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.

Matte Stamped Gradient Nails

Hey there!  Let me start with saying a belated Happy Thanksgiving to those of you in the US.  I hope you're all stuffed with turkey and enjoying the insane Black Friday sales I hear you guys have down there.  Black Friday is just starting to be a thing up here in Canada but since there was a massive snowstorm here yesterday (around 30 cm or 12 inches in one day) I'm too scared to drive to the mall to see what's on sale.  But I did buy a couple small things online.

Now onto today's mani.  This is one I did a few weeks ago when it first got cold but it kept getting neglected when it came to posting even though I loved it.  It has a bit of everything... Gradient? Yes.  Glitter topper?  Yes.  Stamping?  Yes.  And mattified?  Yes!  Keep reading to see all the steps.

10.1 Polish Frosted Sheers Leadlighting

Press  Sample

Hey there!  Last week I posted a gradient I had done with the 10.1 Polish Frosted Sheers and mentioned how much I had loved playing with them.  Today I wanted to show you how versatile these are and share some leadlighting I did using them MoYou London Explorer-03.  I've seen some fantastic examples of manis using these images and wanted to try it out myself.

A England Brush Stroke Nail Art

Hey there!  For this week's Crumpet's Nail Tarts 52 Week Challenge the prompts were brush stroke and favourite brand.  Well I can't exactly pinpoint my favourite brand since I have a few but A England is definitely on the list.  So I did some easy peasy brush stroke nails using a few A England polishes.   I picked A England because they're always so opaque that they show up nicely with one quick stroke!

Sunday Stamping - Things I'm Thankful For

Hey there!  This week's Sunday Stamping theme is "I'm thankful for..."  While Canadian Thanksgiving was last month, this week is American thanksgiving so I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty of related mani's from our American friends.  I have two mani's to share with you today.  Neither look like Thanksgiving in the least but they really do represent things I'm thankful for.  The more serious one is this one.  It might sound silly to people that aren't a part of it themselves but I'm incredibly thankful for nail polish and the community that comes with it.  I started my blog during a pretty lonely period and I have to say it was one of the best things I've ever done for my mental state.  You guys help keep me a lot less sad than I used to be so thank you!  

Real Feather Nail Art

Hey there!  A couple of weeks ago in a Facebook group I'm in, someone picked the theme of doing mani's using real feathers.  I remember these being sort of popular awhile back so I bought a bunch of feathers, tried to use them once and failed miserably.  Since then my feathers have been collecting dust.  But I busted them out again for the challenge to use them here where I combined real feathers and stamped feathers.

Sponge-Free Rainbow Gradient Nails with 10.1 Polish Frosted Sheers

Press  Sample

Hey there!  I mentioned the other day that I spent a good chunk of last weekend playing with the Frosted Sheers collection from 10.1 Polish and I can't even begin to tell you how excited I was to receive them.  I use the Icing collection all the time.  I find they're particularly good for leadlighting because they're vibrant but still sheer jellies.  So when I heard they were coming out with sheers with a holo twist, I jumped for joy.  And then jumped even more when I was offered them to play around with.

The first thing I tried with them was this - a rainbow gradient.  And the best part is that, because they are jellies, there was no sponge (and therefore, no mess) involved!