Cherry Blossoms

Morning my dears!  How is everyone?  Today is the day Tyler and I go back to the house for our first visit before closing!  Can you believe it's getting so close!?  It's becoming more and more real every day! :D

Sorry I didn't get a post up yesterday, I painted my nails on Monday night in preparation of doing some nail art (not at all like I am showing you today) and I got really lazy and just left it at the base colour.  So I did some pondering yesterday at work trying to come up with something to do.  A girl on the Canadian Julep Trade Group on Facebook mentioned doing cherry blossom nails and I decided right then and there that's what I was going to do because my base colour was perfect for it!

NOTD: Back to School Nail Art

Hey everyone!  Today I have for you my Back to School nail art for Spicey'z Nails' "Back to School" nail art contest that she is having until September 10.  Here is the link to the contest information.

For those of you who follow my page on Facebook, I have been advertising that is is Muffin Nails that is having the contest, but I was wrong.  I am so sorry for the confusion!  I hope both of these ladies can forgive me for my mistake :(

Ok, now that I have that off my chest and cleared up, onto the nails! :)

I used so many colours for this design I will try to remember them all and list them at the bottom :)

• Thumb nail - apple manicure inspired by cutepolish's tutorial.  For this I used Jessica Red Delight, Cherimoya Dark Brown and Julep Courteney.
• Index nail - note paper manicure, I have seen this around the nail community.  For this I used L'Oréal I Will! (white), Avon Lagoon (blue) and Jessica Red Delight.
• Middle nail - pencil manicure inspired by Muffin Nails (who said she was going to do pencils, so I came up with this design from her mentioning it).  For this I used the tape method to get the point (cut a triangle into a piece of tape and put it on my nail) then painted with Julep Alyson (nude).  Then I painted over that with Julep Daisy (yellow) and did the lines with Julep Parker.  The lead I did with Jordana Pop Art Black Mark striper polish.
• Ring nail - chalkboard manicure, again I have seen this around the nail community, but with math equations so I thought I would do letters instead :)  For this I used Julep Emilie for my chalkboard and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow.  I topped it with Essie Matte About You topcoat to give it a matte finish.
• Pinky nail - converse shoe nails, because every good student needs a new pair of shoes to start off a new year :D  For this I used Avon Blue Shock, L'Oréal I Will!, Jordana Pop Art Star Designer (silver) and Jordana Black with a toothpick.

I hope everyone participates in Spicey'z Nails' Back to School nail art contest.  I love doing nail art contests :)  And again, I apologize for the mix-up in who is hosting it.  I feel so bad about it :(

Nail Mail: Nail Treatments and Julep America

Hey folks!  We've made it half way, and today's weather is SO much better than yesterday!

Good news!  I got more Julep nail mail last night!  WooHoo!! :)  I love Julep nail mail!  Let's take a look..

Back at the end of June, Julep had a flash sale on their Facebook page where if you spent over $20 you got their America the Beautiful polish, which they released for the July boxes, for FREE!  And who doesn't love free?!  :D  So of course I had to take advantage of this sale as I was to receive the O Canada polish in my July box because I live in Canada (the American Mavens received America the Beautiful instead).

Oooh, a sample of Julep's "The Best Pedi Creme Ever"!  I LOVE this foot creme, except for the smell -- it reminds me of a freshly cleaned barn (hay and straw, with out the poo, lol!).

And now for the good stuff!  Julep Reveal Nail Growth Revitalizing Serum.  I plan to use this for my big toenails which I have had problems with ingrown toenails and growing for over 2 years, all because of a pair of shoes :(  I will be doing a post on the results for this serum in the next few weeks so we can take a look at the results together :)  I really hope this serum works the way it says it does -- I need my toenails to start growing normal again!

And the Fast Dry Topcoat.  I find this topcoat works the best with Julep's polishes.



And the prize at the bottom of the cereal box - America the Beautiful!  I wanted this polish when Julep gave the Mavens the preview for the July boxes, but being Canadian I received O Canada (not that I don't love O Canada!) with my July Maven Box.  So when I saw that Julep was having the flash sale and this was a free polish, I knew I had to get something so I could get this beautiful polish :D

Oh say can you see.... All the glitter and stars?!  Holy, this glitter polish is nail art in a bottle!  I love this.  Even though I am Canadian, I can thoroughly appreciate this glitter polish.  I layered it over Jessica Red Delight.  I was going to layer it over red, white and blue to show what it would look like over the 3 different colours, but I figured that would be "too patriotic" for a few weeks after July 4th, especially because I'm not in the United States :)  I will be trying this glitter over other colours though, I think that other colours will help the different types of glitter stand out (small red glitter is hard to see with the red base colour).

Does anyone else have Julep's America the Beautiful?  What do you think of it?

NOTD: Tie Dye & Peace Nail Art

Happy Friday the 13th!  I'm not superstitious, but I had a bad experience on a Friday the 13th a couple of years ago that made me hate this day and I don't go anywhere unless absolutely necessary!  What about you, are you superstitious of Friday the 13th?

Tyler and I are helping my friend and her husband move to their new house tomorrow and she's a hippie at heart.  When I saw this type of nail design on Lacquered Love's Facebook page I knew I had to try it out for when I help them move :D

I looked up a lot of ways to create tie dye nails, and found a video on YouTube using seran wrap to create the tie dye effect.  So I painted my nails white and tried it out - this is the result. 

I was never into the tie dyed clothing fad, and I have never made anything tie dyed,  but I think this turned out pretty awesome :D  I'm pretty darn proud of myself on this one. It turned out excellent for a first attempt :D

So then, following my inspiration photo, I added peace signs to each nail with a white nail art pen.

I think these nails are pretty sweet!  I'm so happy with the way they turned out, and will definitely be creating tie dye nails again :D

The colours I used are:
L'Oreal I Will white base, Jessica Red Delight, Julep Courteney, Avon Blue Shock, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow.  The peace signs were done with Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in White.

What do you guys think?

NOTD: Watermelon Nail Art

Whew!  It's a hot one out there today!  I hope everyone was able to stay as cool as possible in this heat wave -- I hear it's only going to get worse by the end of the week :(  This is why I'm a winter person ;P

Because it's so hot, I thought I would do a "cool" and "refreshing" nail art tonight over top of the Julep Courteney green I blogged about yesterday.  I saw a couple pictures floating around Facebook on a couple nail pages I follow with people doing watermelon nail art and I thought what better time to do it than when it's blistering hot outside and sinking your teeth into a nice, cool piece of watermelon would be extremely refreshing :)

I'm not sure this nail art will keep me as cool as that slice of watermelon, but I'm going to give it a shot :D

So what did I do?

I left on the Julep Courteney green that I put on yesterday.  I carefully painted my nails about 1/4 of the way down from the cuticle using Jessica Happy Days following the curve of my cuticle edge.  Then I used a black polish and a toothpick to create the watermelon seeds and a white polish applied with an eyeshadow applicator to create the whites of the watermelon.

This nail art was so quick and easy, I will definitely be doing it again :)

Let me know if you think I should be doing photo nail art tutorials for any further nail art entries I have so you can try it too.