Christmas Season #4

Hello all and Merry Christmas Eve!

For this manicure I couldn't decide what to do, so I tried out 5 different designs over my favourite red: OPI's In My Santa Suit.

On my thumb I free-handed a reindeer with a striping brush and dotting tool. I made my index finger into a present with a striping brush and ORLY's Luxe. On my middle finger I painted a snowflake using this tutorial. I made some glittery candy cane stripes on my ring finger with a white and silver glitter striping polishes. And I did a gold and silver waterfall design on my pinky finger. 

I had been seeing the reindeer design on a lot of girls' fingers so far this season and I really wanted to try to make my own, too. What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, too!

Christmas Season #3

Hello all,

Sorry for the delay with posting this, I was all tied up with Christmas preparations :). For this manicure, I wanted to try and make a fancy design for my first staff Christmas party.

I love doing candy cane designs this time of year, but I had never attempted the design on a french tip. I used the french tip stamp from Konad's m19 plate with special white polish, then I added the red stripes with a thin striping brush with OPI's In My Santa Suit. To even out the tips, I used my silver glitter striping polish and then I added a snowflake stamp from one of my old unnamed plates.

Here's the manicure under a lamp.

And here's a closeup of  the snowflake on my thumb.

What do you think? I'll be posting the manicure I'm wearing now tomorrow, hopefully :).

Christmas Season #2

Hello all,

I had a recent tragedy with my nails due to Christmas decorating. I was lifting a tub full of decorations and my nail ripped off right across the middle :(.

Sadness :(

At least this was not my swatching hand! In order to cover up the unevenness of this nail, I wanted to use a texture polish and my wonderful boyfriend had just picked up OPI's Holiday 2013 collection's liquid sand mini set, which came with mini bottles of Emotions, It's Frosty Outside, and Kiss Me at Midnight. I decided to try out the latter two polishes in a simple manicure.

I only needed two coats of each polish in order to ensure even coverage and I must say I'm mesmerized by the silver polish in particular! Texture polishes are great with application because they stay where you put them where they are so thick, this makes for easier cleanup :).

I'll be sure to incorporate these polishes between now and New Years again for sure, and hopefully in more creative ways haha.

Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Season #1

Hello everyone,

I'm happy to share with you my first Christmas-themed manicure of 2013! For this first attempt, I wanted to try out my Christmas colours, mainly a beautiful new red that I just picked up from OPI & Mariah Carey's Holiday 2013 collection called In My Santa Suit. This is a beautiful colour and I plan to use it frequently this season! I was going to incorporate it into a French manicure, but I cracked a nail right across the middle and now I have to cover it up for a while. :(

For this look, I applied 2 coats of In My Santa Suit to all nails except the ring finger, which I applied one coat of Wet n' Wild's White Cream. Then I added the dots using Essie's No Place Like Chrome and the White Cream on the red polish using a large and small sized dotting tool. For the white accent nail, I used No Place Like Chrome and In My Santa Suit for the dots. :)

I was hoping to go for an abstract Christmas/snow type of design. The photo doesn't capture the distinction between the silver and white dots as well as it looks in person. The beauty of the red isn't captured either (time to get a real camera instead of using my phone's camera, haha). It's just such a beautiful shade packed with shimmer and a metallic finish.  

Here's the polish with what little natural light was available on the cloudy day I took these pictures on. :p

What do you think? What Christmas designs have you done so far this year?

Thanks for stopping by!

OPI Pure Lacquer Nail Apps

Hello all,

I'm taking a nail break this week to give them some tlc with a strengthening treatment. I was looking through my folders for some unposted looks and I came across this pretty one, enjoy! :)

This is OPI Pure Lacquer Nail Apps in Zig Zag Stripe:

These nail polish strips were so easy to handle and apply! I was expecting them to be much thicker, but was pleasantly surprised :). I'm also loving how pretty this looks! The only downside was all of the wastage that comes from this method of application. Because of this and the price I would not be using these all of the time, but they're perfect for special occasions! 

Have you used nail polish strips before? What do you think?

Have a happy weekend!

Blurple Mani with Flakie and Stripes

Hello all,

I recently picked up a polish from L'Oreal's The Magic Top Coat colletion: The Holographic. This top coat fits the definition of a flakie rather than a holographic, but it's still really pretty. I have seen this top coat on top of black a lot, but I wanted to try it on something a little different.

This is two coats of the top coat over two coats of China Glaze's Bizarre Blurple. For the accent nail, I applied two coats of Essie's No Place Like Chrome and then decided to try a diagonal stripe design using striping tape. After I applied the tape, I painted one thick coat of the Bizarre Blurple and removed the tape, which I found to be difficult because my tweezers were not cooperating. I'm going to have to work on my technique for striping tape for sure, haha.

Here's a better picture of the sparkly particles of the top coat :). I really like the look over this dark blue/purple polish. There's just one drawback to the flakie top coat, it's not flat on the nail, so you need to add a thick layer of top coat over it to seal it in, which takes a long time to dry. It was worth the wait though!

What do you think? Thanks for stopping by!

Coral Peacock Nails

Hello all,

This week I wanted to try out my ORLY Luxe as a stamp over other colours, so I decided on my favourite coral: OPI's I Eat Mainely Lobster.

For this look, I painted each nail two coats of OPI's I Eat Mainely Lobster and then stamped the peacock feather image from Nailz Craze's plate NC 01 with Luxe.

I think this is a very pretty yet subtle manicure, but I am getting bored very quickly with it, haha. It's getting closer to that wonderful time of the year when Christmas manicures begin to show up and I can't wait :). I'm gonna have to do some experimenting soon. Keep in touch to see what I come up with!

Thanks for stopping by!

Fall Nails

Hello all,

I recently picked up OPI's San Tan-Tonio and decided to see how it looked with a gold stamp over it. I looked through my plates and decided on the leafy/feathery design from BM 210 and used ORLY's Luxe as the stamping polish.

I really like this design, but I was tempted to see how it would look mattified, so here's that look too:

It kind of made the stamp more subtle, which I like as well. I really need to try both of these polishes more often, haha.

Thanks for stopping by!

My Halloween Nails

Hello all,

This has been a very hectic week and I haven't been able to post until today. For this manicure I wanted to try out my Bundle Monster plates' Halloween images, as I haven't tried them before :)

First, I painted my nails alternating between Essie's No Place Like Chrome and Wet n Wild's Black Cream. 

Then I stamped the Halloween images from these plates: BM 209, 211, 213, 222, and 225. 

Stamping polishes used: Konad's Special White and Black Pearl, and an unnamed orange polish. 

What do you think? I hope you all had a happy Halloween :)

Breast Cancer Awareness Month Week #4

Hello all,

For the final Friday post (which is now on Saturday due to a delay) of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, I decided to do a pink manicure involving lots of techniques, using heart glitter, glitter polish, stamping, dotting, and rhinestones.

For this manicure I painted each finger a different shade of pink. Thumb: Wet n' Wild's Pink Cream with pink rhinestones, index: Nicole by OPI's It's a-May-zing and pink heart glitters, middle: OPI's And This Little Piggy, ring: Wet n' Wild's White Cream stamped with an unnamed pink stamping polish and filled in with a hot pink nail art pen, pinky: OPI's I Eat Mainely Lobster and dotted with Wet n' Wild's Pink Cream. 

Breast Cancer Awareness Month Week #3

Hello all,

For this manicure, I couldn't choose which pink polish to use, so I decided to create a pink gradient with 3 different polishes: OPI's Italian Love Affair, Sinful Colors' Soul Mate, and OPI's I Eat Mainely Lobster. After creating the gradient, I stamped the butterfly wing design from Nailz Craze plate NC 01 using Konad's Black Pearl polish and added white dots using Wet n Wild's White Cream polish.

I love how this manicure turned out!

I have gotten lots of questions about this manicure, so it has been easy to spread the word as to why I am wearing these pink manicures.

Don't forget to wear pink!

Thanks for stopping by!

Breast Cancer Awareness Month Week #2

Hello all,

Keeping with the pink manicures for Breast Cancer Awareness Month, this is my creation for week 2 which I'm calling a "Frosty" manicure. I was inspired by The Polish Aholic's Ombre Waterfall nails design.

For this manicure, I painted my nails two coats of OPI's Italian Love Affair and then painted lines coming from my cuticles to the middle of my nails using my silver glitter striper from Kiss. I let this dry and then added a coat of top coat for some extra shine :). 

I really like the idea of showing support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month and helping raise awareness through pink manicures. What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

Forgotten French Manicure

Hello all,

I recently found this in my drafts folder and was shocked that I hadn't already published this post!

For this manicure, I really wanted to do something professional yet fun. First I thought of trying a braided manicure, but that did not go as planned where the polishes I had chosen did not want to co-operate. Then this idea came to mind which includes one of the colours that I was trying to incorporate in the braided manicure.

For this look, I started with OPI's Natural Nail Base Coat and added one coat of China Glaze's Inner Beauty. When that dried, I stamped the french tips from Konad's m19 plate using Konad's Special White. Then, I added another layer of Inner Beauty over the top to make the white look more natural. To add some fun, I stamped the flower design from Konad's m60 onto my thumb and the heart design from Bundle Monster's BM 202 to my ring finger using China Glaze's Pink Voltage. I then sealed it all up with OPI's Top Coat.

What do you think of this design?

Thanks for stopping by!

Breast Cancer Awareness Month Week #1

Hello all,

For this manicure, I decided to create a pink manicure to show my support for Breast Cancer Awareness Month which is held during the month of October, along with other nail blogs like NailGlaze. Every week in October will bring another pink manicure to show our support and to help raise awareness.

This manicure includes a neon pink polish: China Glaze's Pink Voltage and a very pretty champagne-silvery colour with tiny pink/copper microglitter mixed in: OPI's Designer...De Better! 

I applied 3 coats of the neon pink polish and two coats of the silvery polish for good coverage and sealed it all with top coat. This picture is the best shot I could get to display as truly as possible the actual shade of the neon polish, my camera doesn't really photograph neons well.

I love this manicure! I'm not one for wearing flashy colours, but this manicure just works. The pink microglitter of the accent nail polish really ties it in with the neon pink shade.

Have a lovely weekend!

Metallic Chevron Mani

Hi all,

Today I really felt like wearing blue on my nails, so I decided to pull out OPI's Can't Find My Czechbook and, after applying a base coat, I applied 2 coats of this lovely blue. Once it was dry, I took out my Bundle Monster plate BM201 and stamped the chevron design onto each nail using Essie's No Place Like Chrome. 

Because this design did not have a flat bottom and top (due to the stripes) I found this design very difficult to center and place straight across my nail. Some nails (mostly on my other hand) have crooked chevron stripes. :(

What do you think? Let me know if there is a certain technique to use when using this design. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Throwback Thursday...er, Friday: Pokéball Nails

Hello all,

Sorry about the delay again this week, I am finally feeling better, but I had a lot of work to catch up on. Maybe a better idea would be to just aim for one Throwback post a week and not necessarily on Thursday.

For this throwback, I decided to showcase another nail art mani I experimented with: Pokéball nails. When I first started nail art, my boyfriend found a picture on a website of a girl who had completed this manicure and he asked me to try it. Here is the result:

For this manicure, I painted my nails red with Revlon's Get Reddy and, when it was dry, I added a Sally Hansen Insta-Dry white (I can't remember it's name) to the free-edge half of my nails. Then I used a black striped to make the black line across the middle and a fitting tool to add two dots in the middle (one black and one white in different sizes). After that, I sealed my manicure with top coat. 

Overall, I am pleased with the results I achieved with this manicure. There are two things I would change: I needed to clean up the polish along my nail beds badly and I should have applied my topcoat lightly and more carefully so that I wouldn't drag the red polish onto the white. 

I am definitely going to have to add an update to this post later on when I get a chance to retry this manicure. 

What do you think? Have you ever tried this manicure?

Thanks for stopping by!

Purple on Purple

Hello all,

This week, I felt like a change from the French tips and decided to wear a shade I haven't worn since the spring: China Glaze's Tart-y for the Party. I love the colour of this polish, the one thing I am not too fond of is the bumps that happen to pop up whenever I use this shade. I don't know if I am applying it wrong or what, but it always happens. Because of this, I always end up using a full-nail stamp over the top of it to camouflage the bumps.

For this manicure, I used my ridge filling base coat, then applied 2 coats of China Glaze's Tart-y for the Party. When that was dry, I used China Glaze's Bizarre Blurple to stamp the circle design from Bundle Monster plate BM 206. I then sealed it all with top coat. 

What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

Throwback Thursday: Pretty Pink with Bows

Hello all,

Sorry I am so late posting this, I got sick on Thursday and haven't felt very well since.

For this throwback I decided to recreate a manicure I had done in the past to see how I could improve on it. 

This is a manicure I did a couple of years ago when I first started stamping. Both times I used 3 coats of OPI's Pedal Faster Suzi! (over base coat this time), then stamped the bow French Tip image from Konad plate m56 and sealed it with top coat.

The picture is of the most recent attempt, and I can honestly say that I have not improved with this particular design. The stamp on my ring finger is squish :( I guess that's where the design isn't on the tip of my nail or a full nail design.

Blue Base for a French Tip?

Hello all,

I'm still experimenting with my French tip plates and I wanted to try something less traditional. I have tried adding French tips to different colours and styles of polishes before and I haven't liked them very much for some reason. I saw some pictures of these manicures done by other people that worked out beautifully, so I decided to give it another try. 

This is the truest representation of the colour of this lovely blue, taken in the shade :)

And another shot taken in the sunshine. I had my doubts when I first bought this colour, but I love it!

For this manicure, I began with my trusty OPI Ridge Filler and then applied 2 coats of China Glaze's Sexy in the City. Once that was dry, I stamped a design from plate m45 in Konad's Black Pearl on my tips and finished it off with OPI's Top Coat. 

I'm not sure how I feel about this manicure. I like the tip and I like the colour, but I think it could use something more, like some glitter haha. 

Sexy in the City has always been one of my favourite colours to stamp over. It shows up a little more teal in person than in these photos. It is a little thin on the first coat so I would apply at least 2 to better the opacity. 

Throwback Thursday Nails: Flower Nail Art

Hello all,

I had a wonderful thought today about putting up pictures of past manicures (before I had my blog) and talking about what I would do differently and/or showing a picture of the same manicure redone with my new experience level. :)

To start these posts off, I'd like to venture all the way back to my first nail art manicure. I had found a video on how to complete this on the fabulous Cutepolish YouTube channel.

In order to do this one, I simply put a clear polish on my nail, then placed 5 dots of a white polish (I used Sally Hansen Insta Dry's white) and 5 dots of another colour, I used Sally Hansen Insta Dry, it was my sister's polish so I am unsure of the name of the colour) in circles alternating as you go up your nail. As soon as you do one circle, use a toothpick to pull the polish from the dots inward and when it dries, use the other colour of polish to place a dot in the centre of the flower. 

Looking back on this now, I would have used a couple of coats of a sheer nude polish (or light pink like the video prescribes) like China Glaze Inner Beauty to soften the look of my nail line. I would also have used a base coat as said in the video. I don't think I had any idea what a base coat was then :p but my nails were so thin that they could have used the extra layer of protection. The flowers don't seem bad for my first ever attempt, haha. 

What do you think of my attempt? Do you like this concept?

Thanks for stopping by!

French Tip Konadicure

I was pleasantly surprised while shopping in one of my favourite discount stores when I found Konad's French Set for less than half price! It includes 3 plates (m19, m45, and m62), a stamper and scraper, a nail polish correcter pen, and 2 Konad special polishes (white and black pearl).

As you can imagine, a lot of my manicures have been incorporating these polishes and plates :p. The first one I tried was the tips on m19.

I began by using OPI's Ridge Filler and then applied one coat of China Glaze's Inner Beauty. Once that was dry I figured out which tip lengths were just a bit bigger than each nail and stamped with Konad's Special Polish in White. I figured that my manicure needed something more, so I added the butterfly design from plate m57 to my thumbs. 

When I went to apply topcoat, I managed to mess up the tip on one of my thumbs. It still didn't look right after applying another tip stamp over it, so I decided to break out another plate (m45) and try the leopard print design with Konad's Special Polish in Black Pearl. 

After applying OPI's Top Coat I was very pleased with the outcome. What do you think? Also, if you haven't noticed this is my first attempt at watermarking my images. I was trying to go for a curved image, but gave up, haha. Hopefully my skills improve with time!

Thanks for stopping by!

Experimenting with Metallics

I was looking for an opportunity to try out my recently purchased Layla Mirror Effect polish in Red Hot and Essie's No Place Like Chrome, but since this type of polish shows every imperfection of your nails I had to wait forever for a crack to grow out :(. When my nails were ready I was dying to try something incorporating both colours!

(Excuse the photo, I had to take a picture on the run because I had just put a matte top coat on and was worried I would ruin it :p)

I started by applying one coat of OPI's Ridge Filler to my nails to hide any imperfections. Then I decided to paint all nails with the Layla polish (2 coats on each finger minus the ring which had 1). I applied striping tape to my ring finger, applied one coat of No Place Like Chrome, and carefully removed the tape. Once it was all dry, I applied one coat of NYC's Matte Me Crazy mattifying top coat. 

I have tried striping tape before, but the result was no where as nice as this! In the past attempt I was impatient and applied it to partially dry polish (big mistake, haha). I'm not too happy with the lines that remained on my nails with the Layla polish. It might have been that the ridge filler wasn't fully dry, so I will have to try this polish again in the future and see if I get better results :) 

Thanks for stopping by!

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my blog!

I'll begin this blog with an introduction. My name is Megan and I'm a nail enthusiast from Newfoundland, Canada. I was inspired by different nail bloggers from around the world, beginning with the amazing Bregje from Oooh, Shinies! I know I'm nowhere near as talented as this girl, but I'd like to share my experiences anyway :).