Turquoise Water Marble turquoise #TGIF challenge

Happy Friday! My go-to monthly nail art challenge has been disbanded, so I decided to create my own as a great way to knock some to-do manis off my list and start exploring new techniques and styles. I've dubbed it the #TGIFnailartchallenge, so you can search the hashtag on IG to see more! It'll still be weekly, on Fridays. Of course if you're playing along it doesn't have to be done on the Friday, so you can jump in whenever! Week one is a technique that has been on my list for quite a while: the turquoise water marble. I used this tutorial. 

Products Used

Rimmel Do Not Disturb

Wet n' Wild Black Creme

L'oreal Because You're Worth It

China Glaze Fast Forward

Cuter Cuticles Cutie Guard

Non-Aerosol Hair spray

A million q-tips!

While this was definitely a "messy-mess" (as I would say to my nephew), boy do I love this one! I found my hairspray was a bit finicky for the technique so I had lots of do overs and had to clean the water quite a bit. I liked that, unlike a traditional water marble, if I wasn't satisfied with the coverage I would just dip my nail back in and catch the tiny little floaty bits to get more on the nail. My Cindy hand actually looks better, I may end up posting a pic on IG so go follow me over there!. 

Have you tried this technique? 

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

Pumpkins and Leaves - Twinkie Nail Art Challenge

As much as I liked Tuesday's mani, I was ready to pump it up with some more Halloween-themed nail art. The final Friday for October's theme for the Twinkie Nail Art Challenge is "Halloween/ Harvest" and I think this fits the bill! (I actually did this nail art Wednesday night, but saved the post to keep to the schedule :) I've seen a lot of pumpkin manicures that looked simple enough, so I choose a few accent nails on each hand. I first painted the shape with a few different white polishes so the colours would pop, and the layered the orange, green and brown on top. I used MoYou Explorer Plate 21 for the leaves. 

Polishes used:

BK Matt White (stamping)

Ciate Snow Virgin & Finger Paints Hip Hip Hue-Ray (undies)

China Glaze Be More Pacific

OPI You Don't Know Jacques

L'oreal Orange You Jealous

I love the way the white stamping really pops over the purple base.

Hope you enjoy!

xo Shawna

Halloween Grunge Dry Brush

Hi ladies! (I assume it's just females who read my blog- if you're a guy, apologies for this and all future greetings!)

I'd been thinking of a mani that incorporated all of the traditional "Halloween colours" - green, purple, orange and black. I had the lightbulb to utilize a dry brush mani, since the last one I created didn't have a chance to be worn very long! Once I started, it wasn't turning out exactly as I envisioned so I added a heavier coat of purple and some silver for a bit of sparkle. The end result feels a little grungy and definitely Halloween appropriate! 

Colours used: 

MTL Creations Sam the Shifter (base)

Wet n' Wild Black Creme

L'oreal Orange You Jealous

China Glaze Coconut Kiss

Sally Hansen Hi-Ho Silver

HK Girl Top Coat

I used two coats of HK Girl to get a nice smooth, glossy finish.

Do you like the Halloween colour palate?

xo Shawna

Halloween Colour Block Mani

Good evening ladies! It's been a hectic week getting back into the swing of things at home after vacation. So, this mani was actually painted on Tuesday night but I only just got around to photographing and blogging it (late!) tonight - hope you'll forgive me :) The nice thing about posted a worn-around-town mani is I've already gotten multiple compliments on the nail art so I'm feeling good about it!

I'm not much of a Halloween fan at all (as much as I love the amazing Halloween themed manis I've seen from other bloggers and instagrammers!). I've never been excited about dressing up. So, orange and black nails are about as Halloween as it gets for me! I've seen this nail art design quite a bit but most recently My Mint Nails posted a lovely pink variation, which inspired my recreation with some seasonally coloured polishes. At first I attempted using scotch tape for the lines but they still weren't perfect (see: wobbly black lines) so I just freehanded the silver. The next day I received my striping tape in the mail! This silver is stunning but its definitely a mess to clean up. The acetone was basically dissolving it so some of the black shows through. There's also some polish wear at the tips as this mani is a few days old- oops! It's actually wearing quite well considering I wear gloves and work with my hands, thanks to HK Girl Top Coat :)

Colours used:

Loreal Orange You Jealous?

Wet n' Wild Black Creme

Sally Hansen Hi-Ho Silver

HK Girl Top Coat

So- are you a Halloween fan or is it not a big deal for you?

xo Shawna

My Nail Polish Organization

I was excited to be able to get out to Ikea today to pick up a Kallax insert for my Expedit shelf. (They recently changed the Expedit line to Kallax - It's slightly thinner and therefore uses less material = more eco conscious). I've been eyeing one since my polish collection started outgrowing my previous storage, shortly after I wrote the post on my polish stash!

It wasn't too difficult to put the unit together, although once I finished I realized I could have gotten use out of my fiancés power drill! Probably best I stayed away from the power tools, though - I'm definitely not handy. 

In the top drawer, I have all my nail art supplies. This consists of: my black & white polishes for stamping, my Ciate caviar beads, rhinestone wheel, nail wraps, nail decals, stamping plates & scrapers, brush set, dotting tool, orange wood cuticle pushers, feathers, files and a few other odds & ends. 

My polish drawer was loosely organized by colour. Base/ top coats and nail treatments in the back! 

There's a few other great storage solutions for polish from Ikea including the Helmer (the gold standard for polish collections, I think!) and the Alex. I would love a Helmer however there is just no where else to cram another storage unit in my condo! 

What's your storage look like? Do you organize by brand or by colour?

xo Shawna

Birds on a Wire Stamped Mani

Tonight's mani has booted out my Paris nails as my new favourite! As soon as I saw the Birds on a Wire on the MoYou Pro Plate #4 I knew it was a must have. The only thing that prevented me from using it earlier was a fear of the fine line work, so I wanted more practice first! 

First, I created a gradient with:

China Glaze - Naked

L'oreal - Orange You Jealous

Sally Hansen - Pacific Blue

I was going to use an Essie shade in lieu of Pacific Blue but the colour was just too sheer to be really noticeable and I wanted more.

Next, I used Wet n' Wild Black Creme for the stamping. I paired the delicate (illegible) text from the same plate with the bird image.

I absolutely love the way this one turned out. The ombre effect on my thumbs are less than perfect - I figure my thumbs are kind of like the first pancake - a write off. 

Do you have issues getting your thumbs sponged as nicely as the rest?

xo Shawna

green mani Sunday

Happy Sunday everyone!

There is a green theme going around the nail instagram feed today, to support depression awareness in light of the recent passing of Robin Williams. If you search the hashtag #fightforlightandlive, you'll find a whole bunch of IG'ers who have painted their nails green today!

As I posted a few days ago on Facebook, I hope the positive that comes from the tragic event of a few days ago is to bring awareness to depression. If you are depressed, or even just not feeling like yourself and can't quite pinpoint it, you can ALWAYS ask for help - whether it be a family member or friend, or reaching out for support to a support line. Find a list of all the Canadian hotlines here.

To lighten things up, on to today's mani!

I've combined safari green with a leafy stamp, for a very nature inspired look!

The base colour is L'Oreal "Safari Chic". This was my first time using this new (to me) polish, and I was really impressed with the coverage of just one coat (as pictured). 

The white is Ciate "Snow Virgin". This is my first time using it to stamp, and again I'm impressed with the coverage from the polish. 

Don't be fooled by the bottle in the pic, I actually used HK Girl Top Coat. I had just packed away all my polish supplies when I redid the pics, and this bottle is being donated to my sister so it was readily available for a photo op!

Also, I am really having issues getting crisp photos, so hopefully you get the point. 

There you have it. Hope you had a great weekend!

xo Shawna

my nail polish stash

So I decided it would make sense to take stock of my collection to get a better idea of exactly what colours I have (and therefore, which I will need to round out the colour wheel for my nail art - I'm after grey and turquoise next!). Normally this storage bin just has all the bottles chucked in haphazardly, and things get buried at the bottom.. The other night I really wanted silver glitter and thought I didn't have any, but I found a mini bottle in there!

This is the whole collection, including 50 shades (that includes the glitters, etc), 7 base & top coats and nail treatments, one bottle of caviar, feathers, a set of nail wraps and my implements. I also have a bunch of nail decals in the mail from the born pretty store. 

A close up of all the colours. Mostly OPI & China Glaze, with a sprinkling of Color Club minis, L'Oreal, and a few random brands. 

These are my favourite shades in rotation. 

And all my nail treatments. My sister has just claimed my China Glaze top coat since she ran out, and I clearly have more than enough. 

What does your collection look like? Do you know how many colours you have?

xo

Shawna

(post contains affiliate link)

silver & roses nail stamping manicure

So, after my MoYou plates arrived last night I immediately set to work practicing. My first few attempts weren't great until I remembered reading somewhere it helps to prep a new stamper by lightly buffing the surface with a nail file. So, I did that and voila! Stamping magic was happening. I had a really hard time not only choose which image(s) to stamp for my first mani, but which colours. I settled on using my new shade "Butterfly Kisses" by L'Oreal (as pictured in yesterday's post) and stamping with my Sally Hansen "Hi-Ho Silver" that you may remember from my galaxy nails. 

I used two rose patterns from the MoYou Pro Plate 04 and alternated nails. One is a rose pattern and the other is the same pattern in the negative. 

It's really hard to capture the details with the silver being so reflective, but I love the way it turned out. The roses seem really delicate in the pink and silver shades. 

And of course, I topped it off with my new HK Girl topcoat. It's too early to make and solid judgements, but it definitely dried fast and didn't get any imprints when I went to bed later. (Conversely, I just had to chuck my old bottle of Seche as it's completely gummed. I considered buying a replacement bottle since I found it for about $6 at Winners, but decided it was unnecessary with having HK Girl). 

What do you think?

xo

Shawna

Nail Mail - MoYou London Stamping Plates!

So I've gone a little overboard the past week or two with online shopping, since I discovered the world of nail art and stamping specifically! The packages have already started to roll in. I'm really impressed with the shipping times of nail polish canada and MoYou London! I also snagged some awesome deals on L'Oreal polish at best buy online of all places, half of which shipped super quick and oddly the other half I'm still waiting for.

Here are the goodies! Top to bottom I have HK Girl Top Coat, which was shipped for free from Nail Polish Canada. It cost few dollars more than purchasing directly from the buyer, but the free shipping more than made up for the difference since I only wanted the one item. I've just used it for the first time so I don't have an opinion yet (other than it does seem to dry quickly!) but loads of other nail bloggers and 'grammers have raved about it, so I jumped on board. The L'Oreal polishes are Orange You Jealous, Butterfly Kisses and Because You're Worth It. I got 4 MoYou plates from different collections, as well as the XL double sided stamper. I think for my nail length, the XL is unnecessary but I liked the double sided-ness - it let me work back and forth before cleaning each side, so the stamping process seemed to flow more smoothly. Check out the plates up close. They are gorgeous!

Explorer Collection 21 

Princess Collection 09 

Pro Collection 04 

Tourist Collection 21

I'm curious to receive my stamper from the born pretty store, (affiliate link) to see how the firmer one compares to the squishy XL stamper. What stamping plates and stampers have you tried? What's your favourite brand?

xo
Shawna