My Personal Pinstrosity

Like many modern women, I love Pinterest, and I love cheese. I was pinning the other day and I came across and easy microwave mac n cheese recipe, which I should have known was too good to be true.

I love seeing posts like this, so I thought I would share mine with all of you. The ONLY thing I did differently was use spaghetti. Major fail.

Oh Pinterest, what a risky business.

Nautical Nina

This is a post dedicated to my friend Jenny (Nenny). Last week she asked me to do a kiwi inspired mani and (in my opinion) it failed miserably. I still wanted to do something reminiscent of her, so I decided to finally follow through with the nautical theme I'd been thinking of trying. Nautical fashion always makes me think of her, and she always calls me Nina so it made it easy to bring things full circle.

Anyway, here is my take on a nautical themed manicure, for Jenny.
 

I used Finger Paints Paper Mache  (thank you Nail Board for the rec), American Apparel Passport, China Glaze Hey Sailor and Orly Luxe.

Phone pic

This was supposed to last me until the end of the week, but one of my nails broke all the way down to the nail bed, so I cut them all down and repainted them. Oh well!

This is for you Nenny!

China Glaze Deviantly Daring

I bought this polish recently on a whim. I was at Sally's getting myself a new white and a nail buffer when I saw a promotion where I could receive a ridge filling base coat if I purchase two China Glaze polishes. I'm almost always lemming a handful of polishes that I don't NEED but have been eyeing, so I took this as an opportunity to grab a couple. I picked it up along with Swing Baby (my current pedi, ugh I'm in love) despite having plenty of variations of it, or ways of recreating it through layering.

Anyway, after that little ramble, I quite like it! It's a foily turquoise duochrome that lends greener in some light and bluer in others. I found that in natural light it seemed more blue, and in fluorescent lights at work you could see more of the green.

 The application was just lovely, the pictures below are two coats.

Fluorescent lighting

Natural light, indirect sunlight

Fluorescent lighting

Natural light, indirect sunlight

Natural light, indirect sunlight

It's quite lovely and I'm happy to have picked it up. Now the problem will be choosing which of my many shimmery blue/turquoise polishes to use.

Easter Nails - Pastel Stripes

Happy Easter! For today I did a fun pastel rainbow using some colours I rarely even look at any other time of the year. I didn't bother using tape to make these lines perfect, handmade Easter eggs rarely are! Well, mine aren't anyway.

Pink: Revlon Peach Petal
Yellow: China Glaze Lemon Fizz
Green: OPI Gargantuan Green Grape
Blue: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Blue-Away
Purple: OPI Planks A Lot

Because these shades are so light I needed three coats of each (except the Blue, but I did it anyway), which was simple enough but fairly time consuming. When looked at in the shade they really POP, it's fabulous! There's definitely a part of me that has a soft spot for rainbows. Don't tell anyone.

xox

Robin Eggs: A Spring Manicure

By looking through my newsfeed over the last month or so, it seems that the people around me are craving spring more than usual. I don't know if it's because we were spoiled last March with 20+ degree weather, or that we've been getting a seemingly endless supply of snow, or maybe I'm just paying closer attention because I've been ready for spring since January. Regardless, I've been succumbing to spring-like choices for my nail colour in hopes that maybe the weather will start to warm up.

This week I bring to you my rendition of robin eggs.

Lately, just like many of you out there, I've been spending a lot of my time on Pinterest. I really love finding beautiful manicures that other people have done, but even more so I love getting inspiration for my nails from non-nail related posts. Since Easter is right around the corner too there's been a lot of egg posts flying around, and I found this photo especially striking.

For this look I used an unnamed Urban Outfitters Smush (I think? It came in a collection with no names on it!) and I sponged China Glaze For Audrey on top. Then to achieve the brown specks, I dipped a straw into a tiny bit of American Apparel Raccoon and blew through it toward the nail surface. I had to make sure to keep my distance from my nails while blowing the polish through the straw, otherwise the splatters would have been too saturated.
I topped it off with some Joe Fresh Matte top coat because it's not as mattifying as Essie's Matte About You and I didn't want too flat of a finish, since the eggs in the photo above have a bit of a sheen to them.

I'm more than halfway done my bottle of For Audrey, which is practically unheard of for me. It's one of my favourite colours and I love finding different ways I can use it.

Anyway, here's hoping spring comes soon!

Clover Fields: A St-Patrick's Day Manicure

'Ello 'ello folks! While I'm still waiting on the decision to be made on a new camera, I thought I'd bring you some phone pics of  my current polish. It's a fun little St-Patrick's day manicure inspired by fields of clovers. I wanted to have the textured look to give it a bit more depth instead of settling for a solid colour, since when you look out into a field you don't see a flat shade green.

This is after about four of days of growth and a bit of tip wear. I achieved this effect by dragging the colours through each other while they were still wet, similar to what I did here. I started with OPI Green-wich Village and blended in some Don't Mess With OPI.

Happy St-Patrick's Day everyone!