Take Two Day 2: Flag nails

Yarr! Greetings land lubbers. Ye've likely found that I be a wee bit silly. Uh. Urghh. Uh hem. Yes.. so, I am a bit silly. I don't take things too seriously. I wasn't overly inspired by any world flags, so instead I picked my favourite flag. The PIRATE FLAG!

Take Two Day 1: Inspired by a Band

Hahah! Yes! Your eyes do not deceive you! My 80s child is not only showing, it's running around naked banging two pot lids together.

As far as bands go, my favourites actually include a lot of black and death metal (I know, can you believe it?). I wasn't feeling particularly dark or brutal today so I wanted something more fun and light hearted. My favourite musician right now is actually Grimes (I'm seeing her live in a couple weeks!), but I wasn't inspired there either. So in a giggly moment of silly, I picked Jem and the Holograms!

Reddit 52 Week Challenge: Black and white

It's time for another week of the Reddit Laqueristas 52 Week Challenge. This week's theme is black and white. I have no idea how I came up with this idea. I decided to do some bunnies.. at night. I think it's pretty cute.

Reddit 52 Week Challenge: Inspired by a game

This took me somewhere I didn't expect to go! I'm a bit of a video game geek, so I had all kinds of ideas for this theme. I never expected to end up in Candyland. Although, to be fair, one never really expects to end up in Candyland.

In case you don't know, Candyland is a very cute, colourful boardgame loved mostly by little children. The reason I picked it was because I just felt like doing something cute and colourful. Maybe it's all the Halloween stuff I've been doing.

This was an ambitious undertaking, but in the end, I love it.

Dragons and aliens with A England and Cheeky

I took a break yesterday and just chilled with Mini Rob. Today I wanted to use two of my newest acquisitions - my gorgeous new polish from A England and my new Cheeky stamping plates!

A England Dragon is just generally awesome. It has some of my favourite things you can have in polish - green, holo, duochrome and perfect formula. And when I was ordering my Cheeky plates there was one plate that I just loved so much - CH32, the monster (or alien) plate!

This Is Halloween Nail Art Challenge: Trick or Treat!

I choose... trick. At first glance these little candies probably look very innocent and delicious. Have a closer look though.

Yep. Those are little skull candies. Have you ever googled "Skull candy" and tried to find actual candy and not a set of headphones? I have. It's a tough challenge. On the flip side, "Candy skull" yields Mexican sugar skulls. So I just did my own thang.

This Is Halloween Nail Art Challenge: Witches

I decided to take a break from the creepy Halloweeny colours and looks. I did have some pretty neat ideas for some creepier witch nails, but this time The Wizard of Oz won out. Yep. I will never pass up an opportunity to use a polish that is impossible to photograph - like Ruby Pumps. I just like to torture myself like that.

For this mani my inspiration was two of the witches from The Wizard of Oz. Firstly, The Wicked Witch of the East - that poor dear we never get to meet because she ended up unceremoniously crushed under Dorothy's house. The only part of her we see are her black and white striped legs adorned with the gorgeous ruby slippers. The other inspiration, for my ring finger, was the kind and beautiful Glinda, the Good Witch.

This Is Halloween and Reddit double challenge: Gradient

AAARRRGHHHHH

OK. Now that I've got that out of the way, let me just say that this challenge has seriously challenged me at every turn. I am very happy with the result.. but man. It was quite a thing getting to it.

Today just happens to be gradient day for both challenges I'm participating in: The Reddit Laqueristas 52 Week Challenge and the This Is Halloween Nail Art Challenge.

I have never done a gradient before. Technically, I am so new to all of this that everything I do is a first. I am the sort of person to jump in the deep end though. None of this two colour horizontal gradient thing. Oh no. I think I'll do a vertical tri colour gradient! What could go wrong? ಠ_ಠ. Well.. It turns out the answer is "a lot". But all's well that ends well.

This Is Halloween Nail Art Challenge: Zombies

Hell yeah zombies. I'm not a huge fan of fast, scary, used-to-be-my-neighbour zombies. But zombies of the funny kind are awesome. Zombieland is a great movie. So I was pretty excited about this!

I had a few different ideas which I drew on paper in actual nail size to figure out what was possible. In the end hungry little cartoon zombies trapped on my nail that will never get to that delicious brain is what won. (That was a long sentence).

This Is Halloween Nail Art Challenge: Jack-O-Lanterns

Oh my goodness. This has been very time consuming. I wanted to do something different for this challenge. During my search for inspiration (googling) I came across a glowing pumpkin carved with a silhouetted cat and some stars and went THAT. I WANT TO DO THAT.

I knew it was going to be a pain and take forever, but I also wanted to challenge myself. I am so glad I did. I really love the result.

Reddit 52 Week Challenge: Week 2 Blue with Revlon Royal

It's been a busy couple days in the nail world with the Halloween Challenge and now the second week of the Reddit Laqueristas 52 Week Challenge. This week's challenge is a simple one - Blue. I think it's the simple ones that can be the hardest though. It's so broad that inspiration can be hard to find!

In the end I decided to use one of my favourite rings as inspiration. I love how gold and royal blue look together. So luxurious. It's just a classic and even ancient colour combination, reminding me of Ancient Egypt and one of my most loved gemstones, Lapis Lazuli. I really love how this turned out!

This Is Halloween Nail Art Challenge: Ghosts

I am a bit late to this challenge, but I only stumbled on it last night! How cool is this though? This challenge originated over at Lacquer Dreams and I hope that all the very talented ladies participating don't mind me crashing their party and arriving (fashionably) late.

Today's theme is Ghosts. I imagined little ghosties flying around in some sort of ghosty nether. Doing ghosty things. This is how that mental image ended up looking when applied to my nails:

Rainbow flakie polish - Australis Speck-tacular

Now this was a surprise! I was wandering around Kmart looking at their $3 bargain bin nail polish (woo!) when I spotted the Australis stand. Amidst their other colours I noticed one bottle that was that weird milky yellowy sort of colour that I've come to recognise. NO! Surely not? A FLAKIE!? In my Kmart!

Naturally, it came home with me. Imagine my surprise when I realised it was a rainbow flakie polish - like Finger Paints Twisted and Picture Polish Festival. Hooray!

This is Australis Speck-tacular Crystal Colour Top Coat over black:

Reddit 52 Week Challenge: Week 1 Taping with China Glaze Riveting

I frequent a section of Reddit called RedditLaqueristas. It is full of awesome people who love nail polish! This week we begin a new year of the 52 Week Challenge. Every week for the next year there will be a new theme to inspire awesome nail art!

Here is the 52 Week Challenge on Reddit

The first week's theme is taping! I have never done this before! It is extremely annoying and I don't own the thin nail art tape, so I used masking tape cut up. Masking tape is good because you get less bleeding, but for the design I chose to do I really needed the thin tape.

Either way! I think my first 52 Week Challenge mani looks really pretty.

I started with 2 coats of China Glaze Riveting (this colour is AMAZING). It's an extremely rich reddy orange with chunky gold shimmer. I love it! The dark colour on the tips is OPI Every Month Is Oktoberfest and the glitter stripes are China Glaze I Herd That.

I think this works beautifully. The red shimmer in Every Month Is Oktoberfest is subtle, but the other colours really bring it out. I Herd That is very dense gold and copper glitter with a sprinkling of holo glitter. This colour is also amazing! The fiery orange of Riveting really plays off the copper in I Herd That.

This was totally worth all the time, effort and cursing involved. 

Cheat sheet:

1. Orly Nail Defense - 1 coat
2. China Glaze Riveting - 2 coats
3. OPI Every Month Is Oktoberfest - 1 coat (taped)
4. China Glaze I Herd That - 2 coats (taped)
5. Orly Polishield - 1 coat

Next week on the 52 Week Challenge the theme is Blue. Woo!

China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard - Neon green and purple!

Sooo.. This has been an adventure (that's the fun way of saying puzzling and annoying). If you read enough blogs you may have come across two universal truths. 1. Cameras hate purple. and 2. Neons are impossible to photograph. Naturally, I wasn't thinking about either when I decided to paint my nails with China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard (a VERY neon green) and include some purple accents. Oh the horror!

My camera likes to pretend that neon green is pastel green and that rich grapey purple is some kind of washed out blah thing. I tried all manner of different types of light. The first picture below is in direct sunlight, the other is in soft artificial light (at night) in the cardboard and tissue paper lightbox I made. I'm moderately happy with the results. You really have to see this colour in person though!

China Glaze Ruby Pumps

Usually I can't resist getting fancy with my manis. Doing some stamping or layering some glitter or flakies or whatnot. But Ruby Pumps is just so gorgeous. I can't stop looking at my nails. It's so rich and glittery. I have been hunting for a good classic red and was planning on getting the new China Glaze Adventure Red-y from their Safari collection (and maybe I still will). But Ruby Pumps is a perfect cool toned classic red, but with a bit (ok a lot) of twinkle thrown in.

The beginning! With Bahamian Escape and Mercury Twilight

This manicure was my first fancy thing, ever. My first go with the stamping plate I got in my starter kit from Konad. I took these pictures about 10 days ago after having worn if for a few days. I'd just got my Bundle Monster plates in the mail and wanted to have a play, but I loved this mani so very much that I needed to take pics! It's so sad that it was a cloudy day - the holo is just so stunning in sunlight.