Rainbow Flowers! | My Favourite BPS Review to date

You guys have kind of picked up on the fact that I love rainbows, right? Colourful things make me so happy, so when I got my latest batch of Born Pretty Store goodies to review, I snatched these up like it was a bag of Skittles. Which I'm also obsessed with. Because they're delicious (and, coincidentally, rainbow-coloured). But yeah. Rainbow flower and feather nail stickers! They're beautiful!

I never want to take these off! Click the jump to see the details, and like a zillion more photos.

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

Sweet & Simple Sunday: Lacy Nails!

Greetings, my friends, and welcome to another Sweet & Simple Sunday! Today I will show you how to create a simple lace-like design!

Not the greatest pic... Will explain later ;) but you get the idea!

These are very delicate and eye-catching, especially at a normal viewing distance. You will need two colours of nail polish and something to make dots with (dotting tool, toothpick with a flat back, hairpin, blunt pencil, ballpoint pen, a twig you found outside... anything works)! I think this looks lovely with any base colour + white for the lace, but you could also go racy with a nude base and black lace! Use your imagination, and let's get this party started.

Whatever you decide, begin by painting your nails with your base colour. I'm using one of those little 99c bottles you can find at chemists/drugstores. It's Petites #129 Rock N Red.

fanciest pic on Glittericity evar

Once that is completely dry, use your lace colour (mine is Orly Pointe Blanche) to paint about half your nail. This doesn't have to be perfect, because we're going to cover up the line in the next step:

So far so good, amirite?

Next, grab your dot-making-thingy and create a row of large-ish dots going down the middle of the line, creating a scalloped edge, like so:

Boom, action shot :D

Allow this to dry, then repeat the steps with your base colour. Make slightly smaller dots in the middle of the ones you just did. I happened to have two different sizes of dotting tool, but you can use the same one as before--just do not press down quite as far each time and the dot will come out a bit smaller:

Fancy, eh? This red and white would be sweet for Christmas or Valentines Day!

And there you have it. Lace nails!

It was about this time that my red polish fell off the table. I freaked out, managed to grab it before it made a mess on the carpet... but totally smudged this design beyond repair. So I did not get to topcoat it and take a "pretty" end photo for you. Topcoating will smooth out any bumpiness and really bring the design out--the last dots you added will not stand out as much and it will look more like a piece of lace--but I didn't get to show you >.< Take my word for it, and try it!

As always, I hope you enjoyed this post, and that you will give this design a try. It is relatively quick and, depending on the colours you use, can be demure and ladylike or totally funky and badass! If you try this one, please show me on the Facebook page :) Have a great week, and I'll see you next time! xoxo

Alphabet Challenge: T is for... Twinkly Tips

Hello my friends! Only six letters left! This has been fun :D

Today's letter is T!

BLURRY AT THIS SIZE WAT (click to enlarge)

Gradient glitter tips are so easy and fun and pretty :D And all the polishes start with T to boot!

I couldn't decide which combination I wanted to use, so I decided "ah, what the hey" and did one on each hand! Because #yolo and all that >.>

This is by far my favourite of the two hands :D

I love this combination on my right hand! The lovely bronze base colour is Soulstice Spa Tokyo, and this is two coats. I absolutely adore it, not that this is any surprise to any regular readers here who know I have a massive girlboner for Soulstice Spa.

It was just pointed out to me that it looks rather reddish in these photos. It is more true-coppery-bronze in real life.

The tips are the bottle in the shot and one of my favourite glitters, China Glaze Tinsel Town. I was able to just use the brush that came with the bottle and do a few thin coats. This polish worked really well for this look, and it feels so posh! I want to wear it as a full mani soon!

Also pretty :D

Right hand! The silver base is by Petites and is called Twilight. It's a bit thin, but this is three layers and it does look nice, if a bit too frosty to be a favourite. You could see the brushstrokes a bit more than I prefer. But overall, a good polish.

The tips are the bottle in the photo--it is Milani Twinkle. It doesn't look as blue IRL as it appears in this photo--the primary hue is violet. This is one of their "one coat glitters" (although it really needs two for full opacity). It's packed with warm purple microglitters and small cerulean-blue hexes. The purple is that colour that is famous for not photographing properly. So pretty in real life!

It also, unlike the other glitter, is impossible to use the brush for anything remotely resembling smooth application. I used a makeup sponge to build up this gradient, and it worked wonderfully. :D

Topcoated with Seche Vite and done!

Not the best pic at all, but you can actually see the purple properly, whee :D

Okie, that's all for now! I'm getting this post up late, hope anybody actually sees it >.>
See you next time! xoxo

Yellow & Teal Spring Flowers

Hooray! It's *finally* starting to actually feel like spring around here. Been rainy and grey for too long, but today was sunshiney and lovely! I like to think that, similar to a rain dance, this bright manicure I did last night summoned the sun. Behold:

I love yellow and teal/turquoise together :D Indoors with flash.

Isn't it just... happy? :D

Base colour is by the brand Confetti, and is called Margarita Señorita. Three thin coats of that was opaque enough to be a nice sunshiney background! I then used a dotting tool dipped into China Glaze Turned-Up Turquoise (Neon), the bottle pictured in the above shot, to create the flowers and random dots. The centres were made with the same dotter and a random white polish--I think it was Petites #417 French White. Doesn't really matter; they're all the same. Layer of Orly Sec N' Dry topcoat and I was good to go!

I saw a cute swimsuit at the beach last week in yellow and teal and it made me want to do a manicure with those colours.

Outdoors in this lovely sunlight.

This really was such a simple design to execute--it's just a bunch of dots!--but the result can be so pretty. Give it a try sometime with your favourite shades! xoxo

Challenge Day #15: DELICATE PRINT

Ooh la la, delicate print day. And day 15, which means we are pretty much halfway through the challenge list! I'm enjoying these, although I can't wait to do my own thing again after this is over. But I'm getting ahead of myself...

Pretty and delicate? Yes, I think this is acceptable. :D

I started with two coats of this nice shimmery pick by Petites, called #298 Rock n' Roll. It's a nice bubblegum-pink colour with pinkish-silver shimmer. I wore it alone for a day first:

With my leopard print jacket--rawr!

I then stamped with Sally Hansen Insta Dri in #230 Silver Sweep, and the flowing vines image from Mash plate #50. This polish is great for stamping! I tried lots of silvers, but this is by far the best. (Big thanks to Gina for extolling the virtues of this polish and convincing me to go buy it! Go check her out on YouTube--she's a master at stamping and comes up with some beautiful designs!)

After stamping, I added a coat of Seche Vite to protect the design. I could have sworn I got a photo of it at this stage, but I can't seem to find the shiny version. All I have is the photos from my last step, which was to add a coat of Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love, a great matte topcoat. I love matte-ifying metallic colours, and the soft look and feel really contributed to the "delicate" theme! I felt so pretty wearing these :)

Still shiny, even with the matte finish. Love! This was taken indoors with flash...

...and this was in the same place but with no flash. Amazing how different they look in ambient light versus direct!

Hope you all enjoyed this one as much as I did! See you next time for tribal print day. Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend and good luck Monday morning! xoxo