Freehand – Page 82 – Coffee & Nail Polish

September 9, 2019September 8, 2019

Fall Themed Dotticure 🍁🍂

Good morning lovelies! Hope everyone is having a lovely start to their week! We are finally heading home after 2 weeks on vacation, as the Hurricane that hit Nova Scotia pushed back our travels.

I have one more look from my vacation to share with you. I had to bring my China Glaze Gone West Shades with me, so I created a cute & easy dotticure.

You know how much I love a good dotticure!

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

Base Coat: Duri Rejuvacote

Base Coat: Quo by ORLY Bonder

Top Coat: Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat
China Glaze Prairie Tale Ending
China Glaze Campfired Up!
China Glaze Buffalo Bills, Bills, Bills
China Glaze Gold Mine Your Business
China Glaze Take The High Rodeo
NailStuff.ca Nail Art Dotting Tool Trio

Still obsessing over this collection & how well all the polishes come together. I have some great ideas for manicures coming up! & now that the days are definitely feeling cooler, my obsession with Fall shades is totally justified.

Nothing like a fun polka dot design for quick & easy nail art look! I know I say it every time, but dotticure designs were one of the first real “nail art” looks that I started to play around with, & because of that they will always be a favourite! They are just so versatile, & you could do one every day & never have it look the same.

What do you think about this Fall dotticure look? What Fall colours are you obsessed with right now? Share your favourite dotticure colour combinations down in the comments below! & click HERE to check out my (many) other dotticure deisgns.

August 28, 2019August 25, 2019

Tribal/Aztec Print for #GlamNailsChallengeAug

Hello loves & happy Wednesday! Today marks the last prompt for #GlamNailsChallengeAug, can you believe it? We made it! & I am so excited to have completed this challenge, because it really did inspired me to try out more nail art designs than my usual go to designs. That being said, I’m also itching for some Fall inspired floral & half moons, so stay tuned for some of those coming up next month!

The last prompt for this month is Tribal/Aztec, which is one after my own heart, so I couldn’t wait to draw some new tribal inspired nail art. & obviously I had to use some of the next China Glaze Gone West polishes for a Fall colour scheme.

For this manicure, the polishes I used are:

Base Coat: Fraken Base Coat combination
Base Coat: Quo by ORLY Bonder
Top Coat: Essie Gel Settter
China Glaze Cowboy Bye
China Glaze Prairie Tale Ending
China Glaze Take The High Rodeo
China Glaze Gold Mine Your Business
China Glaze Cattle Drive Me Crazy
Essence Black is Back
NailStuff.ca 7mm Nail Art Brush
Small dotting tool

So I know I’m totally biased, but how cute did this look turn out? The colour pallet is just so perfect for Fall weather & I think goes really well with the tribal prompt. I mean, I can’t stop obsessing about these colours anyways, but combined with one of my favourite kinds of designs, it’s hard not to just keep staring at my nails. & it satisfies my craving for Fall just enough.

I’ve really had so much fun doing this challenge this month, & I’m super excited that I completed all 8 prompts! Still deciding if I’ll be joining in again next month, as the prompts look quite fun, but if I don’t do all of them, I will definitely take inspiration from some. & I definitely plan on getting more creative this month in my nail art! So who knows what designs you will see coming up! I definitely feel like pumpkins are going to need to happen!

Don’t forget to check out the other manicures for #glamnailschallengeaug & let me know down in the comments below if you’d like to see me do more challenges like this in the future!

August 26, 2019August 25, 2019

City Sunset 🌇 for #glamnailschallengeAug

Hello lovelies! & happy Monday.

We’ve got two more prompts left for #glamnailschallengeAug, & I’m going to be honest… I wasn’t sure I was going to get this prompt done! Not only was I a bit stumped on inspiration, but I’ve had a busy last week so I haven’t been able to get my nails painted like I usually can. But thanks to some late night Pinterest-ing & a cooperative baby, I pulled out a last minute nail art success!

& I’m so super in love with the end result!

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

Base Coat: fraken base coat combination
Base Coat: Quo by ORLY Bonder
Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
Essence Indian Summer
Essie Flowerista
Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Trouble Maker
Essence Black is Back
Kiss Products Nail Art Striper in white
NailStuff.ca Mermaid Tail Nail Art Brush Trio (7mm size)

I started off this design with what I’m going to call a “rustic” gradient — I didn’t go your typical route where you blend all your colours together at once, but instead sponged my layers on top of each other which kind of created the pinky cloud effect. I then brushed my top coat over & over to smear the layers together a bit. This created the perfect background because I really feel like it looks more like what you see when you see a sunset. & it reminds me a lot of this sunset I captured not that long ago (which was also kind of my inspiration for the colour combo I went with.)

I’ve done a few of these sunset with background designs, but this is definitely the most unique. (Usually I do mountains & cacti, or something similar) but with the pinky sky & the buildings it really does feel like a city sunset, maybe even my own city.

What do you think of this design? Can you believe we only have one more prompt left for this challenge… how crazy is that?

Don’t forget to hop over to Instagram & check out #glamnailschallengeaug to see everyone’s amazing city building manicures!

August 21, 2019August 14, 2019

Holo Geode Nails for #glamnailschallengeaug

Good morning lovelies! Hope everyone is having a fantastic Wednesday. I can’t believe how quickly August is speeding by… Pumpkin Spice season isn’t so far off now. & we’re slowly creeping towards the end of the Glam Nails Challenge for August with only 3 prompts left!

Today’s prompt: Geode.

There are a ton of ways to do geode style nails, so I wanted to think about which one I wanted to use. I decided my abstract stripe design was my favourite way to create geode looking nails, & I decided that I wanted to use a fun holo powder that I bought from Born Pretty Store, & had totally lost in my nail polish room.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

Base Coat: OPI Gel Break
Base Coat: Quo by ORLY Bonder
Top Coat: Essie Gel Setter
Finger Paints Peel Off Base Coat
ACO by Ardene Nearly Nude
Born Pretty Store holo powder (no longer available)
Kiss Products Nail Art Striper in Black
Kiss Products Nail Art Striper in White

I had an idea in my head for how I wanted this design to look, with the pink holo popping against the black & white lines, with a nude-ish background, & I think it turned out pretty much like I imagined. I really, really like this holo powder too–sad that it’s no longer available on the Born Pretty Store site–although they do have a few similar ones like this & this.

I seriously always forget just how much I love nail art powders until I start playing with them again. Also this was my first excitement with applying the powder in just sections of the nails using my usual technique with using Finger Paints Peel Off Base Coat & it turned our perfectly!

Ooooh, I can’t stop starting at that holo. It’s especially impressive in motion with the holo flakies & pink sparkle. So much fun to wear! Also I feel like this pink is also still very Summery, which is a nice change from the darker Fall shades I’ve been craving lately.

& they’re even more beautiful in the sunshine!

What do you think of this design? Do these look like geode to you? Remember to check out #glamnailschallengeaug to see everyone’s amazing manicures!

August 19, 2019August 13, 2019

Constellations for #GlamnailschallengeAug

Hello lovelies & happy Monday! Today I’m sharing another design for #glamnailschallengeaug!

Today’s prompt is Constellations. 🌌 I did galaxy nails just a few weeks ago, so I wanted to do something different enough from that design & try my best to recreate the prompt on my nails. Usually I am such a perfectionist it can cause me to get frustrated when things aren’t “perfect”. This whole prompt has been about painting my nails, stepping out of my comfort zone, & creating nails that are “perfect enough”.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

Base Coat: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Strengthening Base Coat
Base Coat: Quo by ORLY Bonder
Top Coat: Essie Gel Couture
OPI Miss Piggy’s Big Number
OPI Ink
OPI The Sky’s My Limit
White Acrylic Paint
NailStuff.ca 7mm Liner Brush
NailStuff.ca Dotting Tool Trio
Latex Free Make Up Sponge

I’ve been experimenting a bit with acrylic paints for nail art lately, mostly when creating nail art in bit unsure about, like his design. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to “attach” my stars to show off the constellations, so I drew my dots & stars first, applied my top coat, & then drew my lines. By putting top coat in between the dots/stars & the lines, I could easily wash off the lines & redraw them without acetone ruining my look.

I probably wouldn’t switch to using acrylic paint for all designs, like my florals, but it certainly works really well for designs like this, & I have a feeling it would also be really useful for more different or advanced patterns. I’ve been going through some older designs & really obsessing over the swirly designs I used to do, so I feel like I’m definitely going to be trying out more of those looks coming up! I’m feeling very inspired.

I am really really loving how this look turned out, especially in keeping the background not too busy as I normally would in a galaxy/space design. I wanted to kind of create a background that looked like those magnetic polishes I see all over Instagram, but have yet to own. Subtle, definitely there. & I feel like I managed to achieve that, especially using the polishes I picked.

What do you think about this look? Are you loving the manicures I’ve been creating this month? Like this post & leave a comment if you’d like to see me do more of these nail art challenges!

& don’t forget to check out the hashtag #glamnailschallengeaug on Instagram to see the other pretty nails posted for the challenge! I just love seeing all the beautiful & different interpretations that we’re coming up for the same idea!

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