Art Deco/Abstract Basketball Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have some art deco/abstract basketball nail art to share!

I've been gone for so long! I think I finally took the break I needed and now I can be motivated enough to post more often. I'm aiming for every two days because I have tons of time to paint my nails! Also, my giveaway ended and I've chosen a winner, congratulations Lindsay! She has already replied to my email so I won't be picking a new winner.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
I think it would be super fun to do some little giveaways like this every once and a while, what do you guys think? Anyways, onto the nails!

This mani is my last go at art deco nail art for the September/October issue of Nail It magazine! It has been so fun working off of the prompts and I can't wait until the next prompts are announced! 

I started off with two coats of OPI Toucan Do It If You Try, then I went in with a small paint brush and Revlon Rich Raspberry for the lines! 

Toucan Do It If You Try had a similar formula to another polish I picked up from this collection, I Just Can't Cope-acabana. They both seemed pretty opaque at one coat and seemed like they'd be two coaters, but after the second (thicker) coat there were still some bald spots. I also seem to find small black specks in some light OPI cremes, like in this polish, and it ended up on my right hand's thumb.

Does anyone else go over their nail art twice for the lines to be more opaque? I do it a lot because I feel like it has to be opaque for some reason! I guess I wouldn't really recommend Rich Raspberry for nail art because I had to go over everything again and it still wasn't totally opaque. It has a crelly/jelly formula but it is opaque in two coats on its own, so I'll probably stick to using it as a base for nail art.

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I got my blog mojo back and I'm so happy about it! Stay tuned for a lot more fun posts very soon! Happy Sunday! =)

OPI Constellation Nail Art!

Yo yo yo my people! Today I have some fun constellation nail art to share!

I apologize for not posting for a while guys! I actually have a lot to post and I'm behind in posting, and for some reason that has overwhelmed me into not posting very often :P.

Anyways, a little while ago my mom bought me the current issue of Nail It! Magazine (the May/June one) and I found out you actually send in your pictures and your information to be featured. This made me really excited so I've done one mani for each of their prompts (Stars, Art Deco and Halloween) so far and I think I'll crank out a few more before the deadline (June 6th for the curious)! I'm so excited to find out if any of my designs get featured but I guess I won't know until September haha!

So when I was trying to think up a cool star design I immediately thought of constellations and I decided to go with it! I knew I wanted to do Orion and the Big Dipper seemed like a good second choice, and then I went looking for a third constellation that was relatively easy to paint with my left hand. I finished the look off with a messy five-pointed star, a spray of hairspray (to avoid smudges) and a coat of top coat! Ever since I discovered that spraying your nails with hairspray and letting it dry before top coating makes nail art much harder to smudge, I've been doing it!

The blue I used here is OPI OPI... Eurso Euro and the white is OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, both super nice one and two coaters, respectively. I actually did two super thin coats of OPI... Eurso Euro this time around because I think it might dry slightly faster that way!

What do you guys think of these nails? I'd love to know in the comments!

Thank you so much for taking a look everyone! I'll really try and start posting more regularly! Happy Monday! =)

Born Pretty Store Flower Water Decal Review

Hello everyone! Today I have a review of some Born Pretty Store water decals to share (link here, item G006)!

This will be a bit of a brief post because I want to spend more time figuring out my lighting today. I thought it was easier to white balance using a white background but it isn't at all! I look back to my Sally Hansen Brisk Blue and heart nail art post (link here) and think up until then my lighting and white balance was so nice for a while! Why did I decide to change it haha? I am using three lamps instead of one now which makes focusing and getting clear photos a lot easier, but I hope I can get back to pictures with good lighting with this set up! So I'll probably be going back to a black background for a while, sorry for all the changes and craziness! Anyways, onto the nails!

For these nails I started with two coats of OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana and a coat of top coat. I then cut out, soaked in water and applied each decal and added a coat of top coat before moving to the next nail. These were super easy to use like the other decals I received from Born Pretty Store a while ago (link to the post here)! There was no issue with smudging the decals with top coat and they had really clear images and details as you can see!

To apply them I did basically the same thing I described in the other decal post I linked above, except I actually slid the decal off of the paper and into the water. That way I could pick up the decal with my clean up brush and have a little more control when placing it (not that you need to because you can move it around as long as there's still some water on your nail).

Overall I think these are really cute and easy to use and I love that there are big designs included! They really set these decals apart from most floral nail stickers or decals in my opinion!

See how crisp and detailed these are? So pretty!

What do you guys think of these decals or this mani in general? I'd love to know in the comments!

If you guys go looking for nail art stuff on their site be sure to use my coupon code SKBQ10 for 10% off! I'm really tempted to pick up their package of circle and square pastel studs (link here for the curious)!

Thank you so much for taking a look everyone! I'll have some star nail art on here to share with you guys soon so keep a look out! I'm still not sure what I'm going to do but wish me luck! Happy Wednesday everyone! =)

Art Deco Inspired Nail Art over American Apparel Coney Island!

Hey everyone! Today I have some art deco inspired nail art to share!

I finally got my hands on the Nicole by OPI Roughles collection last night and I couldn't be happier! I'm wearing the pink one (Rock the Look) already and I'm in love (despite the fact that pink is my least favourite colour)! They were even 50% off when I finally found them at Shoppers Drug Mart! I have been madly in love with the whole collection since it came out and I've spent the last month or so convincing myself I don't need them (mostly because I couldn't find them anywhere)! Expect a swatch and review of all four in the near future!

I am now happily going on a no-buy because I have so many untrieds in my collection, it's ridiculous :P. I've started a massive post listing all of my untrieds with pictures but dang is it hard work! I even want to include polishes I've only swatched on one hand because I want to actually wear them all out, so my post will be quite large! I think I have 376 polishes at the moment and I wonder if I've even worn half of them as full manis! Anyways, onto the nails!

As you can see, I've decided to go back to a light background for a while. I think it goes with my light blog layout better and I'm just liking it better now for some reason!

For this mani I started with two easy coats of American Apparel Coney Island and a coat of top coat. I have pictures of it alone, but I think I'll have a weekly or biweekly (the twice a week meaning) post of swatches of the bases of my nail art from now on.

Later that day I went in with OPI OPI... Eurso Euro and two small nail art brushes. I'm not sure how art deco-y these are because I kind of invented the design as I went! I didn't actually like this design very much so I didn't finish doing my other hand to go with it, but a ton of you on Instagram did! I usually post every mani I do on here and as long as I don't absolutely hate it, because everyone has nail fails in their own eyes!

What do you guys think of these nails? I'd love to know in the comments! :)

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I'll have another Born Pretty Store review up for you in a few days! Happy Monday!

Sally Hansen Brisk Blue & Heart Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a cute heart nail art look to share!

I feel pretty bleh about these pictures except for the last one and lately I've really been thinking about changing up my poses/background/pictures in some way. I love the more artsy pictures like the bloggers Pshiiit, BeautyGeeks and Nail Escapades use! Maybe I could do some of those in addition to the ones or most of the ones I use. I've already made a few blog changes lately including my font, commenting system and a slight change to my blog title, and now I'm really wanting to make some more changes!

I'd love to know what you guys think of the changes along the way! I'm going to try out some new poses, backgrounds, lighting, etc. today so maybe I'll be back to you guys with a post asking which poses you prefer (again :P, link to the first time I did this here if you're curious). I know I haven't tagged all of my posts featuring indie brands with the tag "indie polish" and that's been bugging me for a while so that's another change I'd like to make! I also want to make sure I have the tags "review" and "swatch" on all the applicable posts because I'm not sure that I do. Anyways, onto the nails!

For this look I started with one easy coat of Sally Hansen Brisk Blue and a coat of top coat. I would definitely recommend not going in and trying to fix a spot you missed if you've allowed it any time to dry already. I made that mistake and let me tell you, they don't call it Insta-Dri for nothing! Things got real bumpy and even after two coats of top coat it still looked odd. But not to fear! If you just wait a minute or two more you can do an easy second coat instead to get the spot you missed.

I also want to note that I got a tiny bit of staining from this polish. I only used a thin coat of base coat and after hitting my nails with remover twice it was gone, so it was really nothing major! Doing two coats of base coat would definitely eliminate any possibility of staining though! Also, it did seem to stain my fingers that were holding the cotton pad while removing them, but that staining was gone before I remembered I should try and wash it off!

Next, I went in twice with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls so the hearts could reach full opacity. I just realized I never took a picture of my other hand, but I put the hearts on my index and pinkie finger because I've been loving doing those kind of reverse accent nails lately! That's another change I'd like to make; always including pictures of my right hand in each post!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I'd love to know what you think of the changes I've made and the ones I've been thinking of making in the comments! I'd also love to know what you think of these nails! Hopefully I'll have some more interesting pictures and poses for you in my next post! Happy Monday! =)

Pastel Water Marble & Textured Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have a fun little water marble and textured polish combo to share!

I was sitting around watching a marathon of the Naked Gun movies with my boyfriend this morning, and it made for a really good day! I love Leslie Nielsen and outrageously silly movies! I have to watch them with my sister and dad because I know they'll love them too :D. I've also been checking out a ton of swatches of neon collections and summer collections and I'm itching to pick up some new bright polishes (though I should really stop buying polish)! Anyway, onto the nails!

For these nails I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and OPI Solitaire on the water marble and textured nails, respectively. Both were perfect in two coats, in fact, Solitaire was pretty darn opaque at one coat! It was also very fast drying and it has a perfect formula!

For the water marble I used four lovely China Glaze polishes; For Audrey (turquoise), Secret Peri-Wink-Le (purple that spread out and appeared blue), Dance Baby (pink) and V (orange). I found that they all worked really well together, or maybe China Glaze polishes in general work really well for water marbling!

I followed a lovely tutorial by PackAPunchPolish on Youtube (link here) for the water marble! I also included a sped up video of me doing this whole mani at the end of this post for funzies!

Here is my right hand! I kind of think this one turned out better but I wish the little dots of polish in the middle weren't there. I think they were from not cleaning the dotting tool before dipping it in the middle, so if you guys try this out you can learn from my mistakes!

What do you guys think of this mani? I'd love to hear in the comments!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! I'll try and post more frequently, I've been keeping busy despite being out of school and it seems I've been keeping too busy to post every two days! I'll have a cute nail art look with an awesome Sally Hansen blue up soon! Happy Thursday! =)

Gradient with Glitter and Textured Chevron Nail Art!

Hey everyone! Today I have some gradient and chevron nail art to share!

Yesterday we went on a field trip to a hospital to talk to some genetic counsellors and it was really interesting. Interesting in the sense that after a month and a half of being in a genetics course I am seriously considering a career in genetics, or possibly even genetic counselling. Not so interesting in the sense that over the weekend our teacher emailed us the two PowerPoints we went through at the hospital and the fact that we didn't get to see the cytogenetics lab because the cytogeneticist was on holiday. Oh well, it was still much nicer than a busy three hour genetics lab!

Today nothing overly interesting has happened, though I did wake up twenty minutes before I had to leave for school. These are the days that I throw on a hoodie and a cardigan on top for warmth and don't even bother with a shirt haha. I'm very glad that my boyfriend woke up earlier and made us our morning teas in travel cups so I'm not still exhausted! Anyways, onto the nails!

For the gradient nails I started with two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and a coat of top coat (because I wasn't sure what I was going to do yet so I wanted my nails dry so I couldn't mess them up)! I then sponged two layers of Essie Turquoise & Caicos and Essie Mod Square on my nails from a wet makeup sponge, and added a coat of topcoat to smooth out the gradient a little more. I do think it being wet helps to create a smoother gradient, and it doesn't soak up the polish as much so you save polish! I finished off with two coats of Black Sheep Lacquer A Letter to the New York Post and another coat of top coat!

The green to pink gradient was completely inspired by Steph Stone Nails on Instagram (link here)! It's a really interesting combination to me because green is my favourite colour and pink is my least favourite. I'm surprised that I like these so much because they're half pink! =P

For the chevron nails I just did two coats of Sally Hansen Lick-O-Rich (it's opaque at one but some parts are shiny and missing the texture bits) and two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the white lines! Lick-O-Rich dried really quickly and had a lovely formula, the only bad thing I could say about it is that it takes about half a day for the sharp textured bits on the edges to wear off, so try and avoid scratching up your face!

What do you guys think of this mani? I loved wearing it because the black nails were so bold and stood out even from far away! I also love a good gradient with a matte black and white glitter topper, so this is a win-win for me!

Thanks so much for reading everyone! Anything exciting going on with you guys lately? Let me know! Happy Tuesday!

250 Instagram Followers & 150 Tumblr Followers Giveaway! :)

Hey everyone! Today I have a super exciting giveaway to share!

I recently hit 250 followers on Instagram and 150 followers on Tumblr so I thought it was a perfect time for a giveaway! There are two prizes as you can see below, both with four awesome and unused polishes! This giveaway is only open to residents of the US and Canada because I can't afford to ship anywhere else being a student :P. The next time I have enough money hanging around I'll do another international giveaway! Shipping is just so much more expensive from Canada.

Here are the prizes!

Prize 1- from left to right: Essie Turquoise & Caicos, Rainbow Honey Magic Cake, OPI Moonraker, and Revlon Espresso (my favourite black creme because it's a one-coater)!

Prize 2- from left to right: Essie Jazzy Jubilant, Rainbow Honey The Kraken, OPI Malaysian Mist, and Revlon Espresso!

I have swatched the Rainbow Honey's you see here (my own bottles, not these) so here's a picture of each of them!

Rainbow Honey Magic Cake (link to my post on these for more info)

Rainbow Honey The Kraken (link to my post on these for more info) 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Thanks so much for following me everyone, whether you have for a year or a day! I absolutely love it when I can interact with you guys and respond to your comments, it makes my day! Thanks so much for taking a look! =)

Black Sheep Lacquer Lips Like Sugar and Valentine's/anti-Valentine's Day Nail Art!

Hey-lo my lovely readers! Today I have a gorgeous Black Sheep Lacquer thermal called Lips Like Sugar to share, as well as some Valentine's/anti-Valentine's day nail art!

I've been getting increasingly excited about my upcoming giveaway! It's kind of funny because it seems like I was steadily gaining followers on Tumblr until I mentioned that once I reached 150 I would launch my giveaway haha! I'm now at 149 and I'm so dang excited to launch this giveaway so if you have a Tumblr and you'd like to follow me (link here) I'd be so happy! Anyways, onto the nails and buttload of pictures!

Lips Like Sugar is a shimmer-stuffed sheer light pink thermal polish that turns a dark coral colour when cold! I think my hands/fingers are so warm that the polish doesn't even look very pink when I'm at my normal temperature, it looks more like a nude colour which I love!

The formula on this polish was amazing just like all of the other Black Sheep Lacquer polishes I've been reviewing lately! It dried really fast and had a perfect consistency! What you see here is three easy coats and no top coat!

My camera cannot handle taking pictures of reds or corals, it freaks out! Does anyone have any tips on photographing red polishes? I'd love to know!

The shimmer really comes to life and appears gold when this baby gets cold!

I then decided to put some matte sweethearts on top with a mix of nice and not so nice sayings! These were inspired by these nails by Fab Fatale and these nails by Petite Marine! After I painted the hearts on and let them dry, I painted a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy over just the hearts (not the Lips Like Sugar base).

The polishes I used here were: Julep Blake (yellow), American Apparel Office (green), Color Club Take Me to Your Chateau (blue), OPI You're Such a Budapest (purple), OPI Mod About You (pink) and OPI Lost on Lombard (red).

I couldn't be bothered to matteify the red letters, and that's why I decided to just make the hearts matte. Red polishes seem to smear on me no matter how long I allow them to dry and no matter the top coat, so I left the words/symbols slightly shiny!

I think the heart shapes came out better on my left hand, but funnily enough, I think the writing on my right hand looks better! I can't for the life of me write with my left hand, but apparently I can paint letters/symbols with it? So strange!

I'd love to know what you lovely people think of these in the comments! I quite like them, they're a bit girlier than I'm used to but I'm loving the sheer nude base with nail art on top! You may see some more manis like this in the future!

Yesterday my boyfriend gave me twenty dollars to buy something for me and something for him, so I picked up OPI Muir Muir on the Wall and bought him a mini grater and a knork(knife and fork combined)/spoon (does anyone get the Clone High reference? The knork episode? I LOVE that show). So that's what we did for Valentine's day! Do/did you guys have any plans for Valentine's day?

Thank you so much for taking a look everyone! Let me know what you think of these manis and whatever else you'd like to tell me in the comments! :)