Valentine's Day Mani 2017

Primary Colors Dry Brush Mani

Something New

Red and Black Houndstooth

Nicole by OPI My Cherry Amour

Twinsie Tuesday: Romantic

Julie G - Sunset Kiss

Twinsie Tuesday: Inspired by Your Favourite Movie

Twinsie Tuesday: Inspired by the Season

Twinsie Tuesday: Vampy - OPI Get Cherried Away + Black and White Glitter

Happy Canada Day!

Chinese New Year 2015

OMD2 - 31DC - National Pride (29th)

Every Rose Has Its Thorn - Valentine's Mani with Pueen 22 and OPI Danke-Shiny Red

First Valentine's Day Mani for the year. I felt like it was a bit too early to go all out with pink everywhere so this is a darker, more subtle Valentine's mani.

Chinese New Year 2014 Nail Art

xin nian kuai le / sun leen fai lok! 新年快乐! I'm looking forward to some really good dinners over the weekend... and hopefully I'll get lots of "lai see" too... so I can go buy more polish!!! hehe :) anyway let's get to this year's mani!

Busy Girl Nail Art Challenge - Oxblood

I've been really horrible at posting again :( my laptop got a virus and I had to try to reformat it... except I couldn't get it to work lol... and then I finally moved out of my parents place so I've been pretty busy moving my stuff out slowly while still working and going to school... Anyway on to the nails!

This is 2 coats of OPI Lost on Lombard from the San Francisco collection. I love San Francisco and I'm loving a lot of the colors from this collection! Still have to track down Alcatraz Rocks... might need to order that one online. Formula on this was quite good. This color is a classic dark red with a bit of orange/brick tone to it. This color reminds me of the buildings in Chinatown... a classic red but a bit kind of faded I guess

When I started this challenge I really wanted to try and do some kind of nail art for each challenge prompt. I attempted a red and black saran wrap mani for this prompt. Unfortunately it didn't work out as I envisioned it... I feel like it ended up looking like a scab lol. I don't think it shows up that well in my picture but the red base wasn't fully dry when I tried to do the saran wrap technique over it so some of the red came off leaving the pink nail showing so it really looked like a scab. 

I thought about maybe using the hairspray water spotted technique instead but it was getting really late so I ended up pairing it with a gold glitter, Sinful Colors All About You. I didn't really like this mani either but since it was getting so late I settled for it. I wanted to do blood drips for this challenge but I felt like it was too early for Halloween. And then when Halloween came around I didn't get around to it and it didn't match my costume lol.

The red and gold looked nice in some lighting but reminded me a bit too much of Chinese New Year haha. The glitter also flashed green in some lighting which I didn't like. 

Here are the rest of the prompts for the challenge... Hopefully I can catch up!

Essie - Trombone

OPI Danke-Shiny Red + China Glaze Coconut Kiss gradient

Chinese New Year Gold and Red Ruffian Mani

Couldn't think of anything to do for this year's Chinese New Year mani. Was originally going to do red with gold glitter over it but that's pretty much what I did last year. Saw SparrowNails' Chinese New Year Ruffian mani on instagram and decided to go with that instead.

I started by painting 2 coats of Revlon Gold Coin. Then I went over most of it with OPI Big Apple Red, painting the way I usually would except I left more gap so that a gold edge was left for the Ruffian effect.

I don't think Ruffian manis are very flattering on my nails. I think this would look better if I had longer nail beds or if I grew my nails out longer first. Visually I feel that this makes my nails look shorter and fatter, especially my middle nail which is naturally wider, and is also now a bit shorter due to a break :( Maybe If the color by my cuticles was darker and didn't blend into my skin so much? Or if I left some of the gold at the side? Like so the red part was more tapered rather than going straight across the gold? Does that make sense? Now I'm just rambling haha

My right hand nails look especially stubby I think because my right hand nails are a bit shorter. Also I couldn't paint my right hand as accurately so I left more gap.

Here's last year's Chinese New Years nails:

Essie As Gold As It from the luxeffects collection (2 coats)
Essie Trombone (2 coats)

Last year's picture is so blurry! My photographing skills have definitely improved! BTW if you're wondering, I have changed my blog name several times. I promise I didn't steal this pic :)

Obligatory Christmas nails

I haven't been posting much lately. I'm just so tired these days... no matter how much I sleep :/ dunno what's wrong with me haha I must be getting old

Here is what I'm probably going to be wearing for Christmas... debating whether or not to redo my nails right now. There is some pretty bad tip wear on my right hand and a large chip on my right thumb but I just did my nails last night and am feeling a bit lazy. I didn't do any cute nail art mainly because I can't draw. Also I'm not really into Christmas. Not that I have anything against Christmas I just don't get very excited about it. I absolutely HATE Christmas music and I feel like Christmas shopping is such a chore sometimes. I'm always shopping at the very last minute and totally stressed. My boyfriend keeps calling me the Grinch. Anyway I thought about doing red and green but just went with red and some glitter in case I didn't change my nails again for a while. I didn't want to have totally Christmas nails after Christmas! 

still trying to fiddle with the lighting in my light box. My skin looks so pale and washed out here but at least the polish is the right color

OPI - Big Apple Red (2 coats)

Accent nail: 1 coat of OPI Excuse Moi over 1 coat OPI Big Apple Red

OPI Big Apple Red is a crelly (jelly finish but more opaque than true jelly). It was thin but easy to control and each coat was extremely even. There was still some visible nail line at 2 coats but I was too lazy to do a third. It is not very noticeable normally just under bright light. Underneath Excuse Moi I didn't feel that more coats were necessary since the dense glitter would mostly cover the nail and hide any VNL. 

OPI Excuse Moi is a pink tinted base with silver and pink microglitter and medium sized glitter in various colors. I didn't expect the pink tinted base to change the color of the base color this much. At a distance it almost looks more like Valentine's Day :(. But I got a fair amount of green glitter on most of my accent nails so I think it can still pass for Christmas.