Champagne Bubbles!

Hi Everyone! I hope you are have a great day today preparing to greet the new year! I have not had the energy nor the mood to paint my nails for the past week, but I'm hoping that will change today. I want to have something special for tonight's celebration. In the mean time, I would like to show you a manicure that I created a while back that reminds me of bubbles of champagne. Perfect for the occasion...

31DC2013 Day 28 - Inspired by a Flag

Hi Lovelies! Today I'm forging ahead to Day 28 of the 31 Day Nail Challenge. The theme for today is a manicure inspired by a flag. I had a tough time deciding on a design for this one mainly because I was pretty set against recreating a country flag. I started racking my brain for other creative flag ideas and I was coming up blank. It wasn't until I saw the Messy Mansion stamping plate innocently hanging out on my table waving it's little pirate flag that inspiration hit!

Jonesy Lou Lacquer Fleur

Hi Everyone! Today I would like to show you another Jonesy Lou Lacquer beauty and some nail art that I had fun creating to go along with it. I'm not quite sure what my inspiration was for this look other than I really wanted to try out New Beat that I showed you yesterday for the leadlight technique and this seemed to be the perfect opportunity...

Fashion Inspired: Smoky Star Pumps

If you follow me on Instagram, then you may have already seen this manicure. I created and wore it early this week after a fellow Instagram member suggested showing off our shoe inspired manicures. I have done quite a few such manicures in the past and seem to often be inspired by shoes. For that reason, I really couldn't pass up the golden opportunity to dig through my inspiration folder which is filled with photos of shoes that I hope to one day recreate in the form of a manicure. I chose these beautiful gray star pumps because they were the perfect match for the gray shade I had been wearing at the moment...

Neon Parrot...

Feels like forever since I've actually done any sort of nail art so I'm rather excited to have something new to share with you. I have been seeing everyone showing off their dry brush manicures (which I believe all started with this gorgeous manicure by Chalkboard Nails). I thought I'd give this look a try as well. I kept it as random and messy as possible and totally love it. The bright neon colors that I used reminded me of parrots, so here we are with what might possibly be the brightest pirate themed manicure I've seen...

Emerald Butterflies...

Hi Everyone! Today I have another manicure from the archives to share with you. I created this while playing around with the shades from the Nicole by OPI 2014 releases at the beginning of this year. I just adore this teal duochrome shade and it seemed the right spot for some butterflies to land...

Color Shifting Tribal Nail Art...

Hi Everyone! Today I would like to show you a quick tribal manicure that I created with one of the beautiful Polished by KPT thermals. For the design I had today's MoYou challenge in mind. The theme for today is 'geometric' and I decided the triangles, diamonds and other shapes which make up the pattern would be a perfect fit.

Happy International Women's Day!

It is March 8th which means International Women's Day! I wish all the wonderful women out there a day filled with love, happiness and good fortune!

It seemed appropriate to show you a flowery manicure today. I actually created this a few weeks ago in response to a prompt by Nail It! magazine for a chance to be featured in the next issue. I won't know if this made it into the magazine or not until it hits the news stands in a few months, but regardless I'm quite excited about how it turned out...

Zoya Naturel Floral...

Oh how I love the beautiful shades of the Zoya Naturel collection. Not only are they the perfect creamy nudes and mauves on their own, but they also go so well together. I couldn't resist blending them in a soft gradient as a delicate backdrop for some floral stamping...

Carrie'd Away with Hex Glitter...

Hi Everyone! I really have no explanation for this manicure other than I got carried away and I love it. I was going through my stamping plates one day looking for inspiration and came across this hexagonal pattern on one of the Bundle Monster plates and well one thing led to another and here is the super sparkly result...

Sunday Stamping: Multiple Colors

I'm going to try to keep this post brief because it is starting to get light outside and I still have not gone to bed. I had four hours of sleep last night followed by a very long day and when I got home at 3 am today this is what I decided to do instead of going to bed. I've had this idea for today's Sunday Stamping challenge in my head all day and it had to be done. The challenge today is to stamp with multiple colors on one image...

A Stolen Kiss was Crowned...

I have a little nail art to show you that I created while swatching Dazzle Dry Stolen Kiss. The deep plum purple was just perfect to combine with gold for a royal half-moon manicure. I've had this manicure in mind for a while and I am so excited when it turned out just as I pictured it....

Born Pretty Store Hot Pink Flocking Powder!

Fuzzy nails! This is certainly one thing that I thought I would never (and I mean never!) try. The crazy thing about saying never though is that it comes back to bite you. Recently, I accepted an offer from the BornPrettyStore.com to review some of their fun nail art products including these and these nail studs. As a surprise, I also got some flocking powder! Let me tell you, I have never been more terrified of a jar of fuzz in my life. It has been taunting me for more than a month as I got up my nerve to try it. Not only is it bright neon pink, but it meant fuzzy nails after I swore  to "never". Little did I know that it would actually be so much fun...

Born Pretty Store: Black Rhinestone Studs

Hi there lovely ladies (and gentlemen?). Today I've got some nail art to show you that I created recently. It features black rhinestone studs form the BornPrettyStore.com which I used to accent my Zoya Blu manicure. There are tons of possibilities for these studs, but for this manicure I chose to incorporate them into a stamping pattern...

Sunday Stamping: New Year Party Nails

I'm not fully back to blogging from all the holiday madness, but I didn't want to miss out on the last Sunday Stamping challenge this year. The challenge is to create New Year party nails. Even though this manicure won't last until actual New Years eve, since I have something else in mind, it was fun to make...

Epilepsy Awareness

At the beginning of this month I was contacted by a lovely reader asking me to create a manicure in support of Epilepsy Awareness month, which happens to be November. She has been living with the disease for many years and continues to struggle with it daily. Her story just breaks my heart and creating a manicure for her and this cause is the least I can do. I'm ashamed to admit that I lost track of time and November slipped by way too fast which is why this manicure is sneaking in on the last day of the month. Hopefully this is a case of better late than never...

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

To those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving today, I want to wish you a very happy one! I am thankful to have the day off from work and to spend it with my family. I'm thankful for my family and friends who are always there for me, to support and encourage me or knock some sense into me when I need it. I will try to refrain from making this a sappy post of all the things I'm thankful for and instead show you the manicure I'm wearing today. Yes, this is one of those rare occasions when what is on the blog is actually what is on my nails...

Polish Days: MAN-icure

You may have already heard the term Movember combining the words men and November. It is a wonderful month long event to raise awareness for men's health such as prostate and testicular cancer. According to Wikipedia, Movember started when a group of young men decided to raise awareness by growing moustaches during the month of November. Moustaches have since become the symbol of Movember.

It is only fitting then, that this month's theme for Polish Days is a MAN-icure to honor the event or the special men in our lives. I toyed with the idea of just doing the iconic moustache, but ended up with something a bit different and personal for me...

Sunday Stamping: Over Glitter

Kind of a late post today, but I'm getting a late start on the day in general and just taking it easy after having a wonderful time with friends at a Halloween party last night. It was so fun to see everyone's costumes this year. I went as a witch, if you are curious ;)

This week the theme for Sunday Stamping in Adventures in Stamping is "over glitter". It gives me the perfect opportunity to try a polish that has been in my untried stash for way too long. Plus, I got to play with some of my new plates and polishes that I showed you yesterday...

A little reward...

Some of you might remember the disaster that wiped out nearly all of the photos off the blog. It was a huge mess that took way too many hours to restore. Just thinking about it now still sends chills down my back. Never again! Among the wonderful comments of support were suggestions that I should reward myself at the end of the whole fiasco. I thought you all made a very convincing argument and here is what I decided to treat myself to...

Cheeky jumbo plates A, B, C, D, E, I (Amazon.com - $39.99 for all 6),
2012 Cheeky set of 26 stamping plates (Amazon.com - $19.99 for the set)

KleanColor Metallic (from Nail Beauty 4 U at Amazon.com) - Shipping was extremely quick (ordered Monday, recieved Friday). All polishes arrived safely. In all my excitement I accidentally ordered two of the dark blue ones and even with that I paid $11.70 for all 8 including shipping cost. I got these primarily for stamping since I heard how well the work...

The full rainbow of metallic polishes...
Left to right: Metallic Fuschia, Metallic Orange, Metallic Yellow, Metallic Green, Metallic Aqua, Metallic Sapphire, Metallic Purple...

Essence Breaking Dawn Part 2 collection. This photo doesn't do them justice, they are so pretty real life. I'm not a Twilight fan in the slightest, but when it comes to these Essence beauties I'm a huge fan. Still sad I couldn't get my hands on the part 1 of the polishes...

Left to right: Jacob's Protection, Alice Had a Vision, A Piece of Forever, Edward's Love....

And this little beauty from OPI named DS Mystery. It is not new, but I recently spotted it at Ulta and just couldn't resist...

What do you think of my reward? Too much? Not enough? ;)

Thanks for looking!
Anutka :)