Quick NOTD: Red Floral Doodles

Hello friends, it's been a while since I've updated my blog! My schedule has been kind of wonky lately since I started work at a restaurant. The job has certainly taken a toll on my nails. I have them filed down to nubs right now because they keep breaking and peeling... sigh. 

Due to my busy schedule, I have not had much time to come up with many creative designs, so I've been sticking to florals. This design in particular was supposed to be a watercolor inspired design but it ended up looking more like a cute notebook doodle. 

Quick NOTW: April Showers

Hello friends! It looks like spring's come early this year (at least to where I am). The ground's usually still got some slush and snow on the ground this time of year, but this year's totally different. We've already several days where had the temperature above 20 degrees celsius and everything is already so beautiful and green. They say that April shower bring May flowers and is it every true! Some flowers are already booming but I can see all kinds of flower already spouting and forming bulbs. I even passed by a couple of gorgeous cherry blossom trees the other day. The house I used to live in had a cherry blossom tree in front of every house and it was just so amazingly beautiful come springtime when all the trees on the street would bloom!

This manicure was inspired not by the blooming flowers, however, but by the frequent rainy days we've been getting. An umbrella print is something that I've been wanting to do for a while, but this really did not turn out how I wanted it to. The umbrellas were okay, but there was too much negative space left in between and the nails just looked empty. I used rain drops to fill in the leftover space but it just turned out looking quite odd. I think the individual umbrellas really needed to be much closer together, with maybe just one or two rain drops in between. I definitely want to re-try doing an umbrella print design some day in the future and I hope it turns out way better!

Quick NOTW: Easter Nails

Hello friends! How have you all been? I Have the most adorable nail art to share with you today! Adorable little Easter bunnies! Easter is probably one of the cutest holidays, commercially speaking of course. Who doesn't like cute fluffy bunnies, little chicks and egg shaped chocolates? I simply can't wait to get my hands on some Cadbury Creme Eggs and some Mini Eggs, those things taste amazing. I wish creme eggs were available all year round in stores. I've saw a basket of Oreo creme eggs at the store a couple of weeks ago, but due to being in a rush, I didn't buy any! Now, I'm searching high and low for the Oreo ones,but to no avail. Maybe I'll get lucky this week as Easter draws more near...

It has come to my attention that I've only shared pictures of the designs on my cinderella hand in the past several posts. My left hand is still quite shaky, but I can see some definite improvement! Although it's still very strange to see two contrasting designs on my hands, it's definitely more exciting; plus, I get to post more often. I have no idea why it took me so long to start doing this!

Quick NOTW: Simple White Flowers

Hello friends! How are you all enjoying ping thus far? It was beautiful and sunny here for a couple of  days, but I awoke to a blanket of snow covering everything this morning! Hopefully we won't see any more snow this month, but Canadian weather is just so unpredictable. I'm itching for all the petty flowers to start sprouting and blooming already. I'm really hoping to add some more cuties to my little succulent collection. I'm really looking forward to possibly acquiring some adorable sedums, they are just so adorable! Anyway, in anticipation for spring, I did these really simple and cute white flowers on my cinderella hand this week. My non-dominant hand has been getting a bit rusty lately and these cute flowers were great practice.

This adorable pastel purple colour is "Sittin' Pretty" by Essie, and it's such a perfectly cute spring colour. The rest of the design was done using acrylic paint. 

Spring Florals (with Pictorial)

Hello friends! For a while, it finally felt like spring had come because the temperatures were so high! I really enjoyed taking walks outside without a thick jacket. Sadly, it snowed again yesterday and the temperatures are low once more, boo. I'm actually really anticipating seeing flowers bloom again. All the stores are already beginning to set up their garden centers and I could not more more excited for it! I hope they have lots of pretty succulents and flowers in stock this year. On the bright side, the two little succulent I got weeks again are growing quite nicely and are bringing a nice splash of color to my room.

A couple of weeks ago, my mother and I were flipping through our flyers and I came upon a booklet of  spring fashion from The Hudson's Bay Company; I saw an amazingly cute dress with this quaint little floral pattern on it, and I knew that I needed to put it onto my nails! I tore the page from the booklet and kept it for inspiration. They're amazingly cute. I love how the subtle the tiny bunches of flowers are. Added to the nude background, I think this pattern is just so perfect for spring. I left a bit of  negative space on a couple of my fingers because I had originally anticipated to add some pearl studs or gold accents. However, in the end, I decided against doing it because I didn't want anything ti draw attention away from the simple subtlety of it. 

Anyway, continue reading to see a pictorial in how I created these nails (and more pictures)...

Quick NOTW: Negative Space Nails

Hello friends! I am back again to share this super simple nail design. I actually did these nails last week, and I wore them at the same time as my paper planes mani! The two designs were really different and contrasting, and this particular style of design, is definitely unlike any I've ever done before. I'd avoided doing negative space nails previously because I didn't like how yellow my nails were from my prolonged use of polish. However, I finally decided to embrace my nails in all their yellow-stained glory and give my cinderella hand it's own unique design.

 The color I used is one that I've had for a year,but remained unopened. It's a gorgeous two-toned chrome polish by OPI. In the picture I've taken, my nails look a metallic purple, but in from other angles,  it's more of a blueish-green. The colour is absolutely gorgeous and very eye-catching. It was fun to stray away from the solid colours I usually use in my nail-art and try this stunning duochrome polish!

Paper Airplane Nails(Quick NOTW)

Hello Friends! I'm back again with another nail design! I've had a lot more time to do my nails recently, so I'll be posting more often. Anyway, these are my paper plane print nails! This has been a design that I've wanted to do for years; ever since I first started doing nail art, and I'd glad I finally got to do it. The thing that prompted me to do this design was a game that I downloaded a couple days ago. The game is called "Paper Planes" and it's pretty adorable. You fold planes, stamp them with your location and send the airplane off. You can catch planes that other players have sent, stamp them with your location and send those off too. I think that the concept  is super cool, and it's fun to see the places that the paper places have "flown" to; this game definitely has a lot of potential. 

Punny Aloe Nails

Hello friends! I am back again with another punny nail design. This week's design features one of my favourite plants; the aloe vera. I love aloe so much,  they make my skin feel amazing. I actually had 3 aloe plants at home until recently, but unfortunately, we had to move them outside due to some bugs hatching in the pot and they died from the cold.  I've already been on the look-out for some replacements, but none of the places I've been to recently seem to have them in stock. I definitely want to get one before summer starts (for my sunburn prone skin)!

Recently, I've been trying to use more of my more neglected polishes. I bought this gorgeous green colour almost a year ago and I've yet to use it. It felt quite strange to be wearing this design because I rarely ever have green coloured nails. This shade of green is a happy green and looks adorable when worn. I'll probably wear this colour a lot more in the future.

Anyway, without here are my tips and tricks on how to create your own aloe vera design....

Beauty and the Beast Stained Glass Nails (with Pictorial)

Hello friends! Have any of you seen the live-action Beauty and the Beast movie yet? They trailers look so amazing and Emma Watson is as gorgeous as always. Maybe I'll take some time to go see it this week. Despite not having seen the movie yet, my nails this week are inspired by it (but maybe moreso the original Disney animation). I've only ever seen the animation two or three times, but I absolutely loved the sound track! "Tale as Old as Time" is such a wonderful song and it makes me feel all warm and tingly inside when I listen to it.

 

This week's nail art did involve a bit of experimentation since it was my first time attempting to create a stained-glass look. I used a glittery base polish with translucent colors on top. The results were not quite what I expected but I think they turned out quite nice, since the sheer layers of paint allowed some glitter flakes to shine through. It took me a while to nail down what design I wanted though, as there were so many cute characters in the movie. In the end, I kept my nails relatively simple using different parts of the stained glass from the movie. On my thumb is the beautiful rose, while on the rest of my fingers I incorperated the wall-climbing roses from the bottom left of the stained glass with the pattern of Belle's dress. 

Anyway, here are my tips, tricks, more pictures and a pictorial of how I did these nails....

Quick NOTW: Howling Wolf Nails

Hello friends! I'm doing a little throw-back to this design that I did last lear at this time. I did my nails today, but I've decided to post those designs later in the week (the timing just seems more appropriate). I actually can't believe that I've not shared this design until now, I really enjoyed how it turned out. This was done purely using acrylic paint and the ombre/northern lights look way better than I expected them to! 

Anyway, I'll be back with some new designs very soon, so stay tuned!

Blue and White Pottery Inspired Nails

Hello friends, how are you all this week?  It feels almost like spring where I am right now, and not at all like a typical February here in the GTA. My boyfriend visited me last week and the weather was just gorgeous, it was so warm and sunny! I really hope that this weather lasts until summer, though that'll be unlikely. This week, I actually really wanted to do a spring inspired design because of how spring-like it feels outside. However, not wanting to jinx this beautiful weather, I decided against it. 

The idea for the design came to me because my mother showed me a post from her chinese website about dresses inspired by traditional blue and white pottery designs. I've always found traditional chinese pottery to be extremely beautiful. I've spent many hours as a child staring and admiring the the beautifully glazed ceramics.

With this design, I decided to that it would look best if done purely with nail polish. Normally, I would prefer using acrylic paints for such intricate designs, but I did not have any paints in this colour (I definitely need to add some more colors to my collection). Plus, acrylic designs tend to look a bit more flat compared to polish based designs and  I wanted to achieve that glazed ceramic feel without having to add thick layers of topcoat. That being said, I had not worked with nail polish as a medium in a while and I was definitely not used to how fast the polish dried up! It was certainly quite a fun process, and I think that I'd enjoy trying this with some acrylic paint in the future.

Anyway, without further ado, here are my tips and tricks on how to create these nails (and some more pictures)!

Quick NOTW: Simple Valentine's day Nails

Hello friends! Happy Valentine's day! I hope you all get to spend some time with your loved ones today, or you can spend some time showing yourself some love (buy yourself that chocolate, you deserve it). I have this really simple and cute Valentine's day design to share with you today. I've been wearing this on my Cinderella hand for the past couple of days and I think it's really stunning. It's bold and eye-catching. The best thing about this design is how easy it is to create, it's a great for beginners! All you need is a dotting tool or a thin paintbrush. Anyway, I hope you all have the best, love-filled day!

Quick NOTW: Cute Squirrel Pun

Hello friends! I'm back with another cute (and slightly lame) pun design. With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I wanted to be as cheesy as possible. It was quite difficult to choose from the huge selection of cute animal puns; I wanted to do them all! I may try more of these puns in the next few weeks, just to keep the pun streak going.

As a child, Valentine's Day was always one of my favorite holidays to celebrate in school. I remember making  a ton of different crafts in class and getting to deliver hand made cards to all of my classmate. One year, My parents helped me make really adorable cards, with Hershey's Kisses attched to them. If only I knew what puns were back then; I would've definitely wanted to make a bunch of cute squirrel themed cards.

Quick NOTW: Punny Avocado Nails

Hello friends! It's been a while since I've last updated my blog, but I've settled back into a routine and I am ready for another year of posts. With Valentine's day drawing near, I wanted to do a cute and punny design (because I live for cute puns). For some reason, when I sat down at my desk today, the only thing that came to my mind was avocados. I absolutely love avocados, they make me so happy. I could probably eat avocado toast every day for the rest of my life! I somehow managed to fit two puns onto my hand this time, and let me tell you, the lettering was quite a challenge for me. I have no idea of what came over me when I decided to put the phrase with more letters on to my smallest nail, but it turned out alright... I think.

I'm very excited to share these pictures with the world! For Christmas, my boyfriend and I decided to make gifts for one another this year. I wrote him a box of "open when..." letters and he built me a lightbox (& his gift totally trumps mine)! It's so lovely and my pictures are turning out beautifully, but I'm still getting the hang of using it. My pictures are so much more clear. I guess I also have to start paying more attention to details now too, oh boy.

Keep reading for some tips and tricks on how to create these nails....