31DC2014, Day 6 - Violet

Hello!

Day 6 - Violet

So I finally dipped into a holo AND a CANVAS lacquer for this challenge!

Girly and sweet - not like me at all! ha.
The base is OPI Don't Bossa Nova Me Around, and the gradient uses L'Oreal Royalty Reinvented and CANVAS lacquer Orchids. IRL you could see s a bit of the shimmer in Orchids on the tips and had a really pretty effect.

For the stamping I used Color Club Eternal Beauty and Pueen Encore 02A. Surprisingly there was still a beautiful linear effect on the nail.

Even though this is not my usual steez, I still really liked this.

-L

This one almost got away...

Hello!

Sometimes life just starts racing around you and you almost forget to post a mani!

This is a little quickie I did using holographics and playing with the Pueen Encore plates.

I started with Darling Diva Killer Queen on my thumb, middle and ring finger. Index and pinky are Darling Diva We Will Rock You. They're both really pretty shifty holos.
I got curious and wanted to see how the holo flame would play if I added more holo to the tips. Hands down, the strongest linear holos in my collection are the Layla's. On the thumb, middle and ring I added Ultra Violet to the tips, and Emerald Divine to my index and pinky. The effect is subtle but I like it.

I stamped with images from Pueen plate 02A and nOPI Positive Energy. This was also another chance for me to play with my new squishy stamper, and I gotta say I don't know if I'm head over heels. I love how much the images wrap around the nail and get into my cuticles and cover my tips, but I'm still struggling to get image pick ups as clean and crisp and whole as my harder Konad stamper. Do I need even more priming? I'm afraid to go too far!

-L

Surreal Garden with Dragonflies

Hello!

Today's look could have been two separate manis. I wasn't sure what I was doing exactly when I started, and even though I'm happy with both looks, they don't seem that cohesive.

I started off with a base of piCture pOlish Atomic. Some of you must be sick of hearing what I use as a base since it seems it always gets covered up anyway! I'm often intending for some of the qualities of the base polish to shine though, but it rarely turns out that way.

pre clean up and stamp

On my thumb, index and middle finger I used a combination of sponging and dry brush technique for this ethereal look. Polishes are Misa Lash Out, Motives Tahiti Surf, Misa Let's Go Green, and Elevation Polish Wuyi Mountain. On my ring and pinky, with the same techniques, I used Duri What a Keeper, Elevation Polish El Cap, Cirque Vaudeville and Cadillacquer Pinkman.

The grass is from Vivid Lacquer plate 14 and the dragonflies and stars are from plate 19. The flowers are from Konad plate m53. I love the surreal garden, and the whimsical dragonflies, but they don't necessarily work together do they? What do you think?

Bonus macro to show off some shimmer:

Sunday Saver Mani!

Hello!

Ok, today is not Sunday - but it was when I did this mani, so whatever, right!?

This is a saver because I picked up these two Sally Hansen shades on sale, they are already pretty cheap, but when they're $2 each you can't say no!

The two shades are Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Coral Reef and Blue Me Away!
I used Konad White with Pueen plate 70 for the roses. Then I dusted off my dotters, which I don't use enough, and filled in the empty space with polka dots.

Blue Me Away! is almost a one-coater. It disappointed me a little bit that Coral Reef required 3 coats to look perfect, but it was $2 and a great shade so I'm not complaining. However, I did find both shades a hint 'stain-y' but nothing too bad.

Do you jump for sales??

-L

Pretty Shimmering Pie Floral

Hello!

After making a conscious decision to use more holos, I've now decided I need to give more of my shimmers some shine.

I used Elevation Polish Limestone as my base. In the macro below you can see hints of the gold flakes shine through the gradient. The 'pie' gradient is made up of Elevation Polish El Cap (bluish purple), Duri Showstopper (pink) and Misa Let's Go Green (green, duh).

shimmery 'pie' gradient pre-stamp

The flower image is from Bundle Monster 220 and I used OPI Eurso Euro and Live.Love.Carnival.

...and here's a bonus macro that our Instagram followers seemed to enjoy.

-L

More holo! More floral!

Hello!

If you follow the canvaslacquer Instagram account you may have seen this a few days ago. I'm kind of new to this whole nail social media thing, so I'm happy to report this has so far been my most 'liked' look.

I started with 2 coats of a-England Her Rose Adagio. Not sure why the pink doesn't really come through in photos, but it's a beautiful shade (and I'm not typically big on soft pink). For added interest I dabbed on a bit of a-England Dancing with Nureyev. The blue seems to read a bit better than the pink, but overall it comes off sorta silvery.

For the branches I used a-England Briarwood, an amazing brown holo that also stamps beautifully. I used Vivid Lacquer plate 014. Next for the leaves I used Pueen 33 with my usual OPI Amazon...Amazoff, the only non-holo polish for this look, I have plenty of green holos that probably do stamp well, I just thought it might clash too much with all the other holo going on so I opted for a creme. Finally, with a dotting tool for the flowers I used Colors by Llarowe OABTRAD. The little centers are Color Club Kismet.

passiflora

I've been trying to incorporate more visual interest in my nail pics, but I find holding an item and positioning my hand for the photo at the same time incredibly awkward! So here's a rando photo of me trying to pose with one of my passionflower vines.

Do you guys prefer JUST the nails or do like seeing someone posing with something?

-L

Holographic Mix with Floral Accents

Hello!

I haven't featured holos in awhile (which is odd since I LOVE holos), so here we go!

So I could utilize many shades, I decided to try the dry brush method to get this cool mix of holographic goodness.

I started with 2 coats of A-England Fonteyn. Then with very little polish on the brush, I randomly splotched on the following: Layla Emerald Divine (green), Color Club Eternal Beauty (purple), Colors by Llarowe OABTRAD (deep pink), and Liquid Sky Lacquer Swerve (blue).

I added the floral image from Pueen 72 using Konad Gold Black. The image was a bit lost at first, so to highlight it a bit I filled the flowers in, using a very light hand and a small brush, with Gosh 24HR Holographic. The difference is subtle but I love effect.

It's so hard not to stare at this mani when it's sparkling in the sun!

-L

Quad Stamped Floral

Hello!

I bring you more stamping! This time I only used one image in four different shades.

My base is 3 coats of bondi nyc Central Park Blossom. It’s a very pale off white peachy nude colour. The formula is very thin, and not self-leveling, which is too bad since I love so many of my other bondi nyc crèmes, but this isn’t that unusual for such a pale shade. Plus with all the stamping I do my bases don’t always have to be perfect.

I used an image from Bundle Monster plate BM15, one of the first plates I ever bought. The four colours used are OPI I Just Can’t Cope-acabana (yellow), bondi nyc The Limelight (green), bondi nyc Fuschia-istic (pink), and OPI Eurso Euro (blurple).

full sun

This is such a fun look for summer, and at an arm’s length it almost looks like tie-dye!

-L

Floral with Butterflies

Hello!

This post brings you a look that took a lot of stamping - and unnecessarily so because in the end you can't even see some of the work I did. But live and learn!

I started with 3 coats of OPI My Vampire Is Buff, a cult favourite. I picked this up because it seemed so many bloggers were raving about it; a perfect off-white shade for nail art (sometimes straight up white is a bit harsh). I admit I do like the shade, but at 3 coats I found it a little uneven, but since I stamp over most of my bases it wasn't a big deal. However, 3 coats means waiting longer for dry time.

I then used Konad Silver and Pueen plate 25 for this netting image.

I fretted a little bit about getting the image on straight (it's one of my main stamping challenges), but I think I did a pretty good job. Unfortunately this is the part that gets buried under all the other stamping, but at least I know I can do it! And it's quite a delicate, sophisticated look I might revisit for a wedding or similar event.

Next I used Pueen plate 55 with bondi nyc Teal Magnolia for the leaves, and then Pueen plate 59 with Konad Gold Black for the butterflies.

 

I used Essie Come Here! with Pueen plate 59 for the floral parts, and added a few dots of it on the flowers with the butterflies to help tie them together. My camera seems to have trouble capturing pinks accurately - IRL Come Here! is definitely a bit more pinky-coral.
Lastly I used the leadlight technique and filled in the butterflies with Nfu-Oh Jelly Syrup 28 (purple) and 30 (blue).

I love the leadlight technique! I've tried it before and it didn't work out great, but I think the butterflies turned out really well.

Thanks for stopping by!

-L

Spongey Coloured Floral, Nails of the Day

Hello!

I thought about continuing with my monochrome theme, but the weather has been too nice not to do something more bright and summery.

I started with a base of a-England Encore Margot, a gorgeous silvery holo that has not been justice by my photos. I really wanted to see how cremes and a holo base would play together so I grabbed bondi nyc The Limelight (bright green), Essie Come Here (coral) and a blue Misa I can never remember the name of!

before the stamping

I quite like the look of this before the stamping. I really wish the holo translated better, it looks SO COOL in the sun, but I didn't get a chance for a photo.
I used a Pueen plate and Konad Gold Black for the flowers and dots.

I did my best to offset the stamping so I wouldn't cover up too much of the holo base and the sponged colours. I like the final result, and it matched my mood and the weather! I feel like there's got to be a dress or two out there that this would pair up perfectly with.

-L

Impressionist Floral, Nails of the Day

Hello!

I’ve really been on a floral kick lately! I think I’m trying to make up for the fact that the real flowers are a bit behind this year, due to such a cool spring.

I started with a taupe-y grey base of Misa Paint My Nails @Work (love the name!) I have no idea how old this is or from what collection it’s from, but here’s a swatch anyway (since I hardly swatch).

I used so many polishes for the flowers I couldn’t keep track of them all. The larger ‘roses’ and leaves were done with a tiny brush while the little orange flowers were done with a dotting tool.

I know not all bloggers paint their other hand as intricately, but I try -- I need the symmetry! But with this other hand I kept the colors slightly more muted, I can’t decide which I like better!

the rarely seen right hand!

…and a bonus pic.

-L

Long Weekend, Nails of the Day(s)

Hello!

I’m sharing two manis in this post since I don’t have too much to say about them. They weren’t total fails, but neither one really turned out the way I was hoping so I didn’t really love either of them, but I thought they were at least worth a quick note (plus they both inadvertently wound up with a vintage feel).

This mani I wore for Easter dinner. The stamping was really only successful on my thumb – I felt like the patterns were competing a bit too much on the other nails. However, I really do like this colour combination. The base is OPI Don’t Bossa Nova Me Around, the green foliage is OPI Amazon…Amazoff, and the floral parts are Zoya Odette. I used a Pueen plate from the Buffet collection, but I’m away from them right now and can’t remember the number, sorry! I want to attempt something like this again, I'll just have to be more mindful of keeping the different colours/patterns separate.

vintage fabric print mani

In this mani I used another Pueen plate from the same collection, again, I can’t remember the number. Also again, I used Amazon…Amazoff to stamp the images (can you tell I love this polish?!) I then haphazardly tried the ‘leadlight’ technique that’s been going around (filling in stamped images with jelly polishes), but I wasn’t all that successful. I started with a bit of yellow and wish I had stopped there. The red isn’t so bad but the purple doesn’t really work, and ends up showing too many brushstrokes. When I was done with all that, I added a coat of Essie Matte About You to give it a sort of vintage tropical fabric vibe. Alana (who’s family is Jamaican), said it’s called “batik”.

batik-esque print mani

Hope you had a great long weekend!

-L

Cynthia Rowley Inspired, Nails of the Day

Hello!

I’m really excited about sharing today’s post because I love the results, it may be my favourite mani to date!

I was really stumped for inspiration. Now that I’ve been putting my nails on the internet I was having serious performance anxiety. I cleaned my nails and mulled over my options for hours. HOURS.

I finally decided to interpret my Cynthia Rowley scarf. It’s so bright and floral – perfect for spring!

I started with my go-to base, CoverGirl Silver Lining. I was getting sick of doing linear gradients so I painted a tri-colored wheel  thingy on my sponge and rotated it for each finger. The tricky part was remembering which way it was oriented when I went back for more layers!

the first stage

The colours on the wheel are bondi nyc Teal Magnolia, Duri Showstopper and L’Oreal Royalty Reinvented. I’ve used Showstopper for a number of gradients, but for some reason last night it was not behaving well. It kept balding instead of building so at the last gradient layer I added a bit of bondi nyc Fuschia-istic to make the pink as opaque as the other colours.

the final product

I pulled out 5 different stamping plates but didn’t end up using them all. I used Pueen 46 and bondi nyc The Limelight over the purple parts. I really love this colour combo, I just wish it was more obvious.  The image transferred well but it’s just not as opaque at one layer, and I didn’t double stamp for fear it would look too messy. I used the same image and stamped with OPI Amazon…Amazoff over the teal parts (it stamped beautifully and I look forward to using it again). On just my thumb I used Konad m4 and bondi nyc NYPD, as a trial. I like the contrasting accent for my thumb, but I thought it would be too bold for the rest of my fingers so I put NYPD away.  Instead I grabbed Konad m53 and bondi nyc Chasing the Sun and stamped some flowers over the pink areas. This unfortunately was barely visible, but created a lovely shade, so not a total loss. I turned to Nyx Purple instead for the flowers. Everything got topped off with Glisten & Glow HK Girl.

the mani and its muse (the scarf)

I posted this on our Instagram account yesterday (canvaslacquer), and was asked if I would enter it into a spring themed contest. The prize is basically a shoutout from 3 beauty bloggers, but it would really help the CANVAS cause so I’m going to enter. Wish me luck!

-L

Creative Outlets with the Intern

Between all the nail stuff, I practise a little bit of origami. I'm currently working on a spring bouquet of folded flowers. It's still in progress, but Tuna the Intern decided to look really adorable under it, so a picture had to be shared.

Tuna the Intern, with paper flowers

Monet on my nails, Nails of the Day

Hey hey!

After my sister mentioned that one of my galaxy manis reminded her of Van Gogh (quite the compliment!), I decided to pay homage to another artist.

Monet's Waterlilies series has always been a favorite of mine - I hope I haven't done it too much injustice!

My thumb turned out the best. I think it's due to composition. Since my thumb is the largest 'canvas' (see what I did there?), the scale of which I made the pads and lilies really works. I kept the same size on my other nails, but I should have made them a wee bit smaller. Live and learn!

I need to work on my freehand art, but part of the problem is definitely not having a lot of practice with nail art brushes. Lots of bloggers say they cut their brushes down to size. I've done so, but not sure I did it right.

Monet on my nails

Overall, I'm still pleased with this. Not having a lot of practice, I think I took on a pretty lofty challenge and did OK! It helps that impressionism doesn't require a great deal of precision.

I finished this mani with a coat of Cult Nails Wax That, since I figured an old painting shouldn't look too glossy.

From the vault, iPhone edition

Here we have several manis I did last year that I only ever photographed with my iPhone.

Considering I was quite a novice when I did these I think I fared pretty well! Opinions???

This was/is my only attempt at doing a vertical gradient (per nail), and of course I had to make it more complicated by creating a gradient across all the nails too, then stamped with stars.

I'm still amazed at the variety of looks you can accomplish with dots - I don't take advantage of this simple technique enough.

I'm kinda meh about this look. I don't wear red very often and I was just trying to do something a little different.

Dots again! I've seen a few different stamping images of this look that are much more precise, but I think I did ok with just my dotting tools.

This tape mani didn't come out as crisp as I had hoped, but I remember going to the farmer's market that day and got compliments left and right.

This is my first attempt at the 'waterfall' technique that most bloggers would credit The Nailasaurus for inventing. This was probably attempted almost a year ago and I still don't feel I have a very good handle at using striping brushes, but I still like the results even though it's not as neat as hers.

-L