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!

Above the Curve Friday the 13th Swatch and Review!

Hey guys! Today I have a swatch and review of a lovely Above the Curve polish to share!

I'm going to start right off by saying this polish currently sold out, but it's coming back on Friday, June 13th! I know that is quite a ways away, but I'm too in love with this to not share! This baby is called Friday the 13th and it's easily one of my favourite polishes already! I also picked up another polish when I ordered this one, so soon I can show you one that is available now, Merry & Bright!

Yesterday was arms and abs day on the Blogilates calendar and dang, my arms are weak. I think it was a pretty bad decision on my part to do the arm video before the four abs ones, seeing as the ab videos involved planks and other arm-dependant exercises. It was a real struggle getting through the ab videos and I had to take a lot of breaks. I should probably do some arm videos or exercises everyday so I can work my other weakest part, my abs.

Now, onto the polish! Friday the 13th is a dark brown creme stuffed with linear holographic pigment. I seriously love brown polishes, especially gorgeous indie ones like this! I included four pictures that I took outside of the light box, but I'm going to go ahead and insert an Instagram video to really show the holo goodness!

Gorgeous right? I could seriously wear this polish everyday, except I'd feel bad not touching any of my other three hundred or so polishes!

The formula on this polish was insanely good. This is ONE coat of this polish and not even a thick one! It's crazy how holographic this polish is considering how opaque it is!

Can you tell how blown away I am with this polish? This brand is one of my favourites already just because of this beauty. They have tons of other awesome holos so definitely check those out if you love this one like I do!

Here are a few pictures with my lamps but without the light box to show off the holographic effect! I guess it's either not quite a linear holo polish or it also contains scattered holo pieces, meaning it looks amazing in any light!

It looks like the most beautiful holographic liquid chocolate, I almost want to eat it! It definitely makes me crave some chocolate!

What do you guys think of this polish or post? Too many pictures? Let me know in the comments!

Thank you so much for reading everyone! How was your week? I've been doing assignments and labs as I get them, so for once I'm a little ahead of the game and not procrastinating! I hope you're all doing well and having a relaxing Sunday, I'll talk to you soon!

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! =)

2013 Review Rainbow!

Hey everyone! Today I have a quick compilation of my favourite nail art from 2013!

I've gained quite a few followers on many different social platforms lately (thank you so much!!) and considering the month we're in, I decided it was a great idea to show you guys some stuff you might have missed! Looking back I realized that I actually managed to do some nail art that I still love today early last year, despite the fact that I was fairly new to the whole nails and nail art game! It's also interesting to look at all of the different lightings I've used, some of which make my skin look completely the wrong colour!

I decided to pick one manicure from each colour/shade that I liked the best for this post. I included which month each mani was done in and I also linked the corresponding post below each picture!

Red:

Red Nails with Rhinestones and Random Shapes! - June 2013

Orange:

Essie Dry Brush Mani :) - May 2013

Yellow:

OPI's Honey Ryder and Flower Stamping! - July 2013

Green:

Sinful Colors Mint Apple with Diamond Holographic Glitter! - July 2013

Blue:

Born Pretty Store Flower Water Decal Review and a Gradient! - December 2013

Purple:

More Simple Floral Nail Art! - September 2013

Pink:

Holographic Glitter Gradient over Pink and Grey! - June 2013

White:

Black and White Random Designs! - September 2013

Black:

Color Club Halo Hues Swatches: Over The Moon and Beyond =) - June 2013

Brown:

Bird Nail Art To Match My Scarf! :) - July 2013

Multicoloured:

Mosaic Tile Nail Art! - September 2013

Thank you so much for reading everyone! Which of these are your favourites? I'd love to know! Mine are the bird scarf ones and the mosaic tile ones! :)

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.