31 day challenge - blue

WYI though about doing water themed nails but decided to take to the skies instead! I stamped with Messy Mansion plate 35 over Sally Hansen Water Color using white Mundo de Unas polish and a clear jelly stamped from Born Pretty Store. I have a love/hate relationship with the stamper - so much harder to use than the silicon ones, but when it works the precision is fantastic. Last time I tried to stamp this cross-nail design it just didn't come out right. As an aside, I love the fluffy clouds on this plate!

(I'm having technical difficulties with the i links sorry, hopefully I'll fix it tomorrow.)

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31 Day Challenge - pattern

Some straight-up stamping. I love having matching patterns on all my nails.

This is Sally Hansen's Golden-I stamped with Born Pretty plate BPL-003.

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31 Day Challenge - Half Moon

I used hole reinforcements to mark off the half moon, then painted my nails with China Glaze's Grape Pop. I finished off with some freehand outlining (Sally Hansen's Golden-I) for this look - I'm always a bit nervous to do any free handing! But it pushed myself for this challenge and it turned out fine (what a relief!).

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31 Day Challenge - flowers

Just a quick one tonight because I burnt my finger yesterday - it's a lot less painful today, but I'm a bit
tired because I couldn't sleep until late last night.

I painted my nails with Sally Hansen's Brisk Blue then stamped Born Pretty plate BP-28. I really like their plates - they're generally quite well etched, have nice designs, and are pretty well priced.

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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, Day 16 - Geometric stamping with Emily de Molly EDM09

Today's theme is geometric, a theme I've been looking forward to since I got my new Emily de Molly plates in the mail. I'm glad.also that it's been changed from "tribal" on request - props for being more culturally sensitive.

To start, I painted my nails with Kleancolor's Boogie Nights, a beautiful metallic orange, then stamped with Sally Hansen's Whirlwind White. It was inspired by one of my housemate's doona, a cheerful orange and white geometric design. A very easy manicure today.

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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.

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31 Day Nail Challenge, Day 12 - Stripes

I did this manicure to match a dress which I'll be wearing tomorrow morning - a nautical 50s style dress. So today's nail art features stripes and anchors. Ahoy!

I painted my nails with Ulta3's Blue Marlin, except for the ring fingers, which I painted with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri Whirlwind White. I used the same polishes to stamp the blue and white with, and Rimmel's Rapid Ruby for the red anchors. Stamping was okay but not great. Happily my mundo de unas stamping polishes shipped today so fingers crossed they get here soon!

This is the first time I've done multicoloured stamping and I am pleased at the effect. I'll definitely have to try out some more multicolour stamping in the future.

And here's a picture of the dress, which I handily got from the internet - check out the white anchor on the pocket:

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31 Day Challenge - Day 10, Gradient nails

I set forth on today's challenge full of optimism, but in the end I made the subtlest gradient imaginable. Bah! Still, it's a nice subtle look. I used a foundation make-up sponge to make the gradient and it soaked up the polish like crazy, so perhaps a different sponge would work better. A little post-manicure googling suggests that wetting your sponge first can help as well, so I'll have to try that next time.

To do this, I first painted my nails with Essie's Bikini So Teeny, then made a subtle gradient with Bikini So Teeny, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri's Brisk Blue, and Essie's Butler Please. It looked a little rough so I stamped over it with Bundle Monster plate BM-305 with konad silver stamping polish.

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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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31 Day Challenge - Day 7 - Black and White stamping

After a bit of debating, I decided to do some stamping for this day, because I think black and white patterns are always quite striking. I was looking through my stamping plates and saw the houndstooth pattern, and decided immediately that was the pattern for me. Houndstooth always reminds me of the David Jones shopping bags! This is plate BM-223.

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