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!

Day Planner Inspired Floral Nails

Hello Lovelies! Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend & is all ready for the week ahead. This week, I’ve decided for a fun mani theme: all floral! It’s no secret how much I love floral nail art, so I thought I would share a few of the floral designs I’ve been doing lately. Honestly, if it wouldn’t bore everyone else I’m pretty sure I could wear flowers on my nails non-stop. They’re just so perfect any time of the year.

Today’s design is actually inspired by my day planner! As soon as I bought it, I knew that I was going to need to do nail art inspired by it.  The combination of colours was just screaming to be painted on my nails!

The polishes I used for this manicure were:

  • Base Coat: Quo by ORLY Breathable Kiss Me, I’m Kind
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • OPI Race Red
  • Essie Play Date
  • China Glaze Sun Upon my Skin
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow
  • China Glaze Plur-ple
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Pretty Piggy
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac
  • Sally Hansen I ♥ Nail Art pen in Green
  • Essie Off Tropic
  • Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Black Heart
  • Small Detail Brush (Bundle Monster)
  • Dotting Tools (Bundle Monster)

At first I wasn’t sure if this colour combination was going to work for me, but once I had it on it looked so perfect. Obviously my flowers aren’t as abstract as my planner, but I feel like they match close enough for me to be happy. The colour combination also reminds me of a Hawaiian shirt, so I feel like this manicure would be perfect for a beach luau! Or, in my case, hanging out on the couch pinteresting Summer fashion looks because that’s about as close as I’m getting to the beach right now. Seriously, what I wouldn’t give to wear a summer dress & flats–I’m so over boots & jeans, so so so over them. & it snowed yesterday, so now Spring feels even farther away.

Floral always takes so many polishes to do, but honestly the end result is always worth it. I don’t think I’ve ever painted floral on my nails & regretted it. There are so many ways to do them, it just never gets old. & look how well this design twins with the day planner that inspired it! Like I said, mine isn’t as abstract as my planner but the colours are spot on so I’m very happy with how they turned out!

What do you think of this floral design? Are you excited for a whole week dedicated to nothing but floral nails? Let me know your thoughts below!

Matte Greyscale Ring Pattern Nails

Happy Friday!

Today’s nails are definitely matching the weather in Halifax–completely greyscale. Cloudy skies, rainy,  & lacking any colour what-so-ever.

I thought after all that pink & red for Valentine’s, a palate cleanser manicure was in order. Pink is nice, but I don’t think I’m used to wearing so much of it on my nails. I’ve also been doing house planning (figuring out room paint colours & putting together some prints for our walls) & completely obsessed with everything grey. So naturally that means it will end  up on my nails eventually!

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For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Quo by Orly Breathable Kiss Me, I’m Kind
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Matte Top Coat: Butter London Matte Finish
  • OPI My Pointe Exactly
  • Essie Cashmere Bathrobe
  • Xroma Polish & Vinyls Ring Vinyls
  • Edge Perfection Cuticle Barrier
  • Latex Free Make Up Sponge

I love colourful manicures, don’t get me wrong! & I really enjoyed wearing all that pink for Valentine’s Day. But sometimes I just want to wear something a little more monochromatic & simple on my nails. Plus any time I get to wear Essie Cashmere Bathrobe–which is my ALL TIME favourite grey–is a good day & matte top coat just makes it look even better. To me, this design is just absolutely perfection.

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I feel like with all the stamping I’ve been doing, I’ve been neglecting my nail vinyls a bit! I’ve been organizing my nail room though, so hopefully I will be starting to use them more often. But not next week… next week I have a special theme planned for all my manicures, but you’ll have to stay tuned to see what it is!

What do you think of this greyscale manicure? What is your favourite palate cleanser manicure or polish? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!

My Husband Paints my Nails for Valentine’s Day

Happy Valentine’s Day lovelies!

Today I have a special & fun post I’ve been hoping to do for a while. I’ve been trying to convince my husband he should paint my nails FOREVER (probably as long as we’ve been together), & he finally agreed to do it in honour of Valentine’s Day!   I really wanted to record to whole thing, but I figured it was enough that he was doing them all at so I didn’t want to push my luck too much.  But I did manage to take a few pictures of the whole experience, just for fun! After all, it’s not often someone else does my nails!
Continue reading “My Husband Paints my Nails for Valentine’s Day”

Negative Space Floral

We’re currently being bombarded with 25+ cm of snow here in Halifax, which is not so much fun. I’m really not a Winter person (well, once Christmas is over anyways.) So how about some floral nails to cheer us up? I wore this design this weekend, but with a raging Winter storm outside as we speak I kind of need something pretty & Spring-y to cheer me up. Did I mention I’m really, really over Winter?

Did you know it’s 49 days until Spring? Just a fun fact to get you through those long, chilly days ahead. Unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, in which case do you have a spare room because I’m coming to visit!

I took so many pictures of this design. I know every floral manicure is my new favourite, but this one just turned out so well I couldn’t help but take a million pictures of it.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Nailtek 2
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Matte Top Coat: L’Oréal the Matte Velvet
  • Essie The Girls Are Out
  • OPI My Pointe Exactly
  • China Glaze Ever Glaze Don’t Grape About It
  • Sally Hansen Instadri Petal Pusher
  • Essie Bachelorette Bash
  • Sally Hansen I ♥️ Nail Art Pen in Green
  • Essence The Green & the Grunge
  • Essie Play Date
  • Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow
  • Small detail brush (Born Pretty Store)
  • Small & large dotting tools (Bundle Monster)

So many polishes were used for this design, but it was so worth it. & I think the matte top coat just makes the end result that much more beautiful. This is definitely not a quick to do design, but floral just makes me so happy I don’t even care! 💗 I hope you love floral, because I have a feeling there will be a lot of floral leading up to Spring. Also even though it’s snowing today, I’m totally pulling out my favourite floral romper, since I have no plans on leaving the house today… except to maybe go to Starbucks & get coffee but even then I won’t be leaving the car.

What are your thoughts on today’s floral design? Are you a fan of floral nails? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!