Mint nails for Talia Joy

Recently Talia Joy passed away from cancer, last Friday everyone was meant to post mint coloured nails. I didn't have time this weekend to do it because my aunt was visiting.

I have also lost two of my grandparents to cancer, and one of my aunts struggles with skin cancer. Last month I lost an uncle to cancer that had moved to his brain, so I felt like this was something I really wanted to take part in.

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I used GOSH Venus on my pointer, and Layla Platinum Sky for my ring finger. They were my two non-mint coloured nails, but I felt like they went really well with the two mints I had picked out. I ended up stamping wings on them both, because it felt fitting.

The two mints I used are GOSH Miss Minty, and Maybelline Mint Mist. My pinkie is Mint mist with Miss minty dotted on top and the other one is the opposite.

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I finished a bottle of my normal topcoat and like an idiot thought "oh I should use up my Sache before I start on the next one", annnd it wrinkled my thumb and ring finger polish. 

That is all for today.

- Anna

Alphabet Challenge A is for Aztec.

Okay so someone on Reddit started an alphabet challenge and I decided I would give it a try. 

The first one is Aztec, and as I have never done them before I thought it would thing to try. I may have been wrong since it went really badly. 

I used two coats of Quo by ORLY Coffee & Cream to start out and then I decided I would try out a nailpolish pen that I got a while ago. It was super hard to get the polish to come out, so the lines were very uneven. It had both white and black, so they are both mystery polish. 

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They were also super lumpy, so I think it would have been better with a paint brush. I used two coats of my top-coat to even it out in the end.

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I also feel like it didn't look that Aztec at all, but that is okay, I kinda liked it other than how shaky it is.

- Anna

Hannibals Office.

Since Fandom Cosmetics released a Hannibal themed polish. (Lets be honest I have been looking for one since April.) I got excited and did Hannibal themed nails, except I based it off the colours in his office. 

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I did my accent nails with one coat of OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys, and GOSH Nero stamped over top to give it a wooden look. I wanted to do something woody to match his desk and the book shelves in the office. Since they are a darker wood I thought the was a fairly good match.

I couldn't really find any good pictures of the office,

but you can see the wooden things here.

For the rest of my fingers I did two coats of OPI Alpine Snow, and then one coat of OPI My Pointe Exactly to try and get the grey look of his curtains. I then used a little brush to add streaks of darker grey which didn't really show up lots in the pictures. After I tore some tape to get uneven strips and used them to cover while I sponged on a mix of OPI I'm Suzi & I'm A Chocoholic, and OPI Kennebunk-Port.

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Please don't judge the show form this picture, 

it was the best I could find of the curtains.

Anyway, I am not 100% sure if I will get the collection or not, I probably will, but I hope the swatches are just not as pretty as real life.

- Anna

Ps. Yes I broke two nails before I did this, and had to file them down so that is why they are much shorter now.

I finally had a chance to use Essie Naughty Nautical

I have been dying to use Essie Naughty Nautical since I got it in a spree of buying greenish polish, looking at the colour I decided I wanted something a little old-timey. So I decided on stripes, of OPI Alpine Snow and Naughty Nautical. 

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I added the little black bows because I kept thinking about those guys with bow ties. I threw a rhinestone on it to finish it off. I used the dotting tool for the hearts to finish it off.

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Naughty Nautical is really an awesome polish, we went on well and it wasn't very streaky. The first coat was, but with the second it evened out. I loved it. It also had some awesome silver shimmer in it. I couldn't get it to show up on the pictures more than just a tiny bit so I added a pic with the bottle so you can see that pretty shimmer. You can actually see it on my nails too in this pic, so it turned out better than I planed.

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In other news I am in love with this colour, and the formula, and really everything about this polish.

- Anna

Baby Deer Inspired Nails

I have my pictures and all is right in the world again. I got a lot of inspiration from my vacation and I was chomping at the bit to do these nails after seeing a fluffy little baby black-tailed deer.

It was all cute and spotty so I couldn't help myself! I used two coats of China Glaze Desert Sun, which is a rather nice polish. It went on nicely, and as always I liked the China Glaze brush. I thought The colour was perfect for a baby deer and I am actually really happy with it. 

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I used OPI My Vampire Is Buff for the baby spots and the tips. I did the tips the way I did because the black tailed deer have the bottom white and then a strip of black and brown on top - so it just felt right. 

He's so fluffy it pains me

I used a brush and GOSH Nero to make the 'fluffy' lines. It went alright.

I got a free mini top and base coat with on of the Quo polishes I got, so I figured I would try it as a topcoat. Not sure if it was because it was a mini, but it went pretty horrible. I got bubbles in the topcoat as well as it softened the polish too much so even though it had been half an hour since I did my nails I got a black drag on my ring finger. This is why I shouldn't mess with a good thing.

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I did the spots with a dotting tool before I put my top coat on, My Vampire Is Buff is opaque enough that I didn't have to double up on the dots which I was very glad for.

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Over all I am really glad with Desert Sun, it is a lovely colour and really nice to put on too. I feel the need to buy more browns after this.

- Anna




- PS *personal* if anyone wants to see what the Olympic Peninsula looks like I made a small imgur thing of some of the places.

http://imgur.com/a/Ky9Ip

Fish scales, with Quo by ORLY Green Meadow

This is a quick filler I did last week before my vacation, because I forgot my camera at a friends so I can't get my newest nail pics off it. I will get it back ASAP but in the mean time, enjoy .

I decided to have some fun with my stamping plate and nail brushes. I love scales of all types so I decided to use the few greens I had at the time (I got three greens while I was in the US) and do scales.

I used a base of two coats of Green Meadow, and then stamped GOSH Nero over it. I wanted to just mess around so I painted GOSH Holographic Hero at the top to give it a super shine and at the bottom I did a little swipe of  Ruby Wing Green Peace.

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Green Peace is a colour changing polish that changes light when it comes in contact with sunlight, which is pretty cool because the scales looked different depending on if I was outside or not (I didn't get any pictures of the dark green it turns, because I took the picture right away as soon as I got outside and it didn't have time to change. Oops). I enjoyed that a lot. Also I did it once on a friends nail and with two coats it has great coverage and is rather smooth, it has nice formula. 

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On my thumb I used GOSH Miss Minty and a few strokes of Green Meadow with Nero just to try something different, I am still undecided on it. I also have no clue why none of these are shiny, they are not matte topcoat.

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I really do love Green Meadow even if it can be a tiny bit streaky, but not so streaky that you really notice. Overall I was happy with the look and how all the polishes reacted.

- Anna

Vacation nails, with Indie polish!

So I went away for a while and I had to pick nails to go with my clothing, but instead I decided to paint my nail with Dollish Polish - Space the Final Frontier.

I picked it up because it was a Star Trek Polish, on a night where I pretty much bought every Star Trek polish I could find on line, but I was really disappointed with it. Not because it's not pretty, I love how it looks, but because I didn't feel any connection between it and Star Trek. Was it can't have been named for the colour. Because the warp nacelles only have red and blue, so it's not like it was referring to the colours on the ship. The closest I could think that is green is the Romulans. Unless they think it looks like stars, which I am not really feeling either. So don't buy it because it's a Star Trek polish, buy it only for the colour.

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Now that I got my disappointment in it out of the way I want to tell you how lovely it is, and how much I would actually recommend it. It is a pretty duo-chrome of teal-green and purple set into a black base. I used Butter London Stag Do on the tips with striping tape so control the strips. Also that is only two coats of Space the Final Frontier, so it is nice and opaque, although with one coat it looks streaky so it is a two coater for sure. At two coats it is perfection.

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When there is no light reflecting on the sparkles it looks almost like a pure black polish. I tilted just so that I could get a good picture of it. Also I think Stag Do really stands out here, although the bottle had shimmer in it, I never have ever seen it when I put it on my nails unless it's like the highest light ever.

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I didn't have my normal lights because I was on vacation, but on day three of this polish I got this picture where you can actually see the purple for once. Pretty.

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I like this out of focus picture because it shows how well the polish shines in the light! It is very pretty, although I am not 100% fan of the brush that comes with this polish. It was okay, but it's not the super easy to use type of brush I like. I would recommend this polish for it's colour and it's formula, but not for having anything to do with Star Trek. Although I am still in love with it.

Edit: Just wanted to add the Star trek Polish dries a little tiny bit matte, not super matte, but less than if you have a good top coat on it. So you would probably want to throw a top coat on for sure.

- Anna

Happy Canada Day!

Since I teach ESL I often feel like Canada Day is the most special day of the year, it's when we celebrate what it is to be Canadian and it's when immigrants get to see some fun traditions.

Also who can complain about beer and fireworks!

I didn't want to do just the Canadian flag since I feel that there is so much more to it. So I picked to do one white cross to represent the English speakers of Canada and a red one for the French. Why you might ask!?

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"In the First Crusade Bohemund I, a Norman lord, had red crosses cut from his mantles and distributed to the 10,000 crusaders, who wore them as a distinctive badge on their garments.

In subsequent crusades, each nation was distinguished by a cross of a different colour. France long had a red cross on its banners while England used a white cross. In the course of history, red and white alternated as the national colours of France and England.

Red and white were approved as Canada's official colours in the proclamation of her coat of arms in 1921.
In 1957, the colour of the maple leaves on the shield of the Royal Arms of Canada was changed from green on a white ground to red on a white ground in recognition of Canada's official colours." - Canadian Heretage website.

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I freehanded the stripes which is why they are a little wokey, but I am over-all happy with how it turned out. I used OPI Alpine Snow for the white, two coats for the base, and used a brush to pain on the stripes and the leaf. On my pointer I used two coats of OPI Kennebunk-Port for my red background and was totally pleased at how well Alpine snow painted over red.

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Any way, I am posting this instead of my vacation nails (I totally bought 9 new polishes while I was away) and I will put them up when I get a chance.

Happy Canada Day everyone!!

- Anna