Born Pretty Store Review: Studs and Decals, Oh My!

I love it when Born Pretty Store/ sends stuff for me to review! They have great stuff and at a cheap price.

I received three different items this.
The first are these pearlized studs. Here's a close of just the studs. They are plenty of them and looks to be like three different sizes.

I used two of the sizes on top of Funky Fingers Kingston for this bright, fun mani. The studs have flat backs so they stick nicely to your nails.

Next I have these full size floral water decals. They apply much like other water decals so it was easy to get on. Once they dried a bit, I used acetone to gently dissolve around the edge. I applied topcoat to protect them as well. They take a bit longer to dry than other water decals likely because they are so big, hence the tiny little nick on my index. I love the image and the detail that I could in no way is freehand.
I do have to say while their are 10 decals in each sheet (one sheet per order), I had to use two for my number as they are pretty narrow. Still, they make a gorgeous accent nail like I paired up here with Sinful Colors Solar Flare.

Lastly, I have these adorable owl water decals. 

They are soooo cute and look great over my base of Button London Bumster.

Springy yellow gradient

I've had the idea for this mani floating around for a while. I just haven't gotten around to it, but since it's finally spring (even though we got snow overnight....) I thought I'd finally do it!

I did a base of Illamasqua Load on all my nails. On the ring and thumb, I added one good coat of Dollish Polish Hylian Princess. I REALLY loved the mani at this point. Not that I don't love the outcome, but I just loved that so much more. I may end up sporting that some time soon.

Anyways, then I did a gradient of Zoya Pippa over that and stamped using a Bundle Monster plate (bad blogger! I'll put the name later) and Konad White. The flowers are super subtle and honestly the gradient looked better with out them.

Pastel Galaxy

I don't know if any moms read my blog, but if you are a mom you just migth have heard of the Baby Center website. They have tons of information about babies and kids plus several chat boards. One of the boards I belong to has started a nail board that is going very strong! (Shout out to my BHB ladies!)

What's great about that is that we understand time restraints since we are all moms. We're all super supportive of each other which can be rare both in mom groups and the nail polish community. It's a neat little haven.

Anyway, we've decided to do weekly challenges. We get one theme for the week. Again as moms, getting a whole week to do a challenge works great! This week's theme is galaxies. I've done regular and Northern Lights ones. Today I decided to go with another "new" one and do pastel galaxy nails.

I followed a few different tutorials for this one and made it my own. It's not as pastel as other pastel galaxy manis, but I like some of the pops of dark colors.

I used a crap ton of polishes too:

Base is two coats of Sinful Colors Candy Coated.

I added the galaxy using Wet n Wild French White Creme, Barry M Blueberry, Zoya Pippa (yellow), Sinful Colors Fig, A-England Lake of the Lake (purple holographic), Zoya Pippa (pink), Revlon Minted (mint green that was mostly used to tone down purple base as Minted was pretty sheer), and Nubar Absolute (very lightly sponged to add the shimmery effect).

Nail Polish Canada 2013 Holiday Nail Art Challenge Week 2: Decorations

This week's theme is decorations. I LOVE Christmas lights. I love them on trees and houses. They have to be one of my favorite things about Christmas too.

Soooo, I put lights on my nails!

I did a free hand French manicure and then added the lights.

Please vote for me here!

Base: Zoya Loretta to smooth out nails and add hint of peachy nude color

Tips: Rimmel French White Nail Tip

Bulbs: black acrylic paint, Zoya Breezi (blue), Zoya Sooki (red), Zoya Pippa (yellow), OPI Don't Mess With OPI (green)

Fall flowers

I've seen tons of fall manis with leaves on them, but I love flowers so I decided to do some fall colored flowers.

I used a base of Zoya Pepper. I added flowers using O.P.I. Chop-sticking to My Story (orange) and O.P.I. The "It" Color (yellow). I dotted the center of the flowers using Barry M Gold Foil.

Disney Belle French Tip

Today's challenge theme in one of my FB groups is Disney Princesses. I thought about doing Ariel since she's my favorite princess, but I've seen a lot of Ariel manis.  Instead, I chose to recreate a mani from Polish Art Addiction.

I used Fresh Paint Alex's Lemonade (it smells vaguely like lemonade plus the funds go towards a children's cancer charity) for the tip. I added a gold accent using Barry M Gold Foil. Finally I stamped on a white rose (I thought it would look better than a red one) using Konad White Stamping Polish and Bundle Monster BM14.

Tropical Sunset

Gradient created using O.P.I. Chop-Sticking to My Story, O.P.I. The "It" Color, Zoya Pippa, and Zoya Arizona.

Details added with small brush and Wet n Wild Black Creme.

Spring Daisies

I decided to add some nail art on top of Zoya Pippa.  Normally, I do my thumb and ring finger as accents, but I decided to mix it up a bit for this mani.

I love flowery manis, but I haven't done any yet this year! (At least I don't think so....) Pippa is such a perfect spring color so I knew flowers would look great over top.

I used a small dotting tool and added the white petals first using Wet N Wild French White Creme. Then I went back over top and added a dot of Zoya Pippa to bring it together. I tried to make some of the flowers off center, but I'm not sure if I quite like how that looks.

On my other fingers, I knew I wanted to add some glitter so I searched around in my stash until I found the perfect one: Dollish Polish The Koopa King. I painted one coat on my other nails. I love how the yellow and orange and green glitters in the polish add to the flowery feel of this mani.

Zoya Pippa

Just a quick post today.

I got Zoya Pippa a while ago when Zoya was offering some of their polishes as minis. I decided on Pippa because I don't really have a good yellow that I can use as a base and a mini is the perfect trial size.

Overall, Pippa seems to be a pretty good yellow. I used 2 thicker coats for this mani, and I see that I could have probably used a third coat.

It is a bit streaky in just these 2 coats, but I think the third would have covered up that. Dry time was average which is about the most I can expect from any yellow polish.

Rainy Love

I decided to add some nail art to Illamasqua Load, but I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do.  I thought about doing some rainy day nails, but I did some last year. The art on last year's design could be improved, but I still wanted to do something more original.  I decided to head over to my Inspiration board on Pinterest. There, I save things that I can use as inspiration for manis.  A lot of the pins are patterns, but I also have some pictures.

I saw this picture and knew it would be perfect! It would great with Load as a background, plus it had the rainy day idea.

Source

I really love the way this turned out! I do wish the shape of the birds was a teeny bit better, but I am my own worst critic!

I think I love the cloud on here the best. I love that little heart on it <3

Colors used were Illamasqua Load for the base, Nina Ultra Pro Ink-ling for the body of the birdies, Zoya Dove for the other grey details, Wet n Wild French White Creme, and OPI Chop-Sticking to My Story for the perfect orange.

Here's a close-up of the birdies and the cloud.

Where do you find inspiration for your manis?

Illamasqua Load

This is another polish that I got as part of my Illamasqua group order. Load has been a major lemming of mine for a while so I'm soooo glad that I got it finally! I ordered a second one as a backup too :)

Load is a pastel creamy yellow-ish white. I love the sort of neutral color it is without being a plain ole white.

I needed 3 coats for this mani, and the dry time was a bit slow which is pretty expected for a pastel/white color. I used Seche Vite on top, and it still took a while to dry for me.

I still love the color of Load, and the Illamasqua formula (very little cleanup needed here!)

Monday Mani: Easter

This week's Monday Mani theme at PAA (Polish-aholics Anonymous) is Easter. I decided to go super cutesy for today's mani, and I love how it turned out. It was super fast to do too!

On my ring finger I used a base of 2 coats of Sinful Colors Candy Coated. The formula is really nice on this, and the dry time is decent considering it's a pastel.

On my index finger, I used a base of 3 coats of Sinful Colors Unicorn. Since it's a yellow and a pastel, dry time was pretty slow though the formula was decent.

I used 2 coats of Candeo Colors Jellybean on my other fingers. I knew I had to use Jellybean for this mani, because well the name is jellybean! Plus the yellow base matched Unicorn and the purple glitter matched Candy Coated.

I painted on the bunny and the chick shell using Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner and just the brush from the bottle. The black details on both are done with Wet n Wild Black Creme and a nail art brush.

The chick's beak is Zoya Arizona, and I just used the brush that came with Arizona. The pink details on the bunny are Ulta Encore Pink, and I again just used the bottle brush to add in those.

I topped everything off with top coat after I let it dry for a while (to prevent dragging of the colors), and tada!

I love how this turned out!

Bright Skittles

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get my other Easter post up and ready because we headed out of town to visit family. In fact this post is scheduled and posting while we're on the road! I'll get my that other post up on Monday (which coincides with Monday Mani anyway!).

Luckily for all of you, I did this mani not long ago that I think is still very appropriate for Easter. Since this is an old post, I still have long nails.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this mani! The super bright colors are fun and make me wish soooo hard for spring! But it's coming! We're scheduled to have a high of 54 today!

For this mani I used (from left to right) 2 coats of Sinful Colors Why Not, 2 coats of Sinful Colors Rise and Shine, 3 coats of OPI The "It" Color, 3 coats of NYC Spring Street, and 2 coats of NYC MoMa.

Next, I topped each nail with 1 coat of L.A. Girl Uninhibited and added my topcoat.

I attempted to make these look like Whoppers Mini Robin Eggs, but it didn't work out so well. I'm glad I took these pictures before I attempted it though because otherwise you would have missed out!

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 22, Inspired by a Song

In one of my small nail groups, we've been reminiscing lately and sharing old photos. So I starting thinking about old songs that I could use for today's mani when I finally figured out what I should do!

Kryptonite by 3 Doors Down was one of my favorite songs in high school. I still love it actually! What makes the song even better is that the first time I heard it, I was wearing my Superman t-shirt.

To save myself some time, I decided to paint the Superman logo ahead of time as a decal. It sorta worked. I made the decal a bit too big and when I put it over the blue base, the colors didn't stand out as much as I wanted.  The face and suit were inspired by these Superman nails.

The base coat on the face is Essie Brooch the Subject. The base coat on the other nails is Rimmel Chill.  I used acrylic paint for the rest of the design (other than the logo which was done using Migi nail art pens).

I like how these turned out, but I feel like I could have done a neater job.

Check out some other manis inspired by songs below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 16, Tribal Print

I love doing tribal manis! The first time I did one was last August during my first 31 day Challenge. I really liked the way that one came out, but I wanted to change it up for this challenge.

I was inspired by this pin, except I decided to go with different patterns for my other nails.  I was a bit afraid of doing the dream catcher, but it was actually really easy!

For my base coat, I used two coats of Butter London Bumster. Next I added on the designs using Zoya Dree (green), Rimmel Black Satin, and Rimmel French White Nail Tip Liner.

Check out other great tribal print manis below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 9, Rainbow Nails

For today's challenge of rainbow nails, I decided to try a technique I've been wanting to do: splatter nails! I really really really (really!) love these. They are such a fun look and so easy to do.

Next time I do them though, I'll try a smaller straw like a coffee stirrer or something instead of a regular drinking straw because that resulted in some of the large blobs you see. I'll also put tape around my nails because it makes a big mess. See?

I used a bunch of different colors of this mani. I started with a base of Sally Hansen Whirlwind White. Then I used Zoya Sooki (red), OPI Chop-Sticking to My Story (orange), OPI The "It" Color (yellow), Essie Mojito Madness (green), Sinful Colors Why Not? (blue), and Sinful Colors Dream On (purple).

Below are some close-ups of each nail.

Pinkie

Ring

Middle

Index (and my favorite)

Check out some other rainbow manis below.

31 Day Challenge, Part 2!: Day 3, Yellow Nails

My first thought for today was to do bumble bee nails, but I really want to save that idea for summer. With flowers and the bee, I think it'll make a perfect summer mani. So I set off to every trusty Google and came up with the idea of smiley faces!

The base coat on this is Maybelline Sunshine. I used about 3 coats for this mani. The faces were all done with my Migi nail art pens.

The pinkie face is my favorite so here's a close-up!

Check out some other yellow manis.

Top Polishes of 2012

Several bloggers have been doing lists of their favorites polishes/manis/products. It seems the end of the year always brings these best of or countdown lists. Well, I decided to do my own! It was so fun reviewing through my blog posts and seeing the awesome manis I did over the past year.

I've decided to bring my list up into two different posts: one with just my top polishes and another with the top nail art designs I did.

For today, I have my top polishes of 2012. These aren't polishes that necessarily came out this year, just polishes that I collected this year. I tried to narrow it down to 10 but couldn't quite do it. So here they are in no particular order, my top polishes of 2012!

Candeo Colors Sprouse: A perfect blend of black, silver, and white glitter, a hint of blue, and silver microshimmer. It applies beautifully with no need to dig out or place glitter.

Zoya Isla & Dollish Polish It's A Me Mario!: This is a two-fer! Zoya knows how to do red polish, and Isla is no exception! Dollish Polish really hit the scene this year with her amazing polishes, especially her glitters. The Mario collection was super popular, and you can really see why here!

Zoya Phoebe: Phoebe is stunning neon blue matte polish. I'm a sucker for matte polishes, and this neon one makes it super fun.

Dollish Polish Expecto Patronum: I couldn't help putting another Dollish Polish on this list! I love these milky white polish bases with glitter. Expecto Patronum is jam packed with tons of teal/aqua glitter.

Candeo Colors Jellybean: And another Candeo Colors!!! This one is based on the same concept as the milky base with glitter, except it's a milky light yellow with glitter.

OPI Chop-sticking To My Story & Dollish Polish The Koopa King: Here's another two-fer and another Dollish Polish (I told you it was her year!). Part of the reason why I choose this mani is not just for the color but the combination of colors. Both polishes play of each other nicely without one dominating the other.

Enchanted Polish Across the Universe: I don't even know what to say about this polish! Holo, color shifting, and named after a Beatles song, drool!

 Smitten Polish EMERAHGERD CANDY CORMS: I really am obsessed with these milky bases. This time we have another white with candy corn colored glitter.

Nicole by OPI Khloe Had a Lam-Lam: My favorite polish of all time. Hands down. I love green, dark colors, and dusky tones. This polish has it all including a great formula. If only it wasn't that weird Nicole by OPI bottle...

ManGlaze Santorum: I bought this color on the suggestion of a friend, and I'm so glad I did. ManGlaze makes the best matte polishes around. Santorum while being a totally gross name is beautiful dark brown matte polish with tons of micro shimmer. Try this one topcoated. Seriously.