31 day challenge - polka dots

I went with some Tour de France themed nail art - polka dots for the King of the Mountain! I used OPI's I Just Can't Cope-acabana and Celestial Cosmetic's Snow Clouds, stamped with Mundo de Unas Red and black using plates Born Pretty's BPL-006 for the dots, MJ's JR-29 for the text and Uber Chic's Hipster-01 for the bikes.

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Halloween - Trick or Treat!

it's Halloween - time to go Trick or Treating!

I painted my nails with Ulta3's Sour Grape, then stamped on the skeleton (Winstonia 116) and the Trick or Treat text (Moyou Festive 16). I had made some stamping decals for the candy corn (UberChic Beauty Halloween), using Mundo de Unas orange for the stamping, Face of Australia Miss Congeniality for the white, and OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana for the yellow. I used the same yellow to light up the haunted house (Bundle a Monster 315).

I used two new sticky stamping heads which I got from UberChic Beauty to make the candy corn decals and I was quite impressed by them! They're a bit flatter than my other stamping heads, and their softness made the decals easy to remove. I also made a decal using their stamping mat, which didn't go as well - I couldn't stamp directly onto the mat very easily, although it's possible it just needs a proper wash first.

I posed with a little plastic jack-o-lantern filled with Halloween treats for trick or treaters - so cute!

31 Day Challenge - inspired by art

A while back I saw some very cool manuscript nail art from Break Rules Not Nails. I wanted to try something similar for this challenge. A while back, I'd stumbled on an article about a popular and charmingly odd medieval manuscript theme: knights fighting against snails. I found an image I thought I could fit on my nails from an article about knights and snails called Snail Jousting. The article talks a bit about the role of knights fighting snails, and the blog Hunting For Snails has more images and more information if you're keen to learn more.

Here's the image I chose:

Knight jousts snail, Frontispiece to Le livre des enseignments des visces et des vertus France, N.(Picardy)(From the British Library Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts)

I started by painting my nails white, as the decals are a bit transparent. I took the water decal I'd printed earlier of the illustration, cut it to fit on each nail, and then topcoated it to stick them on. I finished with OPI's matte topcoat to match the pages of a book.

Because my nails are so curved the image is not a smooth from one nail to the next as I'd hoped. Still, medieval knight vs. snail art on my nails = sweet.

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31 Day Challenge - Glitter

Glitter! I wanted to show off the sparkle by contrasting it with a matte finish. 

I painted my nails with Wet 'n Wild's SaGreena The Teenage Witch (love the name) then mattified it with OPI matte top coat. After it dried fully, I used some vinyls from Bundle Monster to mask off the matte part of the design, and used an unnamed China Glaze glitter polish to finish it off.

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31 Day Challenge - delicate print

Some quick stamping again - Emily de Molly plate EDM-06 over OPI Amaz-on...Amaz-off.

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More dot than polka dot - I attempted a dot-and-negative space mani but it didn't work out, so I went to an old favourite.

I painted my nails white using OPI's Alpine White, after Buff & Polish suggested it on my mani for the Black and WhiteBlack and White challenge - I realised I already had it in my collection. It definitely worked better, at two coats instead of three. I'm also going to check out some of the other suggestions; both Gelic and Buff and Polish suggested Essence polishes so I'm going to head over to Priceline tomorrow and try to snag a bottle.

I then used my dotting tools to dot on orange (Face of Australia's Some Like It Hot), grey (OPI's Embrace the Grey) and black (Ulta3's midnight). Done! 

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31 Day Challenge - gradient stamped with MoYou Illusion

I made a gradient using Ulta3's fairy floss, OPI's Houston We Have A Purple and Ulta3's mulberry. At first I tried to do a scaled gradient buuut it really didn't work. So I did a straight-up gradient and then stamped over it with MoYou's Illusion 01. I'm a big fan of illusion stamping over gradients.

I used a different pattern on my right hand.

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31 Day Challenge - rainbow

I'm trying to continue branching out from just plain stamping, so today I made some stamping decals using Lily Allen plate 07. I then coloured it in using Essie's Twin Sweater Set (red), Face of Australia's Some Like It Hot (orange), OPI's I Just Can't Cope-a cabana (yellow), Sally Hansen's Just In Lime (green) and Brisk Blue, and China Glaze's Grape Pop (purple).

In hindsight, I wish I'd used brighter colours - the purple in particular is too dark. Ah well. I might try using some smaller decals later in the challenge instead of trying for a full nail look, as clean up was a bit of a pain.

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31 Day Challenge - blue

I had planned to do all-blue nails but the weather was so nice I couldn't resist adding some colour to the mix.

I painted my nails with Kleancolor's Sensual Lagoon (what a name!), a nice matte blue, then stamped the orange seahorses on with Born Pretty's BPL-025. I finished with a matte topcoat from OPI. I really like this look! Unfortunately I smudged one finger getting my camera out. Too impatient. :(

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31 Day Challenge: Yellow

Here are my belated yellow nails - I was sick and did them a day late. The 3rd of September is National Flag Day in Australia, so I did some patriotic nails.

I painted them with OPI's The "It" Color, and then stamped using MoYou's Traveller 19 plate. I was a bit impatient with waiting for my nails to dry so I stamped a bit too early, and didn't press hard enough to fully transfer the full image. Still, I like how it turned out.

Gradient stars

I really wanted to try my hand (so to speak) at another gradient - really pleased with how it turned out! I did multiple coats of the gradient, sponging it three times, and got a much better result.

For this look, I made a gradient using OPI's I Just Can't Copa-cobana, Face of Australia's Some Like It Hot, and Butter London's Pillar Box Red.

I then did some stamping using Lily Allen plate 07, which I'd used in the 31 Day Challenge and loved.

Here's a shot of the gradient - a bit rough without any topcoat:


 And finally, a bonus shot of where I went on holiday this weekend! :) Such lovely weather.

31 Day Challenge, Day 31 - Honour Nails You Love

For today's challenge, I decided to recreate some nails from More Nail Polish. More Nail Polish is one of my favourite nail blogs - amazing manicures (did you see the version of Nolan's Ned Kelly art for the challenge this year? Stunning!), handy swatches and reviews, and she uses a variety of techniques. She's also Australian, which is nice - I enjoy it when bloggers talk about popping down to Bunnings for some acetone rather than, say, Wal-Mart, a store that doesn't exist in Australia. But not only that! She's a fellow Canberran. Even her references to the weather are comfortably familiar.

Back in January, she posted some a manicure titled "Bright yellow reverse stamped flowers", which I loved. Coloured in stamping? It looked great!

From More Nail Polish - http://www.morenailpolish.com/2014/01/bright-yellow-reverse-stamped-flowers.html

To recreate this look, I used the same yellow polish, OPI's I Just Can't Cope-acabana. The white is OPI's Alpine Snow, and I used Bundle Monster's plate BM03 for the flower pattern. The nail studs are from Born Pretty.

So that's the challenge! I missed the first few days though, because I didn't know it was on, so I'll be doing days 1-3 over the next three days. I got my new Mundo de Unas polishes in the mail today (!!) and I'll definitely be using them for the Yellow day - a manicure that has also been inspired by a song. Stay tuned! ;)

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31 Day Challenge, Day 28 - Inspired By A Flag

This challenge is a bit what? for me... inspired by a flag? I decided to do some freehand bunting, because bunting is nice and festive, and again, freehand practice.

I painted my nails white with Ulta3's Lily White, then used Butter London's Pillar Box Red, Essie's Butler Please (blue), and Face of Australia's Some Like It Hot (orange) for the flags. Ulta3's Midnight for the black rope.

I finished things off with OPI's Matte top coat - omg! So much better than my previous matte topcoat! One coat and done. I like the illustrated look matte coat gives.

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31 Day Challenge, Day 27 - Inspired By An Artwork

For this one I tried to imitate a painting by Barnett Newman called Who's Afraid of Red, Yellow and Blue?

Not quite the same scale as the painting! The proportions are not right, alas.

I painted my nails with Butter London's Pillar Box Red, then freehanded the stripes on with Essie's Butler Please and OPI's I Just Can't Cope-acabana. I thought about taping off the lines but wanted to practice freehanding stripes, because I want to get better at it.

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31 Day Challenge, Day 20 - Water marble

Water marble! So pretty when it works, so muddy when it doesn't. I managed to get some decent nails on my left hand by waiting to do them last, so you don't see my not-so-great attempts. #bloggersecrets For this marble, I used Ulta3's Lily White, OPI's Houston We Have A Purple, and Essie's Bobbing For Baubles.

I have not been looking forward to marbling, because it's so time-consuming and prone to failure. I also find that, because you need room temperature water for it to work, you really need your weather to be... room temperature weather... (I hope you know what I mean there.) Anyway, my house is pretty cold, so I microwaved my bottle of water in the hopes that it would help. It sort of did? And sort of didn't.

I also taped off my nails, because I've heard cuticle oil can protect your skin but I'm a bit sceptical. Anyone out there use cuticle oil? I'm curious.

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31 Day Challenge, Day 19 - Galaxies

Apparently I've been living under a rock, because I had never heard of galaxy nails before. A short google later though and I was all across it. It's a pretty easy, fun manicure, although you do need a fair number of polishes.

I painted my nails with Revlon's Black Magic, then used a damp sponge (it does work better than a dry sponge!) to apply OPI's Alpine Snow, Maybelline's Green Park, Kleancolor's Metallic Fuchsia, Kleancolor's Boogie Nights (the orange), Crows Toes' Indian Summer (multichrome pink/purple), and Ulta3's Blue Marlin, plus a topper of Sephora X's Shifty (holographic glitter). Whew! More Alpine Snow was applied with a toothpick for the stars.

It was so colourful! So astronomical! And yet... I couldn't help but do a cheeky little bit of stamping with Cheeky plates CH45 and CH46. Rocket ships, planets, and some alien spaceships, oh yeah. They white means you miss them on a casual look, which I love - it's like a little Easter Egg.

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31 Day Challenge, Day 18 - Half moon studs

For my more "standard" half moon manicure, I decided to take on the recent trend for exposing part of your nude nail bed. After applying my base coat, I stuck on some hole reinforcements and painted my nails with two coats of OPI's Every Month Is Oktoberfest, a nice shimmery vampy red. I then peeled off the reinforcements and used some acetone and a brush to clean up the half moons, and then a nail art brush to draw in any points that weren't sharp enough.

It looked nice, but I thought it could use a little something else, so I stuck on some studs which I got from Born Pretty Store.

I really like the finished look!

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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!

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Day 31 Challenge - Rainbow nails

A quick manicure tonight - a skittle manicure with black frames (can't remember the proper name!). I freehanded the black outline, and it turned out fairly well for a first attempt but it's still pretty wobbly! I think more time would have helped but I want to go to bed, so a quick lining it was.

Polishes used:
Ulta3's Sour Grape (purple)
Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri Brisk Blue
Butter London's Pillar Box Red
Face of Australia's Some Like It Hot
OPI's The "IT" Color

Some Like It Hot photographed a lot yellower than it is in person - in person it's a much more vibrant orange. The perils of photographing at night under my desk lamp...

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