Big Little Lies-inspired Nail Art

Hey there!  When Lindsey of Wondrously Polished started a Facebook book club called The Polished Bookworms for those of us who love nail polish AND reading I jumped at the chance to take part.  Every month we'll be reading a book voted on by the members and then, at the end of the month, posting our mani's inspired by the book.  This month's book is Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty, a suspenseful fiction book.  I don't want to give anything away but, in order to explain this mani, I will say it starts with some champagne-induced bonding and has some "fizzy pink drinks" that play into the most revealing scene.

Stained Glass Flowers with ILNP Flakies

Hey there!  This week's Crumpet's Nail Tarts 52 Week Challenge theme that I decided to go with was "non-glitter topper" (the other was was fishbraid and, as it turns out, those are IMPOSSIBLE for me). I don't have many non-glitter toppers but I do have a few of the new ILNP Ultra Chrome Flakies and flakes aren't glitter!  Phew!  I actually had this idea in my head for awhile and, while it was kinda of a pain in the butt to make stamping decals with the flakies, I think it turned out pretty good!  I couldn't decide if I liked it more glossy or matte so I'm showing them both today.

F.U.N. Lacquer Burnin' Up (H) Stamped

Hey there!  I have a quick post to show you how I wore one of the newer F.U.N. Lacquer polishes recently.  I was going to show you another pastel mani but figured you might need a break from all my spring colors even though it's still the dead of winter (though it's feeling very spring-like where I am...which is pretty concerning to me).  Anyways, I really only discovered F.U.N. Lacquer a few months ago and now I want all the polishes!  This is the holo version of Burnin' Up with stamping from a Cici & Sisi plate.   

Sunday Stamping - Over A Blue Base

Hey there!  I know it's pretty late at night for a Sunday stamping post but I have two hours left in Sunday so why waste the mani I did this week.  This week's theme was a pretty simple one - over a blue base.  And I did some simple stamping to go along with it. 

China Glaze Watercolor Nail Art

Hey there!  Today's post is another one from the vault.  I don't think I can ever leave spring colors alone because, like my last post, these also look pretty spring-y.  These look hard but they're so easy! I'm officially in love with watercolor nail art!  Keep reading to see which China Glaze colors I used.

Messy Mansion Floral Stamping Decals

Hey there!  Well, since my first Digit-al Dozen month had me do 10 mani's in order to find 5 I liked, I've fallen a bit behind on doing non-themed nail art so I thought it'd be a good time to clean out the vault of things I've done and never blogged.  I did these almost two months ago and quite liked them but they kept getting pushed back in order to blog challenges, etc.  So here's some (very old) floral stamping decals I wore.

Smoky Nail Art

Hey there!  I decided to go out on limb a bit for this week's 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge.  The themes for this week are "green and yellow" and/or fire.  I thought I'd go with the old saying of "where there's smoke, there's fire" and do this green and yellow smoky nail art.  Kind of look like the beginning of Breaking Bad, don't you think?

Sunday Stamping - Using 3 colors to stamp

Hey there!  This week's Sunday stamping challenge is using 3 colors to stamp.  I decided to use this pretty peacock pattern from one of the Born Pretty Store plates and a few Hit The Bottle stamping polishes (reviewed here) to get this easy peasy look.

The Digit-al Dozen Does Fairy Tales: Day 5 The Everyday Fairy Tale (and the extras)

Hey there!  It's the final day of my first week with The Digit-al Dozen and it's been so much fun seeing how all the ladies have interpreted the fairy tale theme.  For my final mani of the week I thought I'd represent the fairy tale that many people get to live, even if they don't see it that way :-P  As a single girl, I do still dream of one day meeting my Prince Charming and living happily ever after.  Even though these aren't based on what we think of as a fairy tale, I think these are my favourite ones of mine this week.  What do you think?

The Digit-al Dozen Does Fairy Tales: Day 4 Frozen Nail Stamping

Hey there!  Today I continue on with the week of Fairy Tales along with the rest of The Digit-al Dozen.  Today's mani is a bit of a stretch when calling it a fairy tale.  Frozen, the uber-popular Disney movie that I'm sure every parent is sick of, is based on a classic fairy tale called The Snow Queen but, according to Wikipedia, changed so much by the time it was done that it no longer resembled the original story.  But that's not to say it isn't a modern day fairy tale according to this definition, right?

Color Club Holographic Gradient

Hey there!  Wow, two posts in one day...yikes!  But, even though I'm in the middle of the Digit-al Dozen's Fairy Tale week, I couldn't forget about the 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge now could I?  One of this week's themes were holo and who doesn't love a good holo?  The first ones I remember being wowed by were Color Club's Halo Hues so that's what I used here along with a few Nail Vinyls.

The Digit-al Dozen Does Fairy Tales: Day 3 Hansel and Gretel

Hey there!  Halfway through my first week of being a Digit-al Dozen member and so far, so fun!  I was iffy on today's mani because I wasn't quite sure if it put across the Hansel and Gretel vibe I was going for.  But it does feature a polish created by one of our own, Meghan of Will Paint Nails For Food's Picture Polish collaboration shade!  I had to keep this one in based on that alone.

The Digit-al Dozen Does Fairy Tales: Day 2 Disney Princess Dresses

Hey there!  In case you didn't see yesterday, I'm a new member of The Digit-al Dozen!  Woohoo!  This week's theme is fairy tales and, honestly, who doesn't think of Disney when they think of fairy tales?  I certainly do so here is the first of the couple of Disney-themed manis I'll be posting this week.  Since I have a 4 year old niece who is VERY into Disney princesses, I did some nail art inspired by their dresses...how girly of me eh?

The Digit-al Dozen Does Fairy Tales: Day 1 Fairy Tale Book Cover

Hey there!  Did you see the title?!  I have been invited to be part of The Digit-al Dozen!  I have been such a huge fan of this group of nail artists for so long that, the day I was invited, I was convinced that my invitation was a mistake but it wasn't!  In fact, it was the best birthday gift I could have asked for!  The veterans of the group have been very supportive of us newbies as we embark on the first Digit-al Dozen theme for 2015.  The theme is Fairy Tales which has been a challenging one for me.  As you'll see this week, I went all over the place with it so I'm sure I'll be doing lots of explaining.  

Today I'm showing the first fairy tale-themed mani I thought of and it turned out to be one of my favourites.  My middle sister bought me this Grimm's Fairy Tales book a year or two ago because I loved the cover of it.  It looks all scary and ominous, like old fairy tales are if you read them.  We're all used to fairy tales with their happy endings but some of them are downright terrifying!  So here's a sort of haunted forest for today.

Sunday Stamping - Plate Ending with 0

Hey there!  This week's Sunday stamping challenge prompt is "plate ending with 0".  I've been swamped this week/weekend (you'll see why tomorrow) but luckily just last week I had worn a mani that fit the theme *phew*.  I got it in my head that I really wanted a super light purple with rose gold stamping mattified.  I don't know exactly where that came from but I went out and bought Essie Lilacism just to satisfy it.  I don't question why I have so many nail polishes....I'm all about instant gratification.

Necklace-Inpsired Meteorite Nail Art

Hey there!  Happy Friday guys!  I thought I'd throw together a really quick post to show off the necklace that my lovely sister bought me for Christmas this year.  A few weeks ago the Adventures In Stamping Sunday theme was "My Christmas Wishlist On My Nails".  My wishlist consisted of only this necklace so I stamped a shooting star over Picture Polish Midnite Meteor here.  Well it turns out that my sis knows me so well that she had already ordered the necklace (that has a piece of a real meteorite on it!) even before I even mentioned it.  What a girl!  

So this week I wanted to try a freehand meteor mani but this time over Picture Polish Cosmos.  And that's what we have here.  The first photo even has the famous necklace.

ILNP Electric Carnival Swatch

Nothing to Disclose

Hey there!  I don't post many single polish swatches but I wore ILNP Electric Carnival, one of the new Ultra Chrome Flakies, awhile ago and just loved it.  It was so cool that I couldn't stop taking pictures of it and I really wanted to share it with you guys.

Pink and Aqua Dotticure

Hey there!  Today I have this week's installment of the Crumpet's Nail Tarts 52 Week Challenge.  I managed to combine the themes of Pink and Aqua and Dotting Tools.  But since I just did a dotticure last week, I thought I'd add some stamping too.  My city has been ridiculously cold this week (and the heat froze up in my apartment night before last...that was fun) so I love that this one looks like straight up Hawaii!

Guest Post at My Life In Turquoise

Hey there!  I can't believe I forgot about my very first guest post ever going up today!  Awhile back Hetal from My Life In Turquoise asked if I would do a guest post while she's on vacation for a few weeks and of course I had to agree...can't let a fellow Canadian down!  So please head over to her blog here to see my non-winter mani in all its glory, haha!

'Til next time...

Hit The Bottle Stamping Polish Review

Press  Sample

Hey there!  Back to work this week....blah!  But to combat my back-to-work blues I thought I'd share an awesome new stamping polish brand that comes from Australia...and we all know how great the polish coming out of Australia is!  My friend Michelle (who you might know from Break Rules, Not Nails) shares my love of stamping and has started making her own brand of stamping polish called Hit The Bottle Polish.  She was sweet enough to send me 11 of her colors to test out and I couldn't resist sharing them with you guys.

Negative Space Leadlighting

Hey there!  I know I've been complaining about how crazy December was and it has caught up to me and gotten me sick right in time to go back to work tomorrow.  At least I think it has.  Maybe my super immune system will kick in and I'll be good to go by morning but today all I've done is eat and sleep.  Good thing I did my Sunday stamping mani a few days ago!  This week's theme is Negative Space Nails.  Usually negative space nails would keep a lot more naked nail than I'm showing here but, trust me, that's for your own good.  You don't want to see too much of my nails naked but if you must, you can see them after the jump.  Instead, I did some stamping on almost naked nails and then  filled most of it in with the leadlighting technique. 

New Years Eve Scaled Gradient Nails

Hey there!  Happy New Year friends!  It's kinda late but I'm going to try to break my blog silence by quickly sharing what I wore out for New Years Eve last night.  I was going to post them last night before I went out but I ran out of time between doing them and leaving.  I wore a gold and black scaled gradient that I first learned about on Simply Nailogical.  I've tried a scaled gradient before and loved it but I didn't love how these ones turned out so I wasn't super sad when they started lifting halfway through the night.