Glam Nails Challenge December — Christmas Decorations

Hello lovelies & happy Wednesday! I hope everyone — especially my fellow retail workers — are having a lovely & not too stressful week. It’s seriously crazy that it’s only 4 days until Christmas Day. I can’t believe how quickly this month is going by… & this year.

Next up we have a fun prompt for Glam Nails Challenge December: Christmas Decorations. I decided to go with a classic Christmas decoration, & created these beautiful sparkly Christmas light design.

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Essie Hard To Resist Glow & Shine 
  • Top Coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-chip Top Coat
  • L’Oreal Colour Riche Eva’s Nude
  • L’Oreal Colour Riche The Magic Top Coats The Holographic
  • Starrily Nails Vantablack
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Red It Twice
  • Quo by ORLY Mini Glitter Green
  • Quo by ORLY Mini Glitter Gold
  • NailStuff.ca Mermaid Tail Nail Brush Trio (11mm Liner Brush)

& as I mentioned in my previous post, I’m back to my super shorties. Not ideal–& super sad because I was hoping to get to the new year with that fabulous length–but it is what it is, so I’ll just have to come up with some cute short nail looks for the rest of this month!

Hope everyone is enjoying their week so far, & not getting too stressed out with any last minute wrapping, or (like me) shopping they need to get done this week. Stores are busy, people are a bit crazy, so hopefully everyone has time to sit back & enjoy a hot chocolate or Irish coffee, & relax a little bit!

& don’t forget: you can see the rest of the beautiful Glam Nails Challenge December nails on Instagram!

Glam Nails Challenge December— Cookies

Hello lovelies & happy Monday!

I’ve got 3 more (long) days of work & then I’m excited for 4 whole days of Christmas vacation. & my plan for this week is to (hopefully) post a Christmas design every single day leading up to Christmas Day! 🎄

& today we’re starting off with the next prompt for GlamNailsChallengeDecember: Cookies! & I decided to go with some Gingerbread inspired nail art.

The polishes I used for this manicure are: 

  • Base Coat: Essie First Base
  • Top Coat: Seche Vive
  • Essence Intergalactic Adventure
  • Starrily Eclipse
  • OPI How Great Is Your Dane?
  • Quo by Orly Breathable Bare Necessities
  • NailStuff.ca 7mm detail brush

I’m super impressed with how these turned out –they came together exactly like how I pictured in my head. Right down to my lack of decorating skills on my cookies (you should see my real life cookies! Haha)

Originally I had thought about doing everything over a holographic pink base, but when I saw this shifty base sitting in my stash. I just had such an urge to use it! I added some holo over top to give off a little extra sparkle. The cookies were completely freehanded using my NailStuff 7mm brush, which made things easy & I’m really happy with how they turned out. I even managed to freehand not one, but two stars on my nails–for the first time ever–so even though my “decorating” looks as bad as my real life decorating, my actual cookies made me feel pretty proud.

What do you think about this design for GlamNailsChallenge? Would you ever attempt a design like this? How are your cookie decorating skills?

Let me know down in the comments below.

Purple Fall Leaves 🍁

Hello lovelies & Happy Tuesday!

We’re eight days into September & I’m in full dark polish swing. While Summer shades are awesome, I feel like Fall polish makes my heart the happiest. I’ve also really been looking forward to pulling out my Fall leaves nail vinyls again! It’s been forever since I played around with vinyls, & I’ve missed them for sure.

For today’s look, I knew I really wanted to grab my bottle of Sally Hansen Slicks & Stones because it is such a lovely campus shade for this time of year. & I wanted to add some Fall leaves but I didn’t want to do gold or bronze or anything like that.

So I decided to go an untraditional route.

For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Hard As Nails
  • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
  • Sally Hansen Color Therapy Slicks & Stones
  • Essie For The Twill Of It
  • Quo by ORLY Kaleidoscope Haze
  • The Base Coat Fall Leaves Nail Vinyls

Seriously living for this purple-y colour combination. The shift in For The Twill Of It is just so gorgeous, & it really suits the dark purple of Slicks & Stones. I’m really loving the combination so much.

What do you think about this Fall mani? Are you loving the dark shades now? Let me know in the comments below!

Crazy Dotticure Pattern Nails

Hello lovelies & happy Tuesday! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, & didn’t eat too many chocolate eggs or jellybeans.

We had a pretty lovely weekend here in Halifax, which meant perfect weather for our annual Easter Egg hunt outside. Usually, all the cousins would gather out our house for it, but with social isolation & distancing it was just us. Never the less, our little guy had a blast finding all the eggs, & his baby sister had fun trying her first real taste of chocolate! I could definitely get used to warm sunny days, & they’re calling for sunshine & 16 degrees today, so I’ll take it!

So let’s show off some fun nails, shall we?

For this look, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Good Kind Pure Hardener
  • Top Coat: Essie Gel Setter
  • Quo by ORLY pale peach (no label — it was a mini bottle circa 2013/2104)
  • Essie Splash of Grenedine
  • Essie First Timer
  • Essie Playdate
  • Essie Bikini so Teeny
  • NailStuff.ca Dotting Tool Trio (COFFEE10 to save 10% on your purchase!)

So I’ve been thinking about doing one of these dotticure pattern nails for a while, but for some reason was nervous to do it (& kept falling back into old trusted designs — like floral). But I’ve really been wanting to try something different, out of my comfort zone, & I’m really glad I did! At first I wasn’t sure about how these turned out, but I actually really adore them! So much so, I wore this look for a full 3 days until they started chipping.

These sort of remind me of like printed tiles, or something. I really like the bright pop of colour over the pale base shade. I’ve had this Quo shade in my minis drawer for a very long time, but I don’t think I’ve pulled it out to wear before. It makes a great almost neutral base for nail art.

What do you think about this dotticure? What was the last manicures out of your comfort zone you tried–did you grab a colour you never wear, or try out a design that made you nervous? Let me know in the comments below!

#GlamNailsChallengeDec — Santa 🎅🏼

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Hello lovelies! We’ve got another prompt for #GlamNailsChallengeDec to share today! & yep… I’m aware that I’m a day behind, but that’s life sometime.

Our second prompt of the challenge is Santa! So in honour of that I decided to do Santa hats over my previous manicure of Icing Stores Santa Baby just to maximize the full Santa effect!

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For this manicure, the polishes I used were:

  • Base Coat: Sally Hansen Green Tea Bamboo Strengthener
  • Top Coat: Essie Speed Setter
  • Essie Wrap Me Up
  • Icing Stores Santa Baby
  • Quo by ORLY Stilettos on the Run
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Pat on the Black
  • Sally Hansen Miracle Gel Get Mod
  • Nailstuff.ca 4mm micro detail brush (COFFEE10 saves 10% off your purchase!)
  • Nailstuff.ca Dotting Tool Trio

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I remember the first time I ever attempted a Santa hat manicure… & I won’t lie, it wasn’t pretty. I’m pretty sure I used a dotting tool to try & draw my lines, which did not turn out very good at all. (Literally just went & found the picture on Facebook so if you’re curious, click here to see my masterpiece.)

I’ve come along way after a lot of practice, & these little hats turned out too cute. The jelly-like finish of Stilettos on the Run show off the glitters underneath, which is really quite cool. I’m digging it a lot.

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These feel very, very Christmas-y to me for sure. The colours, the design… there is no denying these are for Christmas! So much fun!

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What do you think about this Santa inspired design? Have you popped over to Instagram yet go check out the other looks for #glamnailschallengeDec yet? Stay tuned for more fun, hopefully on time, nail art looks to come!