Polish All the Nails

So I know I just did a post about my new holographic bar glitter but I don't care, it's sparkly so you'll probably see a lot of this in the next little while.  Having just tried stripes the other day, I wanted to see what the horizontal version would look like and it hit me: this could make for an awesome French tip!  To start, I applied three coats of China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise! It doesn't have the best consistency in the world (you really need the three coats) but the colour is so fantastic I can look past it.  Using a cheap top coat and working from left to right, I went to town with the glitter.  You have to be careful when working with such skinny glitter pieces - too much top coat and it will go over the glitter and look icky.  You can see that happening a bit on my middle finger.  Don't do that.  Very thin coats of glitter are your friend.  Once I was done, I put a preliminary coat of Seche Vite on to stick it all down t...

You might remember in my last post I get the newest set of stamping plates from MASH nails.  That wasn't the only thing in the package, there was also a set of 12 holographic bar glitter pots.  I'm normally not the biggest fan of bar glitter.  It sticks up, it catches on things, it generally drives me a tiny bit crazy.  This set had the most perfect set of rainbow colours I had to try out a hand-placed glitter arrangement.  So I present rainbow glitter pin stripes! To start, I applied my usual two coats of Rimmel Black Satin over a base coat.  I've just switched to Essie Protein Base Coat and it seems fine.  I've had a lot of nail breakages lately so figured I'd better try something a little more proper.  Next, using my slowest drying top coat, I painted a strip down the side of my nail and went to work with my toothpick.  Sure, it takes a while but nice neat pinstripes make up for it.  I found the best way was to start at the cutic...

Hey! I'm here! Not dead!  It's just incredibly hard to blog and start a new job when I've been sitting at home not doing much for two months.  I'm now working for an agency in downtown Toronto doing front-end web development and it's really fun.  Anyway, I was lucky enough to get some new MASH stamping plates in the mail this week and I just had to try them out.  I chose ridiculously cute as a theme and away I went.  As I'm still not that good at stamping and I'm only half-way good with the Konad polishes, I decided on a black and white theme.  To start, I applied three coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.  If you're looking for a white to be something other than polish underwear, this is actually a really good option.  It doesn't go streaky at all.  Once I was sure each layer and the overall result was dry, I waited another ten minutes.  I can't even count the number of times I've stamped on my nail only to have still-wet polish...

So, things have been a bit quiet around these here parts, it's ok, I've just been going through the process of getting a new contracting job, incorporating myself and all the endless paperwork that that entails.  Given I had a three week lead time before starting, I decided to peace out and go to Cuba for a week!  It's so beautiful there I can't even words.  I mean, this is where I was all week.  This was the walkway leading down to the beach:   That's not a stock photo, I just held my phone up and that's what happened.  So I've been warm for a whole week.   But you aren't here for the Cuba photos, you're here for the nails!  I wanted something bright and colourful before I left and since I haven't done ruffle nails in a while, I think it's time!