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: 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 Update: Matte Vintage Roses

Hello everybody. I feel extremely ashamed right now as I've been neglecting to post on both my blog and my instagram in the past month. I apologize for the lack of  updates and also in advance for another period of inactivity that is likely to happen due to my upcoming final exams. The thing is, I have been doing my nails almost every week, but I end up forgetting to take process pictures and final product pictures until my nails end up chipping... ahh Shirley, you need to keep it together! I do a have a few picture of new designs that I did, but I guess I'll keep those in queue for later.

Why does it seem like every time I come back after a period of inactivity, it's with a rose-inspired design? 

Anyways, after a couple of snowstorms within the past couple of weeks, it's finally beginning to feel like spring here in Ottawa; and I thought, what better way to welcome spring than with pretty roses? I started out with the intent to do a pastel spring design but ended up using an extremely bold red. This design ended up looking better than I was expecting it to be and the pastel background with the faint white gridlines complimented the bold look of the roses very nicely. With this design, I decided to do something quite different that I have not done in a long time and went with a matte look instead of a shiny one. The matte top-coat really pulled the design together as it almost makes the roses look kind of velvety in real life (if only my camera was able capture it, sigh). 

Lilac Nails (with Pictorial)

Hello world! This is the design I've chosen to do with the weekly nail polish challenge (#WNAC2015) for the week of August 21st. This week's colour theme is mint and lilac, so I chose to do lilac floral nails, with little mint-green coloured leaves. I love lilac flowers, they always smell so amazing! They're actually one of the things I look forward to the most during spring time. It's really too bad that these nails don't smell as great as the real thing.

The picture just doesn't do these nails and justice! The colours are just so much more dull in the pictures

For the past few weeks I've been working exclusively with nail polish instead of my usual acrylic paints, and I don't think I've adjusted to it quite yet. I find that acrylic paints are just so much more versatile because the globs of nail polish just dry out way too fast for my liking. On the other hand though, using nail polish gives you nicer colours because using acrylic pain tends to give a very dull finish (even with a shiny top coat). Maybe I'll write a blog post comparing acrylic paint to nail polish after I give nail polish some more tries.

Here are my tips and tricks on how to create your very own lilac nails:

Cute Spring Nails

Happy Easter to all those who who celebrate it! These are my nails of the week, they're super cute and perfect for spring! Although I did not do any Easter inspired designs, these nails are a little bit Easter-esque with their bright pastel colours. 

Here are some tips and tricks on how to create you very own version of these cute spring nails: