Sunday Stamping - Art Nouveau

Hey there!  It's Sunday Stamping day...and it's my birthday!  Usually I curse and cry about everything to do with my birthday but I've actually had a really good day.  Went for breakfast, chilled and watched the Food Network (even though I don't cook) and went for dinner.  And now it's onto beer with Walking Dead and Newsroom, a Sunday ritual with one of my friends.  And no emotional breakdowns :-)

Enough about me.  Today's Sunday theme is Art Nouveau and I didn't have the slightest clue what Art Nouveau meant.  Luckily I found this post from the lovely Meghan of Will Paint Nails for Food and, since she's an artsy kind of lady, it kind of gave me an idea of what kind of stamping images to look for.  I opted for a simple black and white look with lots of flowy lines like Meghan's post mentioned.

Matte Stamped Gradient Nails

Hey there!  Let me start with saying a belated Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the US.  I hope you're all stuffed with turkey and enjoying the insane Black Friday sales I hear you guys have down there.  Black Friday is just starting to be a thing up here in Canada but since there was a massive snowstorm here yesterday (around 30 cm or 12 inches in one day) I'm too scared to drive to the mall to see what's on sale.  But I did buy a couple small things online.

Now onto today's mani.  This is one I did a few weeks ago when it first got cold but it kept getting neglected when it came to posting even though I loved it.  It has a bit of everything... Gradient? Yes.  Glitter topper?  Yes.  Stamping?  Yes.  And mattified?  Yes!  Keep reading to see all the steps.

10.1 Polish Frosted Sheers Leadlighting

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Hey there!  Last week I posted a gradient I had done with the 10.1 Polish Frosted Sheers and mentioned how much I had loved playing with them.  Today I wanted to show you how versatile these are and share some leadlighting I did using them MoYou London Explorer-03.  I've seen some fantastic examples of manis using these images and wanted to try it out myself.

A England Brush Stroke Nail Art

Hey there!  For this week's Crumpet's Nail Tarts 52 Week Challenge the prompts were brush stroke and favourite brand.  Well I can't exactly pinpoint my favourite brand since I have a few but A England is definitely on the list.  So I did some easy peasy brush stroke nails using a few A England polishes.   I picked A England because they're always so opaque that they show up nicely with one quick stroke!

Sunday Stamping - Things I'm Thankful For

Hey there!  This week's Sunday Stamping theme is "I'm thankful for..."  While Canadian Thanksgiving was last month, this week is American thanksgiving so I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty of related mani's from our American friends.  I have two mani's to share with you today.  Neither look like Thanksgiving in the least but they really do represent things I'm thankful for.  The more serious one is this one.  It might sound silly to people that aren't a part of it themselves but I'm incredibly thankful for nail polish and the community that comes with it.  I started my blog during a pretty lonely period and I have to say it was one of the best things I've ever done for my mental state.  You guys help keep me a lot less sad than I used to be so thank you!  

Real Feather Nail Art

Hey there!  A couple of weeks ago in a Facebook group I'm in, someone picked the theme of doing mani's using real feathers.  I remember these being sort of popular awhile back so I bought a bunch of feathers, tried to use them once and failed miserably.  Since then my feathers have been collecting dust.  But I busted them out again for the challenge to use them here where I combined real feathers and stamped feathers.

Sponge-Free Rainbow Gradient Nails with 10.1 Polish Frosted Sheers

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Hey there!  I mentioned the other day that I spent a good chunk of last weekend playing with the Frosted Sheers collection from 10.1 Polish and I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was to receive them.  I use the Icing collection all the time.  I find they're particularly good for leadlighting because they're vibrant but still sheer jellies.  So when I heard they were coming out with sheers with a holo twist, I jumped for joy.  And then jumped even more when I was offered them to play around with.

The first thing I tried with them was this - a rainbow gradient.  And the best part is that, because they are jellies, there was no sponge (and therefore, no mess) involved!

Bookshelf Stamping Decals

Hey there!  This week's prompts for the Crumpet's Nail Tart's 52 Week Challenge are "brown" and "book".  I love reading.  Particularly in the summer at the cabin, I can get lost in a good book and read an entire book in a day.  And yet anytime I look through my bookshelf for inspiration, I always come up short.  So instead of picking a single book for my inspiration, I made some stamping decals of an entire bookshelf.

Lacquer Lust Unicorn Porn & Bundle Monster Tinsel

Nothing to Disclose
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Hey there!  How was everyone's weekend?  Mine was pretty great.  I spent most of it playing with 10.1 Polish's Sheer Holos collection (I'll be sharing some of the results later this week) and I spent some time at my parents' place.  My lovely dad put my winter tires on my car and my darling mom made me Sunday dinner.  I love that I have such good parents even though I'm fully grown...I bet they never thought they'd be taking care of me this long :-P

Today's post features a nail polish I had to have paired with some Bundle Monster tinsel strips to create a sparkly rainbow look.

Sunday Stamping - Leadlight Technique

Hey there!  Wow, I have not been up to writing lately.  Writing has always been the hardest part of blogging for me and it seems particularly bad lately.  It's as though my head is out of words...which is funny because my head never shuts up.  Anyways, because of this lack of words, I have a later-than-planned Sunday Stamping post tonight.  This week's theme was the Leadlight Technique.  I love lead lighting so I thought I'd use the opportunity to show what I actually wore on my nails this past Tuesday on Remembrance Day. 

smART Nail Stencils (with a giveaway!)

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Nothing to Disclose

Hey there!  I was recently approached by smART Nails to review some of their nail stencils designs.  After doing a bit of research I was really intrigued by these stencils because they have a few unique features don't seem very common in the other stencils on the market.  I chose to show a couple of designs here: an easy line pattern and a double-stencilled lily.  Please follow the jump to see my thoughts on them (spoiler: I really liked them), a quick tutorial AND a Rafflecopter giveaway for three lucky readers for 5 smART Nail designs.

Celestial Cosmetics Eternal Peace & November LE swatches

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Hey there!  I have a couple more Celestial Cosmetics swatches to show you today.  While the previous Celestial swatches I showed you were dark and vampy, these ones are bright and cheerful.  This is Eternal Peace (a Color4Nails exclusive color) and the November LE 2014 shade.  Follow the jump to read my full review.

Stamping Polish Comparison

Hey there!  Today's post is something I've been wanting to put together for a long time but have always been a bit daunted by the task...a stamping polish comparison.  So be warned, this is probably going to be a long post.  But if you've been curious about how different polishes compare in the world of stamping, I'm hoping you'll find it worth it to stick around.

With all the specialty stamping polishes that are out there (Mundo de Unas, Konad, Rica, Mentality, etc.) where do you choose to invest your hard-earned money?  Well I get a tad spend-happy at times and I've been tempted to try almost all of them.  And what about drugstore brands?  Do any of them work for stamping?  If you've looked into stamping at all, you've probably seen that a good rule of thumb is that if it's a one-coater (ie. will get full coverage as a regular polish in one coat), it might work for stamping so give it a shot.

Remembrance Day Nails

Hey there!  It is just past 11 am here on Remembrance Day here so I thought now would be an appropriate time to post this poppy nail stamping I did yesterday.  I'm unsure of what happens elsewhere in the world but in Canada we observe two minutes of silence at 11 am to commemorate the end of World War I.  We also wear these poppies as a symbol of remembrance for those who have served.

Sunday Stamping - Wildlife Nail Art

Hey there!  Today's nails work as a 2-for-1 challenge post.  This week's Sunday stamping theme is Wildlife Nails AND The Crumpet's Nail Tart's 52 Week Challenge theme is Wild Animals/Yellow.  I suppose I could post two wildlife mani's in one week but I love how these turned out so much that I didn't think I could top them.  This is one of my favorite stamping plates: MoYou London Explorer -10.  I've used it before but I only posted it on Instagram so I figured I could definitely use it again for these themes over a fan brush base.

Celestial Cosmetics Bon Temps Collection Swatches

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Hey there!  I have a brand new collection to share with you guys today.  The Bon Temps collection is a collaborative effort between the Australian indie brand, Celestial Cosmetics, and the U.S. distributor Color4Nails that is based on one of my all-time favorite TV Shows, True Blood.  I do love the collaborations between these two companies.  First there was the Seven Kingdoms collection then the Electric You collection and now this collection of shimmery, vampy polishes that is perfect fall and winter.

Powder Perfect Swatches

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Hey there!  Today I have four shades from a new-to-me indie Aussie brand, Powder Perfect that Color4Nails launched today.  I'm sure I've said it before but the Australians must have some sort of nail polish magic over there because this brand is on par with the other great Aussie indies.  Follow the jump to see my full swatches of these beauties.

Blue Color Block Nail Art

Hey there!  This week's Crumpet's Nail Tart's 52 Week Challenge had the option of choosing "3 shades of blue" as a theme and I definitely had to pick it.  My reasoning?  I love blue, it's that simple. And I've never really done color block nail art before so I thought I'd give it a go here.

A England Elizabeth & Mary collection swatches

Hey there!  I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween weekend.  If you follow me on Instagram you might have seen that I was super excited to receive my order of the entire A England Elizabeth & Mary collection.  I was so excited, in fact, that I spent my Halloween night swatching all of them so I figured I would share them right away.

Sunday Stamping - White and Gold Nails

Hey there!  Today's Sunday stamping challenge theme is "white and gold" which leaves it pretty open.  I came up with this skittlette mani to go with this theme.  I'm always happy to have an excuse to wear my favourite gold polish, OPI Goldeneye.  

Lacy Sugar Skull Nail Stamping

Hey there!  11 pm on a Saturday and I'm a bit bored so I thought I'd post these sugar skull nails I did with one of the new MoYou London Gothic plates.  I did some reverse leadlighting with the 10.1 Polish Icing collection so add some color to the final look.