Multicoloured Mosaic Nail Art Inspired by a Bouncy Ball!

Hey everyone! Today I have some fun multicoloured mosaic nail art to share!

Today was a fairly uneventful day for me, I did have an organic chemistry lab where we carried out an elimination reaction though which was fun! I'd love to hear what you guys did today in the comments, probably something more exciting than me huh? I'm getting more used to being at school again now that we've been back for a week and a half, and as I expected I'm enjoying school as usual! How are you guys feeling about school or work or both?

Last Friday night my family and boyfriend and I were checking out at Walmart when my sister and I noticed they had bouncy ball machines. We each ended up buying a small one and a large one and I loved my large one so much that I decided to recreate it's pattern on my nails! I thought about mattifying my nails to match the ball but matte nails don't last as long, and I feel weird about slathering them in lotions, balms, oils, etc as it partly removes the matte effect.

I started out with one coat of Revlon Espresso, a true one-coat black creme! Then from red to pink in rainbow order, I used: American Apparel Poppy, Color Club Almost Famous, China Glaze For Audrey, Julep Claire, Color Club Pucci-licious, and American Apparel Coney Island.

I used a small detail brush for the blobs and applied a coat of top coat on top! I find no matter how long I wait before top coating I always smudge my design a bit. For these nails I waited around an hour and a half to top coat after I'd finished and there still are a few smudges!

I apologize for all of the pictures here guys, I just really love this mani! I also found it a lot easier to paint than my first mosaic mani (link to the post here). I'm not sure which of them I like better seeing as they're quite different, I'd love to know what you guys think in the comments!

Here's my right hand!

Thanks so much for reading everyone! I hope you're all doing well and I'd love to hear about anything you'd like to tell me in the comments! Happy Wednesday!

One Year Blogiversary: Then and Now!

Hey everyone! Today I have a "then and now" post for my one year blogiversary to share!

I saw this awesome idea on Lindsey of Wondrously Polished's lovely blog (link to her post here)! It was hard to find anything very interesting that I did in the first few months of blogging because unlike Lindsey, I wasn't very good when I started my blog, and because of that I didn't try any advanced nail art. My picture quality is the biggest difference I see in these pictures, what do you guys think is my biggest improvement?

For this first mani I remember thinking all of the colours were too bright and intense for a watercolour look, and even when I redid them the other day I thought I should have made the colours even less intense. The funny thing was, rather than thinning the polishes out, I decided to sponge them on the first time I did these. It was like I was trying to do a design that involves a certain technique but I decided to use another technique and still call it the original design… I'm strange sometimes :P.

Here is the link to the post this first picture is from if you're interested! I used to write a lot less in my posts and write even more awkwardly than I do now haha! These are from January 2013 and while wearing these and before writing up the post, I picked up my first bottle of pure acetone for cleanup!

Here is my recent reattempt at this look! I used all of the same polishes as in the other post (American Apparel California Trooper, Essie Cute as a Button, Essie Bikini so Teeny, Revlon Mint Gelato, and Revlon Lemon Meringue) as well as a sheer white polish on top (Essie Waltz) to achieve a more pastel and watercolour-like look!

What do you guys think about the new version of these? To me they look like a blurred floral or houndstooth pattern!

The other mani I decided to redo for this post was a black to neon gradient look. Here is the original post from February 2013! There is a cute story behind these nails because my boyfriend at the time (and current one, we're still dating) told me in detail exactly how I should do these nails and which colour to do on each nail! I just painted a black base and asked him what I should do and this is exactly what he said, down to the ring finger orange accent nail :).

I remember noticing that if you just sponged on a neon colour once or twice it looked like a dark version of the colour, so it really isn't difficult to make a smooth gradient with sheerer polishes like neons. I'm not sure why I didn't think that was as important as it was at the time haha, live and learn!

I almost used the exact same polishes as I did last time for this, but I switched out the Orly black for a more opaque (one-coater!) black; Revlon Espresso. The rest of the polishes are the same, American Apparel Neon Yellow, American Apparel Neon Green, and China Glaze Sun Worshipper! I also switched top coats to a 3-free one because that's really important to me, and as I've said many times I use Essie Good to Go!

I totally screwed up the colour scheme here as you can probably tell, I got distracted watching a crazy movie! What do you guys think of this version of this mani?

Thank you so much for reading guys! I hope I can keep improving and doing posts like this every year! I also hope you've all had a lovely first week back at school and work! =)

Yume Lacquer Swatches and Review: Submerged Siren, Sunken Treasure, Queen Of The Ring and Photographic Evidence!

Hey everyone! Today I have a quick swatch and review of four Yume Lacquer polishes* to share!

Today was my first day back at school and as I expected, it was totally fine. I think I was just being a baby and enjoying my break so I really didn't want to go back haha! I already like all of my teachers and one of them is really funny! Anyways, let's make this quick and to the point because I just did pilates (sort of, there were bits I couldn't do) and I'm crashing. I swear she makes the Monday workouts the hardest of the week as if Mondays don't suck enough already! :P

First up is Submerged Siren, a shimmery and slightly duochromatic blue polish inspired by Sailor Neptune!

The formula was a breeze to work with as I've come to expect with Yume Lacquer polishes! I felt like there were a few clumps of unmixed pigment in mine (see my middle finger and thumb nail) but a coat of top coat would smooth that right out!

The fact that you can still see those bumps shows that these pictures are without top coat, and they're also just two coats of the polish!

Next we have Sunken Treasure, a charcoal grey polish with shimmer and different-sized glitters, inspired by Final Fantasy 5!

The formula on this one was slightly thick than the others but still entirely manageable! It's also pretty bumpy due to all of the glitters so I'd suggest a thick coat of top coat or two!

Like almost all Yume Lacquer polishes this baby was easily a two-coater, and I also slapped a coat of top coat on top to combat the bumpiness caused by all that glitter!

Next up we have Queen Of The Ring, a dark green crelly polish with long black bar glitter, inspired by Persona 2!

This polish was a little hard to apply, only because I was trying to avoid having a bar glitter stick out onto my cuticle or not lay completely on the nail!

What you see here is two coats plus two coats of top coat for maximum squishiness!

Lastly we have Photographic Evidence, a grey crelly base with tiny gold glitters throughout! I think my bottle wasn't fully mixed because as you can see, there were a lot of pigment clumps throughout the bottle.

The formula on this one was lovely as well, easy to control due to a slight thickness!

This is the only three-coater I received from Yume Lacquer and that's amazing for indie polishes! I didn't apply top coat over this polish so this is just three coats and no top coat!

Thanks so much for reading everyone, I hope you're all having a lovely time coming back to reality haha! Let me know which one of these is your favourite in the comments!

*These polishes were sent for swatches and an honest review.

Glitter Placement Nail Art Inspired by Polish All The Nails!

Hey everyone! Today I have some individually-placed glitter nail art to share!

Today is day four of January (obviously) and naturally, it's also day four of the Blogilates January workout calendar! I've actually done all three days so far (minus the run and treadmill bits of day one and two :P) and yesterday I was sorer than I ever thought was possible! It was a cardio dance day yesterday and holy crap, I sweated SO much. I stretched afterwards and today I'm feeling a lot less sore, which is amazing because I could hardly walk yesterday! Today is arms and abs day and I'm really not strong in my abs anymore so I'm a little scared! It has actually been at least two years since I've done any real exercise (horrible, I know) so in a way it was nice to sweat so much!  If any of you are doing these workouts or want to start, we can be workout buddies and motivate each other! =)

Onto the nails! These were inspired by these nails by the amazing master of glitter placement manis, Laura of Polish All The Nails! The gold glitters are holographic and the rest are metallic, and the base is two coats of the famous OPI My Vampire Is Buff!

I think this is the first year I've set New Year's resolutions for myself and so far they're working out pretty well! A big one is to not cram and procrastinate at school and study a little everyday… I'd be so proud of myself if I did that! Have you guys made any New Year's resolutions this year? Let me know how they're working out in the comments! =)

I also think this is the first time that I haven't gotten bored over the holidays and that I don't actually want to go back to school :P. I have one more course this semester than last semester and I'm hoping it won't take up too much of my time! I really hope I'll still be able to blog and paint my nails every three days!

If you guys want to see a video of the gold holographic glitters in action check out my Instagram here! My phone camera isn't so great and I'm not sure how I feel about embedding Instagram videos in my posts anymore, what do you guys think?

I have a few fun posts planned for you guys in the near future; another Yume Lacquer swatch and review post and an updated collection post! I'm really excited to write up the collection post because I'm curious to see how many polishes I have now! I'm just waiting on one more package of polish because I was fortunate enough to be one of the winners in that huge Indie Makers Unite Giveaway!

Here is my right hand! It looks just about the same as the other hand from a small distance away so I'm happy with it for sure!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! Is anyone else dreading going back to school or work or are you guys back already? Let me know! :)

Rainbow Honey The Kraken over Butter London Slapper!

Hey everyone! Today I have another lovely Rainbow Honey polish to share!

I'm sorry I haven't been posting quite as often as usual guys, I've been feeling a bit off and though I've been excited to blog I've been having trouble coming up with anything to say. Usually I talk about my day or my yesterday but recently I've been finding all of my writing and transitions especially awkward :P. I also haven't posted my last three or more manis anywhere but here and Instagram, so I need to get caught up on that too! So hopefully today I'll be able to write like normal and catch up on posting everything everywhere! :)

Another thing I have to do soon is try and fit all of my nail polish on my nail polish racks! I'm pretty sure it has gotten to the point where they won't all fit, maybe that's why I've been putting off trying to put them all back :P. I will definitely post an updated collection post when the polishes on their way to me get here!

Now, onto the nails! I started off with one coat of Butter London Slapper, a neonish teal polish that is a little more green than it looks in these pictures (the bottle-holding picture is close to accurate, still too blue though). I didn't add a top coat for the pictures so what you see is just one coat of Slapper over two coats of base coat because this baby stains!

Next I added a coat of Rainbow Honey The Kraken and a coat of top coat. I really love this polish! It has a perfect formula and the glitters are perfectly suspended in the base so there's no need to reverse the bottle before polishing!

The large gold hexes in this beauty are holographic which is always a bonus! I'm really falling in love with Rainbow Honey polishes and I would definitely recommend ordering from them if you're thinking about it!

I should note this polish is quite opaque on its own and it would probably be a two-coater, so there's no need for undies! I just decided to use them because even though I use the foil method to remove glitter, the glitter tends to make my nails peel so I always have little bumps on my nails :(. You can see what I'm talking about on my middle finger in the pictures of Slapper and other swatches I've posted recently for that matter :P. I did get a really nice buffer in a nail set from my cousin for Christmas so I'll definitely try that after I take these off! I get scared about buffing my nails too much because I don't want to reverse all of the work that OPI Nail Envy has done in thickening and strengthening my nails! :P

Thank you so much for reading guys :), what do you think of The Kraken? And how are you guys doing? Is anyone else a little glad to relax at home after all of the Christmas dinner and Boxing Day madness? Let me know in the comments! =)

Rainbow Honey Haul and Snowflake Nail Art featuring Mint Flavor!

Hey everyone, today I have some snowflake nail art, a swatch of Rainbow Honey Mint Flavor, and a Rainbow Honey haul to share!

I recently ordered a huge package of Rainbow Honey polishes and now that I'm off school I have so much time to play with them! As you can see below, I picked up the entire Summer of 199X collection, part three of the Final Battle collection, Tera Flare, Cranberry Sangria (I picked this one out but it was included for free for spending forty dollars or more), and Persephone which was thrown in as a surprise! I can't tell you guys how excited I am to use them! Be sure to let me know if you'd like to see any of these swatched before other ones, I'd be more than happy to oblige!

Aren't the boxes amazing? Everything about this brand is incredibly professional!

Here they all are for you guys to see! I think it'll be easy enough to describe which ones you'd like to see from this picture, so I won't bother listing all of the names here!

And here we have Mint Flavor, the only one of the eighteen I've tried so far! I have to say that the formula was perfect, not too thick or thin and quick-drying! Also, this beauty was almost a one-coater so what you see here is two easy coats and a coat of top coat!

I wore this on it's own for a day and I fell in love! It has the most gorgeous white or green shimmer (not sure, it looks more green in the bottle and more white on the nail) that makes it perfect for summer, winter or anywhere in between in my opinion!

Also, I fell in love with this new hand position for bottle-holding pictures! It's even perfect for Instagram! What do you guys think of it? :)

I then went in with a polish I just swatched a couple of days ago, Candy Nail Polish Egg Nog! I used a small paintbrush that I cut some bristles off of for the snowflakes, and a dotting tool for the dots!

I followed MrCandiipants' tutorial for these snowflakes (mostly because she's hilarious), but since my paintbrush was a lot thicker these look quite a bit different!

I don't really like the addition of the dots, but I'm really happy that I've finally managed to master consistent dotting!

Thanks so much for reading everyone, how are you guys doing? I'm so sorry that I haven't replied to comments in a while, I seriously love when you guys comment on my posts! I'll get onto that right now! :)