MoYou Stamping Challenge: Geometric

I saw a polish in my collection the other day that I hadn't noticed (strange I know!) by Sally Hansen Complete Manicure called Back to the Fuchsia. How did I never notice this before?! The name is fantastic! I knew I had to use it.

I used that as my base and then used one of my MoYou plates (from the Artist collection) to stamp in black on three of my nails.

I got to have some sparkle so I completed my look with a silver glitter and some teardrop rhinestones.

I love how rockin' these turned out! So great!

Happy painting friends!

MoYou London Stamping Challenge: Superhero

When you think of superhero you probably have pictures of Superman, Batman, Spiderman, Thor, etc, etc. But when I think of superhero, I think of the people who are truly inspiring and who fight against obstacles that are placed before them. One such superhero is one of my former colleagues, Jeanne. She was diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago and has been fighting her hardest ever since. I've never seen anything but a smile on her face and her faith is both amazing and inspirational. She touches the hearts of everyone she comes into contact with and I knew I wanted to do a beautiful design for this very beautiful person.

I started off with Pure Ice Outrageous on four of my fingers and Zoya Purity on the ring finger. The dots were just done with the opposite colour and a medium dotting tool. The breast cancer awareness ribbon was from the OPI breast cancer set that came out last year and then I stamped on the hearts using Zoya Purity and MoYou's Princess Plate 14.

I wanted to have the heart image in there as Jeanne has such a big heart and I feel like this one is perfect as it looks like it's swelling up with love.

I attended a fundraiser for Jeanne last night and if you'd like to contribute to this amazing woman's recovery, you can donate at http://tinyurl.com/forjeanne-paypal.

I hope you enjoyed this very special tribute to a very special person.

Happy painting friends!

Tea With Kaycie

I love to do my friend Kaycie's nails and today's are no exception. These ones are featuring my new MoYou Nail Stamping Plates which my dear mother in law got me for Christmas. Kaycie chose these cute teapots and teacups from the traveler collection.

I started with a base of L'Oreal Sweet Chiffon and then stamped on the teapots and teacups with Sally Hansen White On.

 I always like a bit of bling so I added on some accent rhinestones and put a shimmery topcoat (sorry don't remember which one) on a few of the nails.

I must say that I am IN LOVE with my MoYou Nail Plates! I use them all time. You can check out a lot more of my designs on my Instagram account; just search for @thenailglossary and you can see my daily looks.

Happy painting friends!

Pink Sand

Onward and upward with my new polishes! Today's look started with a base of Sinful Colors Cinderella. It's a beautiful light blue colour but it is very sheer so it took me four coats to get it opaque. I then added layers using an unnamed pink from Walmart's brand Twinkling Star.

I called this post Pink Sand because I think the pink polish looks like just that, sand that is pink. It reminds me of those decorations people have on their desk that's sand in a picture frame type thing and you tip it upside down and it forms shapes. Here's a link if you don't know what I'm talking about (I don't know that I'm being all that clear, lol.)

I decided it needed a bit of the old bling, so I added on a silver glitter (again from Walmart).

I think it's pretty. I'd like to try it in other colours.

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Happy painting friends!

More Snowflakes but so Tiny!

Today is day two of my nail art featuring my friend Carrie and her daughter. Today is focused specifically on her daugher Mina. She is five years old, cute as a button and very smart! I had such a good time visiting with her and doing her nails. She loves pink (of course) but is also really drawn to bright orange! She wanted snowflakes just like her mom so I had to give her what she wanted :)

I started with a base of Orly Mayhem Mentality and then drew on the snowflakes with a silver nail pen. The glitter accent nail is by Color Club.

The thing I love the most about this is she chose everything herself. All the colours, where the accent finger was, everything! She had very definite opinions of what she wanted.

She was very happy with the result:

How cute is she?!?

I then invited her to do my nails and she was very excited to choose my colours and design. She was even brave and tried using the nail art pens!

Needless to say there was a lot of glitter involved! She was so invested in doing my nails and I loved it. There were a lot of colours involved and I won't list them all here but I will say that the end result reminded me of a birthday party so we called them "birthday nails".

Thanks Mina!

Happy painting friends!

It's Still Snowing but on Someone Else's Fingers

I visited one of my best friends from university and got to spend time with her and her fabulous kids. They are three and five and some of the best behaved children I've ever met! The next couple of days I'm going to have posts that feature her and her daughter.

Today's nail art is on my friend Carrie's nails. I had to shake my finger a bit at her and give her a bit of a lecture on keeping her cuticles healthy! She is a biologist and a lot of her time is spent digging around in dirt so I gotta give her a bit of leeway I guess ;) but girlfriend could benefit from some cuticle oil!

My favourite thing this season seems to be snow so I had to do a similar design to what I did on Kaycie's nails, just in a different colour.

I started with a gradient using Natural Collections Lunar Haze and Essie The Lace is On. I then added a layer of glitter over the top of the gradient and a Color Club glitter on the accent finger.

I then used a white nail pen and drew on the snowflakes.

I really love this design and think it's so festive and beautiful! I haven't done it on my own nails yet though but I'm sure I'll be rocking it out soon :)

Happy painting friends!

Studly

Today is a bit of a mash up of two different designs. I like the idea of putting different designs on nails; not having all the nails the same. I am going to play around with it more in the future but here is one I'm pretty happy with.

I wanted to mix something a bit harder (the studs) with something a bit softer (the nimbus design). I started off painting my index finger and middle finger with Jessica Brown Sugar. I painted the other ones with L'Oreal So Chic! (which is a very pretty neutral with a shimmer).

I then went in with some square studs I got off eBay and placed them with a wax pencil (I also got from eBay) on my index and middle fingers.

I then did the nimbus look (follow the link for a tutorial) using Natural Collections Frosted Plum, Lunar Haze and Black Cherry. I also added a light green by Miss Sporty. I topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite.

I am going to have to do more of this type of art because I really love the effect it gives. What do you think? Something you'd try?

My little dog just got her haircut so I thought I'd add a pic of her. Isn't she so so cute?

Happy painting friends!

Coordinating Accessories!

I was looking at my iPhone case the other day and thought that it would make some great nail art. It's a black case with white polka dots and has a border of pink. I think the nails have a very cool '80s vibe about them.

I started off with a base of just a basic Revlon black and then added the polka dots using a medium dotting tool and Orly White Out.

I then used one of my bright pink nail pens to draw in the pink area. Here is a pic with my phone:

I love this look but I don't know that I would want my nails to match my phone all the time! I don't want to be "that" girl. I'd be curious to try it in other colours though.

Happy painting friends!

Fit For a Princess

I wanted to do something very girly and I think I hit the nail on the head with this one! I think I'm a bit old to wear this look, lol, but I think it would be so cute for a little princess.

I started with two coats of OPI Pinking of You and then added a layer of L'Oreal Satin Sheets to give it a beautiful shimmer.

I then taped off sections for each colour I used starting with a pink metallic from Vernis classique. Then I used a pink/silver glitter from Color Club and then Good as Gold from Essie for the central triangle.

I topped it off with a light pink jewel and voila! I think they look like little tiaras. So adorable!!

Happy painting friends!

Nimbus

I get a lot of my ideas from other bloggers and always try to give credit where credit is due. This one comes from one of my favourite bloggers The Nailasaurus. She comes up with great ideas all the time and I can only hope to have work that is as clean as hers one day. This is a technique she calls Nimbus and is done using a cotton swab, acetone and polish. There is a great tutorial on her website here.

I started with a base coat of Orly White Out and then used the Nailasaurus' technique to dab on my other colours which were Barry M Greenberry, Color Club Wild Cactus (dark green), and Color Club Sugar Sheer (pink).

I really love this look and I think it's something that is easy to do on both hands. The other great thing about this is that it lends itself to so many different colour palettes. I'll probably try it in warmer shades soon.

I still need to figure out my camera skills because the colours were a lot more saturated in real life.

Hope you've enjoyed :)

Happy painting friends!

OPI Breast Cancer Awareness Polish

My dear husband went on a conference to Arizona and he picked me up a present of nail polish. I was so happy; he's such a good guy. He bought me the OPI Breast Cancer Awareness polish set which comes with two polishes and some nail stickers. I didn't use the stickers but I used both of the polishes.

The pink polish is called Pinking of You. I love that name. The glitter is called More Than a Glimmer. Both polishes are beautiful and have great application.

I decided to do a glitter gradient with these polishes which I have never actually done successfully before. Maybe that's why I really like this glitter, it actually worked fairly well in the gradient!

I sponged on the glitter concentrating on the tips and then working down. I'm happy with how this turned out and hopefully I'll be able to do more glitter gradients in the future.

October was actually breast cancer awareness month but I think it's never too late to show some support.

As a total aside, I'd like to give a shout out to my American friends. You've eclipsed the Canadians in page views over the last couple days. Thanks so much for the support!!

Happy painting friends!

Polka Pals

My friend Kaycie allowed me to take over her nails once again and this time she asked for polka dots. She chose some bright colours and I got to work.

She picked out a pink from LA Color Club Color Craze (no name attached) as the base and chose a green and a blue for the spots. I honestly don't remember which colours she chose, whoops! I've never forgotten colours before; must be getting old, lol.

I used a large dotting tool for the dots. It's a lot harder to do on another person than on yourself!

I think the overall effect is very bright and happy, just like Kaycie is! The greatest thing is that she took inspiration from the design and decided to do it herself for a Halloween mani.

How awesome is that? She said she used the top of a pin for a makeshift dotting tool. I'm so impressed with her and so glad that she showed me! Such a nice surprise.

Please feel free to contact me if you try any design I post.

Happy painting friends!

Waterfall

There was a really cool nail design on The Nailasaurus which she called a Waterfall. I've done it before but I thought I'd do it for my blog. This is a reasonably simple look but is very pretty.

I started with a base of Orly Gilded Coral which is a beautiful light pink with a subtle shimmer to it. I then went in with a whole load of metallic nail art pens from Color Club. The Nailasaurus uses a nail art brush in her tutorial but the nail pens from Color Club have a very thin brush which is perfect as it provides the same effect.

The great thing about this look is that you can do it in so many colours and it's a relatively easy one to do on both hands.

Happy painting friends!

Cherry Blossoms in the Fall

My sister-in-law came for a visit and I offered to do some nail art for her. She loves blue so she picked a beautiful blue from my stash (Kleancolor Blue Pearl) and requested some cherry blossoms "but not too much" as she put it.

The cherry blossoms and branches were done with acrylics.

I only did the branches on the thumb, index and middle and then a couple flowers on the other two fingers.

She really liked the design but unfortunately it chipped the next day so she had to take it off.

The brighter colours made me happy what with all the darker fall shades I've been using lately. I hope you've enjoyed it too.

Happy painting friends!