31 Day Nail Art Challenge 2014 Day 19: Galaxies & Galaxy Tutorial

Deborah Lippmann - Amazing Grace

Color Club - Eternal Beauty/ Miss Bliss / Cosmic Fate

Zoya - Godiva // Northern Lights Holographic Topcoat

Penguin Galaxy

Firecracker Lacquer - Penguin Parade // Sally Hansen - Scarab
A England - Jane Eyre // Zoya - Solange + Godiva // Essie - Blanc

Kings & Queen Galaxy

Have you seen the upcoming ILNP collection for Fall 2014?

It is freaking fragging amazing. Google it. You won't regret it.

I've been drooling over the swatches so I just had to use my one and only ILNP.
Here's a few swatches before the magic happened!

ILNP - Kings & Queens

Christmas in March

Hey friends.

I've got another combo post to share today.

If you follow me on Instagram you'll know that I did a green galaxy for St. Patrick's day.
(This green galaxy is quite photo heavy - I couldn't help but take it out into the sun)

What you don't know is that I also did a red galaxy a few months ago.
(Yes I said months, and no it's not as picture heavy. There was no brilliant spring sunlight in January.)

So check em out and let me know what you think!

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Green Galaxies

A England - Saint George // Zoya - Logan // Sally Hansen - Scarab

Smitten Polish - Blue Footed Booby Dance// Zoya - Solange // Northern Lights Holographic Topcoat

I wore this look for St. Patrick's day and I couldn't stop staring at my digits.

And you just know it turned out well when your boyfriend compliments
your manicure without being prompted. More than once even. High five to that.

I've also decided to not add big white stars anymore.
I much prefer combining glitter and Zoya Pixie Dusts.
They seem to work better on my tiny canvases.

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Red Galaxies

A England - Rose Bower // A England - Sleeping Palace // Essie - Angora Cardi
Zoya - Miranda // Ciate - Candy Cane

This look was inspired by a page from this book Logan gave my dad for Christmas.
You can expect to see some more looks inspired by this book at some point.

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I think galaxies might just be my favourite nail art technique.
No two galaxy manicures are ever the same and each one provides endless room for magic.
What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by.
See you in a few!

xo, D.

A Neutral Galaxy, The Versatile Blogger Award, & The Blogger Friendship Award

Hey friends! Happy Friday. 

Today I've got a mani that I've had stored away for awhile - a neutral galaxy!

Zoya - Flynn // Zoya - Charlize // Zoya - Solange // Zoya - Stevie
The stars were done with Essie - Blanc

What do you think guys? I was sort of in love.
The Pixie's gave the most amazing sparkle.
I am trying though to find a better way to do the stars.
How do you do your little stars on your galaxies?

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I was also recently nominated for two different awards:

the Versatile Blogger Award and the Blogger Friendship Award. 

I've chosen to combine the 2 together because well... they seem like the exact same thing to me. 

Both ask you to nominate 14 other bloggers and to list 7 random facts about yourself. 

So I've decided to list 14 facts to accommodate both awards, but 15 other bloggers is a hell
of a lot so I'm going to be a telephone an internet rebel and break the chain. 

So here we go, 14 random facts about little old me.

The Facts...

(1) I love to organize. Even if it's just a box and all I did was reorganize it's contents, I always feel more relaxed and like I've accomplished something.

(2) I've been dating my boyfriend for almost 6 years now.

(3) I drink lactose free milk and in general I keep dairy to a minimum.

(4) My mom makes the best cheesecake ever (yes I'm bias but seriously - so good). I always ask her for the recipe but she does it all from memory. I realize this contradicts my last fact but my mom's cake is worth breaking my own rules for.

(5) I have never broken any bones in my body.

(6) My family treats Christmas Eve as a much bigger deal than Christmas day and as a result I get gifts earlier than most people.

(7) I played soccer as a child and continued into high school.

(8) I am bilingual - I speak both English and Polish.

(9) I love the shape of my eyebrows.

(10) I have a scar on my face that I got during my childhood while I was wrestling around with one of my closest friends. It's a battle wound I'm proud of because we were spunky and active and it reminds me of how much fun we always had.

(11) It bothers me when people wear leggings that you can see their underwear through.

(12) I make really good coffee and I very rarely drink more than one cup a day.

(13) I religiously watch The Young and the Restless.

(14) Every time I do a scratch and win I picture what I would do with the money I could win. Usually I picture myself jumping in the air and paying off my student loans. Oh, the dreams of a young adult.

So that's it! 14 random facts about me.

A big Thank you to Glitter Fists and to The Nail Snail for their nominations. You guys are great <3

Much love, D.

Pastel Galaxy

Hello again!

How are you all doing? Vancouver’s been a little grey the past couple days
(which I don’t mind because we needed rain) so I decided to do something light and pretty.
I’d seen this tutorial by Nailasaurus a little while ago and I’ve been wanting to attempt it ever since.
So here is my take on pastel galaxies:

if I had to decide what would exist in this galaxy then it would definitely be fluffy bunnies and unicorns.
And there would be a giant caterpillar smoking out of a pipe. There’s just something magical about it.

As with any galaxy that I’ve done before I had to use quite a few colours.
First up I chose to use Highlight Of My Summer by China Glaze as my base. Don’t be fooled by the bottle shot.
This polish is actually a lot more neon in person but my camera was having a hard time capturing it.
The nail shots show the true colour better.
Then I used Lemon Fizz by China Glaze & Greenberry by Barry M.



Next I added Meet Me At the Altar by Essie, Stevie by Zoya, & Miss Bliss by Colour Club.
The stars were done using a dotting tool & Essie – Blanc.
To finish it all off I added my OPI Matte Top Coat.

Here’s the gang all together atop my current read: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

I was surprised by my how well this turned out. I have to admit I was slightly sceptical
because I just love galaxies using dark colours. I didn’t think it would work out but it totally hit the right note.

So what do you think? Are you loving the pastel galaxies or are you more partial to the darker versions?

Much love D.

7 Deadly Sins Challenge: Day 11

Hey everyone!Today I have another Deadly Sins post to share. We’ve reached day 11 & this week’s sin is Envy. The prompt was: “Who would you like to be? Let us know recreating another challenger's work.” So I scanned through all of the photos that have been posted and settled on 2 manicures I wanted to re-do. The first, which you’ll see in this post, is this manicure by In Jeeb We Trust. (sad news bear: Rainbo Nails also did galaxy nails but I can’t link her as she has no blog). I’ve done galaxy nails previously but I did them before I had a blog so it’s been a very long time since I attempted this technique. Here’s what I came up with:

I’m really happy with how they turned out. I’m a sucker for lots of colour so this was definitely a fun venture. I used lots of different colours to create this look but I’ll just mention that the base is Beyond by Color Club. I also added Northern Lights Holographic Silver Top Coat as a finishing touch. I’m obsessed with this top coat.  If you’d like to know the name of any of the other polishes just leave a comment and I’ll let you know. 

That’s it for today. I’m off now to enjoy some sibling time.
I’m going to stuff my face with donuts, fried chicken, and tea. It’s going to be marvelous.

D

& check out the other ladies designs that are linked below!