31 Day Challenge 2013 - 22 A Song

I am currently raking my brain, desperately trying to think of polishes I want to get, and other products, from the States whilst my sister is there. Specifically, things I can have delivered to her while she is there. I am especially sure there has got to be plenty of American indies that I want, as well as a nice stockpile of OPI to grow. Help me think of things to spend money on!

Anyway, on to this post. My nail art fizzled out a bit once I started back at work. But finally, I got some inspiration and time and stopped being lazy long enough to do the 22nd prompt.

Inspired by a song... I just wanted to do a fox really. But none the less, the result of being inspired by "What does the fox say?" Yes, some highbrow of musical taste here.

I was inspired... err... copying this mani I found on Pinterest originally. 

Base is my Boyfriend Scales Walls and the fox was a mixture of red and yellow acrylic paint. 

31 Day Challenge 2013 — 21 Inspired by a... colour

So I've been a bit of a hiatus due to lack of inspiration for the inspirations themes. I managed to finally think of something for 21, inspired by a colour. Most of the bloggers went with inspired by the name of a polish, so I went the same way.

After much thought, I went with this CK polish I found in the bargain bin (I didn't realise that they did nail polishes, but guess they do), called electric blue. And did some cool lighting bolts. They are electrifying, you know?

It looks kind of cheap - you'd think a major fashion brand can at least print on their bottles. Instead they use a sticker...

31 Day Challenge 2013 - 20 Water Marble

This was only my second attempt to experiment with wate rmarble nails. Despite the air bubbles and bumps, I am calling it a success. GO ME!

I used Ulta3 violet, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Turquoise and Mint Sorbet, topped with Sally Hansen Mega Shine top coat.

But of course, I wasn't satisfied with how messy them looked, so I had another go. I still had major trouble getting any sort of pattern, but I did get the air bubbles and smoothness under control. I also decided to protect my sanity a bit and only did two marble nails on each hand.

31 Day Challenge 2013 — 19 Galaxies

So this is the first time I've actually tried to do galaxy nails. It's been on my to-do list, but other ideas always end up taking precedence, and I say 'later' to the galaxy.

They're so much fun, and because you use such light layers, dabbing on just a bit of every colour, they were well along the way to dry before I even put on my HK girl top coat. I was happy to see that despite the many dabs, it mostly only needed one coat to smooth out.

31 Day Challenge 2013 — 18 Half Moons

I got a little swept up with the Halloween/Dia de los muertos (Day of the dead) holidays, though neither are celebrated to any great extent in Melbourne. I wanted to do a sugar skull candy mani, but I didn't want to take another break from the 31 day challenge. So I tried to incorporate both into the one mani.

I ended up wasting so much time doing and redoing everything when I should have be studying and I still didn't love the end result.

But here it is, Essie Blanc with a bunch of Ulta3 in yellow, orange and purple, and the mint green was Sally Hansen. I used a dotting tool and a small brush. In hindsight, I should have taken out more than one dotting tool to save myself the hassle of cleaning it between colours.

 

In direct sunlight

I used my new Essence Express Dry Drops to hurry things along. It worked pretty well, though it gets a bit greasy! I grabbed it when I finally saw it available in a priceline store, — they are usually all gone when I go past an Essence stand. No wonder for only $3.50!

Might be do a comparison post after exams, with the various fast dry items I have.

31 Day Challenge 2013 – 17 Glitter (Doubles as Celestial Cosmetics Liquid Lawn Swatch)

The glitter day was the perfectly timed for me to use my lemming (as they say in the nail art world) polish, Liquid Lawn. I don't think I have been this careful with a manicure for a very long time. It's as gorgeous as it looks. I am not sure how others did it in a few coats, I needed about four.... I played with just the polish and a dark green polish as undies. The one without the base colour was perhaps a tad lighter, but not that noticeable. A generous layer or two of HK Girl to smooth out. Love it, dark without being vampy, this totally lived up to my expectations!

So sad was such an overcast day

With built-in flash

Trying to get closer to the window for light

31 Day Challenge 2013 – 16 Tribal Print

Tribal is not my thing, but decided to freehand something on my Arya Stark. The prints were loosely inspired by pictures in my Andean art book, which my friend Bronwen gifted me for no reasons whatsoever. I say loosely because they are nothing like the patterns in the book.

I absolute love Arya Stark, though it was fairly sheer. I run pretty warm as a person, so it was pink pretty much all the time, except when I ventured out to try jogging... Winter hasn't quite left Melbourne!

31 Day Challenge 2013 – 15 Delicate Print

So, I tried originally to do some nail stamping, but they were a mess. So I changed tack and went for some delicate drawings. Of feathers. I spent way too much time on this mani. It took me a while to get the technique right, but in the end I was able to draw nice soft lines. I guess that's the point of the challenge - to build my skills. So here's my rather average looking delicate print.

The white base is Essie - Blanc, and Sally Hansen - Turquoise. I have a gold liner from Europe, the other lines are with a liner brush. The glitters are my faves glitters, the Maybelline Sequins. 

31 Day Challenge 2013 – 14 Flowers (+ I Vant to be A-Lone Star swatch)

I picked up OPI - I Vant to be A-Lone Star, on sale and thought, MUST TRY IT ON NOW!! So once I had it on, I figured I may as well use it as my base. I tried to paint roses. Work with me and squint a little!

And I took a photo of it before I started with the nail art - my first swatch for the blog...

31 Day Challenge 2013 – 13 Animal Prints

Animal prints are not really my style. So I was a bit hesitant about the whole idea. I decided to start with the most basic of all animal prints for nails. I wanted to practice my gradient skills a bit more, this time using a fan brush. So I did a double accent animal print nails, and went with plain blue on the remaining... but then it looked a bit bare, so I layered some glitter on top!

The two blues are Sally Hansen and Natio, are both named Turquoise, and both which I picked up from random pharmacy sales for $2!

I didn't like my original set of photo. I took some in sunlight the next day, but with the shrinkage from the quick dry coat and a day of wear, the tips were looking a bit worn.

I am actually quite pleased with how they turned out, although everyone seems to doubt they are a colourful leopard print. Do they look like leopard prints to you?

31 Day Challenge 2013 – 12 Stripes

So I am a little behind on posting my challenge nails. It had been crazy busy with research papers and visiting cousins. It all got so much that my immune system was wrecked and I caught a cold! I have been doing my nails, but they haven't made it onto the blog until now.

I was keen use my new Essie Banc and some new nail decals. I thought the end result was super cute!

The pink and green were the two Natio polishes I picked up a short while ago that I posted. Rose and Azure, respectively. 

But I gotta be more careful with the decals next time. Look what I did to one of my bunnies when I put the top coat on :(

31 Day Challenge 2013 – 11 Polka Dots

A mint/pastel green has been on my wish list for a while. I picked this up on my recent trip to Sydney (more to come on this later). My first Sally Hansen colour polish — Mint Sorbet.

I cheated a bit and used acrylic paint to mix the paint for the pink gradient dots. The accent was with the new Maybelline sequins I also added to my collection at the same time as the green.

Here's a better view of the rose glitter topper. I just adore this line! I picked up more than one in Sydney. ;)

31 Day Challenge 2013 – 10 Gradient Nails

Due to my dislike of the rainbow nails, coupled with the fact that I am on my mid-semester break, I actually did two manicures in two days! I won't be keeping that up, since I'm off to Sydney for two days, so I am spacing the posts out a little :)

I used my Maybeline Colorshow polishes, and my Sally Hansen topcoat.

The accent nail was gross and thick, and I lost those stones almost straight away. So I decided to redo the accent nail with a glitter gradient!

31 Day Challenge 2013 – 09 Rainbow Nails

This was my attempt to do a dotted wedge look. I saw it recently on one of the blogs I follow, but for the life of me, when I went back to try have another look and link it here, I couldn't find it!

Anyway, the original was a white base. That was smart. I had a lot of issues with the dots on the darker coloured polishes. Also, I should have gone with a bigger dotting tool. I will know for next time. I have to remind myself that I am just new at nail art and I shouldn't be so hard on myself when they don't turn out as I imagined!

I used a couple of Ulta3 (yellow and purple), the red is Revlon Red Hot Tamale, and still on the Sally Hansen topcoat. I need something that dries faster and harder (wow those adjectives can sound so wrong, but wasn't intentional!)

And the green stained quite terribly! It was something I'd picked up in Europe (Germany or Austria — I don't quite remember).

31 Day Challenge 2013 - 08 Metallic Nails

Although the rest of the blogsphere has raced off ahead into the final week of the challenge, I have only just gotten onto my 'second week' with the Metallic Nails prompt.

Under artificial light

This one was tough, since I have never really been drawn to metallic finishes and I have a limited collection of those. But I love the end result of this one! I used some gladwrap, or what is known as the saran wrap technique, to dab on colours after I painted my base colour.

The blue is a gorgeous one that I remembered my sister had contributed to our polish collection, then I found two complementary revlon silver and green (although they called it 'gold rush', it looks like a green tone to me). I used the blue as base on my index, middle and little fingers, as the silver as base on the thumb, but it didn't turn out that different. The 'gold' gave it a nice bit of extra depth.

Under sunlight through the window

All this was topped with a shiny top coat from Sally Hansen and the accent nail is the awesome Maybelline silver sequins. I then stuck on some matching blue rhinestones onto the accent nail. I think maybe I overdid it by putting on 4 on each nail — did it cross into tacky?

Everything I used, except the gladwrap, that I used.

31 Day Challenge 2013 - 07 B&W Nails

In my mind, I think black and white, I think geometric shapes. But then I saw some bamboo print on the glass front of a Japanese restaurant and was inspired to do bamboo prints. And what goes with bamboo? Pandas!

And note that it took me almost a week to update. Yes, I did wear the violet nails for almost a week!

So after my usual OPI base, I used Mode's So Parisian. It's a new white I picked up from a sale bin a few weeks ago, but as usual, it's really sheer. I used about 4 coats here! I do love the white nail polish look though. I think it's time I invested in a nice opaque white like OPI's Alpine Snow for nail art, which is what I see so many nail bloggers use for white.

Lovely shot of both hands

The black was added with a black permanent marker and then everything was topped off with Revlon's Matte Top Coat. The eyes were tricky, and because I had redone them once, I was too impatient to wait for it to dry properly, hence the smudged eyes! Not enough white polish either, so the black is bleeding through and this morning, my right panda has blue eyes!

Closer look at my left hand

31 Day Challenge 2013 06 – Violet Nails

I admittedly wasn't particularly inspired by this prompt. I didn't really feel like wearing purple, I wanted something light and spring-like! So I tried to keep this simple and added glitter for some fun and a cute owl. Despite how simple they look, it was still surprisingly time consuming to put the whole look together. 

I used my Ulta3 Spring Break (purple) and Finder's Keepers (chunky gold glitter topper )by Mode and fine gold glitter is my sister's Maybelline Redemption (I think it must have been purchased overseas). The pink is called Pinker than pink by Boe. All topped off with what you can see pictured in my hands, Sally Hansen Mega Shine top coat, which I picked up at the Chemist Warehouse sale yesterday. I picked up a few other things too, that may make an appearance online at some point.

Purple owl and glitter gradients

31 Day Challenge 2013 - 05 Blue Nails

I caught a cold over the weekend — my line has been that I caught it from some dirty Liberal (big L, as in the conservative Liberal party - go figure) at the polling station. More likely someone with a cold was preparing my food or coffee though. :(

Anyway, with a headache and pressing research paper due in a couple of weeks, I kept things simple for the blue nails prompt.

A random sheer pale blue my sister had, with the Maybelline Sapphire Siren for dotting and the base on the accent nail. Blue loose craft glitter and light blue studs on the accent nail also. Topped with Mavala Mavadry Fast Drying Nail Polish. I love that stuff.

 And the next day, with some sunlight

Then I decided to go fancy and use the SLR...

I originally conceived the manicure with the intention of using a matte top coat to finish it off. But it looked so shiny and glossy after I put the quick dry coat on, that decided to leave it. But I couldn't help myself, after wearing the blue mani for a day, I added the matte coat. I think it looks really good!

31 Day Challenge 2013 - 04 Green Nails

The first time I attempted some half-moon nails, I ended up with a right ol' mess. I didn't have experience with taping and didn't let the first layer dry properly nor stick it down firmly.

Anyhow, I  have a whole box of hole protectors (am I the only one who thinks that sounds funny?) for my printed materials for Uni. So I gave it another go, this time waiting patiently and also cutting them in half so that they stuck on better and created a nice seal.

However, I made the mistake of choosing a jelly polish as the main colour, so it's not quite opaque despite 3 fairly thick layers (hey, it was a new polish that I hadn't used before!)

I used an old Revlon Lime polish and the Ulta3 Jelly (ok, it was named jelly, what did I expect?)

It wasn't planned, but it turns out today, 7 September, AKA federal election day, is the perfect day for me to have green nails to reflect my own personal political stance!

My right hand

For some reason, both my index fingers have wonky moons

Left hand

One day, I will put in a bit more effort and take photos with my nice camera... and try to do them during the day so I can photo under natural sunlight!

31 Day Challenge 2013 - 03 Yellow Nails

I actually don't have that much time to spare and I already spend way too much time painting my nails. So I went with a simple design, using my previous day's orange as the base. However, the result wasn't that great — I already quite a few coats on with the base, a lot of white, colours and top coat. I needed another 2-3 coats for the yellow to be opaque... so it was just thick and then it got smudged quite badly during the night.

But anyhow, here are some photos. I just used regular sticky tape to make the line.