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 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!

Inspired By... #11

Hello lovelies! If you follow me on Instagram you would have seen these nails and the inspiration behind them already as I posted about them on Friday and Saturday. But I had to do a full post on them anyway!

I went to a friend's engagement party on the weekend and I wore the dress below. I absolutely love this dress, which my best friend bought me last year for my 21st, and the nail art possibilities to go with it are endless! I didn't even know where to start, however I didn't have a lot of time on Saturday so I went with something very simple: a gradient.

For the first time in a verrrry long time, I didn't start with a white base. I went straight on with Revlon's Tulip (an amazing shade of pink that's very buildable). I wanted more of a subtle gradient as it appears on the dress so on the bigger, flat side of a triangle sponge I painted a small strip of the pink polish with a slightly bigger strip of My Boyfriend Scales Walls - OPI, a bright white, above it and then I gently sponged it on, making sure to blend the colours from about halfway up the nail. I think I only did one coat of the sponging as I didn't want it to be so strong and bold.

I'm not a massive fan of pink nail polish on myself, even though I buy it so often, but I think with the colour toned down it looks okay against my skin tone.

That's it for today, hope everybody had a great weekend!

Inspired By... #5

This week I was inspired by this skirt that I wore to a 21st on Friday night. 

Following this tutorial that the lovely divalicious01 on Instagram linked me to, I was able to recreate the herringbone/chevron type pattern you see on the skirt. I'm going to be honest when I say that while the tutorial was super easy to follow and made it look like a breeze, I had a bit of trouble with it. I was getting really frustrated when the squares wouldn't match up or one was way too big compared to the others and that was only on my left hand. I'll also admit that I did throw a dotting tool or two onto my desk when it wasn't going quite as planned. I was making so much frustrated noise in fact that at one point my mum walked past my room and asked "Is it all going okay?" And because of all that, who can blame me when I decided I wasn't going to do the same on my right hand, because there was no way I'd be able to do that pattern with my left hand. I was very wrong though.

When I eventually calmed down and was sort-of-but-not-really happy with it, I did decide to try it again on my right hand. And it turned out waaaay better than my left one did, which I was both annoyed and happy about, but you win some, you lose some. This design definitely takes a lot of practice but I'm not sure I'll be doing it again anytime soon.

On my other nails, I painted them the other colours of the skirt, the blue is Royal - Revlon and the black is Black Out - Sally Hansen which was also used in the pattern, along with White On - Sally Hansen.

I've had this design on for a few days now (mostly because I've been too lazy to take it off) and I've come to the conclusion that I don't like it as much as I thought I did. I was never completely happy with it, but I was also very proud of it, especially my right hand and even if I don't like it, I am still very proud of it because I stepped out of my comfort zone and tried something completely new and different and even though they're far from perfect, it'll be nice to look back on and know that I can do it.

I hope everybody had another nice long weekend (if you live in Australia) and I hope you enjoy the week ahead!

Pink and Orange Watercolour

Okay, so it's no secret that I freakin' love watercolour nail art. And when I combine it with a Matte topcoat, it becomes my ultimate favourite mani. I love this so much and I wish I hadn't taken it off for work today. You'll probably see at least one watercolour mani every month because I'm only just getting started with the colour combos. Let me know if you get sick of them though!

The pink is Hot Spring - Ulta3, which is a deep, dark pink normally, almost purple. I've never actually used it before except to test it when my mum bought it for me ages ago. I had never been a big fan of it until the other day when I picked it out and under the light I use to do my nails, it looked absolutely amazing, so now I'm a massive fan of it. The orange is Mock Snob - Revlon, which is also quickly becoming a favourite of mine. 

I've got another post planned for Friday or Saturday so look out for that! I've decided I won't be doing another Christmas mani this week, I might save them for Christmas week!

Colourful Matte Dots

If you follow me on Instagram you'll have noticed that I posted these nails yesterday. I was too excited about them to not share straight away. I was supposed to be one a no-buy month, but Priceline's 40% off cosmetics sale was just too good to ignore, so I bought the Revlon Matte Top Coat. I had been wanting it for so long, but just couldn't justify spending almost $14 to get it. I am so glad I broke my no-buy month because I love this top coat so much. I love all matte finishes and most of my lipsticks are matte because I prefer it over glossy lips. 

My first instinct when I got this was to do black nails with bright dots to give my nails a chalkboard look. That was all I could think of doing and I love the way they turned out. I did two coats of Blackmail - Australis and then used a dotting tool to put some dots everywhere. You may notice in the photos that there is some white, that's because I wanted the colours to really pop so I did white dots before putting down the colours and I think it worked brilliantly.

The colours I used were:
Orange: Orange Fizz - Savvy
Purple: Grapetini - Savvy
Blue: Feeling Blue - Models Own
Green: Misty Jade - Rimmel
Pink: Daiquiri - Savvy

My right hand nails are in such awful shape and I never realised taking a photo of them would be so difficult! 

Is there anything anyone would particularly like to see in the coming weeks? I'm up for taking suggestions on future posts if anybody wants to see something specific from me!

Dots on Dots

Just a simple mani today while I wait for my nails to grow. I'm still so sad I had to file them all down, but this looks kinda cute with the length anyway.

The green base is two coats of Wind Fall - Revlon (shown on it's own in the first picture), the bigger dots are Time Out - Sugar Baby and the smaller dots are Azure Martini - Savvy by DB. I feel like I've seen this mani with very similar colours elsewhere, so if I've copied someone without giving credit, I'm sorry. It's completely unintentional and I cannot remember where/if I did see it.

I'm still on the lookout for some affordable, good strengtheners. But everything is so expensive in Australia and if it's cheap online, there's still some hefty shipping costs. However, after doing this mani I feel like I'm back in the swing of things, and I can deal with short nails for now. I know they'll grow eventually.