Day 31: Recreate a Manicure I love (with link!)

Day 31! The End of the 31 Day Challenge

Recreating a manicure I love, with link. There are so many awesome nail artists out there, it was hard to choose. But in the end I went with dotting, because my children are going MAD and I know I can dot despite distractions. Although, I did have to redo this twice thanks to my youngest throwing himself into me. This is from Top Coat It, an awesome WordPress nail blogger – and her link is Red and Black Dotticure . Wow, so pretty! As I didn’t want to directly try to copy it, this is a Yellow and Black Dotticure!

I used Mode Say Cheese as the base – two coats. Then I dotted on the 9 black dots using China Glaze Liquid Leather, and then another dot of Say Cheese over each black dot. I didn’t go back and put the centre black dot on, but I just didn’t have the time.

Although I much prefer her Red and Black dotticure, I did like this! I’ll definitely try it again when I get a chance, and a moments peace. 🙂

This challenge has been so interesting! It definitely challenged me to try new things, and I loved that – but I am glad it’s over – so hopefully I can try on some of my other polishes and keep them on for more than a day 😀

Thanks for reading!

Ami 🙂

Day 30: A Tutorial

Day 30 of the 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge: A tutorial.

Now, it wasn’t until I had already taken the photos that I thought this could be INSPIRED by a tutorial – but too late. I made a tutorial for you instead. This tutorial is How To Go Crazy With Glitter Polish! 😀

First up: Base coat. Use PVA glue – it removes all the fear from glitter polish – as you can safely and easily peel if off. Effortless!

You can see it goes clear as it dries – which takes the guessing out of the occasion. It’s ready to paint on when it’s all clear 🙂

Then apply your first coat. I used Color Club Ruby Slippers. Pretty, huh? It does dry matte-ish, but with a top coat it’s Sparkle City!

Then, add another glitter! Match! Contrast! Whatever! I contrasted with Kleancolor Starry Purple – and really liked it.

Dot on more uber glittery polish: First, put a few dabs of polish on some non-absorbent paper – I used Color Club Gingerbread.

Dabbing polish onto paper to use for dotting…

Then dip your dotting tool (or end of an unwound paperclip!) into it, and dot onto your nails.

Admire effect.

Add another glitter! Go on, why not? If you hate it, peel it off! This is all about the crazy … I used L.A Girl Glitter Addict in Animate.

There you go! Of course you can keep going, or stop just a bit before step 1. Its a free world! Basically, sometimes I feel it all gets a bit ‘serious’ in the world of nails. I’m not all that serious a person when it comes to colour and paint on my nails. Go hard, have fun!

Have a great day

Ami

Day 29: Inspired by The Supernatural

Sister V (on a roll, she was!) suggested something ghostlike – pearls, whites, glowing eyes. I liked that idea!

So, as this was ‘inspired’ by the supernatural I went with ‘ghostly’ rather than ‘ghosts’ – trying to give the colours and suggestion of it, and mutiple eyes. I used CR 58 (white) as the base coat, and over that I layered L.A Girls Cracked in white to give a tattered look. On my pinky I layered two coats of CR instead – not as an accent, but because I grabbed the wrong bottle of white polish. Ah well! Over all that I put on thin coat of China Glaze White Cap, with its glittery prettiness, and randomly placed red microbeads for glowing eyes in the tattered fog. One set of eyes is three eyes not two.. but I think that’s even creepier 😀

Have a great day!

Ami 🙂

 

Day 28: Inspired by a Flag

So, this one was easy enough to come up with a concept – there’s ongoing wrangling in this country about what flag we should use – which gets a teeny bit tiring for me because they ALL want basically the same colours, and there are FAR more important things to be arguing about than a flag. But anyway, here are 4 flags all inspired by NZ flags:

Pinky finger is the first flag NZ had – the flag of the United Tribes. I based it off this article here, and I do quite like this one. And the name! What a cool name. Ring finger is the official National Maori flag – I do love the power colours in this! Middle finger is the ‘official’ flag of NZ – nice enough, but I think it’s too close to Australia’s flag, personally. Pointer finger is the official sporting flag – the silver fern on the black background. Or, in this case, white blob on black. Meh.

The colours I used were CR 58 (white), China Glaze Liquid Leather (black), Miki 8 (red), and Kleancolor Cobolt (blue).

Any favourites? Any other ideas for flags for this country? Me, I think I’d have the silver fern on a gold background with the unity symbol from the  Maori flag running through the middle and the four stars from the Southern Cross in the upper left corner… maybe 😀 The website with the full list of NZ flags can be found here 🙂

Have a great, trivial drama-free day!

Ami 🙂

Day 27: Inspired by Artwork

My amazingly artist sister, sister V in this case (I have two sister, both of whom are incredibly talented artisitcally!) suggested I take inspiration from Van Gogh’s  Starry Night or Monet’s Waterlillies. To paraphrase Shrek: oh yes, like that’s going to happen. My ‘skills’ are nowhere near being up to that! Instead, I chose to be inspired by this artwork by Piet Mondrian, from this awesome art website here.

Why did I choose this? Well, I was going to paint my nails black with a white line and just be lazy, but thought I’d go a bit further with the black and white theme, and while google searching modernist images this caught my eye – something about the splashes of colour and random sized grids, I think. And I thought it might be easy…

Well, I was wrong. I’m very often wrong, so it didn’t suprise me, but still! I painted my nails black with China Glaze Liquid Leather, then taped off the lines with striping tape. At about that point I realised it wasn’t going to be easy… parallel lines and I aren’t good friends. Then I tried to add the colour squares.. and that didn’t work so well. The blue was Kleancolor Sea Ice, the red was Depend 36 and the yellow was Depend 210 – and they’re both jellies! Over black! Argh! The white was CR 58.

Right in the middle of this, we had a man come around to give us a price for chopping down two of our huge pine trees – they’re too close to the house and damaged in a wind storm. So, during all of that the polish was drying – and collecting dog hair – and getting bumped… so when I did get a chance to pull off the tape the lines weren’t that clean. I topped up the colours a bit, so the red and blue is more colour accurate and a LOT more lumpy, and the yellow looks a bit like a boogy hehehe

Looks a bit odder when holding my hands normally!

Topped off with a coat Orly In A Snap, took a photo, took it off 😀
Have a great day!

Day 26: Inspired by a Pattern

Sister V – source of much of my inspiration for this week, suggested spirals as the pattern for day 26 of the 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge. Ok!

I was also inspired in part by Simply Rins, who did the most gorgeous blue rose manicure (check it out, seriously! She’s AMAZING!), and it made me think about changing the colours in the spiral. I wish I’d chosen more colours, and a more opaque light pink, as it wasn’t visible really except as a texture over the light pink base. Next time!

This is Mode Sweetness as the base, which is a brand new to me polish, with OPI The One That Got Away dotted in the middle part of the spiral, and OPI Who Needs A Prince on the outer part of the spiral.

Have a great day!

Ami

Day 25: Inspired by Fashion

Man, I feel like having a bit of a whinge. This has been… fun… yes, but part of me really wishes we could do one of these challenges every week, not every day. I’d quite like to put more effort into it, and be able to keep wearing them a bit longer! Ok, whinge done, thanks for bearing with me!

This is Inspired By Fashion day – 25 of the 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge. And it’s challenging, because I don’t really pay attention to fashion. But I grabbed the nearest shop brochure (turned out to be Farmers) and had a quick look, and picked out bright colours and feathers as two trends. Well, duh, I have 36 chickens: of COURSE I’m going to home in on feathers. 😀

This is two coats of a brand new Mode nail polish, called Say Cheese (love the name!) and the pointer finger has the tip of a Rhode Island Red feather on it. The feathers ragged because it’s been shed naturally – eg preened to death! 😀 Love that nail polish too – it’s  a jelly. Slow to dry though, but fun!

A non-blurry photo – the feather looks like a fishtail because it’s wet. That makes me laugh 😀

Have a great day!

Ami 🙂

Day 24: Inspired by a book

Thanks AGAIN to sister V – she came up with the idea of taking inspiration from The Lord of The Rings books: which, you know, I do – they’re awesome books, and were made into pretty darn decent movies.

For the base I used one coat of China Glaze Swanky Silk, then two thin coats of NYC Filthy Rich. The lettering I Googled, then attempted to replicate using my dotting tool and Coral Colors Magnetic Nail – no sticker for the name, but it’s the deep gold one, obviously 😀 A top coat of Orly In A Snap, and I was good to go!

I’m pretty happy with this – it was fun to do. The best bit was when I was in LUSH and the sales woman saw it, and was very enthused. I love seeing that moment in people – the ‘I can do this myself?’ look – the realisation that nail polish and art can be quite creative with little time and money required. If I’m going to be nitpicky I’d prefer to try this with a little brush, and not let the letters get bigger at the end. But hey, I don’t feel like being nitpicky today. 😀

Have a happy, creative day!

Ami 🙂

Day 23: Inspired by a movie

Oh help! My sister chose Avatar – because she’s evil I think. No, honestly, the Pandora world was just beauty per-world-ified, so I understand, but woah. I picked this image here, from this website here!

And tried to do some nail art based on the colours of Pandora’s jungle and the seeds from the Tree of Life – the woodsprites.

Hah, I think it looks like something snotted on my ring finger, and a small white spider on my pinky. Whoops. I am out of time though, I didn’t get these ready earlier and lifes been HECTIC so just rushing instead of being able to do an ok job. Sorry all! I used CR white for the snot sprite, and water marbled the background with Kleancolor Sea Ice and Color Club Jewel Tone Blue.

I know! Look how much better this attempt at marbleing was! The Jewel Tone Blue managed to scream around the surface of the water and make it’s own pattern, including some lumps. Any of you gurus out there know why it did that, and how to stop it?

Have a great day!

Ami 🙂

Day 22: Inspired by a song

Thanks to Sister V for all her help with these!

Brown Sugar, Little Red Rooster, Feilds of Gold, Blue on Black 🙂

Little Red Rooster: Kleancolor Boogie Nights for main colour, comb and red neck feathers = a Rimmel polish (red with gold shimmer, no name), gold neck feathers = Kleancolor Gold Bright, eye = Color Club With Abandon
Brown Sugar: Color Club With Abandon, brown sugar
Feilds of Gold: Base color Kleancolor Gold Bright, dotted over with Gold Bright, NYC Filthy Rich, and Color Club Gingerbread.
Blue on Black: Base colour China Glaze Liquid Leather, free hand striped with Depend 41 and Essie Coat Azure.

Just a note – the Blue on Black was dry almost instantly. There was only one coat of Liquid Leather, but the other colours covered up any patchy areas, and I took this off as soon as I had finished all my nails and photographed them, so within a 5 minute time frame. I couldn’t budge that nail polish without proper remover. Good to know!

Have a great day!

Ami 🙂