Melbourne Cup nail art

The Melbourne Cup was just on, so I painted my nails in honour of the Race That Stops The Nation.

On my left hand I did the silks for Admire Rakti, the favourite. I used Essie's Bikini So Teeny and Butler Please, and some nail vinyls from Celestial Cosmetics.

Admire Rakti's silks (from Races)

On my right hand I painted Who Shot Thebarman's silks. I used Kleancolor's Boogie Nights for the orange and Celestial Cosmetic's Snow Clouds for the white dots, which I did using a dotting tool. It was strangely awkward to try and pose my right hand!

Who Shot Thebarman's silks (from Races)

In the end Who Shot Thebarman came third, but Admire Rakti came last and later died of a rare heart condition in his stall just after the race, so that was quite sad.

Portal chamber info icons nail art and Celestial Cosmetics Snow Clouds swatch

As I mentioned earlier, I went to PAX Australia at the beginning of the month, where I cosplayed as Chell from the video game Portal.

I was talking to Caitlin from Nerd With Nails and she mentioned that she'd also gone to PAX, and she'd painted her nails in an Animal Crossing manicure! Check it out, they look amazing.

So here's my PAX mani. In the game, each level starts with a sign that tells you what hazards you'll come across in the level (here's a picture of one). So for my manicure I put the chamber information icons onto my nails! Someone noticed them while admiring my costume and asked to take a picture of my nails as well as my costume - so happy people noticed!

I started by painting my nails white with Celestial Cosmetic's Snow Clouds, a really nice crisp white that goes on very smoothly. I did - I think it was three coats? But you could probably use two careful coats if you wanted. I put a swatch of it at the end of this post.

I then used some nail decals which I'd printed myself, and just stuck them on. This time I let them completely dry before applying topcoat and they hardly smeared - much better. 

 

L-R The cake is a lie, Place weighted cube on button, Use the portal to fling yourself, Sentry turret.

L-R: High-speed portal exit, Use the portal to fling yourself, Aerial faith plate, Sentry turret.

And here's one with my companion cube in the background! :D


To wrap things up, here's Snow Clouds on its own:

Peita's Polish from What's In-Die Box October 2014 - Holo-ween

Holo-ween! I love puns, and I love holos, so I knew I had to buy the all-holo What's In-Die Box for October. And what a set of polishes! <3 Because the box only just came out, I've put all pictures of the actual polish under a jump cut.

But first! I recently also received some free products from Born Pretty Store in return for a review, and will be doing a series of manicures using these products and the polishes from the Holo-ween What's In-Die Box. I'm pretty excited for what I have planned! As part of my review, I also got a discount code to share - use code SNBQ10 for 10% off.

For this manicure I used some black and clear/silver rhinestones, which came as part of a two-pack - one box of black and clear/silver rhinestones, and one box of multicoloured rhinestones. They're a great size for nail art, you get a good amount of rhinestones, and I quite like the box - easier to use than a nail wheel, since the compartments snap down and there's no danger of mis-aligning the opening.

The other thing I love is that the box comes with a wax pencil for applying the rhinestones with. IT IS AMAZING. It was such a snap to apply the rhinestones using the wax pencil! A couple of minutes was all it took to do each hand. I got mine bundled with the rhinestones, but you can also buy two wax pencils on their own, (It's called the "Easily Picking Up Rhinestone Picker Wax Pen" on the site, which seems a fair summary of what it's for.)

And now, the manicure! Under a cut to avoid spoilers.

DIY water nail decals for the Pittsburgh Penguins - the NHL season begins!

The National Hockey League (which is made up of Canadian and American teams... just go with it) starts up again this week, so I did my nails to celebrate the return of my NHL team, the Pittsburgh Penguins. I painted my nails white and then applied some nail decals which I made myself by printing onto special water decal paper. I bought the paper off eBay but you may be able to find some in craft or hobby shops.

Even being careful with the application of my topcoat, they still smeared a little. Still, they're a great way of doing small intricate designs, like sports team logos, that you don't have a stamp for and can't freehand that detailed.

31 Day Challenge - Day 14, Flowers

Come on springtime! Floriade has just started here in Canberra, so I wanted to do some tulip nail art to celebrate it. (Even though the tulips are only juuuust starting to flower - I have one just opening in one of my flower pots. Exciting!)

I painted my nails with OPI's Alpine Snow, then freehanded the flowers. For the stems and leaves, I used Essie's Going Incognito. The flowers are Natio's Raspberry for the two outside flower points, and Maybelline's Ultra Violet for the inside point, with Butter London's Pillarbox Red for the flowers on the ring finger. Despite this, all the flowers look pretty much the same shade to me... ah well!

ETA: Tulip action shot!

An InLinkz Link-up

31 Day Challenge, Day 13 - Animal Print cow nail art

I was originally going to do some straight-up animal print for today - a classic leopard or snake print, maybe even a giraffe print. But then I saw Holy Manicure's Cow Nails - holy cow they looked good! I knew it had it be cow print nails.

I painted my nails with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri White Whirlwind, then used Ulta3's Midnight for the black and Fairy Floss for the pink nose. I used a brush to freehand the pink nose on (two coats), and used a dotting tool for the black spots. I drew the eyes on with a brush.

An InLinkz Link-up

31 Day Challenge Day 6 - Violet - Violet flower nail art

Although flowers are an upcoming theme, I wanted to do some nail art of the violet flower.

I painted my nails with Ciate's Chincilla, then used Ulta3's Sour Grape for the petals and Rimmel's Sunny Days for the stamens.

An InLinkz Link-up

Illamasqua's Seance with stamping from Emily de Molly's EMD03 plate

I was looking at some of the stamping manicures people had done using Emily de Molly's plate EDM03, and I saw that Bettina's Nails had done a pretty cool version where she'd double-stamped over UV polish. It looked so great, I decided to do a variation.

Coincidentally I was already wearing a UV reactive polish, Illamasqua's Seance. It's a lovely purple polish, great flow, self-leveling, which dries to a slightly satin finish. Adding topcoat brings out the slight silver sparkle in it. Unfortunately I don't have a black light, so no photos of it glowing.

I then stamped in white and black over the purple, although I used two different designs from the plate. And done! I really like the effect, so I'll have to keep it in mind for the future.

Nail art - Stamping on Revlon 1000 Volts using Cheeky floral plate CH44

Over Easter I went on a road trip down from Canberra to Melbourne with some friends, and we stopped in Albury for dinner on the way back. While looking for a restaurant, we stopped into a Terry White chemist where I found them stocking the new Revlon Spiderman collection (more details here), and I grabbed the gold 1000 Volts. It's super pretty - definitely my new favourite gold!

I decided to do some stamping with my Cheeky plates, and used the floral plate CH44. I'm quite taken with how it turned out.