Bright Spring Pastels and Scattered Dot Nails

Today's nails are a direct result of me doing what I want.

I wanted an accent nail with lots of polka dots in a specific bright-pastel color scheme, and these polishes were the perfect colors for it!

The pale mint pastel is Mint Sorbet by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear, the pink is Tip Toe Pink by Milani, the darker green is Mint Apple by Sinful Colors and the white is Snow Me White by Sinful Colors.

I used 3 coats of Mint Apple on my pinky, pointer and thumb nails, 2 coats of Snow Me White on my ring finger, and 3 coats of Tip toe Pink on my middle finger. Then, using both ends of my double-ended dotting tool and all 3 colored polishes, I placed random, scattered dots atop my ring finger.

 

If you couldn't tell, I've become pretty into the two-accent-nail look. Decisions be damned - use alllll the polishessss!

In case you wondered, my gum seems to be healing suspiciously well from Monday's wisdom tooth extraction. I've barely needed to take any pain meds at all, and was able to start working out again today. There's still a slight chipmunkesque quality to my right cheek, but it's not the most noticeable thing in the world. However, the antibiotics I'm taking are going to put a damper on my weekend fun, as those are appppparently not to be mixed with alcohol.

On that note, what are you up to this weekend? I've got nothing on the agenda yet, but am always on the lookout for an activity or two!

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Fall Foliage Nails

Oh well hello there, Friday. Fancy seeing you here again.

It's been another week of muscle relaxers and chiropractor appointments over here, trying to make my shoulder stop misbehaving. I can't tell if the chiropractor is helping or not, but at least I've got a man massaging my neck for me twice a week. Don't tell him I said that.

In other news, I have been taking walks outside in the refreshing sunshine that Boston has had this week - and the autumn leaves are really looking spectacular. I've got a ton of pictures to share with you soon, so please come back on Monday to leaf-peep some of thooose!

On a related note, my nails today were inspired by a tree right outside my window that has slowly been turning from green to yellow over the last couple of weeks. Everyday it's a little more amber and a little less emerald, which inspired me to break out my makeup sponge and do a sponge mani with green, yellow and orange.

I'm not entirely thrilled with how these came out - honestly, they're not what I envisioned. But they're not awful, so that's why I'm sharing them.

I started out by painting all of my nails this Hunter Green color from Love & Beauty. Next I used some white polish on a makeup sponge to dab some random splotches around my nails. (The white splotches would serve as my "blank canvas" for the next steps.)  Once the white was dry, I repeated that step with a yellow polish (Little Miss Sunrise by Essence), then an orange polish (Metallic Mango from Milani), and finished it off with another dabbing of the yellow polish.

At the very least, this is something out of the ordinary and different. It can also be done with pretty much any color combination you'd like, so... go forth and dab with your sponges, ladies.

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Chambray, Pink and Polka Dot Nails (and Paddleboarding!)

Whoooo guys, is my body stiff today. Yesterday after work, for the first time ever, I went stand-up paddleboarding - a very popular thing to do around Vancouver's English Bay. Despite it being a breezy day with choppy waters, we rented paddleboards right from Kitsilano Beach (it was $22.50 each, for 1 hour) and headed out into the Bay!

Standing up on the paddleboard (or should I say, remaining standing on the paddleboard) was tricky, and I can only assume made trickier by the fact that the water was so wavy. That is to say, there was definitely more kneeling than standing going on - at least on my board. David somehow took to it like a freaking Hawaiian. It was like he'd done it a million times before! (He hadn't. Ever.)

Anyway, even from the kneeling position, paddleboarding was a great workout - both in the core and in the quads. And despite falling off the board many times (and probably accruing a handful of new bruises), it was still a lot of fun and I hope to do it again!

.  look at me go!  .

So (unintentionally) following the aquatic theme, today's nails were inspired by an outfit I found while reading some blogs yesterday afternoon. Alison from Get Your Pretty On was wearing a delightfully summery pair of white shorts with a cute whale print, paired with a bubble gum pink top and a chambray button-up. Since I was on the hunt for something to inspire me for this week's nail polish post anyway, Alison's outfit jumped out at me as something to translate onto my nails.

... But as much as I would have loved to make a bunch of tiny whales on my accent nail, it was obvious after a few practice rounds on paper that it wasn't in the cards for me. A master nail artiste, I am not. A pretty good polka dotter, however... well that I am. #IfIDoSaySoMyself. (I even wrote a blog all about How to Make Perfect Polka Dots!)

Cue the polka dots! Maybe if I make them really good, you guys will forgive them for not being whales. But really though, when you think about it, we're supposed to be saving the whales. Not splashing them across our nails. So. I win.

.  alison's original outfit  .
.  source  .

For polishes I used Milani - Tip Toe Pink, Sinful Colors - Snow Me White, Wet 'n Wild - Rain Check, and Love & Beauty - Navy.

On my left hand I did 2 coats of Rain Check on my pinky, pointer and thumb nail; 2 coats of Tip Toe Pink on my middle finger; and 2 coats of Snow Me White on my ring finger. Then I used my dotting tool to add Navy polka dots to my ring.  On my right hand, I switched the colors a bit so that my pinky, pointer and thumb were pink and my middle finger was blue.

Whatcha got on your nails today?
Has anyone else tried paddleboarding?
What do YOU want to try for the firs time this summer?

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Sparkly Red, Silver and Blue Nails

Happy 4th of July errrrrr'body!! I don't have much to say today, except for "LEWK AT MY FESTIVE, SPARKLY NAILS."

So. Look at them:

I used Sinful Colors' Ruby Ruby as the base on my red nails, topped with 3 coats of Milani's Ruby Jewels for some sparkle. On my blue nails I used Blue It by Sally Hansen as a base coat, with a single coat of Nicole by OPI Gumdrops polish in Blue-Berry Sweet On You. For my ring fingers I did 2 coats of the Diamond Texture polish from Revlon.

Hopefully it won't be too overcast tonight, because I intend to watch the Seattle fireworks display on TV, and it can be a real bust on a foggy night.

Do you have fireworks to watch tonight?
Did you get to see a parade today?
Use caution when mixing alcohol and explosives this weekend!

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Springy Sponged Nails

My nails this week are making me pretty happy! I just wanted to mix together some pretty spring colors and the best way to do it seemed to be to mash them all up on a makeup sponge and just get to dabbin'... so that's what I did:

First I painted all of my nails a single coat of Snow Me White to give my nails a white base to apply the other colors atop. Then using Orly Snowcone, Milani Tip Toe Pink, and Sinful Colors Envy, I just applied them onto my sponge beside each other:

I had to go back in and re-sponge each nail a couple of times, to make it more opaque. It took a little work, but in the end it was looking quite pretty if you ask me!

I'm trying to kind of hide it in some of these pics, but the pinky nail on my left hand broke and snapped off yesterday. #UGH. My nails had actually been getting kind of long (for me), and I was soooooo looking forward to being able to paint my "long" nails for this week's polish post. FIGURES that damn nail would break the day I go to paint them.

I couldn't resist acting like it hadn't happened and leaving the rest of my nails long for this mani anyway. The length was too good for me to resist - when you are working with such tiny little nails all the time, the idea of having a larger canvas to polish is an exciting one. After I took these pictures, all of my nails were clipped/filed down to the same length, don't worry.

David comes home today from a 2-week field trip to southeastern BC. I'm looking forward to seeing him and having my little buddy back. If anyone needs me tonight, I'm hoping to be cuddled up next to him on my couch watching a movie while we eat some purchased dinner.

What are you rocking on your nails today?
Anyone else making their nails look like a kindergarten craft project?
Leave me a movie recommendation to watch tonight!

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My Nails Think It's Summer...

Guys, somehow my nails got it into their heads that it's summer already, and now they're stripping down to bathing suits and jumping in the ocean.

Practically.

Temperatures in Vancouver got into the 70s this week (!) so I can't blame my nails for getting confused about what season we are currently in. #FistBumpsToGlobalWarming.

Essie's Tart Deco and Milani's Tip Toe Pink were the perrrfect summery colors for my perplexed nails to be wearing this spring. I love the way they look together! Each of these polishes are pastels - with Tart Deco even leaning towards a pastel neon - so you know that they were both #streakingthroughthequad #intothegymnasium after their first coat...

After adding a second coat and a top coat, they evened out pretty well. 

I hope you'll notice that my cuticles are looking better this week than they did last week. I readily admitted in my blog last Friday that my cewts were lewking pretty haggard, and some girl on Revlon's Facebook page actually CALLED ME OUT for it hahaha! She said, and I quote, "Cuticle, push it, push it real good!" - BAHA. She might not get points for being friendly, but at least she was quoting Salt-N-Pepa while shaming me!

I think I'm going to go into social media hibernation for the rest of the weekend since my mommmmm is here visiting me. LOTS TO DO! LOTS TO SHOW HER! Hope you all have a great weekend!

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Rain Drops & Cherry Blossoms Nails

Today's nails are brought to you by the letters V, A, N, C, O, U, V, E and R. It was a rainy day yesterday, and it most certainly influenced my nails.

In addition to the rainy day, I also happened upon this announcement from CraftyNail which outlined some nail art link-ups that will be happening throughout the month. The first of the April nail art link-ups had a theme of Rain/April Showers, which is especially relevant here in Vancouver... though it's rainy here pretty often, not just in April. Anycrap... hence the rainy nails.

And obviously, the cherry blossoms are starting to pop off around here as well, as evidenced by some of the photos that I shared earlier this week. The blossoms were already pretty much begging me to translate them onto my nails anyway, so I decided to combine my rainy nails with my cherry blossom nails.

I got to play around with a whole bunch of polishes for this mani. OPI Isn't That Precious, Sinful Colors Rain Storm, Milani Tip Toe Pink, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Essie Little Brown Dress, and a Revlon Matte Top Coat:

I did two coats of Snow Me White on all of my nails, followed by the matte top coat. Using Rain Storm and the small end of a dotting tool, I made the raindrops by making a polka dot and then dragging the dot while lifting away from the nail, to create the drop effect. On my ring finger and thumb nails, I painted on the brown branches using a nail design brush. When the branches dried, I covered them in light pink polka dots, and then went back in and added some of the darker pink dots randomly.

I actually really like this mani! It's not perfect, but the color combination of the blue and the pinks makes me happy - especially against the white background.

If all goes as planned, I should be going on a great hiking and camping trip this weekend!! It's been way too long since I've gone for a hike. The plan is to head into Garibaldi Provincial Park and up towards the Red Heather Hut - a little hut that I wrote about back in January as well. We're keeping our eye on the weather reports to make sure that everything stays calm enough for us to camp out. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

What are you up to this weekend?
Anything fancy on your nails today?
Do you get cherry blossom trees where you live?

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