Category Archives: Tutorials & Tips

Happy Hallowe’en, Everyone!

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Wishing all my ghosts and goblins a very Happy Hallowe’en! 🙂 Have a fun and safe time during fright night.

In case you’re still mulling over what design to paint your nails with, here are just a few of the Hallowe’en nail-art looks I’ve done over the years and shared on the blog.

All of them (except the top left) have step-by-step tutorials, and you’ll be able to see all the colours I used. Links to each are below the collage photo.

Halloween Nail Art Ideas Nails

You can browse through the Nail Art category on my blog, which contains many more designs not shown here, or if you want to see the individual posts for the specific designs shown in the above image, click on any of the links below:

Feel free to tag me on social media, and show me what you’re wearing for Hallowe’en! 🙂 I’d love to see!

P.S. In case you missed it, check out my latest Canadian giveaway. Enter by November 13, 2015 at 11:59 pm EST for your chance to win 12 Hard Candy nail polishes!

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Nail Art Tutorial: Bloodshot Eye Nails

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Bloodshot Eyes Nail ArtI spy with my Hallowe’en bloodshot eyes an easy nail design that you can finish in a jiffy!

This is a nail look that requires only basic colours (white, black, and red) that you already have in your stash. Then, you can choose whichever shade you want for the iris.

The red I used was Hard Candy Remix Red. All the other colours are by Pretty Serious Cosmetics: Presence (white), Absence (black), and Nuke the Fridge (shimmery olive).

Considering what my favourite colour is, it should come as no surprise that I chose green for the irises. 😉

To create the veins, feel free to add ‘branches’ to make them look more believable. I, however, kept it simple with lots of squiggles.

As long as you’re happy wearing the design, that’s what matters. You can create them however you want. There aren’t any hard-or-fast rules. Nail art should be fun and not cause anxiety. Don’t concern yourself with perfection. Nail polish is all about enjoyment! 🙂

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Nail Art Tutorial: Bone Nails

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Bone Nails Nail Art

Make no bones about it, but Bone Nail Art is easy to incorporate into any spooky design for a Hallowe’en manicure.

You don’t need any special colours – just black and white. Those are pretty much staples for most nail art, and any nailphile probably already has them in their collection.

I used OPI My Gondola or Yours?, which is a glossy black from the Venice Collection. For the white, I reached for Pretty Serious Presence.

The only additional tools you’ll need are a dotting tool and a striping brush. However, if you don’t have a dotting tool, using the end of an old makeup brush or pen can do the trick in a pinch.

As for the striping brush, you don’t need one that’s specifically for nail art. You can get an inexpensive set of brushes from the Dollar Store’s craft section and then use scissors to trim the bristles to narrow the width to your needs. Easy peasy!

Haha, also, don’t forget to add the rounded areas on either ends of the bones. If you accidentally only do one side, well, it’ll make some pretty risqué adult nail art for a bachelorette party, I suppose! 😉

I hope that you enjoy my step-by-step tutorial with written instructions and photos near the bottom. I love sharing simple and quick nail designs that anyone can recreate. The more we all can spread the joy of painting, the better!

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Nail Art Tutorial: Ink Spill Nails

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Essie Ink Spill Nail Art

First of all, HAPPY LABOUR DAY! 🙂

The long weekend has been quite a treat, and although I wish I could say that I’m taking a break today, I’m…labouring. Hehe! Lots of oh-so-exciting-not-really-exciting house chores to do, and I also played around with some polishes.

Essie’s PR team occasionally sends me some step-by-step nail-art tutorials featuring their nail polishes, and this is one of the most recent featuring Ink Spill Nail Art designed by Rita Remark. (She’s the lead nail artist for Essie Canada, and a while ago, I got to meet Rita Remark!)

The Ink Spill Nail Art features four Essie nail polishes:

  • Blanc 
  • Bell Bottom Blues 
  • After School Boy Blazer
  • Midnight Cami

This post contains the official photos and instructions straight from PR. If you try this or a variation of it, show me. I’d love to see what you come up with!

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Nail Art Tutorial: Shark Nails

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Shark NailsToday is officially the start of Shark Week!

Do you usually catch the series on the Discovery Channel? Will you be sporting shark nails?

Since I had wanted to do some nail art, Shark Nail Art seemed appropriate now.

It’s a super easy design that doesn’t require a lot of tools or colours. (You probably already have all the colours to create these shark nails because they’re staples.)

You can just do one shark on an accent nail, however, whenever I do freehand nail art, I enjoy painting all my nails because it gives me more practice, and I love seeing the variations from nail to nail – the human touch.

I was inspired by the shark nails by Bethany from Beauty Junkie. (Go check out her cute shark nails!)

In this post, I share with you swatches of this look, and then further down, I show you step-by-step with photos and written instructions how you can easily recreate it with my Shark Nail Art Tutorial.

Hope you enjoy this freehand nail tutorial!

Hehe, look at the baby shark on my pinkie finger. He’s a bit of a messy eater! 😉 Makes me laugh!

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Nail Art Tutorial: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Nails

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Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Nail ArtI love the Christmas story of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. (It’s like the holiday version of The Ugly Duckling.)

When you embrace your imperfections, it can be very empowering. Don’t be afraid of doing something different. If we were all the same and liked the same music, movies, or nail polishes, life would be more boring than reading the telephone book backwards. (Although that might be interesting – I’ve never tried it.)

You may remember that back in 2011, I posted a Reindeer Nail Art Tutorial. In that design, I used heart sequins for Rudolph’s nose, and I made the ‘mistake’ of using a dark background, so the antlers didn’t quite show up as well as I had hoped. Nevertheless, I still very much enjoyed wearing that design.

Now that it’s 2014, I decided to revisit the design again and create Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Nail Art! This time, I opted for all creme nail polishes and a lighter base. (I highly recommend using cremes for everything to help your design stand out. However, it would be really cute if you used a glitter or shimmery red polish for Rudolph’s nose!)

P.S. I’m going to try doing more festive freehand nail designs this month. Not sure how many I can squeeze in before Christmas, but I’ll do my best!

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Blog News: My Striped Nail Art Tutorial on PromCanada.com

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Striped Nail Art Tutorial & Pictures smallerIf you follow my blog, you know that I’m all about fun colour, and I don’t often get too excited about neutrals, tans, or nudes.

However, when I was preparing this Striped Nail Art tutorial for Prom Canada’s website a while ago, I decided to challenge myself and bridge both a tan polish with something punchier. (Of course green had to be in the mix!) 😉

Here’s the look I came up with months ago for Prom Canada’s website, and it’s currently featured on there right now.

Check out my tutorial on Prom Canada, or keep reading this post, where I show you step-by-step how to recreate this easy-peasy look that’s ideal for those who lead busy lifestyles.

You can easily make this a festive Christmas look by subbing out the yellow for a red and doing a gold-glitter base instead of a neutral.)

The colours I used are all from the Nicole by OPI 2015 Collection:

  • Nicole by OPI Count to Tan (tan)
  • Nicole by OPI Bee in the Moment (yellow)
  • Nicole by OPI Simply Sub-Lime (green)

Also, check back again tomorrow because I’m going to post my tutorial for the Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer nail art you may have seen me post on Instagram recently.

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