GlamnailschallengeOct—Skeletons 💀

3C23D45B-1949-42AD-B0B2-056244275611

07A90D34-AA19-404F-BEF8-3D87E72BA16F

Hello lovelies & Happy Monday! The Halloween countdown is officially on, & I have another spooky design created for GlamnailschallengeOct! The next prompt on our list is skeletons, which is not an image I’ve ever attempted on my nails before, so I was really excited to give it a shot! & honestly, I think this is my favourite manicure of the challenge so far!

4BCD3F7B-E43C-4788-8B5D-9F9004289667

73ED538D-3350-4D24-9500-19E3046F2944

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Duri Rejuvocate
  • Top Coat: YSL Beauty Quick Dry Top Coat
  • Essie Leggy Legend
  • China Glaze Pathological Liar Liar
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Get Mod
  • Black Acrylic Paint
  • NailStuff.ca 7mm liner brush (from Mermaid Brush Trio)
  • Born Pretty Store Classic Patterns stamping plate BP-L006 (item #17924)

.

F4B008B7-52FE-4698-A1FB-D04F6DBFAD81

DC6AAB54-3553-4271-AD65-AC96387A5B2C

This nail art look was built in layers. First I started off with my base, which is Pathological Liar Liar layered over Leggy Legend — I definitely need to do two coats of PLL next time, but I definitely love it a lot more when it has some undies.

Next I decided to use this skull & cross bones image from my classic patterns stamping plate from Born Pretty Store, mostly because I was unsure about free handing skeletons. On its own, the image was a little meh, so I took a risk & outlined the stamp with black acrylic paint & my mermaid tail brush from NailStuff. & that’s when this mani came to life! The outlining made the image pop on my nail & I am absolutely OBSESSED with it. I also did a few polka dots around it to fill in the space. It almost looks like nail art stickers, which is super cool. I literally didn’t even want to take these off after I put them on.

8D66BC93-B1AB-4344-90CC-13694BD29928

178C7866-7FF7-4CB6-8CDF-9C5B0F311D60

I really like how the stamping & outlining almost looks slightly cartoon-y. Going with black & white over the coppery orange base was definitely the way to go.

I feel like if 17 year old me was into nail art like this back in the day, this is a design I would have rocked in a variety of background colours… while listening to the Ataris on repeat & writing angsty journal entries. Works for Halloween & non-Halloween alike.

9FE3B814-FB50-47EA-A715-006F445ECAAB

What do you think about my skeleton nails? Would you wear this design? What do you think about combining freehanding & stamping in the same manicure? Let me know all your thoughts down in the comments below! & don’t forget to keep following along with  #glamnailschallengeOct on Instagram for all the nail art looks!

Birthday Nails with Essie Birthday Girl 🎉

F516455D-4537-4A98-AB92-7F0C2C493092

Hello lovelies & Happy Tuesday! Hope everyone is having a beautiful start to their week. Today I’m breaking up my usual posting schedule because TODAY IS MY BIRTHDAY! That’s right, today marks 33 years around the sun. So obviously I needed to do something fun on my nails to mark the occasion.

In years past I’ve done some obvious birthday nails, but this year I decided to let the polish do the talking. When I saw that Essie had released a polish called Birthday Girl, I knew that I was going to need to own it & incorporate it into my birthday mani this year! I also wanted to do something fun, as I snapped a nail just in time for my birthday, so I am back to some serious shorties.

B6F4411E-B3BE-4022-A8E6-B491C3881773

D5BA04A3-77C1-4A8D-97B2-F6EDDF238362

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Duri Rejuvocate
  • Top Coat: YSL Beauty Quick Dry Top Coat
  • Essie The A-bliss {PR sample}
  • Essie Birthday Girl
  • Color Club Pucci-licious
  • Color Club Eternal Beauty
  • Essie Play Date
  • Sally Hansen Pat on the Black
  • Nailstuff.ca 11mm Liner Brush {PR sample}

.

6B65E022-F47A-402E-A001-10F99CDAA9E7

01B4F731-8F0D-445D-AAF9-C1103719365E

For my base, I applied two coats of Birthday Girl over one coat of The A-bliss. I then did a whole bunch of Pinterest stalking to see what kind of design I wanted to do overtop my base of Birthday Girl & in the end I decided a Waterfall look was the way to go! Do you remember when Waterfall designs were all the rage? I feel like this design needs to make a comeback!

3C197715-613B-4B6C-8739-90325123C31A

DF26AE0C-B843-43C7-B7C3-D9FD5043AFED

For this look I decided to pick a few purples that I thought would compliment my pink base. Then o used my liner brush from NailStuff to brush thin streaks of polish at my cuticle line, & bam! An low effort design that looks super fancy & fun. Kind of reminds me of sparkling fireworks at the base of my nails which is perfect for celebrating, even if my idea of celebrating is drinking my free birthday drink from Starbucks & playing with the new stamping plates my Mum bought me for my birthday! I can’t think of a more perfect day. ☕️💅🏻

06924BF0-00CA-4581-8459-66D69BCD6AE0

59F2C682-46CF-43FC-8C89-1023165DE1EC

Hope everyone has an amazing day! Let me know what you think about this look & what colour combination you’d love to see me do in a Waterfall look next! 💙

Mini Egg inspired Easter Nails (yep… again!)

Good morning lovelies, & happy Friday. Today I’m prepping for Easter festivities with a brand new Easter design… & showing off this Mini Egg inspired look. This is definitely not the first time I’ve created this design, & I seem to return to it every couple of years because it’s a fairly easy “design” to create but it gets the point across!

Also who doesn’t love chocolate?

This look is super simple to do–all you need are your egg colours, the spots (I used a brown polish & Saran Wrap–I’ve seen others create this look using a black & white glitter topper which was awesome) & some matte top coat.

Easy Peasy. & awesome nails to rock for your Easter festivities which won’t cut into any family (or chocolate) time.

For this design, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: OPI Nail Envy
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Matte Top Coat: Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Matte Top Coat -{PR sample}
  • China Glaze Sun Upon My Skin
  • Claire’s Matte Sorbet Blue
  • Claire’s Matte Sorbet Pink
  • Claire’s Matte Sorbet Mint
  • Claire’s Matte Sorbet Purple
  • OPI How Great is Your Dane?

Is the trick for me to get the spots right in the eggs is a light touch & minimal polish on the Saran Wrap. I crinkle it up extra & then don’t apply too much polish to the plastic so when I dab it down, you don’t apply too much polish to the area. You want just a few dots as opposed to a big splat.

Every time I do & redo this look, I think I love it even more. It’s just such an easy way to do festive nails, & the only downside is you have to fight the urge to eat your nails!

So what are you planning on wearing on your nails this weeekend? Share down below!

Pretty in Pink Holo Valentine’s Day Nails

Good morning lovelies & happy Tuesday. Also happy 2 days until Valentine’s Day… if you’re into that kinda thing. Haha.

I’m into any holiday that encourages pretty nails & I was feeling a little bit of holo. Especially since I have been a bit out of the nail art routine lately. So it felt like a good excuse to pull out a few of my favourite Wrenn Polish shades for some pink heart nail art! 💕

For this design, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Claire’s Miracle Base Coat
  • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
  • Wrenn Polish Passionfruit Pink
  • Wrenn Polish Enchanted
  • UR Sugar Nail Vinyls (Heart Pattern)

I really love the subtlety of this look. You have the pop of holo with Enchanted over the more soft base of Passionfruit Pink so the design really comes out best in motion. You get that little bit of rainbow which shows off your heart pattern. & even best… it’s super easy! All it takes is two polishes, a few nail vinyls, & bam! Easy & fancy nails.

This is a really fun look to wear for whatever your Valentine’s Day plans may be, whether it’s a romantic date with your love, margaritas with your besties, or eating an entire box of chocolate with your cat. Who doesn’t want to have pretty nails?

what do you think of this Valentine’s Day look? Do you already have your manicure planned? Share what you plan on wearing down in the comments below!

Christmas Penguin accent nails!

Good morning lovelies! I’m back again, & I have another Christmas-y design to share… after all it’s only 3 more days until Christmas. (When did that happen?) Today’s look is a surprisingly easy look that I’ve done & redone over the years & always come back to.

I actually did this nails last weekend, but anyone else who works in retail this time of year probably understands the craziness which is my life right now… barely any time to breathe, let alone write a blog post… just counting down the days to my two days off over Christmas. It’s going to be GLORIOUS!

For this look, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Essie Grow Stronger
  • Top Coat: Essie Gel Couture Top Coat
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Sprinkled With Love
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Make It N-ice
  • Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Black Heart
  • Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Let’s Snow
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Good Cheer-y
  • Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Fiery Island
  • Small dotting tool
  • Small nail art brush (obsessed with my collection from www.nailstuff.ca

First I started off by laying Make It N-ice over Sprinkled with Love for a little extra sparkle…. because tis the season. & then I freehanded my little penguin over top on both my ring fingers to make my look more festive. I first saw this look on Pshiiit Nails (via Pinterest) & just loved how it looked so I needed to recreate. & obviously I had to add a little a festive Christmas-ness with some Santa hats!

My only complaint is that my top coat smeared my penguins a little. I’ve been testing out the Essie Gel Couture Top Coat & while the lasting power is amazing, it’s not my favourite top coat for putting over nail art because it does seem to smear designs. Guess I’m still on the hunt for the perfect one!

what do you think of this penguin design? Have you figured out what you’re wearing for Christmas? Let me know down below!