The Bell Jar Nail Art

Hey there!  Yup, another double posting day.  It just so happens that the last day of the month (The Polish Bookworms day) falls on a Sunday (Sunday stamping challenge day) and since I skipped last week's Sunday stamping theme, I didn't want to skip another one.  And since I also wanted to show you guys my nail art inspired by this month's The Polished Bookworms book of the month, you get a double dose of me and my blabbing.

This month's book was The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath.  I've never read any Plath before so just in case you don't know about her, she's a Pulitzer prize willing poet/writer.  The Bell Jar is about a woman's descent into depression.  Apparently this book has a lot of parallels to Plath's own life, who was also clinically depressed causing her to, tragically, commit suicide at just 30 years old.

Sunday Stamping - Reptile Skin Nails

Hey there!  This week's Sunday stamping challenge theme is Snakeskin & Other Reptiles.  I do love scaly stamping patterns.  For this time around I used a pattern I hadn't tried before.  I'm not sure what reptile the pattern is meant to be but I was thinking of it as a "disco snake" since this is way more sparkly and colourful than any reptile I've ever seen in real life.  Maybe it's a sparkly chameleon!

UberChic Beauty Geek Love-01 Stamping Plate Review

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Hey there!  To continue on with my UberChic Beauty stamping plate review, I have one specialty plate that I was sent, the Geek Love plate.  UberChic has recently come out with a few specialty plates with more specific themes than the original collections, including Geek Love, Hipster, Alphabet and Number plates.  I was definitely interested in the Geek Love plate and Brittany was sweet enough to include it along with Collection 3 for me to play with.  Here's the first two designs I used from this plate.  I may have already done a third that I'll be sharing next week...

UberChic Beauty UC 3-03 Stamping Plate Review

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Hey there!  If you've been checking out the blog this week, you'll have seen that I've reviewed plates 1 and 2 from UberChic Beauty's Collection 3 of stamping plates so it shouldn't be too surprising that today I have a couple of mani's I've done with the third and final plate of this collection.  For both of them I did double stamping (usually one of my nemeses).

UberChic Beauty UC 3-02 Stamping Plate Review

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Hey there!  Today I'm continuing on with my review of the latest UberChic Beauty stamping plate collection, Collection 3.  Today I have three designs I used from plate 3-02.  This plate has some really fine detailed etching so I wanted to test out a couple of those designs, as well as one of the bolder patterns on the plate.  Follow the jump to see all the details.

UberChic Beauty UC 3-01 Stamping Plate Review

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Hey there!  For the rest of this week I'm planning on showing you how I spent my weekend.  Last week I received a few of UberChic Beauty's newest stamping plates for review.  I can't begin to tell you how excited I was to get these.  I absolutely adore her plates from Collection 1 and 2 and Collection 3 definitely doesn't disappoint.  Just like the first two collections, the etching in these are perfect with lots of awesome new designs.  Today I'm showing you two mani's I did with plate UC  3-01.

Patchwork Denim Nail Art

Hey there!  Happy Memorial Day for those of you in the US.  I hope you're enjoying your holiday.  We, in Canada, had a long weekend last week so I'm stuck at work today even though the weather is absolutely gorgeous today.  Anyways, today I have this week's instalment of the Crumpet's Nail Tart's 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge.  The themes for this week are Patchwork and Bright & Happy so I did a denim look inspired by the amazing @ka_yee_or on Instagram with bright and happy patches.  I am so happy with how these turned.  I was so sad to take them off.

Circle Stamping Skittles

Hey there!  Today's post is a leftover mani I had from The Digit-al Dozen's geometric theme last week.  I had originally wanted to do something other than straight lines so I did some circle stamping with BP-003 in a skittle fashion.  I'm not usually one for skittle nails so I guess that's why they got bumped for all the straight line manis I ended up posting last week.

Teal and Lilac Dotticure

Hey there!  Today I have another instalment of the Crumpet's Nail Tarts 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge.  One of this week's theme is "lilac and teal" so I used is as an opportunity to pair the Girly Bits/Glam Polish It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere duo in an easy dotticure.

Neon Striped Nail Art

Hey there!  It's a holiday Monday here in Alberta so I got home from the cabin earlier today.  I'm spending my night trying to figure out what to put on my nails for the next couple days but it's getting late.  Any ideas?  But for my post today I have a quick easy striped nail art look that was so bright that it got lots of attention, even if my right hand looked like a child did it.

Sunday Stamping - Leopard Print Chevrons

Hey there!  I know, I know I'm very late for my Sunday Stamping post.  I'm at the family's cabin for the long weekend and to say getting service up here is challenging would be an understatement.  But it appears I have a bit of signal at the moment so I'm using it while I can.  This week's theme was animal print and chevrons and I took it as an opportunity to use my brand new Messy Mansion's Accessories Kit 2.0 which happens to have a chevron stencil in it.

The Digit-al Dozen does Geometric: Day 5 Art Deco Stamping

Hey there!  It's the final day of The Digit-al Dozen's Geometric week.  Today's post is going to be pretty quick because I have to get myself out of town.  It's a long weekend here so I'm headed to the lake.  These nails were sort of Great Gatsby-inspired.  I wasn't sure what to title them but I'm reasonably sure that it's art deco style so that's what I'm going with.

The Digit-al Dozen does Geometric: Day 4 Picture Polish Color Block Nails

Hey there!  For the fourth day of The Digit-al Dozen's Geometric week I have a pretty simple color block mani.  It's not the cleanest color block ever but it's the first one I tried and  it was really quick thanks to the awesome coverage of the Picture Polish Urban Shades that were released last year.

The Digit-al Dozen does Geometric: Day 3 Triangle Nail Stencils

Hey there!  Today is Day 3 of The Digit-al Dozen's Geometric-themed week and I think today's look is my favourite of the bunch that I did.  To create this sparkly triangular nail art I used some triangle nail stencils that I bought from Vinyl Boutique just to be able to use them this week and I love how they turned out, if I do say so myself.

The Digit-al Dozen does Geometric: Day 2 80's Decals

Hey there!  It's Day 2 of The Digit-al Dozen's Geometric week.  Yesterday Vic from Glowstars said you can't do geometric without referencing the 80's and I fully agree with her. These are my 80's-inspired geometric nails that I did by making polish into decals.

Taupe Paisley Nail Stamping

Hey there!  Unfortunately this week I wasn't able to combine the Digit-al Dozen and 52 Week Pick N Mix Challenge themes so I'm double posting today.  Hope you don't get sick and tired of me!  This week's prompts were Paisley and Taupe so I did some quick and easy paisley stamping.  I once tried to freehand a paisley pattern but never again....stamping is just able to give me much more intricate and beautiful patterns than my own two hands will ever be able to.

The Digit-al Dozen does Geometric: Day 1 Holographic Hexagons

Hey there!  This Monday brings you the start of another Digit-al Dozen week, the highlight of my month.  This month's theme is Geometric, a prompt I personally tend to have problems with.  When I think of geometry I think of shapes and, technically, everything has a shape so I get too wrapped up with the idea of doing something that others wouldn't see as geometric.  But that's not a worry for today because hexagons are definitely a standard geometric shape!  

Sunday Stamping - Color Crash, Pastels and Neons

Hey there!  This eye-blasting mani comes thanks to the Adventures in Stamping group on Facebook.  This week's Sunday stamping challenge is "Color Crash, Pastels and Neons).  So I did just that and stamped neons over a pastel base.  It turned out better than I thought.  I even had cashiers telling me they liked them.

Cats at Sunset Nail Art

Hey there!  Today's post is a bit of a goofy one for me.  I'm 100% allergic to cats so I guess I wore them on my nails instead of being able to touch them in real life.  There's these cute cat silhouettes on the bottom of LilyAnna 11 and I thought I'd do these for those of you who both love nails AND cats! I hope you like them!

30 Minute Stamping Mani

Hey there!  Last week one of the stamping groups I'm in on Facebook had a challenge to do a stamping mani in 30 minutes (both hands, including clean up).  This kind of challenge was right up my alley since I'm super short on time lately.  I ended up really liking how this fast stamping turned out so I thought I'd share it on the blog with you guys to show how fast stamping can be.

Swirl Nail Stencils over Glam Polish

Hey there!  Well, Alberta has a new governing party for the first time in over four decades.  That's pretty exciting!  I was definitely out way too late celebrating so I apologize if any of today's post is a bit incoherent.  Today I'm sharing what I did with some swirl nail stencils that I recently purchased from Vinyl Boutique.  This was my first time using a swirl vinyl and they're so much fun!

Neon Diagonal Gradient

Hey there!  It's an exciting day here in Alberta.  It's our provincial election day, possibly the most exciting election we've ever seen.  Our current governing party has been in power for longer than I've been alive so it's exciting that the polls are suggesting that that might finally change.  My good friend Brandon is even running in the election with The Alberta Party.  I've been helping him out a bit along the way and I'm so proud and impressed with the campaign that he's run that I couldn't resist doing a gradient with the colors from the party's logos to show my support for Brandon and his team.

Color Club Foxy Mama Nail Art

Hey there!  This week's 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge prompts are Orange and Outlines.  I wasn't entirely sure what outlines meant.  I've seen some FABULOUS manis with the whole nail outlined but those are way too intimidating for me.  I envisioned myself ending up as one of those Pinterest Nailed It memes.  So I stuck with something simple and just outlined a stripe down my nail.  And, as a personal bonus, they ended up having the same colors as my city's hockey team...possibly intentionally :-P

Sunday Stamping - Birthday Plate Numbers

Hey there!  Today's Sunday stamping post has a kind of fun theme.  The challenge was to use plates with the numbers of your birthday month and day.  This was definitely a challenge for me since my birthday is 11/30 and there aren't a lot of plates that go up to 30.  But I was up to the task and came up with this fun mani.

Fruity Nail Stamping over Superficialy Colorful Tequila Sunrise

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Hey there!  When I posted the new Superficially Colorful Happy Hour swatches last week I mentioned that Tequila Sunrise was my favourite, right?  Well I did in fact wear it again with some stamping that would be just adorable in the later summer months.  Just looking at them again right now is making me crave a delicious fruity drink.  Yummy!