26 Great Nail Art Ideas - Green Freestyle

Hey there!  Today's 26 Great Nail Art Ideas theme is Green Freestyle.  I guess that means we could do anything green that we want.  We all know I'm a stamper but I wanted to go really free so I picked a nail art technique that I don't know often - the waterfall mani.  And I went really green as well with the absolutely ton of green polishes I pulled out for this one.  It's not my favourite ever but all that green makes me think of spring, especially since it looks like sparkly grass upside down.  

Floral Stamping on Chrome Nails

Hey there!  Today's post is one of a mani I wore just for fun.  No review, no challenge theme.  Just for me!  I know lots of people are sick of the chrome nail trend but I'm not one of them.  I've always loved silver nail polish and the more metallic, the better.  So when the chrome powders came out, even though I'm not a big gel polish user, I bought some from Born Pretty Store and no-wipe top coat, etc etc.  BUT that powder still looked grainy so I more recently bit the bullet and bought the silver (and gold...and rose gold) from Daily Charme since it looked even smoother.  And it really is so I guess it's worth the extra dollars.  And since I'm in Canada and our dollar exchange is terrible, it was a lot of extra dollars!  But the super chrome-y silver powder let me wear these and I loved them so I won't complain.

The Digit-al Dozen does Birthdays - March 2017

Hey there!  This month's Digit-al Dozen birthday mani is celebrating literally that.  A birth day!  This month Amber of Nails Like Lace had a brand new baby so us DD girls got sneaky and decided to say congratulations to her and her family with a baby mani just for her.  Since she's a baby girl I stuck with the pink theme and, in case you can't tell, her name is Lyla (and she is absolutely beautiful) so that's my nail art.

UberChic Beauty Collection 15 Review

Press  Sample

Hey there!  Today I think I have one of the brand new releases from UberChic Beauty.  This is Collection 15.  I don't think I've ever had a review of stamping plates up so quickly.  I was so excited to check out the new plates that I got to playing with them right away.  As usual, UberChic's plate quality is second to none.  I used a couple different brands of stamping polish in today's review and they worked easily.  I hope my mix of manis today entice you enough to check out this new set of plates.  I liked them so much that I'm wearing an additional mani today that I did with them that I'll probably post next week so it's a guarantee that you'll be seeing more of this soon from me!

Nail Challenge Collaborative: Black & White #2

Hey there!  It's so Monday that my brain has refused to turn on all day so today I decided to blog some super simple stamping - one base color, one stamping color.  This easy peasy look is the second design I did for this month's Nail Challenge Collaborative theme of Black & White.  The simple color scheme mixes with the simple look pretty nicely, in my opinion.

Lacquester Swatches

Nothing to Disclose/Press  Sample

Hey there!  As much time as I spend online, it does happen that I miss out on amazing brands.  Luckily, we have stockists to bring introduce us to brands we might not have heard of otherwise.  That was the case for me with Lacquester, a Dutch indie brand who has been around for a couple of years.  I saw people asking Color4Nails to bring it in so I googled and fell in love.  During their first stock of Lacquester I bought a pile of them. When I received my order it included a few extras for me to swatch but I decided to swatch them all just in case you also needed a new indie to love.  It just so happens that most of these are being restocked tomorrow at 11 am Pacific Time so set your alarms.  Since they're mostly out of stock today, the links I have here might not work but I'll try to fix them when they're restocked.  There was something about these that cried out for a matte top coat as well so I tried all of them with glossy AND matte top coat so there's a ton of photos in this post.  I hope you like them!

Nail Crazies Unite - Sweets

Hey there!  Today's Nail Crazies Unite themes is Sweets.  I thought for sure that I'd use the latest Bundle Monster set since one of those plates is loaded with sweets but then I went on a huge jelly bean binge.  By huge I mean I ate a kilogram of jelly beans in a month.  That's A LOT of jelly beans. So while I was in the middle of my binge, I decided to try to freehand some jelly bean nails.  My colors didn't match the real jelly beans at all but I think the colors I used look even more delicious than the real thing.  Great, now I'm wishing I had that big bag of Jelly Belly's back...

Nail Challenge Collaborative - Black & White #1

Hey there!  I've only been a member of the Nail Challenge Collaborative group for a few months but it seems that I've been super consistent in leaving my posts until almost the end of the month.  This month we're doing a theme of Black & White and I knew right away I wanted to do some form of marble nail art.  I did a different one first but it was so bad I deleted all evidence of it.  But this one I liked enough to wear for days.  I liked how my Cindy hand turned out even more but didn't take a single photo of it so you'll have to take my word on it!

Delush Polish Four Years of Grapeness

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Hey there!  Recently Delush Polish reached their four year anniversary and to celebrate they created a brand new polish named Four Years Of Grapeness (seriously, could that name be any more appropriate?!).  I was lucky enough to get a bottle of this beauty to review so I spent some time playing with it and pairing it with a couple different stamping images that I thought worked well with it.  I know I'm a stamping addict but who doesn't agree that stamping can look pretty cool over an awesome glitter-filled polish like this one?

Mani Swap with @nailmachine

Hey there!  Recently a fabulous nail artist, @nailmachine,  asked on Instagram if anyone would be up for a mani swap.  I'm a big fan of Kimberlyn's so I jumped at the chance to try my hand at doing one of her manis.  I scrolled through her feed and ended up picking a really recent design of hers that I thought I might be able to handle - these freehand roses.  And in turn she picked a freehand floral of mine.  Great minds think alike!  In the collage below, the originals are on the left and the recreations are on the left.  I think we did pretty darn good!

26 Great Nail Art Ideas - Spring Animals

Hey there!  I'm two days late with this week's instalment of 26 Great Nail Art Ideas.  I don't even have an excuse.  I've just been lazy (I even still have my St. Patrick's Day nails on) and I wasn't particularly thrilled with how these turned out so I was in no rush to show them.  This week's theme was Spring Animals which immediately made me think of bunnies.  I recently bought one of the MoYou London Animals plates which has rows and rows of the same animal and one of the images was bunnies.  So thought pairing it with an accent of a big bunny would be cute.  Instead I think I created some sort of evil rabbit overlord.  Seriously, this looks like a bunny cult, doesn't it?

The Digit-al Dozen redoes Art - Jackson Pollock

Hey there!  Holy I'm late today!  Actually I guess it's Saturday already...that's how late I am!  Apparently I was so sad about the end of another Digit-al Dozen week that I couldn't finish this post.  That's a joke but, honestly, this has been one of my favourite themes even though I started out straight up scared of it.  So much so that I voiced my concern about not knowing how I was going to manage it to the other ladies.  The genius Amanda of Lady Maid Nails gave me some easy suggestions, including doing Jackson Pollock, an artist who is known for his splatter-style art.  Well that seemed easy enough so I risked the mess and tried it out.  Thanks Amanda!

The Digit-al Dozen redoes Art - Banksy

Hey there!  It's Day 4 of The Digit-al Dozen's Art week and I couldn't resist everybody's favourite street artist, Banksy.  I did some Banksy stamping (from this same stamping plate) way back in the first couple months of my blog.  For that one I only used the Balloon Girl image but this time I decided that some of the other Banksy works needed some love too.

The Digit-al Dozen redoes Art - Leonid Afremov

Hey there!  So today's inspiration just cost me some dollars.  When I was looking for the link to the original Leonid Afremov painting that inspired my nail art today, I saw that he sells actual paintings for a really reasonable amount.  From what I can tell, he recreates the original.  So I just bought my first painting!  When I was looking for inspiration for this week's art theme, I knew that I liked palette knife paintings so I searched on Pinterest and saw a bunch of Leonid Afremov art and fell in love.  I choose Alley By The Lake to try to recreate....and then buy :-)

The Digit-al Dozen redoes Art - Raphael's Cherubs

Hey there!  For my second Digit-al Dozen art design, I did some stamping.  Sounds easy enough, right?  This actually ended up being one of my most complicated manis this week since the stamping was really just the most basic part...after that I jazzed it up to try to make it look like the actual painting.  Again, I was really happy with how these turned out.  But I will admit that I only did this on my left hand.  I went to work the next day with just the base color and the stamping so they really didn't match at all!

The Digit-al Dozen redoes Art - The Starry Night

Hey there!  It is time for a new Digit-al Dozen week.  I was so scared for this week since we're re-visiting a previous theme of Art and I'm so insecure about my art knowledge and skills.  But I ended up really liking most of what I came up with, starting with what has to be one of the most famous paintings of all time, The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh.  I don't know what possessed me to try to do this on my nails but I'm glad I did since I think it turned out at least recognizable.

Nail Crazies Unite - Rainbow

Hey there!  I really like color but you'd never know if to look at me.  99% of my clothes are either black or grey.  My nails are easily the most colorful part of me.  So when I saw that this week's Nail Crazies Unite theme was Rainbow, I went full-on rainbow...and then added some black.  Since I was a sucker for punishment, I wanted to see if I could do this all with stamping.  If you've stamped, you know that straight lines and stamping aren't exactly best friends.  Much less this many straight lines in one mani.  There's definitely some white peeking through but I'm still very much in love with these.

Delush Polish The Mermaid Diaries Collection Review

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Hey there!  Today I'm so excited to be sharing the upcoming collection from Delush Polish, The Mermaid Diaries Collection.  When it comes to nails, I can't think of a better inspiration than mermaids with all their color and whimsy and this collection really nails it.  There's so much shimmer and shine in The Mermaid Diaries.  It's a really beautiful collection that I'm confident will be a favourite throughout spring and summer.  And you don't even have to wait long for it.  It's releasing tomorrow (March 10, 2017) at noon EST.  I enjoyed swatching The Mermaid Diaries so much that I included all 6 shades in some stamping which you can find at the end of the post.  I hope you like these as much as I do.  

26 Great Nail Art Ideas - Mixed Tape Mani

Hey there!  This week's 26 Great Nail Art Ideas theme is Mixed Tape Mani.  I'm no spring chicken so the absolute first thing that popped into my head was old school mixed tapes...as in cassettes.  I had quite the collection of tapes back in the day, mostly recorded off the radio (but I was a pro at making sure no radio announcer words snuck in there) so I was dying to do some cassette tape nails for this theme.  Alas, I chickened out and decided to stick with what I assumed was the theme's intention and used a couple different types of actual tape (the sticky kind) to do this week's nail art.

Oil Slick Drip Marble Nails

Hey there!  Since I started playing with nail polish, I've been after the perfect oil slick mani.  Way back in 2013, I used the China Glaze Bohemian collection to do this water marble which did not turn out to look anything like an oil slick.  Last month I decided to dig out those polishes and try again, this time with a drip marble.  It also doesn't actually look like an oil slick so I guess I'm titling this post more for my goal than the result.  Oil slick or not, I absolutely loved this mani.  But after applying it, I thought the colors looked a bit like Mardi Gras colors so I decided to save posting it until now since Mardi Gras was just yesterday.  Today is also the one year anniversary of the end of my vacation in New Orleans so New Orleans is certainly on my mind.