31 Day Challenge: Day 24 - Inspired By A Book (The Fault In Our Stars)

I absolutely love reading so this prompt excited me, but straight away I knew which book I wanted to be replicate on my nails. The Fault In Our Stars by John Green is in my top 5 favourite books ever, I've read it too many times (although too many is never enough) and it never fails to make me happy and excited and miserable all at once. It's lovely, if you haven't read it, I won't spoil it, but I recommend reading it. It is currently being made into a movie starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort as the two main characters, so if you're not up for reading it, you can definitely watch it when it's released. I know a lot of people have different views on John Green, but he's one of my favourite authors so I thought I'd honour my favourite book of his.

I used Feeling Blue - Models Own as my base, which matches pretty perfectly with the cover of the book. Then using a dotting tool I made clouds with my go to black and whites My Boyfriend Scales Walls - O.P.I and Blackmail - Australis. Then on the index and pinky fingernails I wrote the word 'okay'. If you've read the book you'll understand, but the story surrounding the word 'okay' is one of my favourite parts and something I love so much. The O's kind of look like D's but it's obvious what I was trying to do haha. I'm really happy with these nails, and I think I'll redo them for when I see the movie.

That's all for today, I'll be here tomorrow with nails inspired by fashion. Only a week left in the challenge!

31 Day Challenge: Day 23 - Inspired By A Movie (Wreck-It Ralph)

I had no idea what movie I wanted to do today, and as I didn't have my hard drive with me I couldn't browse through my movies to get an idea. So I ended up thinking about what movie I've watched most this year and straight away I thought of Wreck-It Ralph. I absolutely love that movie, it makes me so happy and I can't explain why, it just does. Then I got to thinking about what type of designs I could and because I didn't have the movie with me, I had to google some screencaps to get an idea. I settled on three designs.

On my thumb and ring nail I used Bad Anon - Gloss 'N Sparkle (from the August Wreck-It Ralph themed What's In-die Box?)

My index nail is based on Turbo, a character who leaves his game and when Ralph also leaves his game others ask if he's 'going Turbo'. I used three coats of MBSW - O.P.I and the red is Pillar Box Red - W7, I painted the T using the brush from the bottle instead of taping it all out.

My middle finger was a doozy, I originally wanted to do pink and white diagonal stripes like the tree Ralph and Vanellope climb when Ralph first goes into the Sugar Rush game. All was going well until I pulled off the second last bit of tape and with game the white polish. Which I don't understand because I had painted the base last night to avoid the polish being pulled up haha. So I started again and didn't want to risk it, so I simply did a pink dotted design to sort of represent Sugar Rush. The pink is Pink Peony - Ulta3.

And my pinky is of course the medal that Ralph gets and Vanellope goes on to take the medal and use in her own game. The gold is Glitz - Orly and the blue is Cool Cat - Sugar Baby.

So they are my Wreck-It Ralph nails and I'm quite pleased with them, I just wish my middle finger had worked out the way it should have! See you all tomorrow with nails inspired by a book!

31 Day Challenge: Day 22 - Inspired By A Song - Lady Gaga's Applause

I've had this idea in my head ever since I started the challenge, so I knew exactly what I wanted to do today. Last night I watched the film clip to Applause and took screenshots of parts I wanted to replicate or what I thought might be easy to put on my nails. So I'll be showing the screenshots from the video that I based my nails on as well, so it's easier to understand. I'm honestly not sure how I feel about them, they looked better in my head but I think I executed it as best I could.

The thumb, middle, and ring fingers were inspired by Gaga's makeup:

And the index and pinky fingers were inspired by this:

I used the watercolour technique of dabbing on some nail polish, dipping a brush into acetone and then dabbing the blob of nail polish around the nail, for all the nails. But for the make up inspired nails I wanted to try and replicate the placement of the makeup on her face across two nails. The darker blue was the hardest part as I had to try swoop it down without covering too much of the nail. For the other two fingers I used to tape to try get the shape of the purple light/smoke (?) that surrounds her. I had a bit of trouble with lifting when I pulled the tape off but it was nothing I couldn't fix with a bit of extra polish and a top coat to smooth things out.

As for colours, this is what I used:

White base: three coats of My Boyfriend Scales Walls - O.P.I

Teal: Let's Get Lost - Essence, Colour & Go

Dark Blue: Royal - Revlon

Orange: Sun Kissed - Sally Hansen

Yellow: Yellow Mellow - Sally Hansen

Light Purple: Grapetini - Savvy by DB

Darker Purple: No. 16 - Miki (this doesn't show up that well but it accounts for the small bits of red glitter, which I didn't mean to happen but it turned out okay anyway).

So there's my 'Inspired By A Song' mani. Tomorrow is 'Inspired By A Movie' and I have zero ideas! Hope everyone has had/is having a good weekend!

Ps after yesterday I realised my nails were two uneven from some breaks, so I had to file them down and make them round, not sure if I like this shape better than square though.

31 Day Challenge: Day 21 - Inspired By A Colour

Today is probably one of the least 'inspired by' days because it almost makes no sense! Inspired by a colour can mean so many things, and ever since I decided to do this, this has been the design I've had in my head the whole time for today. I've done this mani previously before I had a blog and I really liked it because it's simple but also adds a bit of fun to my nails. So I think this means I was inspired by neon yellow, or maybe grey? 

I started with two coats of a white base to make the neon pop, then did one coat of Citrus - Ulta3, let that dry before putting one strip of striping tape on each nail (I realised when I taking photos that my pinky line is a bit crooked) and then did one coat of Moody Grey - Models Own on each nail, slowly pulling the tape off straight after. 

The grey mutes the neon slightly, because there isn't a lot of it left and I think that's what I really like about this mani. The colours also reminds me of something a tennis player would wear. That's what I first thought when I finished this.

These last few days might get tricky because I don't really have a lot planned, just some ideas that I'm not sure how to execute. Let's see how it goes!

31 Day Challenge: Day 20 - Watermarble

So I love watermarble designs and I've never had too much trouble doing them, which is why I love them. Also because they can look absolutely amazing. The hardest part for me today was picking colours, I went through about six different combinations before I settled on these two colours, both by Revlon, the green is Wind Fall and the orange is Mock Snob.

The green didn't turn out as bright as it is when normally used on it's own and once again the photos don't do the colours justice anyway. Wind Fall has a slight shimmer to it but it doesn't show too well when used this way. I'm happy with how this turned out, even though the green isn't as vibrant as I'd like (I think it's just such a thin polish that it wasn't opaque enough with only one drop each time), but the colours go well together and reminds me of some type of lolly.

Not much else to say about these nails except that I think these are the best watermarbles I've ever done, so I feel like I'm improving which is great!

Today was the end of the 'patterns' section of the challenge. The last section is 'inspired by' which may be difficult but I've tried planning some designs so we'll see if it all works out. See you tomorrow!

31 Day Challenge: Day 19 - Galaxy

I am so incredibly excited to show you what I achieved! I've attempted galaxies before without great success and I knew it was because I didn't have a great range of colours, but a year later my collection is a lot bigger than it used to be so I knew today would be a breeze. 

I love everything about galaxy designs, I used to own the purple galaxy leggings from Black Milk Clothing before I sold them and I currently own the blue galaxy skirt from Black Milk. I love looking at pictures of galaxies too so I was always disappointed when I couldn't replicate them on my nails. But when I successfully did these nails I was massively excited and couldn't stop staring at them. I don't even want to take them off to do tomorrow's design!

I used a few colours to achieve this look:
Black Base: Onyx Rush - Maybelline Color Show (this has a slight shimmer to it so I thought it'd be a great base for galaxies).
The following colour were what I sponged:
My Boyfriend Scales Walls - O.P.I
Meteor - Savvy by DB (what a fitting name for a galaxy design)
Suzi Says Feng Shui - O.P.I
Señorita Rose-Alita - O.P.I

I then used MBSW to add a few star-like dots and then used an unnamed glitter and top coated it with Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri (which is my fave top coat).

I had a lot of fun doing this and I'm super happy with how it turned out. I was so glad I was successful. I definitely think I'll be doing this again with different colours. Tomorrow's prompt is watermarbling and I am a huge fan of watermarbling so I can't wait to pick some colours and go nuts!

31 Day Challenge: Day 18 - Half Moons

I can't believe we're at day 18 already, the last week has been a blur of nails. It's crazy. Anyway, today is half moons and I wish I had used something better than french manicure tip guides. The last few times I've done half moon designs I've used those small circle bandaids but I didn't have any this time round, so I just used french tip guides. I had been meaning to go out and buy those circle stickers you use to reinforce loose leaf paper holes for folders but I didn't get around to it. I still like this though. I love the colour combination a lot.

(Only one photo turned out good and I didn't realise till I had already taken it off.)

The base colour is Baguette Me Not - O.P.I and the top colour is Teal - Savvy by DB.

Tomorrow is galaxy! I'm excited despite the fact that I'm not great at it. More info tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a good week so far.