The Digit-al Dozen does Birthdays - May 2018

Hey there!  This month The Digit-al Dozen celebrated Oksana of The Polished Koi's birthday.  Every month the birthday girl (or girls) get to pick an inspiration photo for us to use.  I absolutely loved the photo Oksana chose.  It just screamed fluid nail art so I dumped a whole bunch of polish on my Uber Mat and came up with a mani that I wore for 4 full days.  That's a rarity!

Beauty Bigbang Stamping and Chameleon Powder Review

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Hey there!  Today I have a few products from Beauty Bigbang to review.  Beauty Bigbang is a very inexpensive overseas supplier of all sorts of nail art goodies.  I have had great experience with their stamping plates previously) so I was excited to try some more of them.  I'm pleased to say that the etching of these plates was even better than the first ones I tried.  Also in my package were a couple of their multichrome powders (they call these "chameleon mirror powder") and a holo plate holder and a small glass file.  Please keep reading to hear my thoughts on all of these, good and bad, and to get my code that will save you a bit of money.

26 Great Nail Art Ideas - Wedding

Hey there!  I'm a tad late for this week's 26 Great Nail Art Ideas post (and all the other posts I wanted to write this week).  I guess I just didn't have any words in me.  But no worries, hopefully I'll be more motivated this week since I have a few items that I can't wait to share!  But for today, I have the mani I did for the wedding theme.  Since I'm a stamping junkie, I was tempted to go that route and do some subtle swirly stamping.  Or a straight up wedding themed mani but instead I hit up google and asked it what people have labeled as "wedding nails".  I came across this awesome IG account, @nailsbyeffi, who has some gorgeous feminine designs and tried to copy this mani.  It turned out very different but I liked it!

Nail Crazies Unite - Black and White Lace

Hey there!  I'm going to try to write the quickest blog post in the world right now since I'm supposed to be on the road for our long weekend.  First long weekend lake trip of the year...woohoo!!  But, in addition to being a Digit-al Dozen day, it's also time for this week's Nail Crazies Unite prompt.  This time we did Black & White Lace so I did an easy lace stamping design.  But it was not easy to decide what lace image to use...I have SO many!

The Digit-al Dozen does Inspired By Each Other - Olivia Jade Nails

Hey there!  Alas, it's the final day of The Digit-al Dozen's Inspired By Each Other week.  I'm genuinely sad that I only did 5 so I really want to use any extra time I have coming up to copy the rest of the my girls.  That is how my sister named my blog after all, I started it by taking inspiration from the creative people.  I like to think that I usually come up with my own ideas now but I certainly loved this week since I got to pay homage to some of the other DD girls.  The lady whose nails I tried to recreate today is Olivia Jade Nails.  We seem to be drawn to a lot of the same stamping images and we both like lots of color so I like to think that we're Canadian-Australian nail soul mates, haha!  Ironically, the mani I picked to copy isn't even a stamping one...at least not for her.  She used nail vinyls to create this super cool rainbow-y turtle shell mani.  I tried with vinyls and failed so I opted for stamping.  We're not quite twins but close enough!

The Digit-al Dozen does Inspired By Each Other - Druid Nails

Hey there!  I'm so darn late with my fourth Digit-al Dozen post for the week.  I normally do my blog posts at the end of my work day but I had errands after work, followed by my ultimate frisbee game, followed by beer with the team.  And now it's after midnight but, since I haven't slept yet, it's still day 4 for me!  Today's Inspired By Each Other mani was inspired by Druid Nails.  I first started following Brethil a couple years ago when we were in the same rotation in one of the nail challenge groups.  Even though our prompts were the same, I always thought her designs were soooo much cooler than what I did.  So I was really excited when she agreed to join the DD with us.  For this week, I scrolled through her manis and saw this one that was right up my alley.  I love gradients with stamping so I loved recreating this one.

The Digit-al Dozen does Inspired By Each Other - Kimett Kolor

Hey there!  Today's Digit-al Dozen mani was inspired by someone who really is an inspiration.  Kim of Kimett Kolor seriously never ceases to amaze me at the designs she comes up with.  Her nail art is always stunning.  Unfortunately she's been dealing with some health issues which means she's had to take a little break from the nail world but I truly hope she gets well soon.  Mostly for her but maybe just a tiny bit selfishly because I miss her art.  I knew I wanted to recreate one of her manis but had a really hard time narrowing down which one to try.  That lady has skills I just don't have!  I found this November-themed mani and I figured I had to recreate it.  I'm a November baby (actually my birthday is the day she had posted it - the very last day of the month.  My version really is proof she has skills I don't have.  Mine sucks compared to hers but I loved it anyway.  Yay November!

The Digit-al Dozen does Inspired By Each Other - Polish and Paws

Hey there!  Since it is The Digit-al Dozen's theme this week of Inspired By Each Other, I had the perfect excuse to copycat an incredible mani from Polish And Paws.  She did this glitter placement over stamping as one of her manis for All That Glitters week and I was floored.  I loved it so much!  So when I was doing my manis for this week's theme, I remembered it AND knew that I had some of Whats Up Nails Confetti Glitter with different sizes of circle glitter.  My glitter is different colors though.  I do like hers more (I'm drawn to blues more than pinks) but I did love this mani.  I even tried cutting the glitter to make it fit better.  That's a frustrating task!

The Digit-al Dozen does Inspired By Each Other - More Nail Polish

Hey there!  It's time for my favourite part of the month - The Digit-al Dozen's week!  This month our theme is "Inspired By Each Other."  I can't tell you how much these girls inspire me.  I adore all their nail art.  I wish I would've had time to steal a mani from each of them to recreate but unfortunately my nail time has been limited lately so I only did 5.  My first inspiration was More Nail Polish's fire drag marble.  She did hers as part of our negative space week but if I don't need to show my naked nails, I'm not gonna force anyone to look at them.  So I used a black base instead.  My flames aren't nearly as cool as hers but I still loved this quick nail art.  The only long part was waiting for them to dry a bit so I could go to bed!

26 Great Nail Art Ideas - Rainbow With A Technique Starting With "S"

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Hey there!  Today's 26 Great Nail Art Ideas theme was such a fun one - Rainbow With A Technique Starting With "S".  It's so specific but actually very open.  I was shocked at how many techniques I could think of starting with S: stamping, sponging, stencils, smooshy marble...and I'm sure there's more!  I decided to use the Spinner Stencils from What's Up Nails and sponged on a rainbow gradient.  That's 3 S's in one mani!  And I used Sally Hansen polishes so that's almost another S, just not in the technique name.

UberChic Beauty Collection 25 Stamping Plate Review

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Hey there!  Today I have the latest collection of stamping plates from UberChic Beauty to review.  We're all the way up to Collection 25 now and the plates coming out are still fantastic.  As always the quality is top notch.  I used a variety of stamping polish brands and they all worked without issue.  She's kept up the variety of images you get in a collection.  There's positive and negative space images, small individual images and one larger image (larger than 4 regular images combined).  I've done two manis with each plate so keep reading to see all the details and all the images available in this lovely new set of plates.

Pink Gellac Gel Polish Starter Kit Review

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Hey there!  I have a new-to-me-brand on the blog today but it's far from new.  Pink Gellac is a popular gel polish system in Europe.  I'm not the most experienced gel polish user but I was happy to get to try it for today's post.  I was sent the Starter Kit, which includes everything you need to get started in the gel world (I'll list everything separately below) including one color of gel polish AND it's not expensive.  The quality is there but at a good price.  That always makes me happy.  Even though I'm not the most experienced with gel, this kit was really simple to use.  And, if you have any questions, there's an instruction manual in numerous languages to help you out.  How great is that?!

Nail Crazies Unite - Pastel Watercolor

Hey there!  Today's Nail Crazies Unite theme is a pretty one (I know this because I've already checked out a couple of the manis that ladies have done for it).  We're doing pastel watercolours.  There's so many ways to do watercolor nails and, honestly, I think they're all beautiful.  I personally wend with just thinning out polish with acetone (and making sure I have lots of top coat on my base so I didn't eat right through it).  It's so quick and easy and creates pretty results.  And you can control how bright or pale you want the color!