What I Wore for Christmas!

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Hello! I hope you all are having a lovely holiday season! I celebrate Christmas and was excited to have a fun nail design for the occasion. I always have so much to do around Christmas though, so I opted for a simple stamp instead of something more complex. Born Pretty Store sent me a Christmas stamper, and some stamping plates to try out that I am sharing with you today! I used Anonymous Lacquer Wrath as my base color. It is pretty funny and ironic to me I am using a polish named wrath for a Christmas design.

Born Pretty Store Flower Rhinestone Charms

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Born Pretty Store sent me some fun nail decorations and tools. Today I am sharing the first one, these flower rhinestone charms! They are a cute, and a really easy way to add a little something extra to otherwise plain nails. I started with Essie Sexy Divide, which I recently picked up from Ulta and KBShimmer Gull, Get Real! from the new Summer 2016 collection.

Born Pretty Store Stampers and Stamping Polish Review

Today I have two different stampers and stamping polish to share with you, all of which is from the Born Pretty Store. I got the dual double sided stamper, plastic black stamper with scraper, and stamping polish in color #18. Below is a design I stamped with the black stamper and OPI LAMB and Casino Royale.

Born Pretty Store Faux Marble Studs

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Hello! I hope you've had a good Monday. Mondays are rough, I don't know what it is about getting back to work after a weekend, but it can be challenging. To help counter a case of the Mondays, I have some nail studs from the Born Pretty Store to share with you today. 

These nail studs are sort of an imitation of marble print but are made of plastic and contain four different colors and three different shapes in each color. 

 

Born Pretty Store Starry Night Nail Wraps Review

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Happy Friday to you all! I hope you are excited for the weekend, I know I am! I have some pretty nail wraps from the Born Pretty Store to share with you today! These nail wraps are an imitation of the painting Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh which I have always loved. 

Born Pretty Store Review of Stamping Plate Qgirl-032

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Today I have a Born Pretty Store review to share with you! I received the Qgirl-032 stamping plate for review. It has a little bit of a tribal motif along with a dragon and geometric pattern. I chose to try out the geometric pattern here. I used a base color of Morgan Taylor Scene Queen and Sinful Colors Black on Black for stamping. 

 

Early Summer Leaf Gradient

Hello all! Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer, so I wanted to create a nail design that reflected the early summer months! I started with three China Glaze colors: Five Rules, Flip Flop Fantasy, and Grass is Lime Greener. I also used plate BP19 from the Born Pretty Store and Pure Ice Superstar. I decided to create a gradient with the China Glaze polishes and stamped over that with a leaf design in white. This was one of those looks that kind of evolved as I created it.

The Polished Bookworms: Nail Art Inspired by Maze Runner by James Dashner

Last month in The Polished Bookworms, we read Big Little Lies which I loved. Maze Runner was our book this month. The theme was a young adult book and at times, I had a difficult time even taking this book seriously. In the end I think it is an entertaining read, but I think I will skip the rest of the series. I thought it was an interesting concept, but it read more like a downgraded Hunger Games. For my nail design based on the book, I did a gradient of China Glaze Black Diamond and Foie Gras and stamped over it with Agro.  

Happy Birthday, Oregon!

Happy Valentine's Day to you all! For those of you who do not know, it is also Oregon's birthday! Today marks 156 years of Oregon's statehood. I love Oregon and I wanted to do my nails for her. Oregon's colors are navy blue and gold, and I took inspiration from our state motto "She Flies With Her Own Wings".

What I Wore to Las Vegas!

My husband and I recently took a short trip to Las Vegas! I knew I wanted to do something blingy and a bit showy for my nails, and this is what I came up with. I went with a black and gold theme to make it classy, but added a holo glitter to bling it up a notch!

Bamboo Nail Stamping

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I have a lovely bamboo stamping look to share with you today! I have to say, I have been wanting a bamboo stamp for ages and when I finally got one, I had that moment of excitement when I think of too many things to do and I just can't settle on anything. Finally I decided not to do green and go with a great bronze color! 

Zoya India Gold Leaves

I have beautiful Zoya India and some nail stamping to share with you! Zoya India is a darker red with shimmers and was released in their fall collection. I wasn't able to find many of the colors, but I found India, and she is lovely! I decided to add some gold stamping with Born Pretty Store BP-19 which has a beautiful leaf theme. I used Maybelline Bold Gold as my stamping polish.

New Years Eve Nail Art

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Happy New Years Eve! I didn't forget about Work Wear Wednesday, but I wanted to do something more fun. Therefore, Work Wear Wednesday will be back next week! Today, I have a fun and kind of random New Years Eve mani. I feel like I am never any good at NYE manis, but I thought I would try anyway. I always want to put too much glitter and shine, but end up with a mess. This year, I tried to keep it simple.

Born Pretty Store Plate 04 Review: Peacocks!

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I have a review of the Born Pretty Store stamping plate 04 to share with you today. This plate has peacocks on it! I think peacocks are so cool, I was really excited about this plate. When I lived abroad, I used to love going and reading in a courtyard that had white peacocks. They were the strangest but most elegant birds I had seen. I wanted to kind of do a little ode to them here with the background being blue and green, but the actual bird be in white.

Born Pretty Store Water Decal Review

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Today I have a sort of value added mani! Those were words I never thought I would string together. I upgraded the mani I posted yesterday and added some water decals! The Born Pretty Store also sent me some beautiful rose decals to review, so I have those to share with you today. These cost $2.86 a set and are pretty simple to use. I really like the addition of them to take any mani to the next level.

Born Pretty Store Stamping Plate 05 Review and Nail Art

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I hope you all had a wonderful, long weekend! I enjoyed Thanksgiving Dinner on three separate occasions this weekend, so I have much to be thankful for. Today, I am thankful for nail stamping! I have a fun and easy design using the Born Pretty Store Stamping Plate 05. I have been loving the fact that they are releasing new plates pretty regularly now. They are really affordable and come in a lot of different designs. This one in particular is called the Egypt Style plate and is only $1.99! Plus, you can get 10% off with my code: HANDX31.

Halloween Haze

Halloween is less than a week away! It seems like it came really fast. I am already thinking about the holidays. So, I decided to do some Halloween nail art! I wanted to stamp, but I realized I didn't have any Halloween stamping sets, so I worked with what I had here. I used Orly Goth, Pure Ice Superstar! and Silver Star, and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Heat Flash. I also used Born Pretty Store plate D14. I love that plate! If you want to purchase anything from the Born Pretty Store you can use my code: HANDX31 for 10% off!

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 17 Glitter

I have another late post to share today. Day 17 for the daily nail art challenge was glitter. I thought this one over so many times and I didn't want to just do a simple glitter polish. I've had Sally Hansen Mermaid's Tale for a long time and have only used it once, so I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to pull it out. I decided to do a matte finish on this gorgeous jelly and add a stamp (Born Pretty Store D14).

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 27 Inspired by Artwork

I love Alphonse Mucha. I have been a fan of his work since the first moment I saw it, and have been lucky enough to visit the Mucha Museum in Prague, Czech Republic. I knew that his work was what was going to be my inspiration for today's "Inspired by Artwork", but I kept lamenting over the fact I can't paint like Mucha. Finally I realized that inspired by doesn't mean reproduce or copy. Therefore I based my design on the tones and shapes I saw in two pieces of which I have small prints: Poetry, from the Four Arts (1898) and Lorenzaccio (1896). I started with a base of Color Club Mod in Manhattan, a favorite off white. Then I stamped with Born Pretty Store plate QA90, which I have had problems with in the past, but served it's purpose here. I used Maybelline Bold Gold for that stamp. Then I stamped another image from Born Pretty Store plate QA88 in Revlon Trendy. I think the tones and shapes mimic what I am seeing in these two pieces.

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 1 Red

I decided to participate in Chalkboard Nails' 31 day challenge, and I am already super late! So, I will be posting a series of challenge posts and hopefully catch up by tomorrow. For day one, the prompt was a color: Red. I love red nails, I know some aren't a fan of it, but I have always loved red nails. Red is a lucky color after all! I received this really unique and lovely color, Burning Embers from Northern Star Polish a while back for review (Summer Collection Review). I thought Burning Embers would make a great base for nail art for day one! I then added a stamped image from the Born Pretty Store Plate QA 88 which I also previously reviewed (Turquoise Stamping). Also, if you would like 10% off at the Born Pretty Store use code: HANDX31. I used Zoya Pepper for stamping and it worked surprisingly well.