Happy New Year!!!!!! - Orly Mirrorball

So my new years eve was uneventful, which was fine by me. Honestly my new years eve goes one of two ways. It's either super uneventful or I end up dry heaving on the side of the road yelling at bicycles. Apparently there is no such thing as in between for me.

Not only was mt NYE super uneventful, it was super last minute so I didn't do proper nail art. So I decided instead to just wear polish that I thought fit the occasion. I ended up choosing Orly Mirrorball, because it made me think of the giant ball drop, at midnight in Times Square. I would love to see that in person one day from the comfort of a hotel room. You couldn't pay me to stand crammed outside in a pen, probably a good 5 blocks away from the actual Times Square, for 12 hours, in the freezing cold and probably having to wear a diaper, because you can bet I'm going to have to pee at some point.

Back to polish. This polish is a silver linear holo, with larger pieces of scattered holo glitter. I used three coats, although I may have been able to get away with two. I just wanted to make sure my yellow nails didn't show up in the light. The formula was ok, but not the best. While it was pretty easy to control, it felt watery at the same time and I just didn't love application. Now I have heard people say they love this polish and others say they were disappointing. I honestly think the large glitter makes this polish. If you took them out it would still be pretty, but it would just be another silver holo. Also if you are someone who likes your polish to be super holo in all lights this may not tickle your fancy. It looks AMAZING under the sun or direct light, but in some lights falls a bit flat. Again in cases like that, the bigger pieces of holo glitter save it. If you are able to get your hands on this polish, I suggest you get it!

China Glaze So Blue Without You: The Tea Incident. ALWAYS USE YOUR BRAIN!

So the other day I decided to have a nice, hot cup of tea.  Then I did something stupid.  AS SOON as I made it, without thinking, I took a huge sip.  Liquid that had less than a couple minutes earlier been boiling.  Immediately I spat it out all over myself, the dinner table and a chair and got a glass of cold water.  It was the worst.  And to make matters even better, two days later my tongue just started to seep blood.  It's been about 5 days now and it still feels weird but it doesn't hurt.  Lesson Learnt.  Always use your brain when doing anything.

Anyways you know what scolding drinks remind me of?  Christmas!  Today's polish China Glaze's So Blue Without You was sent to me by Nail Polish Canada.  It came with 2 other polishes in China Glaze's Dash of Dazzle gift set trio, and is also part of their 2013 Christmas collection.  So Blue Without You in an icy blue metallic foil.  It applied in 2 easy coats.  Word of warning.  I swatched this without base coat, and despite only wearing it for a few minutes I could see that it was beginning to stain.  So if that's not a thing you are fine with base coat is for sure something you will want to wear unless you want Smurf fingers.

I also decided to compare So Blue to Orly's Sweet Peacock.   They are close and look like they could be related.  Application was also pretty much the same for the two.  But is you can see Sweet Peacock is a deeper, dare I say peacock blue. 

If you would like to polish the Dash of Dazzle Trio you can get it over at Nail Polish Canada for $15.00CND.  Or you can buy the polish on it's own for $6.95CND.  And for a limited time all orders(no matter what the price) will be shipped for free within Canada!

Tell me you deep dark feeling of metallic blues.
*Product sent for honest review.

Lava Nails: This is the reason I have a bottle of textured polish. That and SCIENCE!

Fact:  I own one bottle of textured polish at the moment.  Zoya Dahlia.  One of the main reason why I bought it was to try this.  I think I would call this a success!

I started off by leaving on the base of Moonlit Dance.  Then with black acrylic paint I messily painted on where the black was going to go.  After that I painted on Dahlia over the black paint using a nail art brush, and adding a tiny bit of black on top of the orange.  This looked much cooler in real life as in some of the black areas I went over them maybe twice.  Then in other areas I went over them around six times.  Not only did I have textures going on because I did more layers in some places more than others it gave it this really neat 3D look!  After I did that I decided to go over the orange with a sheer orange Orly polish(I don't remember the name right now and I can't find it on the bottle(mini)).  I wasn't really loving how shimmery the original orange looked under it.

Fact: Lava- Molten rock above the earths surface, expelled by volcano.  Magma- Molten rock below the earths surface!

Ummmmm...SCIENCE!

The Monarch has many ways to sting!

I love cartoons. Especially inappropriate cartoons. The Venture Bros is a long-standing favourite. When season 5 was (FINALLY) announced, oh man, a handful of friends and I were pretty much barfing with excitement.

If you're not familiar with the show, here's a quick summary: it's a parody of Jonny Quest-style boy adventurer 60's cartoons, put in a present-day setting with heaps of modern cynicism. The plot revolves revolves around Hank and Dean Venture, teenaged sons of failed superscientist Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture, who lives bitterly in the shadow of his own very successful father. Every superscientist worth his salt needs an arch-villain...enter THE MONARCH!

 Pictured here with his faithful and way-smarter companion Dr. Mrs. The Monarch. He's the best villain in the history of villainy. He's obsessed with butterflies, while demonstrating limited understanding of them. Go watch it. You will hurt yourself laughing.

 Colours used: Orly Liquid Vinyl, Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, Orly Androgynie. Acrylic paint for the butterfly, rhinestones for shazam.

 You can see some drag on the crown  :(

 This kind of looks horrible close up. But from a standard hand-to-face distance, it's good.

If you're not sold on this show yet, just watch this:

Any Venture fans in the house?

ALSO just to let you all know, I think my camera is about to die. I have no means to replace it, so unless I can get it repaired for cheap, I may not be around for a while. Going to try to make it last for a while longer but who knows!

St. Patrick's Day Mani: Brought to you by Power Nap

Well I had an interesting night last night.  It consisted of drink tickets.  Lots and lots of drink tickets.  Followed by stumbling to the boys place at 2am and spent the next half hour apologizing for my drunkness, and asking that the lights in the room be left on(I felt less like dying when the lights were on.  The room spun less.)  It was a pretty fun night! But never again...

Anyways this mani is quite simple but before I went out last night I decided to take a power nap.  Long story short I slept too long and didn't have time to do anything crazy.  But I still really like how this turned out.

I used Orly's Lucky Duck and A England Dragon on all my fingers but my ring finger.  On my ring finger I used OPI's Dating a Royal and A Englands Tristam.  And to complete this french I added a strip of gold striping tape.  I really loved the somewhat subtle differences.  And just an FYI the ring finger is blue because blue was the colour that was originally associated with St. Patrick's Day.

 

And just for fun here is my mani from last year.  Used a real Guinness can for the letters!

 

 So did you celebrate already?  What did you do?  If not do you have any plans for tonight?

Adventures In Stamping: The First Attempt

So thanks to the wonderful people over at The Born Pretty Store I decided to step out of my comfort zone a do something I never really considered trying.  Stamping.   I wont lie.  Originally I thought stamping was kind of eh.  But it turns out when done well it can look AMAZING. So because I already had a Konad plate (m65) I decided why not use it.  So I decided to try a Double Sided Nail Art Stamper and Scraper.

First off I decided against using the scraper for two reasons. 1)I didn't want to scratch up my plate 2) I don't know it you can see it in my photo of just the scraper but there was a tiny extra bit of metal on the scraper that would have for sure messed up the plate.  So instead I used an old, plastic HMV gift card.

 

 

You can see the extra piece of metal under my watermark

The stamper itself has two rubber sides.  A smaller green side and a larger pink side.  I had never even felt what a stamper feels like until recently.  It sort of feels like a REALLY soft, and squishy eraser.

As my base I used Milani Dude Blue.  Then for stamping I used ORLY Platinum Blush a metallic silver. Getting the polish onto the stamper was easy as pie.  Paint polish onto plate, swipe off all that excess with card, put stamper on plate(I tried rolling the stamper across the design and just placing it directly on top of the design. Both ways picked up the design just fine).  The actually application onto the nail was easy.  I just rolled it across my nail.  The tricky part was getting it to go on straight.  But I'm sure it will come with practice!

Going into this I knew what design I wanted to use, and I knew even though it was a full nail design I was only going to stamp half my nail.  The full manicure I ended up with has been something I have been wanting to try and thought the stamping would look good incorporated with it.  I really liked how it turned out with the black and the striping tape!  I also purposely started stamping the design so it was a different angle on each nail.  So it looks the same, but different!

How do you guys think I did?

 

And don't forget about out Born Pretty Discount code (EAL91)!  10% off already great prices! 

*Product was sent for honest review.

Holo-zebra-skully-rhinestone-geometric what is this hot mess I love it

Here's a quick design I did on Monday. I see a lot of great "mix" nail arts on Tumblr (my internet home...I'm one of those people), and have really wanted to try my own! I have trouble with pattern mixing (I have a very strict sense of what does and does not go together) so these were a fun challenge for me.

The pictures are lousy and don't show the holo well at all, please forgive me - was in a rush to get out the door for my beloved Monday night beer-and-hot tub extravaganza- but I loved how this turned out and really wanted to show you my first MIX!

 So as not to waste my precious GOSH Holographic Hero, I first applied 2 coats of a silver bargain bin polish. Anyone own/heard of Charm Limit? I have 2 and they wear pretty well. I used "Colour 14" (so glam, I love their names).  The ring finger and thumb detail is Orly Liquid Vinyl. An Art Deco striper polish was used for the middle finger and stamping. Zebra stamp from Bundle Monster, skull from Konad.

Since the whole design was done was done with stamps, tape and minimal freehanding, I was able to do both hands identically. Maybe that defeats the purpose of a mix? Who cares, I love it!

James Bond: Black and white rainbows? (Come see the wonders that are my left AND RIGHT hand!)

In an attempt to do a James Bond mani, I wrote a list of all the James Bond stuff I know.

1) Suits
2) Martinis
3) Sean Connery
4) Pierce Brosnan
5) Daniel Craig
6) Gold something
7) Shooting occurs
8) Movies make loads of money
9) The theme song

I quickly realized that I know nothing about James Bond, and that I didn't care.  So I did this instead!

On my left hand I did black and white stripes,  and a rainbow and white accent nail.  I achieved this by using striping tape.  Then on my right hand I got that straw stamping(?) look by breaking an old pen and using the tube that holds the ink.  And in order to give it more dimension I would stamp more then once with paint.  And in between stamping I would dip my hand in water.  That's why not all the stamps are solid.

On my left and right hand I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls as a base.  Then on my left hand I did the stripes with OPI Black Onyx.  The rainbow was done using (From red-purple) Essie Fishnet Stockings, Orly Holla, BK Sweet Candy Fast Dry Nail Art Polish in #19, Essie Pretty Edgy, Milani Dude Blue and H&M Plum.  All the black and colour on my right hand was done with acrylic paint.

So tell me.  Who does not care about James Bond?

 I wanted to hold something that had a rainbow on it.  The only thing I could find was this bottle of Chardonngay.  Oh what a NYE that was.

You can't spell snow without 'No'.

Now I can give you a long and arduous list of all the things I hate, but I don't have time today.  Although I can tell you one thing that is one the list.  Snow.  Oh how I loath it.  We had a snowstorm the other day(ETA: And now it's snowing again!).  Ugh.  Now in my perfect world there would be a heavy snowfall maybe one a month from November to February.  It would be all pretty at night, everything would look stunning in the morning and I wouldn't have to leave the house that day.  Then the next day it would be completely melted, no slush(perfect world remember) and the weather would go back to being a crisp 10°C(This by the way is my idea of a perfect winter daytime high).

This being said even if I hate something, chances are if it looks pretty I will put it on my nails.  So here is my version of simple snow fall nails.  First I started with a base of Orly Sweet Peacock, then I did gradient tips with OPI Happy Anniversary(It is more noticeable in real life), next I dotted white acrylic paint for the snow flakes finally I finished off with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust.  Easy as pie.  Unless you can't bake.

While we're on the topic of things I hate I guess I can add another thing.  Really hot weather. Vacation to Jamaica? Pass!

 Base on it's own.  Blue foil (dare I saw peacock blue?), 2 coats.  The formula was good but it wasn't amazing.

Vert.

Love, love, LOVE this colour! 

Now I'm a big fan of colours that border on pretty-ugly and this for sure is one of them!  Orly's It's not rocket science is green/yellow glitter flakies in a mossy green base.  As you can see it also flashes a blueish green in the bottle.   I used 3 coats to get it completely opaque.   She sparkled like crazy.

For some reason when I look at this polish it always reminds me of B-movies. That's another point for this polish.

The best part of Halloween?

Candies, of course!

Well, actually not.  I don't eat most candy being that I am apparently some sort of alien.  Really just chocolate and like caramel and things of that nature.  I am learning to like gummies but I can't chew them without feeling queasy so methinks the battle will be long ad arduous so I may just stop fighting and not eat candy.

But candy is pretty awesome on nails, as evidenced by the adorable manicure that I did last week after I applied my lovely white base!  I added some Ghoulish Glow on top to make it a little more fun but forgot to take photos in the dark.  C'est la vie!

So here is a cute little candy manicure!  I used about a million polishes and I can't remember them all but off the top of my head:

Urban Outfitters Bandeau
Zoya Charla
Zoya Ivanka
Cult Nails Annalicious
OPI Fly
OPI Did It On Em
Color Club Almost Famous
Color Club Fly With Me
OPI Pompeii Purple
OPI Too Hot Pink To Hold Em
OPI Y'all Come Back Ya Hear
OPI The Show Must Go On
Revlon Royal
Orly Glitz and Glamour (which is the gold bits and also the best warm gold ever)

Eye See Slime!

First off(and most importantly) let me say to everyone being affected by hurricane Sandy I hope you are all keeping safe!  So far where I am it has just been overly shitty weather.

Next up I did a show the other day and of course my nails were Halloween themed.  Since there's only a few days left for till Halloween I want to get all my Halloween nails out of my system!

So on my left hand I did blood shot eyes(note how they are actually bloodshot) to get that bloodshot look I sponged on Cult Nails Quench after having dipped a makeup sponge in acetone.  I don't know what but it always kind of irks me when I see blood shot eyes that are totally white. I'm picky.  Then on my right hand I just did some slime over black.  Quick and easy.

I really liked how these turned out.  Especially the eyes!

Does anyone here also do completely different manicures on each hand sometimes?

 

(L-R) On my left hand I used Claire's Snowball, Cult Nails Quench, and acrylic paint.  Then for the right hand I used Orly Iron Butterfly and acrylic paint.

Oh The Horror!!! My Attempt At Gradient Nails.

So I don't ever think I've posted a gradient manicure here because quite frankly up until now they have all looked like complete, and utter shit.

This is the first gradient I have not taken it off within a few minutes of putting it on.  I also wore it out (and was complimented on it).

All in all I've seen waaaaaaay better but for me this is pretty go.

*Hands myself an award for effort*

I used Orly's It's Not Rocket Science and Zoya's Julieanne.