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    31 Day Challenge, Freehand, Uncategorised

    31DC2013 Day 23: Inspired by a Movie

    23rd September 2013
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    Considering how much I love movies and the amount of them I watch, I had a really hard time choosing one which inspired some nail art! I eventually decided on 21 Jump Street. It’s one of my favourite comedies from recent years and I re-watched it (for the fourth time) last week so it was fresh in my mind. There are a couple of images from the movie that stood out so those are the ones I put on my nails. And yes, that right there is a pile of dung. Perhaps quite a surprising sight if you haven’t seen the movie!

    I used quite a selection of colours for the details in this mani but the bases are Barry M White, Barry M Blue Plu, and NYC Wild With Passion. The glitter on my pinkie and thumb is Nail Lacquer UK Dog Days. The glitter has nothing to do with the movie, I just felt like wearing it (and was out of ideas… sssshh!).

      

    Day 23: Inspired by a Movie 2012
    Day 23: Inspired by a Movie 2011
    See what’s coming next in the 31 Day Challenge 2013!

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    31 Day Challenge, Freehand, Gradient, Uncategorised

    31DC013 Day 22: Inspired by a Song… ROAR!

    22nd September 2013
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    The song that inspired this manicure was Katy Perry’s Roar. I think Katy Perry is one of the best pop stars ever and she’s well known for her love of nail art so I wanted to create something that would do her justice. This actually turned out way nicer than I expected. With animal print in a busy manicure I always worry about going over the top but I think the background is subtle enough not to overpower the whole mani. I used a lot of different techniques here and it was fun to mix and match within one manicure.
     I got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire
    Cause I am a champion and you’re gonna hear me roar

    I started with a base of China Glaze Dandy Lyin’ Around. I painted some Liquid Palisade around my cuticles to prevent a big mess and created a gradient using that and Sally Hansen Sun Kissed. There’s a gradient tutorial here.

    Next I stamped on the tiger print from Konad Plate M57 using Barry M Gold Foil.

    Then finally I freehanded on the letters using black acrylic paint and a nail art brush.

    It’s all topped off with two coats of No7 Stay Perfect Top Coat

    Day 22: Inspired by a Song 2012
    Day 22: Inspired by a Song 2011
    See what’s coming next in the 31 Day Challenge 2013!

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    31 Day Challenge, Freehand, Uncategorised

    31DC2013 Day 21: Inspired by a Color

    21st September 2013
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    Wow, I really can’t believe we’re on the last leg of the challenge already! This month has completely flown by and I’ve had so much fun doing the challenge so far. Here’s to hoping the last 10 days will be as smooth sailing as the rest.I think this is when the challenge starts to get a bit tricky!
    I think ‘Inspired by a color’ is a very vague prompt and I never really know where to start looking for inspiration. So, as you do, I just googled ‘colours’ and ended up reading a list of colour names to see if anything jumped out at me. The colour that did was Cornflower Blue. 
    I wasn’t confident that I even owned a cornflower blue polish but I found China Glaze Fade Into Hue and knew it was meant to be! So today’s nail art is inspired the Cornflower on a cornflower blue base. I daren’t try to replicate the flower exactly – far too many angles for me to get wrong – so I decided on a more abstract take on the flower.

    I used China Glaze Fade Into Hue as my base colour and let that dry.

    Next I freehanded on a sort of star burst design using a long thin nail art brush with an unnamed royal blue Miss Sporty polish near the bas of my nails. When that was dry, I painted on a smaller star burst with Barry M Prickly Pear.

    When everything was dry, I topped it off with two coats of No7 Stay Perfect Top Coat.

    Day 21: Inspired by a Color 2012
    Day 21: Inspired by a Color 2011
    See what’s coming next in the 31 Day Challenge 2013!

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    Freehand, Galaxy, Tutorial, Uncategorised

    Let Me Update You

    20th September 2013
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    With the 31 Day Challenge commandeering my blog this month, I’ve talked about little else here. There are a few bits of news I wanted to share so I thought I’d do a little round up post to get up to date!

    A few days ago, I made an Instatorial for the Art Deco nail art I created for Day 8 of the challenge which I thought would be good to share here too. I also confessed my intention to make more YouTube tutorials to the whole world. I guess that means no take backs!

    Staying on the theme, my post at Divine Caroline this week is an Art Deco inspired striping design.
    Check out the whole post with extra pictures here.

    Allie invited me to write a guest post for her blog, Brit Nails, while she’s away on holiday this week so I created some galaxy nails. No surprise there huh?!
    See the full post here.

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    31 Day Challenge, Galaxy, Uncategorised

    31DC2013 Day 19: Galaxies

    19th September 2013
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    I made a huge effort to stay away from the pastel galaxy nails today but I just kept getting drawn back. I tried a few variations with dark colours and I didn’t like any of them as much as I did the pastels so I just stuck with my favourite colour combination – pink, blue and purple!

    I started with a base of Barry M White followed by a coat of No7 Stay Perfect Top Coat to dry it off.
    I placed scotch tape on the sides of my nails to mark off the white ‘frame’ and then created the galaxy by sponging on the different colours. There’s a full galaxy tutorial here.
    The colours I used for the galaxy are Barry M Prickly Pear, NYC Raindrop and NYC MoMa. I painted over them in a coat of Calvin Klein Blue Wants to be a Millionaire and added the star details using acrylic paint with a nail art brush and dotting tool.
    It’s all topped off with a coat of Essence Better Than Gel Nails High Gloss Top Sealer.

    Day 19: Galaxies 2012
    Day 19: Galaxies 2011
    See what’s coming next in the 31 Day Challenge 2013!

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    31 Day Challenge, Freehand, Glitter, Uncategorised

    31DC2013 Day 16: Tribal Print

    16th September 2013
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    I love tribal nail art. As far as freehanded nail art goes, I personally find tribal fairly easy although I could do with expanding my repertoire a little. I always stick to zigzags and dots but there is such an abundance of tribal patterns out there that I’ve never tried! I struggled over the colour combination for a while until my eyes stumbled over W7 Mosaic and the decision was made for me. Luckily, I found a creme in my collection that matched Mosaic’s jelly base and set about doing some mixy-matchy tribal nail art. I was a bit shorter on time today so I cheated and just did two fingers. 
    31DC2013 Day 16 Tribal

    31DC2013 Day 16 Tribal



    I used W7 Mosaic for the glittery fingers. I had to use 3 coats for opacity as the base is a jelly.

    The creme I found to match was A-England Galahad so after two coats of that on the remaining fingers, I freehanded on some tribal nail art using Sally Hansen Plum Luck, Barry M Gold Foil and a nail art brush.

    It’s all topped off with two coats of No7 Stay Perfect Top Coat.

    31DC2013 Day 16 Tribal

    31DC2013 Day 16 Tribal

    31DC2013 Day 16 Tribal



    Day 16: Tribal Print 2011
    See what’s coming next in the 31 Day Challenge 2013!

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    31 Day Challenge, Freehand, Uncategorised

    31DC2013 Day 15: Delicate Print

    15th September 2013
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    Today’s nail art is another labour of love inspired by the Mehndi patterns traditionally associated with Hindu weddings. I have a few charms from Hex Nail Jewelry to show you guys this month and each one of them has a completely different theme which inspires me in its own way. Today’s charm is Elephant No. 2 which is what brought about the eastern inspiration for this nail art. 
    Elephants are actually my favourite animal ever! I was too young to remember but my Mum always tells me the story of when I got to feed apples to ‘Wendy the Elephant’ at Bristol Zoo in the early 90s when I was just a toddler. You were allowed to take your own apples in to the Zoo to feed her so we would always pick up a bag of ‘happles’, as my little brother would call them, on the way there!

    I used Barry M Lychee as my base colour and freehanded on the Mehndi patterns using brown acrylic paint and a nail art brush.
    For the accent finger I painted on NYC Midtown Mink and added a top coat. When it was dry, I attached the Hex Charm using a blob of clear nail polish. In the future I’ll probably attach the charms with nail glue because I didn’t feel 100% confident that the charm would stay on with just nail polish. I thought it was worth a go though!
    Everything (except the charm) is top coated with Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

    Day 15: Delicate Print 2011
    See what’s coming next in the 31 Day Challenge 2013!

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