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Showing posts with label Sinful Colors. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sinful Colors. Show all posts

Friday, December 7, 2012

Winter Holiday Challenge: Gingerbread and Candy Canes

Onto the second day of Crumpet's Nail Tarts' Winter Holiday Challenge! And it's such a sweet one! But no matter how sweet, it turned into a disaster. Nothing came out as I expected and I ended up with plan F (fail)... :-p


Last night, I started alternating Snow Me White (Sinful Colors) and Velvet Bow (China Glaze) to get that candy cane-y red-and-white striped look. I went to bed, worked the whole day, and spent most of my evening in the kitchen, making different desserts I've been craving. And, while preparing these amazing meringues with candy cane, I accidentally gave myself a (real) chocolate french tip. Had I actually tried to achieve this look, it wouldn't have been as perfect!!


After cleaning up (both the kitchen, and myself), it was time to finalize this sugary mani. Since stamping worked so well for one of the last challenges, I thought it'd be quick and easy. Oh boy, was I wrong... Maybe it was the polish (I used the same as the above), maybe I wasn't getting the technique right, it just didn't happen for me. I used Bunny Nails Holiday edition plates HD08 and HD10. My candy canes didn't come out that neat, and my gingerbread man is missing a leg. Hubby must've eaten it! ;-)

Time to spice it up, 'cause nothing worked as I'd planned! Bring on the BLING! (yeah, I tend to go back to old challenges...). Pinky fingers received a coat of O Canada! (Julep). Middle fingers were topped with Love Always, Candy Cain (Pretty & Polished), fishing for some of the big glitters. Thumbs closed the bling-y portrait with Ring In The Red (China Glaze).

The glitters cheered me up a bit. Not enough to make me like the results, though...

Hopefully I'll be more satisfied with the next ones.

Can't wait to see the sweet concoctions everybody else came up with! :-D


xoxo

PRIS





Friday, November 30, 2012

Check your balls!

I know, I know, not all of us have balls. Even though my mom swears by mine, sometimes. :-p

This post is to end Movember. The men's health awareness month, when moustaches pop up in the least suspecting faces (including my husband's!) and become an interesting competition of who's the thickest, the fullest, with most body, etc.


Even though Movember focuses specifically on prostate cancer and mental health, my focus here is on testicular cancer. 


First, because it's the most common cancer in males between the age of 15 and 34. Volunteering at Planned Parenthood and working at a university, that's the age group I deal with on a daily basis, specially 18 to 25.

Second, because there's a self exam, equivalent to the strongly advertised self breast exam: touch your balls! Look for lumps, firm masses, nodules. Look for a doctor, if you're in doubt!

Third, because if found early, it's almost a 100% curable! This information came from DreamLoveCure, and you can find tons of websites by googling "touch your balls" or "testicular cancer". 

After a full month of an uneven and sparse pair of "Mo's" and beard ("cause if I'm growing something, I'll grow it all!" hubby said), he was finally about to get rid of it. It was time to celebrate!


And I needed my own Mo' for the photo shoot!


Base was Snow Me White (Sinful Colors) and mo's were Black Expressionism (Finger Paints). I used a dotting tool for the branded one, and a brush for my husband's.

So, are your checking your balls? Are your loved ones checking theirs? ;-)


xoxo

PRIS

Friday, November 2, 2012

"This Is Halloween" - Trick or Treat!

After a spooky and adventurous month of October, the "This is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge comes to an end. I'm proud of taking on this challenge and fulfilling it to (almost) completion! Got lots of praises for the crazy designs! :-)

I would like to thank Bec from Lacquer Dreams for coming up with the prompts and for keeping us all connected throughout the challenge. Well done!!

But wait, 'Trick or Treat!' is not the last day of the challenge! Yeah, I know. As noted before, I'm anal and will only publish on Tuesdays and Fridays. I'm already late enough with this prompt, it makes no sense posting Halloween stuff the second week of November. Plus, there's no better way of ending this challenge than with lots of sweets! ;-)

OK, enough babbling and onto the treats!


What a better way to start than with a blank canvas? Two coats of Pétala Branca (Colorama) prepped all my nails to the sugary work ahead! When I first started thinking about this challenge, two things came to mind: Candy Corn and Jawbreaker. But I didn't wanna do just that. I wanted to represent different Halloween candies, or even candies in general.

What do we give out when trick or treaters knock on our door? M&M's!! A dotting tool placed Orange (028 - Milano), Red (Sample Sale - Sephora by O.P.I.), Brown (Café - Colorama), Green (High Line Green - New York Color), Yellow (Lexington Yellow - NYC), and Blue (Water Street Blue - NYC) chocolate coated candies on my nail, and Snow Me White (Sinful Colors) branded them with their famous m! :-)

Taking it a step further, my all-time favourite M&M's are the Premium Mint Thrills. But they are quite hard to find, so I make do with the regular Mint ones, which are a bit easier to get my hands on, although they seem to be a limited edition. High Line Green (NYC) was once again used for the darker green, then mixed with Mint Dream (Pure Ice) for the lighter shade of green. Miss Minty (Gosh) mixed with Mint Dream (Pure Ice) achieved the minty candy coating.

One of Patty's favourite candies are Skittles, which used the same Orange, Red, Green, and Yellow polishes, plus a mix of Açaí and Eterno (both from Colorama) for the Purple candy. These were also branded with Snow Me White (Sinful Colors).






Another favourite candy of ours (both little sis', my mom's, and mine) is gum drops! For the white candy, I used Geada (Colorama) and mixed this polish with all other colours before dotting them to the nails. Purple candies were I Don't Bite (Sephora by O.P.I.) and the same Orange, Red, Yellow, and Green polishes were used. A coat of Morgan Le Fay (a england) was used over all gumdrops, giving that shimmery and sugary look.

Two coats of Jawbreaker (Pretty & Polished) conferred the perfect jawbreaker look on the thumb.

Sponging the Candy Corn was a nightmare!! I got the technique right on Patty, but after 4 failed attempts, I gave up and just free-handed a striped candy-corn-inspired nail. Polishes were the same Yellow and Orange as used before, and same White as the base colour.

As noted by the Mint M&M's, I LOVE anything minty! Therefore, my candy manicure couldn't miss starlight mints! I drew both red stripped and green stripped mints, using the same Red as before, and the same mixture of Green and Mint, with a higher percentage of mint this time around. Striped were made with a striping brush.

The Gummy Bear was inspired by those giant colourful ones, rather than the small one-coloured candies. I followed I Have a Cupcake's tutorial, using the same Orange, Red, Green, and Yellow polishes as before. We didn't have Gummy Bears growing up, so both my sister and I are making up for the lost time as adults! ;-)





Hubby couldn't be left out of this, could he? Although he's not a candy fan, one of his favourite candy bars are (frozen) Twix. He did ask me to draw a bitten Twix, showing the layers of chocolate, cookie, and caramel, but I didn't have a cookie or a caramel colour (see? I need more polish!! :-p). I recently received my old version of Holy Grail (a england) and the candy bar wrapping was the perfect opportunity to wear it! The chocolate itself was a bottom layer of Café (Colorama) as used before for the M&M's, topped by a layer of Cop an Attitude (Finger Paints), a magnetic polish. The magnet gave the wavy effect of the top of the candy bar. I was happy with the results!

This was probably the challenge I had the most fun with. Not only when doing the nails, but when taking the pictures, and eating the props!!


Thanks for joining me in this adventure! There might be another one soon, you never know! ;-)


xoxo

PRIS




PS: I know this is incredibly late, but I'm backdating the post to follow the original date it should've been posted. Remember, I'm anal! :-p







Friday, October 19, 2012

"This Is Halloween" - Bats

The theme now is Bats, for the "This Is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge!

I didn't really think I could pull that off, so when I saw Halloween nail stickers at Dollarama, I picked up the package with the most little bats.

Then, ashamed of taking the easy way out, I started looking for tutorials online, and came across two good ones on youtube: Cute Bats from Dying 4 Chocolate and Spooky Bat Nails from Cute Polish.


Because it's Halloween, and I had just bought a new orange shade (and somewhat inspired by Cute Polish's design), the base colour was Gorgeous Bling Bling (Essence). One coat might've done it, but I ended up using two. For the bats, my usual suspects: Black Expressionism (Finger Paints) and Snow Me White (Sinful Colors). No nail art pen this time around, just dotting tools of mani different sizes.


I loved the cute little bats!! And I thought they were fairly easy to make, specially the Dying 4 Chocolate ones.

Are there gonna be more bats or batmans for this challenge? ;-)


xoxo

PRIS





Tuesday, October 16, 2012

"This Is Halloween" - Zombies

Onto the third week of the "This is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge, I wasn't that excited. Zombies are not my thing, and my mind was blank...

...suddenly, I had that lightbulb moment: Zombie Farm!! Hubby plays that on his iPhone, and I started looking for pictures to see if they were doable. Guess what? They were!!


Green was the base colour for my zombies. Not being a big fan of green, I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try all my light greens!

Right hand was from an Italian brand, Milano, that my grandma bought for me in Paris, earlier this year. It seems to be a drugstore brand, and it has no name, only a number: 067. Application was easy, no problem with clean up, and it was a one-coater!! Looks like a good stamping polish. I can envision some interesting Christmas designs! :-)


For the left hand, I used High Line Green (New York Colour) and on the non-zombie nails I topped it off with Ivy League (Sally Hansen), which I had already used for the St. Paddy's mani. 

Totally Cool Nails's Zombie Tutorial taught me how to draw the zombies. I followed the same technique for the Zombie Farm zombie on my thumb. Hubby didn't recognize it at first, but he was all proud when I showed the picture that inspired me... ;-)


Black details were either with Black Expressionism (Finger Paints) or Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in Black. If you ever use the pen, careful with your skin. It stains and there's no polish remover that will get rid of it. It only goes away after a shower...  Roguish Red (China Glaze), Snow Me White (Sinful Colors), and Amarelo Pop Art (Colorama) were also used for the red, white, and yellow details.

As ugly as Zombies can be, it turned out to be a very cute design! :-)

What will we come up with next??


xoxo

PRIS



Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Double Post: "This Is Halloween" - Ghosts & Polish Days: Sentimental

Going into the third day of Bec's "This Is Halloween" Nail Art Challenge, combining it with #SentimentalPolish edition of #PolishDays.

(OK, I know I'm cheating... I just couldn't miss tagging along with Polish Days when I had so many sentimental allusions on my nails!!)


I've been doing my nails (or having them done) on and off since I was 10. I started doing them myself since hubby and I moved to Canada, 3 years ago. Along the years, I always wore sheer polishes, either pink or white, with a few pearl finishes here and there. A little over a year ago, when I last went to Brazil to visit family, I brought some bold and colourful Brazilian shades. And I was hooked! My collection has grown a lot ever since, and my favourite colour is blue, because of Jeans (Colorama), the one that started it all.

All that babbling was to say that nothing more 'Sentimental' than using blue as the background! It was the perfect opportunity to try Tristam (a england), and see its gorgeous holographic, colourful sparkle under the sun. No pictures of that, though...

Going back to the 'Ghosts' theme, a glow-in-the-dark polish was a must. And this was the look I was going for, at first.


For a strong glow effect, Snow Me White (Sinful Colors) was used as the base. This is an amazing white polish for nail art, by the way. Black details were done with Black Expressionism (Finger Paints).  And the Ghoulish Glow (China Glaze) made it all spooky! To spook you all even more, I wrote 'boo' in both English and Portuguese (can we get sentimental again?).


Little sis, Patty, found Emerald Sparkled design of Boo and begged me to do it. This shy ghost from Super Mario was part of our childhood (anyone sensing sentimental once more?), and we still find these ghosts super cute! 


It was only after I had painted my nails with Tristam that I realized I had copied the inspiration to a 'T'. Deniz, if you ever read this, I promise I'm not plagiarizing you! Plus, I think your design is cuter than mine!

Same polishes were used for the Boos, with the addition of Shar Pei (Risqué - Risqué ♥ Dogs) and Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in Black (which I was not impressed with, by the way).

These little guys looked SUPER cute in the dark!!!

I had so much fun with the ghosts this long weekend!! Everybody was pitching in, giving their feedback, and helping with the pictures. Specially with the 'in the dark' ones. They were a combined effort (and challenge): hubby got the tripod, we turned all the lights off, and Patty was turning the lamp on and off following the photographers instructions. So happy everybody plays along with my craziness! ;-)
One last picture to wrap it up!


I'm already thinking about the next theme for the 'This Is Halloween' Nail Art Challenge. And pretty excited to see what Hannah (the lady behind Polly Polish) is coming up with for the next Polish Days!


xoxo

PRIS





Tuesday, October 2, 2012

"This Is Halloween" - Horror Movies

First day of the This Is Halloween Nail Art Challenge created by Bec from Lacquer Dreams!!

I'm not a big fan of Horror Movies (an euphemism to saying I HATE them!), so there's no movie I actually like. However, Jason was the horror movie icon when I was a kid, and making a Friday the 13 themed nail made sense (hubby's suggestion, I must add).


After getting little sis' input in the design, and hubby's opinion about the first (failed) finished product, I finally reached a result I liked. As much as I can like a Jason mask and lots of blood splatter... :-p

Colours used were Black Expressionism (Finger Paints), Snow Me White (Sinful Colors), and Big Apple Red Creme (New York Color). Dotting tools of all sizes and a toothpick (for the splatter) were my best friends!


I'm happy I managed to do it! Even happier because this was the one I was not really thrilled about, and it turned out fine. Really excited about what's yet to come!



xoxo

PRIS




**UPDATE**