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31 Day Challenge, Freehand, Uncategorised

31DC2012 Day 26: Inspired by a Pattern

29th November 2012

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Today’s nails are inspired by good old gingham as part of the 31 Day Challenge. I’ve done gingham nails before but I wasn’t 100% happy so I wanted to give them another try and I like the outcome much better.

As always, head over to Let Them Have Polish and Nails and Noms to see their nail art today.

I used Barry M White as my base colour and used a nail art brush to paint on the stripes 2×2 on each nail in Essie Navigate Her and then used Barry M Spring Green to paint on the little squares where the lines cross. I topped it all with a coat of Seche Vite.

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Swatch, Uncategorised

Aphrodite Lacquers Swatches: Auction, Supernova and Margarita

24th November 2012

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This is the first weekend for months where I have absolutely no plans so I’ve had a pretty lazy Saturday. So far today I’ve worked my way through the entire first series of Workaholics, picked up where I left off on Homeland, dyed my hair and painted my nails about 7 times! I consider that quite a day, especially for a weekend!

Today I’ve got swatches of some polishes from Aphrodite Lacquers*. These polishes have been sitting on my desk for swatching for weeks now but with the 31 Day Challenge going on, I haven’t had much time for swatching. With the quick break I’m taking from it this weekend I finally had time to sit down and test out these beauties.

Auction is a pearly white base packed with blue square glitter and small black hexes. I’ve used 3 coats straight on to my naked nail except on my ring finger where I used two coats of Sally Hansen Ion under 3 coats of Auction. There are two coats of Seche Vite top coat on every nail.

Supernova is definitely my favourite of the three. It’s pink purple and silver hexes in a black jelly base. I used three coats for drama but two will give you full coverage. I used two coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Margarita is a beautiful green glitter polish somewhere between lime green and bottle green. It contains green hexes, slightly smaller blue hexes and silver glitter in a green jelly base. For this swatch I used two coats of NYC High Line Green as a base and then three coats of Margarita, except on my index finger which is just 3 coats of Margarita. Using a green base has given a slightly brighter result but the polish looks just as great on its own. Two top coats of Seche Vite.

You can buy Aphrodite Lacquers from Rebecca’s Etsy Shop for $8 plus shipping.

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31 Day Challenge, Freehand, Uncategorised

31DC2012 Day 24: Inspired by a Book

22nd November 2012

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Like last year, I’ve gone with a children’s book again. There aren’t a lot of books for grown ups with pictures in them so kids books make for way more interesting nail art!

In case you couldn’t tell, these nails are based on The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I remember loving this book as a kind but my copy is long gone.

We’re postponing the challenge a little this week because we all have super busy schedules but we’ll be back on track next Tuesday with Day 25. I’m feeling the pressure following the completely unexpected and overwhelming success of last year’s Inspired by Fashion mani.

Pop over to Cris and Rie‘s blogs to see how they’re getting on with the challenge!

I used Barry M White as a base colour. The caterpillar is made up of Barry M Watermelon, Barry M Spring Green, Essie Navigate Her and a dark green Sinful Colors polish that I can’t remember the name of and I’m not at home right now to check!

Also mixed in there are W7 Coral, NYC Lexington Yellow, Essie Glamour Purse and a blue Rimmel Polish that, again, I can’t remember the name of!

It’s all topped off with two coats of Seche Vite.

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31 Day Challenge, Uncategorised

31DC2012: Day 20 Water Marbling

13th November 2012

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I’ve never made any secret of the fact that I despise water marbling and in the last 2 years, I’ve only done it twice when it was part of a challenge. Well as much as I hate it and totally wanted to duck out of this day, I ain’t no quitter! So last night, I put my big girl boots on and knuckled down to business.

I went in to this knowing that I would only be doing one accent nail. It’s insane how much this technique has stressed me out in the past and I’m quite a level headed person! I took precautionary measures and promised myself that as soon as I did one nail satisfactorily, I’d be finished so I didn’t end up pulling my hair out this time!

Rie and Cris have both done amazing jobs with their water marbles today. Go check ’em out!

I used Sally Hansen Ion* as a base colour and created the water marble with Barry M Watermelon and Blueberry from the Gelly range. My index finger is Barry M Blueberry and I used one coat of Seche Vite to top it all off.

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31 Day Challenge, Gradient, Uncategorised

31DC2012: Day 18 Half Moons

10th November 2012

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For day 18 of the challenge, we have to create half moon manicures. This is another day that I’ve been really looking forward to since I saw this half gradient, half half moon creation at Globe and Nail. I stole the Purple and Green colour combination from last year’s Day 18 manicure! I never know what to pair with green except for more green. Then my brain always skips to ‘What’s green?’ Grass and HULK… ‘What colour does he wear?’ PURPLE!

You can see Christina’s Half Moon Manicure here and Rie’s is here!

I used Essie Navigate Her as my base colour and applied a coat of Seche Vite to make it dry quickly.

Next I stuck Hole Reinforcers to my nails at the cuticle to mark off the half moon shape before creating a gradient with Julep Anne and a little more Navigate Her (gradient tutorial here).

Finally, I used a nail art brush with a bit of Julep Anne just to fill any any gaps on the moons and topped it off with two coats of Seche Vite.

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31 Day Challenge, Freehand, Glitter, Uncategorised

31DC2012: Day 4 Green Nails

16th October 2012

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You all know how much I love a bargain and my base colour today, you’ll be pleased to hear, was indeed a bargain. I’ve mentioned before that I found some Essies in TK Maxx well now I’ve found some in The Original Factory Shop for £3 each. I picked up two and this is definitely my favourite, Navigate Her. It’s a mint green for autumn. There’s just a hint of something in there which makes it less pastel and more creamy.

I sparkled it up with JENsations Buried Treasure, then went freestyle with Sinful Colors Last Chance and La Femme Lime Cream. Finally, I topped it with two coats of Seche Vite.

Rie and Cristina will also have some green manicures for you today!

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Freehand, Uncategorised

NY Fashionail Week Day 4: Kate Spade

20th September 2012

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A while ago, a friend of mine asked if I could do some gingham nail art for her and this past weekend, I did! When I tweeted a picture of the manicure in question, Amy from Gotham Polish, came back and asked if I’d seen Deborah Lippmann’s nail art for Kate Spade’s NYFW show? I immediately checked out her blog post to see the nail art in question and she had indeed created gingham nails very similar to the ones I did. Great minds think alike hey?!
That’s pretty much how this theme week was born, so thank you Amy for pointing out that they have cool nail art at New York Fashion Week!

The catwalk models had all fingers the same colour but I wanted to try out as many shades as I could. I tried to go for polishes that I knew were slightly see through to recreate the gingham effect but only the blue and green seemed to work for that, the other colours were too opaque.

I used Barry M White as a base colour and a striping brush to paint on the stripes in Barry M Mint Green, Barry M Indigo, NYC Lexington Yellow and Miss Sporty Orange. I finished with two coats of Essence Better Than Gel.

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