Swatch-It-Up-Saturday Jan 18

Good morning!!  I have a pile of swatches for you guys this morning that I have been stashing since the end of November...  Yeah...  *sheepish grin*  Anyways, let's get to it, shall we?

2mm Square Nail Studs - REVIEW

Good morning and Happy Hump Day!  My first nail post of 2014 comes half way into January.. shame on me :(  I'm such a bad blogger!  I have lost my drive to blog, but I have made the commitment to Born Pretty Store to do a review on a product they sent me, which I was really excited about receiving, so I figured it was high-time I pull myself together and get back in the saddle!  This post contains affiliate links, and this product was sent to me free of charge for an honest product review.

Holiday Nail Art Challenge Week 1

Happy Sunday everyone, and Happy December 1st!!  Only 24 more sleeps :D

I have a late mani submission for the Nail Polish Canada Holiday Nail Art Challenge.  Yes, I have had all week to do it, but I have been super lazy and only did it last night, very last minute.  Let's take a look - I am very excited for the way this turned out!  The theme for this week's challenge was snow, my FAVOURITE part of winter and Christmas :D

Hallowe'en Mani #4

Day 2 of Thanksgiving weekend is here, dinner #2 is in a few hours, yahoo!!  I have another Hallowe'en mani for you today :)  I'm pretty proud of this one!  I had this idea in my head before October rolled around and I knew that I had the perfect polish for it!

Here is my slime drip mani!

Swatch-It-Up-Saturday July 27

Hello lovely readers!!  How many of you are still up?!  This girl is soon heading to bed, just waiting on mom and dad to stop in to pick something up on their way home and I will be hitting the hay.

I have a quick, and very late, Swatch-It-Up-Saturday post for you.

Smile!

Hey everyone!  I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend so far!  If you have been following my Facebook page, you will have seen my announcement that Tyler and I bought a house this past week!  We put an offer on it and it was accepted the same day! :D  We are going through for our inspection on Tuesday, when I plan to take lots of pictures, so I will post them on the Facebook page for everyone to see :)

I did this mani last week, and I thought it would be appropriate for it to be posted along with this news - smiley face nails!

E is for Elegance

Post #2 - I'm on a roll!

I can't believe we are on "E" week already for the ABC Challenge!  If you are just joining us, click the link and get the information for the Challenge, and join in if you want!

For "E", I wasn't sure what kind of nail art to do so I just picked something kind of vague and random...

E is for Elegance

Essie Aruba Blue

Good morning happy readers!  I hope you are enjoying your Monday better than I am so far :)  I hate Mondays...

Anywho, today I have for you the swatch of Essie Aruba Blue that I promised you on... Friday.. *hangs head* I'm a bad, bad blogger :(  I was then planning to get this up yesterday, and we all know how that went, lol!

Alright, enough whining, onto the pictures!  Hold onto your hats, this is one stunning blue!

Elixir Lacquers Elixiversary

Good afternoon peeps!  It's Friday, and you know what that means!!!  It's the WEEKEND!!! :D  I slept in this morning as I didn't work today and it was so nice - this past week after the time change has whooped mah butt!!  But I am much better now :)  Tyler and I are going to see the movie The Call tonight, with Halle Berry, it looks like a good suspense movie :D

In celebration of Elixir Lacquers 1 year in business anniversary, Nicole (also from Nail Polish Wars) released a polish for the occasion, and it is called Elixiversary.  This polish was released in batches, and if you haven't yet, make sure to get your bottle this tomorrow as it will be the last release, and then it will be gone FOREVER!  Here is the link to the listing for it.  The listing will be "active" at 1:00pm EST Saturday, March 16, 2013.  Only 25 bottles will be available!

February Nail Art Challenge Day 9

Holy cow, the February Nail Art Challenge is coming to a close already :(  Where has the time gone?!  I want to send out a big congratulations to all the girls who participated in the Challenge, you all did awesome!!

Today's theme is Recreate Your Favourite.  The idea is to either a) recreate a design from the rest of the days of the Challenge that you want to do-over or because it was your favourite to do, or b) recreate a design that one of the other participants did.  A couple girls asked if they wanted to recreate their tutorial day, could they use a different tutorial.  I decided that this would be OK, as I know there are so many wonderful tutorials out there!

February Nail Art Challenge Day 3

Good morning lovelies!!  Today's my last day of work for the week, I get to sleep in tomorrow :D  We are also expecting a BUTTLOAD of snow tonight and into tomorrow - there is an Alberta Clipper coming through and it's meeting up with a Texas Low over the Great Lakes!!  YAH-HAH-HAH-WHOOO!  The weather man says Toronto is to expect about 30cm (12inches) tonight :D

Today is Day 3 of the Nail Art Challenge, and the design for today is Glitter Loaded :D  I will admit, when I put this as an option I was going through a glitter obsession and didn't really think about how to do nail art with glitter.. but that's OK.  Looks like there are some ladies that have accomplished this already :D

Candy Cane Nails

Good morning lovelies!  Aren't you so excited that the Christmas season is upon us?!  I can't believe we have no snow, and it's 13°C today :(  It's supposed to drop off and we are to get flurries overnight, woohoo!!! :D

So I have another Christmas mani for you today -- Candy Cane Nails!  This is turning out to be lots of fun doing Christmas nails.... now if only I could get away with doing them year 'round... *rubs chin in pondering way*

This also corresponded with the SMYTC Holiday Nail Art Challenge, so I linked up with that too :D

YUM!!!  Hehehe!  These turned out great, and although they aren't as "perfect" as I pictured in my head, I still love them!  That's the fun thing about water marbling -- it's always a surprise how they turn out :D

For this I used a base colour of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On (2 coats).  Then using Essie Marshmallow, Julep Delaunay and Avon Electric Green, I did alternating colours in my marble -- white, red, white, green, white, red, etc.

So while I call these "candy cane nails" (that was what I was going for...) they remind me more of these round red, green and white peppermint hard candies.  If only I had used a darker green, they would have been a perfect match!  :)

Source

Update:  I was at Subway getting my lunch today and the girl behind the counter making my sub looks at my nails, looks up at me, grins and says "you nails look like candy canes!  They are so cool!!"  Proudest moment right there! <3

Are you going to try something like this?  If you do, please share it with me on my Facebook page!

What is your favourite Christmas candy?  Mine is definitely Ferrero Rocher chocolates, but you can get those year 'round ;)

NOTD: Essie Mesmerize

Happy Friday everyone!  This afternoon I'm off to the cottage for the weekend, one last "horrah" to summer :)  I hope it doesn't rain though the weather forecast is suggesting it will :(  They are calling for 20mm of rain tonight and another 20mm tomorrow... :( BOO!

I have the last of my Nail Polish Canada haul swatches for you today :)  It is Essie Mesmerize.  I first saw this post on Swatch and Learn and was mesmerized (pun intended ;) ), and knew that this polish would be in my life someday :D  It is such a beautiful, medium blue (almost a true "primary blue" colour) that is even more stunning in real life!

 

This only took only 2 coats to get this beautiful colour to full opacity on my nails!  Don't you just love it?!?!  I wouldn't say I'm a blue-polishaholic, I save all my love for purples, but this one made my heart skip a beat when I put it on :D  I didn't remember to take pictures before adding the white dots to dress it up just a smidge (L'Oréal I Will! white), but I don't think the white interferes with the blue at all :D  If anything it adds to it :)

What's your favourite colour to wear on your nails?

Nail Mail: Nail Polish Canada Haul

It's Friday!! :D  I hope everyone has exciting plans for the weekend!

 

I have my haul from Nail Polish Canada today :)  I love Nail Polish Canada because when you place an order over $25, shipping is free!  :D  Which is awesome!  And they have some pretty good deals on polish sometimes!

 

Let's see what I opened up!

 

The box is purple!  How is that for them catering to their customers?!  ;)

 

Filled with peanuts for protection during shipping :)

 

And wrapped in bubble wrap so everything shows up safe and sound, and in on piece :D

 

First up is Essie Mesmerise.  I first saw this polish on Swatch and Learn and fell in love!  So when I saw it was available on Nail Polish Canada, I knew it was mine! :D

 

Next is Zoya Irene.  This polish was on sale on Nail Polish Canada, regularly $8.75 and I paid $6.80!  I realize it's probably because it's "out of season", but I don't care, lol!  This is my first Zoya (yay me!) and I got it because I don't have anything like it, and it was on sale! :D  This is is an interesting olive shimmer polish and can't wait to try it :)

 

And next we have Zoya Summer.  Again, this polish was on sale, regular $8.75 and I got it for $6.80 (it is currently $6.00 if you go now!)!  Again, it is probably "out of season" but I was looking for a pale pink colour and after looking at swatches I liked this one the best.  It is a very soft pink/peach colour.  This is my other first Zoya polish :)

And the reason for the purchase was I was advised of a Discount Code to use to get a Soulstice polish for FREE!  So the first thing I did when I went to Nail Polish Canada was find the Soulstice polish I wanted to try.  The one that stood out for me was Geneva.  This is a shimmery dark mauve colour.  It looks more burgundy-ish in the bottle (swatches to come in a couple days).

To bring my total order to $25 I decided to get Essie Protien Base Coat.  I thought maybe this would help to prevent my nails from peeling.  No harm in trying :D  It came in a box, similar to all Essie nail treatment products.  The base coat looks like a milky white polish, so maybe it's chock full of good stuff for nails :D

If anyone is interested, I just checked and the Discount Code for the Soulstice polish is still in effect, so if you want to try out one of these polishes use the Discount Code TRYSOULSTICE783 upon checkout and you will get it for free (regular $8.50)! :D

 

Anyone have any of these colours?

NOTD: Essie Merino Cool

Hey everyone!  (I really need to come up with a more exciting greeting, lol!)  I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend.

I have for you today Essie Merino Cool.  I'm not sure what that means.  I even looked up "merino" and this is the definition:

merino [muh-ree-noh]  noun, plural merinos, adjective

noun

1. (often inital capital letter) one of a breed of sheep, raised originally in Spain, valued for their fine wool.
2. wool from such sheep.
3. a yarn or fabric made from this wool.

adjective

    4.  made of merino wool, yarn or cloth.

So then I was intrigued as to how this nail polish came about this name... is the wool of this breed of sheep purple??  so I Google-Image'd it, and this is what I found:

Source

They're kinda cute :D  Though I still don't understand where the name came from for this colour...

Anyways, onto the polish :D  Please excuse the bald spots, I should have done 3 coats :(

Natural Light, with flash



Natural Light, without flash

Then I thought "I wonder what this would look like mattefied" so I tried it :D  I really love the look of this.  I used Essie Matte About You over top and it turned this beautiful purple/grey colour into a velvety dream!

Natural Light, with flash

Natural Light, without flash

What do you guys think of this colour?  Do you like the matte polish look?