Cupcakes, Glitter, and Rhinestones, oh my!

At the beginning of the school year, I told myself that I wouldn't let myself get behind on anything: school work, social life, extracurriculars, and this blog. Sixty days later, and I'm 0 for 4 -- especially when it comes to posting on here. 

BUT today is my BIRTHDAY, so as a present to myself, I'm going to try and get caught up. (Or, at the very least, I'm going to post my birthday mani.) It's my last year of school, and it's only fitting that, after 4 consecutive years of birthday midterms, I should have one last birthday midterm to deal with before I get the heck outta here. 

The concept for my birthday mani flip flopped through a number of different concepts, many involving Halloween nail appliques, gold leaf, and glow in the dark nail polish. I tried to combine all the ideas in my head, but when I finally got down to painting in all the base colours, it looked so tacky I could have died...sort of like a skittles mani on acid. So I made an executive decision: to bring on the bling.

Lightbox (more colour accurate)

Flash

Lightbox

I used Nubar Violet Sparkle (3 coats) on the pinky, middle, and index fingers. Violet Sparkle is mixture of densely packed, finely milled glitter in a purple base. The purple leans more to the red side than to the blue, as seen in the lightbox pictures, which are more colour accurate. I do have to warn you, however, that this one is topcoat hungry. I used 2 coats of clear polish + 1 coat of Revlon Quick Dry, and it still feels gritty.

The cupcake was a last minute addition to this ensemble. I love cupcakes, I love to make them, so why wouldn't they be featured in my birthday mani? I painted a french tip on my ring finger with Essie's She's Picture Perfect and used a striping brush to paint on the stripes in Joe Fresh Iris. The icing was painted on using a large dotting tool, and the sprinkles with a small dotting tool.

And just in case there wasn't enough bling already:

I have never actually used rhinestones before, and when I bought these at Walmart I thought that they were simply rhinestone "stickers", so I waited for my 2 coats of Iris to dry before I even opened the package. Lesson learned.

Blurry shot to show off the SPARKLE

I ended up using a wooden cuticle stick dipped in clear polish to help me place the rhinestones, which worked well enough. The sheer number of rhinestones I used was just cray. The second "2" is a little wonky just because I didn't have enough space for it. :S

By the time I finished the "22" on my left thumb, I was in no mood to do it all over again on my right, so instead I stuck with a simpler (but by no means easier) heart design:

Right Thumb

Despite the fact that I didn't end up putting in my most extravagant ideas into my birthday manicure, I'm pretty pleased by how it turned out. It took forever to do, but I would say it was worth it if only just to have awesome nails on this gloomy, rainy day.

Back to work, I guess. :(  Happy Birthday to Me!

Green Tips and SPAM

So that green series that I was planning to do obviously didn't pan out...thanks All Hail the Queen! This was supposed to be the first in the planned series, so here it is, better late than never:

This is China Glaze Four Leaf Clover with Revlon Sparkle on top in a gradient-esque manner. I got the idea from Fuck Yeah Nail Art on tumblr -- can't for the life of me remember the person who originated it, but it was there.

If you own Four Leaf Clover and have ever tried to photograph it, you know that it's pretty much the most difficult colour to capture ever. It's a vibrant medium blue-leaning green. All the camera sees is blue. It's definitely more green and bright in person. Here's the closest I could get it without digitally tweaking the colour:

 I'm kind of digging how the little silver square glitter in Revlon Sparkle turned gold when layered over top of Four Leaf Clover. I think it has something to do with the fact that I applied it while Four Leaf Clover was still not completely dry. Sparkle also has larger silver hex glitter that have a mirror-like effect, which really adds another dimension, I think. I didn't have to struggle too hard to get the hex pieces on there, as you sometimes have to with the larger hex glitter polishes.

Four Leaf Clover is actually the first China Glaze polish that I bought, in a quest to find the perfect teal colour. And I'm going to admit that I bought that 3pc Revlon mini set (with Waterfall and some green colour) for Sparkle.

And now, for the SPAM part! Ready?

12 days down, 28 to go!

Flashback: Half-Moons and Moonshine

I've decided that in between current nail art/swatching, I will try and post some past stuff of mine as well that is already floating around on facebook in picture-only form. I would like to liken (does that make sense?) this to that show Behind the Music, except this is more like BEHIND THE MANI...

Yes. I know I'm pretty lame.

So, anwyay....

First off, let me make it clear that I am not usually a fan of black nail polish. It looks nice, I agree, but it's just so...dark. I did this mani for our lovely 20's themed semi-formal, and I did my research!


Apparently it was all the rage during the late 1920s and during the 1930s to file your nails real round and then do half-moons. I was originally going to do it up like the picture, with clear moons, red on the middle, and pearly white tips, but I tried it out on a nail wheel and it looked positively bizarre. Plus it didn't go with my champagne-and-black dress, so I formulated a new plan. What you see above is one coat of Revlon Crème Brulée with 2 coats of Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme on top. The black was a total last minute thing -- I thought it turned out pretty chic, don't you?

The half moons, of course, were painted with the aid of trusty hole punch reinforcements. I actually went the extra step and painted in the edges of the circle near he cuticles where the reinforcement didn't make a tight seal with the nail. The thing I remember most about doing this mani was filing my squared nails into a rounded shape. There was like, a mountain of "nail dust" on my desk when I was finished.

I also distinctly remember the night that followed:

I think this is a pretty unattractive picture of me, but it shows off my nails quite well, no? Oh okay. Maybe it calls attention to the unpreparedness of the photo's subjects. But I think it's a beauty nonetheless.

Oh, Canada!

Happy Canada Day! This will be a pretty short post due to the two barbecues I'm going to today! YAY, SUMMER!

CANADA DAY themed manicure! I'm actually pretty surprised by the way this turned out, what with the lack of nail art pens...the leaf was done with the aid of only the brush that came with my Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Cherry Red nail polish. I was going to do all the fingers like the thumb, but decided not to because it would be both time consuming and too busy to look at.

The other fingers were done up in Zoya Reva from the Summertime collection, a deep red with lots of gold shimmer. It kind of reminds me of China Glaze's glass fleck nail polishes -- which I'm totally going to buy more of, btw. I renewed my Sally's card for $5 and got a $5 off coupon for my next purchase! SCORE!

Last, but not least, I thought I would post a quick picture of my latest satisfied lemming: Color Club - Pucci-licious. I usually don't approve of feet pictures, but I adore this colour!!

Berrylicious

Hello Summer!!

Even though I've been in "summer" mode for almost two months now, the official start of summer two days ago has put me in more of a summery mood than usual. Recently, I've subconsciously leaned towards cosmetics and creations relating to strawberries:

Delish!

For starters, last weekend, for my uncle's 50th birthday party, I made lemon cupcakes with strawberry jam filling. It's been awhile since I made cupcakes, and I thought maybe adding a summery touch would be a welcome change from the usual chocolate or vanilla that I usually come up with.

Second, I bought a bunch of strawberry-scented cosmetics -- Covergirl fruit slicks were on sale at Wal-Mart for $3.96, a deal I simply could not pass up! It kind of smells like cotton candy, which got me wondering whether or not cotton candy was meant to be strawberry flavoured...

And, last but not least, I finished off my berry-licious last couple of days with a "strawberry" manicure:

Camera Flash

This is China Glaze - Strawberry Fields: this colour is just TO DIE FOR. Bright pink with a golden shimmer, I think this one is definitely going to be in the usual rotation for the year. I was actually debating for an entire day what colour to paint my nails in my summer mission to have different nails for at least every week for this summer. The decision actually came after a quick trip downtown to check out Trade Secrets and see if they still had the bin full of clearance OPI Shrek Collection that I'd passed up last month and was sorely regretting -- Funky Dunkey for $5.99! Sadly, the basket was filled only with rust coloured numbers that looked, well...rusty.
Anyway, on my way home, looking out the window on the subway, I was reminded of that scene in the movie Across the Universe where Jude is staring out the window on the subway singing Across the Universe. And, eventually, I got to singing Strawberry Fields...you get the picture.

Of course, I messed it up at work after not waiting long enough for the polish to dry, and I ended up trying to mask it using a glitter coat, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - In the Spotlight:

No flash, cloudy skies -- but so flashy!

I really liked it, but it had too much of a New Year's Eve sort of vibe to it, so I scrapped it entirely. I'm actually really excited right now because I just re-did my whole manicure with my new Revlon Quick Dry base coat, 2 coats of Strawberry Fields, and a quick coat of my newly purchased Seche Vite. I'm actually pretty impressed with it, as it's only been about 15 minutes and I'm already typing away on my computer, no problem!  It was a steal, too -- $7 at Winners.

Phew! That was a lot to get out in one post. I'm off to enjoy the rest of my day off. Stay tuned for my hockey nails post in honour of tomorrow's NHL entry draft!

P.S. since the theme of this post was "Berrylicious", I thought I would add a manicure from 2 weeks ago:

The scent was not-so-blueberry after all...

 Revlon Scented - Not So Blueberry: beautiful colour! Application was a bit of a problem, but in the end with a topcoat,it all turned out fine. The scent wasn't too bad, either, not exactly as blueberry-like as I had imagined. The scent bothered the pharmacist I usually worked with, though, so it had to go. Smells kind of like Mylan-Metformin, if you're interested. :P