31DC2015: Day 23 - Inspired By A Movie

Today's prompt is based on a movie and I had a really hard time figuring out which movie I wanted to do because I honestly don't watch a lot of them, and the ones that I do watch are pretty impossible to do nail art on. But I was browsing ideas and decided to base them on the movie Tangled, which is honestly one of my favourite movies. 

I did some really simple nail art, the ring and middle finger are based on the scene with all the lanterns in the night sky and the pinky and index finger are loosely based on Rapunzel's hair when it's plaited and has all the flowers in it. They're simple designs but I think they represent the movie pretty well!

I used waaay too many polishes for this so I'm not going to list them all, but I did base the flowers on a previous design by Sarah over at Chalkboard Nails.

Thanks for reading! 

- Melissa.

31DC2015: Day 14 - Flowers

I'm not a huge fan of doing floral nail art. I've done some designs in the past but I've never been completely happy with the end result. I guess I'm just not a floral person. But I persevered and did a very simple, blobby type of design.

I started with a base of Bikini So Teeny by Essie, and for the flowers I used Fuschia Petal and Vivid Rose, with Peach Bloom in the centre and Chic Chartreuse all by Maybelline Color Show.

I quite like how this one turned out because I didn't care too much about the application and placement of the flowers. I just blobbed them on and went with it!

- Melissa.

Floral Water Decals - Born Pretty Store Review

*This product was sent to me for review, all opinions are my own

Today I have my final review of the products I was sent by Born Pretty Store. This time it's these lovely floral french mani water decals which cost $2.63AUD for 1 sheet of 14 decals. I got a bit excited to test these out so I completely forgot to take photos of the process but if you check out this post I tell you there how to apply water decals.

I was going to use a base colour but couldn't find one that worked well with it so I went with the traditional natural base. The decals were easy to apply and even though they were a bit too long for my nails they were very easy to shorten, all I did to achieve that was while the decal was still wet I bent the excess over the free edge of my nail to let it dry and once dried, I used acetone on a small brush to dissolve the excess and smooth the edge out. And because they're so thin you can easily reshape them on your actual nails too.

Once dry all you need to do is top coat your nails and they'll last for several days. They're easy to remove as well, all you do is remove them as you would normal nail polish!

I love how these look and I think I want more french mani decals because they're gorgeous and so easy to use. I'm not even a big floral person but I absolutely love the design on these! These are definitely my favourite of the four nail art products I received.

If you want some nails that stand out but don't want to put a lot of effort into them then definitely get these, so quick, easy and very pretty.

Don't forget if you do purchase anything to use the code MEPUK31 for 10% off the Born Pretty Store website.

Thanks for reading!

- Melissa.

Splattered Floral Nail Art (Inspired By Chalkboard Nails)

Hello there everybody!

So today I have a post inspired by the very talented Sarah from Chalkboard Nails, particularly this tutorial on some easy splattered floral nail art. I loved this design from the moment I saw it and knew I wanted to try it out as it's something very different to what I'd normally do.

My base is My Vampire Is Buff by OPI with the flowers being Pink Boom and Coral Heat by Maybelline Color Show. When I added the leaves using Chic Charteruse I realised they were a bit too neon but I rolled with it anyway! I then added some small black dots to define the bigger flowers. And then to top it all off I used a Matte top coat. Oh and I only did two nails because I just couldn't get the sticky tape right for all four.

I quite like them! I haven't taken these off yet just because they're so nice and lovely and I'm kind of proud of them.

Make sure you check out the tutorial through the link to see how it's all done and maybe recreate it yourself!

Thanks for reading!

- Melissa

Colourful Floral Nail Art

Hey there lovelies! Tonight I have a simple mani that was inspired by a pair of bed leggings I recently bought from Cotton On. Ever since I saw them I knew I could do some great nail art to match and I've finally done some that I'm pretty proud of!

I started with a base of After School Boy Blazer by Essie then used the following colours: Spring Break by Ulta3 for the dark purple, Pink Boom by Maybelline Color Show, Avenue Maintain by Essie for the blue and Bond With Whomever by Essie for the light purple.

And here's the inspiration!

That's all today for this super simple and quick post! I did some more nail art today so I'll spread them out over the next few days, 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.

Inspired By... #9

Hello lovelies! I'm back today with another Inspired By post. Once again, I am inspired by Candice of MrCandiiPants. I want to recreate so many of the designs and tutorials she does because she's incredibly talented and she makes them look so easy. This time I was inspired by this particular tutorial. It's a floral design using a stippling method with many different colours.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about these nails. Firstly, I suck so hard at painting leaves, some look okay-ish, while others are a total mess, and secondly, did I do them well enough to look like flowers? I have no idea, but they are nowhere near as good as Candice's. They look pretty cool though, I'd be interested to see how stippling over the whole nail would turn out; just doing a bunch of colours all over. I might have to try that out, even just for an accent nail or something.

Here's the list of colours I used (and for once I'm not being lazy even though there are a lot):
After School Boy Blazer - Essie (base colour, very nice dark and deep navy blue)
White On - Sally Hansen (base colour for the flowers)
Fun In The Gondola - Essie (light pink)
E-Nuf Is E-Nuf - Essie (dark pink)
Avenue Maintain - Essie (light blue)
Mellow Yellow - Sally Hansen (yellow, obviously)
Bright Me - Ulta3 (orange)
Sheer Peach - W7 (peachy colour on top of the yellow and orange)
Thanks A Windmillion - OPI
Mojito Madness - Essie
Don't Mess With OPI - OPI 
(The last three were mixed in various ways for the leaves)
And like usual, I top coated it with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri.

31 Day Challenge: Day 14 - Flowers

Today's prompt is flowers! As you can see below I did two versions of flowers on my nails. I was excited for today, even though I was also slightly nervous because I've never successfully done a floral design before. I watched numerous tutorials on how to do them, I'm talking too many to list because I can barely remember, they've all blurred into one at this point.

But I took all this information on board and began to do a classic rose look. As you can see, I completed this design (not very successfully) on my ring and thumb nails. I asked my brother whether they looked like flowers and he said they looked a bit like cupcakes. Either way, I'm a little bit pleased with my how my first go went, I did mess up a little bit but the top coat smoothed all that out for me. I also attempted this design on my middle finger, because initially I was only going to do a design on those three fingers, but whilst adding the dark purple outlines, I accidentally scratched the nail with my other hand and I sort of threw my dotting tool down and got pretty annoyed because I was seriously hoping I wouldn't have to redo any nails. 

At this point I decided to also throw in some more simpler pink daisy-like flowers on the other fingers while I repainted the base colour. Overall I'm quite happy with it even if it does look like a first try. But hey, practice makes perfect and I now feel more comfortable doing flowers.

(Side note: I'm noticing my editing skills are varying from photo to photo and it's so frustrating so excuse the inconsistency. Also my thumb cuticle is horrible right now because I slammed that finger in a door a month ago, right on the cuticle and it's still too tender to push back properly. I'm scared the nail is going to fall off.)

The base colour is what I used for my leopard print dots yesterday, Sheer Peach - W7, the light purple is Time Out - Sugar Baby, the dark purple is No. 16 - Miki (I think? I don't know well known this brand is) the green leaves are Sky High - Rimmel, the pink is Pink Peony - Ulta3 and the yellow is Frangipani - Ulta3. I top-coated it with Seche Vite because I'm trying to get used to using it again, I know it's quite popular but I'm still not a massive fan of it.

I know this was quite a wordy post but I had to explain it all. Tomorrow is delicate print, so watch me struggle with that! Maybe I can try stamping again? Hope everyone's having a great weekend so far!