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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Animal print

Keeping it simple with some flamingo stamping (MoYou tropical 05) over Kester Black's Periwinkle. I mixed things up with a new claw hand pose.

Not sure how I'll get on tomorrow because I burnt my finger cooking dinner. :( hopefully it heals up quickly.

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31 Day Challenge - stripes

I bought two new polishes today from the Face Of Australia Iconic collection, so I put them to good use with a French themed manicure. I used Miss Congeniality to paint my thumb and two middle fingers white - i used two points but you could possibly get away with one. I then used Not Just A Pretty Face for the index and little fingers.

I then used a striping brush to freehand the pink stripes, and stamped on the Eiffel Tower (Winstonia W114) and the Fleury de Lis (Born Pretty BP-L007). C'est magnifique! 

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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 - metallic

I knew I wanted to do foils for today, and I decided to challenge myself and do some foil stamping! So I painted my nails gold, got my purple foil out, stamped my nails aaaand - nothing. It would not transfer. :'( 

I tried changing stamping polish, making a decal, nothing. And then I changed to a silver foil and bam, instant success. Lesson learned: purple foil from kmart should be avoided. (I think I got my silver foil from eBay.)

After all that, it was a pretty straightforward process. I painted my nails navy with Kester Black's Periwinkle, stamped a chevron design on using silver konad polish, and pressed the nail foil onto the still-damp stamping design to transfer it. Really pleased with how it turned out in the end!

This silver foil has holographic highlights - here's an out of focus shot to show it off!

And here you can see the foil after the pattern has transferred.

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