Born Pretty Store Review - Water Decals

Hello everyone! Today I have one more product from the Born Pretty Store to review for you guys! I was given the chance to pick two items and the second one I chose was some water decals to incorporate in my nail art. The package I chose is currently not available on the website, but here is a link to the section where the rest of their water decals and water tattoos are.

This is the first of three manicures that I put together to show off these water decals and I chose to start out with a nautical theme! These are really easy to use, you simply cut out the decal, submerge it in warm water for 10 seconds, then press it onto your nail. I had no problems with these smudging and I had less than perfect application skills.

The blue colour I used is OPI Eurso Euro, the white and red accent nail used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where?

These come off very easily with nail polish remover and are in my opinion a great addition to anyone's collection as they are really quick and easy nail art.

There were some cute star decals on the sheets that I received so I threw together this manicure for you guys to see how well these transfer. Look at the detail on the stars on my middle finger, I was amazed that all those little dots make it onto my nails!

I couldn't resist doing a princess themed manicure with the crowns and bows that were on this sheet of decals. The light pink is OPI Mod About You.

I was in love with this manicure and I kept it on for quite a few days!

I am really pleased with this product from Born Pretty Store and I think that I will be ordering some more of their nail decals as they make nail art so easy to do. The trickiest part of using these is placing them straight on your nails, I had some troubles with this in my nautical manicure but I think I mostly had it figured out by the end.  These are another product that I wholeheartedly recommend, even for nail art beginners.

As always, Cutie-cles readers can save 10% on your Born Pretty Store purchase just by using the code BQL91 which you can find permanently on the sidebar on the right side of this page. This code can be used on all your orders, it's not just a one-time thing! 

Could you see yourself purchasing these nail decals? If you have any questions about the application process let me know and I'll answer you in the comments!

Portions for Foxes

Hi guys! I hope you've had a great long weekend if you're in a country that celebrates Victoria Day. My boyfriend Daniel came home from his job up in the oil sands which was very nice! Some of you may notice that I'm debuting a new look on my nails today, I broke one of them and decided to file them into rounded tips instead of filing them all down. I'm still getting used to them, let me know what you think in the comments! Today I have a super cute fox design that I adapted from this super cute manicure.

The colours I used were both from the OPI The Amazing Spider-man collection from last year - Call Me Gwen-ever and My Boyfriend Scales Walls. The black polish I used is Quo by ORLY Little Black Dress.

I love these! They're so cute and they were way easier to do than I anticipated. I sure am enjoying having all this time to work on my nail art...but that might change soon - I start work tomorrow! It's pretty tough to find a job that's willing to take me for just 3 months before I head back to university, so I'm going back to my job at American Eagle that I've held on and off since May 2011. Wish me luck tomorrow getting back into the swing of things!

Paintings Nail Art Series - "A Time for Celebration"

Hello everyone, welcome to the second day of this mini nail art series! Today's look is from the same artist as the last one, I am in love with this Etsy shop. Once again, the actual painting that inspired me was sold so I have chosen one that is quite similar to link you to here.

This was so much fun to do, and I love all the colours together, though I don't think I can name them all for you guys. The only thing I wish I would have done differently is finish it off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Thanks for reading guys! I hope finals are going well for you too if any of you happen to be in the same boat as me!

CrowsToes Cheshire Jelly Sandwich

Good morning, everyone! I showed you CrowsToes Cheshire a little while ago and I knew that I wanted to turn it into a jelly sandwich immediately. I love the look of laying a jelly polish over a glitter because it makes the glitter look like it's trapped under a layer of ice or something and it really softens that look.

For this look, I first put down two coats of my favourite white polish, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. Next, I layered on one coat of CrowsToes Cheshire. To finish off the jelly sandwich effect, I used two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu!

Here's a close up shot of this manicure for you. My only wish is that I had more of the gold glitter on my finger nails. What are your favourite polishes to do jelly sandwiches with?

Black, White, and Pink

Hi guys! Today I have some bold black and white nail art with pink accent nails. I really love combining a bright colour with black and white, it's the simplest type of colour-blocking and it all goes well together.

Unfortunately, upon application of topcoat I had some minor smearing. The colours I used were OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Quo by ORLY Little Black Dress, and OPI If You Moust You Moust.

What do you think of this look? What's the next colour I should combine with black and white? I was thinking a sage green maybe..or a baby blue.

Super Bowl XLVII Manicure

Hi everyone! I bet many of you are really excited about the Super Bowl tonight! As a Canadian, I follow the CFL and am a pretty big fan of the Calgary Stampeders, so I can't say I'm too concerned about tonight's event. Llarowe decided to host a Super Bowl themed manicure contest to celebrate the big game, and while I can't say I know anything about the two teams facing off tonight, I worked my butt off to create two manicures to submit to her contest! I think she'll judge them either tonight or tomorrow - fingers crossed!

So here is my first of two manicures for the Ravens! Part of Llarowe's rules were that we could ONLY use team colours, making this extra hard. My original idea was to draw a football field and have a bunch of ravens (the birds) in Ravens jerseys, but that didn't work out.

The colours I used were OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Funky Dunkey, Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich, and Quo by ORLY Little Black Dress.

The ring finger here is supposed to be the eyes in the old logo, as seen in this picture. This manicure was my favourite of the two I did and for that reason I'm saying Go Ravens tonight!

Leah Ann was sweet enough to let us each have two entries, one for each team! I knew I had to take advantage of that offer so I called in the help of my boyfriend Dan for a 49ers manicure. This one was SO HARD TO DO because Leah Ann listed only Red, Gold, and White as the team's colours. It is so difficult to not use black! The colours I ended up using were OPI Thrill of Brazil, Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich, and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

So my index finger is a candlestick, get it? Candlestick Park? My boyfriend came up with that one, I never would have known that. My favourite nail is the one with the helmet - so cute! Not sure how I feel about my attempts at the logo, I'm surprised at how much harder a text based logo is to translate to nail art than a picture logo.

A close up of my sweet little football helmet! I'll definitely take note of this for the CFL season so I can rep my Stamps!

Is anyone doing something fun for the Super Bowl tonight? Do any of you have NFL-themed manicures to celebrate?

Wish me luck in this contest! ;)

EDIT: No prizes for me :( Dang, I already had plans for my new Girly Bits & CrowsToes polishes! :P

Jelly Sandwich with OPI Polka.com

Hi guys! I hope you've been doing well. I've had a hectic week full of ups and downs. Today I have a post that I meant to put up a while ago, I guess I must have forgot about it, but it's a good one so I'm excited to be able to share it with you today! I previously swatched the OPI Euro Centrale collection for you, and now I'm showing you another way to wear the beautiful glitter of the collection - OPI Polka.com.

Yuuuum! Isn't this awesome? I love how the colours of the glitter are still vibrant, just a little muted by the jelly sandwich effect. I used my previous combination of OPI Polka.com over top of OPI My Vampire is Buff, and then to jellify this manicure I added one coat of my favourite sheer white polish - OPI Don't Touch My Tutu!

I am more and more obsessed with jelly sandwiches as they days go on. They are so easy to make and they have such a cool effect. I love knowing that there are at least two awesome ways to wear every glitter polish.

Would you make a jelly sandwich with OPI Polka.com? What are some other layering combinations you would use it for?

Ikat Nail Art ft. OPI Euro Centrale

Hey everyone! One of my favourite nail art bloggerts, Kayla Shevonne, posted an awesome tutorial last week about how to create the Ikat print in a manicure and I couldn't wait to try it out. I know you like seeing colours from new collections incorporated into nail art, so I took three of the Euro Centrale colours and came up with this pattern.

The colours I used for this eye-catching manicure were OPI My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours, OPI My Vampire's Buff, OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, and Quo by ORLY Little Black Dress. I used a very thin nail art brush, I think next time I will use a real striping brush though because this made my design turn out a little rougher than I would have liked.

This is a really simple way to incorporate a few colours into nail art, but Kayla Shevonne's tutorial makes it perfectly easy to understand how to try it out. I really recommend you all check it out if you're interested.

What do you think of the ikat print? I have an ikat scarf that I really like, I should find an excuse to wear it this week.

Don't forget that I have a giveaway going on where you can enter to win one Liquid Sand polish from the Mariah Carey collection and one polish from the Euro Centrale collection. This would be a great way to try out the liquid sand texture without having to invest your own money, though honestly, I think those polishes are so worth it!

Royal Copenhagen Nails

Hi everyone! How is everyone doing after the Christmas rush? I'm getting some quality time in with my family, since my boyfriend Dan is in Colombia and we won't even see each other before I leave back to school for the semester. The other day, Dan and I were at my sister's house whose husband is Danish and we got to talking about Royal Copenhagen. I decided to incorporate some of the designs on their Blue Fluted Mega series into my nail art!

The colours I used were OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls as a base, and OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui. To be accurate I would've used a darker colour of blue, but I didn't really feel like it.

I really like the unconventional lines and angles that these plates have and I think they look fabulous on my nails!

I wore this manicure for quite a few days because it is simply so awesome! To check out these awesome (and way out of my price range) plates you can visit the Royal Copenhagen webshop right here!

Thanks so much for reading everyone!

Starbucks Christmas Cup Nails

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you're all having a lovely day, whether you celebrate Christmas or any other holiday. I was inspired to do this manicure by the annual Starbucks red cups that they start using around Christmas time. This year's feature a bird and a snowman, and I finished the look off with snowflakes.

The background colour of this manicure is OPI The Thrill of Brazil, then the white parts are OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, the darker red is OPI Skyfall, the ornament and hat are OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! Ok Fine!, and the gold is Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich.

I'm really excited about these nails, they're my favourite Christmas nails I've done this year! I won't keep you reading long because I'm off to spend some time with my family!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Pretty Pink Gradient

Hi everyone! Sorry for the absence for a little bit, I feel like I say this every post, but I'm so busy all the time. Man I wish it were summer again, I guess that's one of the huge perks of being a student. Today I have a really pretty gradient to show you all that I did about a week ago using three OPI colours.

This reminds me of fairy princesses or something, it's so sweet and girly. I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and OPI Mod About You, as well as OPI Pirouette my Whistle layered over top.

What do you guys think of this look? Too girly for you? I think I'll be using Pirouette my Whistle a lot more this holiday season, it reminds me of snow falling!

This was a nice change after all the Halloween manicures I was wearing. 

Opinions on this look? Too girly for you? What about some other colours - maybe blue to white?

OPI Germany and Holland Tape Mani

Hi everyone! Happy Monday! Today I have some pretty nail art for you that I did for the second day of school last week, of course for the very first day I was rocking CrowsToes Gomez. I used my new striping tape to create this look which was really simple. I went with some nice colours that aren't traditionally associated with fall, but I love it and I hope you do too!

I used two colours from the OPI Germany Collection: My Very First Knockwurst and Berlin There Done That, as well as a colour from OPI's spring Holland collection: I Don't Give a Rotterdam. The white that separates the colours is OPI's My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

This was really simple to do and I'm in love with how it turned out.

Thanks so much for reading, I hope you are having a great day!

Day 29 - Inspired by the Supernatural

Today's theme was without a doubt the one that I struggled most with throughout the challenge, I had a really difficult time coming up with something supernatural. I finally decided on something that I haven't played in a while, but definitely haven't forgotten - SkiFree. That's right, my supernatural being is the 8-bit Abominable Snow Monster from SkiFree.

To create this look I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where?, OPI Green-wich Village, OPI Jade is the New Black, OPI No Spain No Gain, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, China Glaze Sunset Sail, China Glaze Pelican Grey, China Glaze Liquid Leather, and Barry M Cobalt Blue.

I like these! They are supposed to be a little messy, I mean, the game wasn't the best quality.

source

I shouldn't have stressed so much about Day 29, it wasn't that difficult after all. Check out what the other ladies did to celebrate the supernatural!

Day 26 - Inspired by a Pattern

Happy Sunday everyone! For today's post I spent quite a bit of time on google searching for different patterns, I have limited stamping materials so I knew I had to do freehand, but I was having a hard time finding something simple enough to execute well. I finally found a pattern on this website.

The colours I used were OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Mod About You, China Glaze For Audrey, China Glaze Pelican Gray, and China Glaze Liquid Leather.

This mani was really fun and it wasn't difficult at all, all you need is a fine nail art brush and some patience.

Let's have a look at the patterns that inspired everyone else today!

Day 17 - Glitter

Hi everyone! Sorry about the late post today, I wasn't sure what to do for today. I don't own that much glitter, I really prefer cremes to do nail art with. I decided to try my hand at a fun jelly sandwich!

To get this look I used a base of one coat of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, followed by two coats of Claire's Bedazzled, and topped off with two coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu.

I love how squishy and fun this looks. It reminds me of sprinkles mixed into a delicious vanilla icing. I asked my boyfriend if he liked it and he eloquently replied that it looked like "clown jizz." WOW, thanks Daniel, how inappropriate, hahaha. He later tried to convince me it was pretty but I think he feels otherwise.

Let's have a look at the glitterbomb manis that everyone else came up with for today!

Day 15 - Delicate Print

Hi everyone! I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to get a post up today, I spent all night throwing up and had to call in sick for work today. Between hanging out eating soup, and watching shows on TLC all day, I found time to do my nails. I hope this isn't too close to yesterday's floral design, but this was one of the only delicate prints I could find around my house, I mean, what does "delicate print" really even mean?

I did a pattern that I found on one of my mom's teacups! For this design I used a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, then for the details I used a dotting tool and a tiny striping brush and OPI No Spain No Gain, OPI Call Me Gwen-ever, OPI Don't Talk Bach to Me, China Glaze Pelican Gray, Zoya Wednesday, Barry M Cobalt Blue, and Quo by ORLY Filthy Rich to imitate the rim of the teacup.

Do you think this fits the theme of "delicate print?"

Here's a silly photo that my mom almost killed me when she saw me taking it, not to worry though, I had that cup balanced perfectly.

Oh man, look at what's coming up, this challenge definitely isn't getting any easier! Hopefully once I'm over this little bout of sickness I'll be a little more excited to move on with the designs. I hope you can check out what everyone else came up with for today's difficult theme!