Liebster Award (or half of it at least)

So I have been nominated by the lovely Chan from Indian Ocean Polish (btw, thank you so much for your kind words, means a lot! And I'm so sorry this took forever) for the Liebster Award, which I understand is a way for new bloggers to be discovered and to discover other relatively new blogs. Sort of like chain mail.

When you are nominated you are meant to:
1. Share 11 random facts about yourself.
2. Answer 11 questions given by the person who nominated you.
3. Nominate 11 more bloggers with less than 200 followers
4. And then write them 11 questions to answer.

To start off, here are 11 random facts about myself:

1. I'm naturally blonde, but I currently have brown hair (I used to have white blonde hair in high school a few years ago)
2. I love to read
3. I just started working in a medical centre
4. I've suffered from migraines since high school and I hate them so much
5. I have a phobia of ears, it's really unusual but I hate everything about them, I don't like people touching mine or having to touch someone else's, I refuse to share headphones and I can barely look at them (I'm fine touching and looking at my own though)
6. I'm a middle child
7. Recently I discovered I suffer from kidney stones
8. I've worn glasses since I was 3, I'm currently 21
9. I don't hate needles like most other people, I'm so calm and completely unfazed when I have to have a blood test or get a local anaesthetic 
10. I'm pretty sure I'm accident prone, I've injured both arms a few times, bruised my knee bone in three different places, twisted an ankle and I always have bruises
11. I have the quote "From my rotting body, flowers shall grow" tattooed on my ribs and it means a lot to me

And here are my answers to Chanfie's questions!

1. What/who inspired you to blog?
I had been wanting to do it for a while but didn't have the motivation until I started doing a Nail Technology course and my best friend told me I should make a portfolio of my nail designs and she agreed a blog would be a great idea!

2. Keeping with the 11 theme of this award, what are your 11 favorite polishes? 
Oh this will be tough, but in no particular order: 
My Boyfriend Scales Walls - O.P.I
Feeling Blue - Models Own
Royal - Revlon 
Instyle Coral - Rimmel
Suzi Says Feng Shui - O.P.I 
Bamboo Shoot - Sally Hansen 
Cool Cat - Sugar Baby 
Azure Martini - Savvy by DB 
Mint Julep - Savvy by DB
Vanellope - Lilypad Lacquer (from the August What's In-die Box?) 
Splash and Dash - Savvy by DB
Most of them are blue so I guess it's obvious that it's my favourite colour.

3. What is your favourite type of nail art and how long have you been doing it?
I think it would have to be either splatter or cling wrap, I think splatter nail art was the first proper nail art I ever tried so it's stuck with me for about a year and a half. I've only been doing cling wrap nail art for a few months, but it always looks great.

4. Do you ever experiment with different nail shapes/lengths? Which is your favourite?
Right after I started blogging I decided to make my nails square and I loved it! They seemed to grow better, but they were also very prone to breaks, I've had squoval shaped nails forever and they're my go-to shape but I think square are my favourites. I like medium length nails too because nubs don't suit my fingers.

5. Do you have other hobbies other than painting your nails?
I read a fair bit and watch a lot of TV shows, but mostly I paint my nails because it's a better distraction from everything and they don't make me sad like books and TV shows can haha. I also watch a lot of YouTube. It started with MyDrunkKitchen, which led me to DailyGrace which led to YouDeserveADrink and now I can't get enough of those three girls and they all led me to other great channels and I just love YouTube so much haha.

6. What non nail related beauty product could you not live without?
Foundation and blush! I love a good foundation and blush combo.

7. How many photo's on average do you take of each mani?
What an interesting question! On a good, sunny day I probably only take about 4-8 and cull it down to just 3 or 4. But on a bad day I'll take up to at least 20 and hope 1 or 2 of them look good enough.

8. What is the biggest challenges you've faced with your blog?
Taking photos, for sure. I use a camera I'm not familiar with yet because it's my dad's and I don't know all the settings or whether I'm allowed to change them haha. Also because I live in Melbourne and everyone knows it's weather is unpredictable, so natural lighting is a bit unreliable. At the start, I struggled using blogger though, but I've gotten past that.

9. What technique that you have not yet tried yet would you like to master?
Hmm, I think that would be chevron. I've seen so many different techniques but I haven't yet attempted any of them because it makes me nervous haha. I also haven't come across chevron scissors, which I would love so I can make my own decals.

10. What's your go-to mani when you're pushed for time?
I like to go for a simple one colour mani most of the time! Maybe with a glitter accent if I'm in the mood. I try to leave enough time though if I know I'll be going somewhere that I want to wear a mani for.

11. What mani are you most proud of, and why?
I think that would be my galaxy nails from the 31 Day Challenge. I had attempted galaxy nails before with limited success, so when I achieved what I did I was so damn happy with them and honestly couldn't stop smiling when I looked at them, it felt like a big personal achievement. 

Here's the part where I'm supposed to pick 11 other bloggers to keep this going, but I have to admit I've struggled so much to find people who haven't done this before, and I didn't want to make them double up. But at the same time, I really wanted to publish this because it's been a draft for sooo long and I felt bad not having done it yet. 

Hopefully I can come back to this when I come across some people who haven't done it yet, in my searching I did discover some good blogs though, that's a plus. I'm so bad at these things, I'm sorry haha.