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31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 31 + SURPRISE!

You’ve noticed something different, haven’t you? Was it the purple? Was it the shiny new banner? Was it the missing .wordpress in the address bar? Well – if you said yes to any of those, you’re right! And if you didn’t, then you need to click HERE.

At the beginning of February, Husband launched a new business – captaincloud.co – this business is (at the moment) focused on New Zealand businesses and bloggers, who are after affordable, reliable ‘cloud’ solutions – but I’m going to do a little promotion work later on.

In anycase, we’ve spent the day moving my old content over to here, and setting up the new site – unfortunately it doesn’t bring over my old stats or subscribers, but that’s okay – I’ll keep the 2,635 page views I’d tallied up over the last 3 months in my pocket and save them for later.

The real purpose of this post though, is to celebrate the final day of the 31 Day Nail Challenge, with the theme RECREATE YOUR FAVOURITE. I had so many favourites, especially in the last few days, but I have to admit that Day 8 – Metallic was one of my definite winners. I loved the different, slightly industrial look of this design, and the micro-beads ALWAYS get a little extra attention.

For this recreation I had a look at my micro-bead colours, and found a delicious fuscia – and then remembered I have a slightly metallic-ally looking pink, Kleancolor’s Wild Rose.

 

 

I seriously dig this colour – and believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve worn it as a whole Mani!

I’m so ready for this challenge to be over, that I’ve already nubbinized and treated my poor nails to some TLC …

 

So be prepared for some shorties for the next little while.

Thanks for hanging in there crew – You mean a lot!

❤

Something Exciting has Happened!

To all my Beautiful Readers and Subscribers,

Something exciting has happened …

I’ve moved my little blog over to it’s own domain name. I’m super excited because this is giving me the opportunity to have more control over my Blog, and what goes in/out of it. I would really love it if you would continue following me and my ramblings over to:

www.beyondthebasecoat.com

Because of the move, I will have lost my subscribers, so if you subscribe via email or your blogroll, please come over and hook up with me again!

❤ Sahra

p.s. Day 31 of the Challenge will be posted up there tonight – and here, just in case you miss the memo!

31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 30

Its the second to last day of the challenge, and today is INSPIRED BY A TUTORIAL. There are so many tutorials by amazing nail artists that I could have taken inspiration from, but I’ve chosen to take one from one of my favourite established Bloggers – Emily from The Lacquerologist.

You can find Emily’s tutorial for “Funky Bohemian Floral Print” right here. I deviated slightly with colour scheme, and used different tools, like a toothpick and black polish for the stems rather than a striping polish and a black ink pen for the leaves.

Before I show you my design, I have to apologise for the photo quality. I did these nails late last night and couldn’t use my light box, and I had to take pictures before I chipped my nails at work, so I’ve only managed to get them in direct and indirect sunlight with no filter -_- … here goes!

For this design I used Sally Hansen Without a Stitch for the base, then in order of the bullseye flower I used Jordana Raspberry, Purple Punch and Mardi Gras. I used Kleancolor Black for the stems and black “petals” and for the leaves I used a fine tip black ink pen. The orange dots were done in Cairuo 24.

I think mine look a little overcrowded, but overall I’m pretty happy with them!

Tomorrow is the last day for the challenge, and the theme is Recreate your Favourite … but I want to know, what was your favourite from this challenge?

♥

31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 29

And we are winding down so quickly!  Let me be completely honest with you – I have really enjoyed this challenge,  but I am soooooo ready to enjoy the design on my nails for more than a few hours.

Like today’s INSPIRED BY THE SUPERNATURAL nails. I’ve actually managed to get 2 days wear out of these, cause I did them early … sneaky aye!

My favourite verse from the Bible is from Psalm 91:11 –  “He shall give His angels charge of you to keep you in all your ways.” It was with this verse in mind that I created today’s look, with the help of this tutorial, for the wings. This nail artist is amazing, by the way, and it makes me feel a little inferior looking back at the video now and what is on my nails.

I used 2 coats of Cairuo 16 and then one coat of Jordana Lemon Tropic, which is a sheer shimmery blue. Using a paint brush and Miki #17 I made the shape of the wings. The inside feathers of the wings were done in Jordana White. The nails with the wings got a fine coat of Jordana Silver Glitter, and some small individual glitters on the tips of each wing.

All the other nails got a glitter gradient with Jordana Silver Glitter, and Jordana Silver Jewel ( I think… it was left on the table and I think le kitty stole it :-/).

I’m actually stoaked with how these came out, and I’m totally going to try this again sometime once I have proper brushes …. my crappy little $2 shop ones are just not cutting it anymore!

♥

31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 28

INSPIRED BY A FLAG… I could have done any flag. Any flag would have been fine;  but what kind of New Zealander would I be if I didn’t do my own flag?

I’m proud to be a New Zealander. I feel so privileged to live in a country where, compared to others, crime is low and the living standard is high.  I love that I grew up near the ocean, and that since NZ is still a relatively young country,  we all are an integral part of its making and its future history. I appreciate the fact that I’ve lived in both city and country and experienced both styles of living,  and that I can proudly say “once a Westie, always a Westie” – even though I don’t remember living in West Auckland. I love Pineapple Lumps, L&P, sandy fish and chips on the beach, and Marmite.

When I was little I used to get confused between the New Zealand and Australian flags – both have the Union Jack in the corner and both have stars. I don’t even know what it was that triggered my recognition – I think the fact that our stars are red fixed it for me.

For this design I started with  2 coats of Jordana Blue Flash over my base coat. This is a colour I’ve only used once before – it really is a stunning shade of blue, with teeny silver glitter and some bar glitter too.

Then  on my thumb using my very thick, mostly past it LA Colors Art deco striper in White, I made two wide stripes vertically and horizontally,  and then four little smaller lines. I went inside the lines with Cairuo 03, using a toothpick cause I’m yet to get fine brushes or a red striper.

With that done I got on to the tricky part. The stars. I can’t do stars at the best of times. Yikes. Using Jordana White on a toothpick again I created the outlinen of a single star on each nail, and filled it in. Then I got my red again (Cairuo 03) and filled in the middle of the stars, leaving some white space visible.

Only problem with this design is awkward hand positioning for photos -_-

And with that,  God Defend our Free Land.

♥

31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 27

This was by far the hardest of the challenges so far. INSPIRED BY ART is a broad spectrum theme, and then poses the question – What is Art? Shall we get philosophical for a moment? Isn’t Nail Art, art? Aren’t album and book covers art? What about photographs, background images?

I wanted to replicate a precious painting my Gran did for my 21st birthday, but after three tries, I just couldn’t do it justice. Perhaps when I’m a little more skilled with a paintbrush… or nail art brush.

Instead, I went and searched online for art, and then melted crayon art (cause I LOVE that look!) and then finally rainbow art, when I came across the picture below from Blue Clementine Art.

I started with Jordana White for my canvas, then outlined and filled in the shape of the head on my pointer finger  and rainbow bubble right across pointer to pinky with a superfine black ink pen. This was difficult – I’m not the best with drawing at the best of times, let alone on a tiny nail. I’m not convinced I got it >_<

In colour order, using lots of Cairuo (03, 24,15), LA Colors Lime, Jordana Boy of Boy and finally Cairuo 13,  I then used a paintbrush that I tried trimming down tiny, and created the small thin lines for the rainbow. Finally, I stippled the black pen alone to outline the colours.

Thumb got stripy dripping paint…

And right hand (poor little right hand has been neglected recently) got a skittle…

I’m pretty happy with how it came out, but what do you think?

Also, my friend Jessie from Nailed it NZ is having another giveaway! She’s giving away credit to Born Pretty Store – Woohoo!! If you haven’t been to her blog, nows a good time. She’s insanely talented, and totally deserves your page views ans subscriptions!

Later my babes!
♥

31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 26

Only 5 days to go, can you believe it? Yeah, I should have been done by now, but with camp and injuring my hand we’re a few days behind… but you still love me, right?

Anyway, onto today’s post,  which is a shortie. The theme is INSPIRED BY A PATTERN,  and I chose argyle-ish plaid kinda patrern, because it’s one I’ve never been able to master until today, thanks to this video.

I wasn’t keen for pinks today, so I went with a turquoise and blue schema. I used one coat of CR color 98, which is a really rich greeny turquoise creme, and used two LA Colors Art Deco stripers – first Sky Blue and then Quirky Turquoise.

Woo! Really happy with how these came out… I don’t want to take them off!

♥

31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 25

Today’s theme got me stuck for a moment or three. I’m not the most aware of fashion trends, and my own wardrobe leaves a lot to be desired at this point in time. So what does one do when they need to present nails INSPIRED BY FASHION? They jump on Google Images.

I bought a new Cairuo polish the other day (actually, 3 new ones) in the most grape-purple (#13) I’ve ever owned, so I really wanted to use it… I searched Purple Fashion, and came up with this gorgeous dress:

Here is my tale of the frustration that comes with using tape to create a design. I knew I wanted to use Jordana Lavender Fields as the purple contrast to the Cairuo polish, and I knew I wanted to try using tape to create the pattern. After painstakingly cutting my tape (actually, my friend Ashlee did that) to size, and laying the tape in the right pattern on each dry nail, I painted a coat of Lavender Fields over and then pulled the tape straight away, since that’s how I read you get clean lines.

It only worked on one finger. Just one. I don’t know why. With all the other nails the polish pulled, and I very nearly threw a temper tantrum, until I realised I had 2 purple stripers I could use on the other nails. So, using 4 purple shades all up, here is today’s design:

The stripers were Purple Impression on the pointer finger and Artsy Purple on the others, both from Jordana Pop Art.

I’m definitely going to try the tape idea again, maybe once the challenge has finished.

♥

31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 24

Today’s theme is INSPIRED BY A BOOK. I really struggled with this one, not because I don’t read but because I read copiously. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but couldn’t execute it in a way that did my favourite series of all time, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, justice.

I went to another book I really enjoy…

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor is a book I bought a few years ago while I was looking for books to share with potential classes. It has however become one of those books I go to again and again when I have nothing new to read. It follows the ‘real’ story of Alice in Wonderland – Alice is actually Alyss, the Cheshire Cat is a lean mean killing machine. I highly recommend it!

I chose not to replicate the cover, but to incorporate some of the main colours from the sleeve here. Starting with one coat of Cairuo #14(I’ve used so many of these since I started this polish, but they are genuinely amazing for $2!) I then randomly sponged on a light blue – QY #27, an orange – Cairuo #24, and a gold glitter – Miki #19.

I really like how these turned out, and it was nice to do something a little less complicated than the last few days!

♥