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 22

I am super excited to share today’s manicure with you. I’ve had a ton of compliments on it, though mostly from 9 year olds who had no idea what it was representing. INSPIRED BY A SONG was the theme, and I’ve been planning this since I first started this challenge.

The song I was inspired by was…

Sailor Moon!

You betcha the Nineties was the best decade for kids T.V … and I was Sailor Jupiter, thank you very much!

Here is the design I did on my left hand:

Sorry for the photo spam… I did these late last night and was rushed to get pictures before I chipped the design, so photos were taken in some random places…. we won’t go there!

This is all free handed, with no striping tape or anything. All the gem stones in the bows are from the $2 shop, and the collars are outlined with Jordana White, which I had to use with a toothpick in lieu of my striper cause I can’t find it

For Sailor Moon (thumb) I used Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue for the collar, the bow was in an unnamed red mini from LA Girl. Sailor Mars is using the LA Girl mini and Jordana Lavender Fields for the bow. Sailor Mercury’s collar is in Cairuo #16, with Thinking of Blue for the bow, Sailor Jupiter’s collar should have been darker, but I don’t have a dark green creme, so it was LA Colors Lime, with Cairuo #10. Finally, Sailor Venus was with my newest Cairuo, #24, which is a totally gorgeous orange. Remember Day 2? I hate orange usually… but this one is awesome!

No pictures of my right hand today, but I just painted a full nail of the corresponding colour from the left.

I’m feeling pretty excited about tomorrow’s nails… I’ve just finished them and am so amped to show them off tomorrow!

♥

31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 20

This is the one I’ve been dreading.  WATER MARBLING. I don’t understand how some people can make it look so amazing… mine just looks “bleh.” If you want a tutorial on this, look to anyone but me! You can find one by Colette from My Simple Little Pleasures here, and then you totally need to subscribe to her channel and her blog!

Short postie, since I dont like this and will not be gushing about it. I used Sally Hansen Dorian Grey for my base, then used Dorian, Jordana Bright Blue & Mint Candy (a favourite, but I discovered it’s too sheer to show up in this, other than a really fine shimmer in places) and Cairuo #15.

Aaand a right hand shot…

Tomorrow starts the most complicated of the challenges… the INSPIRED BY themes. Wish me luck!

♥

31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 13

Today I get to share with you my absolute favourite manicure of the challenge so far. The theme is ANIMAL PRINT and I knew straight away what I wanted to do for this.

I love leopard/cheetah print on nails – hate it in clothing, but nails and makeup (like CeeCee Fry from X-Factor) I really dig. This type of manicure is all over the blogging community at the moment, especially with the little twist I added to go along with the fact that its the month of luuuuuuurve.

Yummeh! For this I started off with 3 coats of Sally Hansen Without a Stitch on all fingers, and then a coat of Kleancolor Go Bunny on my ring finger. I love the chunky bits in this! Then using the smaller end of my dotting tool I made a few hearts on each nail (excluding ring) with Kleancolor Titanic. I went back with Go Bunny and the very tip of the brush to dab on blotches, making sure there were no big glitter bits. Finally I grabbed a toothpick and made.my ‘c’ and ‘u’ and brackets and filled in any empty spots with Kleancolor Black. … and top coated of course!

I got so many comments on this design. I was a first aid course today and no joke, the first thing the instructor said to me was “Oh wow! Your nails are awesome! ” That made me feel peachy!

The 2nd to last bit of news for you is that I’m in the process of building a light box. My darling Husband started it for me while I was away at my parent’s place on the weekend as a surprise.  We have some tweaking to do, but let me show you the first picture taken in my new toy!

We’ll keep experimenting with this baby.

Lastly,  I’m going to be away from civilisation for a few days, and so will have to postpone days 16&17 just a few days. I’ll pick up after Friday’s design on Monday!

Love ya’ll … as of right now this blog has 1600 views…. this excites me!

♥

31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 11

Another quickie, but this is the start of the patterns section of the challenge. Welcome to POLKA DOTS.

I used my yummy chocolate Cairuo as base, and Jordana 5th Ave & Sally Hansen CSM Without a Stitch for the bubblies. It totally reminds me of Aero Bubbly chocolate. I love.

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31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 5

BLUE. That is pretty much how I’m feeling about today’s theme, and the fact that since I don’t have a light box (yet) I’m relying on the weather to help the pictures look half decent… today the weather hasn’t cooperated.

I had this brilliant idea of what I wanted to do, but it failed. I’d seen a really cool ruffle manicure tutorial here, by Chalkboard Nails did that I wanted to replicate. We were doing fine… until I went and put my top coat on.

I was soooooo disappointed that it smeared, after I’d taken literally 30mins just on the one nail, that in a fit of rage that’d make the Hulk jealous, swiped it off.

So then I had another idea. That also failed, compared to what I wanted, but that is the mani I’ve ended up with to show you.

Here is my ill-fated attempt at a bubble gradient (must stalk more blogs for tips on this!)

I used 3 thin coats of Cairuo #16 (blueberry scented!!) for the base, which was a lot brighter than I expected, and Sally Hansen CSM Thinking of Blue and Jordana Lemon Tropic for the bubbles.

While I really didn’t like this particular design, I had lots of 8-10 year old girls squeal over it…. so I guess it didn’t fail completely?

♥

31 Day Nail Challenge – Day 3

Cheeeeeeese! That’s all I could think of when I saw today’s theme,  YELLOW. This manicure was inspired by @maagsdinwiddie on instagram. A little while ago I saw this cute mani she did, and for the life of me I can’t get a link here… BUT MAKE SURE YOU CHECK HER OUT- she’s pretty much amazing.

Anyway, what better than to test out the new, yellow, scented (!!!) Cairuo polish I bought yesterday. Colours used are listed below.

Om nom nom… little lactose inrolerant mousie had a nibble!

♥

POLISH LIST
Cairuo #15 (it smells like oranges O.o)
Sally Hansen CSM – Dorian Grey
Cairuo #10
Jordana- White
Jordana Pop Art Striper – Black Mark

Skittle Mani

Heylo loves. I am so excited. So incredibly excited. In fact, I am so excited that I just about can’t sit still. Which is okay, as long as I don’t bump my nails. Why? Why am I so excited?? Because I’ve just completed my very first skittle manicure, that’s why.

Stephanie at Sincerely Stephanie Nails is running a skittle manicure contest here And when I saw it, I knew I had to enter. Now, I’ve been planning, worrying, obsessing  over this for almost two weeks. I knew I wanted to include my favourite ever nail design, which is the vintage rose, but that was about it – I worked out a colour scheme, and then left it all to percolate.

Today I finally sat down and made a decisive move. I wanted to go for a slightly vintage look to go along with the nails. Here is what I came up with… *deep breath*

Eeek! I am so insanely happy with how this came out. I used a whole lot of polish for this too… almost as good as my 2013 nails. I’ll leave a list of polishes below if you want to see what used. Otherwise, I suggest you get your tooshy over to Stephanie’s blog and enter!!

♥

*thumb: Jordana Lavender Fields, Pop Art Stripers in Artsy Purple & Purple Impression, L.A. Colors Art Deco striper in white
*pointer: Cairuo #10, Kleancolor V.I.P
*middle: BC co. Shade 16
*ring: Jordana White, Cairuo #10, Revlon Electric Pink and BC co. Shade 16
*pinky: Sally Hansen CSM Dorian Grey, Jordana White,  Cairuo #10, Jordana Lavender Fields and Pop Art Striper Artsy Purple

Go-to Polishes & Chevron Nails

Ya know how sometimes you just get into that zone of having one or two polishes that you can’t help going back to? At the moment mine are Sally Hansen CSM Thinking of Blue, which I swatched the other day, and Jordana Boy oh Boy, which I love!

I’ve been thinking and thinking for the last few days about a design to enter into Sincerely Stephanie’s skittle nail art competition, but I have to say, aside for the colour palette I want to use, I’m at a bit of a loss. The competition ends soon, so I need to get cracking.

Tonight, therefore, I had a go at what I’m calling an almost-half-skittle, where I used two accent nails instead of just one. This was also my first time successfully using French manicure sticker guides. I lamented on Twitter about waiting for polish to dry, because I had to do my ring finger twice…. impatient me put the sticker on too soon and lifted a whole lotta polish off

ANYWAY… here is the finished result. Using the aforementioned polishes, plus a coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Teal (which I reviewed last year and haven’t used since until now) on thumb, pointer and pinky.

Please excuse both the quality off pictures (I only use my phone camera, and take pictures wherever and whenever instead of using a camera and lightbox) and the sad, sorry state of pinky nail…. We had a minor catastrophe last night.

So what do you think? Am I on the right track for Stephanie’s competition?

♥

NOTD – 22nd Jan 2013

I know, that’s yesterdays date, but oh well.  No time for a lo g blog, so here is what I had on my nails (albeit briefly) yesterday.

Flash on

2 coats Sally Hansen CSM in Without a Stitch, and two coats Kleancolor Aurora – which coincidentally was the first glitter polish I brought when my nail crazy started.

♥