Inspired By... #10

Hi everybody! Once again, I found myself on an unexpected blog/nail break. There were a lot of things going on in the past two weeks, my grandparents came to stay, I worked more than normal, I had some health issues and my nail area was moved temporarily, which all caused me to just feel out of place and unable to do my nails. But this weekend I was able to sit down for the first time in ages and do nails that I had been planning to do for a while.

My nails today are inspired by this picture, which I'm currently using as my phone's lock screen, that I found while browsing for pretty backgrounds and such.

My mani of course, isn't an exact replica because I wanted the purple to be brighter and the lime green/yellow to be more of a lime green. I will point out, that the colours on my computer are slightly different to the ones on my phone anyway.

I don't think I've ever done a gradient with four colours, I know I would struggle to do three but I'm quite pleased how it turned out. I realised the trick was the paint thin strips and spread them out by stamping the sponge more. However, it irks me how the green looks so out place compared to how smooth the three other colours merge together. But, oh well!

The colours used from bottom to top:
Jelly - Ulta3
Daiquiri - Savvy
Manic Panic - Australis
Azure Martini - Savvy

I have plans to knock out some more nail art in the next few days between work and such so look out for them and hopefully I don't disappear again! Enjoy your weekend!

Inspired By... #7

Hello everyone! After a few uninspiring weeks, I'm back with a new 'Inspired By' post. This week, once again, I was inspired by Candice from MrCandiipants. Technically this isn't cheating by being inspired by the same thing because when I first recreated this look from her Simple Layered Stripes tutorial it wasn't a part of this series.

This time around though, I went with a coral base and layered pink, purple/blue and yellow stripes on top of it. Originally I was going to do a darker blue instead of the yellow, but the dark lilac colour I chose sort of came out as blue and it wouldn't have looked right if I had used another dark colour, so I went lighter.

I'm loving my new watermark by the way, it's not so bold and out of place and fits in nicely! I'm super glad I learnt how to do the curved text watermark in Gimp. Also I fixed the ridiculous amount of shine/reflection I would get in my photos, so now you can see the whole design!

The colours I used were:

Base: Coral Crush - Maybelline

Pink: Pink Peony - Ulta3

Yellow: Unicorn - Sinful Colors

Blue/Purple: Grapetini - Savvy

I was very happy with how these turned out and I'm really glad I went with the yellow instead of the dark blue, otherwise I think it would have been a big mess.

Dark Sponging Design

Hello everybody! Please ignore the fact that I haven't been posting for about two weeks. I was sick and working and I just had no energy to sit down and do my nails properly. But today I have a dark sponged type of design that's sort of a gradient, but not in the traditional way.

With this design, I painted the three colours on the square base of a triangle sponge and then dabbed it onto my nail, rotating the sponge with each new nail so that the colours were in different spots each time. I really like how it turned out! It was opaque in two coats which was nice and it was a very quick mani to do, so if you're short on time but want something fun, try this out.

I started with a white base like normal, so that the colours popped (even though they're dark). I did one coat of dabbing on each nail before doing a second coat to make sure they were dry and that the sponge didn't stick to them too much, which didn't turn out so well for the middle finger as it's a bit bumpy. I then top coated the design which left it very glossy, as you can tell from the ridiculous amount of shine/reflection on the nails. 

The colours I used were:
Devil's Advocate - Essie (darkest colour)
Teal - Savvy
Hot Spring - Ulta3

Once again, I had the worst time photographing and editing these but I think I've worked out my problem and because of that, I've ordered a proper light box through ebay, and I'm considering buying a simple digital camera instead of using what I think is an SLR camera, so hopefully things improve soon!

Hope everyone has a good weekend!

Inspired by... Part One

I've decided to start my first series! Each Monday, for however long I follow through with this idea, I'll be posting nails that have been 'inspired by' something. This could be a range of things such as, other designs by nail artists - including tutorials, books, art, photographs, fashion etc, etc. I'm hoping this kicks me out of my comfort zone full of gradients and dotticures because I need to learn new techniques and get as much practice as I can.

First up, I have nails inspired by this tutorial from The Nailasaurus. I've seen her do these waterfall nails numerous times, yet I was never confident enough to try them out myself until I saw her video tutorial on them and saw just how simple it really is. I did realise though that my nails probably aren't the best shape for them as they aren't that wide. But I stuck to it and quickly did the design. I used colours that were already on my desk, so that was a lazy move, but I think they turned out okay. They aren't the best, but at least now I've done it once so I can only get better from this point.

I also chucked in a gradient for good measure, because I can never stop myself when it comes to gradients. It's not the best, but I didn't really take my time with this mani even though I should have. 

The colours I used were:
Bikini So Teeny - Essie
Misty Jade - Rimmel
Grapetini - Savvy
Metropolitan - L'Oreal

I hope everyone likes this new series and if you think of something I might be inspired by, let me know in the comments!

Simple Layered Stripes

Today I am showing you a nail design inspired by the latest tutorial from MrCandiiPants. Actually, it's not so much inspired as almost exactly the same as hers, but that wasn't on purpose. Anyway, Candice is one of my favourite nail artists and I always love everything she does because they're so simple and different, plus her tutorials are always fun to watch. 

This design is seriously one of the easiest things I've ever done. As you'll see if you check out the tutorial, you start with a base colour and choose three or so colours to lightly stripe on each nail. I wanted to do light colours and by a happy coincidence I happened to pick almost the exact same colours as Candice did, so you know it was a good combo. I also cut my longest striping bush to make it quite thin, which I had been meaning to do for ages, so this was a good push to trim my nail art brushes.

The colours I used were the following:
Base: Mint Julep - Savvy
Light Pink: Kiss on the Chic - OPI
Blue: Bikini So Teeny - Essie
Green: Misty Jade - Rimmel
Then I top-coated it with my fave one, Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat by Sally Hansen.

(Still having editing problems, just can't get the end result that I want in each photo.)

Hope everyone enjoyed these nails, expect some more variations of these and to see them in future skittlette manis, because I'm completely obsessed!

Summer Gradient

Quick post today on another gradient I did this weekend. I would have done this mani earlier but I was a bit sick during the week so I had to postpone doing it till now. As you may know, I love doing gradients and this is a different take on a criss cross gradient I did a while ago, just with opposite accent nails.

The white base is White On - Sally Hansen and the colours I used are Orange Fizz, Daiquiri and Grapetini all by Savvy.

Also, for anybody interested I now have a Facebook page, you can find me here.

Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

Glitter and Leopard Print

I went to a cat themed 21st over the weekend so it was obvious that my mani for the night would be leopard print. I was originally going to do leopard print on every nail in the generic colours but once I began I hated it so instead I did the following design, chucking in a glitter nail as well. I absolutely love this, the purple is one of my fave polishes ever and I don't want to take the mani off because I enjoy it so much.

(Only one photo this week because I took them in a rush before I headed out and this was the only one that turned out decently.)

The colours I used are:
Grapetini - Savvy
White On - Sally Hansen 
Black Out - Sally Hansen
Silver Gleam - Maybelline Color Show

Once again, I need to apologise for my absence, I'm trying my best to get motivated to do my nails. But when I do nails like these that I absolutely love, I remember why I do what I do and then various people give me compliments and say they're always looking to see what I'll do next and it just makes me feel really proud of myself. So thank you to everyone who supports me, I'll try to get some more designs done in the next few weeks!

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.