Classy Nude Triangle Half-Moon

Hi girls! Tonight I have a really simple mani for you all. I know I was gonna try something else but it looked kinda yuck when I tried it, so I'll revisit that when I have more time :)

I tried creating a 'classy' type of mani - so something minimalist, I'm talking neutrals and black and whites in my case! I thought these colours would look great together so I did a triangular half moon with some tape and outlined it. Since I have a stash of rhinestones I will never finish, I decided to add one to the centre of the triangle for of course, some bling :)

Not many pics to show tonight; I forgot to take pics earlier in the day and when I got home from driving (let's not speak about how overdue it is to get my driver's license!) so had little light left and I took crap pics. Sorry!

Dang, nails getting long. Gonna trim them after this mani AND I will be starting Valentine's Day themed nails, hurrah! But before that, I need to make a tutorial for this mani - you can expect it soon (I hope!). Alright, better go sleep soon, I have an early wake up (7am and it is now 2.15am haha!). Take care :)


//Linda

Colour Blocking French Tutorial

Tonight I have for you the colour blocking french mani I did a few days ago. While this post is up, I am planning what I will be wearing on my nails :)

I have decided to take upon 'The Unused' as a series on my blog to make use of the polishes that sit and collect dust on my table. It will be random and not scheduled since I don't have an outstanding amount of polishes I haven't tried. I plan to do this slowly so that when I slowly buy more polishes, I will always have something to try.

Anywho, enjoy the tutorial! Look out for my next mani :)

Enjoy!


//Linda

Smoky Dry Marble French Tutorial

Hi  lovelies, I'm sorry for my lack of posting, but I got capped for the past 3 days and my net was literally non-responsive - no page was loading and I mean NONE! Now that I'm uncapped, I have the highly requested tutorial for you all!

Remember that smoky dry marble mani I did a short while ago? I have the tutorial for you today :) A bit of a crap job I'd say, it works best when the nail is level, but I had to do it slanted (due to position of my camera) so you can see what I was doing.

Nevertheless, enjoy! I will be back later today with the colour blocking tutorial which I will edit very soon :)

//Linda

Colour Blocking French Mani

Hey girls! Wow I've not been home much to do any tutorials, so bummer about that, but I did spend late last night painting my nails at least! I finished the other hand off this morning and I'm absolutely pleased with the result. I decided to do a colour blocking mani, using bright colours and creating a weaved kinda chevron french with it.

For this mani I used OPI Did It On 'Em, Charged Up Cherry, BYS Matte Blue & China Glaze Liquid Leather. Before all the colour, I applied one coat of Sally Hansen's (no name) polish that's kinda murky and used for french manis. My nail bed was quite yellow and gross so I had to paint a coat of it to hide it haha! I used Art Club's White striper to create the outlines of the weaves and then added a rhinestone near the centre of my cuticles for some bling!

What do you think of this colour blocking mani? Would you try it? Let me know below :)

Guest Post 'DIY Nail Polish' by Heather Smith

Hi everyone! Tonight I have a guest post on DIY polish aka 'frankens' by Heather Smith. For all you newbies out there wanting to create your own polish, this is the article for you!

DIY Nail Polish

Have you ever found yourself in the nail polish aisle, staring down all the colors, frustrated because no one seems to have made the shade you’re currently coveting? You know exactly what shade you want, and you can’t imagine that someone hasn’t thought of it yet. If only you could create your own nail polish colors it would be just perfect… Fortunately you can! Making your own nail polish couldn’t be easier, and is a fun way to switch things up a bit and get a little creative.

There are two easy ways to make unique shades from the comfort of your own home.

Start From Scratch

If you’re making shades from scratch you’ll need clear nail polish and your favorite shades of loose eye shadow (mineral eye shadows tend to work well). Start by pouring some of the clear nail polish into a small bowl – remember: start with less because you can always add in more later. Then add in small amounts of your loose eye shadow hue of choice, mixing it up as you go until it’s the right shade. If you’re trying to get a more transparent shade then only add in a little eye shadow, and for a more solid shade add in more. You can also add in different types of glitters to add some extra flair!

If you want to save some for later use then you’ll need an empty nail polish bottle. You can buy empty bottles at a beauty supply store or you can boil a used bottle to get the old paint out and then funnel in the new color.

Mix It Up

If you don’t want to use different eye shadow colors to create new nail polishes, then you can take half empty bottles of colors and mix them together to make new shades. This is a fun way to use up colors that you’re bored with and experiment with what hues you can create from what you already have. One thing you have to be careful of when you’re mixing two colors together is making sure that the bottle isn’t completely full, though, because you won’t be able to shake up the paint if it is.

Get Creative

Nail polish reflects your own individual style, so get creative with the colors. Be bold and daring when you’re creating your colors – they’ll give your nails a whole new life!

Author Bio

Heather Smith is an ex-nanny. Passionate about thought leadership and writing, Heather regularly contributes to various career, social media, public relations, branding, and parenting blogs/websites. She also provides value to nanny service by giving advice on site design as well as the features and functionality to provide more and more value to nannies and families across the U.S. and Canada. She can be available at H.smith7295 [at] gmail.com.

To visit the nanny website, click here

Chinese New Year Nails

Hi everyone! So sorry I've been MIA, I got back from my trip to Melbourne a couple days ago and came back to Chinese New Years Eve and New Years today, hence the lack of time to make a post - I had a guest post but totally forgot to post it while I was away =/

I did do 2 mani's during my trip, but I only got a pic of one of them which I will have in a separate post. For now, I will show you what I wore for Chinese New Year! I was inspired by a Chinese design on a Ferrero Rocher Box that I bought. It featured gold backing and a red outline dragon, though I made mine reverse. Red and gold are the traditional Chinese colours (red is goodluck), so I stuck to those. Here are the pics:

Pretty cool huh? I really like how this turned out, even though I had to rush it otherwise I'd be late for my bf's New Year dinner at his grandma's. I actually didn't get to finish the gold accent and had to finish that off when I got home.

Soon I will have a tutorial for the highly requested dry smoky water marble! Excited :) Do you think I should do it on my natural nails or false nails? Let me know below!

For all those that celebrate Chinese New Year, wishing you health, happiness and prosperity!


//Linda

OPI Nicki Minaj Contest

Hi girls! Just a short post today, I mentioned that I entered the OPI Nicki Minaj contest a while back in one of my posts and voting is officially open!

There are a lot of great entries so please vote for the one you think is deserving of winning! I'm not going to make you vote for mine, but please do if you like my design! I won't post a pic up since someone made a comment saying that she got disqualified for posting it on her blog, but if you would like to know a bit more (for those who might not know about the contest), it's a nail look inspired by one of Nicki Minaj's outfits provided from OPI. I couldn't decide what look to go for so I did a mash up of 3 of the ones that I thought were the most inspiring for me.

The prize is the entire Nicki Minaj OPI collection and a signed copy of her album Pink Friday for 4 lucky people :)

The link to vote for my entry is here:

My Entry!

If you wish to see other entries, please visit here:

OPI Nicki Minaj Entries

Thank you for your time and I hope to be back to regular posting soon!

//Linda

The Unused: Smoky Dry Marble French

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been a while since I made a post, I've just been out a lot during the day and was too tired/lazy at night to do my nails or take pics for posts haha. Anyways, I was stuck on ideas for what to paint my nails, so I decided to look through my polishes and pick colours that I have not previously used and the two that I chose for this mani was OPI Skulls & Glossbones and China Glaze Haunting.

I liked the two colours together so I decided to do a smoky dry marble french :) They're kinda interesting I suppose, do you think? I thought it was time that I try a dry/needle marble on my own nails!

Here are some pics

What do you think? Let me know in the comments section!

PS. I totally forgot to enter the Nicki Minaj competition on OPI's Facebook page... Think I'll whip up an entry haha


//Linda

Vintage Floral Design Video Tutorial

This was a look I sported a while back and I had a girl email me to ask if I could create a tutorial for this look and I thought why not. I already made one part of it earlier - the rose one and now this shows the design I had on my nails. Easy peasy :)

This is my last tutorial for the day, so hope to do some more others soon. I hope you are all enjoying these tutorials!

Enjoy!


//Linda

Silver Foil Leopard Video Tutorial

Hi again lovely readers! I am on a tutorial spree today and here is another simple tutorial for the mani I posted up a couple days back. I have another tutorial on its way and will post that up very soon as well. I'd post them all in the same post, but I want to keep them separate so that I can easily link them one by one under the 'tutorials' tab.

Oh yeah, for this tutorial, I used a toothpick - for all of it (besides painting the base of course) and it turned out well! That means no excuse for not being able to try this muahaha I kid, only do it if you want :) BUT if you do, please show me, I'd love to see it :)

Hope you won't be getting sick of tutorials! HAHA

Enjoy!


//Linda

Simple Rose Video Tutorial

Hi girls, just a quick post! I edited a video on how to do a simple rose nail art and it's up on Youtube :) This is just a pre-video for the vintage floral design that will come shortly after this. For now, you can watch how to do roses the way I do and look out for the tutorial following some time soon.

I already did a tutorial for this in the form of pictures, so if you would like to re-visit that post, you can find it here.

You can watch the video here

Enjoy!


//Linda

Silver Foil Leopard Print

Hi girlies! Been a bit busy lately, was out the whole day today and didn't do much with my nails. I painted them last night and I was thinking of trying to do something similar to those Minx foil nail decals. I wanted to do a gold one, but figured my gold wasn't as foily as China Glaze 2030, so I chose to use China Glaze Millennium instead and I absolutely loved the result!

I tried a different technique for leopard last night - instead of using just dotting tools, I used a dotting tool and a brush. I might try this with a toothpick later to see if it yields the same result and if it does, I will do a tutorial for it. For those who want something simple to try, I want to see if it can be done using regular things you can find in the house, so I will look into it! By the way, I did a simple tutorial for roses that I will edit soon. I want to do the tie dye nails tutorial too, so hopefully tomorrow!!

Also, today at the beach, I nipped one of my nails when I tried catching a tennis ball. It missed my hand and nipped the tip of my nails so now there's a bent corner of my nail that has slit a little but hasn't fallen off. Of course I tried salvaging it. by using super glue haha!

Anyways, on to the pics :)

I love this so much, but one thing that really put me off was the application of China Glaze Millennium. It is seriously pretty hard to apply and unless you're super perfect at application or have a better bottle than me, I'd say that application was a pain! If I just as little as paint over the same spot twice, it will bald, but in a really disgusting way - I'm talking like, it becomes lumpy after the balding and even in a case when I was applying it on my thumb, it almost looked like it was separating from polish and clear liquid. How weird is that.

Just thought I'd mentioned that this literally chipped the day after while I was having a shower. How crappy is that :( I touched it up and applied topcoat over it and wrapped the tips so that they wouldn't chip as quickly.

Oh wells, still looks good haha! What do you think of this mani? Let me know below :)


//Linda

Nicole By OPI Kardashian Collection Swatches

Hi! Sorry for the lack of posts and updates, I've been out and about and there wasn't a lot of daylight left to make tutorials so I am hoping that I can do them in the morning! Just a quick update on the winners of my giveaway, they have all responded and I sent their packages out today :)

Lately, I've been agonising about the time it was taking for my polishes to arrive from the US. They usually come in 2 weeks tops, but the Christmas and New Year period must've really delayed it. A month had passed by and I was saddened to not see them arrive yet, but they came today - both of them! I also picked up the whole Essence Vampire Love collection at Target, so expect to see swatches of them soon.

A while back I contacted OPI about reviewing some of their polishes since I don't have any access to them and really would have liked to try them out. They were kind enough to send me a few from the Kardashian Kolour Collection and so I have 4 from the collection to show you.

Disco Dolls

Disco Dolls is a golden/bronze-y shimmer  polish filled with micro-silver glitter/shimmer and small green, pink, teal, gold and silver glitter. Application was smooth and covered well with 2 coats. The brush is a little shorter than regular OPI brushes but have the same width (this applies for all the brushes in this post - I don't want to repeat myself!). I'm convinced this is a bronze/gold version of Excuse Moi! from the Muppet Collection, though Excuse Moi! has a lot more coloured glitter than  Disco Dolls. This dries a little gritty, but nothing top coat can't fix! Pics show no topcoat.

Kendall on The Katwalk

Kendall on the Katwalk is a gorgeous mix of blue/teal, green and purple glitter suspended in a clear medium blue jelly base.  Again, application was smooth and covered well in 2 coats. I absolutely love this polish! It's so sparkly and mermaid-like. Finish is gritty, but nothing that top coat can't tame. Pics show no top coat.

Kim-pletely in Love

Kim-pletely in Love is a sheer baby pink filled with tiny flecks that shift from teal to purple (and magenta on extreme angles). Formula applied smoothly, but was sheer. Pics show at least 3-4 coats and you can still see VNL. This would be great worn over a white polish or light pink creme to save polish. Polish dries with a beautiful shine - no top coat in the pics!

Kourt is Red-Y for a Pedi

Kourt is Red-Y for a Pedi is a bright fire-engine red jelly polish. I'm a sucker for reds, so I really like this polish - not to mention the shine is incredible! You can see my silhouette in the pics ;P Formula was smooth yet again and pictures show 3 coats, but as you can see, there is still some VNL. It's not too noticeable in real life though.

So that's all the polishes I have for today! Overall, I'm really liking these polishes and would expect the same quality and ease of use with other Nicole By OPI polishes. There were a lot of other pretty colours in the collection, but they were colours I might have something similar to, or colours that I didn't really favour.

I'm hoping that after I get all the tutorials I want done, I can finally show you some new nail art! Let's just hope I'm able to roll out of bed early, and whip my camera up while the sun is still up - don't want to be missing another day to film some tutorials for you all. Hope to see you all then :)

//Linda

Winners of my 700 Follower giveaway!

OKAY, so after spending a few hours jotting down all the names of the entrants, I finally have our four winners! This time around was so much more difficult than last time since I had a lot of multiple entries and had to keep going back to double check if they have been entered before or not. The thing that made it even more frustrating to me was that there were so many Sarah's and Sara's and Lisa's and you get what I mean haha. I mean they weren't all the same people, but the name was the same I had to double check all the time in case it was! I think next time I will ask for a full name so there won't be confusion.

Also, just before I announce the winners, when I have my next giveaway, can you all remember please to enter just once? If you are unsure please email me! There were a lot of dupe entries or there was even someone who entered 6 times. I was lenient this time around but next time I will disqualify you!

Now onto our winners!!

FIRST PRIZE (OMG POLISHES)

goes to...

(I forgot to screenshot the name for this)

AdriannasMommy26 (Ashley Turicik)

SECOND WINNER (OPI DS POLISHES)

goes to...

Vickytinky 

THIRD WINNER (MISCELLANEOUS PACK) 

goes to...

Eleonora Marchetti

Fourth Winner (GlitterGal Polishes)

goes to...

Chronosz (Chronosz Zejing)

Congratulations to the winners! I want to ship these out ASAP, so winner will have 24 hours to respond and if they don't then I will choose another winner. I will send an email first thing in the morning because I'm too tired to email the winners now! (Morning is like 7 hours away or so hehe). For those who didn't win, it's not the end of the world and I thank you all for supporting my blog :)

Hopefully tomorrow I will be making lots and lots of tutorials :) See you then!

//Linda

Nicki Minaj Music Awards Inspired Design

Today I have a nail design inspired by one of Nicki Minaj's crazy outfits. I said before I want to enter the Nicki Minaj Contest that OPI is hosting, but this design is not for that competition, this is just something I wanted to try after swatching the Nicki Minaj Collection. Anyway, she has some absolutely ridiculous outfits. I came across this one that was just so whack and random that I chose to do it on my nails - I thought it'd be fun haha

Here's how they translated on my nails

I made reference to the pic below. I'm pretty sure you'll be able to spot out  what comes from where. I thought that the little red creature on her foot was so random and funny haha

Absolutely crazy right? Everything is so mismatched but it comes together nicely as a beautiful mess haha.

I was thinking of doing a tutorial on this, hence why the design is on my right hand. I think if I were to do a tutorial I will need proper function of my dominant hand in order to do it quickly, but then again I still think it'd end up to be a long tutorial so not sure how many of you are up for watching a super long video. Maybe I should do them in parts, beats me. What do you think?

Oh yeah, I wanted to mention this a short while ago, but I cut my long, long, long, super long locks a few days before new year for a short bob-ish cut haha! Here's how it looked before I cut it:

I specifically took this pic for the very reason that I could use it in my post - I'm not a luvo or anything haha!!


Ad this is how it looks after I cut it

Me and my bf are being losers haha, octopus losers :)


Just quickly, my giveaway ends TONIGHT, so get your entries in cause I won't be accepting ANY entry after I take down the form - no excuses :D Hope to see your names on that entry form!


//Linda

OPI Nicki Minaj Collection Swatches

Hi girlies, I know I didn't post this in the morning like I said I would, but I woke up extremely late, and my bf came to hang with me before he left to meet with some coworkers for karaoke and then I started to watermark my pictures, but ended up spending a crazy amount of time distracted by watching youtube videos and then I went to wash the dishes and got distracted again by other random things haha! Talk major delay!

That aside, I have the whole Nicki Minaj Collection to show you. My bf bought me this for Christmas, so I bought the whole collection, otherwise I might've just picked up some of them. Sorry if my pictures are a bit crap, my brother came home and told me the package was laying outside my gate and I was super excited to try them out right away, but it was dark, so I have pics under artificial light. I wish I had a lightbox!

Super Bass Shatter

I don't have a pic of this on its own or anything, but just before the pics, I would just like to comment on the shatter first since I used them over the rest of the collection except for Metallic 4 Life (I thought you wouldn't really see it anyway, so didn't apply it). The formula was good and applied smooth, but it kinda dries and cracks really quickly, so you have to apply it quickly, otherwise if you brush over the same spot, it will drag the polish and kinda make it bumpy. It dried with a matte finish like most crackle/shatter polishes. All pics show no topcoat.

I didn't really want the shatter, but when I had it on, the colour was sooooo nice! If only they had it on its own. Congeniality is My Middle name is similar but not as shimmery and as purple as Super Bass.

Did It on 'Em (with Super Bass Shatter)

I don't really know how to describe this colour? I would say a green mustard colour haha. The formula was okay, with 2 coats for opacity. It did get a bit streaky with too much brush stroking, so I tried to apply it with the minimal amount of strokes. Peculiar colour, but it's very Nicki Minaj like in her Super Bass music video clip outfit! I think this colour would be great for summer nail art :)

Fly (With Super Bass Shatter)

Fly is a dark teal creme, a lot darker than it shows in the pics. I honestly thought it would be brighter, so it's not particularly a favourite. Formula was easy to work with and reached opacity after 2 coats.

Pink Friday (With Super Bass Shatter)

I am such a goddamn sucker for pink (and red) polishes, so I liked this one! It looks different under different lighting, so could be pale in one and darker in others. Pink Friday is a bubblegum pink which I think would be flattering for all skin types. The formula was somewhat similar to Did It On 'Em, a tad streaky. I applied a thicker second coat so I didn't have to go in with a 3rd haha.

Metallic 4 Life

Metallic 4 Life is a black jelly filled with medium silver hex glitters and small silver square glitters. This was a colour that I wanted after seeing the press releases and I wasn't disappointed! The black polish doesn't overpower the silver glitter which is fantastic and it took 2 coats for opacity. Formula was a tad thick, but nothing difficult to work with and the glitters don't move all over the place when applying.  I love how its so punk/rock chic!

Save Me (With Super Bass Shatter)

Honestly, I didn't want this polish when I saw it in press releases. I thought the bar glitter in Marry A Millionaire was okay since it was really small, but these were big so I was on the fence. When I applied these, I actually really liked it, despite the large bar glitters! Save Me is a fine silver glitter with holographic bar glitter in a clear base. I love the holographic shine, it's so techno to me! Pics show 2 coats and it covered decently since the bar glitter helps to fill up space. This would be great as a layering polish though :)

Also, there is a Nicki Minaj competition running on the OPI Facebook page and I really want to do it - just have to decide which outfit I want to be inspired by, so do look out for when I make a post about that. It would be great if you all could vote for me when the time comes (you don't have to vote if you don't like, there will probably be a lot of really good entries!)!

At the moment, I'm feeling inspired to do a Nicki Minaj mani that isn't part of the themes in the OPI contest. Look out for that too :D

Also, before I forget, not long till the competition closes! There are 2 days left, so get your entries in! This is becoming a realy long post, so I willl leave it at that!

//Linda