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: Animal Print

I've started another challenge! This one is involving my wonderful MoYou stamping plates and has a different theme for each day of May. MoYou itself is running the challenge and the prize is 6 new stamping plates!

I missed the first two days as I didn't know it was going on but I will hopefully be able to do most days now.

Yesterday's theme was animal print. I don't have any traditional "animal print" stamps (like leopard, zebra, etc) so I decided to pick my ladybug one from the Princess Collection (plate 14)

I started with an unnamed Color Club red and then added the black dots with a dotting tool and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out. I then stamped on the ladybugs with the same black polish. I think it looks so cute!

This challenge is taking place on Instagram and you can see all the looks if you search under #moyou10k. You can also follow me @thenailglossary.

My pics on Instagram are not the best as I'm using my phone and I know there must be a way to upload photos you take with a better camera but I haven't figured that out yet. (If anyone has any tips, I'd love to hear them!!)

Stay tuned for more stamping days.

Happy painting friends!

Happy Easter!

I had so many epic fails with trying to do yesterday's prompt of "spring flowers" (which were so bad I didn't actually end up posting anything) that I was worried about the last day of the challenge. I was beginning to think I'd lost my nail mojo which does happen on occasion. I then found this picture over at More Nail Polish and I knew I wanted to recreate it as today's prompt was "recreate another's".

Here is my interpretation:

I started with a base of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow and then did a gradient using that, Lacey Lilac and Mint Sorbet. I then coated the gradient using Sephora by OPI Wild About Shimmer.

The bunny ears were done free-hand with nail pens for the white and black and then OPI Pinking of You.

I love this! I think it's super cute and very festive for the day. Glad that I got my inspiration back.

Loved this challenge so a big thank-you to Jessica over at Be Happy and Buy Polish for creating the Facebook group.

Happy painting friends!

An InLinkz Link-up

Pastel Sponge

Day 2 of the challenge brings us to the prompt "pastels". I grabbed a whole bunch of pastel shades and just started painting!

I did 2-coats of the following:

Zoya Gie Gie (pink) on my thumb, Zoya Blu on my index, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow on my middle, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mint Sorbet (green) on my ring and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac on my pinkie.

Once the base coats were dry, I sponged on all the colours over all my nails to give a muted watercolour kind of effect.

I then did a coat of Orly Goin' To the Chapel to give it a kind of pearly effect. I don't know that the pearly effect really came across in the photos but it really looked beautiful. I should have taken a picture in the sun (if only there were sun this time of year, lol!)

Then I chose an image from on of my MoYou plates and stamped it on my pinkie, ring and thumb. I added a couple rhinestones to the remaining two fingers and ended up with something I think is really pretty. I got lots of compliments on these at work.

Haven't started tomorrow's look yet, yikes!

Happy painting friends!

An InLinkz Link-up

Sea Dragon

One of the blogs I follow religiously, Wondrously Polished (click name for link), had an amazing design the other day and I knew right away that I wanted to do a version of it. The polishes I used for this look are Sally Hansen Triple Shine Sparkling Water (turquoise), Beautifully Disney Ocean Mist (green) and Essie Sexy Divide (purple).

I started with a black nail pen and drew in the rough shapes.

I then went in with the colours and a small paintbrush and painted in the various colours. When I finished that, I went back over the black lines with the nail pen.

Don't they look like scales?! I was going to go with mermaid but then someone at work said "sea dragon" and I was sold!

I love these colours together and was so sad to take it off. I had planned to wear it for a couple days but I got nail mail through that day and couldn't resist trying out my new colours.

Happy painting friends!

Triple Shine yo!

Sally Hansen has come out with a new line called Triple Shine. I picked one up over the Christmas break and I've been dying to try it out and see if it was worth the fuss. I grabbed Sparkling Water, a really pretty dark blue/turquoise shade. It goes on beautifully but does take a few coats to build up. I don't know if this is indicative of the brand but I really didn't mind. The formula is quite beautiful and dried quickly so it wasn't a pain. Here is is pre-cleanup:

This is with no top coat so it really does live up to it's shine claims!

I couldn't leave it at that though so I added a bit more of the bling.

Again, this is with no top coat. If I were going to wear this for reals I would have to top coat it to keep the jewels on but for the purposes of this post I wanted to show you it in it's natural form.

I like this polish and I'm tempted to buy more. I'll probably wait until I'm in the States again as it's probably a heck of a lot cheaper there! (I got it for $5 at Walmart in Canada.)

Hope you enjoyed!

Happy painting friends!

Ba-da-boom, Ba-da-bling

For today's look I wanted to do a simple polish with a really interesting accent nail. Sally Hansen Complete Manicure has a beautiful polish called Choco-latte. It's a gorgeous nude colour and I got lots of compliments on it. For the accent nail I decided just to bling the heck out of it.

It's simple in its execution but I think the effect is amazing. I actually wore this on my nails for two days!

And my every elusive right hand:

 My right hand is never as clean as my left hand but it's all good. The photos show a lot more mistakes than you can see in real life, lol.

What do you think? Bling-tastic or what?!

After I did this, I wanted to do even more looks with some bling, so watch this space!

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!

These are a Few of My Favourite Things

I thought I would do a post focused on the things I'm really digging at the moment. I've been blogging for a little less than three months now and I feel like I've learned a ton about nail art and polish. Some of my friends were asking me about what polishes I like and wanted me to do a post on it. Ask and ye shall receive!

Here are my favourite nail polishes/brands:

1. Sally Hansen

I think that Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear is the best polish at a lower price point (you can get it for less than $2 a bottle at Target in Canada). It usually only takes 2 coats to get even coverage and comes in a variety of really beautiful shades. If you want to get some polish, but don't want to invest a lot of money, this is your best bet.

2. China Glaze

China Glaze is also a great polish for a reasonable price. I usually buy mine at Winners and you can get it for around $5-$6 a bottle. Again, they have great colours and I find the formula really great to work with.

3. Zoya

If you've been reading my blog for the last little bit, you know how absolutely over the moon I am about Zoya. Unfortunately at the time of writing this I only have six polishes! I can't wait to get more but the ones I have are absolutely wonderful. The colours are stunning and they all apply like an absolute dream.. I can't say enough about these polishes!
You can only buy these online or in select salons. I don't know of any salons in my local area so I have to get them online (Nail Polish Canada) but you can search for local distributors on zoya.com.

4. Orly

Orly is another polish that I seek out at Winners. I like to get the mini bottles and you can usually get 5 for $10 there. Most of the polishes I have from this are wonderful. Some of them can be a bit on the thinner side so you'd have to layer them a bit more (3-4 coats) but generally I find them great.

5. Essie

Essie is one of the first brands that I really got hooked on. I have quite a few of them and have bought the majority of them at Winners. They retail in regular drugstores (around my parts) for close to $10 but I have found them in the States in Walmart for $7. The colours are generally very pigmented and go on nicely.. I love working with these polishes!

So these are my favourites at the mo'. I have many different brands of polish but these are the ones I find myself reaching for again and again.

I hope this helped. If you ever have any questions about a polish or a brand I use, please feel free to drop me a line!

Happy painting friends!

Who Lives in a Pineapple Under the Sea?

I've wanted to do Spongebob Squarepants nails for a very long time. I toyed with the idea of doing it around Halloween but thought it would be better to do some just of the characters without anything extra. I love Spongebob! He's such a happy guy and always thinks the best of people. He gave me a few problems with this design though! I ended up doing him 4 times, blerg!! I'm not 100% happy with the final one I did but it's the best I came up with.

The base of the majority of the nails is Rimmel Mintlicious and the base of Spongebob is Rimmel Sunny Days. Patrick is done with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Coral Reef and everything else (Plankton, jellyfish, background flowers, Spongebob and Patrick's faces) were done with nail pens.

I got a little impatient putting on the top coat and got a little smear around Spongebob's eyes. Ooops! But I think that the overall effect of the nails is very cool. My favourite nail is probably the thumb with Plankton. I think it really looks like him and love love love how it turned out.

What do you think? Did I capture the essence of the characters? I'm sure I'll do more Spongebob nail art in the future. I have many more ideas!!

Happy painting 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!