Feeling like spring

I recently made a whole lot of purchases for my nails and I can't wait to use them!!  I'm most excited about the square studs (but I need to figure out how to glue them on properly, I bought nail glue but so far all I've done is coat all my fingers in glue ... not fun).  I also bought a lot of paint brushes and I finally sat down and tried to do something with it.  If you know me, you know that I have ZERO artistic ability, I keep trying and trying and failing and failing ... but hey, it's fun anyway :-)  So here's one I tried to do free hand.

Base:  OPI - No Room for the blues

Flowers:  OPI - mod about you (used a fan brush to brush it on the corners of my nails)

                OPI - Black Onyx (used a brush to outline flowers and do the centres)

                Konad - white stamping polish (added some white lines for depth)

Polka Dot Chevrons

So I recently made a trip to 'The Nail Depot' in Pickering.  Wow!  love that place!!  Their prices on OPI and Seche Vite are AMAZING!  If you live in that area go check it out.  You can see their pricing online but their website is a little clunky to navigate so I suggest going in.  They also have a lot of other stuff, I bought myself a dotting tool (finally) and a couple of nail brushes which I am dying to use.  So here's what I decided to do with the dotting tool ....

Base:  OPI - Mod about you

Dots:  OPI - Onyx

Oh ... this is not a paid advertisement for the nail depot ... I just actually love that place :-)

Bed of Roses

I keep seeing these roses around but I always figured that it was way too advanced for me.  I don't really have any artistic talent ... never have.  So believe me when I say that if I can do this, so can you.  All you need is one of those dotting tools.  Don't have one?  You can you the head of a pin if you have one of those lying around (not the tip, it's too small, but the round head part).  And you need a few colours of polish.  Here's what I used

Base -OPI Black Onyx
For the flowers - Sally Hansen Insta-Dry in Lively Lilac and OPI Alpine Snow
Leaves - China Glaze Tree Hugger
Accent Finger - Hard Candy Pixie Pink

If you live in Canada, Hard Candy is now selling a HUGE line of sparkle polishes.  They're awesome, and about $4 a pop at Walmart.  I bought a bunch of them and I still want more ... clearly I have a problem :-)

Here's what I used .. my polishes, my dotting tool and a piece of paper.

Step 1: Apply two dots of one of your flower polishes (okay, I guess this is step 2, the first step is really to put on about 2 coats of the colour you want as your background and make sure it's really dry before you put on the roses)

Step 2: Apply two dots of your other flower polish in between those two dots

Step 3: Use your dotting tool to swirl the colours around in a circle motion (only swirl in one direction) - sorry I had to switch nails for the picture, that insta-dry really does dry fast, it was almost dry in the time it took me to take a picture of it!!)

Step 4: Use the dotting tool and your green nail polish to swipe on little leaves

Step 5: Wait for them to dry and then apply your favourite top coat (I used Seche Vite)

You can glam it up even more with super sparkles like OPI's Rainbow Connection

Or you can make it light and pretty by putting it over a jelly colour like OPI's You Callin' me a Lyre

Enjoy!  And Happy Polishing!

You Callin' Me a Lyre?

My recent obsessions again .. jelly colour with sparkles.  This makes me happy.

Topped with one coat of Essence Gel-Look and two coats of Seche Vite.

Whirled Away

Clearly I've been obsessed with sparkles lately :-D  I've bought so many in the last little while that I'm losing count.  I bought this one (China Glaze Whirled Away) on sale at Winners.  I've had my eye on it for a little while but now that I have it, I don't know how much use I'm going to get out of it.  I think this is one where you have to spend some time to place the pieces individually to get a pattern you like .. I didn't do that.

Base - Nicole by OPI Respect the World
Sparkles - China Glaze Whirled Away

Glits of Gilda

I've been a little obsessed lately with these jelly type colours.  You know, the ones that are barely there but make your nails look 1000 times better?!  Maybe it's because I actually have some nails for once and I want to show them off :-)   This is Glits of Gilds from the OPI Wizard of OZ collection.  Love.

Base - OPI Glints of Gilda
Sparkles - Sally Hansen Gem Crush in Big Money
Topped with - One coat of Essence Gel-look and two coats of Seche Vite

What Wizardry is This?

Crazy new polish by OPI.  This is part of their Wizard of Oz collection (which looks pretty awesome by the way).  What's interesting you ask?  Well this is a textured nail polish, OPI calls it liquid sand and that's EXACTLY what it looks like.  It has a gritty feel which you get used to after awhile.  OPI had done a bunch of these types of polishes recently in their Mariah Carey collection but those were all sparkly nail polishes and so I think the effect was lost (sparkles already look kind of bumpy on their own).

At first sight no one else will really be able to tell that this is textured, so it kind of feels like your little secret.  Which also means that it's work appropriate :-)

Opi - What Wizardry is This?

What do you think of it?

Turned up Turquoise

I just realized that I haven't posted in 10 days!  eek!  So here goes...

When I tried China Glaze's Turned up Turquoise I didn't know what I was expecting ... but I can tell you I wasn't expecting this.  Don't get me wrong, I like it. Just not what I expected.  The biggest surprise? .. it's matte!  It didn't say that anywhere on the bottle and all the pictures I saw of it had a top coat on it so I was totally caught off guard.  But hey, if you don't like matte nail polishes, just put a glossy top coat over it and you're good to go.  Here, I used a top coat just on the tips.

The coolest thing about this one? ... it glows a bright green under black light!

Under black light

If You Like It Then You Should Have Put a Ring On It

Still in love with sparkles!!  Let me know what you think of this one.

Base - OPI Mod About You
Sparkles - Essie Beyond Cozy