Czech Out These Birds!

Good day! I hope your week has started off well. Mine has been a little stressful, so I decided to do a relaxing, calming nail design. :)

(click to enlarge)

I just love birds! I think they're beautiful, and can be so cute, and I've always been jealous of their ability to fly and go anywhere they want. I don't believe in reincarnation, but if it is a thing, I'd really like to be a bird next time around.
Click the jump to see how I did these :)

Birthday Neon Cupcake Nails!! I'M OLD AF NOW U GAIS

Hello! This past weekend was my birthday! I'm freaking 30 NOW WTF

So I did pretty, bright, fun nails to celebrate!

(click to enlarge DO IT NAO)

Click the jump!

Spring Pastels | Lemon Yellow & Pink Butterflies

Hello! Yep, I'm still here. There are so many things happening in my life right now--I know I'm not updating very frequently--but I haven't given up :)

It's quite a warm spring here in sunny Queensland, so I did these bright, cheerful nails to match!

(click to enlarge)

Orange Shimmer & Stars

Good day, good day :)

Spring is here! It's getting warm and lovely outside, and while I really don't ever stop wearing neons (being confined to seasonal trends is sooo not my style), it seems extra fitting to wear them now! So I've created this bright yet simple mani with neon orange, glitter, and stamped stars!

Aurora Leaves

Hello! Sorry I've been so epically lazy lately! I've been doing my nails, but just not had the motivation to get the photos edited and posted. After three years I guess I needed a little bit of a break :)

Back now though and happy to show you the first design I did upon my return to lovely Australia--and what better to celebrate than with an Aussie brand?

MUD Swatch & Review, Part 1

Hiya! If you're seeing this, it means I am in sunny, hot Perth and Blogger's post scheduler is working properly ;)

I was at Coles (a local grocery store) recently, and saw a brand in the cosmetics section I haven't seen before. It's probably common here--I just have avoided buying much makeup because it's so much more expensive here than I'm used to! But this was reasonably priced, so I grabbed some eyeshadows and then all six nail polish colours I could find. The brand is called MUD (Make Up Daily), and it's all surprisingly good quality! I will show you three shades today and three next time :) So click the jump below to check 'em out!

Black & Gold: BPS Stamping Polish Review

G'day, boys and girls! Today I'm happy to be reviewing some Born Pretty Store stamping polish, and I've created this elegant black and gold mani to show it off :)

"Hope"ful Daisies

Hallo :)

Happy birthday to my mother! (Now I'll know if you read my blog or not... muahahaha.)
I've been saving this mani for a little while, as I actually did it before I started my Christmas designs. I feel like these pretty wintery-looking flowers fit in well with the kind of weather she's having back in the northern hemisphere. Plus, it's always good to start the new year with some hope, right? ;)

Not Like The Movies, Part 2 (THE SEQUEL)

Sequel... movie... see what I did there?

Hiya! Today's post is a quick one to show you the little skittlette mani I did over the swatch from yesterday.

I stamped the middle nails with Wet 'N Wild Black Creme and Bundle Monster plate BM-414. It's one from the user-created set last year, and in honour of the 2014 set coming out soon, I thought it'd be a great time to use one now! The relatively large areas of black caused those little wavy lines in the stamped image, which really don't show up at all IRL--just in these blown-up images. It's kind of a neat effect, though!

Over the small nail, I used two coats of BYS Glitter Crystal, a sort of chunky silver holo glitter, and then a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust over that. Fairy Dust is, of course, a finer silver holo. This is my new favourite glitter layering combo--they go so well together and make any base colour look amazing! I used the same method for just a stripe on the thumbnail, and used a black striper to create the lines down either side and pull this look together.

More Seche Vite, and woo! I have a total of ten coats of polish on my smallest nail, base and top coats included. LOL!

A slightly blurry one, so you can see that gorgeous sparkle :D

I have a surprise coming up next time... so stay tuned for that! xoxo

#31DC2014 - Day 15 - DELICATE PRINT

Hellooooo!

Today is day 15 of the challenge, and we're doing pretty delicate nails. This has never been my strong suit. Take a look around--my style is much more bright, glittery, wacky, blingy; some would say "ridiculous", I say lots of fun :D But subtle and delicate is something I rarely do. So I took a deep breath, channeled my inner Marta and Sammy, and came up with this:

Outdoors in sun

I love Lacquer Lust Diamond for looks like this. It's soft and delicate and pretty while still being holo! Two coats covered nicely. The knotty-heart pattern is on Bundle Monster plate BM-406, and I stamped it with Konad white polish.

Then I added some tiny crystals, because I had to have some sparkle ;) Topped with Seche Vite.

Indoors with flash

Outdoors in shade

Another in sun--the bottle looks great in this one :)

Aside from the slight smudge on the index nail, I think these came out really nicely. It's fun to wear something more demure from time to time. Makes me feel posh and sophisticated.

See you tomorrow for a geometric design! xoxo

Spider-Man Nails -- The Lacquer Legion Does Fandom!

G'day, boys and girls! It's time for another Lacquer Legion themed collaboration! This month, we celebrate the things in life we geek out for! TV shows, movies, sports teams, celebrities, comic books, you name it! Whatever you pay to go see, whatever you get excited about, whatever you have posters and T-shirts and collectible tributes to--put it on your nails!

I actually had to think a bit for this. I don't really watch TV, and I've already done manis celebrating my favourite sports teams, movie, book... what to do? Oh, comic books! My two favourites are Iron Man and the Amazing Spider-Man. As you cleverly ascertained from the title of this post, I went with the latter :D

Happy "Good Time To Be In North America" Week!

Hiya! Happy Canada Day & Happy July 4th! The USA and Canada are so close together, and so are their big celebration days, so I decided to combine them into one fabulous red, white, and blue manicure:

Outdoors in shade

Silver & Green Stamped Vines

Hiya! Nice to see you! :D I have a pretty stamped design for you today...

Rainbow Clouds

Bom dia, belezas! :)

Today I have some fun, fanciful, stamped rainbow clouds for you!

Outdoors in sunlight

Chinese Royalty Inspired Red & Silver Nails

Hello! I hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

I was browsing randomly the other day, with a vague idea for a design in mind but wanting to be inspired. I ended up looking at some beautiful images of the type of fashions worn by ancient Chinese royalty and higher-ups. Bright, rich colours with ornate and intricate details, usually in gold. I ended up using silver for my details instead, but I hope you can still see the link :)

Outdoors in indirect light. Please excuse the slight error in stamping--was hardly noticeable IRL!

The silver nails are two coats of the polish shown above--OPI This Gown Needs A Crown, from the 2013 Miss Universe collection. A beautiful silver that has a matte/satin finish, yet still manages to sparkle and gleam in the most captivating way. It looks so impossibly rich and deep. I want polishes with this finish in every colour imaginable. OPI has really outdone itself with this stunner!!

Over that, I added a row of red metallic studs from Born Pretty Store. Usually I would adhere these with topcoat, but I didn't want to mess up the finish of the silver, so I used dots of nail glue instead. I got it all over one of the studs on the middle nail and it isn't as shiny as the others, and I know nobody else would notice, but it bothers me! However, it did the job and I think it looks very refined.

Outdoors in sun. I love the little crown adornment on the bottle which can be a ring.. too cute! And look at that silver glow. It really is magnificent.

The red base on the other nails is actually one I made myself--I had an old bottle of topcoat that was about 1/4 full, and two red Petites cremes that were nearly identical and about half full each. The small reds were called Rockin' Red and Hot Sauce. I'm a Judas Priest fan. The resulting franken, therefore, was dubbed Hot Rockin'  :D  Here's a quick swatch of it:

Two easy coats, no topcoat (since it was made WITH topcoat, it doesn't need more!) I love that it's mostly a squishy plain red crelly, but has that blue shimmer at certain angles.

I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Silver Sweep to stamp the cascading diamond image from Bundle Monster plate BM-404. This was a plate in their "user created" plate set, and I think it's perfect for this look I was going for! These nails were topcoated with INM Out The Door.

Another in sun, along with the thumb.

My right hand was a reverse of this--the index and middle nails were red with stamping, and the other nails were silver. I didn't have enough studs, though, so I cheated and did red dots with Hot Rockin' in a line instead. I wish I could say "you could barely tell at a distance!" but that isn't true--the metallic, 3D look of the studs is very different to anything I could do with this polish. Oh well, it looked passable anyway, and still pretty.

One more, indoors with flash. I may never take this silver off...

I may be biased, since silver is one of my favourite colours to wear anyway (especially on my nails), but I think This Gown Needs A Crown is a must-have for any polish lover. It's AMAZING.

And now I shall stop gushing and let you go on with your day ;) thanks for stopping by. Have a lovely sparkly day!! xoxo

Red, Black, & White Party Skittlette*

*with apologies to Marta for the name!

Hiya! I went to a party this weekend, and wore a black top with red, black, and white shoes and accessories. It was the perfect occasion to match my nails to my outfit, so...

...I did :D

The feathery thing you see me holding here is the headband I wore! It has a black band that disappears in my dark hair, so you just see the cool red feather. Très chic, in my ever-humble opinion ;)

But right, you came here for the nails! I'll just go down the list...

Index finger: China Glaze Adventure Red-y & Wet 'N Wild Black Creme, topped with NYC Matte Me Crazy. This matte is actually more of a wax-finish topcoat, and reminds me of Cult Nails Wax That.

Middle and ring fingers: Two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (nice off-white creme), stamped with Konad black and Bundle Monster plate BM-016. The centre of each flower has one individual glitter from Milani Jewel FX Red, except the biggest flowers, which have a small red rhinestone.

Small finger: Base of China Glaze Adventure Red-y, then several sponged coats of the aforementioned Milani red glitter. Not really sure how many coats--maybe 3?--I just went until I felt it was thoroughly covered.

Thumb: Same as the middle and ring fingers, but with Wet 'N Wild Black Creme covering half the design, just for some visual interest :)

All topcoated with KBShimmer Clearly On Top (except for the matte-ified one, of course).

I was kicking myself for not picking up the new Cult Nails Passionate Dreams collection while it was on pre-sale, because Kiss (a lovely red with a wax finish) is SO pretty. However, this NYC matte topcoat with some of my medium reds seems to mimic the effect quite well! I think the red I used here is too dark, but others I played with (Revlon Red, for example) was pretty much dead on.

The different finish of the index nail shows up well here.

One more in the sun. :)

Glitters are so hard to photograph! I wish the sparkle and glow of the small nail had come through in any of the pictures. In real life it's very dynamic and looks like Dorothy's shoes in the Wizard of Oz.

Anyway, that's all for today. As always, I hope you enjoyed this post. Thanks for reading today, and I'll see you soon! xoxo

Be Mine: Pink & Gold Valentine Nails

Hi hi hi! Jeepers, it looks like I escaped just in time. It's a very harsh winter for some parts of the northern hemisphere, isn't it? I hope you're all staying warm and safe :)

Today I have a sugary-sweet pink and gold look for you, inspired by one of Pirate Polish's shades from their Love in a Cold Climate collection released about this time last year!

The polish, as you can see, is called Be Mine. Nice squishy baby pink with gold and holo sparkles! It's a bit gritty, and needs three coats to be opaque, but it's a great one that looks flattering on my skin tone and has just enough sparkle to be different and interesting :)

The hearts are stamped with Bundle Monster plate BM-317, and the Love image from BM-009. I used Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Flashy Fuchsia for this. It's been a while since I stamped, and you can tell--especially on my index finger, which I actually re-did twice and then thought OMG I AM NOT DOING THIS AGAIN, IT'S JUST GOING TO HAVE TO BE WONKY. Luckily I did not have *quite* as much trouble with the other fingers.

To jazz it up I added some pink striping tape and gold heart studs from Born Pretty Store to the accent nail, and the gold glitters on the other nails are from a bottle of Milani Jewel FX Gold. I used an orange stick to pick them out and place a few around the hearts to tie them in with the gold studs.

Finally, two coats of Seche Vite smoothed everything out :)

Nice shot of the bottle, with all the glitter showing off in the sun.

In the shade they look softer and squishier! This is also what they look like indoors, mostly, so I didn't bother with another photo.

I hope you liked these! Are you sick of the Valentiney designs yet? I'll be honest, I sooooort of am... but we have one more to go before moving on. And, well, I'm not always the most overly girly person, so all the pink and sweetness has been a fun change.

Have a great day, and I'll see you next time! xoxo

Silver + Pink Ribbons: Breast Cancer Awareness Nails

Hallo und wilkommen! Today I have my October-is-the-month-to-remind-you-to-check-your-boobies manicure to show you!

(Srsly, you should be checking yo'self. You too, male readers. Yours may not be as fabulous, but they can get cancer too. So go ahead, give 'em a squeeze. Everybody should be familiar with all parts of their body--how it looks, feels, the way it normally behaves--and pay attention if something changes. And go to the doctor if something weird happens! Better safe than sorry.)

This is for you, Vicky. RIP <3

The pink nails are painted with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Flashy Fuchsia, and the silver is China Glaze Icicle. Atop the pink nails, I used the ribbon-french-tip design from Bundle Monster plate BM-324 to stamp in Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Silver Sweep. Stamping french tip designs is harddddd, y'all. It only came out non-wonky on the middle finger, so focus on how pretty that one is!

On the silver nails, I stamped the full-nail ribbon image from BM-321 in the same set, also with the same fuchsia polish. All the Insta-Dri colours work so brilliantly for stamping!

Sealed in with Cult Nails Wicked Fast topcoat.

With flash, and the bottle, so you can see that great blue shimmer running through Flashy Fuchsia. I love that it even came through a little on the thin layer of the stamped image!

and one more close-up.

I will be participating in a 5K at the end of the month to raise money for cancer research, and will probably re-do this mani (or at least something similar) for the occasion. If it is different and turns out well I may post it for you as well. :)

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of your week, and I'll see you next time! xoxo

Quick Post: Wins for Me, Wins for You?

Buenos días, lovelies!

I will have nail art up for you tomorrow! But today's post is a quick one sharing two things:

1) I have entered the Bundle Monster Cirque du Freak Halloween nail art contest! There are so many pages of great designs on there, it's hard to pick one! My entry is called "Sugar Skulls and Spiders", but I encourage you to look through them all and vote for your favourite. You can vote once a day, so make sure to check them out!

Sneak preview of my entry. :)

  
I used SO many polishes for this... I will instead focus on the important part as relates to the contest. The silver spiderwebs and black spider are from Bundle Monster plate BM13, and the sugar skull is from BM413 (from the new fan-submitted design plate set)! The latter design is what inspired the whole manicure!

The 13 most voted entries will make it into their final round to have a chance to win the grand prize, valued over $150 of nail art accessories! Obviously, winning this would make me happier than a hungry kitten in a fish market :) 

2) Now it's YOUR turn to possibly be a winner! The lovely Marta over at ChitChatNails has teamed up with fashion designer Rolando Santana, who worked with Zoya and released three custom nail shades to complement his Spring Summer 2014 Fashion Week collection. They are hosting a giveaway, and the lucky winner will receive the set of these special three shades.

Go read more about Rolando Santana, these polishes, and enter the giveaway on Marta's blog! The contest is open until October 21, 2013.

Thanks in advance to all who vote in the first contest, and good luck to all who enter the second! See you tomorrow xoxo

Lacquer Lust Birthstone Swatches: Tanzanite, Peridot, and Diamond

Hello hello! Today I'll be sharing with you three of the new Lacquer Lust Birthstone Collection polishes! These babies went on sale a couple of week ago and sold out within the hour, but yours truly took a late lunch and sat there refreshing like a madwoman at work, just waiting... and managed to get the three I wanted!

Unfortunately, one was lost in a tragic accident during swatching :( I'm absolutely gutted. I've never dropped and broken one of my polishes before, and of course the one time I do, it's a rare, irreplaceable, and gorgeous shade. But I did get a few pics beforehand.

This is a super picture-heavy post, so I added a page break. Click the jump to see the swatches!