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: 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 Update: Lazy Pink Flower Nails

Hello friends! I just have a quick update this week with these super lazy nails I am currently sporting. I've been exhausted this past week from all the training for my new job so I wanted to do the easiest design I could think of. Although I can't say much for thow the design looks, I do really enjoy how these two colours compliment one another. The darker pink is "Raspberry/Fuschia" from Crabtree & Evelyn, which is simply gorgeous and extremely pigmented; I don't even think I used a second coat! The light pink colour is PK114 from theFaceShop, which is a nice pale/pastel pink. However, it is a bit streaky and I needed several coats to get the desired opacity.

As for the design, it's a simple one that really just relies on the brush and requires minimum skill and effort. SImply use a small round brush (or even a dotting tool) to create these petals.

Anyway, that's all for this week! Tune in next week where I'll be attempting _nailaddiction's summer weekly challenge for the month of July.

Roses and Gold + Happy New Year!

Hello friends! Welcome to 2016! I've bee away for a month now, and I've missed it so much. I returned home for Christmas and only brought a set of polish back home with me. I did get the chance to swatch a couple of polishes I got from Crabtree&Evelyn  a couple of months ago. unfortunately, I packed my suitcase in quite a rush and failed to remember to bring some nail tools or even a top/base coat! In the end, Christmas break ended up just being a "breathing month" for my nails as I left them  bare for a majority of the time. It feels great to be back though! I promised myself that I would try my hardest to post weekly this year; so here's to keeping up with our new years resolutions and to a great new year!

I had a surprising amount of artist's block while trying to come up with the design for these nails, so I reverted to a design that I know how to do well. Rose nails were actually the first design that I learned to do when I first took up an interest in nail art, and I feel like I haven't done them in so long that bringing them back seemed like a good start for the year. These nails turned out to be really pretty in the end, I am loving the result! I was a bit skeptical about y choice of colours for this design, but the roses seem to pull the entire look together!

To find out how to create these nails, please read on:

Elegant Watercolor Nails (with Pictorial)

Hello everybody! It's been a gloomy couple of days up here in Ottawa; it was pouring rain for a while yesterday, and it's been lightly misting all day today. The rain just makes me so sleepy all the time, and with the daylight saving days ending, the days here get dark so early it feels like nighttime seventy-five percent of the time. The good thing so far is that we've been blessed with such warm weather this year. Usually by this time, I already have 10 layers of clothes and my warmest jacket on, so I'm really glad for that.

This week's WNAC theme is watercolor, so I decided to do some very pastel water colour nails with a cute purple french tips! This was actually inspired by a design I did several years ago, but I haven't had a chance to practice this technique so the blending didn't turn out exactly how I thought they would.  I also don't think the picture turned out very well, as the pink barely shows but, these pictures give the design a more pastel and gentle look.

Keep reading f you want to know and see how I did these nails:

Damask Nails (with Pictorial)

Hello everybody and sorry about the late blog post! It's been quite a busy week since midterms just started; but I made it through both exams just fine (I hope). Anyways, I finally had a chance to do my nails late last night but I wanted to wait until today to take full advantage of the gorgeous sunlight in order to capture these pictures. Can you believe that no filters, effects or adjustments were added to these pictures? There truly is no lighting better to take photos with than natural lighting.

These nails are the second prompt for the weekly nail art challenge (WNAC2015) with the theme of "damask". I think that my first attempt at damask was pretty successful! The only thing that I would like to change is the amount of glitter I applies to it. In an attempt to make my nails stand out more, I got the idea of adding a glitter top-coat. I then had to balance it out by putting glitter on my accent nails as well, and it just made everything look a bit messy. All is well though, because creating these nails made me super happy and that is all that matters!

Continue reading to find a pictorial and step-by-step instructions on how to create thee nails!

Lines and Dots Half-moon Design (with Pictorial)

Hello to all, and I hope that you've all had a productive and exciting week! I've just begun to settle down into my school routine, and so far, it's been going pretty well; though I am a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of work that I have to do already. The weather has also been a bit challenging to adjust to. Here it's super windy and chilly in the mornings but by the afternoon, it's burning hot, making it quite difficult to dress appropriately for the day without feeling too hot or too cold at some point during the day. I'm really longing for that autumn feel though, those days where you go out for a pumpkin spice latte with the crisp wind blowing gently and creating swirls of colourful leaves around you.

This nail was one of those 'spur of the moment' designs for me. I sat down with all my nail polish in front of me, put on a movie, and just let my hands do as they wished; and I just loved how it turned out! I love half-moon manicures, they're always gorgeous, but the accent nail adds so much extra rhythm and pizzazz to the finished product. This is definitely one of those spunky and fun designs that is extremely eye-catching and bold.

Keep reading to find a pictorial and a how-to on the creation of this manicure:

Strawberry Nails

Hello everybody! Can you believe that it's almost the end of July? Where does the time go? It's been such a fun and relaxing summer that I really do not want it to end. I have so much more time to do my nails during the summer, and my nails are grow three time stronger than they do in the cold Canadian winters.

Anyway, I did some cute strawberry nails for my 'fruit themed nail collection' (I honestly don't know what to call it... Haha). To be honest, these nails did not turn out exactly as I hoped they would, but I wouldn't call them a complete nail fail because I love the big strawberries on my accent fingers. Plus, I really enjoy the colour scheme of these nails! They remind me of strawberry yogurt or strawberry milk; and it makes for a very sweet and cute manicure. If I were to recreate these nails again, I would definitely just paint the big strawberries on every nail.

Now, without further ado, here are my tip and tricks on how to create your very own strawberry nails:

Pastel Roses

Hello world, I am back with a new manicure after an (almost) year-long hiatus from my blog. As promised though, I am back and determined to keep up with my weekly updates! So here we have my first nail post of the year, some lovely pastel roses! With summer creeping along slowly (it's still a bit chilly here), I wanted to create a manicure that reflected all the colours that reflect the beautiful season that spring is.

Well, without further ado, here are my tips and tricks for creating a similar manicure:

I'm Feeling Rosey

 

Oh hello, hello! I I know that I haven't updated in a very long time, and I apologize! On the plus side though, I finally graduated from high school; four extremely tiring years are finally over! No more late nights and long weeks doing arts projects and living off coffee or less than an hour a sleep for me! I am so ready for two months of relaxation and spending some quality time with my friends before we all part ways for university. Although I know that I'll miss people dearly, I am more than ready to pack my things up and move away. Speaking of packing up, I still have no idea of how I'm going to move all of my nail polishes and nail art supplies to my dorm!....But I'll climb over that mountain when I get to it.

Now, I know I haven't been updating this blog (or my Instagram...sorry), but I have not stopped doing my nails. In fact, I have a plethora of pictures stored, that I just haven't posted yet, though there were a few designs that I neglected to document. These are the nails that I have on right now. They feature one of my most favourite flowers- roses! These are actually quite different from the rose designs I usually do, because they are a lot more detailed. The techniques however, are quite similar, but instead of using just one colour for the roses, I used four. I am in love with this design, it's so much more detailed and the roses just seem to pop out, especially against the nude background! And I don't know if it's just me being weird but, sometimes, when I finish a design, I have this one part or one rose in this instance that I adore so much more than the rest. Is that weird? 

Anyhow, I've ranted enough (for now), so... Onto my tips and tricks:

Dainty Doilies

Hello, hello to you all! I'm sure than many of you can tell that I chopped my nails off again, but this time.. they're extremely short! I honestly can't function properly with nails this short (especially my middle finger), they feel so abnormal and strange. Even though growing my nails out doesn't usually take very long, my nails are so brittle and weak, they're basically like eggshells! I'm currently trying everything in my power to try and keep my nails from chipping, I have multiple strengthening and protein enriched base coats on as well as a generous coat of a nail hardener, so I hope my efforts will yield in satisfactory results.

Enough blabbing, onto the design! To suit my little nubs I wanted a very simple but very delicate design. I originally intended to do a lace inspired design, but then I thought...why not doilies?! Doilies are so intricate and cute (and also very lace-like). These are all free-handed, by the way.. and completely drawn from my imagination, so these nails also have a very personal touch to them.

Here are some tips and tricks to creating you very own dainty doily nail design (and a closer look at one of my nails).

Simply Sweet Valentine's Day Nails

Happy (almost) Valentine's Day to you all! These nails are super cute and super sweet (though a bit more time consuming to do), and I think that they're just perfect for Valentine's day. Well, I did get a bit indecisive this year so I decided upon this mix-n-match design from the combination of  all my ideas. These are my designs (starting from my index finger); hearts & swirls, a heart-shaped Valentine that says 'BE MINE', two love birds saying 'I love you', XOXO's, and my thumb (not pictured) is another variation of the love birds, but instead of saying 'I love you', it has a giant heart.

Now here are some Tips&Tricks on how to recreate these nails:

Ballet Inspired Nails

I did these nails a while back, and to this day, they remain one of my most favourite designs because they look so girly and delicate.

if anyone is Interested in creating these nails here are some tips: