Born Pretty Leaf Studs make the Perfect Fall Nails!

Afternoon Guys!


Today I want to show off how I wore  these adorable, super cute maple leaf glitters! from Born Pretty Store!

These adorable leafs come in a plastic jar, and are filled with the colour of your choice, as you can see I picked gold, since that seemed to prefect for fall. They retail for $2.53, and of course Born Pretty has free international shipping! Also, using my code AFLW10  will get you an additional 10% off!

As you can see these studs add a perfect fall accent to any look. They are highly reflective since they are metal, and even top coat doesn't dull the shine! A few things to note however are that because they are metal, they can be a bit scratchy, I have found they have been catching on a few things since I have had them on. I only used one coat of top coat however, so another coat might fix that problem. Even so, they are gorgeous enough to justify a small amount of catching! I have already had several compliments on my nails since putting these on! These also lay pretty much completely flat on my nails, and since I have such a wicked c curve to them, this was something that really impressed me, since I do have trouble with large glitters and some studs, not lying flat. All my C curve nail ladies will understand that one!  #FirstWorldProblems! :l amiright!? 

To get this look, I started with a base of KBShimmer Deja Brew on all my nails,  (which btw is more awesome in person than any picture I have seen!) Gloomy weather and my light box made it so that I unfortunately couldn't get a good holo shot, but I promise it is there and it is gorgeous! Once that was dry, I took the Leaf studs and placed them on my thumb (not shown) middle, and pinky fingers, and top coated. I then took Bundle Monster  BM-H11 and stamped in Essie Good as Gold. I then top coated that, and voila! Super adorable fall nails!

I really like that the leaves add a lot to this look without it over powering the other parts, it also dresses up the stamping perfectly, and we all know how much I love to dress nails up with studs!  I can certainly see this being the perfect accent to any fall look!

Alright guys and gals, I think that covers it for today! If you are interested in these studs they can be purchased here.  If you do get these, or anything really from Born Pretty Store, don't forget to use my code AFLW10  to get 10% off! Till next time Kittens! <3

**Nail studs were sent for review, however all opinions are my own.** To see more information please see my disclosure policy.

Glam Polish: Pixie Hollow Collection in a Skittles Mani

Hiya guys!

 A little while back, I picked up some of the polishes in the Glam Polish Pixie Hollow Collection. I am really in love with these polishes, more so then when I had only seen swatches online. I think one of the best things, is when you have super high expectations for a polish, and then when you finally get your hands on it, it not only meets them, it surpasses them. Well, every one of these polishes from the pixie hollow collection so far, has done that for me!

The bright colours in this mani, just makes me smile, every time I look at my nails! I am really big on colour, so these polishes almost feel like they were made for me! The silver shimmer in them, is just the icing on the cake, of  bright neon awesome!  The colours I used were, Silvermist (blue) Fawn (orange) Sweet Pea (pink) and Tinkerbell (green) and, I used dotting tools for the flowers on my accent finger, and thumb (which is not shown) and placed neon studs from Born Pretty Store in coordinating colours on all the other nails. Then I topped it off with HK Girl Top Coat, and voila! I was done! 

These all went on amazingly well, They are a tad thick, but nothing that isn't easy to work with, and with the heavy silver shimmer it is to be expected. They had a good dry time, and in all the pictures, it was 2 coats.  

I really adore how fun and bright and summery this look is, It may not be summer here yet, but it is coming, and polishes like these get me super excited for it! Alright, I think that is it for today guys and gals, I really hope everyone is having a great Friday, and I hope you all have an awesome weekend! Mine is filled with relaxing and movies and general lazy bum like behavior, since I am so ready for some down time, after the crazy few weeks I have had.  Till next time Kittens! < 3

OPI This Gown Needs a Crown, OPI Visions of Love and OPI I Snow You Love Me.

Hey Guys!!

 Happy November!! I know, I know! I am 5 days late on that one,  but things have been a bit hectic, so I am a  bit behind. Better late then never though right!?

 Today I have for you, a gorgeous, fall/holiday mani. I wore this a few days back, and I loved it. It was holiday-esque, without being too Christmas-ie (gotta love made up words!!)  Basically, it would work for the holidays, or on a nice cold fall/winter day too. Anyway, enough chit chat..onto some images!!

See what I mean about festive, but not overly festive!? I love that this is not only incredibly simple, but it has a bit of wow to it with the accent nail.  When I first started with this, I thought it would be a tad on the boring side, but by the time I finished, I was totally enamored with it. To get this look, I started with a dark, vampy red. I used Visions of Love by OPI. It is a truly understated gorgeous, delicious,  vampy red colour, from the OPI holiday collection.  The sparkle accent nail is This Gown Needs a Crown by OPI from the new Miss Universe 2013 Collection. Let me just say that sparkly awesome polish is A-MAZ-ING!! It is one of the neatest colours I have seen. It really does remind you of a flowing silver gown. It is not only sparkly and stunning. It is smooth to the touch too. This polish is meant to be worn without topcoat, however I wore this with topcoat, to really make it blinding, in it's sparkle, but it was incredibly sparkly before I added top coat, so it certainly isn't needed. I just like sparkles so much, I couldn't resist! Also, as an added bonus, removing it was a breeze. I honestly thought it would be a typical glitter nightmare to remove, but the glitter foil was no effort at all to get off. I would say if you like glitter and bling, you NEED to own this.  Then, to tie in the whole manicure I added I Snow You Love Me by OPI (shocking right!?)  onto all the red nails. I simply took a toothpick, and picked each glitter up off the polish brush, and placed one on each nail tip. 

I really love how this look turned out, and to make it more impressive, it took no time at all to do. It is perfect if you are in a hurry, and don't have a lot of nail time, which was the case for me, when I did this mani.

Alright, guys and gals..I think that pretty much covers it for today. I still have a few things to get done, and a headache that refuses to leave.../sigh :l  I really hope that you guys liked this look and I have some more nail stamping coming up in the next few days, so watch out for that post.

Till next time Kittens!

OPI Warm Me Up With a Bit of OPI I Snow You Love Me.

Heya Guys!!


I hope everyone is having a good week! Enjoying the cooler fall weather, and all that. I know I am, although winter is coming on fast, and that makes me miss the warmer weather already! Today, I have for you a mani that showed up on instagram a week or so back. I wore it for Thanksgiving weekend.  It was muted enough for a family gathering, but not so much so, that it lacked personality! It is just perfect for this cooler weather, with it's deep rich browns, and slight shimmer. I will let you in a little secret about me and brown polish, I love brown! I tend to wear way to many brown polishes in the fall/winter months! Wait...Is there such a thing as too much brown polish!??

I put this together after I picked up a couple of the OPI Holiday shades from this years Mariah Carey Holiday 2013 set. I have to say, I only have a few shades from this collection so far, but based on those colours, I really need to pick up some more shades! Anyway, here is what I wore for Thanksgiving weekend...

Isn't it just gorgeous!??  I liked this a lot when I wore it, and I got a ton of compliments over the Thanksgiving weekend for this mani! To get this look,  I started out with Warm Me Up  by OPI  for my pointer, middle, and ring fingers and thumb. Then I added Flynn by Zoya on my ring finger. While Flynn was drying, I got out I Snow You Love Me by OPI and  used a toothpick to place those awesome sauce circle glitters on all my nails but the ring finger. Then I took a Bundle Monster Plate, BM-405 to be exact, and stamped the image over Flynn, and voila! I was done! Have I mentioned before how awesome stamping is!? I think I have ;) Well, it can't be said enough!

I want to add here quick before I go today, that I am sorry about the somewhat dry hands!! :l I have actually been having a bit of an issue with that since the weather turned cold. I have been using hand creams, cuticle creme and cuticle oil obsessively, but with limited success. I am close to getting out the Vaseline and white gloves, and going to bed every night like that. Any tips on anything I can do, to improve the dry hand issue would be beyond helpful, and super awesome. What are some of the things you do to combat the colder weather?

Alright guys and gals! I think that covers most of it for today! I hope you enjoyed reading my rambles,  and maybe, just maybe inspired you to pick up some of the holiday collection?   More particularly, I Snow You Love Me?? I have used it about 4 times already, since I got it a few weeks ago. It seems to be something I am reaching for often, when dressing up my nails...For a little extra persuasion, here is a bottle pic!

Look at that holo awesome!

See how stunning it is!? Like a bottle of rhinestones, or sequin glitter! ...Alright, enough OPI fan girl behavior for one day! :P  Till Next time Kittens!

Cirque Bejeweled and OPI My Vampire is Buff Gradient, With a Bit of Nerdy Nail Stamping!

Heya Guys!!



Oh my gosh! Two whole weeks, since my last post! The long delay, was so not intended!! :( Things are FINALLY settling down for me though, so this whole fail of posting should come to an end!! I feel so bad about it, cause I don't want to be the blogger that disappears for long periods of time then shows up saying how sorry they are that life got in the way!! I promised not to go longer than a week, then puppy surgery and Thanksgiving (since Canada) and a few other crazy things, and bam! It had been two whole weeks! If you follow me on instagram, I HAVE at least been posting there, but I still shouldn't have neglected my blog. I am really, really sorry though, however poor my excuses may be!! This post has a bit of a story, and meaning behind it, which I will explain after the images...

Isn't this just so adorable, even though, the stamping isn't perfect!! :P

Thumb image!! :D

Sorry, that these aren't the most amazing images to date...,I am not exactly sure what happened here. Every single image I took that day, turned out a bit on the dark side. I even did some colour balancing in photoshop, and this was as good as I could get it, without skewing the whole image. I really wanted to share this mani with you though so less then stellar images it is!

Okay, so the story. Basically for a while now, I have been wanting to do a boyfriend inspired mani. Not only is he amazing and incredible all on his own, but he has been beyond supportive and a total rock for me in the last few months, where things have been rather hectic for me. I am not sure, I could have honestly gotten through a career change, a roommate moving 3000 miles away, and a slew of other things with a smile on my face, if he hadn't been there for me. He has been my constant through all these changes in my life, and as an added bonus, not only is he SO supportive of my nail hobby. He also got so excited I did "him" inspired nails, that he managed to tell everyone we know about it! Which made me blush so, so much! Okay, enough boyfriend gushing! I will explain the nails a bit. Basically, the numbers repersent his love of math and the fact that he is an engineer. I did actually plan to go with binary since that is much more accurate, but I am still very new to stamping, and I couldn't seem to get it straight enough for my liking, so I decided on numbers. The video game controller is because him and I both are HUGE video game nerds, that is actually the geeks portion too. We both play a slew of video games, from Diablo, to Starcraft, to Everquest 2, to Simcity, the list is insane, but I think you get the idea. :P The blue is inspired because, although his favourite colour is green, he seems to love blue on me, whenever a question of colour is asked, "Which shirt?" to "Which nail polish colour today?" He always picks blue, and if he has a choice in nail polish finish, it is almost always holoraphic.

So there you have it kittens!! I am still so so so sorry about the 2 week delay!! I promise, life is more normal now, so the long delays should be over finally! I really hope you all can forgive me!! I have a huge stock of images I want to get posted up and am planning another post before the end of the week, if that helps make it up at all!! :D  Till next time Kittens! <33

P.S. -  I have been a total freak for stamping, since I recently purchased some Pueen and Bundle Monster Plates.  This mani was done with the new CYO Bundle Monster set, if you haven't seen it yet, you really need these plates in your life....seriously....they are amazing. They have so many great images. I have already used these plates 4 times since getting mine  last week in the mail.

Polishes I used were:

                                 Base - OPI: My Vampire is Buff

                                 Blue: - Cirque: Bejeweled

                                 Stamped Images: OPI: Black Onyx 

                                 Black Rhinestones  from Born Pretty Store

OPI Haven't the Foggiest with OPI Black Onyx Halfmoons

Hey Guys!

It's been a whole week! Wow, how did that happen!? To make it worse, I have had this mostly ready to go  for a few days, but with work, and some real life stuff getting in the way.  I haven't had a chance to post it. I actually, don't even have time today, since I should be getting ready for work, but this sounded like more fun anyway. Plus, I refuse to go more then a week without posting, I know the 4 people who read this look forward to my posts! haha..

Okay, since I am short on time,  I will get right to the pictures, my last few posts have been to wordy anyway. :P I wore this a few days back.  Simply put, I loved it. Which was weird, cause as it was coming together on my nails, I didn't, not at all. It even, almost, got taken off before I finished a couple times. I am really glad I didn't give into the urge though, cause it came out awesome.

Alright, time to judge for yourselves, not too harshly though!!

Sunlight.

Sunlight.

Indoor shot.

Sunlight.

This was a bit of a learning experience. I am not sure if it was just me, or if black is notoriously hard to photograph, but I had a lot of trouble getting the images to come out clear and concise, and not having the black blend into other things, shadows, the bottle handle, etc..I will keep working on it though!

Speaking of photo's, I have now,  finally!! built a light box, (yay!!) so that should help tremendously in the quality of my photo's.  This is all a huge learning process, that is for sure! I feel like, I am improving though, week after week, learning my craft, and not sucking quite as much as the previous week! Maybe, one day I will have pictures I don't find a ton of flaws in! 

A little something to note before I finish off this post. I adore Haven't the Foggiest. It goes on like a total dream. I had read previously about how nice this polish applies, but it was even better then I expected. No brush strokes, smooth, not to thick. It was a-maz-zing!  I have been mostly meh about the mainstream fall collections, but this shade has won my heart. If you haven't gotten yet, I highly encourage you to pick it up.

Anyway, I hope everyone had an awesome weekend. I had to work, but only on the Saturday, so it was still a pretty decent weekend. Till next time kittens <3

Dotticure: Essie - Butler Please with Zoya - Pippa.

Evening Guys!

I have a few things to cover in this post, so it will be a bit picture heavy. I will keep the words short tonight because of that. First, I wanted to say Happy September!! I have been anxiously awaiting fall, not only for fall colours, although being able to pull out some darker and vampier shades is  nice too, but also because I miss some of my favourite fall foods, like stew...you just can't eat stew in the summer!!


For my first fall post, I decided on a gorgeous cobalt blue, with some bright cheery yellow dots down my nail in a line. I used Essie's Butler Please, for the base, and Zoya - Pippa for the dots. I have had the Essie polish in my collection for a while now, but it had been sitting in my untrieds. I really, really love how this turned out. It was simple, but bright and fun at the same time.

I might have a new fall fav blue!!

So there you have it! I am not sure why some of the images, almost looked like the polish was dull, let me assure you, that blue is anything but dull. Perhaps my camera didn't like the brightness!?? Not sure..Some even almost look almost marked, but again that was not there, in person. I am still working on my nail picture  skills, so bear with me. I will get it eventually...I hope!? :P

 The formula on Butler Please was a bit finicky to work with, but nothing nightmarish, like I was fearing, after reading some reviews on other blogs. Which is good, cause I fell in love with this blue the second it went on my hands and will certainly be using this polish again. Overall, this is perfect if you want something adorable, but don't have a lot of free time on your hands. 

Okay, now onto the second part of my post. This has nothing at all, to do with nails. I just wanted to share it with you guys. I had a somewhat, stressful, crummy few days this week, and the boyfriend, being the amazing, wonderful, awesome guy that he is, sent me flowers! Sunflowers to be exact. Since sunflowers are one of my favourite flowers. I couldn't help snapping a few pictures of them with my good camera when this awesome surprise showed up on my doorstep, and of course sharing it with all of you.

Best boyfriend ever award!??

I am not even sure what these are!?? They are really pretty though...

Snap Dragons!

The whole bouquet.

Aren't they just gorgeous!! Every time I walk into my living room, I smile like a huge goofball at them. They really made my whole week better. He is simply amazing, and always knows how to cheer me up.

Well, I think that covers everything I wanted to share, and sorry for the flower spam. I just couldn't not share those gorgeous flowers with you. Till next time Kittens!

OPI Pink Of Hearts 2013 with a bit of Whimsy piCture pOlish

Hi all!


Quick post this morning,  I hate to cut it short, but unfortunately I don't have a lot of time, and I really, really wanted to get this out to you guys, that is, if anyone is reading yet!? Today I have some nail art to show you all. I think my nail art gets better each time I attempt it, and I love the little tricks I am picking up along the way. The things you can't "teach" someone, or put into a list of "How To" instructions.

I recently got my hands on this....

I am sure most of you know what that is, but for those that don't. It is the OPI Pink of Hearts 2013 set. I was really looking forward to using the glitter in this set, cause well...glitter!! I mean honestly, does glitter ever need a reason!?  I barely had this set in the door, before I was attempting to put it on my nails. That was how excited I was over the glitter...Ridiculous I know!! I just can't help myself when it comes to sparklies! As I said before, I did some nail art with this set, so without further ado, here is what I ended up with on my nails!

I really like how this turned out, and the best part is, that it wasn't anything crazy or complicated. It was really easy to do! Which of course, is always a plus. I liked it so much so, that I am in fact still wearing this on my nails as I type this! 

I really hope you guys liked my attempt at some nail art! I really love doing it, and am enjoying myself immensely! anyway, till next time kittens!

P.S. I still need to get a natural light, light bulb. I really meant to pick one up this week, which was part of the delay for this post, but just haven't had time to get one yet...I fail..I know..Hopefully, I will get one this weekend.

The Polishes used  were:

                                       Thumb and pointer base - piCture pOlish - Whimsy.

                                       Middle and ring finger - OPI - More Than a Glimmer.

                                       Pinky -  OPI - Pink-ing of You & piCture pOlish - Whimsy.

                                       Thumb glitter topcoat  - OPI - Pirouette My Whistle.

                                       Pointer nail art - Essie - No Place Like Chrome.

                                        

Manicure - Nubar Black Polka Dots over OPI Skull and Glossbones

So, my very first post! I feel like there is a lot of pressure to make a great  first impression, and I normally fall flat on my face when put on the spot, so this is a bit nerve racking for me! Although chances are no one will even see this, so I guess it doesn't really matter when you think about it! :P

  After some thought, I decided on something simple for my first post. I wanted to be loud and exciting, make a statement, make myself stand out, but that fear of falling flat on my face kept me thinking simple and safe.

  This is a manicure I wore a little while back. I think about a month or so ago, and although I am enjoying summer and neon's and everything bright and sunshine filled that comes with it. I did adore this manicure when I had it on. There was a simple elegance about it that I simply loved.  Plus as an added bonus it was SO simple to do!

  Now, the indoor photos were taken with my T3i,  however the outdoor ones were sadly snapped with my iphone camera, I apologize in advance for their less than stellar quality.

 First up, the indoor photos.

                                                     

Love the polka dots!

 Here are a couple of outdoor shots, with the trusty iPhone camera.

I love the matte effect with this look!

Okay, so there you have it! I hope I didn't disappoint or bore you all too badly!!  I promise to make my second post a bit more exciting. I love colour, especially bright loud obnoxious colours! 

 The polishes used to achieve this look were:

OPI Skull and Glossbones

Nubar Black Polka Dot

OPI Matte Top Coat.