Happy Birthday Sissy

Happy 16th Birthday to my sister, Olivia!!

You may have guessed that I'm quite a bit older than my sister, I was 17 when she was born and I can tell you it was quite the shock when my mom told me she was pregnant. I never wished for a sibling when I was younger, I always wanted a piano and a dog.  I never got either of those things, but getting the most amazing sister instead - even better.  Join me is wishing my baby sister the most amazing 16th birthday ever!  In the 16 years since you were born, you have filled my life with so much love and laughter and I can't imagine having this much fun with a piano or a dog!!!  Thank you for the chicken pox, the lap full of puke before my first time at the club, the pee every time you were tickled, the goose tape, the hair hidden in a starbucks bag and all the other fun stuff in between!

I love you to the moon sissy!!

Holla, N

Smelling the Roses - Part Duex

Happy Friday!!  Welcome to the last day of my Instagram inspired week and my inspiration Steph from Haus of Lacquer!!  I hope you've had a chance to have a look at Steph's work - it really is amazing and I hope I've done it justice!!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Holla, N

H is for Haus of Lacquer Inspired

Hello my polished peeps!  Hope you are having a super week!!  It's a short one for me - flex day on Friday - woot woot!!

For today's prompt, H, I'm doing a mani inspired by Haus of Lacquer - I posted about this crazy talented chica yesterday - actually this whole week will be inspired by her and her amazingly amazing vintage roses.  I got the idea for an instagram inspired week from Heather over at Peace, Love and Polish - there is sooo much talent out there, it's crazy - Heather has done an amazing job of some of my favorites, I hope you have some time to check it out!!  Steph from Haus of Lacquer is definitely one of my faves and I love that she's from the same province as me - maybe one day I'll take the ferry over for a Haus of Lacquer mani - oh to dream the dream, hey?  Anyhoodle, hope you enjoy!

I'm off to check out my buddies and what they've come up with for "H" day - I'm bound to be blown away, that's for sure!!

Holla, N

Neon Roses

Hello friends!  I'm a little behind this week - I usually have my posts written and scheduled the Sunday before I post, this Sunday, I had a horrible headache and didn't get a chance to get any posts queued up!  I really want to stick to my Monday, Wednesday and Friday posting schedule, so I'm getting this one up even though it's late!

I've been trying really hard to improve my photos, I finally built my light box and got appropriate light bulbs, but I'm still trying to figure out best poses, best backgrounds etc.  I really want the whole set up, the fabric tent with fabric back drops and the right lights, I'm just so cheap.....I will keep trying this set up out, maybe someone will get me a better set up for my birthday - hint hint mom!!

Holla, N

Golden Nude

Happy Monday polished friends!

I can't believe Christmas is only a little over a week away! I'm so unprepared this year - we've picked up a couple of gifts, but we have so much more to do and next weekend will be a total write-off.  I have two potlucks to go to and cooking in my house is always an ordeal - at least both dishes I'm making are fairly foolproof, so I should have no issues - fingers crossed!

I've been seeing gold and nude everywhere lately and I love love love it.  I wish I had done this as a gradient, the gold glitter is a little overpowering in my opinion, but I'm still pretty happy with how this turned out.  I ended up adding a matte top coat and my friend at work asked "what's wrong with your nails?"  Not something a nail blogger wants to hear about their mani - I make myself feel better by thinking she doesn't know anything about style - lol!!

Base Coat:  Orly Bonder

Main Color:  Becca, recognize the color?  Why yes, it is my Essie Yogaga - soooo pretty!!!

I used the saran wrap method with Sally Hansen's Golden I and then layered the best gold glitter from Sally's over top.

Top Coat:  NYC - Matte Me Crazy

Holla, N

Delicado

Helloooo, Welcome to delicate print day for the 31 Day Challenge, otherwise know as Day 15 or almost half-way done day!!

I've been sitting on this mani for a couple of weeks now, I've been dying to post it!!  I loved how this turned out - funny how this was one of the days I was dreading...I love everything about this mani, the flowers, the color combo, the MATTE!  I might have to recreate this one day, it was so pretty....

Main Color:  Color Club - no name

I used acrylic paint for the roses.

Top Coat:  NYC - Matte Me Crazy

Show some love to the other lovelies by clicking on the links below!! Check back Thursday for Tribal Print!!

Here's the very last hint for my almost 100 follower giveaway...the giveaway will start tomorrow (hopefully!!).  This is by far the coolest part of the giveaway - can not WAIT!

Holla, N

-Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful 
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
 -Greta at How Was Your Day?
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish
-Robin Sparkles 

Makin' the Grade-ient!

Hiya Polish Peeps!!  Today is gradient day for the 31 Day Challenge....  I have to be honest, I suck at gradients.  I swear, I've tried every method and can't seem to "get" any of them.  I ended up doing this twice,  my first attempt was a MAJOR disasticure, I tried to make it better and ended up making it worse.  Up first, is the one I ended up liking....

Feast your eyes on these puppies....

I should have left well enough alone and not added the polka dots, but then I decided to add more polka dots - total FAIL!

Base Color:  Color Club - No Name

Gradient:  L'oreal - Club Prive

I used BM stamp for the gold and used Sally Hansen - Golden-I

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

For the disasticure, I used the same color club for the main color and dots and used Wet n Wild - Violet Creme for the gradient.

Don't forget to check out the other lovelies doing the 31 Day Challenge by clicking on the links below!!

Holla, N

-Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful 
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine
-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa 
-Mari at Nailista
 -Greta at How Was Your Day?
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L 
-Gini at Sassy Paints
-Chameleon Stampede 
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance
-Me, Myself, and Polish
-Robin Sparkles 

Favorite Food - Orange

No, my favorite food is not oranges!  Did I fool ya?  Did I?  Did I?

Enough of the silliness, let's get down to business!  Who's the bright star who joined TWO consecutive challenges?  This girl and I'm not a super star Queen of Challenges like Miss Nicole over at The Color Republic who I think is juggling three challenges? Crazy challenge lady - LOL :)

We're on Day 3 of Ooh La La Polish's My Favorite Things Challenge and Day 2 of Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner 31 Day Challenge.  The trick is to combine My Favorite Food with the color Orange....or do two mani's in one night - tried that last night, with very little success (total disasticure - thanks Nicole at Polish Me Please for the nail lingo!!).  I hope I pulled off two challenge entries with one look!!  If not, oh flippn' well - have you heard about my week so far?

I got my inspiration from these are coasters I made awhile back for a Craft Fair I participated in at work.  These are canvas squares I sewed and then painted with acrylic paint.  Once I added the sealant, I used fabric glue to glue black felt on the back.  I didn't actually sell this set, so I gave it to cousin (who is my sushi buddy) for Christmas.

Base Coat:  Orly Bonder
Main Color:  Revlon - Elegant
Accent Color:  NYC - Some no name Orange
I used acrylic paint for the sushi
Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Please don't forget to scroll all the way down and click on the links to check out the lovely ladies that are participating in both the 31 Day Challenge and My Favorite Things Nail Art Challenge - so much talent, it's amazing!!

-Kimber at Kimber's Lacquer Korner
-Kat at Hooked On Polish
-Diana at Nails By Diana
-Aly at Wonderland Beauty
-Meredith at Perfectly Polished
-Nicole at The Color Republic
-Kate at The Painted Pony Nails
-Cee at Absolutely Cee
-Sam at Polished Art
-Nail Narcotics
-Nicole at Nicole Gets Nailed
-Shelby at Shelby's Swatches
-Stephanie Louise at All Things Beautiful
-Mixed Mama
-Joanna @ Sweet Polish of Mine-Patty Greenberg
-Liz and Lisa @ Lozlosa
-Mari at Nailista
-Greta at How Was Your Day?
-Miss L at Beauty by Miss L
-Gini at Sassy Paints
-Chameleon Stampede
-Pam at Nail-E-Glance 

Here's what's coming up next Tuesday for My Favorite Things Nail Art Challenge - Polka Dots - woot woot!  Check back on Sunday for Day 3 of the 31 Day Challenge and YELLOW!

Holla, N My official entry into Nail Narcotics giveaway - woot woot!!

Chasing Chevy

Hiya!  It is muckin hot out today, it has been for the past couple of days.  We're lucky where we live that we get the morning sun, so when I get home it's relatively cool compared to the rest of our building!  But as soon as the sun goes down, it gets incredibly hot in our place - ugh I hate the heat!

I'm a huge fan of the chevron mani, and I've always loved when there's three separate chevrons - if that makes sense.  I found a new relatively new blogger Nail Art is Tacky who does the most amazing tape mani's with the most amazing color combos.  Click here to see what inspired today's mani!

This was super fiddly, I wanted to minimize the layers of polish I used, and for some reason I couldn't wrap my head around how to do this.  I tried a couple of different things to get the sharp lines and as you can see, the lines on my pinky and ring finger are different. I ended up using an exacto knife to cut the tape so the natural straight edges of the tape were at the ends.  Then I lined the ends up so it formed a  point.  I painted my nails in color first, put the tape on and then painted the nude over top.  Pulling the tape off carefully was a little tricky, but I managed to get better once I made it to my right hand!

Base Coat:  Orly Bonder

Colors From Thumb to Pinky:  NYC - MoMa, Kleancolor - Neon Aqua, NYC - High Line Green, NYC - Some Orange that I pealed the label off - ooops!, Essie - Russian Roulette

Nude:  Essie - Case Study

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N

Nudey McNeonPants

I've been seeing a lot of beige or nude with bright neon's and I'm a huge fan of this trend.  Some of my favorites are:

- Tiny Neon Tips  by My Nail Polish Online
- Nude Neon Moon Tips by Nailing Hollywood Nail Artist Madeline Poole
- Bit of Bling by WAH Nails
- Single Dot Manicure by Polished Indulgence (this one wasn't really named, so I made it up, but follow the link and it will take you there!

And my absolute FAVE is.....

- American Apparel - Neon Yellow by pshiiit.com

Enjoy - are you sporting the neon nude polish?  Would you?

Managed to get my nails done to catch some natural light!

Inside with flash.

Base Coat:  Orly - Bonder

Sun Bursts:  Barielle - Gotta Have Fate

Main Color:  Essie - Case Study

Top Coat:  Seche Vite

Holla, N