - Let's Get Lost (blue dots)
- Wet N Wild - Black Creme (black detailing) 

I did the tip directly with the polish brush, and I did the leopard with a small dotting tool.
I finished it off with a thick coat of Seche Vite to even it all out!

I've been staring at my nails since I put this on. I'll have to change it tomorrow after I inevitably ruin it at my job, but 4 days is a pretty long time for me to wear something! (Especially something that doesn't involve glitter.)

Okay that's all my picture spam.
I really hope you guys enjoy this manicure as much as I do!

I'll have to come up with some more awesome french ideas to do while my nails are still all healthy looking!

More about → neon leopard french!

Animal Prints

I've never been a huge animal print kind of gal, but I'm totally in love with these nails. Does that sound a little conceited?  Oh well, that's how much I like these nails -- enough that bragging about them outweighs any fears of seeming too into myself! I wanted to make a sort of organic overlay of both leopard and zebra prints and this is what came out. I think the design looks really cool, but if I were to go back and do it again I would probably use different colors for the leopard print. I would have used the lighter color as a background and the medium shade as the center of the spots. Anyways! This was my first attempt at zebra print and I think it was a success. I always get worried about print type things because if you try to hard to be random, you create patterns and then the art looks fake. Another thing I love about these nails: the matte finish. I love mattes + animal prints. Yay, these were some super happy nails!

More about → Animal Prints

Glitter Gal leopard nail art!

Good morning everyone! Today I'm going to show you some nail art I did with my first Glitter Gal polishes back in November that I never got around to posting until now! (I'm bad sometimes.)
(Okay, a lot of times.)

Holo leopard! It can be tricky to come up with nail art involving holo (because the holo sort of takes over) but I think I succeeded with this one!

For this mani I started with 1 coat of Glitter Gal Black 3D/Holo.
Using a-england Excalibur (a silver foil, also available from llarowe) I did some freehand leopard print with a very small brush.
It needed an extra pop of holo so I added a thin coat of Glitter Gal Silver 3D/Holo!

In low light, the holo washes away and you just see the leopard print! It was a pretty cool mani.

As always, Glitter Gal is available from llarowe, and so is a-england.
Click here to go back through all my GG posts and see swatches for a whole bunch of their polishes!

More about → Glitter Gal leopard nail art!

I'm taking a break from inlaid designs

Hey Y'all. I have decided to give my nails a break from the long and inlaid designs. I'll be changing my design weekly so those I will post here. This week I went with a simple leopard design with a funky twist. Hope you like it!

To create this look I used Color Club Earthy Angel and Rebel Spirit and Ruby Kisses Pure Black polishes.

More about → I'm taking a break from inlaid designs

MIXED ANIMAL PRINT FOR LEILAH

More about → MIXED ANIMAL PRINT FOR LEILAH