fireworks for TGIF

So I have issues with looking at this thing, called a calendar. When I made the May #TGIFnailartchallenge prompts, I just assumed the May long weekend would be closer to the 24th so today's prompt is "Fireworks" despite the Canadian holiday actually being last Monday. Duh. 

Anyways, this was pretty quick to do, although its one of those "looked better in my head" manicures. 

Products Used

China Glaze Up All Night

Sally Hansen Hi-Ho Silver

OPI Sheer Tints Be Magentale With Me

OPI Sheer Tints Don't Violet Me Down

OPI Sheer Tints I Can Teal You Like Me

essie Good to Go TC

I did however love the use of sheer tints over the silver hand painted fireworks, changing up the colour of 3/4 of the nails for a varied look. 

Happy belated Victoria Day and happy Memorial Day to my American readers!

xo Shawna

Vintage Floral Stripes

I've always had mani envy when I see pretty, vintage inspired floral manis in my feed. I decided to rectify that and use my straight vinyls (two birds one stone!) with soft pastel stripes and pops of neon pink for the flowers.

Barry M Coconut

Kicks Mint Gelato

Color Club Neon Pink (unnamed mini)

OPI Mod About You

China Glaze Be More Pacific

essie Good to Go Topcoat

My Nails Did Straight Vinyls 

This cute little mint polish was brought back for me from Sweden. Adorbs! I only wish I had skipped the leaves detailing on the striped nails, it looks like I just slipped while painting the lines. 

xo Shawna

Cherry Blossoms for TGIF & My Engagement Shoot Mani

I'm late! That seems to be a theme in my posts lately - life is definitely crazy this spring!

Friday's theme for the TGIF nail art challenge was "Cherry Blossoms". I actually spent Friday playing with cherry blossoms at our engagement shoot in High Park. We had to move the shoot up an entire week at the last minute, because the blossoms happened much earlier this year compared to the last few springs! So, I wore a classy and timeless mani for the shoot and my challenge mani was put on hold. Scroll to the bottom of the post for the engagement shoot mani!

Products Used

Ciate Chinchilla

Nicole by OPI Hard-Kourt Kardashian

OPI Mod About You

Ciate Snow Virgin

essie Good to Go Topcoat

I freehanded the branches and dotted on the blossoms. I am absolutely in love with the look and it was fairly simple! 

Here's the mani for my engagement shoot. Mod About You base with a China Glaze Fairy Dust glitter tipped gradient, and a simple red holo heart with Daily Hues Nail Lacquer in Willa, made with a dotting tool. 

Check out this gorgeous shot our photographer Jacqueline from Injoy Imagery snapped for my instagram. 

Stunning! Are you in love with cherry blossoms like I am?

Happy Mother's Day!

xo Shawna

Quatrefoil Vinyls Mani

I love quatrefoil. Like, a lot. But I find doing it by hand with a dotting tool (which I've done a few times) just never looks as nice as I want it to, and it's also tedious as hell! So one of the very first stencils I designed was quatrefoil, of course. (I even made two different designs!). 

When I first designed the stencils, the lines were a little thin and tore pretty easily - I made them thicker and had to test them out! So I can say my vinyls are new AND improved, which I always laughed at as a marketing gimmick before. But it's totally true! They're a week old and already improved! And wow, am I in love. 

Products Used

Finger Paints Night Lights

OPI Love Angel Music Baby

My Nails Did Vinyls Quatrefoil 02 Stencils

essie Good To Go Top Coat

(code OPENING for 15% off and free decals with min. 2 sheet purchase - until the end of the week!)

I sponged the gold overtop my completely dry base. Shhh, I was able to use each stencil 2-3 times and my whole mani took only 4 stencils! Talk about value. Is it narcissistic to say I freakin love my own product? Hope you love it too!

xo Shawna

Braided Mani for TGIF

Oh hey guys! So my shop is open. Link is overhead or you can click right here--> My Nails Did Vinyls.  Use code "OPENING" to save 15% off your entire order, and if you order 2 sheets or more you'll get a free sheet of decals (TBD)! Prices are Canadian, so if you're from the States or international, the exchange is probably in your favour ;)

Today's nail art was literally done in a car. I didn't feel like joining my dad inside the chaos that is Costco, so I sat in the car with the windows down, enjoying the sunshine and painting my nails like the crazy nail lady that I truly am. The theme for week one of May's #TGIFnailartchallenge was Braid, which I've seen done so many times but never done myself! I decided on a pink monochromatic look.

Products Used

Finger Paints What a Night

OPI Suzi Shops & Island Hops

Color Club Miss Bliss

INM Out the Door Topcoat

I love this look! It's pretty simple to create but packs a lot of punch. 

Go check out the shop!

xo Shawna

Seaside Stamped Gradient

I'm glad I photographed this mani ASAP because I proceeded to dent all the tips when I left the house before the fairy dust properly dried! Oops. This is my mani for week four of the April TGIF nail art challenge- stamped gradient. I wanted a light base colour that would allow my stamping shades to pop, so I dug deep into my drawer and pulled out Panda-Monium Pink, which I'm pretty sure is the first OPI colour I ever fell in love with. I finally used my last untied MoYou London plate, which I ordered back on Christmas! Baby steps, right? I find the longer I do nail art, the less i reach for stamping plates - but they're definitely nice for a quick, pretty mani. 

Products Used

OPI Panda-Monium Pink

Sally Hansen Pacific Blue

Konad Princess Polish Deep Jungle

China Glaze Fairy Dust

INM Out the Door Top Coat

These two stamping colours blended together beautifully. It's too bad this mani got ruined, but I am going to pick up my cutting machine from FedEx tonight (an aside: I hate FedEx!) so I'm not too upset because I'm going to be all about testing the nail vinyls soon! Watch for the shop opening announcement and specials!

xo Shawna

Yogini Mani + 100th Post!

Tonight's post is extra special! It marks my 100th post since starting this blog in August. That's a lot of posts- and a lot of manicures! Thanks to all of you who pop in to check out my nail art and comment from time to time. I appreciate you all!

My next few days will be spent at the Toronto Yoga Conference, 12 hours of yoga over the next two days! So I wanted to do a mani to fit the bill. Very appropriate for my 100th post as yoga is one of the other big parts of my life (I'm a hot yoga instructor part-time as well as my day job)!

Products Used

Polish My Life Nude Lace

OPI Barefoot in Barcelona

Rimmel Sage All The Rage

OPI Golden Waves

Nicole by OPI Hard-Kourt Kardashian

INM Out the Door Topcoat

MoYou London Explorer 27

I loved how easy the nimbus nail art from a few nights ago was, so I decided to use earth tones to create a neutral base for some stamping with my MoYou plate. Since the colours used are pretty delicate, they melded together amazingly to create a gorgeous watercolour effect base. I have to say, the Nicole polish was amazing for stamping with my creative stamper. I am so happy with the overall effect and will be proudly rocking these in downward dog!

In honour of my 100th post, I would love if you left a quick comment telling me what country you're reading from!

xo Shawna

Nimbus Quintuplet Mani

A few of my besties from Insta decided to collar on a bestie quint mani! We decided to do a nimbus mani (you might remember I did my first one back in January) using a pale pink as the base to tie them together, and then whatever colours we wanted as the nimbus shades. Neon was mentioned somewhere in there, so I decided to run with that and reached for my Color Club neon minis! (Sadly, most of them are unnamed on the bottle).  The resulting mani is gorgeous, and brighter than the pictures capture. Scroll to the bottom for the collage! 

Products Used

OPI Mod About You

Color Club Warhol

Color Club Unnamed Neon Purple

Color Club Unnamed Neon Pink

INM Out the Door Topcoat

(I think the unnameds may be Kapow! and Right On!)

My second go at Nimbus went much quicker! I think I was less concerned about perfection (it's laundry night!) and the result is just as great as when I stressed about the placement of every single dot. I will definitely be using this technique on a more regular basis now that I know how quickly it can go! 

Check out my babes on insta:

Sammy

Maz

Angel

Bambi

Have you tried this technique from the Nailasaurus yet?

xo Shawna

Easter Eggs for #TGIF

I think two people played along (once each) for #TGIFnailartchallenge March, but it is such a great incentive for me to do manicures I have been putting off that I decided to go ahead with an April challenge as well!

My friend's daughter Sydney (hi!) asked what I was doing for my Easter manicure and the first thing that popped into my mind was Easter Eggs! So I grabbed a rainbow of pastel polishes and went for a mix-match look using vinyls, dotting tools and some good old free-handed painting. 

Products Used

Barry M Coconut

OPI Mod About You

NYC Cosmetics Lexington Yellow

China Glaze Highlight of my Summer

China Glaze Lotus Begin

Sally Hansen Babe Blue

INM Out the Door Topcoat

Dotting Tools eBay

Nail Art Brushes Amazon

Lou It Yourself Straight Vinyls (skinny & regular)

I looove this one, it better last all weekend! I also painted different designs on my Cindy hand because I'm OCD and couldn't just leave them white. The designs aren't as intricate (or neat!) but they're passable.

Happy Easter! Do you do anything to celebrate with your family?

xo Shawna

Sheer Holo Gradient Floral Mani

Is my post title long enough? I could have added a few more words to it but had to draw the line! Tonight a bunch of nail gals from the GTA (greater Toronto area, for you non-Ontarians!) met up for dinner and lots of nail chat and swapping! I knew my nails needed to be on point so I eventually settled on a holo faux-gradient with a splash floral design inspired by The Lacquerologist! 

Products Used

Color Club Kismet

Wet n Wild Black Creme

OPI Sheer Tints I'm Never Amberassed

OPI Sheer Tints Be Magentale With Me

OPI Sheer Tints Don't Violet Me Down

OPI Sheer Tints I Can Teal You Like Me

INM Out the Door Topcoat

What's a faux gradient you ask? After I laid down my holo base, I vertically overlapped two sheer tints on each nail- the overlap created a new in-between colour. Sponge-free and easy-peasy! I needed two coats of sheer tints to help the colours pop. 

Here's all the gals! Don't mind my giant face, we needed a selfie stick!

The waiter thought we were a little nuts. No room for food with all the polish up for grabs! A few of us brought our destashes to swap. 

Nails on fleek!

Um, yum. Totally not paleo. Every bite was delish! 

And lastly, me and my girl Sammy! I've raved over the product line, Cuter Cuticles. Check her out if you haven't already! I didn't even need to photoshop my pics today because her oils are so amazing! (I also purchased Unicorn Blood from Bree, and can't wait to rock it!)

What else do you do with your sheer polishes?

xo Shawna

TGIF: Negative Space Manicure

If you've been playing along, this week's TGIF Nail Art Challenge theme is negative space! This was actually my second attempt, my first mani was a definite flop after trying out double stamping with a cherry blossom image. (The real issue was that one of the Konad polishes I recently purchased is decidedly sheer and not so great for stamping - so it kind of looked like crap). Thank goodness for acetone! 

Products Used

OPI Manicurist of Seville

INM Out the Door Topcoat

MoYou London Pro Plate 04

Cheeky Beauty Gems

I chose the houndstooth pattern because I wanted a bold design to stand out against the bare background. The look is growing on me, but it definitely needed the gems to jazz it up. Very business chic! 

Have you stamped over negative space before? What do you think of the look?

xo Shawna

Extravagant Stamping

My version of celebrating St. Patricks was drinking a guinness, adding Irish cheddar cheese to my dinner (which was leftover Kangaroo bolognese- very international!) and painting my nails about as far from green as possible! These pretty patterns from an untried Born Pretty stamping plate were perfect as they don't obscure the base colour by being too dense of a design. Use my code SDPX31 to save 10% off your regular price purchase :) 

Products Used

OPI DS Extravagance

Konad Princess Polish Metallic Silver 

China Glaze Fast Forward

Born Pretty Plate BP-17

I received my very first Konad stamping polishes in the mail today and just had to try them out ASAP. I dug back into the untrieds box for the base colour and emerged with this gorgeous OPI I scored from winners for only $5! I think i've actually had this done on my toes at the spa before and loved it. It is such a stunning holographic plummy shade! And the Konad stamped like a dream. The silver stands out much more than the regular silver polish i was previously using. Those were also great bargain from nail polish canada! 

So, todays question: Guinness beer - yay or nay?

xo Shawna

Gold & Blue Creative Stamper Mani

I received my Creative Stamper yesterday after trying to track one down for a reasonable cost to Canada. Finally, my investigating led me to Eat Sleep Polish, the newest stockist and Canadian to boot! Caterina is also a doll. So, I got to work tonight and had fun with this super squishy stamper! 

I wanted to start making a dent in my "untrieds" which I've sorted into a box. I'm hoping to work them all into manis over the next month or so, in some way or another!

Products Used

China Glaze Intelligence Integrity Courage

Steel City Reflections The Mountain

OPI Golden Waves

China Glaze Fast Forward

MoYou London Bridal 06

Creative Stamper

Here's a macro of the goodness :) The gold is definitely soft and delicate as the stamping polish but the stamper picked it up no problem! 

I love the stamper. It is so soft, I had no issues using it as I read some comments on IG to roll instead of press, and to prime by washing with soap and water (or magic eraser). Worked like a charm! The polish I used is a little thin but I can't wait to try it out with something a little bit more bold. 

Do you have a big untried stash?

xo Shawna

#thedress bestie twin nails

Now I'm on a  roll with bestie twin nails! Kaitlyn and I decided to collaborate this week. She was more than game to go along with an idea I had (although is it already irrelevant this week?) to do a mani inspired by "the dress"! 

Products Used

China Glaze Snow

Sally Hansen Pacific Blue

OPI Golden Wing

Wet n' Wild Black Creme

China Glaze Fast Forward

Brush eBay (trimmed)

And here's the collab. I love how different nail art can turn out running with the same idea! I knew Kaitlyn had a bottle of Pacific Blue so of course we had to use that as the base. Originally I was going to stamp before this became a twin mani, so I decided to hand paint instead! It was kind of fun actually! 

For the record, both Kaitlyn & I see white and gold, screw the evidence!!

Are you team white and gold or black and blue?

xo Shawna