MoYou 10k Challenge : 8 Designs In 1 Post

Yes, 8 designs! I guess I should try and keep this short. If you would like to know any details about anything here, just let me know in the comments box. I'm going to get right to it.

Day 8 - Food. I made use of one of my new Barry M Gelly's : Coconut, for the base of my strawberries and cream nails. I also used Princess plates 08 & 10 and Pro 03.

Day 9 - Superheros. Spiderman was my feature here, and another new Barry M Gelly out on show - Damson, it was perfect for this.

Day 10 - Geometric. This was my second attempt, deciding to keep it simple and bold. I used the cross on Roxy 01 for the squares, stamping with Essie - Liquorice.

Day 11 - Cupcakes. Pro XL 07 gave me the stamp for the cupcake which I ever so carefully painted in, matching the wrapper to my other striped nails. Featuring Barry M Silk - Meadow.

Day 12 - OOTD. Houndstooth dress and a red and gold patterned jacket? Looks better as clothing. I used Pricess plates 09 & 10 and Pro XL 07.

Day 13 - Childhood. And once again I looked to my children for inspiration. My youngest daughter loves balloons, so I adopted the stamps to look like this. I used plated 08, 09 & 10 from the Princess collection.

Day 14 - TV Shows. This one is based on Monster High. I modified the stamp designrom Princess plate 10, to look like the logo. There's that Damson from Barry M again, used to stamp over a lighter blue.

Day 15 - Love. It's all hearts and sparkly polish here. I'm loving my new Glam Polish - Coven. Finally managed to get my hands on it. Love it!

That's probably as short as anyone could make a post on 8 different mani's....... Sorry about that. I just find that stamped nails doesn't really need a whole blog post for just one, although I'm pretty pleased with a few of these. And if I'm totally honest, I'm quite enjoying seeing mini collections in a collage like this. If you want to view these individually you'll find them on instagram.

 

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31 Day Challenge : Day 9 : Rainbows

I've done a rainbow mani a while ago, I think it was for a Wizard Of Oz theme, so I wanted something a bit different. These are dedicted to my youngest daughter, who is My Little Pony daft. She wasted no time in expressing her excitement over them, and that made my day!

My freehand skills aren' really the best, so I thought placing just the head on the thumb was enough for me. The rest of the rainbow is painted to be the tail.

 

I used the following polishes:

Barry M - White

Rimmel - Grey Matters, Riviera Red, My Denim, Aqua Cool & Trend Spotting

NYC - Highline Green & Lexington Yellow

RCH - Front Row Orange

Barbara Day - Passion

Collection - BlackJack

HK Girl - Glisten & Glow

The Aqua Cool was lightened with some white for Rainbow Dash, and the Grey Matters was also lightened to use as an outine base.

 

Remember to go check out what my challenge buddies are doing. I'm sure they'd love the support.

Tomorrow's challenge is gradients! Oooh, my fave! Hopefully I can do something different to my usual kind of thing.

 

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31 Day Challenge : Day 8 : Metallic

I had intended to keep my stamping plates away for the duration of the challenge, but I thought I'd treat myself after trying out a new technique.

These are my dry brushed, metallic nails. And I actually like them. \0/ yay!

So I included some pics on the "how to" and "what for".

 

 

 

 

 

My supplies were :

Barry M - Espresso & Foil Effect Silver

2True - Athena, Artemis & Aglaia

Silver Foil & Foil Adhesive

MoYou Pro Collection 07

Konad - Black Pearl

 

 

 

I chose a matte black base colour as it dries faster, and I thought the finish would help the next step.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Start with one of the metallics, and wipe of as much of the polish in the neck of the bottle. Now randomly apply brush strokes to the black base.

You will need to reload and wipe off the brush every so often. Move onto the next colour, filling in the spaces of black. Don't be afraid to overlap, or redo a particular colour.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apply your foil adhesive to the full nail, it should appear blue like this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Don't touch the nail with foil adhesive until it looks fully transparent, with no blue hue to it.

Now we're ready to apply the foil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Press the foil onto the prepared nail and use your finger, or a silicone cuticle pusher to smooth the surface of the foil. The angled edge of the cuticle pusher is ideal for getting to the edges of the nail.

Pull off the leaf of foil, and the silver should have been transferred onto the nail. Patches and spots can be fixed by placing the foil back over (on a new piece), and rubbing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I felt the siver foil was too shiny to compliment the brushed nails, so I applied a black stamp directly over it, just as you would normally.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apply top coat, and clean up the edges, and you're done.

 

Remember to check out the work of my challenge buddies.

 

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31 Day Challenge : Day 3 : Yellow

I began writing up this blog post, and I haven't even started the nails yet. I'm just so freaking excited about them...... But they are yellow! I don't do yellow nails! YUK! But my idea might change my mind, if it turns out the way I've planned that is. Stuff it! I'm going to start early..... Fingers crossed! (Don't smudge your polish).

Ok, so it looked much better in my head. Still, it's not that bad, but the photo does seem to show up the nasties more than I'd like. Can't have it all.... It is yellow nail polish after all.

So, if you didn't guess, this is based on Kill Bill, the jump suit and Buck's truck. As an after thought, I added a blood splatter (my first one ever!) Let's face it, there is a LOT of blood in the movie.

This is the only reason I got a little excited about the yellow challenge. I've included some photos, but didn't manage to illistrate the blood spatter, or the pussy wagon.

So, I began with a base of NYC - Lexington yellow. I also applied top coat and let it dry before going any further.

Other polishes were :

RCH - Runway Red

Collection - BlackJack

Rimmel - White Hot Love

Barry M - Dragonfruit

 

 

 

 

 

I applied two tip guides to three of the nails, to attempt a straight black line.Do one nail at a time and remove the strips immediately after applying polish using tweezers.

 

 

 

On the ring finger, I painted on the flames in white and then filled in with red. I maybe should have stamped these on, but I'm trying to avoid my stamps at the moment.

 

After a few attempts, I managed to use a teeny, weeny brush to write on "Pussy Wagon" and also outlned that in white. I am finding it hard to be precise with such tiny designs, especially working with polish. I had to water down the white with a touch of acetone, that seemed to help.

My final addition was my blood spatter. I simply dipped a straw into red polish, got all my other fingers that I wanted to keep clean, out of the way, and blew the straw. I was surprised how much polish came out, and initially I thought it was too much. But this is Kill Bill.

I do realise that "inspired by a movie", is further on in the challenge, but this was never on my list of ideas.

 

Remember to go visit the other girls and see how their challenge is getting along.

 

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31 Day Challenge : Day 2 : Orange

This is one of "those" colours.... You know the one. Looks great on someone else, but you wouldn't touch it with a barge pole. So, as suggested by my wonderful kids, I tried some Garfield nails. Why didn't I think of that? Best I came up with was fizzy orange juice!

I kept most of my nails, plain orange and based it on his tail. Pretty straightforward with some stripes.

The thumb gave me some trouble, and this was take 2. I'm finding it very hard painting in detail with such small designs, but I think you get the idea of it. I considered going in for try 3, and simplifying it, but it isn't that bad.

 

Polishes used :

RCH - Front Row Orange

Rimmel - White Hot Love, Pink Punch & Grey Matters

NYC - Lexington Yellow

Barry M - Black & Nail Art Pen

 

Striping brush and small detail brush.

 

 

 

 

 

Remember to go check out my challenge buddies, the links are here.

 

 

 

 

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Cancer Research MANi

 

I have asked my husband so many times, if I could paint his nails for practice, and the answer was always a flat NO. So I gave up asking a while ago. It really changed my Sunday morning, when he asked me how difficult it would be to paint the cancer research UK logo. Um....... what? I thought maybe I was still asleep.

With the latest "bare face selfie" craze, my husband wanted to show his support in his own way after donating to this worthy cause. Bare faced selfie's don't really work for most men, and the current trend seems to be "the sock photo", or plastering make up on. Well, the sock photo isn't in the best taste,to be showing the world, and he's already done the make up thing a few years ago, with dress, hair and heels. So I guess this was a fun and easy choice for him.

I can't wait to hear the feedback from the office tomorrow.

 

 

It was funny, when I was painting his nails, he was watching YouTube videos, but I hadn't realised initially, that he was watching wood working demonstrations! Gotta hold onto that masculinity!

 

 

So the ingredients are:

Barry M - White for the base

Barry M - Shocking Pink, Cyan Blue & Indigo

Rimmel - Grey Matters

A dotting tool and a striper brush.

Top Coat : H K Girl - Glisten & Glow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd like to thank my husband for asking me to do this for him. And please do support Cancer Research.

 

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Nails Are For Painting?!

I haven't always been so obsessed with nail polish. Looking at my current collection, it's hard to believe that my nail polish consisted of a shiny clear and a transparent white shimmer. That was it! No colour, no base coat, no top coat and certainly no clean up after. Whatever way it landed on my nail, finger and all, was how it stayed, until it started to chip. Then I'd spend the next few days, picking and peeling it off. Cringe!!! That is now one of my pet hates. Even the tiniest of chips makes me go crazy, and itching to take it off. And certainly no picking of the polish! Tut, tut.

Then I ventured into my colour coordinating phase. I'd experiment with my hair colour and discovered I could get a lipstick to match. Then holy cow, a nail polish to match the mop and pout! The result was a hideous failed vampy goth, with patchy hair and badly applied, peeling polish. Nice! But it was a start into the wonderful world of colour.

My polish collection remained safe for a long time, consisting of a blue, a red and my trusty clear and white shimmer. For me, that's all anyone ever needed. My outlook changed the day I saw my niece playing around with a Rio Nails, nail art set and I was blown away. Was this for real? You can do more than one colour? What's the shiny foil for? And what the hell do you do with the metal plate?

And so it began. The very next day I went out to purchase the set for myself. I'd sit for hours, applying, making a mess, taking it off and trying something else. It had never occurred to me to search on Google for help. At the time nail art was relatively new, so I was kinda on my own.

I started building my collection of coloured nail pen stripers, rhinestones and glitters, and continued to experiment with the limited knowledge I had. I was delighted when the niece that had inspired me to try nail art, asked me to do her nails to match an outfit for a dancing competition. That felt like a huge win to me, but looking back on it, I know I could have done a much better job.

"The bigger the nails, the bigger the canvas." I thought it would be a great idea to try nail extensions, so that I had more nail to decorate. I was told gel nails were the easiest, so I tried that first, but I didn't like the sticky mess and the long application and curing process, so I moved on to pop acrylics. Very fast, very easy, and turned out to be very bad for my nails. I went from strong healthy nails to paper thin, peeling rags. It was end of the line for the nails for a long time, and it took a year for my nails to fully recover.  :-(

Last year, I pulled out my nail stash, and slowly got back into it again. Around the same time, I joined Google+ as a shift away from Facebook. There I discovered a nail community like no other. It wasn't just a place to post for likes, and run. People actually helped you when you had a problem, encouraged you, and supported your enthusiasm. It is probably the reason I have spent way too much money on nail polish, growing my stash from 40 ish bottles to over 240! I discovered new techniques, new styles, new people, more polish, and best of all, Seche Vite! It's only now I see the possibilities are only limited by me.

I gained a bit more confidence after passing a nail art course with distinction, but to be honest, I felt what they were asking for me to do was well below my capabilities. I'm in no hurry to reproduce the designs! :-P That sounds terrible........ But it could be a future challenge for me. Recreate the designs how I would have liked them.... I do love a challenge.

So that is how my nail interest grew. From a one shade wonder of gloriously messy cuticles, to a glittery, textured, shimmering rainbow of delight.

Challenge Accepted - Nail Polish Queens

Being part of the G+ community - +Nail Polish Queens is like having a world of nail gurus in one place. One of the highlights of the group is the weekly challenge set by +Sarah Short. Always fun and always a challenge.

This week the challenge was Viva Las Vegas. After all other ideas I had were posted, only one thing stuck in my mind. Elvis! I think I managed to pull it off as I tested my 11 year old daughters' recognition of my accent nail. 

All you need is red, white, black and gold. A detailing brush and a dotting tool. The studs and feather glitter was an extra bit of Vegas glam. I look forward to the challenge every week. Bring on the next one!