31DC2014: Day 29 - Inspired By The Supernatural

We're almost there! Only two prompts left after this one and the challenge is officially over for me. I can't wait to give my nails a week long break filled with moisturiser and a good strengthener! They deserve it. But for now, onto today's post!

I wasn't very excited about today's prompt, I never know what to do for this one because I'm not a massive fan of supernatural things with the exception of True Blood and Harry Potter and whatever I searched for inspiration today just came up with the show Supernatural. I did once go through a phase where I watched Ghost Lab a lot before it freaked me out too much and I stopped haha. But apart from that I'm not that big on supernatural themed things.

So today I went for something simple and what I tried to do last year but failed: vampire fangs. Turns out they're pretty easy and I have no idea what 2013 me was thinking when I couldn't do it.

I don't hate these nails, but I don't love them either. They're okay. The base is Twilight Rays by Maybelline Color Show. It has a bunch of gold flecks throughout it and I thought it'd be a good base for this theme (come to think of it, I probably used this one for last year's supernatural nails too).

The teeth look kind of weird I think, like creepy fingers, but I'm sure everyone can still tell what they are!

Only two more days to go! I have a feeling tomorrow's post won't be up till Wednesday though. Thanks for reading!

31DC2014: Day 28 - Inspired By A Flag

Hello again! I promised myself at the start of this challenge that I wouldn't do the same things as I did last year, I wanted to change it up a bit and try to expand my creativity even more, and so far I think I've succeeded in doing that. But it stops at today's prompt because I've chosen the same flag as last year. I do have an excuse though, last year was a very poor attempt at the Australian flag, I was rushed for time and behind on my posts so I went with something very basic even though I wanted to the design I've done today. A year late isn't too bad though!

For this design I followed this tutorial by The Nailasaurus to do the Union Jack on my middle fingernail. It was very easy to follow and I'm quite happy with how it turned out! I do tend to have a shaky/twitchy hand and that did cause some mishaps while trying to fix up the small details, but I was able to fix those mistakes up too in between the shaky-ness. 

Unfortunately, I am not at all happy with how the Commonwealth Star and the Southern Cross constellation turned out. I didn't have a steady hand and my thin nail art brush was at it's wit ends, so I just sort of clumped some white polish together and hoped for the best. They do still look sort of how they're supposed to, I just wish they looked a bit better. Despite that though, you can definitely tell it's supposed to be the Australian flag. I did consider not doing the stars but I didn't want it to look like I was doing the UK's flag, so crappy stars it was!

I'm very proud of that little Union Jack! I can't stop staring at it and smiling because it took a bit of effort and I know that last year I would never have been able to do it, but I managed to this year which tells me I've improved heaps and I'm really happy about it!

I'm all caught up now (even though I wasn't far behind), and tomorrow's prompt is Inspired By The Supernatural. I don't have any plans yet so that'll be interesting. Thanks for reading!

31DC2014: Day 27 - Inspired By Artwork

Hello lovelies! I'm feeling a lot better today compared to yesterday; still a day behind on the challenge but hopefully I'll catch up today. There's not long left though which I'm very relieved about. It's been a very busy month for me with the challenge, a weekend away, working a lot, getting sick etc.

Today my post is inspired by Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night Over the Rhone. I am a huge fan of Vincent Van Gogh and I don't think there's an artwork of his that I don't like. I first learnt about him in primary school and he inspired me to want to be an artist, unfortunately, even after a few art classes, I just felt that I wasn't that great at it and I gave up the dream. But now, being a nail art blogger, I guess I've taken up that dream again and just put a little twist on it.

I think I really challenged myself this year with today's prompt, considering last year I did something that was very easy to me. This design still is a quite simple one, but it was a lot harder to get the colours and texture right. I'm very happy with how it turned out, it's a simplified version of the painting, but it still looks quite lovely.

I can't wait till I have my own place and can fill it with my favourite Van Gogh artworks! Maybe in next years challenge I'll tackle The Starry Night or one of his self portraits. 

Thanks for reading!

31DC2014: Day 26 - Inspired By A Pattern

Hey everyone! I know this is going up late again, but I'm quite sick and can barely do anything because I'm so stuffy and tired. It's taken me several hours to actually start this blog post because I just keep laying in bed watching YouTube because that's an easy thing to do. I also worked all week which hasn't helped my cold/flu/virus/I'm not sure what I'm sick with.

I did these nails this morning and they aren't the best but it's all I could manage before I had a sneezing fit and wanted to pass out. I wanted to do the design on all my nails but after doing two I knew I wouldn't be able to, so I just picked out a neutral looking polish that wouldn't distract from the design and chucked it on.

I used a few polishes for this and as I'm laying in bed (on a really nice spring day I might add) I just don't have the energy to get up to grab the polishes to list them here. So once again, I'm sorry for not listing them.

Also, there's only one poorly edited photo because I didn't even have the energy to change hand positions and my cuticles are so dry as well, the challenge has definitely caught up to me this week.

This is the pattern I took inspiration from! A lovely shutterstock image.

That's it for this prompt! I'm currently trying to muster up the energy to do today's actual prompt, but I can't see it happening just yet as I have high expectations of myself for that one.

31DC2014: Day 25 - Inspired By Fashion

Hi lovelies! Today's prompt is inspired by fashion and for a while I didn't know what I would do, but then I remembered this picture I'd seen of the Dior Homme S/S 2015 Menswear collection from back at some fashion week in June (was it a fashion week? I'm not really sure but they were on a catwalk and to me that screams fashion week). I loved what the model was wearing in this picture so I thought it'd be a great inspiration for today's post.

I really like how these turned out! I'm very happy with them. I used a lot of polishes that I can't be bothered listing here but if you'd like to know any, just leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!

31DC2014: Day 24 - Inspired By A Book

Hey everyone! This prompt is inspired by a book and when I sat down I had no idea what book I would be recreating. I looked through my bookshelf and grabbed out It's Kind Of A Funny Story by Ned Vizzini. It has a pretty cool cover so I thought I'd give it a go. 

I love this book and the movie version of it too. I was also quite sad when I heard Ned committed suicide late last year because I really connected with the book, having depression myself, so this mani means something special too.

It's a bit of a mess but I think it goes well the cover regardless. This was also a bit out of my comfort zone because I had never done much outlining of shapes before.

That's all for tonight's post! Thanks for reading, and read the book or watch the movie if you haven't already, they mean a lot to me.

31DC2014: Day 23 - Inspired By A Movie

Hi everyone! I know I'm a day late with this post. I have a good excuse, but I'm not going to share that with you just yet! I'm also getting sick which isn't helping my motivation. But, better late than never!

These nails are inspired by the movie Camp Takota, which if you don't know was written by YouTuber Mamrie Hart and starred fellow YouTubers Grace Helbig and Hannah Hart. I love them and I love this movie so much. It's a good film for friendship and feeling happy after it's finished. 

I did a very basic mani for this, I had to redo several nails several times and by the end I sort of just went 'screw it, it'll have to do'. I obviously did a camp fire as it's relevant and there was also a lake in the movie so I chucked that in as I had no other ideas I could easily recreate.

I used a bunch of polishes that I can't be bothered listing, sorry.

So that's all for today/yesterday's post! Thanks for reading.

Oh and if you want to check it out, here's the official website where you can buy the movie and merch, etc.

31DC2014: Day 22 - Inspired By A Song

Hey everyone! Today's prompt is inspired by a song and I've kind of done my own interpretation of it. I had almost zero inspiration for what to do, so instead of looking at just songs, I looked at album covers and decided to recreate one of them. I went with something easy because I had to do it after work today. I chose the album Bloom by Beach House because it has a simple, classic album cover, plus I'm in love with the album and have been listening to it for a very long time. 

I used Black Satin and Lily White by Ulta3. I think the middle finger is the best recreation of the cover as it really shows the size difference. 

That's all for today! It's a simple mani and an easy recreation.

31DC2014: Day 21 - Inspired By A Colour

Hey everyone! Only ten more days left of the challenge; it feels like it's been going on forever and now we're in the section that's my least favourite because sometimes it's hard to force myself to be inspired by certain things. But I do have a few ideas so we'll see how they all work out.

Today's prompt is probably the second most ridiculous of them all (the first being 'inspired by a flag') but it's also easy because you can pretty much do whatever the hell you want to. My favourite colour is blue so I went with my favourite blue polish by Essie, Avenue Maintain and did a simple dotticure with Lily White by Ulta3.

It's a very classic and cute mani that will pretty much go with anything and you can easily change the colours up.

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend, thanks for reading!

31DC2014: Day 20 - Water Marble

Hey lovelies! As you can guess, I looove water marbling so I was very pleased with today's prompt and knew it'd be a breeze. It didn't even take me a lot of time to pick polishes either. I used three Essie polishes because they work best for me even if they are a little bit older, as long as they aren't thick or slightly gloopy, they'll work.

The polishes were:

Devil's Advocate

Peach Daiquiri

Mojito Madness 

They make a lovely combination and I'm so very happy with how they turned out. Although I don't know what's going on with the bottom of my ring and middle finger nails, I think the tape pulled the design a bit, but despite that it's one of my best yet, I also branched out and used three colours which isn't something I tend to do when I water marble.

I could do water marbling forever and always be so happy with the result. I think I need more Essie polishes to do more combinations!

31DC2014: Day 19 - Galaxies

Hello there! I was very excited for today's prompt because I love galaxies and I really enjoyed doing my galaxy design from last years challenge. This year I had a lot more choice as to what polish I would and therefore, I used quite a few! I'll do my best to list them in the order I used them.

Black Satin - Ulta3 (base)
Lily White - Ulta3 (sponged base)
Bahama Mama - Essie (purpley colour)
After School Boy Blazer - Essie (dark blue)
Solar Flare - Peita's Polish (this doesn't show up much in the picture but it's a light slightly holographic green; it's from a recent What's Indie Box that I'll be posting about next month)
Go Overboard - Essie (dark green)
Soft Hydrandea - Ulta3 (light blue that I used to lighten some areas without it being harsh white) 
Lunar Lights - Lilypad Lacquer (a light holographic silver polish also from the What's Indie Box)

I then placed some glitter from China Glaze's Snow Globe around the nails and then topped it with an unnamed glitter and then with Seche Vite.

I really like it, with most galaxy designs though, it's hard to capture every little colour and detail that has been sponged on. It definitely looks better in real life than in photos, but oh well, still looks pretty cool.

That's all for today! I'm looking forward to tomorrow's water marbling!

31DC2014: Day 18 - Half Moons

Hey everyone! Today's prompt was very frustrating for me, the design I have to show you was the second design I did because the first one just didn't turn out well and couldn't be photographed properly. But you're lucky because I was just going to redo it in the morning and post two prompts tomorrow, but I sucked it up and quickly did this one for the challenge.

I used two Essie polishes: E-Nuf Is E-Nuf and After School Boy Blazer. The glitter is from the Brocades collection from Maybelline Color Show, I can't remember the name right now as I'm not near the polish but it's a very lovely glitter that's mostly silver but in the right light you can see tiny fine specks of gold and I didn't expect that because I'd never used the polish before, I thought it was the exact same as their Silver Gleam polish from the Sequins collection but I was very wrong! 

I freehanded the half moons and they're not the best but I had nothing else that worked as well as freehanding them did, so I just went with it. 

That's all for today! Kind of feels like a bit of a fail but I know it's not haha. Tomorrow is galaxies and I'm hoping I can do something amazing.

31DC2014: Day 17 - Glitter

Hi everyone! Super quick post tonight on these glitter nails that I did after work today. I had no real plans for these and just used what was already on my desk. I used Total Eclipse - Rimmel, the other Space Dust polish I have, Urban Utopia - Maybelline Color Show and Stop The Press - Ulta3. I was a bit annoyed because when I applied Stop The Press it turned the Maybelline polish a different colour, sort of a lighter green. It doesn't really show on the pictures but if I was to wear this for a few days, it'd look a bit silly. Maybe the formulas just don't go well together.

That's all for today, nothing special but still an okay mani. Thanks for reading!

31DC2014: Day 16 - Geometric

Hi everyone! Today's prompt is geometric and I was actually looking forward to it after my little experiment with shapes for day six, but the last two days at work have been quite busy so I didn't have a lot of time to plan anything out. But last night I was browsing through a Google images of geometric shapes and suddenly I thought of an idea and quickly drew it down so I'd remember it today!

The design isn't anything special and I only did it as an accent nail because I knew I wouldn't be able to concentrate long enough to do it on all four of my nails (I don't paint both hands in the challenge or even my thumb nail, it's just a waste). I was already getting frustrated with the first piece of striping tape so I'm glad I only did one nail. I grabbed a few glitter polishes and chose one for another accent nail. Then, just to add something a little extra to the mani, I put some studs from this kit on the plain coloured nails. I don't love the studs though, I bought them a while ago just so I would have them in my collection but I'm not a fan!

The teal colour is Suzi Says Feng Shui - OPI, the purple is Liberty - W7 and the glitter is Luna Love - Rimmel (Space Dust Collection). I am in looove with the glitter; I bought two space dust polishes months ago but never really used them because I forgot about them, but they're amazing!

Looking at the pictures makes me realise that yep, I definitely hate the studs, they just look funny on my nails I think. Oh well, I experimented haha.

Thanks for reading!

31DC2014: Day 15 - Delicate Print

Hey everyone! Today's post will be a quick because these are very simple nails and don't require much explaining. I'm not someone who does a lot of delicate print nail art, so I always struggled with this prompt but as soon as I saw these in Priceline the other week I knew exactly what I would do for today.

I did these nails about a week ago, so that's why they're a bit longer than yesterday's post. The nail lace tips, which I linked to above, were $2.75AUD in Priceline, which is an absolute bargain. They're a part of one of Essence's many trend editions. I love going into Priceline and seeing what their new trend is because it's always different and there's always at least one good product, if not more.

I started with a base of Fun In The Gondola by Essie, and then picked one column of lace tips to use and matched them to my nail shape as best I could. They looked really nice and despite some being a little bit too small, or slightly going over my free edge (nothing you can't fix with some filing) I enjoyed how cute and pretty they looked. 

That's it for today! Thanks for reading!

31DC2014: Day 14 - Flowers

Hey everyone! Today's prompt is flowers and I have to admit I wasn't looking forward to this one too much, I think in the whole time I've been doing nail art, I've only ever done flowers two or three times. I'm just not a fan and I can never get them right. But today I stuck with something I've done before (from this tutorial) because it was easiest and seemed better than doing a simple daisy design (not that I have a problem with them, because I love daises, I did them for last years flower prompt and didn't want to repeat them this year).

I started with a black base of Lotsa Fun - Ulta3, a nice deep blue/purple colour. Then I dotted on the following colours:
White Satin - Ulta3
Soft Hydrandea - Ulta3
Baguette Me Not - OPI
Strawberry Sundae - Ulta3
Turquoise Paradise - Maybelline Color Show
Fresh Squeezed - Ulta3

The leaves are a mix of Mojito Madness - Essie and Don't Mess With OPI - OPI.

They do look quite similar to a design I've previously done with this method but oh well, whatever. Still can't decide whether they look like flowers or not though.

31DC2014: Day 13 - Animal Print

Hey everyone! I hope your weekend is off to a good start. Today I did a simple leopard print. Usually I do a white base but I thought for this post I'd do something a little different; I used Soft Hydrangea by Ulta3 as the base, which is a nice pale blue. I then used Strawberry Sundae and Black Satin for the print. I didn't top coat it purely because I was removing this almost straight after I took photos so it would have been a waste. But I kind of like how it looks a bit textured.

That's all for today, thanks for reading!

31DC2014: Day 12 - Stripes

Hello lovelies! Today is stripes day and it's no surprise what design I went with today, the simple layered stripes I originally learnt from this tutorial.

I used the following polishes:
Metropolitan - L'Oreal
Make Mine Mango - Revlon
Manic Panic - Australis
Did It On 'Em - OPI

I love how these turned out, ever since I reorganised my collection I told myself I need to start using other polishes other than Ulta3 and Essie so I branched out with this design and picked polishes I haven't used for a while. I'm very happy I did because these were a great combo!

Check back tomorrow for animal print day!

31DC2014: Day 11 - Polka Dots

Hi everyone! We're now onto the styles section of the challenge which I enjoy because you get to do a lot of different designs and can use any colours, instead of having to stick to a general one like the first ten days.

Before I get into this post, I just need to inform everyone that the next few days of the challenge have all been pre done as I'm going away for the weekend to see my grandparents for my grandpa's 80th birthday. I'm currently in between designs as I write this because I leave tomorrow morning and need them all done and scheduled to post while I'm away. Therefore, these next few designs will be simple ones using techniques I've done before just to save myself the pressure of trying something new in the space of the 40 minutes I've assigned myself each design so that I can get through them all. 

Now onto today's post! Polka dots! Dots are so easy to do so these won't require much explanation. I had planned something else, but I didn't wake up early enough this morning to give myself enough time to execute it properly, therefore I've just gone with a simple dotticure.

I used all OPI polishes, the base is My Vampire Is Buff, the blue is Suzi Says Feng Shui and the green is Don't Mess With OPI.

That's it for today, be sure to look out for my next few posts and hopefully I'm still able to post on instagram so make sure to follow me there too!

31DC2014: Day 10 - Gradient

Hi everyone! I was really looking forward to today because I love gradients and I've really gotten the technique down pat, but today feels like a fail day. It's not though, because it's a really amazing gradient in person, the colours are very vivid and bright and I'm so in love with it, but the photos come nowhere near close to how it looks in person. It's so disheartening when this happens because all I want to do is show off how proud I am of it but I can't. Another problem was that when I sat down on the ground in front of my light box I hit my nails on the treadmill next to it and ruined two of them. I'm not going to lie, I genuinely almost cried, it was so frustrating. I quickly did the whole 'lick your finger and push the polish back' method which helped a lot because it was so much worse than it ended up. Then I did even more damage control by dotting some white onto the areas that the nail was showing through and sponged the green back on a few times.

I just feel a bit deflated about this whole post today so I'll just tell you the polishes and show the pictures. I used Spring Break - Ulta3, Butler Please - Essie and Urban Utopia - Maybelline Color Show.

I know they aren't awful and they're actually really well blended and I'm super proud of that, but I'm just annoyed that purple isn't as bright and deep as it is in person. Ahh the perils of nail blogging. Oh well.

31DC2014: Day 9 - Rainbow

Hi everyone! Today's rainbow prompt is always a fun one because it leads to sooo many possibilities. I didn't have a lot of time to plan this one out and I couldn't be bothered to do something very detailed. Lazy, I know, but I've been working.

I went with a dotticure design where I pretty much just dotted them anywhere and everywhere I could, halfway through I realised that it reminded me a clown costume and I really hate clowns so I tried to avoid it looking too clown-ish (I don't think it worked, it's still a bit creepy).

The polishes used were:
Red: Scarlet - Ulta3
Orange: Bright Me - Ulta3
Yellow: Fresh Squeezed - Ulta3
Green: Mojito Madness - Essie
Blue: Avenue Maintain - Essie
Purple: Palette Play - Ulta3

I really freakin' love these nails so much that I can get past the clown vibe and deal with it. I don't think I've ever done a dotticure with this many colours but it was so fun to just dot them anywhere and not worry about getting them all to look nice and be even. I probably should have kept these for the polka dot prompt but oh well, I have another plan for them.

Hope you enjoyed today's nails! Thanks for reading.

31DC2014: Day 8 - Metallic

Hello lovelies! As I said yesterday, metallic nail polish is my least favourite polish ever. I probably own only three or four metallics out of almost 200 polishes, so yeah I really don't like it. Therefore, it was a bit of a struggle to come up with something today, but I went with this chevron design of two slightly metallic polishes.

I used two Savvy polishes: Ufo and Cosmic.

Hopefully they're metallic enough to pass for this prompt. Thanks for reading!

31DC2014: Day 7 - Black and White

Hi everybody! Today's prompt is black and white. I have to admit I struggled a bit to come up with an idea, but I settled on something I haven't really done much of before, which has been a recurring theme for these past few days, but that's a good thing!

I had planned to place studs at the point of the triangle too, but they just didn't look right. For some reason I have a lot of trouble incorporating studs into designs, they're just not my thing!

I used two Ulta3 polishes for this, Lily White and Black Satin. My new favourite basics, and as someone who does A LOT of designs with a white base, I can never have enough white polishes that I love!

That's all for today! I hope you enjoyed this simple mani. I quite like it. Tomorrow's prompt is Metallic and I am definitely not looking forward to it as I hate metallic polish with a passion. I think it looks funny on me, but we'll see if I can get away with using as little metallic polish as possible.