MoYou London Stamping Challenge: OOTD

I guess I'm not down with the kids because I had to google what OOTD meant. Apparently it means Outfit of the Day, lol. I bought this cute new dress from Tommy and thought it would be great to pair with one of my fun necklaces.

I started with a base of Zoya Purity on my thumb and ring finger and an unnamed Color Club on my other three fingers. I then used the Purity to stamp on the flowers using MoYou Pro Plate 06. The stripes were added using a blue striping brush.

I added some rhinestones to the centre of the flowers and an HK Girl Glisten and Glow top coat to make it super shiny.

I am so happy with how this turned out! I think it matches the outfit and necklace perfectly and looks so pretty. In love!

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!

MoYou London Stamping Challenge: London

I bought the London version of MoYou's Tourist Collection (plate 05) for a few reasons. 1) My husband is from England 2) I lived in England for three years 3) it's super cool!

Boy did it come in handy for today's look!! The prompt was London for today's stamping challenge and of course I had to use this plate!

I really dig how this turned out but holy cow was it a struggle! I redid the red finger about five times. It started as a London bus (but my finger wasn't big enough), then it was "keep calm and carry on" (but I kept smushing the words too much and after three attempts I had enough) and finally I chose the Tube map. I liked how the routes extended onto my finger so I didn't clean that part up.

I wanted to come up with something more innovative than what I did but I've had a headache all day so of course nothing was cooperating!

Happy painting friends!

Light Me Up

Living in an apartment is not very conducive to having outside lights. My husband has always had a fantasy of having a National Lampoon's type Christmas light display, lol. Since we can't have them where we live, I thought I would put them on my nails.

I started with a base of Essie Bikini So Teeny (one of my favourite light blues). I then went in with a whole load of nail pens and drew in the Christmas lights.

I then took Sally Hansen White On and sponged it at the base to look like snow (not sure how successful this was).

Here are some pics in natural light:

I got the inspiration from the look the Nailasaurus did here but I wanted to make it look more like the snow was on top of the lights. Unfortunately I was a bit too heavy handed and I think I covered up the lights a bit too much. Oops :)

Happy painting friends!

Santa Hats

This really cool image has been floating around the internet so I thought I would duplicate it on my nails. I'm not sure where the original idea came from but it's so cute! (EDIT: Just found out the original idea came from a very talented Youtuber named keshiaLilly, click on her name to be taken to her tutorial video. I did mine a bit differently as I used nail pens but the effect is the same.)

This look is actually reasonably easy to achieve. I started with Sally Hansen Diamonds and then added a Sephora by OPI red called Curve-aceous. I then did the black and white details with nail art pens.

I love these and have gotten lots of positive feedback about them. Unfortunately you can see a bit of the stain that remains on my nail from a previous nail polish. You can't see it so well in person but it's much more noticeable in the photos. Just shows you that you need to have a really good base coat! I had one on at the time it was stained but it wasn't "strong" enough. Yikes!

Happy painting friends!

Let the Snow Fly!

My hubby is getting extremely excited for the upcoming ski season (in fact Whistler had limited opening for skiing on Saturday and he was tempted to go!). He keeps checking the weather forecast to see if it's snowing on the mountains so I thought I would do some snowflake nail art to inspire the snow to fall.

I have never done snowflakes as I really only started doing nail art seriously this past summer so I wanted to try a different style of snowflake on each nail.

The base of this design is a dark smoky blue from L'Oreal called VIP Status. It has a beautiful silver shimmer undertone and it reminded me of a cold wintry night.

The snowflakes are done with just a basic white nail pen. I think that it would have worked well with a silver nail pen as well.

I took these photos at night so they are under artificial light. Not my favourite lighting but I had to work with what I had! Now that I'm a bit more mobile I'm going to be experimenting with my photos and lighting a bit more to find a good balance.

Here is each nail individually:

I think my least favourite is the middle finger; it's a bit messy for my taste. My favourite is probably the pinkie. I like how that one turned out.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

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!

The Poppies Grow

Today being Remembrance Day I felt compelled to do some poppy nail art. I know this day is an emotional one for some people so I'll keep my musings brief.

I started with a base of Vernis classique by Cherimoya White and then sponged on Maybelline Color Show Polka Dots Clearly Spotted. I painted on the poppies using OPI Magazine Cover Mouse which is a textured red polish.

I then added some black rhinestones to the centre of the poppies.

I think this turned out well.

Til next time friends.

Racing Stripes

I was in Winners the other day and my best friend spotted some Butter London polishes. I have been eyeing this brand up for some time and was really excited to snap some up. They were cheaper than regular retail price but still $13 a piece so I only got two, Torch (a shimmery coral) and Billy No Mates (a pale grey). They are both a bit sheer so I layered them over a coat of Sally Hansen White On.

I used striping tape to get this effect. I should have let the white dry better as it pulled up slightly when I removed the tape.

At first I wasn't convinced by the polish. I think I had built Butter London to be amazing and was maybe thinking that unicorns would jump out of the bottle when I removed the cap, lol. I think the sheerness of the formula got me down a bit and although it was on sale, it was still expensive.

As I wore it more, I really liked it. I still think it's expensive but wouldn't say no if it was gifted to me, lol!! I would also like to try out some of the other colours. I'm sure I'll have more in the future ;)

Happy painting friends!

Snow Queen

This was one of those designs that I had no concept when I started and just added things til I liked it. I started with a base of Orly Snow Cone. I then added a layer of silver glitter from LA Colors Color Craze. I thought it looked a bit like falling snow at this point so I added in some white with Orly White Out. Lined that with a silver nail pen and added some bling.

As I say, I just kept adding til I liked it! And I like it! I called it Snow Queen because it really reminds me of the cold wintery days and it's all fancy with the bling.

I think it's quite pretty. It might be good for a Christmas party.

 Sometimes it's nice just picking a colour that speaks to you and seeing where you end up.

Happy painting friends!