Take A Break, Cupcake!

Don't these nails make you just WISH you were watching the sunset, sitting on the edge of a dock, dipping your legs in the ocean, stuffing your face with cupcakes?

Inspired (generally) by www.cosmeticcupcake.com, I tried my hand at cupcake nail art, which seems to be getting pretty popular in the nail art world.

I'm really happy with how these turned out, and I just think it's too adorable not to do again someday.

 

The only problem is now I'm really craving cupcakes. After work I'm definitely taking a trip to my favourite cupcakerie on the Drive.

Above: My makeup case has seen its fair share of experiments...

Polishes Used:

Orly Bonder

Essie Blanc

Orly Blue Collar (such a beautiful blue, and it applied perfectly in 2 coats)

Sally Hansen Pink Blink

Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday

Kiss Nail Art Striper White

Seche Vite Topcoat

Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows

Today has been a little dreary, so I did a little rainbow experiment!

I love my Orly striper polishes. If I had purple and green, the collection would be complete. Here I had to use full size nail polishes with itty bitty paintbrushes.

The decals on my thumb and ring finger are tiny dried flowers, a gift from my coworker.

Polishes used:

Orly Bonder

Essie Blanc (2 coats)

Orly Instant Artist Stripers in Fiery Red, Orange Peel, and True Blue

Art Club Striper Yellow

CND Green Scene

OPI Planks A Lot

Seche Vite Topcoat (2 extra coats over flowers)

Lady In Red

Here's a simple, girly manicure using my newest polishes. Nothing much else to say about that, soooo here's the pictures!

I'm still working on my Konad stamping skills, but it's definitely getting better/easier.

I threw a little glitter onto my accent fingers, but it's not as sparkly in these pictures as it is in real life.

Here's my new Special polish, and it is a LOT better looking. Apparently the stamping polish is 5 times thicker than a regular polish.

Above: Outfit pic!

In Order Of Appearance:

Orly Bonder

Essie Red Nouveau

OPI Gettin Miss Piggy With It (Accent fingers only)

Konad Special Polish White (with plate m59)

Seche Vite Topcoat

Meow!

Just a quick update, about a package that came in the mail today from nailpolishcanada! I bought the special Konad stamping polish, and what a difference it makes. The design is perfectly opaque on my hands.

For this design, I used Essie Topless & Barefoot as the base colour, then sponged on Zoya Dea in random spots before stamping from image plate m57.

Above: Before clean-up, ignore the mess.

Don't you love how it matches my sweater?

In Order Of Appearance:

Orly Bonder

Essie Topless & Barefoot (3 coats)

Zoya Dea

Konad Special Polish Black

Seche Vite Topcoat

Inspiration

Konad Attempt 2.0 (Quickie)

Just a quickie post for y'all today, I did this last week but I didn't have time to post it or take proper pics. This was on my morning commute on one of the ugliest days of this winter. My bright nails made it a bit happier, I think. :)

In Order Of Appearance:

Orly Bonder

OPI....(I borrowed it from a friend and I completely forgot what it was called)

OPI (Borrowed from same friend, but its just a plain black)

Konad plate m57

Glow-In-the-Dark Rose Nail Decals from NailPolishCanada.com

Seche Vite Topcoat

Thanks, Miss Piggy!

I officially have the most amazing coworker. We traded shifts - no big deal at all - and she bought me a whole bunch of nail goodies as a thank you! I tried to combine all the items into one manicure, but it was kind of intense for me (the rest will be in an upcoming post).

I have been fawning over this polish for a long time, and she actually got it for me by some fluke of the world being awesome. Gettin Miss Piggy With It  is my favourite things combined = red + glitter + Muppets.

I layered over Essie Wicked, which I already own.

She also got me these cute little white flower decals, which lay nice and flat, which is great.

I wanted to see how the glitter would look matte, and I quite like it! But I think it would look even better over a true red.

More pics (Sorry for the messy cuticles, I was too lazy to clean up before whipping out the camera)!

My logo, as well as my various experiments.

In Order Of Appearance:

Orly Bonder

Essie Wicked (3 coats)

OPI Gettin Miss Piggy With It (1 coat, can you believe it?)

Nail Decals (Ring + Thumb)

Seche Vite Topcoat

Essie Matte About You

What Are You, Man or Pac-Man?

I watched this tutorial and I just had to try it. I was meeting up with my happiest friend and I felt super sick and so, I wanted something that would brighten my day!

AND I found a snazzy way to watermark my photos.

 

Colours used:

Nicole by OPI Razzle Dazzler

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening

China Glaze For Audrey

OPI Planks A Lot

OPI Road House Blues

Zoya America

Essie Blanc

'Extreme Couponing' Levels of Nail Polish - Or Not.

My lovely readers! Yesterday I stopped into my favourite dollar store and got a whole bunch of wonderful beauty supplies (all $2 each! can't go wrong at a price like that), and I thought I'd take some pics. I also got some secret surprise goodies after the jump, so keep reading!

Above: This mirror reminded me of doing makeup with my host sister when I was in Japan, she had a mirror just like this.

Above: Hey Vancouverites, can you guess where I am?

Below: I picked up some cheap fake nails to practice on/experiment with.

Below: Only in Chinatown could I have found such a miraculous device. A refillable cotton pad dispenser!

I also got a travel case for my tools, some nail art brushes, more cotton pads, and Pocky. But those pictures weren't quite so exciting as the following:

The other day I ordered my first ever Konad Image plates! For those who don't know, Konad makes these handy little stamping kits to do nail art, and I've been contemplating this purchase for a looong time. I bought 2 plates, m57 and m59, and the rest, from nailpolishcanada.com 

They make their own "special stamping polish", to which I was all "pshaw, what a rip-off, I can just use my own nail polish," until I actually used my own nail polish. It was pretty uncooperative, let me tell you. I am definitely adding those to the wishlist.

Above: Of course, flash makes every little imperfection incredibly obvious, but I love the dark magenta zebra thing going on. These are my mom's nails, and as you can probably tell, she is significantly more tan than I.

Below: And this is my very first successful Konad-icure. I went for a black lace design over a nude I made out of Essie Blanc and Essie Sugar Daddy.

Mom:

Revlon Bewitching (from the new spring collection!)

Nicole By OPI Razzler Dazzler

Essie Blanc (hearts on thumbs)

Myself:

Essie Blanc (3 thin coats)

Essie Sugar Daddy (4 thick coats)

Nicole By OPI Razzler Dazzler

Orly Bonder & Seche Vite Topcoat on both of us, as always.

Whaddya think?

Strawberry? How About RAWBERRY?

Last night I made my nails into itty bitty strawberries! I took the design from (yet another) Cutepolish video, and I think it turned out pretty well.

I want to get a true red from OPI, but I haven't settled on one yet. I'm going shopping next week, so hopefully I'll find something perfect so I can update you with some swatches.

 

On another note, I'm going to start posting swatches of new polishes!

 

Colours used:

Orly Bonder

Essie Fishnet Stockings

Essie Blanc (I did white underneath the green and yellow so they would be brighter)

CND Green Scene

Color Club Nail Art Yellow

Seche Vite Topcoat

Marbleous! (First Attempt)

I love these nails! They turned out really well, but I think it's important to note that I tried like 3 times to get it right. Even now, I see things I could improve.

I watched a lot of tutorials on YouTube before actually trying it. If you want to give it a go for yourself, this is a really good tutorial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUF8rFY2suA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Colors I used:

Orly Bonder
Essie Blanc (I used white underneath to make the colors show)
OPI Planks A Lot
OPI Road House Blues
OPI Dating A Royal
China Glaze First Mate
China Glaze For Audrey
Seche Vite Topcoat

Best Friends With Glitter

Last night I did my best friend's nails!

She wanted a bright French mani, so we chose a really poppy coral-pink. I sponged on some holographic glitter, concentrated on the tips, and then did a stripe of silver under the coral. And since we love sparkle, we put rhinestones on top! I put extra top coat on to hold them in place.

For myself, I used my new polishes, Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday and OPI Dating A Royal. Dating A Royal is a gorgeous rich blue, and Happy Birthday is the most amazing rainbow glitter. I used 3 coats of glitter because I wanted it to be pretty much all glitter. Dating A Royal was really pretty after 2 or 3 coats, but on the first coat, it is really weird and streaky looking.

Then this morning I saw it and thought: This would look even better matte. And I think the glitter looks cool mattified, and more toned down.

On Vanessa:

Orly Bonder

Revlon Coral Me Pink

China Glaze Snowglobe

Kiss Nail Art Silver Glitter

Seche Vite Topcoat

On me:

Orly Bonder

OPI Dating A Royal

Deborah Lippman Happy Birthday

Seche Vite Topcoat

Essie Matte About You

Holy Nail Art, Batman!

In Order Of Appearance:

Orly Bonder

Nicole By OPI Razzle Dazzler

Orly Instant Artist 24K Glitter

Kiss Nail Art White

Art Club Nail Art Yellow

Kiss Nail Art Black

Orly Instant Artist True Blue

Seche Vite Fast Dry Topcoat