Category: pattern nails

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Freehand Ikat Chevrons (Happy Birthday Coffee & Nail Polish! 🎈🎉)

Happy Thursday! & happy 4th birthday to this little nail blog of mine! It’s so crazy to me that I’ve been posting here for 4 years already. From the early days when I hadn’t yet discovered cuticle oil (& majority of my nail polish came from the clearance bins) to now it’s been quite an exciting journey. I thought I’d mark the special occasion with one of my favourite styles & some beautiful nail polishes I was recently gifted from Sally Hansen Canada!

Music Festival season is just beginning (Coachella starts next weekend) & this nail design would fit right in… you know, if I wasn’t in chilly Nova Scotia currently dreaming of sunny days & summer dresses!

For the design, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Nailtek 2
  • Top Coat: Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Top Coat
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Little Peony
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Lilac Insomniac
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Orchid-ing Around
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Sweet Tea
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Sugar Fix
  • Bundle Monster detail brush.

I just love how these turned out. I also love that even though I freehanded my chevrons, they actually look fairly even! I guess practice really does make perfect. 💗 also I’m completely in love with these new Sally Hansen Miracle Gel shades from the Travel in Colour collection. I’ve been playing around with them since I received them late last week & they are just so perfect for Spring. Makes me wish I had somewhere fancy to wear them rather than just while I’m putting out stock at work. Definitely one of my favourite Spring 2018 collections I’ve seen this season so far. & don’t worry I’ll have swatches of the whole collection up on the blog soon!

I just want to take a minute to stop & just say THANK YOU to everyone who reads this blog, who leaves comments & likes my posts. When I started this blog years ago, I did it because I loved nail polish & I just wanted a place to be able to share my silly designs with other people. 4 years later, things have certainly changed & grown & improved, but when it comes down to it this blog is still here for the same reason: I love nail polish & I love connecting with others who love nail polish. & those people are the reasons why this place just feels like home for me.

So thanks for joining in on the fun & here’s to years & years more of this blog sharing the nail polish love.

💗💗💗

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Purple Dry Brush Quatrefoil Nails

Happy Friday & almost Easter lovelies! I’m off today with Good Friday & ooooooh do I have so many blog things to do! This has been a crazy week & I’m still trying balance working Full Time & keeping to my blog posting schedule. Thank goodness I’m going at multitasking! Today I’m showing off some pretty purple nails I did forever ago but didn’t have a chance to post yet. 💜 These nails were inspired by a make up bag I saw at Marshall’s.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Nailtek 2
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Essie Go Ginza
  • Essie Play Date
  • Essie The Girls Are Out
  • China Glaze Grape Juice
  • Sally Hansen Hard To Get
  • Random clear nail polish
  • Born Pretty Store Clear Jelly Stamper
  • Born Pretty Store stamping plate BP-L003 (item #17921) — quatrafoil image

I’m digging all these purples together. I thought about creating a sponge mani, but didn’t have any sponges so a dry brush was my next option! I really wanted the colours to blend together, kind of like a gradient. So I used a random bottle of clear polish (literally it has no label & I no idea where it came from) and smeared the brush strokes together by brushing the clear polish over it over & over again. The cheaper & random the clear polish, the better things will blend. You don’t want to use a quick dry top coat because it dries to quickly. The whole point is to smear all the shades together.

It feels like ages since I played with my stamping stuff. This is definitely one of my favourite images from this particular plate. It just makes doing Moroccan/quatrefoil designs just so, so easy (& definitely quicker than nail vinyls!

what do you think of this purple design? What design are you rocking for the weekend? Comment down below! 💅🏻

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Mermaid Nails featuring Claire’s Mood Nail Polish

Happy Friday lovelies! Who is excited for the weekend to be (almost) here? I’m working all weekend but that’s okay! There is a Cheer Expo in town so that always makes it busy which in turn makes work speed by. I also just got a new smart watch & I’m so curious so see how many steps I get in on a busy day!

Today I’m showing off some mermaid nails! I actually can’t remember the last time I used my mermaid vinyls, how sad is that? Who doesn’t want to be a mermaid 🧜🏼‍♀️ after all? For this design, I decided to pull out a few of my thermal polishes! Sadly I forgot to get any pictures of it in the hot state (which isn’t often–I’m always cold!) but I did get a whole bunch of before shots!

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Quo by ORLY Breathable Kiss Me, I’m Kind
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Claire’s Mood Nail Polish Blue
  • Claire’s Nail Polish Mermaid
  • Layla Cosmetics Thermo Effect No. 01
  • Layla Cosmetics Thermo Effect No. 04
  • What’s Up Nails Scale Stencils
  • Pearl stud from Icing.

Gosh I love thermal/mood nail polish, even if the only time it changes is when my hands are warm first thing in the morning. I always run cold, so I feel like the effect gets lost on me a little… but I still adore them! In fact, I just bought a few more of the Mood nail polishes from Claire’s (in Spring colours) which I’m very excited to show off. I also definitely need to get my hands on some of the Indie thermals, because Indie brands make some of the most beautiful thermals I’ve EVER seen. & now that I’m back to work, I will definitely be adding them to my “must buy” list.

However I do really enjoy the fact you can find thermal nail polishes while out shopping at the mall. I’ve written before I feel in love with these polishes in early 2010 when Claire’s first released them, & I keep going back & buying more because they are just as awesome to me as they were back then! Hoping they come out with some new shades soon, maybe some neons!? That would make me so happy!

What do you think of these mermaid nails? Do you have a favourite thermal nail polish or thermal polish/brand suggestion? Share all your thoughts in the comments below!

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Tropical Leaves! 🌿

Happy Friday loves! Still feeling like Winter here in Halifax (yesterday was the worst) so I’m feeling like embracing Spring on my nails as much as possible. Tropical leaves have been popping up on my Instagram feed a lot lately (shout out to @nailsbyharlig & @thebasecoat for each of their pretty designs!), so it felt like a good time to pull out my tropical leaves stencils from What’s Up Nails.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Quo by ORLY Breathable Kiss Me, I’m Kind
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • OPI My Address is Hollywood
  • YSL Vert D’Orient
  • China Glaze In The Limelight
  • What’s Up Beauty Tropical Leaves Stencils
  • Edge Perfection Cuticle Barrier

The green against the pink base is such a pretty combination. I adore the look of tropical leaves, but I could never imagine trying to freehand them… yet! Thankfully, nail vinyls makes it way too easy to create the look. 🌱🌿🍃

Anyone else love the tropical leaf look that’s been so popular on Instagram lately? I’ve been obsessed with all the greenery (a reaction to the lack of Spring in my life, I’m sure) so it’s fun to see everyone’s version of the look! Also it gets me excited for a month or two when it finally feels like Spring is really here.

What’s your favourite Spring nail art look right now? What are you obsessed with? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

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More Spring Floral featuring the Sally Hansen Blushed Collection!

Hello lovelies & happy Wednesday! Hope everyone else’s week is going well. Mine has been busy so far but that hasn’t stopped me from getting up a new post for you! I decided that more floral was in order–which, with 10cm of snow forecasted here, seems much needed. I guess Mother Nature didn’t get the memo that Winter needs to be over.

Maybe these florals will remind her!

For this design, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Quo by ORLY BreathableKiss Me, I’m Kind
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Off The Shoulder
  • Sally Hansen CSM Killer Heels
  • Sally Hansen CSM Red It Online
  • Sally Hansen CSM Rose To the Occasion
  • Sally Hansen CSM Blush Against The World
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art Pen in Turquoise
  • Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Hard To Get
  • Essie After School Boy Blazer
  • Small & Large Dotting tools
  • Small detail brush from Bundle Monster

Oooooh I love love love how this mani turned out. I decided to go with blue for my leaves for a different look & I think it turned out really neat! & the dark blue looks so beautiful with the polishes from Sally Hansen’s Blushed Collection… which are so beautiful on their own. & they make for a great colour base for roses.

13 more days until Spring… just 13 more days. Oooooh & it cannot come fast enough. I’m dreaming of flower crowns & summer dresses & so much floral. I just keep staring at the Spring dress section of my closet & dreaming of the day I won’t get frostbite wearing them.

What do you think of this floral design? How are you getting prepared for the warm weather months? On top of floral nails & dresses, I’ve been buying lots of plants for our house so bring a little extra brightness! We haven’t had a chance to paint yet, so the house needs a little extra greenery so it doesn’t feel so drab. 🌿🌱

I’m just a little bit obsessed!