1941x1997 Watermarble

Good morning!  It was my 19th birthday yesterday, and even though I had to go to work all day for extra Nutcracker rehearsals, it was a pretty good day!  I was glad to at least have Saturday off though, because I got to do some early Christmas shopping and went to see Big Hero 6 with my boyfriend, which was such a funny movie.  My main birthday present from him will the new Pokemon Alpha Sapphire for 3DS, but that doesn't come out until this Friday so I've got that to look forward to!  :)

Anyways, today's post is just a watermarble mani that I did before leaving on tour in October.  I saw both of these beautiful LaCC polishes sitting side by side in my helmer, and knew that I had to put them together on my nails!

Not too much to explain here really.  The red, 1941, is from the core Fall/Winter line that was released in late 2013.  The light dusty periwinkle, 1997, was one of two new releases for Spring/Summer 2014.  Two easy coats of each for full coverage, and as always the LaCC polishes are fabulous to use for water marbling.  All nails are topped off with LaCC 2013 top coat. 

What do you think of this look?  :)

Heliotrope Water Marble

Good morning!  Apologies for the week-long hiatus.  If you follow me on Instagram, you'll probably know that this past week has been spent packing up pretty much my entire life (but only 300 out of my 615 bottles of polish!) moving to a new city, getting myself settled into an apartment with my friend, starting full-time training, and adjusting to my new life!!  I'm pretty behind on swatching, but things should start to pick up again around here soon.  For now, I've got a water marble mani to show you which I wore last week.  :)

I've come back for the year to train at the same school I was at for a month this summer (and last summer,) and the colour of our uniform leotards is this pretty purple, the exact shade of which is apparently called heliotrope.  Therefore, our entire class are the Heliotropes.  It's a thing.  

For this water marble I started with a base of LaCC 1972 (the lightest purple) and watermarbled using 1972, piCture pOlish Violet Femme, and OPI Vant To Bite My Neck?.  It's all topped off with one coat of LaCC 2013 top coat followed by one coat of Seche Vite.  Unfortunately I didn't wait for the design to dry completely (and apparently I'm not very good at floating on my top coat) because it did get smudged a bit.  Luckily, it wasn't noticeable from arm's length!  ;)

As I mentioned earlier, I'm hoping that things on the blog will get up and running normally again within the next week or two, I just need a bit of time to adjust!  :)

Globe & Nail Meets LaCC

I've kind of been an awful blogger, but that's what I get with no concrete blogging schedule... I haven't posted since Thursday.  Oops.  At least I have one pretty awesome excuse among all the kerfuffle of this weekend!  

On Saturday afternoon, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Farima Hakkak, the founder and creative director of La Couleur Couture.  You may remember that I swatched and reviewed her whole first collection here, and we were so surprised when we found out we were in the same city!  

Of course I had to do my nails using her polishes for the occasion!  In my 1-Year Blogiversary Giveaway post, one of the extra entries is letting me know what you'd like to see more of on my blog; quite a few of you said water marbling (which I have done previously) but I hadn't done one in quite a while.  I decided to give it another go for the occasion.  :)

I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, then water-marbled in LaCC 1950 (pink) and 2011 (yellow).  They worked perfectly for marbling, and I think it came out pretty well!  

I topped the look off with some Seche Vite.  I would have used LaCC's fabulous 2013 top coat, but my bottle ran out.  Luckily, Farima very kindly gave me another one when me met!

I got a sneak-peek of a couple polishes she's working on for her fall/winter collection, and they are absolutely stunning!!  I'm warning you now, prepare your wallets.  Seriously.  GORGEOUS. 

Also... surprise!! Farima is so generous, along with donating polishes to so many good causes and organizations focusing on women helping women, she was so kind as to provide me with a few polishes for a giveaway!!  I know it's kind of cruel of me to announce it, but I'll set up the giveaway once my 1-Year Blogiversary Giveaway is over.  It's my first time using Rafflecopter, I don't want to further confuse things by having two going on at once!  Besides, I need to re-swatch most of the polishes before then: old camera pictures. *shudder*

For now, LaCC polishes are available directly through the LaCC website and through Llarowe, as well as at a few local salons.  She's working on getting her products into some pretty awesome retail stores too, but I can't say anything yet since things aren't concrete.  ;)  I'm so grateful to have had the opportunity to meet this amazing woman, and rest assured I'll keep you up to date with news on her much-anticipated (by me) Fall/Winter collection!  :D

Trim the Tree

This is the third and final week of Nail Polish Canada's Holiday Nail Art Challenge, and the theme is "trim the  tree" (holiday decorations).  Since my water marbling skills have recently become more reliable, I tried a Christmas tree water marble!  

I started with a base of Essie Mojito Madness and marbled with that polish and China Glaze Holly-Day.  After marbling, I painted on China Glaze Twinkling Lights with a striper brush to decorate the tree.  I topped the tree with a star-shaped stud, and two coats of Seche Vite. 

I'm really glad that I was able to get all the nails looking *kind of* the same; I've really been enjoying water marbling recently!  My favourite nail was the index finger, so I'm borrowing a hand pose from Chalkboard Nails to better show that one.  ;)

I felt so festive wearing little Christmas trees on my nails!  These were very popular among my friends, who are now all asking me for Christmas nails!

Thank you all so much for your votes last week, my Christmas meme nail art placed third in the Week 2 vote.  However, it's not over yet!  I really need your help this week, you can vote for my Week 3 entry here!   I really appreciate every vote!  :)

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow!

My third successful water marble was frustrating for all the wrong reasons.  It turned out very pretty and the marbling was problem-free.  Great, right?  Sure, until I go to take pictures and you can't see a thing because it's too subtle and my fingers are orange! **EDIT: Thanks to Jen, I'm working on figuring out Photoshop Elements to colour-correct my photos.  No more orange fingers!**

This nail art was so pretty in real life and I was determined to get somewhat-decent pictures, so I painted over the lines with more polish to make it stand out more.  It's marginally better. 

I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, and marbled with Sinful Colors Cinderella and OPI Don't Tough My Tutu.  I then filled in the white with Essie Pure Pearlfection, and in an attempt to make the design more visible I went back over the blue with Cinderella. 

This nail art was inspired by snowflakes, and I think I captured it pretty well.  It was soft, delicate and shimmery, like a fresh snowfall!  :)  

That's the original picture right there, can't see a thing, right?  Anyways, I did this nail art for a contest, and I'd really appreciate it if you could go vote for my manicure here!  I'm working on swatches of some stunning polishes, and I'm so excited to show you soon! 

Stripey Water Marble

In my last post I said that I was bummed because I spent nearly 3 hours doing an awesome manicure, only to have to take it off that night because of a dance photo shoot where extravagant nails would have looked out of place.

So, today I present to you my second successful water marble!  You can see my first one here.  I wanted the marbling to look different from last time, so I followed this tutorial.  Mine didn't turn out nearly as perfect as hers, but I'm really happy with them!

I started with one coat of Sally Hansen White On, and did the marbling with OPI Don't Touch My Tutu and Sally Hansen Pacific Blue.  Topped with one coat of Seche Vite.

I'm super excited because my Bundle Monster 2012 plates arrived in the mail today!  I've only ever owned Konad plates and because of the price I only had 7 of them and had been feeling pretty uninspired to do any stamping.  When I got an email the Nail Polish Canada had the BM 2012 plates in stock, I went on a whim and ordered them! Since you get free Canadian shipping for orders over $25, I went ahead and stocked up on some stamping polishes too.  I LOVE ordering from Nail Polish Canada because they're located in the same city as me, so my orders consistently arrive the day after they've been shipped!  Anyways, that was more of a warning that you'll probably be seeing lots of stamping manicures around here soon :)

I also wanted to ask you all if you'd like me to write a post about my experience at ballet school over the summer and being away from home.  If you'd be interested to read a post about that, let me know and leave a comment! :)

Summer Water Marble

Decent-looking water marbles have continually evaded me for quite some time now.  Before I started blogging, I had attempted multiple times but the colours always looked muddy or bled together or had billions of bubbles.  Last night, all that changed. 

Since this is the last week of dance for the school year, we're doing some fun stuff this week.  Today all the intermediates and seniors and a couple teachers are going to a friend's house for a pool party (and water aerobics, apparently) so I wanted something fun and summery on my nails.  I have no idea what possessed me to try a water marble again after the failures I've had with it in the past, but I'm so glad I did!  For some of you who consistently do amazing water marbles this may seem like a fail, but for me this is a huge WATER MARBLE WIN.  (Anyone else read that like Tobuscus?)

Moving on; I started with a base of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On, and did the marbling with Essie Action, Essie Watermelon, and OPI Don't Touch My Tutu.  My camera was freaking out because the colours were so bright, so imagine the orange as less-yellow-more-orange, and the pink is more pink-y.  Yea. You get it. Two coats Seche Vite.  Pictures!

I swear I re-did my index finger 4 times, but the colours kept bleeding and it refused to turn out like the others.  Oh well.  What do you guys think of my water marble?

Also, don't forget to enter my 100 Follower Giveaway! Now open to Canada and the US! :)