5 months worth of nails in one post....

Nails from the last few months (5 months to be exact, in which time I've finished with nannying, flown back to New Zealand & am now job hunting. In the mean time I'm still doing my nails and resisting (not always successfully) the temptation to add to my nail polish & plate collection).

Did a mani at a friends house and had to buy this awesome purple.

Reflection of London weather using the Olympic Silver by posh polish (has to be my favourite silver polish ever because it works as normal polish & stamps).

Playing around with layered stamping.

Realised I had 5 purples in my stash so experimented with stamping (lines are stamped in the purple polish I used as a base for the owl mani).

Entered the summer competition run by Konad, didn't win but was stoked with the way the mani came out.

Simple stamping over top of sally hansen stick on nails (also made a decal of the guitar).

On the left attempted a pink gradient but colours where contrasted enough. Tried again on the right and altho I'm pleased with the final design, would have liked the colours to blend more.

Simple quick summer mani with cherries in Olympic Silver again.

My birthday mani (was wondering when to use the birthday Nailways plate haha). Stamped over Nails Inc Holographic silver using Konad special polish in Silver and my favourite purple (think it's a Rimmel lycra pro).

On the right was really enjoying the 25 degree temperatures in London (had an amazing summer for the UK apparently, 6 weeks of hot weather. Nothing like a kiwi summer but at least wasn't have to wear my sheepskin slippers 12 hours a day). On the left playing round with multicoloured stamping over the silver holographic again.

Glow in the dark nails! popped into Topshop for a quick look and had to accidentally brought a set of glow in the dark pink, blue & yellow polishes. Wore them for a shift at the roller disco and they glowed amazingly well :)

Playing round with gradients again - this one is more smooth but pretty hard to see - think it may be the pattern on top of it.

More double stamping (well almost triple case had to stamp light under the blue sea creatures so they would stand out). Using my favourite olympic silver again.

Pink holographic from Topshop on the left and green holographic from Hema (in Netherlands) on the left. The one of the left actually won me 3 free plates in a OMG nails competition - super stoked :)

Playing round with different coloured base-coats and using Klean colour mini metallics to stamp (they are another polish I love because it doubles as base-coat & stamping polish).

Nails for my trip to Scotland.

Got back to New Zealand, a little sad I had to leave some of my polishes behind (I had acquired 60 over the course of the year, oops!) but luckily a trip into Postie revealed they had two sets of the amazing Klean Colour mini Metallics in stock - yus! (my bank balance I'm not so happy about ;) The nails on the left are done using a LA Girl matte in navy stamped with metallic aqua from the Techno High set of minis.

My entry for the Bundle Monster Halloween contest, not expecting to win but did this in an afternoon so happy with the result. No doubt will be doing another set of nails for actual halloween.

On the left using blues as a base and the Olympic silver yet again, was going for a tropical/Hawaiian theme.  On the right, playing round with nail stickers I hadn't seen for a year (and purples I was missing).

My current Mani - done for the AIS Sunday challenge 'Over a Holo Base'. Used my green Hema holo and stamped a few bundle monster images of oranges.  Made a decal on my stampers (realised I now have 5 of them, almost enough to made a whole hand of decals, not that I have the patience) using a whole nail image of nails. Pretty pleased with how it turned out.

That's bout it for the last 5 months - doesn't seem like that many nails but sure there are some I didn't take pictures of (I try to only do them once a week otherwise I feel like I'm taking the mani off before I enjoy it).

Till next time post (which hopefully will be next week as I'm still job hunting).

Nikki

:o)

Once Upon a Time Challenge - Day 1 Storybrook/Enchanted Forrest....

So it's been a while - almost a year to be exact since I've last posted. Things such as travel and new jobs have got in the way but now I'm attempting to start again:) It's taken a nail art challenge to give me the push I needed to start blogging again. The details of the challenge can be found here - http://tatjanag.blogspot.co.uk Created by Taya.

As soon as I saw that it was Once Upon A Time I knew I had to give it a go - I'm a wee bit addicted to that show, especially the story line of Snow and Charming :) If you haven't seen it I suggest you check it out, it's a good 45mins escape of TV show.

Today is the 1st day of the challenge and as it's my afternoon off I've manage to get it done (in between re-paints of nails, fixing chips & a broken down car - it's a long story).

Anyway the topic today was Storybrook/Enchanted Forrest - which for those of you who watch Once Upon A Time, the enchanted forrest is in the opening montage every episode.  I was aiming for the look above - so gradient blue, black silhouette trees and once upon a time worked in there somehow too.  Unfortunately, due to lack of a sponge and clashing colours it didn't go exactly to plan but I'm still pretty pleased with the result.


The polishes I used were Rimmel London 198 Azure (from Boots), La Femme Beauty blue (from Kradvat), Essence Nail Colour 3 01 Midnight date (also from Kradvat), Konad special polish in Black and baby blue.

First up started off with using Rimmel London in 198 Azure as my base coat.

(fingerless gloves due to coldness of my room, gotta love old English houses in Winter).

Then added my second colour, the La Femme Beauty Blue.

Then the final colour on the tips, Essence Nail Colour 3 01 Midnight date.

After waiting a REALLY long time for that to dry (usually gradients are done using sponges, but didn't have any to hand so just layered up the polish, ending up with 3 layers on the tips, hence the drying time) moved onto the stamping.

I used tree image from plate BM-225.

I mentioned that there was a long story behind my nails and today - here it is:

1. I added a tree in black and decided that you couldn't see it clear enough.

2. Tried tree again, this time two tone, black on base with blue on top.

3. Felt it needed more so added Once Upon a Time across all my nails using Konad letter stamps in Gold.

4. Decided it was too busy so removed nails, re-did gradient and stamped tree again.

5. Drove to a friends and chipped a nail on the steering wheel.

6. Cursed the Car.

7. Car got it's own back, as on the way home engine died and had to wait 15 mins in the cold minus one glove till it would go again.

8. Made it home and did some retouches.

9. Finally finished and took some pics (didn't have the energy/enthusiasm to fix the edges).

Anyway here is the finished product.

I put the baby blue konad across the top of the stamp and black across the bottom then one quick swipe and I had a two toned tree that showed up great :)

And here is the first attempt - as you can see the letters came out but looked like a bit of a mangled mess :P

The next mani in the challenge is Favourite Villan from Once Upon a Time and pretty sure I've got a character in mind - just gotta work out a mani:)

Till Tuesday

Nikki x