A Belated Doctor Who Christmas!

So I'm currently a bit tipsy, but I figured "It's best to write stuff down when all your mental walls have been breached".

I hope you all had great Christmas's and I hope Santa was nice to you. Today in honour of the Doctor Who Christmas special I have some Doctor Who Christmas nails. Actually I did them a few weeks ago and now felt like a good time to post them. I have yet to see the Christmas special, and I'm only semi excited. The past few years of Who have been kind of blah in my opinion, but the past year has been ok in my opinion. Still not as good as it was before Eleven, but ok.

*It is at this point in the post I fell asleep.

Cut to six days later.

I actually forgot I wrote this post and was going to start a new post. Oh Christmas. Anyways these nails were done before Christmas. They are Doctor Who Christmas ornaments nails! They were originally inspired by someone I saw on Instagram who did this, but with Star Wars. I would put their link down, but their instagram seems to no longer exist. This whole manicure is very villains of Who(Cyberman, Dalek, Snowman), and on my ring finger it says 'Run' in Gallifreyan.

This manicure uses a combination of acrylic paint and polish.

I hope everyone has a great New Years!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! *Eye Twitches*

So for the first time ever a bunch of stores had their boxing day sales start online BEFORE boxing day. This was semi great for me because when my mother asked me what I wanted for Christmas I immediately started looking through flyers. I ended up choosing a DSLR Canon Camera bundle that was an amazing deal(The Camera, 2 lesnes, an extra battery pack and a bag). The bad part is my parents aren't all that internet savvy so I had to order. And here's he thing with boxing day online. It's exactly the same as buying in person, but you can't see the person who stole the last SD card. And once stuff is in your cart you have to queue and you aren't guaranteed anything in your cart till you get to checkout. I was super on edge when placing the order, but long story short the camera made it with me all the way to checkout (And they sold out in about 20 minutes)! WHO'S READY FOR BETTER PHOTOS and maybe vlogs 0_o.

Now let's get to the manicure!

I felt like all of my manicures have been kind of unoriginal and typical for Christmas. Not that there is anything wrong with being the same, or doing something similar to someone else. Jesse Eisenberg and Michael Cera have been doing it for years! And look how much money they have! But I wanted to have something a bit different from the typical at least for Christmas Eve.

I decided to try my hand at making some "Classy" nail art with mostly gold and black. I fist started with two coats Essence Sweet as Candy, to cover up some stains on my nails. Next I mixed my own sheer black jelly polish and used one coat.  I used a regular clear polish that I use specifically for when I'm adding small nail art pieces to my nails, that was almost done. Then I added some old black polish that was almost done. If you would like to do this you will probably have to play around a bit to get it just the way you want it, but it's super easy. Then I did the tree and the Rodolph's silhouette using China Glaze Mingle With Cringle. Finally Rudolph's nose is Barry M Blood Orange mixed with a random red glitter jelly. I should also add for the reindeer I used this tutorial from Jaunty Juil. I topped it with seche and then Essie's Matte About You.

I loved how this turned out! I hope you like it as well! I also hope everyone is having a great Christmas!!!!

 With topcoat.

"I passed through the seven levels of the Candy Cane forest"

That's a quote from the film Elf by the way. I love that movie, and last year when I watched it I may have cried(but I may not have...I did). It's just such a cheery movie and is one of the few movies I think Will Farrell is super funny in. I take my comedy seriously.

Today I'm actually doing a manicure I have done before. Candy Cane nails with a twist! I ADDED GREEN! I know exactly what you are thinking right now "Woah you are crazy! Changing the nail game like you are some sort of nail demon!" But that is the burden I must carry as a nail blogger.

So this manicure was simple. I started with a base of OPI Alpine Snow, then I used striping tape and used Barry M's Blood Orange, and Wet n Wild 416A(It's so old it has no name!). my only grievance was the fact that it smudged when I put top coat on :(

I want coffee(decaf).

(Insert clever title that includes Legos and Christmas)

I haven't been posting many Christmas manicures this year so I feel I have to remedy that ASAP!

These are some nails I did a few weeks ago when I was at a bit of a loss when coming up with ideas. I fell back on something I had done a long time ago! Lego Nails!!! But with a Christmas spin! I especially like Rudolph and his Lego nose!

If you would like to know how I did the Lego nails check out my tutorial here!

So how is everyone's Holidays going. What did you ask Santa for this year? Do you think Santa will deliver? Or do you think you think you were naughty this year and that's why Santa wont be stopping by? Do you believe in Santa?

 

If you would like you know what polishes I used please ask :)

An attempt was made!: More adventures in stamping!

So here is an autumn post coming to you at the beginning of winter. I decided I wanted to go crazy and try advanced stamping. Because I'm sure we all know the saying "If you have yet to master something, try the harder version of it". I looked at a bunch of tutorials online and I got the gist of it.

Get the outline of the design onto the stamper, then fill it in with colours, topcoat it, then peel it off and stick it on your nail.. In theory this is easy, but it clearly takes time to make it flawless like I have seen some of the other bloggers make it.

For this I used a stamping plate from the Born Pretty Store (BP-19). It has your basic leaf design, which I really like, because it can be used in so many different ways.

Putting the design on to the stamper was easy. The "hard" part came with colouring it in. It wasn't hard, but it was so easy to miss bits(as you can see on my nails). And they were really small in person, and I didn't really notice them till after I had places it on my nails.

Overall I think my attempt was decent. It was by no means perfect, but it was still a good effort for a first go!

If you would like this plate, head on over to the Born Pretty Store. It retails their for $2.99(USD) AND shipping is free. And on top of that if you add our discount code EAL91 you get 10% off!

A-Z Challenge - Holographic: Ice Ice Baby

I'm a day late, but today I have for you my A-Z Challenge nails. This week was H for Holographic. As you may remember yesterday I showed you Beyond The Nail's Winter Wonderland but because I wanted to wear it alone before covering it up, I didn't get to finish my art for the challenge.

I decided I had to do waterfall nails, which I first saw done by done by Sammy at The Nailasaurus. Personally they have always reminded me of icicles, so I though that it would go perfectly with Winter Wonderland. I decided to stick with a blue theme, with Winter Wonderland as a base, and England Tristam, Sinful Colors Endless Blue, Essie Smooth Sailing and an random silver, no name glitter I own. Personally I think the glitter really adds to it. This isn't crazy in your face holo, but I think that's what makes it perfect!

This is random but I'm sad I have yet to watch Home Alone 1 and 2 yet this holiday season. I could watch those movies over and over again!

 Natural Light

These were all taken with FLASH. (AH-HA!)

To see more holographic nails, check out some other bloggers doing the challenge!

An InLinkz Link-up

Beyone The Nail - Winter Wonderland: I'm just going to keep your gift for me.

 Today is actually the A-Z challenge but I'm actually going to show you that post later as it's not done. Why is it not done you ask?  Well did you ever put on a polish with the intention to do nail art, but then you just can't do it right away. You just have to wear the polish on it's own for a bit. Well that is the case today. 

I saw a couple of swatches of Beyond the Nail's Winter Wonderland while looking for a polish to give as a Christmas gift, and I immediately knew I had to have it. This colour sort of remind me of a colour I love to hate, OPI's My Point Exactly. Both are pale grays, with blue undertones, but MPE is darker. Two things I loved about this polish was unlike a lot of pale colours, especially crellys, this did not need a million coats. It only needed two, but I added another because I knew I was going to use flash. I also love the fine holographic glitter. It's packed to the hilt with it but it still isn't overwhelming. It's quite the chic holo. You can also get this polish scented with either Eggnog, Spiced Cranberry, or Gingerbread scent. I can't tell you if these are good as I chose unscented. Scented polishes for me smell great for maybe half an hour, then they usually start making me queasy.

I'm really glad I bought it, but I'm sad I didn't get more. Especially when I saw the polish I bought for part of my friends Christmas gift, Space Cadet, a purple holo jelly(You can see it at the bottom). There was a small part of me that thought "Maybe I should keep it". Anyways, if you would like a bottle, you can head on over to their website where their polishes sells for in between $6.50-$10(USD). The two I got were both $10(USD).

 FLASH(AH-HA!)

 No Flash

 Not the best photo, but I wanted to try and show off just how much holo is in it.

Space Cadet and Winter Wonderland

If my friend who is getting Space Cadet sees this, sorry. That being said I don't know if she even reads the blog :P

'Cause we're just stars. Tryn'a get back to where we're from: Let me try stamping...again.

Today I have some stamping for you! I received this BP-06 stamping plate from The Born Pretty Store. I was super excited about this one because of Sailor Moon! I decided I was going to do the twinkly star stamp because I have honestly been in a winter kick.  For some reason I just love the nighttime in the winter(although I wish it would start a bit later :P). I had the perfect base(Picture Polish Cosmos) to make it look like a night sky. Stamping was easy and I really liked how it turned out, simple but pretty. Which is always good, especially when it comes to a newer stamper like me!

Now on to what I did not like. When you look at the first photo of the plate with the blue plastic over it it looks scuffed up right? But that's not a big deal as that's the plastic. But when I removed the plastic I noticed that one of the bigger scuffs wasn't actually a scuff(under my watermarks), but was actually a scratch IN the plate. You can't really really tell from the photo but the scratch was about as deep as the designs, and it goes right through the center design :( Hopefully that isn't something that happens a lot.

If you love Sailor Moon, I'm pretty sure you need this. Head on over here and buy this plate on sale now for $1.49(USD). AND on top of that use our discount code EAL91 and get 10% off!

*Product sent for honest review.

A-Z Challenge: Gold (Fingers)

Short post! For this weeks challenge I actually knew what I wanted to do for a while. I knew I just wanted it to be a hint of gold. And I also thought it would be neat to have the base be mattified, so the sparkle popped a bit more. I really like how this turned out, minus the fact that the matte topcoat turned suede really quickly.

I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White, China Glaze Gold Medallion and Born Pretty's matte top coat.

To see more fantastic manis check out these links!

An InLinkz Link-up

A-Z Challenge - Fashion: ????????????

So that time of the week has rolled around once again, the A-Z Challenge. This week was F for Fashion which I was SUPER excited about. Fashion would have to be one of my favorite things I look to for inspiration. And I knew exactly what I wanted to do for this manicure. I wanted to recreate a fashion inspired manicure I did back in 2012. I never shared it because I didn't like how it turned out, but I did save the photo of my manicure and the photo of the outfit that inspired me because I still wanted to give the design a go at a later date.

Long story short I found the photo of the old manicure on my old laptop, but I could not for the life of me find the photo of the outfit. So my design is mainly based on my old manicure. It's frustrating because I can see the outfit in my head. It looked like a semi-sheer white raincoat made out of all these squares and rectangles, that were outlined in black, and layered to create the jacket.

If you have ANY idea where my inspiration originally came from please let me know. This is driving me up the wall!

This was the closest thing I could find to what my original inspiration was. Now instead it was structured less like a normal coat and more like and artsy coat made out of squares. This is the best description I have :/

For more fashion inspired manicures check out these awesome blogs!

An InLinkz Link-up

Let's Talk Boobs: Core Needle Biopsy Fun

Today's post is a bit different. I wasn't sure if I should write it mainly because I didn't know if anyone would read it. Then I thought screw it, even if you guys don't read it it will still be on the interweb and it may help someone. As someone who goes to Doctor Google(I know I shouldn't!!!!), I know this would have made me feel better. If you are gonna go to doctor Google, at least I can offer you a not so scary tale.

So back story, last December while trying to sleep I had some pain in my boob. I thought it was my bra(Yes I sleep in it. That is how I roll!) digging into me. But when I felt around it turned out to be a lump.

Now when it comes to health issues, I am super paranoid. If something like that shows up it NEEDS to be looked at asap. So I went to a walk in clinic as my GP does not work over the weekends. She said she thought it was a benign tumor called a fibroadenoma, and she sent me for an ultrasound. The results came back as we are pretty sure this is what this is. Let's check it out again in 6 months.

7 months later I got a second ultrasound, and the walk in clinic doctor said that it had grown rapidly in the past 2 months and they want to do a core needle biopsy, just to make sure it was for sure what they thought it was. And she told me not to worry. Then she asked if I had been on my period at the time of the ultrasound, I told her yes. Apparently the kind of lump they thought it was has a tendency to grow during that time of the month. Then she sent me on my way with a requisition for an appointment.

So after that appointment I actually got in contact with my GP. I really didn't like the walk in clinic doctor(and I had no idea that when you go to a walk in clinic THAT doctor is put in charge of all your tests and nothing gets sent to your GP unless you ask). Despite having all my info in front of her she got my info wrong. Not only that but you would think the place I got the ultrasound done would have asked if I was on my period seeing as that is an important factor!

So my GP then sent a new requisition out the the hospital I go to if I need to go to a hospital. I got an appointment 2 weeks later. I had to cancel that in the end and I was scheduled a new appointment for 2 weeks after that.

The day of the appointment I took a T3 and I brought the Boy with me, because if I brought someone like my mother she always makes me feel even more nervous(It may be because she was a nurse). Anyways I got in at around 9:40 and they made me take everything off from the waste up, and put a gown on. Then I got to wait for another hour even though my appointment was at 10. So I went in at 11-ish and then I got to spend another 15 minutes reading a page I had to sign. Finally the guy doing the biopsy came in, they prepped me and then numbed my boob. It kind of felt like the needle you get when you go to the dentist. Then he marked off where they were going to make the incision. My first thought was "No one said they were going to cut me" and my second thought was "The lump is on the other side of my boob...You are going to skewer me, aren't you?". So they way the biopsy works is they stick a large needle in you, and that needle contains another needle that shoots into the mass and removes tissue. They took 3 samples from me, but I read of other people having more. I also read how this was wicked painful for some people. I can safely say it did not hurt at all, but it was super uncomfortable.  There was a lot of pressing and pulling going on and it didn't feel great, but it didn't hurt.

When it was all said and done they made me put pressure on the incision for a few minutes to stop the bleeding. They then just put a Band-Aid on it and told me to leave it on for 24 hours. When I left I got some acetaminophen to take and went back to the boys place. By the time we got back to his place I went to the bathroom and I noticed that I had totally bled through the Band-Aid and my bra. I ended up having to tape gauze over it(That's all the Boy had). I continued bleeding on and off for about 2 days. Overall I wasn't in pain, but it did hurt to do thing like lift my arms in the air, or pick up heavy stuff. I also could not lie on my stomach for almost 3 weeks.

I got the results back 2 weeks later, and it turned out it was what they had thought it was and it was indeed benign. My doctor says if I want I can get it taken out. I'm going to try and get another ultrasound in the new year and see if it is smaller. If it is I think I'll just leave it be for now. If it's grown or it start to bother me a lot I will for sure get it out.

Again I know this was a different and long kind of post, but I hope it made someone feel a little less worried.

Now for something I little less worrisome. A Pugicorn!

A-Z Challenge - Elegant: En Pointe

First off to all my American readers I hope you have a great Thanksgiving weekend. Now today A-Z challenge letter was E for Elegance.  When I saw this is wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to do, but I kept going back to ballet. Specifically Misty Copeland, an American ballet dancer, who was also the first African American soloist in this history of the American Ballet Theatre. Ballet it's in my opinion the perfect fusion of elegance and strength. Especially when watching dancers like Misty.

For this manicure I used a base of Essence Sweet as Candy. The glitter is a some loose pink glitter and some silver glitter from Sally Girl(I can't find a name on it). For the pointe shoes I used CND Rosebud.

Misty Copeland

To see more amazing manicure check out what the rest of the ladies doing the challenge did!

An InLinkz Link-up

A-Z Challenge - Dark: Are You Local?

So some of you may know this about me, but I love writing comedy. In fact one day I would love to be a comedy writer with my own show. I am currently in a sketch troupe so of course there are other sketch troupes I look up to. One of my favourites would have to be the dark comedy stylings of The League of Gentlemen. They are very much the kind of humor I like and the style I prefer to write. I love going to those dark, twisted places that make you laugh, but at the same time make you think "Wow that is kind of messed up". When I saw the inspiration for the A-Z challenge was Dark, I knew I had to do something League of Gentlemen related.

My manicure today is inspired by the sign leading into the fictional town of Royston Vasey and the roads on the sides represent the new road they are planning to build into the town.  The new roads are especially alarming to  Edward and Tubbs, They own a Local Shop and you can see it in the photo with the sign. They don't like ANYONE who isn't local(hence why the road is a bad thing), and they have a tendency to murder people. They are also married as well as brother and sister.

If you are into dark comedy you NEED to watch this show yesterday! Here's one of my favourite clips from it. A cop goes into Edward and Tubbs shop, looking for a missing hiker(who they killed). And as you guessed it hilarity ensues.

Are there any fans of this show who also read my blog?

FUN FACT: This post was written in it's entirety before the manicure was even started.

An InLinkz Link-up

Freddie Mercury- September 1946 – 24 November 1991

I was actually going to FINALLY post my A-Z Challenge today, as it slipped my mind and I totally neglected to post it to the blog. But I'm am pushing that back a day as this is somethiing I really want to post today.

So this is my Freddie Mercury mani. As it has been 23 years since he passes away. If you have been following me for a while you will know of my love for boy bands. You will also know that my love of Queen trumps that(and all other music for that matter). All them members were extremely talented, especially Freddie. Even though I am not in music I still look up to him as a writer.  I'm sad I never got to see Queen in their original lineup and if I ever invent time travel, that will be the first thing I do.

Pardon my stamping. I'm still a noob.

Plate is from MoYou London's Rockstar Collection and it's #8.

ETA Favourite Queen Song:

 

A England-Briarwood: My Red Addiction.

So I like collecting polish, but I'm not one of those people who has 1000+. I tend to keep my collection to under 300, which in the normal people world is insane already. I pick and choose what I own carefully, which is why I have so few polishes I don't love. This is also the reason I have so few similar polishes. Unless it's a colour I use a lot chances are I will have no dupes or even close to dupes.

Unless it's a deep, vampy red with shimmer.

This is the only colour I have a hard time not picking up. It just makes me melt as I love most reds in general. They just have an umph factor to them. A England Briarwood from the Burne-Jones Dream Collection is no exception. It's that deep vampy, shimmery, pigmented red, filled with scattered holographic glitter. Done in a way that only A England could do it. Keeping with A England tradition, this polish has AMAZING formula. I used two coats, but I could have gotten away with one. And photographing this beauty was sooooooo hard. Pictures do not do it justice!

If you are a red lover you NEED this. And if you need a vampy red in your collection, I suggest this be the one you snag! Here are all the places that sell A England: http://www.a-england.co.uk/where-to-buy/

 Light box

 Natural light bulb flash

Artificial light bulb flash

A-Z Challenge - Copy Cat: Watercolour Flowers

It's that time of the week again! Time to do the A-Z Challenge. This week the letter was C and we had to go off of Copy Cat. For this manicure I decided to recreate someone elses mani with my own twist.

This is actually something that I had saved on my phone and was going to do eventually. It's originally done by the amazingly talented _lastrega. Mine was done using acrylic paint and white polish. The one thing I was trying to do was get my flowers to look solid, but bleed together. It kind of did that on my middle finger, but because the flowers dried quickly it was hard to bleed them.

I'm super please with how these turned out. I wasn't even going to wear them as a proper manicure, just some quick art. Does any one else ever do that every now and then? Just do art for the sake of art and then take it off right away?

Without Top Coat

 With Top Coat

 The Original

A photo posted by @_lastrega on Oct 10, 2014 at 2:03am PDT

 

An InLinkz Link-up

A-Z Challenge - Bold: Nefertiti and the Nubbins

So my original idea went out the window after a few screw ups(I blame the short nails), but I am happy with what I settled on. The theme for this week is Bold. So I chose to take my inspiration from someone who was bold. Nefertiti.  She was the Great Royal Wife of Akhenaten, and together they reigned at what was one of Ancient Egypt's most wealthy periods as well as creating a new religion. I doubt someone who was timid could do that.

ETA: I started this post on Thursday and intended to post it that night BUT I was super busy getting ready for a show. As soon as I took the photo for instagram I just took off the mani w/o taking proper photos. So you'll a)Have to forgive me for being late 2)Forgive me for the photo.

ALSO as you can see for the first time since I have been doing my nails(4 years), I had a break bad enough that they all had to go. Now they are uneven and blah. #prayercircle.

 

Here is the bust. The colours are a bit faded, but then again that's what a few thousand years does.

An InLinkz Link-up

Friday The 31st!

I have today manicure from one of my favourite horror series, Friday the 13th! My favourite movies from the series would have to be the first film, and Jason X(EVERYTHING IS BETTER IN SPACE). For this I kept it simple. I did a forest and cabin scene on most of my nails, because everything leads back to camp Crystal Lake. And of course I had to include the iconic hockey mask.

Anyways I hope everyone is having/had/going to have a great and safe Halloween!

A-Z Challenge - Angles: Zombie Stitching

For the first time ever I'm going to try and do a challenge. One of the reasons I have never attempted one before is because a lot of them involve posting a manicure every day or even a few times a week. Which is something I can't guarantee seeing as (let's be real) I'm a little all over the place when it comes to posting. So the challenge I am doing is the A-Z Challenge. It is once a week(aka something I can stick to) and each week the prompts are the next letter of the alphabet. Today we have Angles.

I had actually decided last week that all my post this week would be Halloween related. So when I was trying to come up with an idea I went back in time(literally) and decided this would be the perfect time to redeem myself and recreate something I did almost 2 years ago to the day.

I guess you would call this Zombie stitching. The original version I did was shameful. I know it was two years ago, but even back then I knew that the original was a big flop. The current one is leaps and bounds better!

I started off with a base of Essie's Sew Psyched(just like in my original), then I did all the places the flesh was separating in red acrylic paint, followed by the stitches is black acrylic paint. Then I topped it off with Born Pretty's matte topcoat, and finished by going over the wounds with Cult Nails Quench to give it more of a wet blood look.

So tell me what you think of my recreation! And while you are at it go tell the other people participating in the challenge how much you love their manicures!

 

Here is the original from 2 years ago. *facepalm*

An InLinkz Link-up

Haloween Classic (On my RIGHT hand as well!!!)

I feel like this is something almost everyone does at one point or another. A graveyard scene. I actually did one last year(but let's not talk about that mess). This year I decided to do a gradient. I was at first conflicted. Do I want a purple gradient or a black gradient? I ended up stumbling across a graveyard manicure that wasn't a gradient but it used only black white and gray with the only colour being a pumpkin. So I decided I would do my original idea in a black gradient and the only colour would be the jack-o-lanterns features.

I also decided not to tell you who I was inspired by. I was having trouble finding their blog when I was trying to find a link so I could credit. Long story short, the reason I couldn't find any was because they had deleted all their accounts because they had been caught stealing peoples posts.

So I would like to credit this to whoever that person probably stole the idea from.

Here is my right hand. I'm really happy with it as it's the first time I have done nail art using my non dominant hand(not including lines using tape or dots).