Christmas Day Mani

Hello!  I hope that everyone who celebrated had a great Christmas!  My day was alright; it was my first year not being able to spend Christmas with my family, so it was a bit sad.  We did have a get-together with a few friends which was nice, but it just isn't the same as being at home.  However, those of you who follow me on IG (@emmaclarem) will know that I adopted my first-ever pet just over a week ago, which has definitely been keeping my spirits and excitement up.  I got a little 11-month-old boy tuxedo cat; he's such a cutie, and a total lap cat!  I love him to bits!  Anywho, let's get on to what you came here for - the nails!

I was a bit short on time (as always these days) so I decided to re-make my favourite Christmas mani from last year, with a couple little changes. 

My index and thumb started with a base of OPI Live and Let Die, and the rest have a base of Picture Polish Moscow.  My pinky got a coat of WingDust Collections Gilt-y Pleasure, while my thumb (forgot a picture - oops!) got two gold studs.  I added dots in Essie Good as Gold on my index finger, and then stamped with that same gold in the snowflake pattern from BM-323 on the remaining two nails.  All nails are topped off with a coat of Seche Vite.  

I really love the mix of patterns and finishes here; what do you think?  Do you have a favourite nail from this skittlette?  :)  

Pink Nimbus: Upgraded

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I added some stamping over the pink nimbus nail art.  This just took it way over the top, but it was pretty hilariously fun to wear!  

The polishes used in the base nail art are, from darkest to lightest, LaCC 1950, piCture pOlish Pirouette, piCture pOlish Fairy Floss, and LaCC 1992.  

I stamped the swirls and unicorn from Nailz Craze plate NC02 in white Konad polish.  For the record, that stamping plate will forever be the best plate of all time.  Swirls and unicorns all the way.  

What do you think?  Is this look something you'd wear?  It's really abnormally girly for me personally, but I couldn't help but love it anyways, haha! 

Valentine's Day Skittlette

Today's post is part part of Brilliant Earth's Create a Little Love Campaign.  Bloggers from all different niches are posting photos that creatively spell out "love," so of course I did some nail art! 

The houndstooth nails are two coats of OPI My Vampire Is Buff, with stamping decals using BM-322 and black Konad polish.  The filled in parts are piCture pOlish Fairy Floss and LaCC 1950.  

This was my first time ever making my own stamping decals; I'm happy with how easy they were to make, but definitely think I could have done better in applying them to the nail.  Nevertheless, they look awesome from arm's length!  

My ring finger is OPI My Vampire Is Buff, with two black studs from Born Pretty Store.  My thumb (which I forgot to photograph) is the same look with studs, only the base is the bright pink LaCC 1950.  My middle finger is piCture pOlish Fairy Floss, and I freehanded the lettering with acrylic paint.  

Although I'm not a huge fan of Valentine's Day, I did feel obliged to do some nails for the occasion, haha.  This look is definitely cute, though not my style at all... But I got a ton of compliments on it yesterday!  Seems like all the girls at the ballet school and company love the girly manis much more than my vampy polishes that are the usual fare for February! 

Anywho, the boy and I both think that Valentine's Day is rather frivolous, and he's got to work that night anways... I'm planning on using the day as an excuse to eat an entire tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream all by myself!!  Who's with me? :P

Christmas Skittlette with VL006

Good morning!  We've got one more Nutcracker performance this afternoon, and then I'm finally flying home!  I get two days off, and then we have another run of five shows.  I've been so busy that I still haven't really processed the fact that tomorrow is really Christmas... Probably doesn't help that I've barely been able to do any Christmas manis!

This is a skittlette that I did at the very beginning of December for my work Christmas party, and unfortunately it's the only real Christmassy nail art that I've gotten to do this year!

I started with three coats of Essie Macks on both my middle and ring fingers, and stamped the snowflake image from VL006 in Essie No Place Like Chrome.  I've been playing around with a couple Vivid Lacquer plates for a while now, and honestly this is the first image that I've successfully been able to get most of the image to stamp cleanly; you can see that the small ones got smudged when I picked up the image from the plate.  I'll try to get some of the others working for me soon, to give you a more comprehensive review of them. 

My thumb is two perfect coats of piCture pOlish Monroe, accented with two studs.  My index finger is one coat of the beautiful OPI Live And Let Die, with polka-dots in Essie No Place Like Chrome.  My pinky is two coats of my recently-accquired Zoya Chita, which I've yet to wear as a full mani.  All nails (except the pinky) are topped with two coats of LaCC 2013 top coat.  

I really loved how this mani was a more subdued and vampy holiday look.  Of course I love burgundy and dark green, and all of these polishes together made an awesome combination in my opinion!  What do you think? 

I still have to decide what I'm going to do on my nails for Christmas, although I know it won't last long because I'll probably get some more polish for Christmas which I'll want to wear right away!  What are you all planning on wearing on your nails tomorrow? :)

Purple Skittlette & Another Year Older

I'm 18 today!  It's weird, it really doesn't feel like it should be this time of year already, and yet somehow it is...  I've still got to go to ballet class and rehearsals this morning and then go to work for six hours in the afternoon, but I'm going out for dinner with two friends later, so that'll give me something to look forward to!  Well, that and eating an entire tub of Ben & Jerry's all by myself... Because everything is calorie-free on your birthday.

This isn't actually what's on my nails today, but it's a cute skittlette that I wore earlier this week.  I really loved this, mainly because it's all purple which is my favourite colour!  :)

The gorgeous glitter on my index finger is two coats of Aphrodite Lacquers Star Crossed Lovers over OPI You're Such A Budapest.   My middle and ring fingers are each one coat of LaCC 1973 stamped with Nailz Craze Plate NC02 and Essie No Place Like Chrome.  I finished off the look with my favourite textured polish on my pinky: Zoya Stevie.  All nails (except the Pixie Dust) are topped with LaCC 2013 top coat.  

Do you love this look as much as I do?  :)

Winstonia Store Review: 3D Nail Art Charm #28

Good morning!  Today I've got a nail art product to share which was a first for me: 3D charms!  

For this mani, I used piCture pOlish Peaches n' Cream and Honey Dew as my base colours.  After a coat of Seche Vite, I glued on the rhinestone bow with a dot of nail glue; it was super easy!  

I decided to stamp polka-dots on the rest of my nails, because they look so cute with the bow!  I stamped in Konad white polish with Born Pretty Store plate m79.  Those nails are also topped with a coat of Seche Vite. 

As you can see, the bow is pretty large and sticks off my nail quite a bit.  However, the bottom is curved to allow it to sit on the nail bed more closely.  Once it was glued on, it actually felt quite sturdy and secure; it lasted for the entire afternoon and evening after applying (even through grocery shopping!) until I loosened the glue with acetone and pried it off before showering.  

As long as you're careful with them, these charms are reusable.  Despite being somewhat impractical for everyday wear, I think that this rhinestone bow makes such a cute addition to a mani for a special occasion!   

You can find this 3D nail art charm on the Winstonia Store here; this is design #28.  I have one more 3D nail art charm to show you too, so keep an eye out for that post *probably* tomorrow morning! 

Have you tried 3D charms on your nails before?  Would you?  Thoughts - let me hear them!  :)  

Disclaimer: The products in this post were sent for review and my honest opinion. 

Subtle Gradient & Houndstooth

I'm finally back home!!  I ended up blogging far less than I was hoping to be able to while away this past month, but I was still doing my nails so I've got quite a few posts backed up.  I've also got some awesome polishes to swatch, which I'm working on right now, so expect to see those on the blog soon too! 

At the ballet school I've been at for the past month (and where I'm going full-time next year) we're not "*technically* allowed to wear nail polish.  But, being the rebel polish-addict that I am, I did anyways.  For the most part I tried to keep my manis light and subtle, and I have one of them to show you today.  

I started with a gradient of Essie Waltz and piCture pOlish Fairy Floss; I really liked the clean and simple look of this gradient and wore it plain like this for a day! 

The next day I wanted to spice it up a bit, so I stamped the houndstooth pattern from BM-322 using Essie No Place Like Chrome.  It's all topped off with a coat of LaCC 2013 top coat. 

Although having to do manis using only lightly-coloured polishes was an interesting challenge this month, the first thing I did at home this morning was put on a dark vampy polish!!  How do you like this subtle look?  :)

Mint Manis for Talia Joy

I had planned to show you the last of the beautiful Shimmer swatches this morning, but instead I've decided to join in on Nail Polish Wars' fantastic idea to post mint manis in honour of Talia Joy Castellano.  Talia was an extremely talented 13-year-old makeup artist and YouTuber, who was battling two kinds of cancer (neuroblastoma and preleukemia) since she was diagnosed at only 7 years old.  Despite all this, she still managed to keep upbeat, motivated, and overwhelmingly positive.  She passed away on Tuesday morning, and since her last Instagram photo was of a mint manicure, we have all joined together to do mint manis in honour of Talia.  

I pulled out what has become one of my favourite summer cremes, piCture pOlish Honey Dew.  I added a double-accent nail with BM-322 and Essie Good As Gold, and put a gold square stud (which I found in a clearance bin at the drugstore) on all the other nails.  It's all topped off with two coats of Poshé top coat. 

I really love the combination of the bright minty green with the gold, there's something very classy but modern  and stylish about it.  In other news, I'm getting used to the round nails and they're growing on me a bit.  I'll still go back to squares though once I have enough length at the sides.  

You can share your mint manis for Talia on Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, etc. with the hashtags #MintManisforTalia and #TaliasLegacy.  You can also add your mani to the Inlinkz collection below.  I'm excited to see what everyone else has come up with in honour of this beautiful girl.  Keep Talia's family and friends in your prayers! <3

The Inlinkz for this event is after the jump, since there have been over 200 entries!  Click below to have a look. 

Nailz Craze Stamping Plate Review - NC02

As promised, here is part two of yesterday's post!  Yesterday I showed you two manis that I did with the Nailz Craze stamping plate NC01, and today I've got two manis to share using NC02!  :)

Nailz Craze Stamping Plate Review - NC01

I've been sick for a couple days now (just a cold - no worries) so I haven't gotten much done.  I did, however, get a chance to play around with a couple Nailz Craze stamping plates!  Today I've got two manicures to show you using plate NC01, and tomorrow I'll show you some looks using NC02.  :)

Happy Easter!

I really wanted to do some awesome Easter nail art, but time just got away from me with swatching last night.  I did this yesterday afternoon before all that got going, so I guess this is technically cheating since it isn't actually the mani I'll be wearing for Easter.  However, it is awfully cute, so I decided to share anyways!  :)

I haven't stamped in a really long time so, looking for some quick nail art, I grabbed BM-302 with the spring and Easter patterns on it.  I was really happy with my Bundle Monster plates from Nail Polish Canada, but this is the only image in the whole set that came scratched.  Grrr. 

I already had LaCC 1992 on my nails, because I had a ballet photoshoot earlier in the day and needed a neutral look.  (Creep my IG for those photos soon!  Link in the sidebar.--> )  I stamped the design from BM-302 with Konad special pink polish, and topped it off with some Seche Vite.   

The mani that I'm actually wearing today is LaCC 1977 topped with Different Dimension Social Suicide, because it matches the dress I wore to Church this morning!  I'll post photos of that somewhere, at some point.  Maybe.  Hopefully.  

I would say that I'm looking forward to spending the rest of the day with family, but truth is that we'll probably all be off doing our own things around the house (swatching for me) until soon before dinner.  I am really looking forward to dinner tonight though, my mom makes such good food for holidays!  

Anyone else have any exciting plans or familiar traditions for today?  Whatever you're doing, make it a great day!  :)

Silver Snowflakes

Another Christmas-y manicure today!  Christmas is less than a week away (*gasp*) and time for Christmas nails is is running out, so let's get right to it!  :)

I started with two coats of OPI The Spy Who Loved Me and one coat of Seche Vite to speed up the drying before stamping the snowflake design from BM-323 with Essie No Place Like Chrome.  I finished the look by placing silver holographic glequins from the Born Pretty Store in the centers of the larger snowflakes, and applying one last coat of Seche Vite

. 

OPI The Spy  Who Loved Me is a gorgeous bright red with a goldish-red glass fleck/shimmer.  It applied so perfectly, and is a great holiday polish! 

I really liked this look and was planning on wearing it for two days, but I got a huge dump of indie nail mail the next day, so off it came!  :P  

Christmas seems to have come so quickly this year, and I'm going to try to get in as much Christmas nail art as I can!  I'm still stuck on what polish to wear on Christmas, but I'm not really sure how much it matters since I'm pretty sure I'll be getting some polish for Christmas and will probably do my nails multiple times that day anyways, haha!  

Have you decided what your Christmas manicure will be?  A favourite polish or nail art?  :)

Secret Santa

**I've entered my Christmas meme nail art in Week 2 of Nail Polish Canada's Holiday Nail Art Challenge.  Don't forget to vote here! Voting ends Wednesday, December 5th.**

Time for another Castle Mani Monday!  This week's episode is called "Secret Santa" and is the first Castle Christmas episode ever, so needless to say I'm super excited!  :)

I got the idea for this mani from one of the episode stills that was released; see Castle's shirt?  

I used my first DS OPI polish for the first time, DS Mystery.  It's a stunning deep brown-ish purple with gold micro-flakies, and an amazing almost-one-coat formula.  LOVE!  Artsy sideways photo, anyone? 

I stamped an image from BM-321 with Essie Good As Gold (probably my favourite stamping polish) and topped with one coat of Seche Vite.  The stamp doesn't really match his shirt as well as the paisley BM pattern would have, but I wanted to try an image that I hadn't used yet and I really liked this one.  

Yesterday I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to use Photoshop Elements to do my colour-correcting, and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.  Though I still need to find the exact skin tone that's as white as I am without making me look like a ghost! 

Unfortunately there's not going to be another Castle Mani Monday post for 5 weeks due to the show's winter hiatus, so look for a new one in January! What do you think of today's installment?  Will you be watching Castle and Beckett's first Christmas tonight too?  :)

Snow Leopard

I have this awesome friend named Michaela, and she's probably the most crafty and creative person I'll ever have the pleasure of knowing.  She likes doing her nails too and we often talk nail polish, so I was super excited when she decided to get the Bundle Monster 2011 stamping plates.  I have the 2012 set, so last week we got together and borrowed some of each other's plates!

One of the plates I borrowed was BM-221, specially for this leopard print pattern.  I had just recently done a leopard-print mani and wanted this one to look different, so I used my newly-acquired OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (LOVE) and stamped with Konad black polish. 

My Boyfriend Scales Walls is seriously the most perfect white ever.  For all intents and purposes it serves as a white polish, but it's heaps more flattering than most which look like white-out.  It also wears really well, these pictures were taken after three days of wear and I only had one small chip on my right hand!  

Last weekend we got the first dump of snow on the mountains, so these nails felt appropriate.  I'm really happy with how they turned out, and wouldn't be surprised if I re-created them a couple more times before winter is over!  Also, don't forget to like the new Globe & Nail Facebook page!

What do you think of this?  Do you like this different winter leopard print look?  :)

Lighting Strikes Violet Femme

I feel like I haven't posted in so long!  Reality is that I had a couple of manis that I wore for three days, and I was having a crisis of sorts with my pictures (more on that at the bottom of the post.)  

Today's mani is my first venture into mildly Halloween-y nails.  I'm not at all excited for Halloween this year; I used to get excited about dressing up and going trick-or-treating with my friends (and the candy-eating that followed) but this year my mom has finally pulled the plug on that one and isn't letting me go, saying that I'm too old.  (16 isn't too old as long as you're dressed up, right?)  Since I do school online and am not at all the type to go to crazy parties,  I'll most likely be spending the night at home watching re-runs of all the Castle Halloween episodes alone.  

Mildly depressing rant over, here is my somewhat Halloween-y mani.  I don't care for the standard orange and black combination, so I went instead for silver and purple.  Close enough, right?  I started this mani with a base of Picture Polish Violet Femme, which in my opinion is the most perfect shade of purple polish ever.  Purple is my favourite colour, but I don't have many purple polishes because I'm so picky about exactly which shades I like; this one hits the spot!  It's deep and rich, and super saturated with an almost-neon purple pigment that is oh-so-perfect.  Two coats, and a stamp with BM-305 using Essie No Place Like Chrome, and this is the result.  

What do you think of the rotated picture? 

So, the picture crisis:  I used to take my pictures outside on the deck in the morning before I left for school and dance, but now the annual torrential downpour has started and is unlikely to let up at all until March.  That, plus the fact that it's not very light out by the time I leave in the morning, and I'm a little panicky as to what to do about my photos.  I made a lightbox and played around with it a lot, but I still can't get anything close to what  I want my photos to look like.  I'll play with that, and hope that I can get something to work!

How do you like my Halloween-ish mani, or do you even think it says Halloween at all?  Hate to be a party pooper but is anyone else as not-excited for Halloween as I am?  

Simple Elegance

Just a quick stamping post today using another one of my new Bundle Monster plates.  I had a performance on Friday night, and of course my nails couldn't go naked so I wore 4 coats of OPI Barre My Soul.  

By the time I got home it was pretty late so I decided to just add some stamping on top of what I was already wearing.  I used BM-314 and Konad Black polish to stamp on this design.  I'm kind of bummed that I smeared the image a little when I put on top coat, but it wasn't visible at all from arm's length. 

This is actually something I've had in the back of my mind since I saw this image on the Bundle Monster plates, and I'm glad that I finally got around to doing it.  

I really enjoyed wearing this (especially with my matching black lacey leotard to class and rehearsal the next day.)  I think it has a kind of simple understated elegance to it.  How do you like the neutral background with black stamping?  Is this something you'd wear?