Did I do that? The answer is I don't know.

It's kind of funny because I have a bunch of photos just sitting here on my laptop and I have no clue if I posted them before or not. Mainly because I have just been picking and choosing whichever one piqued my interest, and not going in any order. So my apologies if I repeat!

You know what I have been liking a lot recently. Chocolate. I have honestly never been a chocolate person, but ever since I got my hands on the Lindt Chocolate Bunnies I can not stop. Apparently chocolate has a similar effect on the brain as opium, and according to my research a lot more tasty and fun.

Anyway here are some cookie nails I did with the help of Robin Moses's Cookie Monster tutorial. I don't remember for sure what the red polish is right now, but I think it's OPI's Got The Blues for Red, and everything else is acrylic paint.

Better late than never!

So I have my Easter nails for you today. Generally for Easter I like doing something crazy, but this year I didn't have it in me. So Instead I just went with pretty(which is just as good). These nails were inspired by the Lindt gold Easter bunny. The week leading up to Easter I ate so many of the tiny ones. SO. MANY. It was to the point where I thought I had thrown out all my years of being retentively healthy out the door. But it was so hard to stop when they were free. Also it's a fact that everything tastes 100% better when it's free.

For this manicure I used China Glaze's Ruby Pumps for the base and Mingle With Kringle for the gold. And I used striping tape to get those sexy crisp lines. The bow was a sticker I got from Born Pretty Store.

Nails with the bunnies! (Sorry for the crappy photo with a strange filter that I thought looked good at the time)

♥Valentine Gradient ♥

I'll be honest, while I still love nail art I don't do it nearly as much as I used to. Not only that but I find when I do do nail art now I'm never really all that happy with it. I just don't think I'm that great at it anymore(not that I was some super nail artist extraordinaire to begin with :P ). But for the first time I did some nail are that I actually loved and wore for days! Yes I had a bit of help, but I'm fine with that!

I decided I wanted to do a Valentines Day manicure, nothing too over the top though. So my manicure started with these stencil stickers from the Born Pretty Store. Each pack comes with 12 stickers, but you can easily cut them in two and make them 24. Even though the stickers are thin I didn't have a problem taking them off after 3 sponged on coats of Zoya Oswin and Barry M Majesty over a base of Barry M Rose Hip. Over all these were fool proof, and I think would make a great addition to anyone collection. They are easy enough for anyone to use, they are really hard to mess up, and you can get really creative with these. The only thing I noticed that was kind of annoying was the row in the middle. The plastic backing extends out on the sides but not top and bottom, so I needed to use tweezers to peel it off.

If you want to give these a go you can find them on sale here for only $1.99 USD(Original price $3.99 USD), and shipping is free, AND you can use out 10% discount code EAL91!

So is anyone doing anything special for Valentines Day? Not me. Will probably do something with the boy eventually, but it's really just an excuse to buy a bottle of wine and adult about how it has legs and stuff.

*Product sent for honest review

Christmas *cough* Pudding *cough* Nails......... *cough*

Uggggghhhhhh, so I felt myself coming down with a cold last week, and I did everything in my power to fight it off. Medicine, sleep, fluids, the works! And guess what? It worked! Sort of. I ended up with a very mild cold, followed by a monster cough that has left me feeling winded, and as if Freddy Krueger has been playing my throat like a mandolin. I need some tea and honey.

But you know one thing I don't need. Christmas Pudding. I find it gross, but it is something that pops into my head when I think of Christmas. So here it is on my nails. I used Milani's Chocolate sprinkles for the brown and paint for the rest.

Rest! (And something else everyone NEEDS)

So I have been exercising guys, and today is my rest day. I have actually been trying for the past few weeks. Even my diet

*And that is where I left the post for almost 2 days*

When I started writing this I had just come home from a show where I hit the back of my head on the floor. I realised after writing one line, this post wasn't going to happen, the laptop backlighting was making my head throb even more. Don't worry I'm ok now despite being a bit behind now with some reviews.  So lets pick up where I left off.

Even my diet has changed for the better. And it's been great because I have actually been sticking to it for WEEKS now. Probably for over a month. And I know that might not seem like much, but for someone who hasn't exercised in probably 8 years this is a big deal. My first goal is to get my high school body back, which I think is feasible. I weigh about the same as I did then, but back then I had more muscles as I was athletic. I want my mini 6 pack back, and I want it better than it was before. Maybe I'll do fitness posts! But not today. Today is nails!

I have for you striping tape from The Born Pretty Store. But not just striping tape, striping tape that comes is different sizes! 1mm(which is stander), 2mm and 3mm. Can I just say I love these. First, the larger sizes are super east to handle, also it is sooooooooo nice to have options. 1mm is just so thin, and that can be great depending on what you are doing, but if you want anything larger you have to start cutting up bigger pieces of tape, which can be a pain. Or you have to double or triple up on the tape, which takes more time and is prone to mishap.

I think everyone should check this out. Striping tape is a great option for any level nail enthusiast and I think the larger tapes are must haves for any nail art lover. You can get a pack of three in either gold or silver over here on sale for $1.99 USD (Normally $3.28). And you can use out 10% discount code EAL91!

 

The order of use is 3mm, 2mm and 1mm in all three of the previous images.

*In case you want to know more about the other aspects of the manicure the base is Beyond The Nail's Winter Wonderland with Mattese Elite's Revolution sponged on top. And then the brown I used earlier was OPI's Over The Taupe. The full manicure was inspired by a mani I saw but I can't for the life of me remember who did it. So if you know please tell me :(

Short post!

These nails were inspired by swaafie! I used Sinful Colors Hey, You!, China Glazes Stoked to be Soaked as a base. Then CG Spontaneous tipped with Zoya's Carter for the lines. Black is acrylic paint. Boo.

A photo posted by @swaafie on Oct 17, 2015 at 8:07am PDT

With Her Head Tucked Underneath Her Arm

Anyone who knows anything about me knows I love my boy bands, and I love history. There's a few areas of history that interest me, my two biggest being WWII and the Tudor era. I don't know why, but those two areas fascinate me. I have even considered going back to school and studying History last year, and went as far as applying. I only applied to one school(One of the University of London's Colleges), and I got in, but in the end I realised it wasn't for me. At least at the moment, never say never.

So today I have something to honour one of the things I love the most. History. Now I wasn't going to do a WWII manicure, because honestly there is nothing you can do that is ok. So I went with Anne Boleyn. When the people at Lady Queen asked me to choose a few things to review I knew instantly when I saw the crowns that I wanted... no needed, to do something Tudor related.

So the crowns come in a pack of around 50, and if you go to the page that the crowns are on, you can see that you also have the option of other designs(Stars, frames, etc.). The first thing I should tell you is, they are gold, a pale gold, but gold none the less. In my photo they are leaning less gold then they do in real life. They are kind of hard to lie flat because they are quite stiff, but they hold well when stuck to the nail and then topped with top coat. They aren't that big, so even with the edges off the nail I didn't find it a bother. But this would be one of those things I have to slap on after getting ready to go out if I'm doing my hair. Things that are flat on my nails have a tendency to fall off when washing my hair. This wouldn't stand a chance.

Overall I liked these a lot. Easy to apply, they stay on despite not laying flat on the nail, and they are super pretty. These can be used in so many different designs!  If you would like to give this a go head on over here, where you can get them for $4.75 USD, and on top of that shipping is free AND you can use Varnished Valkyrie's 15% discount code 'LAKS15'.

Ps. The B is from Anne's necklace, and the dripping blood is from...well if you don't know her story, I don't want to give away any spoilers :P

 

*Product sent for honest review.

No Efforticure!

So most of the time my nails aren't actually painted all crazy, with fab designs the kids want to copy. I usually only wear out my design if it can replicated it on my other hand, or I can create something similar on the other hand. Most of the time they are just one plain colour. Boring, I know. But even I get tired of it after a couple days(I have never been a paint your nails ever day person), so I have to jazz it up. With a few strips of striping tape, a gold stud and textured polish(Zoya Tomoko), I have turned Sally Hansens Alchemy, a tipwear nightmare, into a delightful sparkly piece of art.

Do you recycle manicures?

 

 Ps. I topcoated everything.

Birthday Nails (A Different Take)

Today is my Birthday. So naturally I did graveyard nails.

 

 I'm not the biggest fan of birthdays. Can you tell? But don't worry, I'll get over it eventually :P In other news, sorry I haven't been on here very often. The past few weeks have been super busy for me, but hopefully it will all be worth it! :D

Rain, rain...

The past few days have been wet, and cool and I have been loving every minute of it! When I was outside walking the other day, I looked up at the overcast sky and and actually thought "I love this!". Now I don't hate the sun, I like it in small doses and with no trace of humidity. Sadly in the summer that's not really an option.It's funny my friends always joke that I don't like anything, but now I have something else to add to my like list. Bad weather*

For this I used saran wrap, and blobbed on white, and dark gray polish. Then I added the umbrella with acrylic paint. To finish it off I added a matte topcoat and blobs of Seche Vite so it looked like rain. Honestly there was one thing I didn't like about them. The colours on the umbrella. I thought the contrast would look neat, but looking at it now I wish I had done something like different shades of blue.

*Not thunderstorms. Those are scary.

Merry Christmas!

I don't know why, but I keep wanting to say 'Merry Christmas'. It's still months away, and yet I find myself thinking randomly 'Merry Christmas'. Weird. Maybe my heart is set on Christmas(and some pretty holiday palettes) or maybe I'm just loosing it.

Anyway, these nails have nothing to do with Christmas, despite what my head is telling me. I decided to do some crayon nails! I used a combination of polish and paint.

Christmas.

Happy Birthday Freddie!!!!!!!!!!!

If you have been following this blog, for half a second, you'll know that I'm a bit of a Take That fan. If you have been following this blog, for 2 seconds, you'll know that even though I'm a huge Take That fan, my heart lies with Queen. They are in my humble opinion the one of the most innovative and creative bands to grace this earth. They are untouchable.

And Freddie Mercury was something special. Sadly as you all probably know(unless you live under a rock) Freddie passed away almost 25 years ago from complications from Aids. If I had a time machine one of the many things I would do is go back and see Queen live with Freddie. Anyways enough sadness, today is Freddie's birthday! So let's all have a drink for him!

This is actually a manicure I did back in November that I liked but I thought could have been done better. So with a better stamper and my MoYou Roxy Collection plate in 06 at hand I gave this mani another go!

 

Mandatory Mani

I feel like this is a mandatory manicure for anyone that has pointy nails. Watermelons. You just have to do it at some point. So this is my time/I wanted to do it before it started to feel like autumn.

I started with my base of Running in Circles then with acrylic paint I added the pink and white. Finally I painstakingly added the black glitter which is Ninja Polish Sticks and Stones. That took the longest time, trying to pick out the small black glitter from the white glitter. Love how it looks even though he glitter was a pain.

Here's running in circles on it's own. I have actually swatched it before, but this is too pretty to not show again!

These nails have been approved by Spider-Man

So the other day I was a HOT MESS. I did a really pretty eye look in the morning, but I was in rush and I forgot to put on mascara. So when I was out I bought some really cheap NYC stuff. THEN I realized I forgot to put on deodorant(and I need it guys, Old Spice Sweat Defence in After Hours is a life saver), sooooooo I went out and found a cheap bottle of Dove's deodorant for men(I hate how woman's deodorant smells), and bought it. FINALLY when I went home that night from the boys place, I wore my shirt inside out, IN PUBLIC. And just so you know this shirt is literally a different colour when it's inside out(The shirt is just a mass of colours thrown together and when it is inside out the pattern is still there, but it looks like a faded yellow and blue shirt).

So in the spirit of unplanned things happening here is a manicure I didn't plan on doing :P

This popped up on my tumblr dashboard yesterday, a pretty, pretty, Prada, purse, photographed by Maurizio Di Iorio. And I knew I had to do something inspired by it. This whole look was done using tape(minus the blue), because I'm not skilled enough to draw perfect lines. I started with a base of China Glaze's Stoked to be soaked. Then I taped off half the nail with scotch tape and added OPI's Over the Taupe, then with striping tape I added the yellow, which is Sinful Colors Pull Over. Finally I added Sally Hansen's *Pacific Blue for the tips. It is safe to say myself along with Spider-Man like my nails.

*Pacific Blue is SUPER deceptive. It is not that intense in real life. Although a lot of swatches look that intense, that is how it photographs a lot of the time. Yes, it is vibrant, but it's not that vibrant.

This is sort of a makeup post, but not really.

Well I have had another one of those weeks where I think I updated recently, but the reality was it's been a week. Anyway, let's get down to business. So I only started really wearing makeup in January. Before that I would only wear it if I HAD to. Now I wear it pretty much any time I leave the house. Now I'm no pro, but I think I'm decent, but I do feel a little iffy when I go into cosmetic stores. I always think they see my makeup and think "Wow, who invited Baba Yaga?". I mean I'm sure they don't say that but if there is anyp lace I feel insecure about my skills it's in a cosmetic store. The one place I feel the most awkward is Sephora, because I feel like everyone there is on point. Well a couple days ago I went in with some of my cousins and when we were checking out the lady behind the counter asked me about my makeup look, because she loved it! This is a first for me, having someone at Sephora take an interest in what I had on. It made me feel fantastic!

What does that all have to do with the manicure? Well since I have been getting into makeup I have been lurking a lot of makeup accounts. Some of these artists are soooooooo creative and I love looking at their work. Even though they sometimes do crazy stuff that I could never do on my own face, I can still use it and translate it to my nails. Like today, I have this manicure inspired by makeup artist Alene Filippova. This look caught my eye immediately when I scrolled past. I just had to put it on my nails :)

A photo posted by Alena Filippova (@filippovaalena) on Jul 29, 2015 at 11:16pm PDT

 For my nails I started off with a black base, then I top coated it. I then added tape down the centre, and with a fan brush, brushed on the gold(Which is a nameless Dior). Once I removed the tape I top coated it again, put another strip of tape down the centre, and with the fan brush added the red(Revlon Red Carpet). Finally I top coated the whole thing. I did it with and without matte topcoat. I think I like it better shiny as the matte dulled the red.

So tell me. Do you like the makeup? What are some of your favourite products?

It is NEVER too early for Halloween!

Well today is the last day in the Wiki Challenge, and I am on time! Huzzah! This week the wiki article was Horror Icon, which I was super excited about. Halloween reminds me of autumn and I love anything that reminds me of that. Also Halloween is an excuse to binge watch horror films, which I love as well.

I was actually a bit stumped when I was trying to think of something to do. I had ideas, but they were all of horror icons I had already done manicures with and I wanted something new. So I decided to go with The Mummy. The funny thing is I have never seen a mummy movie, ever. No real reason why I haven't, just never really been interested I guess. But I have tinkered with the idea of doing mummy nails before, but ended up doing something else. So this seemed like the perfect chance!

For this I started with a base of black. Then I just added a drop of brown acrylic paint to some white paint to make the off white bandages. To finish I added more brown and sponged that on top and added red eyes. I love how it turned out and it was SUPER easy to to.

Hopefully I will be able to do some new challenges soon. Because even though I am late some times or I miss weeks they are still great ways to come up with new stuff!

Le meilleur des mondes possibles!

So my nails are getting out of hand. I stabbed the boy for the first time ever. I contemplated cutting them for half a second and then I though "No." Although they may need a trim, but only because my thumb nail is broken really low down on both sides after I was trying to lift something heavy and it slipped.

Enough nail talk, lets talk about my nails some more! Today I have the Wiki Challenge done ON TIME. I actually have a few ones from weeks gone by, but haven't uploaded them. This week we got to choose a random article from Wikipedia. I got "Prelude, Fugue, and Riffs," a "written-out" jazz-in-concert hall composition written by Leonard Bernstein for a jazz ensemble. My only idea for this was to do music nails, but what I had in mind I had already done before. So I started to look for more insperation, when I thought "Leonard Bernstein -> Composed Candide based on the book by Voltair -> I have the book -> It has neat art -> I must put it on my nails." So that is how I got to my Inspiration for these Candide nails! I suggest you give it a read if you have yet to!

These nails are inspired by the four of the main characters listed on the inside of the front cover. For my base I used Zoya Jacqueline and everything else is acrylic paint. Then finished with Essie's Matte About You. Kudos to people who do nail art like this all the time. This took me FOREVER. Literally FOREVER.

Inside of the book where I took my characters from. You can see I used Candide, Cunégonde, Dr. Pangloss and Old Women.

This is another copy of the book I have. I found it at a used book sale. It's from 1930!

I need an affirmation

Hopefully I will have a light box this weekend because I hate taking so many pictures now.

Today I have some Take That nails for you guys. I haven't done any in a while! I know how you all missed them. My friend and I were actually going to go and see them, but Jason left so what was the point. That being said we did see them in Cinemas. Overall it was a fantastic show, but you can't really beat a bunch of middle aged men dancing. These nails were inspired by the live version of the song Affirmation from their last album Progress. Watch the video below. I was telling my friend their costumes reminded me of a cult. Just something I though of.

Also fun titbit: I don't think Gary Barlow sweats. Moist at points, but never a full blown sweat. Witchcraft.

Oh Canada!

Today is Canada Day! Which means it's time for a Canadian manicure! I say that like I do something every year, when in reality this is a first. And I wont lie, it's mainly because I find the maple leaf complicated to draw. It's easy, but even easier to mess up. So I was thrilled that I had a maple leaf stamp to use from The Born Pretty Store.

Honestly though, the manicure is just ok. I used Barry M Blood Orange for the solid red, and I used Essie Fishnet stockings for the stamping, as Blood Orange was horrible to stamp with. Then I just added OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls to the red nails. I also used that as a base for the stamping. The red was streaking all over the place 1)Because that red has a tendency to bleed and streak and 2)I had JUST thinned out my top coat, and it's more watery consistency did not help the cause :/

What do you think? Have I failed the country I love so much?

PS. I feel so bad I'm running a couple days late with a review post, but I have no light box which is making photos harder to take. Hopefully in the next couple of days I will have one. It will make taking photos soooooooo much easier!

PS. HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROBYN!

10th Time's The Charm!

I used to take a lot of photos when I started blogging. I want to say I could easily take 60. Now a days I try and limit myself to around 15 shots, as it's just less overwhelming. Lets be real, when you take 60 shots half of them are similar or identical to a bunch of other ones you have. Well since I have been redoing my room I have been lightbox free, which means a lot more misses rather than hits. Long story short I was worried I wouldn't get to share this manicure because ALL the shots were crap, minus the last shot. Huzzah!

On to the deets. This is a simple manicure(as I'm sure most of you have noticed) I used Chanel's Malice and Zoya's Tomoko. I used Nail Vinyl's to make the squiggly lines. Easy as pie. I ended up wearing this longer than I usually wear manicures for. FIVE days. If I'm going to wear Malice I WILL be getting as much use out of it as possible.