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31DC2013

31 Day Challenge, Uncategorised

31DC2013 Day 25: Inspired by Fashion

25th September 2013

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For today’s inspiration I picked a Paul Smith Scarf. The minimalist design and great use of contrasting colours immediately drew me to this scarf when I saw it on the Asos website and of course, anything with stripes always jumps out at me!

Photo courtesy of paulsmith.co.uk

I used a base of 2 coats of Barry M White with a coat of Sally Hansen Dries Instantly.

Once that was dry, I used striping tape to mark off all the lines, then used a nail art brush to paint on Sally Hansen Back to the Fuschia and Rimmel Grey Matter, creating the stripes.

Finally I topped it all off with two coats of No7 Dries Instantly.

Day 25: Inspired by Fashion 2012
Day 25: Inspired by Fashion 2011
See what’s coming next in the 31 Day Challenge 2013!

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31 Day Challenge, Uncategorised

31DC2013 Day 24: Inspired by a Book

24th September 2013

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At the risk of sounded terribly uncultured I’m just gonna come straight out and admit that I’ve only read one book this year. Shameful I know. I used to read every single night before bed but in recent years, nail art and blogging has taken over any spare time I have, so I guess some good has come of it!

As I’ve probably mentioned before, I spend a lot of time watching TV and Movies (in the background while I’m doing nail art mostly) so for today’s literary inspiration I decided on Darkly Dreaming Dexter – a book that spawned an amazing TV series by the name of Dexter. Dexter is a ‘forensic blood spatter pattern analyst’ so I created some blood splatter nails. Analyze that, Dexter!

I used Barry M White as my base colour and created the splatter using a straw. I blobbed out some Barry M Blood Orange on to a sheet of plastic, dipped in the straw, pointed it towards my nail and blew through it sharply. Jen at The Polishaholic has a more in depth tutorial on her blog.

I topped it all off with two coats of No7 Stay Perfect Top Coat.

Day 24: Inspired by a Book 2012

Day 24: Inspired by a Book 2011

See what’s coming next in the 31 Day Challenge 2013!

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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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31 Day Challenge, Uncategorised

31DC2013 Day 20: Water Marble

20th September 2013

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Today’s prompt – water marble – is without a doubt my least favourite on the list. Always has been and always will be! Of every nail art technique I’ve ever tried, I find water marbling the trickiest so I’ve copped out and just done one marbled accent. That one nail alone took me three tries. It would take me all day to do the whole hand and I’d probably lose my mind in the process. Despite my feelings towards water marbling, I still really like this mani. How can I not when the main colour here is Raindrop. God, I love that colour way too much!

For the water marble I started with a base coat of NYC Raindrop and wrapped my finger in tape. I then created the water marble using Sinful Colors Cinderella, Barry M Blue Grape and Barry M Guava.

I then used the same colours to create a skittle mani on the rest of my nails. The glitter on my pointer finger is Nail Lacquer UK Sticks and Stones Blue.

Everything is topped off with two coats of No7 Stay Perfect Top Coat.

Day 20: Water Marbling 2012

Day 20: Water Marbling 2011

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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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