#BusyGirlNails | Week 5–”Valentine’s Day Hearts and Dots”

These are a day late, but I swear I had these on my nails yesterday! This manicure didn’t come out quite as neatly as I had wanted them to, but creating hearts with a dotting tool can be hit or miss for me at times. I used only Avon Gel Finish 7 in 1 polishes for the entire manicure and they are now officially my new favourite polish obsession! I started with two coats of Barely There, which is a gorgeous creamy opaque nude, followed by hearts and dots in both Parfait Pink and Roses are Red.

I did not use a base or top coat as these polishes are supposed to incorporate both, but I did apply a top coat a full 24 hours afterwards and I STILL got smearing! I used the new Nicole by OPI – Quick Dry Top Coat which I have really been loving for its dry time and shine, but I just couldn’t believe that my manicure still smeared after a full day!

And that brings us to the end of the #BusyGirlNails challenge! I’m sure there will be more challenges to come, but thank you for reading these past 5 weeks! I hope you all have a lovely weekend and long weekend for those of you celebrating Family Day!

#BusyGirlNails | Week 4–”Blue is for Cookie”

I felt like going back to my trusty old paint brushes for this week’s #busygirlnails and decided to finally try my hand at some Cookie Monster nails! There are some incredibly amazing versions of this manicure out there, but since I’m not that great at drawing, I stuck with just the top half of Cookie Monster and some chocolate chip cookies.

For my ring finger, I started off with a base colour of OPI-My Boyfriend Scales Walls and used acrylic paint for Cookie Monster. For my other nails, I used a base colour of China Glaze-Kinetic Candy and Essie-Brooch the Subject and Julep-Olivia to create the chocolate chip cookies.

I also could not forget the sound Cookie Monster makes when he’s enjoying his “habit” so “NOM NOM” had to go on my thumb! Next week is already the last week of the #busygirlnails challenge and the theme is “Valentine’s Day” so let’s see what mushy pink and red design I come up with ;-)

#BusyGirlNails | Week 3–Glitter Half Moons

This week of #busygirlnails is GLITTER! Muahaha, where do I begin? I went back and forth over what to do – from a straight glitter bomb to some form of “art”. I was honestly torn, but eventually decided on doing some nude/glitter half moons. For my glitter I used two coats of the AMAZINGLY SPARKLY Formula X for Sephora – Freaky Like Freud followed by two coats of Butter London – Crumpet. Freakly Like Freud was quite gritty and I could have filed off the excess glittery bits that hung off the edge of my nail.

Stay tuned next week for “Blue” – my favourite colour!!!

#BusyGirlNails | Week 2–Black Satin with White Polka Dots

For this week of the #busygirlnails challenge, we need to incorporate the colour white into our manis so now that I am officially obsessed with satin finishes, I decided to use Sally Hansen – Silk Onyx which has a satin finish with Sally Hansen XTremewear – White On as both a contrasting colour and texture.

#BusyGirlNails | Week 1–Teal Satin Gradient

I know I’m cuttin’ it close, but I’ve been a little busy and that’s what this challenge acknowledges! I have been loving these new satin finishes lately so when I saw Sally Hansen-Teal Tulle from their Satin Glam Collection I knew that it was the perfect polish for this week! I sponged on another satin finish, OPI – Love.Angel.Music.Baby and added some gold studs from Born Pretty finishing this somewhat “beachy” look.

#BusyGirlNails | Week 5–Brown

I made it! The very last day of the week! For this last week of the #busygirlnails challenge, I started off with two coats of China Glaze-IX which is the richest, most gorgeous dark brown I have ever used! I then used some gold water nail decals from Born Pretty and then a blue vinyl nail diamond decal from Beyond the Nail which I am LOVING! I kind of went for a jewellery-inspired look and I cannot get enough of it!

I enjoyed every week of this mini challenge and of course seeing everyone’s designs! I guess now it’s time for those Christmas nail designs! Bring on the snowflakes, candy cane swirls and reindeer!

#BusyGirlNails | Week 4–Orange

I have only done water marbling one other time in my life and that was last year during the 31DNC and really didn’t see the need to do it again as it took so long and can be quite messy! Being that it is Halloween today, I must have been possessed by the water marbling demon as I woke KNOWING that this was my nail destiny for today! I started off my painting my nails two coats of Zoya-Arizona, followed by marbling with NOPI – Totally in the Dark and Zoya-Arizona. I added on some dots for good measure as I did not use enough colours to make this mani really stand out. I feel like I should have added one more colour, but I didn’t want to ruin the Halloween theme.

#BusyGirlNails | Week 3: Oxblood

This was by far one of the most complicated tape manicures I have ever attempted as demonstrated by my Instagram post last night! I was using tweezers to apply the striping tape and I almost gave up as it was getting late, but I was so determined to make it work! For this week’s BusyGirlNails mani, the theme is “Oxblood” so chose China Glaze – Velvet Bow, which ended up being too watery and ended up bleeding quite a fair bit…I will have to attempt this with a polish of thicker consistency. My intention was to make my nails look like leaves for Fall, so I hope I managed to get that visual across!

#BusyGirlNails | Week 2: Pink

It’s Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada so I didn’t have too much time to work on nails as there is a bird to be made! This week’s theme is pink which made me think of Barbie! I also have been wanting to do some puzzle lips nails so I decided to work it in to this super girly manicure. I don’t normally hold objects for my claw, but the thumb and ring finger don’t often want to go together!

#BusyGirlNails | Week 1: Antique Gold

Nothing like a challenge to get the blood pumping, right? Traci from drinkcitra invited me to join in the #BusyGirlNails challenge which is MUCH LESS intense than the traditional challenges we are used to seeing! This week’s theme is "Antique Gold” so I kept things simple and painted my nails two coats of OPI – Shim-Merry Chic, which is from the 2010 OPI Christmas collection. It’s a very interesting polish as there is both iridescent glitter and orange flakies all sitting in a shimmery brown base. It was probably quite fashion forward at the time this polish came out!