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

Peacock Stamped Gradient

Happy Hump Day!

This mani is my first foray into gradient stamping. I'm kind of on the fence about it. I think next time I use this technique I will centre the division better colours on the nail better, and I will be happier!

Products Used

Ciate Spending Spree

CND Vinylux Rock Royalty

Rimmel Do Not Disturb

China Glaze Fast Forward

Born Pretty Plate BP 30 (SDPX31 for 10% off)

I do love the colours together, and think they work great for the peacock pattern! Can I tell you how awkward Ciate bottles are to pose with?

What do you think of the technique?

xo Shawna

Purple and Gold Floral

I've just been feeling kind of meh about a lot of my manis lately! So, apologies for the lack of posting. If you follow my Instagram, you'll see bonus manicures that I don't always blog about! 

Today I got together with one of my besties, whom is also a polish and new nail art addict! She has a gorgeous flakie topcoat I wanted to try, so this mani kind of has a little bit of everything going on!

Products Used

CND Vinylux Rock Royalty

Ciate Snowglobe

Mundo de Unas Bronze

CND Vinylux Weekly Wear Topcoat

MoYou London Bridal 06 

I accidentally double stamped my ring finger so I just called it an accent and moved on! A lot of people rave about the MDU however I find I don't get the best image transfer with it.

What is your MDU polish experience?

xo Shawna

P.S. Here is a bonus pic: I did a Parisian theme for my co-worker yesterday! She absolutely loves Paris and was going to "A Night in Paris" gala tonight!

Christmas Plaid Mani

The other night I was a disaster, one of the reasons being I went to hang out with my friend, promising to do sweater nails for her- and then forgot the plate. (I actually thought I had lost it- literally and figuratively!) The plus side was, it gave me a chance to do a Christmas plaid look I had been envisioning, with the bonus of using a few of her colours which really made the whole look.

Ciate Glametal

Sally Girl Green

essie Blanc

China Glaze Out Like a Light

China Glaze Tip Your Hat

essie Good to Go Topcoat

I absolutely love the ciate base colour, and in general how it all works together. Cute! Testing out the essie top coat as well. 

Do you revisit your favourite designs in different colour schemes?

xo Shawna

holo christmas sweater

I've been wanting a solid collection of holographic colours for a while, and while I have one gorgeous shade and a topper from echoes polish, I wanted more. As much as I would love to support more indies, currently my budget is should be on lockdown to save for our wedding. So, I decided to order a color club halo hues (2013) collection from amazon (free shipping!) and get a jump start. 

I finally went to pick up the order yesterday and I'm thrilled with the gorgeous holos. The black one, Beyond, was my most coveted and I had to get it on immediately! The photos (and indoor lighting) don't do it justice, this one was hard to appreciate in the dreariness of mid December weather.

I wanted to use my new zodiac plate from MoYou (woot Sagittarius!) but seeing as I was going to our annual family Christmas reunion the next day, I opted for sweater stamping instead. 

Products used

Color Club Beyond

Ciate Speed Pro Top Coat

Mundo de Unas Forest

HK Girl Top Coat

MoYou London Zodiac 11

The line on my ring finger went a bit wonky as I tried rolling the image instead of pressing straight into the squishy pad. Results from stamping: roll when doing someone else's, press in when doing your own. I actually loved my cindy hand as well, which had completely different designs. I didn't do a great cleanup but I included a pic as well! 

Do you love holo or are you over it?

xo Shawna

waterfall nail art

I have been stamping a lot lately, so I wanted to get back into some freehand art using a christmas palette. I consulted my "to-do" list and settled on a waterfall mani in shimmery holiday colours!

I followed the tutorial from the nailasaurus, it's nice and simple with minimal tools and cleanup (which I love!)

I've also tried a few new things with the photography. First up, new hand pose- what do you think? Secondly, I scored an Ottlite for a wicked deal from Michael's- you can see how much whiter the lighting is, although sadly this particular lamp is defective and keep turning off and on by itself- and I've exchanged it TWICE already! I'm going to return it for good and buy a different model because the difference in lighting is truly amazing. It's nice for my nail art and knitting as well to have that extra source of light. Ok- onto the nails! 

Products used:

China Glaze Define Good...

Barry M Catwalk Queen

Sally Hansen Hi-Ho Silver

OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby

Ciate Speed Pro Top Coat

Nail Art Brushes from eBay

Look at how yellow the background looks here!

So... comment below and tell me what you think about the new hand pose! Yay or Nay?

xo Shawna

Watermarble Mani for Nail Art Nov

I've come down with a sinus cold and feel and sound awful, so I took Monday as a sick day from work. Since it was a decidedly lazy day, I chose to finally tackle one of my "to-do" manis which also was the day 16 prompt for nail art november (after briefly considering just skipping a few days that I've missed due to the wedding festivities!)

Products used:

Polish My Life Nude Lace

Ciate Snow Virgin

Essie Mint Candy Apple

Rimmel Do Not Disturb

Born Pretty Store Gemstones (SDPX31 saves 10%!)

HK Girl Top Coat

I love the colour palette so despite the designs lacking interest, I'm pretty happy with my first ever attempt at water marbling. Hopefully one day I will be making awesome flower designs with the technique :)

Have you tried this technique?

xo Shawna

Bridesmaid Blue & White Mani

I've been a little MIA from posting the past few days, because I have been a very busy bee with bridesmaid duties for my good friend Kelly' wedding (which was yesterday). I still had time to whip out a gorgeous blue and white mani, which fit the colour theme of the wedding. I actually did a test run with 5 different nail art ideas and had my IG followers vote, and this is the design that won by a landslide (bride included)! 

Products used:

Ciate Snow Virgin (white undie)

Sally Hansen Moonbeam

Sally Hansen Pacific Blue

Wet n Wild Hallucinate (accent nail)
HK Girl Top Coat

Born Pretty Store Gemstones (SDPX31 saves 10%!)

MoYou Pro Plate 04

I love the way Moonbeam looks over the undie. It was the perfect base for this bridal mani! 

Congrats to Kelly & Marijan :)

xo Shawna

Blue Plaid for Nail Art November

I am I love with today's mani. If I could get a bottle of nail polish for every time I said that...

Today is a combo of two challenges, nail art November (the theme is "plaid") and the twinkie nails art challenge, which the theme is "colour chosen by significant other". I knew without asking (but asked anyways!) that my fiancé would choose blue, and sure enough he did. I had a lot of fun creating this look, and while it was simple enough, it was a tad time consuming! Good thing I had the night off. 

Colours used:

Ciatè Chinchilla (base)

China Glaze Up All Night

Sally Hansen Pacific Blue

Sally Hansen Hi-Ho Silver

Finger Paints Striper Hip Hip Hue-Ray

HK Girl Top Coat

Striping Brushes from eBay

I love the monochrome colour palette with the pops of white and silver. 

Please excuse the state of my cuticles, I did my clean-up in low lighting late last night and mistakenly thought I did a decent job. Oops!

Hope you love it!

xo Shawna

Candy Corn Gradient

My time management is so bad! I did this manicure Thursday night and wanted to have it up BEFORE the twinkle challenge post... but I didn't get it finished and photographed until just before midnight so I figured it was technically Friday, and went ahead with the challenge post first. Enough babbling! This one is pretty self explanatory. Today is Halloween and I bring you my Candy Corn gradient! I actually don't think candy corn is disgusting, like a lot of people. At least, I didn't - I don't eat a lot of sugar anymore, so I bet I actually would find it gross now. 

Colours used:

Ciate Snow Virgin

L'Oreal Orange You Jealous

NYC Lexington Yellow

HK Girl Top Coat

I've seen a TON of versions of this floating around pre-Halloween. So, I can't credit one single person for he inspiration, just the whole nail community :)

With the first coat of sponging I didn't have high hopes... but the second layer added a lot more pigment, and I love them!

So - do you love or hate candy corn?

xo Shawna

Jelly Sammich Mani - Twinkie Nail Art Challenge

Good afternoon! I'm excited to be back in the swing of the weekly Twinkie Nail art challenge :) This week is "Jelly Sammich"! And in other big nail news... I have a new nail shape, almond shorties! They feel really strange, especially as I type. I had my plain old oval nails for quite a while - I'm guessing more than a year! They're growing on me though.

I had just the polish in mind, which I specifically bought for this kind of mani - Pink Freud from Echoes Polish. This is a new-to-me technique and while I don't totally love how the stamping images I chose end up looking combined, I can see myself playing with the technique in the future with different designs. And maybe more chunky glitter!

Polishes used:

Echoes Polish Pink Freud

BK Matt White (use code SDPX31 for 10% off!)

MTL Creations Tara

Sally Girl Silver Glitter

Ciate Speed Pro Top Coat

HK Girl Top Coat

I used a few plates, MoYou London Pro Plate 04, and m66 and QA91 from born pretty store. (SDPX31 for 10% off!) I think next time I'll just layer floral prints instead of different images. They kind of got lost!

Have you tried a jelly sammich mani yet?

xo Shawna

Dots - October Nail Art Challenge

Hello lovely readers! Happy Friday, it's time for another edition of the twinkie nail art challenge! October looks like a great month, with a few new techniques and fun manicures planned. 

Today (the first Friday of October- where did the time go?!) brings us the theme "dots". I've had this base on since Wednesday night, it's one of the polishes rom my first indie polish that I mentioned in my blog post last Saturday, from My True Love Creations. I'm still planning a swatch post for that haul, so stay tuned! (I have to wait until I'm home alone... I've been getting complaints about the fumes of my constant nail painting from my fiancé!)

I decided to keep it simple and go for a french manicure inspired dotticure. I wasn't intending to have the dots shrink in size towards the edges, but it just kind of happened - and i liked it! This look was super quick and easy - a great way to add some interest with minimal effort. The dotting took just 6 minutes (not that I timed it or anything :-p) 

Polished Used:

MTL Creations Mia

Ciate Snow Virgin

HK Girl Top Coat

Born Pretty Store Dotting Tool (use coupon SDPX31 to save 10%!)

What do you think of this take on a french mani?

xo Shawna

Floral & Stripes - Nail Art Challenge Week 3

Today is week 3 of the #twinkienailartchallenge and the theme is floral. This was perfect because I've been wanting to create some floral nail designs but have been worried that I didn't know how and they wouldn't turn out! It was a great opportunity to be drawn out of my comfort zone. 

Browsing bloglovin for inspiration, I found a tutorial from wondrously polished on a pretty floral design. It was on a black base, however I wanted to use my new finger paints polish and keep it light and fresh for the last few days of summer. 

Polishes used:

Base

Finger Paints Natural Talent

Flowers

OPI - red mini

OPI Mod About You

Ciaté Snow Virgin

Loreal Safari Chic

China Glaze Tree Hugger

Toppers

China Glaze Fairy Dust

HK Girl Top Coat 

Initially I striped the index finger as well, but I didn't like it. The nude on it's own was a little plain so I jazzed it up with a red rhinestone from born pretty store (it's true red IRL, the photos made it look orange!) and a swipe of holo topper. I'm pretty pleased with the result of my first floral mani! 

Do you stick to tried and true designs or venture into new design territories often? 

xo Shawna 

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Orange and Green Tribal Stamped Mani

Tonight's manicure was a quickie! As much fun as I had creating the last hand painted tribal set of designs, it was just too busy for my everyday wear. I also got my new plates from born pretty store yesterday and I couldn't wait to test them out! 

For the mani, i used:

born pretty nail art plate (item 6947) - use code SDPX31 to save 10%!

China Glaze Tree Hugger

L'Oreal Orange You Jealous

Wet n' Wild Black Creme

Ciate Fast Dry Top Coat

I need a little practice still getting the images onto the nail straight! Luckily its workable for this design.

Only one of the nails got a little messed up while stamping. Overall I am really pleased with the quality of the plates! 

Do you like the design?

xo Shawna

(disclosure: post contains affiliate link)

Neon Tribal Inspired Nails

Happy Sunday everyone! Today I'm excited to share the fun manicure I created that has been in my mind for a while. Tribal (geometric) manicures are remaining a popular trend in the nail art world and I couldn't wait to jump on board. I bought black and white striping paints the other day and I decided I was ready to take on a whole manicure inspired by tribal prints!

For ideas, I googled "Tribal Print" and I had a few ideas already tucked away in my mind. My favourite nails are the design on my right thumb/ left middle finger, and the design on my left thumb/ right index finger!

To create this look, I used:

China Glaze Pool Party 

Finger Paints Hip-Hip-Hue-Ray!

Finger Paints Ch-Art-Coal Black

HK Girl Top Coat

Are you on board with the tribal trend? Which designs are your favourite?

xo Shawna