Little cloud dudes with buckets who like rainbows

Hi! Everyone calm down! I'm alive! OK, so you probably haven't been in a mad panic over my absence, but I'm back anyway. I've been all kinds of busy lately. We're planning a house plus I'm trying to get as much Christmas shopping out of the way now as I can and occasionally attempting to have a social life.

This lil bit of nail art is actually from a much larger picture (with a lot more going on) - the idea is part of a painting that I'll finish one day. I've titled this "Little cloud dudes with buckets who like rainbows". I think that about sums it up. They just want to be colourful. Aww..

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: 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.

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.