NAILS | Monarch Butterfly Nail Art #CBBxManiMonday

Purchased by me

As of right now, 11:45pm on Monday night, I am on vacation to celebrate my birthday! I had a CRAZY Monday for work, but I knew I would so I had prepared myself as best as possible to be completely run off my feet - which I was! I always at least FEEL more put together when I have my ManiMonday done so I decided to take an early Sunday night and start painting around 9pm so that I would have some time to edit the photos for Instagram.  

MAKEUP LOOK | ARTDECO Mystical Forest Collection Review & Swatches

Even though it’s December, it’s technically still Fall according to the calendar so I cannot resist squeezing in one more Fall-inspired look! How I wish ARTDECO was in more Shoppers Drug Marts in my area so that I didn’t have to wait one whole year since posting my last ARTDECO look! My last review was for a summer look with the Miami Collection (here) so the Fall Mystical Forest Collection is going to look quite different! We’re doing more smoky eyes today, but with some Fall wine shades thrown in to give the look a bit more dimension. The full collection features earthy nudes, warm beiges, smoky greys and of course the characteristic dark berry shades of Fall all inspired by a misty autumn day in the woods.

Press samples

Candy Cane Swirls

There are some nail art tutorials that you HAVE TO TRY right away when you see them and cutepolish’s Peppermint Swirl tutorial was one of them! I changed the design a little bit, but the technique is the same. I started off with two coats of OPI – My Boyfriend Scales Walls, followed by one coat of China Glaze-Fairy Dust. I then used my red Art Deco striper to draw the pinwheels and dotted the centers with more white polish. For the green bits, I used forest green acrylic paint as I could not find the right green amongst my many many polishes. I finished with a new top coat I’m trying by Witchcraft and ta-da!

Wavy Wedding Glitter Tuxedos (ala Beetlejuice?)

I’m off to a wedding this evening and I will be wearing a black and white peplum dress so I thought tuxedo nails would be a fun way to spice things up! I call them wavy because you can see they look kind of warped…all the lines are wavy, but the thing is they were wavy right up until I decided to “cure” my Julep top coat with an LED light. All I can say is, DON’T DO IT! Within a minute, all of my straight lines curved, my little buttons moved and I was not too happy. It was too late to redo them, so I thought you all might enjoy the results of using an LED light on Julep’s Freedom Polymer Top Coat!

I started off with two coats of a white base in China Glaze-Snow and then drew the tuxedo Vs and bows with a black striper polish from Art Deco and then dotted on the buttons. Since I’m going to a wedding, I decided to spice up the tuxedos by applying a purple, blue and silver glitter by The Hungry Asian called Celebrate! Appropriate right?