Australia Day 2016: Chevron Vinyls

Hello! Back again (after some travelling and some illness) just in time for some Australia Day nails :D

(click to enlarge!)

To achieve these, I used my chevron striping tape from Born Pretty Store, along with a couple of polishes! Read on...

I Survived (Although A Few Nails Did Not)

G'day! I'm back from my trip, and although it was a crazy week of working hard and playing hard, I survived! I am sick yet again, and I managed to break THREE nails >.< but I'm back.

I did not get as many photos of my travelling mani as I'd hoped. Here is the one I got before things got all cray, and it really doesn't do it justice:

(Click to enlarge)

dat holo doe. It's Color Club Over The Moon with chevron-tips of Layla #01 Mercury Twilight, and some little stone accents of course. The colour scheme is one I've always liked, but I was particularly inspired by the recent Cinderella movie for it :)

I broke my index nail really badly, and then I still have that patch on the middle one from last week and a break on the other hand too. What can I say--it was quite a week. For the first time in a LONG time, I have properly short nails. I am not digging it.

horrible phone pic, activate!

I'm pretty bummed about this, but.. I plan to draw inspiration from the queen of shorties, The Nailasaurus! She rocks all kinds of awesome art with her signature length and shape, so I'm going to do a few tribute manis to her while waiting for them to grow out. Fortunately they do grow pretty quickly.

The other piece of good news is that I now have a Surface 3 device! Full HD screen and this sweet pen for having more fun with my editing (and probably hand-written and -drawn notes as well). I'll be tweaking the graphics and layout of the blog to reflect this, and hopefully have a more quality site for you.

Sorry for the bad post today! I almost didn't bother since these are such meh pics, but I didn't want to totally disappear. Thanks for your patience, and I hope to see you soon with some pretty nail art :) xoxo

Darcy & Solange Are Totes BFFs

Hello! Back with a simple yet striking look--something I've had on my idea list for a while; a French tip look with similar colours in different finishes. I went with bright cheery yellow and reached for two Zoyas!

My Take on the 2015 Colour Of The Year -- Marsala

Hello and welcome! To start off 2015 I've been giving my nails a wee bit of a break. I can't leave 'em alone for too long, but I've been trying to take extra care of them the past few days with oil and such rather than doing lots of painting.

However, I decided it was time I jumped on the Pantone Colour Of The Year bandwagon, which is something I've never paid much attention to in the past. I like exploring different nail shades and art styles without much consideration for the current trends or seasons. But the colour they have chosen for 2015 is Marsala, which I can best describe as an earthy, muted wine/taupe hybrid. It's not the type of shade I normally wear, and as such, I don't have any polishes that are an exact match. A chance to go for something outside my usual? Right on! So I went with the closest option in my stash--OPI Lost On Lombard--and did a chevron-tip look :)

Alphabet Challenge: X is for... Xtreme FX French

Hello again! I'm back with another installment of the Alphabet Challenge. Only two more letters to go! Today we have the letter X, and a manicure that looked a lot better in my head than what I managed to actually do. Oh well, you win some and you lose some!

This gets an X, as in a strike, as in two more and I am out

I suppose its fitting that the X manicure gets an X mark as far as I am concerned, lol. I like the idea, but I did it all wrong. Let me explain...

I started by painting a chevron French tip with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On, then did a coat of OPI You Callin' Me a Lyre? on top--this is a very sheer, soft, French-manicure pink. So far so good! I then took Revlon Top Speed #902 Celestial FX to do the fun glitter on top. This is iridescent small glitter, then silver holographic moons, stars, and diamonds in a clear base. Really pretty! I painted a thin coat first to spread the small glitters, then used an orange stick to place the shapes. They don't come out well with the brush alone.

I wanted to do the X shape over the top along the chevron, to fit with the theme and (I thought) give it a nice edgy look. I used my Stripe Rite black for this, but since the big bumpy glitter pieces made it an uneven surface, and my silly self didn't topcoat to smooth it out first, the X shapes didn't come out straight :( I should have done those at the end! It looked OK from a distance, but I didn't like it at all up close.

Those holo shapes are really pretty in the sun, though!

see, looks better smaller >.>

Oh well, we all have a nail fail now and then. Join me next time as I make up for it with some really nice Y nails. Have a great weekend!! xoxo

Challenge Day #28: Inspired by a FLAG (and, whoops!)

So, oops!

In case anybody noticed, I sort of missed a day. I looked at the list wrong, and skipped the artwork day, #27! Yikes. I will do that one next time, and then get back on track. Only a few more challenge prompts left!

Since the start of this challenge, I've had all kinds of ideas for this prompt--maybe do all ten fingers with a different flag of countries I've been to, or do some really cool detailed flag over all nails making one big image when putting them together... But then I was laying in bed the other day not feeling so great, and staring at my nightstand, where I happen to have a flag I got the first time I ever went to a "foreign" (to me) country. And, being as obsessed with nail art as I am, as soon as my eyes gazed at the Brazilian flag sideways:

behold: a bandeira do Brasil.

..it immediately occurred to me that the top bit looked like a chevron french tip + a half moon, and that I was going to have to paint that shizz ASAP! So... I did.

Cut my nails, too, a bit shorter than I intended. D: But. Yay flags!

As you can see, I went with the basic colour scheme, but a bit brighter! Started with my pretty yellow polish, Confetti #008 Margarita Senorita, that I have mentioned before. I then freehanded the green chevron tips with Sinful Colors #198 Irish Green. It's a quite sheer polish--I had to use at least 3 coats even over the yellow base, so my tips are kind of thick. It's really pretty though! I then used a detail brush to paint on the blue half-moons with Pure Ice's Celestial, and then the white details with Orly Pointe Blanche. Sealed it in with a new topcoat I found, also by Orly, called Sec 'N Dry. So far I'm pretty impressed! It's another multi-layer, quick-dry topcoat. The formula is nice, the brush is good quality, and as you can see, it's quite shiny! Smeared my dots a bit, though. Maybe I didn't wait long enough for them to dry, however, so I won't count this topcoat out yet.

With the inspiration flag.

And another, because I liked this pic.

Hope you enjoyed these! Next time I'll get the artwork nails up, and then get back on schedule! Untli then, take care, and enjoy the rest of your week xoxo