Bundle Monster Around The World 2 (Partial) Review

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Hey there!  Today we have a review of some of the stamping plates from the second Bundle Monster Around The World set and guess what...there's a Canada plate!  Hooray to Bundle Monster for showing us Canucks some love with an awesome plate.  I was also sent plates representing Thailand and Morocco which are both really nice but you have to know the Canadian one is my personal favourite.  I did a couple manis with each plate so you to get a sense of them.  Keep reading to see more about the plates and how I chose to use them.

Nail Crazies Unite/Nail Challenge Collaborative - Beach

Hey there!  It's time for another combo nail art prompt!  This week both the Nail Crazies Unite group and the Nail Challenge Collaborative are doing Beach!  And, if all goes well, I will be currently sitting on a beach (of sorts) today!  One of my favourite things about summer (and the beach) is flip flops.  I even have a flip flops plaque in my bedroom at home.  I don't know what it is about flip flops but the second the snow melts, that's what I'm in.  And since I can't imagine anyone wears shoes to the beach, that's what I went with for the beach theme this week.

UberChic Beauty School Is Cool + New Clean Up Brushes and Cotton Grabber

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Hey there!  UberChic Beauty has recently come out with lots of new products and I'm lucky enough to get to share a few of them with you today.  I know, I know, we don't want to think about the return of school quite yet but it's coming anyway.  Luckily Brittany has found a way to make it fun, for students and teachers alike.  School Is Cool is her most recent mini plate and, as someone who was in school for a whopping 24 years of her life, I couldn't pass up a school plate.  Plus my little sis is a teacher so I love that there's a plate that is celebrating her profession.  Plus, it's just plain adorable!

Bundle Monster Homeroom Hell

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Hey there!  How is everyone doing out there?  I hope everyone is enjoying a beautiful summer day like it is here.  It's going to be 30 C today (86 F) which is too darn hot for me but I know lots of people love it.  I came home from the cabin for a couple days but today would be a perfect lake day.  30 C by a big body of water is great!  30 C in the city is melt-y!  Anyway, back to today's blog post.  I did a couple manis with a plate from Bundle Monster called Homeroom Hell.  I'm sure folks aren't quite looking forward to the return to school quite yet but this plate doesn't scream school to me, even though I did do a chalkboard look for one of my designs.

26 Great Nail Art Ideas - Sunshine

Hey there!  Today's 26 Great Nail Art Ideas is one of my favourite things - sunshine!  I think this is a great prompt and one I've never come across before.  I actually did a couple of looks for this prompt but the one I'm sharing today was the one I liked more.  I wanted my base to look like the surface of the sun which I tried to achieve based on this video from @yagala on Instagram.  It worked out pretty well even if it was even brighter and hotter-looking in person.

Lina Nail Art Supplies Summer 02 and Make Your Mark 05

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Hey there!  Yesterday was a swatch post and, as much as I love pretty nail polish, I think we all know stamping is my one true love so I'm happy to be back today with some manis with one of my favourite stamping brands, Lina Nail Art Supplies.  She recently came out with a few new stamping plates and I was lucky enough to get two of them, Summer 02 and Make Your Mark 05 from Harlow & Co. to try out.  It's not surprising that I love them.  Since she arrived on the block, Lina Nail Art Supplies plates have been of impeccable quality.  I just don't know how some plate makers do it...they come up with great designs and have great plate etching.  I love brands like that!

Illyrian Polish Spellbind Collection

Hey there!  My first vacation post!  Yup, I’m such a nerd that I’m attempting to blog from the cabin…but only when the weather isn’t great which it hasn’t been for a couple of days now.  Luckily I have pretty nail polish to look at to distract me from the clouds, starting with this gorgeous collection from the 5-free cruelty-free indie brand, Illyrian Polish.  The Spellbind Collection was released earlier this summer and is currently available from Color4Nails so if you haven’t gotten your hands on it yet, you can grab it now. 

The Digit-al Dozen does Continents - Australia

Hey there!  Today's post is pulling triple duty.  Not only is it a Digit-al Dozen day but it's also Nail Crazies Unite Ocean day and the Nail Challenge Collaborative Beach/Ocean month.  When I think of underwater sea life, I think of some of the photos I've seen of diving in Australia so that was my inspiration for today's post.  And then when I think of Australia, I think of the Arrogant Worms lyric in Canada Is Really Big..."we're bigger than Australia and it's a continent" which makes me laugh :-)

The Digit-al Dozen does Continents - Asia

Hey there!  When I was trying to think of nail designs that might be representative of continents without just picking one country, I mostly thought of animals.  But for Asia, I realized I have quite a few Asia-specific plates so I flipped through those and saw this cool image of the Great Wall of China on one of the Bundle Monster plates.  So today's Asia-inspired mani is my only landscape inspired one for our Digit-al Dozen week.  However I've never seen the Great Wall myself so I highly relied on Google which showed me that there's lots of green around the wall so that's how I tried to make it look.

The Digit-al Dozen does Continents - Africa

Hey there!  We're at the midpoint in Continents week and today is my turn to try the lovely continent of Africa.  I have seen some AMAZING Africa art from the ladies of the Digit-al Dozen this week.  They kick my Africa nails' butt!  Good thing nail art is not a competition!  And even if it was, I'm the least competitive person ever so I'm just fine with my less than stellar Africa nails.

The Digit-al Dozen does Continents - North America

Hey there!  So I'm starting this post by admitting to my ignorance.  As a Canadian, you'd think I'd know some stuff about North America, today's continent for the Digit-al Dozen's Continent week.  Well, it turns out I don't!  I honestly thought that North America consisted entirely of Canada, USA and Mexico.  Just to double check I just googled and I was so wrong.  According to Wikipedia, there's a whole bunch of much warmer locales that are also part of North America.  Though, to be fair, NAFTA does seem to only involve the big three so I'll blame economics on my geographical naivete.  But I still like my idea of unifying our three countries.  Lately it feels like everything is so divided but we're all neighbours.  We should be best buddies!

The Digit-al Dozen does Continents - Antarctica

Hey there!  It's time for a new Digit-al Dozen month...hooray!  And sandwiched right between this month's DD week and next month's is my holiday time.  I'm taking a whole 3 weeks off of work!  I'm hoping to not disappear from the blog.  I'll use my limited internet at the cabin for blogging but, if things get a bit slow around here, just know that it's for a good cause, haha!  Anyway, back to July's theme.  We are doing 5 Days, 5 Continents (which I've just shortened to Continents in my blog titles).  This one was surprisingly hard for me because I didn't want to just pick one country on a continent and leave others out.  So I started with a single country continent, and one with no people to actually offend - Antarctica!  The land of winter...and penguins!  So I have some chilly looking stamping in mid-July.

26 Great Nail Art Ideas/Nail Challenge Collaborative - Beach

Hey there!  Today I have two nail art challenges with the same theme - Beach!  Actually both of them also had alternative themes but I fell in love with this beach mani from @plus10kapow and really wanted to recreate it.  I think what I liked the most was the half-and-half nail of sand and water.  It made it so unique compared to other beach manis I've seen (and done myself).  

Cici & Sisi Acrylic Stamping Plate Review

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Hey there!  Today I have four of Cici & Sisi's acrylic stamping plates to review for you guys.  These plates work just like regular metal stamping plates but they're lighter, thicker and won't ever cut you like some metal plates do.  My first Cici & Sisi plates were way back when, with the first two sets of stainless steel plates and I still use them to this day.  These days it seems like they're focusing more on their acrylic plates with groups of four plates within a series.  Today I have a sampling of three of the series, Nature, Fairytale and the Blue and White series.  I did a couple manis with each of the plates so this post might get a bit long.  So buckle up!

Whats Up Nails Stencils - Clouds, Hypnose, Pumps and Teddy Bears

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Hey there!  I hope all my Canadian and American friends have had themselves a great long weekend, even if we have to be back at work now....ugh!  I don't know what the weather is like where you're at but here in Edmonton it's a 30 C week (86 F) so it feels more like lake weather than work weather.  But since I'm not relaxing by the water, what better time to share with you some of the stencils I've used lately from Whats Up Nails?  I've gotten to review a few of their stencils and if you read those reviews you already know that I absolutely love their stencils!  I don't know what cutting process they use but they always separate easily from the bits you don't want and they stick to the nail perfectly.  Today's post has how I wore the Clouds, Hypnose, Pumps and Teddy Bears.  All four of these stencils are sheets of 12 stencils that measure 22 x 28 mm so they should work great to cover most nail sizes.  A couple of them are discontinued but are still available so get them while you can!

Canada Day Nails 2017

Hey there!  Happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canucks!  It's a big day for Canada.  Today we're celebrating 150 years!  To celebrate I'm sharing my Canada Day mani that I've been wearing since Wednesday.  Elena of Nail Experiments put out a call for us to do manis celebrating the country we love so much and this was my contribution.  She even put together a collage of them which I'll be sharing at the end of this post.