Nail Polish Canada's 2013 HOLIDAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE WEEK 3 - Holiday Memories

Hello everyone!

This is my entry for week 3 in Nail Polish Canada's 2013 HOLIDAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE. This week, the challenge is Holiday Memories. And it's been interesting to read about my participant's memories. You can look at the other entries, and vote for your favourite nail art here.

When I was a child, dad always took me and my siblings and the dogs with him into the forest to find a Christmas tree. It was a long walk, but we had fun. Sometimes we found animal footprints and animal poo, and dad teached us which animals had been there. He always let one of the dogs carry the axe! :-) She held her head high, and looked very proud. We searched for the perfect tree. And then we "helped" dad carry/ drag it all the way home.


Products used: 
Nailstation: Gomme
Konad SP: Black
Konad SP: White
Stamping plates:
BM-H02 (forest)
MoYou London: Princess collection- 03 (dog)
HB23 (snowflakes)


I bought Nailstation Gomme after seeing it on Marias Nail Art and Polish Blog. It's a gorgeous pastel blue, and according to Norway Nails, it's cruelty-free!!! :-), 3- free, and French.

Lani

Nail Polish Canada's 2013 HOLIDAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE WEEK 2 - DECORATIONS

Tinsel & Christmas Ornaments


Hello everyone!

My new e-mail from Nail Polish Canada explained that: "This week's nail art challenge is DECORATIONS. Lights, trees, tinsel whatever your favorite holiday decorations are." My favourite Christmas decoration is a palm tree decorated with lights, but that was too difficult for me, so I tried to make tinsel and Christmas ornaments.

To vote for your favourite, and look at all the entries, click here. If you want to participate, you can see details and still register here.

What I did:

I started with the dark green sparkly textured nail polish; IsaDora #112 Emerald Crush, that I bought in October. It's opaque in two coats. This is what it looks like on it's own:

For the tinsel I used a silver holographic bar/ string glitter; IsaDora #861 Shanghai, that I bought on Friday. I put a little on my palette, not to get too much clear polish, and applied the glitter with a brush, and later a doting tool. Then I sealed the stripe of glitter with the clear polish. For my Christmas nails, tinsel is enough, but for the competition, I added a little more.

For the Christmas ornaments, I tried to make 3D circular shapes. This was not easy, so I had to do some clean up. They were made with one layer of Seche Vite, one with silver nail polish (only in the beginning), multipurpose glue, and finally I used a Q- tip to apply the holographic nail foil. (I have written about how to apply nail foil here.)

Products used:

IsaDora: #600 Clear
IsaDora: #112 Emerald Crush
IsaDora: # 861 Shanghai
Palette (a stamping plate)
Brush
Dotting tool
Seche Vite
H&M: Metallic Grey
Q- tip
N.NAIL Shiny Silver Nail Foil Transfer [NNAIL-E24] and glue -used here and here (10% KKCenterHk coupon code: Nailphotos by Lani)

If you want to participate, look at the other nail art entries, or vote for your favourite, use the links above.

I hope you are all doing well. I'm especially thinking about everyone affected by the wind/ hurricane in Europe. Have a nice weekend! :-)

Lani

Nail Polish Canada's 2013 HOLIDAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE WEEK 1 - SNOW

Hello everyone!

I was very surprised when Nail Polish Canada invited me to participate in their 2013 HOLIDAY NAIL ART CHALLENGE. It made me very happy! :-) I remember the beautiful manicures for last year's challenge, and and it's been very interesting to see what has been made so far this year. The challenge will run for three weeks (one mani per week). And we can participate one week or all three. The theme this first week is Snow, and we can make anything related to snow. This is my entry for week 1. As you hopefully can see, a snow fairy tried to make pink snow in her little Winter Wonderland on my nails. As usual, I have more photos of this manicure, and further down, you'll find a list of products, and I'll tell how I did this.

Although I can't win the prizes, (because I don't have a mailing address in Canada or the U.S.) you can vote for me. Just click here to vote for your favourite, or if you want to take a look at the other entries. If you want to join in, you can find all details and sign in here.

What I did:

1. I started with white nails. Then I made a pink- white gradient. I mixed pink and white nail polish on my palette (the back side of a stamping plate) with a dotting tool, and used a sponge.
2. For the layer of snow on the tips, I used the one stroke technique. I used pink and white acrylic craft paint for that, and a small angled brush. Usually I use fast drying top coat between layers, but this time I added a shimmer top coat first; one coat of IsaDora #769. (It shows IRL.)
3. Then I used different stamping plates, and a XL stamper for the fairy. For the snowflakes I used a Konad stamper most of the time, and white, pink and red Konad stamping polishes. And I made some dots from the fairy's wand.
4. The photos were taken inside. Because it was dark outside, I brought  a bag of snow to the kitchen, and made a little snow photo studio. I used an Ott- Lite, and held my hand in a shoe box with white sheets of paper inside. To not get everything wet, I placed a plastic bag under the snow. I've recently started taping pizza baking paper on the Ott- Lite, after seeing this photo tutorial on My Awesome Beauty. An Ott- Lite lamp is a good alternative, if you live in Canada or other places where there's little winter daylight.

After taking photos with Ott- lite yesterday, I had a chance to take photos in daylight this morning. The one taken in daylight is the first photo, and there you can see the shimmer better. But the gradient shows better on the other photos.

Products used:

IsaDora: #600 (base coat)
IsaDora: #603 Tip White
GOSH: #598 Bubble Gum (pink)
dotting tool
sponge
Acrylic craft paint: Titanium White (white), Rose (dark pink)
small angled brush
IsaDora: #769 Mother of Pearl
Seche Vite (fast drying top coat)
Konad stamping polish: Red, Psyche Pink, Pastel Pink, White
XL stamper
Konad stamper
lint roller (to remove polish from the stamper)
Stamping plates:
Fairy and snowflakes: MoYou London: Princess 07
Snowflakes:
MoYou London: Princess 02
MoYou London: Artist 04
HB-23
BM- 323
1 little bag of snow (for the photos)

I hope you liked these pink snow nails, and that you'll participate in this challenge too. I wonder what the next theme will be.

Lani

Viva la Diva: #160 Fireworks

Hello everyone!

Viva la Diva: #160 Fireworks consists of big and small hexagonal dark pink glitter in a thin blue base. Because each layer makes some of the glitter look purple, it ends up looking like a glitter sandwich, as you see above. I used 3 coats here. I also tried one coat over white on one nail, and liked it very much, but I don't have photos of that. Over white, the base looked blurple.

"Fireworks" is from the new 2013 fall collection called "Stairway to heaven". There are 8 glitters and 1 top coat in the collection, but I only bought this one. (I'm supposed to be on a no- buy.) The bottle size is 9 ml.

Viva la Diva is a Swedish brand. It's 3- free. I have no information about animal testing, but this bottle is made in France, so I hope it was made after the EU animal testing ban.


Lani

Ninja Polish: Divinity

Hello everyone!

This is Ninja Polish: Divinity. (Sorry, but this polish is out of stock.) I'm still trying to make blog posts about the photos I have in my many folders. And these photos are from April. So I don't remember if I used two or three coats, but I did use Seche Vite. This polish consists of a purple base, and has a shimmer that is mainly copper colored, so often the polish looks burgundy. The copper shimmer can change to gold or green, especially if you move your nails in odd angles. The polish can also look purple with copper/ gold/ green shimmer. In other words: it's one of these fun polishes to photograph.

Divinity is from the Enigma collection. There are only two polishes in the collection. The other one is red and called Ambrosia, but I didn't buy it.

I have used Divinity twice before here on the blog; here and here.

Rhonni and Stephanie, the Polish Ninjas, run Ninja Polish. Ninja Polish is the name of their nail polish line, but it is also the name of their online shop where they sell nail polish that is hard to get in the USA, and stamping equipment, and plates like DRK, Fun, MJ, and Nailz Craze.

Sorry, but Divinity is out of stock, but it's possible to register here, to get an email when it's back. Actually most of the Ninja Polish bottles are sold out. I wish Alexandrite and Mysitc Glacier were still for sale.

Which Ninja Polishes have you tried?

Lani

Pink Saturday with Emily de Molly stamping & entertaining video :-)

Hello everyone!

Many are wearing pink nail polish or nail art this month, because October is breast cancer awareness month. I had planned to take part in Pink Fridays, but now it's Saturday... If you want to join in, you can add your link at the end of this post, below a lot of other pink nails made for Pink Fridays. I'm going to let these cute men do the talking today:




More photos of the manicure:

What I used to make this stamping nail art:

Base: Emily de Molly. Where boys fear to tread
Stamping plate: Emily de Molly: EDM02
Stamping polish: Konad: SN Dark purple/ Eggplant
Sticky squishy XL Stamper

This time I used my normal base coat (IsaDora # 600 Clear), and 2 coats of Where boys fear to tread, and the fast drying top coat (Seche Vite). The stamping plate worked very well, but I wish I had bigger nails and that I was better at lining up the images. I also felt that the XL Stamper made the lines more curved. So I'll try a different stamper for the straight lines, or to roll the image on in a better way. The image size is 1,8 cm x 1,5 cm. The plate is 7 cm in diameter, like the Messy Mansion plates. And it has 7 images, although I only show 6 of them here. I love the color of the Konad polish, but next time, I'll use cuticle oil on my skin before stamping, to get the polish off my skin easier.

Remember to check your breasts on the same day of your menstrual cycle every month, and if you're not sure if there are changes, or if you feel a lump, tell your physician as soon as possible, and he/ she will help you from there. In most of the cases it's not cancer, but it's important to find out as early as possible. If you don't check your breasts, your physician can do it for you.

If you want to, you can take a look at the pink nails below.

Lani

a-england: Tristam

Hello everyone!

Tristam is from a-england's The Mythicals Collection. And as you can see if you click on the link, a-england is three free & cruelty free. :-) The creator's name is Adina Bodana. And if you have the time, I recommend to read Adinas story; her interesting life as designer in different countries. First, I thought the polish was inspired by her cat Tristam, but it seems like the polish was born before the cat in 2011... (And a different polish was inspired by the cat's golden eyes.) Then I found this story about a courteous knight called Tristam on her web site. I was wondering if the legend about "Tristam and Iseult" was the same legend that "Tristan und Isolde" was based upon, the 5 hour tragic opera I watched years ago, (and according to Wikipedia it is). I didn't understand much, even though I had read the story first, but what I learned from it, is that you should tell the one you love that you love him/ her before he/ she dies... I'll never forget how she sings it to him, and he sings back. Let's all think about Tristam the cute cat instead. You can see him together with Adina in this interview. If you ask me, this cat is truly beautiful, and I would love to see a nail foil inspired by the pattern of his fur.

Tristam was one of the polishes that I won in my Mystery Grab Bag in Norway Nails' 1000 Facebook Likes Giveaway  this summer! :-) This was one of the polishes that I wanted to try immediately, but I haven't had the chance to write the blog post until now.

This is a scattered holographic blue nail polish, so don't expect linear holographic rainbows. It's not a glitter either, although it kind of looks like glitter in the sun. So it doesn't need any special way of removing. The first layer was very easy to apply, but I messed a little with the second coat, but it kind of self levelled, and I just needed to do a little clean- up, before it looked perfect. The photos are taken outside, and it looks like all the pictures except for the last one are taken before i applied Seche Vite top coat. Seche Vite was also one of the polishes I won. :-)

With top coat:

Thank you Wenche for picking this wonderful nail polish for me! :-)

I know that Wenche sells a-england on Norway Nails, and ship to European countries. a-england ships to the UK, but she has a very informative list of where to buy a-england products, that can be shipped to your part of the world.

Lani