Turquoise diamond gradient and holographic top coat!!

Holo holo holo holo finally I can make EVERYTHING HOLO MUAHAHAHAHAH

This round of June's weekly nail art challenge (WNAC) manis I co-host the WNAC on Instagram along with lovely ladies Kristin of Lacquerstyle and Tracey of MissBellaTracey is turquoise pattern week, but I made it HOLO cause I got my previous new holo topcoat baby in the mail (FUN Lacquer 'Diamond') and I couldn't hold myself back.

I used diamond nail vinyls from my fav nail vinyl shop Twinkled T to create this pattern - use my code SIMPLY for 10% off! And what a wicked cool look!

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW ↓!

piCture pOlish: Geometric right angle fun

Aussie + Canadian = FRIENDLIEST COMBO EVER

Say hello to these super fun and easy to re-create geometric nails I made using piCture pOlish products! I used three of their polishes along with Liquid Palisade latex barrier (watch my review of it and a bunch of other peel off products in this video!), and right angle nail vinyls from one of their many nail vinyl packs. Chillax yo, this mani got electric swagger!

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW ↓!

Teal holo dry brush with fancy chevron tip

It's monochromatic nails time for this weeks nails in the weekly nail art challenge (WNAC) I co-host on Instagram along with lovely ladies Kristin of Lacquerstyle and Tracey of MissBellaTracey. I went with teal holo cause I love teal holo and cause I have so many of them.... COLLECT ALL THE TEAL HOLOS.

I used a basic dry-brush technique then slapped on some fancy chevron tips using vinyls I got from Up Your Nail. You may have also noticed that I haven't been posting as much nail art lately... read on to hear me blab about why!

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW ↓!

Holo and creme intricate reciprocal gradient with striping tape

Gradient + holo + striping tape = meeeee! I had some fun with this one, that's for sure. Thanks to Live Love Polish, a new online polish retailer, I got to try out one of the infamous Color Club holographic hues (Kismet) along with a teal China Glaze creme I've been lusting over (Shower Together - what a name btw). 

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Mani swap: Teal colourblock holos and a rainbow scaled gradient

Ohhh boy, we have a revolutionary post on our hands today that is going to go down in mani swap history! The talented French nail blogger Faustine of La NPA Mouton and I have been plotting this franco-anglo-blogger assimilation scheme for probably two months now and I'm so happy that things finally came to fruition. As I've raved before, French nail bloggers are stupid awesome and their impeccable attention to detail is just INCROYABLE.

I was struck by Faustine's teal colour-block combo mani, but evidently I don't have her fantastic collection of teal holos so I had to get a bit creative and actually make a teal creme holo with a holo top coat from GG Couture. Faustine was inspired to re-create my neon rainbow skittle single chevron scaled gradient, one of the first few that I ever did using the technique! She definitely nailed it!

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Teal for Pshiiit: Turquoise holo gradient with swirls and glitters

Photoshop fun today in honour of Camille from Pshiiit who recently reached 200k followers on Instagram! Camille is hosting a contest with the theme 'Teal for Pshiiit' and the rules are to post a pic inspired by the colour teal. It doesn't have to be nails, but to be creative. Evidently I still stuck with the nails theme, but I tried my best to get creative with my prop setup (an ode to French nail blogger flawlessness, really) and by exercising my ancient Photoshop editing skills leaving only teal colouring behind and super imposing a pic I took of custom made turquoise glitters @missbellatracey gave to me behind Pshiiit's official blog logo. How'd I do???

My entry into Pshiiit's 200k giveaway contest on Instagram - see other entries here

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Turquoise & green returning reciprocal chevron gradient

Another mind bender from the Gradient Guide, this time a new and improved version of the grey and white returning reciprocal chevron gradient I did a few months ago. This look can be done with any colour combo your heart desires! I went with a turquoise and green theme, holding onto summer as long as I can. Chevron mini nail vinyls are from Nailvinyls.com.

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Turquoise rocks using irregular sea foam sponging technique

Random nails again! Random in the sense that I used a completely random technique to create what you see here, which kind of resembles turquoise agate rocks, maybe?? Or underwater coral pieces? I was inspired by the Base Coat Top Coat's pink agate rocks, mind you hers are far more detailed. I have NO IDEA how she hand painted this in all that irregular perfect detail. Pretty sure she used a tiny detailed brush and beat the hell out of a realism painter near you. Nevertheless, I worked with what I had and used a 'sea foam' sponge to create this look.

Let's call this the irregular sea foam sponging technique!

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Giveaway! Homemade holos and snowy glitter stunner

Here's a bit of an unusual post for me: A fellow nail artist on Instagram, Tracey of @missbellatracey is hosting a giveaway in celebration of reaching 5k followers and is including four homemade polishes as part of the prize! Now she isn't a 'polish maker' per se, but rather just comes up with concoctions in her basement and sells a few to some colleagues at work and the like. Well I don't know if she has a basement, but that's how I'm picturing it. Before you start drooling over these swatch photos, I have to sadly inform you that you can't exactly buy them anywhere, but you can win them if you enter her giveaway! Alternatively you could just hassle Tracey on Instagram and demand that she sell some and ship them to you. That might work too.

Simple summer tribal with freehanded detail

Today's mani was painted yesterday (wow, this never happens) as opposed to months ago because I decided last minute I wanted to throw an entry into Margaret aka @m_a_tom on Instagram's mani competition she's hosting for reaching 10k followers. Congrats, Margaret! The contest was to create a mani inspired by one of Margaret's nail arts, and as you may recall, I have previously recreated some of Margaret's work and she has similarily re-created mine, so this one is a completely new one for me!

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Turquoise and holo lightning bolts

A quick and easy mani for you today featuring lightning bolt nail vinyls from Nailvinyls.com. Linda was a big sweetie and sent them to me along with some other of her vinyls to try out. We all know how much I love these things, so I gleefully accepted! I had also just received my first GG Couture polishes in the mail (had to order that spectraflair top coat) and so I had some fun with this simple mani with a subtle splash of holo on the middle nail.

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Looping effect over iridescent teal

Found this one in my unpublished folder, looks like I did it in May. In any case, I'd bought KB Shimmer 'Teal Another Tale' because, well, it's teal, and it's sparkly, and even shifty. So pretty that I didn't want to interfere with its magical colour properties so all I did was add a simple white looping effect freehand design, some dots, and swarovski flatback studs for extra bling (picked them up at my local craft store).

Triple raz holo teal scaled gradient: Mermaids from the future

Another scaled gradient, you ask?! Yep. And I'm not apologizing. Someone on my Instagram actually commented that I do too many of them. You know what I thought?? I don't give a. I just love the clean, crisp yet deep look they give off. There's something about lines without actually having blatant lines in artwork that has always been appealing to me, like Lawrence Harris' work. I'm Canadian, so yeah. Deal with it.

The lovely folks at I Love Nail Polish (ILNP) sent me some holo babies* to play with and I was oh so delighted. Christa aka beauty blogger Chrissy AI reached out to me and told me I didn't even have to trade my liver. I was relieved. Here's my first look so far with my new (and very first!) ILNP's. Turned out like a mermaid from the future if you ask me, featuring my fav colour, teal.

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Art deco inspired teal and gold arches

Nail It! magazine was looking for submissions inspired by the art deco movement for their upcoming fall edition. This mani is the second of two designs I submitted, the other one was a more linear interpretation of art deco, but I was meh about how the colouring translated on my camera (still on a learning curve with the new DSL-R). This mani, however, I like a lot more because of how the photos turned out, but also because it's not the typical interpretation of art deco. I went with a free-hand design in attempt to illustrate the iconic arches of the period rather than bold straight lines which is more often seen.

Neon pink and blue triple chevron scaled gradient

A couple of weeks ago I introduced a new take on the gradient with my alligator green single chevron scaled gradient post. Today I have the same 'scaled gradient' technique but with different nail vinyls and a different colour scheme. What else? A tutorial! Yay! My first ever video tutorial is below. Warning: Pic heavy post cause this mani is awesome.

 

VIDEO TUTORIAL AT THE END OF THE POST!

Alligator green chevron scaled gradient

Gradients on a whole other level! I was playing around with my fav Formula X by Sephora polish, 'over the top', a subtly saturated neon lemon-lime creme, and this is what happened. I'll call this a 'scaled gradient' because it involves distinct and adjacent gradients that when right beside each other look like the scales of a fish or other reptilian. This colour scheme in particular kind of reminds me of an alligator. And the dots almost look like creepy alligator eyes. Oh snap!

UPDATED JUNE 2014: VIDEO TUTORIAL AT END OF POST!

Turquoise stripes inspired by a sweater

I waited a while to do this mani because I knew I would yield the best output if I held off and waited for my new nail vinyls created by @teismom (IG)!

This mani involved two firsts for me: 1) Using nail vinyls (but obviously I'd used striping tape, but they ARE different guys, seriously), and 2) using the saran wrap technique to make the basecoat look a bit heathered like my grey-base sweater.

The nail vinyls I used were the perfect size. Sometimes striping tape can be too skinny for thick-striped designs and you end up using 2 or more or overlapping layers of striping tape to create the desired thickness, but all that goes to shit when the polish bleeds through the tape and you instantly regret even considering layering striping tape. PROBLEM SOLVED ladies: nail vinyls come in assorted thicknesses.

This is the result.

Looping effect springtime gradient floral

Hi ladies! It's mid-March and by now you'd think you'd be all like bring out the colourful trench coats... but no. There was a mini snow storm last night. What else is new, Oh Canada.

On that note here's a springtime-themed mani! These were actually painted last spring... May of 2013, which explains the wee nubbins. But the style is all the same as many of my other designs... the looping effect. I know it's so old by now you're all like WHO CARES they're not even actually loops, right?

Bright ombre - mattified!

Here's an ombre mani I originally did and photographed in July of 2013. Let's take a moment and relive this summer look in the midst of a horrid Canadian winter, eh.

A simple tri-colour ombre/gradient with some glitters affixed to the side (I got bored with the ombre - what else is new?)