The Giver Nail Art

Hey there!  While this probably looks like the messiest, most random nail art ever to some of you, I promise it has a theme.  For June's The Polished Bookworms pick, our genre was dystopian and the book that was selected was The Giver by Lois Lowry.  I had heard good things about it before I picked it up so I bought the entire quartet of books for my reader and I devoured all four.  I do love me some young adult dystopian fiction and this book was no exception.  Though, I have to say, I think just reading one book in the series would leave you feeling unsatisfied.  You sort of need all four for it to really be concluded.

Pink and Red Skittle Nail Art

Hey there!  This week's 52 Week Challenge prompts are Skittles and Red & Pink.  Try as I might, I could not get them to not look like Valentine's Day nails (though it didn't help that I wanted to use my new heart swirl vinyls) so I guess I'm bringing you a bit of V-Day love in the summer!

UberChic Stamping with a Giveaway!

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Hey there!  Today I have an exciting international giveaway to announce from UberChic Beauty co-sponsored by Colores de Carol, some amazing nail artist and yours truly.  I was delighted to be included in this that I just had to do yet another mani with UC 3-01 (previously reviewed here).  Keep reading to see the details on my mani and to enter the giveaway.

Bundle Monster Around the World BM-XL153 and XL154 Review

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Hey there!  Last week I showed you a couple of nail designs I did with Bundle Monster's new Around The World plates that I was sent to review and today I have a couple more.  The Around the World collection is a set of (currently) 5 plates with designs inspired by different countries.  The plates I'm showing today are BM-XL153 (inspired by France) and BM-XL154 (inspired by India).  Both had great etching and were a joy to use.

Green and Navy Scaled Nails

Hey there!  I have a quick post tonight for this week's Crumpet's Nail Tarts 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge.  This week's prompts are Scales and Navy.  I've done mermaid nails tons but I never get sick of them so I did an easy one for today's theme.

Sunday Stamping - Large Flowers

Hey there!  I just got home from my parents' so I'm not writing this until Sunday night and I'm pretty darn tired but well worth it to spend Father's Day with my dad.  This week's Sunday stamping challenge theme is large flowers so I'm (finally) using the large sunflower image from UberChic Beauty 1-02 and a couple of the OPI Color Paints that I just received after ordering the mini set.

Fruit Nail Leadlighting with Pueen 95

Hey there!  A few months ago I saw Nail It! magazine's call for fruit-themed manis and decided to do this one to submit.  It was my first time submitting a mani for their Snapshot section and I saw it was included in their July/August edition...hooray!  Actually I submitted three manis (for the mermaid and cat themes) and all three were included which is pretty darn exciting for me.  But I realized I hadn't posted my fruit stamped mani yet so here it is.

Color4Nail Rejuvenating Cuticle Oil and Cuticle Away Review

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Hey there!  Today I wanted to share my review of a couple of new products from Color4Nails.  The first is a cuticle softener and the second is a cuticle oil.  I wanted to give these a good try before posting a review for you guys so I've been using these product exclusively for the last 7 days and I'm really pleased with the results.  Keep reading to check out all my thoughts on the cuticle softener and oils.

Bundle Monster Around the World BM-XL151 and XL152 and Scraper Review

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Hey there!  Today I have a couple mani's from a fun new stamping plate collection from Bundle Monster, the Around the World collection.  I remember, back in the day when I first started stamping, Bundle Monster was the first set of plates I bought.  I loved them them then and I love them even more now.  The quality of the etching on their plates has improved immensely and is now right up there with the best and they've managed to still keep them affordable (which I definitely appreciate).    

The Around the World collection is (currently) a set of 5 plates themed with different countries from, you guessed it, around the world.  The two I'm showing today are BM-XL151 and 152, inspired by China and Egypt, respectively.  

Glitter and Saran Wrap Nails

Hey there!  I know I just did a 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge post on Saturday but I like doing them at the beginning of the week so I have another one already!  This week's themes are glitter and saran wrap.  I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out how to do a good saran wrap mani with a glitter polish so instead I just did this split-personality mani instead.

Sunday Stamping: Let's Go Fishing

Hey there!  This week's Sunday challenge is a call for summer-themed nails.  I haven't been able to go fishing yet this summer so I decided to do some fishing-themed nails (a fun summer pastime for my family) to try to call on the weather gods to not make our lake so wavy so I can actually get in a boat without risk of seasickness.  And it's the second time in 3 weeks that I used this Winstonia plate for a Sunday stamping post.  I must like it!

Pink and Lilac Rose Nail Art

Hey there!  Phew, that was a heck of a Digit-al Dozen week...so much fun!  I decided to hold off until today to post my mani for this week's Crumpet's Nail Tart's 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge themes since I didn't want you guys to get sick of reading my blabbing by double posting again.  So I'm doing a rare Saturday post to show you guys what I did for the Pink and Lilac/Roses prompts.  This is my first time trying to freehand roses and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how they turned out.

The Digit-al Dozen does Fandom: Day 5 Monkey See Monkey Do Sveta Sanders

Hey there!  For the final day of The Digit-al Dozen's Fandom week I decided to try my hand at recreating a mani of a huge nail crush of mine, Sveta Sanders.  I'm definitely a big fan of her so this is an appropriate fandom mani, right?  I immediately fell in love with this mani of hers the second I saw it and I've never forgotten it so that's the one (of her many) beautiful designs that I tried for Fandom week.  I never knew how hard it was to do a vertical gradient...she makes it look so easy in her tutorial!  She really has some magical nail mojo.

The Digit-al Dozen does Fandom: Day 4 The XX Nail Art

Hey there!  Today is Day 4 of The Digit-al Dozen's Fandom and today I have a mani inspired by a band that I am a huge fan of.  I hadn't heard of The XX until a couple of years ago but, once I did, I bought every song I could find by them and have since been (impatiently) waiting for a new album.  So, while there are bands I've been aware of longer, I love this group so much that I wanted to do a mani inspired by a couple of their covers.

The Digit-al Dozen does Fandom: Day 3 Mass Effect (and Dragon Age) Nail Art

Hey there!  As I alluded to on Monday, I have one Digit-al Dozen Fandom mani that I really know nothing about.  But when I was googling popular fandom's I saw a couple of video games on that list that a good friend of mine has been a Cinematic Designer on so I thought it would be fun to try to do something inspired by them...though my inspiration really just came from Google images since I have no firsthand experience with either of the games.  The game he likes more is called Mass Effect so that's what I've focused on here but there's also a Dragon Age-inspired mani at the end of this post as a bonus.

The Digit-al Dozen does Fandom: Day 2 Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Hey there!  It's Day 2 of The Digit-al Dozen Fandom week!  Though nothing can trump my Kevin Smith mani yesterday (because he even shared it...*gasp*), for today I put together a (mostly) stamping mani inspired by what is probably my all-time favourite TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  I love this show to this day.  I have all seven seasons of it on DVD and they've gotten much love, as you can see by how chewed up this box for Season 2 is.

The Digit-al Dozen does Fandom: Day 1 Kevin Smith

Hey there!  It's the start to a whole new Digit-al Dozen week and this one is going to be SO MUCH FUN!  This month's theme is Fandom which I took to mean a couple different things so I have a few mani's inspired by things that I'm a big fan of and at least one of something that I truly know nothing about but that is a popular fandom and I happen to be a fan of a guy involved in making it (more on that later this week, I guess).  But for today I have possibly my all time biggest fandom.  I'm a giant fangirl of the screenwriter/director/actor/podcaster/public speaker Kevin Smith (known to some for his recurring role as Silent Bob) so that's how I'm starting my Fandom week.

Hawaiian Flowers Over Blue Glitter

Hey there!  For this week's Sunday Stamping theme, we have a pretty open theme of "stamping over blue glitter".  Well I had just received my order with some of the new Bundle Monster Polynesia plates and I had this mani in mind from the second I ordered them so the timing was perfect for this prompt.

Camping Stamping Nails

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Hey there!  Today I have yet another UberChic Beauty stamping post, this one from one of the original collections, Collection 2.  One of the stamping groups I'm in had a "soon to be summer" prompt and I knew I had to do something with this plate since it has so many outdoors-y images on it and the main reason I love summer so much is that I get to head to my family's cabin a lot.  But we used to just have a tiny little camper (though it wasn't as cute as this one) on our lake lot so I have spent many-a-night like this.

InstaLove with UberChic Beauty

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Hey there!  Today I have another post with UberChic Beauty's Geek Love -01 plate.  Last week I reviewed this plate with a couple of other mani's.  I also had done this one but I loved it so much that I wanted to show it all on it own.  It's almost like these images were made especially for us nail bloggers because I know I personally LOVE my followers.  You guys make me feel so special :-)

Country Plaid Nail Stamping

Hey there!  This week's 52 Week Pick n Mix challenge themes are "plaid" and "red, orange and green".   At first I had tried to freehand a plaid pattern but that went terribly so I went to my true love, stamping, to try to incorporate both themes.  I wasn't terribly impressed with how these turned out but wasn't inspired by the prompts enough to try a different look despite having plenty of time.  I always do my Crumpet's Nail Tarts mani's in order but I like being a bit ahead so I did these about a month and a half ago.