The Digit-al Dozen does Story Genres - Erotica

Hey there!  It's a late night post because today's Story Genre is soooooo racy.  When this month's theme was announced, I was sure it was one of my friend's ideas, Laurie from Dressed Up Digits.  She's not so into blogging anymore so I hope she's having more time for another one of her interests, erotic literature.  But it has to be good erotica (no first person, right Laurie?).  So that's my story genre today.  I do have the infamous sex plate but I didn't go that far for these.  They're just a little bit sexy.  On a related note, I did use the sex plate one and I felt so naughty...I still have the pictures but only one person ever has seen them!

The Digit-al Dozen does Rainforest - Tropical Flowers

Hey there!  For the second day of The Digit-al Dozen's Rainforest week, I have a mani that ended up looking like a tacky Hawaiian shirt...and I loved it.  I don't think I'd ever be gutsy enough to actually wear a bold shirt like that but I have no problems wearing something this loud on my nails!

The Digit-al Dozen does Traditions - Day 1 Christmas Music

Hey there!  Hooray, it's time for a new Digit-al Dozen theme!  This month we're doing Traditions.  This was kind of a weird theme for me since I wanted to be honest and only do traditions I personally have.  Turns out, I love the holidays but have very few actual traditions.  But one tradition I do have is that, every year, I listen to the exact same Christmas music.  I made myself a mixed CD years ago, which has since been transferred onto my computer.  I'm very particular about my holiday music and mostly like the sad stuff, hence this mani includes a broken heart.  It might not be festive but it's what I like.

The Digit-al Dozen does Inspired by Pinterest/magazines - Day 5 Alcohol Inks over Metallic Polish

Hey there!  Holy man, could that be a longer post title?  I really need to learn to be more succinct!  Anyway, today is the last day of The Digit-al Dozen's Pinterest/magazine week.  My inspiration for today's mani came one night when was just interested on how to color metal artwork so I hit up Pinterest...though don't ask me why I was curious about that since I don't do anything resembling metalwork.  That evening ended with me finding a whole lot of alcohol ink pins that I wanted to turn into nail art.  This is the one I did.  Other than the stained skin, I loved how it looked so I (not so subtly) cropped out as much of the staining as I could in a couple of photos.  How can I stop the alcohol inks from invading my skin?!?  It's the one reason I don't use them as much as I'd like.

The Digit-al Dozen does Re-Creations: Day 4 Hawaiian Nails

Hey there!  Today I have my fourth re-creation of a previous Digit-al Dozen mani to celebrate the group's third birthday.  The original, by Sassy Shelly, is another one of my favourite DD designs that I had bookmarked long before joining the group and knew I wanted to try for this week.  I made a few mistakes but still had to include for Re-Creation week because I loved her version so darn much!

Sunday Stamping - Plate Ending in A-M

Hey there!  I missed last week's Sunday Stamping theme because I was out of town so I had to make sure I didn't miss it again this week.  Sadly this was one tough theme (Plate ending in A-M) for me since I realized almost every plate I have ends in a number, not a letter.  Luckily I remembered that the Pueen Encore set of stamping plates all end in A or B so I grabbed Pueen SE02B and had my way with it with this faded leadlighting mani.

4th of July Nail Stamping

Hey there!  I thought I'd do a quick 4th of July mani to celebrate the national holiday of our neighbours to the south.  I love that Canada has such a good relationship with the US, just like neighbours should so why not celebrate it on my nails?  Plus, I like having a good excuse to use sparkly red nail polish.

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.

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.

Valentine's Day Skittlette Nails

Hey there!  Happy Valentine's Day folks!  I'm single so I spent all day editing photos and now I'm watching Gone Girl with my sis and binging on chips.  Oh, the life of a single lady.  Luckily this is pretty much my ideal Saturday night!  I guess you guys are my Valentines because I do heart you!

Tonight's post is another "hearts on fire" mani, kind of.  This Pueen image, in it's entirety, looks more like hearts on fire but my nails aren't big enough to show the whole thing.

The stamping image is Pueen35 stamped with Mundo de Unas Reddish and filled with yellow and white acrylic paint.

The other colors in this mani are Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow and Milani Red Sparkle over Picture Polish Love, fittingly for the occasion.  All finished with HK Girl.

Well I'm going back to my movie and chips.  Hope everyone had a day filled with love, of any kind!

'Til next time...

Hit The Bottle Stamping Polish Review

Press  Sample

Hey there!  Back to work this week....blah!  But to combat my back-to-work blues I thought I'd share an awesome new stamping polish brand that comes from Australia...and we all know how great the polish coming out of Australia is!  My friend Michelle (who you might know from Break Rules, Not Nails) shares my love of stamping and has started making her own brand of stamping polish called Hit The Bottle Polish.  She was sweet enough to send me 11 of her colors to test out and I couldn't resist sharing them with you guys.

Negative Space Leadlighting

Hey there!  I know I've been complaining about how crazy December was and it has caught up to me and gotten me sick right in time to go back to work tomorrow.  At least I think it has.  Maybe my super immune system will kick in and I'll be good to go by morning but today all I've done is eat and sleep.  Good thing I did my Sunday stamping mani a few days ago!  This week's theme is Negative Space Nails.  Usually negative space nails would keep a lot more naked nail than I'm showing here but, trust me, that's for your own good.  You don't want to see too much of my nails naked but if you must, you can see them after the jump.  Instead, I did some stamping on almost naked nails and then  filled most of it in with the leadlighting technique. 

HPB Presents Christmas Water Marble Nail Art

Hey there!  This month the Hobby Polish Bloggers group are getting together to post our festive/winter mani's that we've all created.  For mine, I decided to attack water marbling again.  I have a love/hate relationship with this technique, as I'm sure many people do.  I love how it looks when it works but hate how often it doesn't work and the mess it makes!  I also stamped a few holiday bells over the water marble to make it even more festive.

Sunday Stamping - Art Nouveau

Hey there!  It's Sunday Stamping day...and it's my birthday!  Usually I curse and cry about everything to do with my birthday but I've actually had a really good day.  Went for breakfast, chilled and watched the Food Network (even though I don't cook) and went for dinner.  And now it's onto beer with Walking Dead and Newsroom, a Sunday ritual with one of my friends.  And no emotional breakdowns :-)

Enough about me.  Today's Sunday theme is Art Nouveau and I didn't have the slightest clue what Art Nouveau meant.  Luckily I found this post from the lovely Meghan of Will Paint Nails for Food and, since she's an artsy kind of lady, it kind of gave me an idea of what kind of stamping images to look for.  I opted for a simple black and white look with lots of flowy lines like Meghan's post mentioned.

Sunday Stamping - White and Gold Nails

Hey there!  Today's Sunday stamping challenge theme is "white and gold" which leaves it pretty open.  I came up with this skittlette mani to go with this theme.  I'm always happy to have an excuse to wear my favourite gold polish, OPI Goldeneye.  

Pueen Encore Stamping with Mundo de Unas

Hey there!  Have you ever found a nail art product that you can't live without?  For me, it's Mundo de Unas stamping polishes.  I love stamping and no other stamping polish can compare to hers.  They're bright, opaque, thick and dry slowly enough that you don't need to rush like a madman to try to get your image on your nail.  Unfortunately, it's looking like she might not be able to ship internationally anymore so someone in the stamping community came up with the idea to wear pink mani's today to show our support for her.  I based mine on her logo and it gave me a good reason to try out my new Pueen Encore plates.  Win win!

Double Nail Stamping

Hey there!  Late last night I posted a swatch of Picture Polish Whimsy, my pick for Nail Polish Canada's huge giveaway.  While I had Whimsy on, I thought I'd use it as the base for a little double stamping.

Fourth of July Nails

Hey there!  Happy 4th of July to my American readers!  I hope you all are having a great holiday.  To commemorate your holiday I have a couple of (very similar) looks to share.  I'm not particularly impressed with either but I didn't have time to do any extras...sorry!  I guess I'll leave it to my American comrades to pull out the really spectacular Independence Day mani's.

Some Serum No. 5 SS14 Glow In The Dark Polishes

Hey there!  Woohoo!  It's a long weekend here in Canada and the weather is almost halfway decent so in a few short hours I'll be headed to my family's cabin for the first time since last fall.  It's my happy place so, even with 4 dogs and a 3 year old, I'm planning on doing plenty of relaxing.

Today I wanted to show you some Serum No. 5 polishes that I purchased from the Spring/Summer 2014 (Part 1) collection.  After the jump you can see what polishes I bought.

Hawaiian Gradient & China Glaze Spring In My Step

Hey there!  How was everybody's weekend?  As silly as it sounds, I spent mine practically in mourning for my nails.  I chopped them down to nubbins because ultimate frisbee league starts this week and I didn't want to risk any badly broken nails.  I think I have a couple of weeks worth of pics to post before you'll see them though.  And to top it all off, it snowed...in May...ridiculous!

I did these awhile ago shortly after I received my order containing some of the China Glaze City Flourish collection.  Unfortunately my photos do not do the neons justice.  I think I've almost figured out how to take pictures of neons (the loves of my life) now but I didn't have any tricks up my sleeve when I took these.