My 31 Day Challenge has taken on a schedule of its own, but I haven’t given up! I’m lagging way behind everyone else and I don’t think this is going to be a tortoise and the hare situation – it’ll be a leisurely stroll towards the finish line. Just to give you an idea of how behind I am, Half Moons is the prompt for Day 18 and today is September 27th. Whoops!
piCture pOlish Bonkers
Diamond Glitter from Born Pretty Store (Colour #5)
Glisten & Glow HK Girl Top Coat
Base colour: Barry M Coconut
Saran Wrap Shades: China Glaze Tart-y for the Party, piCture pOlish Mad Magenta, NYC Sunny Manhattan
Chevron Colour: Barry M White
Stencils: Nail Mail Chevron Points
My base colours are piCture pOlish Chillax (Green) and piCture pOlish Swagger (Blue).
I stamped the design from UberChic Stamping Plate 1-03 using Born Pretty Matte White.
It’s topped off with one coat Glisten & Glow HK Girl.
I have a little confession to make – I’m a hoarder of water decals. Whenever I’m shopping for nail art stuff online, I can’t resist adding a few sets to my basket in anticipation of those days when I don’t have time for, or can’t be bothered with, ‘proper’ nail art but still want some decoration there. Turns out on those days, I don’t have time/am actually just too lazy to be applying water decals anyway! So there they sit, unused and unloved. Today, that changes and water decals are going to get some love from me.
I do feel the tiniest bit guilty for using water decals today instead of creating something fresh, but funnily enough, I’ve been looking back through the water decals archive and I see that I also copped out last year and used water decals for Day 14: Flowers. Me and freehand florals just don’t get on.
I started out with 2 coats of Barry M Coconut and let that dry thoroughly.
The water decals are these Full Coverage Flower Water Decals from BuyInCoins. If you’ve never heard of this website, you need it in your life. It’s a bit like an online jumble sale – you never know what you’ll find but there’s always something good. Shipping is from China so it normally takes about two weeks to get to me here in the UK.
I was rifling through my stamping plates a few weeks ago (during my ‘nail art equipment’ Periscope) and I got very nostalgic when I saw my Konad plates. This M57 plate, the one with the zebra-tiger and leopard print, was the very first plate I ever lusted after and pretty much kicked off my nail art obsession. I vowed to use it again soon and I think Day 13 of the challenge, animal print, is the perfect opportunity.
I created a gradient using Barry M Blueberry and Barry M Guava. See the tutorial here.
The leopard print design is stamped from Konad M57 plate with Models Own Chrome Cerise.
It’s all topped with a coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl.
Striping tape is the oh-so-obvious choice for Day 12 of the Challenge but it’s a classic and I just couldn’t resist. This is another technique that I went through a huge ‘phase’ with a few years ago and I haven’t really revisited it properly since last year’s challenge.
I didn’t go in to this with a plan – just my striping tape and tweezers in hand. I took it one nail at a time and just went with my instincts, trying to make sure no two nails looked the same. I really love this look and especially how the colours work together. This base colour (Sally Hansen Ion) is what I would describe as a white-greige but I think it really takes on the tone of the purple in this close proximity.
My base colour is Sally Hansen Ion and I topped that with a thin coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl to dry it fast and hard.
On top of that, I laid out my patterns using some White Striping Tape. I painted over the tape one nail at a time with NYC Lavender Blossom and removed the tape immediately.
It’s all finished with two more coats of HK Girl to smooth things over.
