Cream Knit Mani

Today I have a quick and easy nail stamping manicure to share with you.



Cream Knit Mani

To achieve this look, I used Vivid Lacquer plate VL004 for the stockinette stitch pattern on all of my fingers except my ring finger.  For the ring finger, I used Winstonia plate W120 for the Nordic fair isle star pattern.

When I first saw this Vivid Lacquer plate I knew I had to have it. I love knitting and I love nail stamping - so this plate was perfect for me!  I bought it in the summer, so I never really had the urge to try it out until now that we're in sweater season.

Polishes Used

The nail polishes I used for this look were Essie's 'Urban Jungle', which served as the base colour, and for the stamping polish I used China Glaze's 'Release' from the limited edition 'The Giver' Collection. I chose these polishes because I wanted to use two colours that would give a realistic shadow effect when paired together.

I can't get over just how realistic the Vivid Lacquer knitting pattern looks on the nail! In real life, looking at this manicure from a couple feet away gives a bit of a trompe l'oeil effect. It almost looks like a thin, tiny swatch of knitted fabric has been placed on my nails!  Of course the effect would be a little more realistic with a matte topcoat, but for this manicure I chose this image more for the pattern, and not so much for the effect.  Now that I see how realistic it can look, perhaps I'll try it again with different colours and a matte top coat.

Black Friday Mani

It's Black Friday! Of course, I had to do an appropriately themed mani:

Black Friday Mani

Polishes Used:
OPI '4 in the Morning'
Sally Hansen 'Big Smoky Top Coat'
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri 'Silver Sweep'

Plates Used:
Moyou London Artist Collection plate 17
Moyou London Rebel Collection plate 05
Cheeky 'Summer Collection' plate CH55

To achieve this look, I reused my ring finger accent nail from my previous mani, and painted my remaining nails black using '4 in the Morning'. I stamped the sale tag image on my thumb using plate CH55. Then, I stamped the 'Keep Calm it's Friday' image from Rebel plate 05 on my middle finger, as a second accent.

Polishes Used

Overall, I really like the end result. I love how the ring finger accent nail stands out from the look, but also really fits in with the look. The best part is that since I reused part of my previous manicure to create this one, I was able to put this look together really quickly!

It was also really fun shopping for black Friday nail polish deals while wearing my black Friday mani!  My huge score for the day was getting bottles of Orly, China Glaze, and Finger Paints polishes at Sally Beauty Supply for only one dollar each! I truly felt like a kid in a candy store!

Sheer Black Manicure with Black and Silver Chevrons - Using Moyou London Artist Plate 17

After close to 3 months, my Moyou London Artist Collection Design Series is finally coming to an end. Here is the final manicure of the challenge, featuring Artist Collection plate 17:


Sheer Black Manicure with Black and Silver Chevrons

Polishes Used:

Sally Hansen 'Big Smoky Top Coat'

Konad Special Polish in Black

Sally Hansen 'Silver Sweep'

This was a relatively easy manicure to do. I used a the 'Big Smoky Top Coat' as my base coat, and simply stamped the images over the sheer base. The hardest part of the process was trying to line up the patterns to centre them on each nail. To make this a little easier, I used a large squishy stamper so that I could simply press my nail onto the image, rather than roll the image onto my nail (as I would usually do with the smaller, harder stampers that I usually use). I finished the look off with top coat, and then placed a small black nail art stud on each ring finger.

Sheer Black Mani - Left Thumb

I think that this type of manicure would look great with a black french tip to frame the look. However, since my nails are kind of short, and the image is long enough to take up the majority of my nail, if I did a french tip it would either touch, or partially cover the tip of the chevron - which to me, is a crucial element of this design. However, even without the french tip, I still really like the way this manicure turned out.

And so here I am, officially at the end of my design challenge! I really enjoyed creating these manicures, and I'm glad that I've forced myself to jump right in and not delay in using these amazing plates from my collection.

Polishes Used

As I mentioned in my last post, out of the 17 plates currently in the Artist collection, there are 3 that I don't own. I have no plans to get them, but if that changes, or if new plates are released that I end up purchasing, I'll probably continue with the challenge. For now however, I'm going to take some time to enjoy the freedom of designing manicures using whatever plate I feel like, whenever I want to! 


Mondrian Mani 2 - Using Moyou London Artist Plate 16

Today I have another instalment of the Moyou London Artist Collection Design Challenge:

This manicure was done using Plate 16 from the Moyou London Artist Collection, and is the second last manicure in my challenge!

When I did my original 'Mondrian Inspired Mani' a few months ago, I mentioned that I wanted to try it again with a darker blue jelly nail polish. I've since acquired China Glaze's 'Ride the Waves', a beautiful deep blue jelly, so I'm happy that I now have the opportunity to use it as I revisit the same theme with a different plate.

Polishes Used:
Essie 'Jelly Apple'
Nfu Oh NFU JS19
China Glaze 'Ride the Waves'
China Glaze 'White on White'
Konad Special Polish in Black

With this manicure, I used the decal method of nail stamping (aka advanced nail stamping technique) to colour in the multi-coloured accent nails. I decided to use the decal method because when I did the first version of this mani, I tried colouring with the 'leadlight' technique and found that it was hard to keep the highly pigmented jelly polishes from going over the black lines.

The black lines are supposed to be crisp, and clean, and they are an important part of the design. When they are partially obscured with polish, the look does not have the same visual impact.  You can see an example of this in the picture of my right hand, above. On my right ring finger, I had to leadlight the larger section of blue to correct a small boo-boo caused when I was applying the decal to my nail. The blue polish covers a bit of the black line, and takes a bit away from the look.

Now, these are things that are barely noticeable when wearing the manicure in real life, but of course they are a lot more noticeable in close-up still photos with flash! 

Another thing I changed this time around, was that I tried to tone the look down a bit by adding white and black nails. I actually like this version a lot better because of this simplification. The contrast between the multi-coloured, and neutral nails makes the look more interesting, and also helps the multi-coloured nails stand out more.

I really can't believe the challenge is almost over! Currently, there are a total of 17 plates in the Artist Collection. Right now, I own 14 of them: all except for plates 6, 8, and 15. This manicure based on plate 16 is the 14th manicure that I've completed for the challenge (I did two manicures using plate 4 because I wasn't fully satisfied with my first one - you can check out both versions here and here). My next post will be the 15th and final manicure in the challenge, using plate 17. Stay tuned!

Bronze/Green Duochrome Manicure with Black Geometric Print

Today I have an impromptu mani to share:

Bronze/Green Duochrome Manicure
with Black Geometric Print

The nail polish I used for the base colour is ‘Just Spotted the Lizard’ by OPI.  I bought this a couple of years ago, but never got around to trying it. It was from 'The Amazing Spider-Man' collection that OPI came out with for summer 2012. The bronze/green duochrome is a gorgeous colour, and it is very mesmerizing to look at both in the bottle, and on the nails - I almost felt bad stamping a design over it!

There really was no rhyme or reason for the stamping pattern selection – I pretty much just chose a random pattern I liked on an untried plate – Cici & Sisi plate 04. I stamped the image with Konad special polish in black. 

Polishes Used

After seeing how beautiful '...Lizard' is, I'm inspired to try a couple of looks that will allow the polish to really shine. Perhaps a snakeskin, or something with very subtle stamping. This is one of the main reasons why I love making the effort to use things in my collection that I haven't used before - I'm always rewarded with new ideas on ways to put things together. It's so easy to keep using your favourites, or the old standby's, but sometimes it really pays off to fight the urge to stick with the familiar, and try something new!

Gold and White Klimt Inspired Mani - Using Moyou London Artist Plate 14

This is my 3rd last manicure from my Moyou London Artist Collection Design Series. It has been a lot of fun to do, but honestly, I'm glad that it is almost over! It will be great to not have any sort of obligation to do a particular manicure, and to just be free to create based on how I'm feeling. On the other hand, it has been a welcome change having a bit structure, and I've enjoyed giving myself the opportunity to use plates that I otherwise might have delayed using.

Today's manicure is very toned down and simplified compared to the majority of my other 'Artist Collection' manicures. I just needed a bit of a change from the multi-coloured, decaled, skittles manicures that I have been doing lately! Here is the finished mani:

Polishes Used:
Deborah Lippmann 'Sugar Daddy'
Maybelline Color Show 'Gilded Rose'
Konad Special Polish in White


Polishes Used - 'Sugar Daddy', 'Gilded Rose', and Konad White Special Polish

I used 'Sugar Daddy' as the base colour for all of my nails. Using the Gustav Klimt inspired Moyou London Artist Collection 14 plate, I stamped 8 different images in white over the rose/gold duochrome base. I left my ring fingers solid, but embellished the tips with a touch of 'Gilded Rose', a rose gold glitter.

This is my first time using a Deborah Lippmann polish. I've owned 'Sugar Daddy' for a few months now, but I never got around to using it. I'm quite pleased with the consistency and the coverage - for this manicure, I'm only wearing one coat! I also love how cute the bottle is!

I also really love how well 'Sugar Daddy', and 'Gilded Rose' go together. 'Gilded Rose' is practically the glitter version of 'Sugar Daddy'!  Because of this, using it on the tip of my accent finger kept the look monotone, but gave a bit of texture. I just adore the effect.

In the pictures above, the images of my thumbs are upside down, and partially obscured by the flash of my camera, here's a better look at them:

All in all, I really love this manicure. The best part about it is that it was relatively quick and easy to do! Stay tuned for the final two instalments of the design series!

Gaudí Inspired Mani - Using Moyou London Artist Plate 13

After several interruptions, I’ve finally managed to get back to my Moyou London Artist Collection Design Series! With Thanksgiving, Breast Cancer Awareness, Halloween, Movember and Remembrance Day I had a bunch of themed manicures to get done in a short period of time, so there weren’t really a lot of opportunities to continue the series until now.

Today’s manicure was completed using Moyou London Artist Collection plate 13. The plate is inspired by the work of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí. Here is the finished manicure:

Gaudí Inspired Manicure

Polishes Used:
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri 'I-rush Luck'
Sinful Colors 'Endless Blue'
Maybelline Color Show 'Midnight Blue'
Maybelline Color Show Holographic 'Bold Gold'
Sally Hansen Insta-Dri 'Grape Going!'
Konad Special Polish in Black

Other than the gold accent polish, I tried to choose colours in the same colour family, with medium to dark intensity. However, the flash on my camera is making the nail polish on my index finger, 'Endless Blue', look a lot brighter in the picture than it does in real life. It's actually more of a slightly-darker-than-medium blue.

On my ring finger, I used the decal method to add colour to the lizard and mosaic tile stamp for the accent nail. It might be fun to try this lizard again doing a multi-coloured mosaic tile look, by painting each of the sections with a different colour of nail polish. It would be very time-consuming, but I think it would look pretty cool!

Overall, I'm happy with the way that this manicure turned out. I rarely do 5 different base colours, so I was a little nervous about whether or not this mani would have a unified look at the end - I think it does! The accent nail does a good job of tying everything together.

I only have 3 more plates to do from the Moyou London Artist Collection (I don't have the entire collection), so I hope to finish up with the challenge in the coming weeks - stay tuned!

Gaudí Inspired Manicure

Remembrance Day Manicure

Today is Remembrance Day, and to commemorate this occasion, I wanted to do a quick post to share this poppy and cross themed manicure.

Remembrance Day Manicure

Polishes Used:
Konad Special Polish in Black and White
OPI 'Coca-Cola Red'
China Glaze 'White on White'
NYC 'Black Lace Creme'

Plates Used:
Moyou London Hipster Collection (full nail cross pattern)
Shany SH219 (full nail flower pattern)
Moyou London Kitty Collection 02 (flower decal)

Blue Striped Movember Mani

As promised during my last post, here is my revised Movember Manicure:

Blue Striped Movember Manicure

The inspiration for the blue stripes came from the logo for 'Prostate Cancer Canada', one of the Canadian beneficiary partners of the Movember campaign. Their logo is a tie that is striped in 2 shades of blue. You can check out the logo for yourself, and learn a bit more about the Movember campaign on their website.

The background of my accent finger was reused from the previous version of the manicure 'Muted Movember Mani', I simply stamped the moustache decal over it.

Polishes Used:
China Glaze 'The Giver' Collection: 'New Birth', and 'Five Rules'
Konad Special Polish in Black
Essie 'I'm Addicted'
China Glaze 'Scandalous Shenanigans'

Stamping Plates Used:
Moyou London Pro XL Collection 01 (stripes)
Moyou London Pro XL Collection 18 (background pattern on ring finger)
Moyou London Rebel Collection 05 (moustache)

I really like how this manicure turned out. The bold stripes in vivid blue shades were a really fun look, and I even got a few compliments on the manicure!

Muted Movember Mani

Today's mani was inspired by the start of 'Movember' - a public awareness and fundraising campaign where men across the globe grow moustaches during the month of November in support of Men's Health issues.

Muted Movember Mani

Polishes Used:
China Glaze 'The Giver' Collection: 'New Birth', and 'Five Rules'
DRK stamping polish in 'Metallic Brown'

I chose to make the background stamping very subtle for this manicure. I used muted colours, with very little contrast between them. This allows the moustache accent to really stand out.

Stamping Plates Used:
Moyou London Pro XL Collection 01
Moyou London Pro XL Collection 18
Winstonia Plate W109

China Glaze 'New Birth' (left) and 'Five Rules' (right)

Overall, I like how the manicure turned out, but it's a little too tame compared to my usual tastes. I ended up revising the mani the next day to add a bit more colour. Stay tuned for the revised version of this mani, during my next post!