Canadian, Eh?

Tomorrow is Canada Day....woo hoo!  Truthfully this holiday doesn't mean a whole lot to me besides a paid day off work.  Don't get me wrong, I'm proud to be Canadian, but I don't usually go all out and wear red and decorate my house and cover my body in Canadian Flag temporary tattoo's etc.  Usually we don't even do much, maybe drive down to the inner harbour to watch the fireworks, but living where we do, you really can see/hear them, so why waste the gas?  For the last couple of years the complex we live in throws a Canada Day BBQ.  Last year I painted faces, mostly Canadian flags and maple leafs - something that is not easy to do by the way!!  Afterwards we went to our friends house for a BBQ.  There's tons of activities this weekend to celebrate Canada's birthday and if I had kids I would probably go to most of them, but I'm happy to stay close to home and paint faces and hang out with friends and eat some good food.  Hope everyone enjoys the long weekend!!  What will you be doing??

Base Coat:  Orly - Bonder

Red:  SH Extreme Wear - Cherry Red

White:  NYC - French White Tip

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

Lilac Haze

I wish this picture could do the SH Gem Crush in Big Money justice.  It has the prettiest lilac glitters immersed in the goldy glittery goodness and it goes perfectly with this purple.  I just wish it registered better...  You can see the lilac a little better in the swatches done by Nail and Noms and the others out there in nail polish land, but really, I haven't seen a picture that truly shows how cute this polish is.


And good news!  This was my one and only mani tonight!!  Lately, I've been trying something and taking it off and then trying something else, sometimes doing at least 3 manis in one night!!  It feels good to like my first attempt, gives me more time to troll the other great blogs out there!!

Base coat:  Orly - Bonder

Main Color:  Wet n Wild - Bite the Bullet

Gradient:  Revlon - Creme Brulee and SH Gem Crush - Big Money

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

Red Red Whine

Crap, now I'm suffering from writer's block!!

Base Coat:  Orly - Bonder

Red:  SH Xtreme Wear - Cherry Red

Black:  Rimmel - Lava Red

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

Brain Block

This nail addiction is never ending, I just can't help myself from buying nail polish.  I swear, I spend so much money on nail polish.  I'm not as bad as some of the folks out there, spending $100 on a bottle of "indie" nail polish, but I do buy a lot.  I usually look for the polishes on sale, I just can't bring myself to spend $10 on a bottle of polish, cheap I know.

This weekend, it became a mission to go to the local Zellers because they are going out of business and everything is 20-50% off.  I managed to get a couple of bottles, but the selection was crap and they had pulled all the polish off the racks and shoved them in plastic storage containers, so it made it difficult to find things.

Anyhoodle, the reason for the long story, is that I've had a huge nail polisher block tonight and have changed my mani THREE times!!  At Zellers I bought this great reddy black polish that is sooo cute and I wanted so bad to do something cool with it tonight.  It didn't turn out how I had hoped it would, so off it went.  This is actually my third mani, the second one was so bad it's not even worth mentioning!!

Base Coat:  Orly - Bonder

Pink:  NYC - Times Square

Purple - NYC - MoMa

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

Cheetah Bomb

Doesn't that sound like "she's the bomb?"  I love love love today's mani, I love the brown with flecks of gold and I'm so into Cheetah print right now.  Mostly because I can actually do this on my nails, but also because I've been watching endless episodes of Jerseylicious lately and love how everything and everyone is covered, usually head to toe, in Cheetah print.  Why can't Tracy and Olivia just get along?!

Base Coat:  Orly - Bonder

Dark Color and Cheetah Dots:  China Glaze - Ingrid

Light Accent:  Revelon - Creme Brulee

Black Accent:  Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen - Black

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

True Love's Hair

Black is the color of my true love's hair...not a super fan of this one, but I've got to work tomorrow, so no redo tonight.  I love the look of matte over glitter and holo, but wanted to switch it up with doing a modified matte french manicure.  I used tape to make the straight edge.  I was inspired by Chloe's Nails and her tape tutorials, which are pretty great, check it out!

Base Coat:  Orly - Bonder

Main Color:  Wet n Wild - Black Creme and Maybelline - Twilight Rays

Top Coat:  Seche Vite and NYC - Matte Me Crazy

Holla, N

Pinkin' it Up

I recently had to cut my nails to match the digit that broke, so I haven't done a french manicure in a while.  My nails are still a little short, but it works.  I also tried my new Salon Express stamper, I didn't let it dry long enough and there's a little streaking, but it's still cute.

Main Color:  NYC - Pink Promenade Creme
Glitter Top Coat:  Sally Hansen Hard as Nails - Rock Candy
Heart:  NYC - Black Creme
Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

Caribbean Calypso

Doing my nails pretty late tonight - I don't work tomorrow, so there's no rush to have them done by bed time.  I went to Walmart tonight to get nail polish remover and had a $40 gift card from my birthday and decided to splurge on nail polish, here's two of today's purchases.

Inspired by ~Leslie~ at Polish Art Addiction's Successful Swirly Gradient 

Base Coat:  Orly Bonder

Main Color:  NYC - Lexington Yellow

Accent Color: - NYC - Water Street Blue and Sally Girl Glitter Effects in Blue

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

So Frustrating

I'm not even going to tell you how many times I took my polish off tonight, let's just say I have no more nail  polish remover.  This is going to be a lot harder than I thought, trying to better my designs every day.  I've decided, and I'm going to try really hard to stick to this, to do what I like, no more trying to impress.  There are way too many creative people out there for me to compete with!

Base coat:  Orly Bonder

Main Color and Dots:  Wet  n Wild - Black Creme

Left Hand Accent Main:  Klean Color - Neon Lime

Right Hand Accent Main and Bow:  NYC - Times Square

Top Cop:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

Except in a Washing Machine

As a kid I remember my mom always saying "blue and green should never be seen except in a washing machine."  Usually my mom's spot on, but I'm beginning to question her wisdom on this one.  I've noticed that a lot of the new fashions out there have this color combination - so, who's right, me or the mother?

Base coat: Orly Bonder

Main Color:  China Glaze - Four Leaf Clover

Accent Color:  China Glaze - Man Hunt

Dots:  NYC - French White Tip

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

Biter Tuesday

I have once again bitten Nailed It's design - Leopard Pistol Accent - I love the color's she uses and the fact that she calls it a pistol/trigger accent.  I bought some new base coat today and tried a new sandwiching technique that's supposed to make your polish last up to 6 days - I'm just hoping for one....

Base Coat:  Orly Bonder
Main Color:  China Glaze - Man Hunt
Pointer and Thumb Main Color:  NYC French White Tip
Cheetah Dots:  Maybellilne - Styled Out with Sally Girl Loose Glitter in Blue on Top
Cheetah Outline:  Sally Hansen - Black Nail Art Pen
Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

Trolling Dots

So, I've been trolling around some of the other nail blogs out there and found a cool one with some really great designs.  The blog is Nailed It and I thought I would try my hand at her Dotstival design, I changed up the colors and voila!!

Base Coat:  OPI - Original Nail Envy and Seche Vite - Crystal Clear Base Coat
Main Color:  Essie - Power Clutch
Dots:  Sally Hansen X-treme Wear - Wet Cement, NYC - French Tip White and Wet n' Wild - Black Creme
Top Coat:  Seche Vite - Dry Fast Top Coat

I hope Nailed It thinks I did her design justice!!

Holla, N

Happy Father's Day

I don't usually do my nails on the weekends, but was watching a boring movie and needed something to keep my hands busy - Happy Father's Day all you great dads out there!!

Basecoat:  Sally Hansen - Hard as Wraps

Main Color and Pinstripes:  Maybelline New York - Blue Freeze

Accent Nail:  NYC - French Tip White

Tie:  China Glaze - Black Diamond

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

Nicole gets Nailed - not in a porny way you dirty bird

Bet you thought this was going to be porn...well it is in a way, it's nail polish porn.  You won't see my naughty bits, but you will see my dirty little secret.  My crack, my nicotine, my nail polish, my addiction.  Hello, my name is Nicole and I am a nail polish addict.  Ahhh that feels so good to get out.

My friend, who I met through work, recently (months now) got a new job and no longer works in the same building.  I'm mentioning her, let's call her CS for shits and giggles, because she's the one who started my nail polish addiction.  She likely doesn't know this but it was her bright neon digits she waved in front of my face one day that got me started.

My collection started with the very same package of little bottles of bright neon wonderfulness from Garage that CS had.  You get like 5 little bottles for $10, my cousin actually worked there and I made her bring me some!  My collection has since grown in size, and the hubby even bought me a special roll around cart to store them in.  I haven't actually counted the number of bottles I have, but I know there's a lot - now I have the sudden urge to count them.....

I just started posting my daily polished fingers on facebook.  Mainly to show them off, but also because I was missing CS and missing showing her my daily nails.  No one at work has shown her enthusiasm for my fun time nails, with the exception of one, but she works on a different floor and is new and doesn't visit me all the time etc. etc. etc.

I've received tons of feedback on the nails, mostly good, some eye rolls and wonder at how I have the time and patience to change my nails every day, so I thought I would take my wonderfully creative friend's - who I'll call Jovee - advice and start my own blog.  I don't yet know what this is actually going to look like or if I'll tell anyone it's here, but it's another avenue to cater to my need for sharing.

So there you have it, me in a nutshell or a nail polish bottle - ugh even I groaned at that one.  Here's hoping I get some free samples and not a subpoena (I had to look up how to spell that) for mentioning the names and brands of nail polish.

Holla, N.