31DC2014: Day 30 - Inspired By A Tutorial

Hi everyone, here's the second last post for the challenge! I'm pretty over it and briefly considered not even doing the last two, but I powered through two manis this afternoon because why give up now?!

Today I was inspired by this tutorial from Nailed It NZ (Jessie), who is super talented and very good at what she does. She's also inspiring because she's turned her hobby into her career and it's been fun to be a part of and watch her progress through her blog.

I chose the mini strawberry tutorial because it seemed like something I could do in about twenty minutes, and it was! I knocked these out in about that time, maybe less. They were super easy and even though I had trouble with the placement on some nails, I think they're pretty okay! They could be better, but I'm happy with how cute they look.

I used White On - Sally Hansen as a base, Scarlet - Ulta3 for the strawberries, Sheer Peach - W7 for the little seeds and Don't Mess With OPI - OPI for the leaves.

The more I look at them, the more some of them look like carrots haha, they're too triangle shaped! But still cute.

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!

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.

Green to Purple Gradient

I enjoy doing gradients and I think I've finally gotten the hang of doing enough coats to make it opaque. In this mani, I used a white base of White On - Sally Hansen (which I think is my new favourite white polish), Misty Jade - Rimmel, Avenue Maintain - Essie and Liberty - W7. I think I did about three coats to get it opaque enough.

Only one photo this week because my camera was acting up and I couldn't be bothered dealing with it. But at least there was one good one!

Hope everybody has a lovely weekend!