China Glaze Sun Worshiper, Japanese Koi, and OPI Kennebunk-Port

I decided to do a bright ombre because I have been feeling the need for more orange in my life.

I started with two coats of China Glaze Sun Worshiper, you can still see lines at this point, but when I put the other colours over top I couldn't see any trace of nail lines.

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I used China Glaze Japanese Koi for my orange which I sponged on along with the OPI Kennebunk-Port (The red). They were easy to work with for a quick and dirty polish job.

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I use a normal makeup sponge to do the ombre. To speed things up I placed one line of each colour on the sponge and then carefully move up and down to blur the line.

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I taped around my nails so there was not very much cleanup after. Overall I was really happy with these nails, no effort, and I got great colour.

- Anna

Stealing From Charity in the sun!

So my grandma is back at home from the hospital, so hopefully I will have an inch of time again. So today I bring you shimmery nails.

I used two coat of Don't Burst My Bubble, a lovely sheer nude. I adore this so much, it made my nails look lighter and they also kept a nice nail line. It pretty just made my nails look better than they really are.

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I added one coat of Stealing From Charity by Fanchromatic Nails (I LOVE IT). I adore this polish , it's amazing glitter polish. I think their site says it best "it's a soft sheen of iridescent red, filled in liberally with gold, copper, silver, and bronze glitter and microflakes in various shapes and sizes.", for real this is my favorite things ever. 

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For my accent nails (thumb and ring finger) I added a thin coat of OPI Oy-Another Polish Joke, just to add a little punch of gold on my nails.

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I adore Stealing From Charity, I left this on for almost five days, and I only had a tiny bit of chipping. It was so pretty, and it looks great in the sun. I need a full size of this, it's so very pretty.


- 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

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

Fun with OPI deutsch you want me baby and GOSH Galaxy

Okay ,so I went on vacation and forgot to post here, so I am in the hotel and posting what I did to my nails last week while my niece was here. She had never seen striping tape before so I decided to show her using OPI deutsch you want me baby (which I bought purely because my grampy is German, and it reminded me of when we spoke in German together when I was young, so I have never worn it since I bought it) and GOSH Galaxy, because SPACE!

I wasn't sure that they went good together, but sometimes I just like to try things to see how it will end up.

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It was weird, but I liked it. Although my thumb finally caught on something and I had to cut it down to nothing when it tore in half.

OPI deutsch you want me baby is actually wonderful, sometimes with OPI shimmers you get a really streaky look, but this didn't have that at all, it just went on and was a lovely bright shiny orange. I know the picture doesn't look orange, but it is really. I used two coats, but I only needed that because I did them really thin. The formula was great in this one, and now I want to use it again.

Shade 

I wanted to add in a shade picture because I think Galaxy is amazing and I wanted to show just how different it looks when it is shining to when it isn't. It's an almost bronze base with tons of glitter in it. Mostly you will see the gold, silver and blue in it, but there is green, pink and purple in there too. It is an amazing mix of colours that manages to pull it all off when put together.

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I feel like this one matches the real life colour the best, I found it grew on me a lot in the two days I wore it, and I feel that these are both lovely polishes.

Okay back to relaxing for me, I will post my vacation nails when I get back!

- Anna

Fanchromatic Nails - Rebel Heart

This is another one of the polishes I bought from Fanchromatics nails, it's name is Rebel Heart. It is one of the best glitter polishes I have ever seen. I am already in love with Fanchromatics after trying two polishes.

Rebel heart is an amazing red-orange shimmer, it had both gold and red micro-flakes, and two sizes of gold hexes and mini gold circles.

I did no cleanup before taking pictures so don't let that take away from the pure love that is Rebel Heart.

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When I first saw pictures online I thought it just looked okay and bought it purely because it was Star Trek themed. I have never been so wrong about a polish.

On my thumb and ring I put it over OPI Kennebunk-Port, because I thought it would need something under it. I think it is a good idea, just so that you can use only one or two coats of Rebel Heart, but I honestly don't really see that much of Kennebunk-Port under it, since it is a very cherry red colour.

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I dabbed Rebel Heart over GOSH Nero on the rest of my fingers, just to test how it would cover on black. I Think it worked wonderfully, although I ended up liking it better on the second test when I did a much thinner coat. 

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Rebel Heart is named after the Star Trek character Kira Nerys who fought as a rebel during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. She was later a Major on DS9 where she worked as the first officer with a Federation Commander. She has strength, and so much passion to fight for what she believes in, I think this polish fits her better than anything.

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This is just a test to see how smooth other polishes would go over and just to see what a thin back coat looks like. I really like it both ways, the polish applies super easy just like the other one I got. 100% would recommend, and I already personally regret that I only got a mini-bottle. I will for sure buy a full bottle when this runs out. 

- Anna

The Ravenstag is burning. Hannibal Finale

Okay so it's Thursday and that means that I have Hannibal themed nails. Yup, there is no pretending anymore, class has ended for the summer so my life is spiralling out of control from boredom, I only teach on Wednesdays now. We had a very emotional closing today, I think my students did a great job.

Since last week the Ravenstag was on fire, and the show just started with a lovely fire filled murder, I decided to do a bloody red with fire sparkles over top and two horns from the Ravenstag.

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I used two coats of OPI I'm Suzi & I'm A Chocoholic which I think is a fantastic dried blood colour as my base for these, not chocolate coloured at all. Unless your chocolate is made of dried blood. It is a lovely polish, the application is a dream, and you really only need one coat. I wear this polish all the time because of that. It just looks so lovely on it's own or with black. 

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I used OPI Oy- Another Polish Joke, and OPI Deutsch You Want Me Baby, for the flames, which worked out really cool because the glitter only showed up in the light so it looked like the flames were moving. 

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Miss Mole from GOSH made the horns, mixed with GOSH nero of course, to give it shading. 

Left hand  - Flash

My left hand is just flames, but I thought I would post it anyway, because I like how the flames look on this hand more.  Anyways I am going to roll into a ball of stress while I rewatch the Hannibal Finale.

- Anna

My dream polish, Between Two Worlds by Fanchromatic Nails

I have been waiting for this polish for only a short time as Lynae from Fanchromatics is awesome and sent them right away. I was actually surprised to receive them so soon. Even though I only ordered Between Two Worlds recently, I have been lusting over it for just over a year I would say. It was the polish I always thought about, yet due to moving a lot I never felt good about ordering as I wouldn't know where to send it.

I wanted to play with all the polishes I ordered, but then I fell off my bike and hurt my wrist, so I couldn't really manage more than one colour since I don't have a lot of movement with the swelling. Since I felt like this polish stand out enough on it's own,  I picked it out as the polish I would try first from my order.

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 Left - two coats of Stand By Your Manny by NOPI, one top coat of Between Two Worlds.
Right - Two coats of Between Two Worlds on it's own.

I adore this polish, I found the application flawless. I love the lilac coloured jelly that the glitter is in, and the glitter is an amazing mix of copper, green (holographic), and brown hexes and smaller silver and green circles. I love how much glitter this polish has, as you can see in the nail I did one coat over Stand By Your Manny, it has great coverage. 

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Two coats Stand By Your Manny and two coats Between Two Worlds.

I used it over another polish as it is a jelly base so there will be nail line if you don't use a lot of coats, but I love how it looks in any light, I am 100% in love with this polish!  The glitter came out really even and dried pretty fast, so I didn't feel like I was waiting forever while I waited to put the next coat on.

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The polish is based off of Tora Ziyal a character from Star Trek DS9, she is one of my favourites, which is how I found this lovely polish in the first place. The character is caught between her Bajorian heritage and her Cardassian father, so the name is perfect for her. 

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Over all it is my new favourite glitter polish and is for sure something really special. I can't wait to try out the other polishes that I ordered with this one.

 - Anna

OPI Couture de Minnie nails

So I couldn't resist picking up the other ones from the OPI Couture de Minnie, well all but the liquid sand. I feel like there is a limit to how much liquid sand I have, so I was content to ignore it. 

I didn't want 100% Minnie nails so I used OPI Royal Rajah Ruby on my pointer, middle, and pinkie fingers. I added the pink glitter from OPI Minnie Style on top.

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Minnie Style only had three different glitters in it, pink and white hexes and white squares. I think I just got caught up when I  bought it as I don't really think it is anything special. I used the white hexes from Minnie Style on my thumb, which has Innie Minnie Mightie Bow under it. 

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Innie Minnie Mightie Bow is 100% worth it, it is this amazing pretty red, with pink shimmer in it. It is totally lovely and the application was really nice. I only did two coats and I really could have gotten away with one. I used OPI alpine snow to freehand all the things on my ring finger. 

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I still have to try OPI A Definite Moust-Have, but over all I am really happy with Innie Minnie Mightie Bow. I love how bright it is, and the pink shimmer is just a huge bonus.

- Anna

OPI - Chic From Ears To Tail

Ahhh so I finally got around to doing this one. I have been wanting to do it since I got it, but binge watching Hannibal has gotten in the way of my free time. 

Here is Chic From Ears To Tail with three coats. Since as I mentioned before it's a little streaky I used three thin coats and it auto corrected enough that you can't really tell too much by the look of my nails.

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The polish is pretty opaque, and I have used it in dotting before without seeing the polish under it. So it does have that going for it. I think it would be cute in a water marble, it would look like candy.

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It has silver shimmer in the polish, but it really is a creme finish as you never really see the shimmer unless you are looking at the bottle. On application it pretty much disappears. 

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Do you see the flecks of silver shimmer in that close-up? they are there I promise. It shows up about this well in real life too, so don't expect anyone to notice the shimmer unless they are an inch from your nails in direct sunlight.

But to me it doesn't matter, I love the creme look and the colour is so pretty it blows my mind how much I love it. In the end it's worth it, this is the third time, I think, I've worn it since I got it and I still am enjoying having it despite the streaky application. 

- Anna