Mani Swap with @nailsbybivian


Today calls for another awesome mani swap with another awesome nail art girlie:  @nailsbybivian! For this swap, she recreated my Chevron tips & I went Summer-y with her fun pineapple design. 

For this manicure, I used:

  • Base Coat: Perfect Formulas Pink Gel Coat
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat
  • OPI I Jist Can’t Cope-acabana
  • China Glaze Shore Enuff
  • Essie Cocoa Karma
  • Small Nail Art brush from Bundle Monster.

As soon I saw Bivian’s bright & Summery pineapples, I wanted to recreate them. The vibrant colours, & pineapple design just feels so refreshing & makes it feel like Summer on my nails. Bivian has such a gorgeous account full of beautiful designs, so it was a little hard to pick one to recreate…  I must have saved 6 or 7 designs while trying to choose. But in the end it just HAD to be the pineapples!

 

So what do you think of this recreation? Let me know in the comments below!

Thank you to @nailsbybivian for joining me in this swap & don’t forget to check out her beautiful nail art on Instagram!

Chevron Accent Nail featuring Pacific Blue. 

I’ve written before about my unrelenting love for the original formula Sally Hansen Pacific Blue. So much so I still search for back up bottles when I’m looking through clearance. I don’t wear it a whole lot, but when I do I am reminded why I love this polish so much.  The other night I was looking for something to put on my nails, & immediately reached for my old trusty favourite. 

For this manicure, I used:

  • Base Coat: Perfect Formula Pink Gel Coat
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat
  • Sally Hansen Pacific Blue
  • China Glaze Fairy Dust
  • Sally Hansen Montley Hue
  • OPI Angel With A Lead Foot (under Montley Hue)
  • Snail Vinyls Staggered Chevron Nail Stencil

Sometimes I love wearing a simple colour & sprucing it up with a simple accent. If I’m remembering correctly, Pacific Blue was one of my very first Sally Hansen X-treme Wear polishes. I’ll never not love it. Even if it didn’t have this elusive Unicorn status, it would still be one of my favourites. 

What do you think of this mani? Do you have Pacific Blue in your stash? I’ve been going through my stash &  found some potential dupes, so I’m going to post a comparison post coming up! 💙

Mani Monday Mermaid Nails

Who doesn’t love a good mermaid manicure? 

When I made my What’s Up Nails order I knew I needed to stock up on some of their scale stencils so I could create mermaid nails. They just make me so happy! I just can’t stop playing with my vinyls. 

For this manicure, I used: 

  • Base Coat: Perfect Formula Pink Gel Coat 
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat
  • Essie All Access Pass 
  • Icing Breakfast At Tiffany’s
  • China Glaze Sand Dolla Make You Holla
  • What’s Up Nails Scale Stencil

I really wanted an excuse to pull out my bottle of Sand Dolla Make You Holla. Sadly my bottle has seen better days, & I’ve been trying to bring it back to life with polish thinner, but it’s not going well. Anyone else have trouble saying goodbye to old polishes at the end of their life, or is just me? I find it especially hard with polishes that are discontinued because you know you can’t get go out & buy a new bottle easily. I mean, yeah there is EBay but I feel weird buying polish off of EBay. Guess I will just have to hope & pray I come across it at Winners or Marshall’s one day soon. 

What do you think of this mermaid mani? What polish do you keep even though it’s seen better days? Let me know in the comments below!

Desert Sunset inspired nails

Coachella is finishing up this weekend, which means lots of festival inspired nails have been popping up in my feed! I’ve never been to Coachella, but I DO know it takes place in the desert so I thought these desert sunset gradient nails would be perfect to channel my inner festival goer (instead of what I’m actually spending today doing which is cleaning my bedroom & putting away way too much clothing while simultaneously trying to convince the baby to nap.)


For this design, I used:

  • Base Coat: Perfect Formula Pink Gel Coat
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Top Coat 
  • Color Club Almost Famous 
  • OPI Where Did Suzy’s Man-go?
  • Essie Play Date
  • Color Club Pucci-licious
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art pen in Black. 
  • Latex Free cosmetic sponge 
  • Born Pretty Store Liquid Latex Peel Off Tape

My bottle of top coat is reaching the bottom which lead to some weirdness & shrinking. Never the less, I really love the colour combination of this gradient with the desert landscape. I could totally see these fitting in at Coachella, or another similar music festival! 🌄 all I need is a flower crown & some cut off denim shorts & I’d fit right in! 

I think I’ve rediscovered my obsession with gradients, clean up be damned. (Thank goodness for Liquid latex.) & I think I’m slowly getting better at them! They make me happy. This colour combo worked out so well, I just can’t stop staring! Even my husband commented how wicked these were (& without asking even!)

What do you think of this design? Let me know in the comments below!

Earth Day nails with #thenailartsquad


For Earth Day 2017 I joined up last minute with a couple members of #thenailartsquad–@25sweetpeas & @nbnailart–for some Earth inspired manicures! Each one of us had a cute, unique take on the idea & all the designs turned out so awesome! 

For my Earth Day inspired manicure, I had an idea to create a drip marble that would look like the Earth, & I’m so happy with how it turned out! 

For this manicure, I used:

  • Base Coat: Perfect Formula Pink Gel Coat 
  • Top Coat: Cutex Quick Dry Coat. 
  • Sally Hansen X-treme Wear Boho Blue
  • Sally Hansen X-treme Wear Babe Blue
  • Sally Hansen X-treme Wear Kiwi Bikini
  • Sally Hansen X-treme Wear Jazzy Jade
  • Silicone Craft Mat


To achieve this design, I used the same technique as my last drip manicure. The more I practice this technique, especially applying the decals, the easier it gets! Also I think it actually looks like the Earth, which makes me so happy! I wasn’t sure if this idea was going to turn out, but it actually worked so well! 

What do you think of this Earth inspired design? Let me know in the comments below. 🌎 and don’t forget to check out #thenailartsquad on Instagram to see these designs, as   well as all past collaborations!