April 30 Day Challenge Day 28: Inspired by Fashion

This will probably be my last entry for the April 30 Day Challenge, it was a lot of fun – thanks to Short and Sweet in Texas for organising and well done to everyone who managed to participate every day!

I had seen a pair of jeans with a printed pattern that I really liked which I was going to use for my inspiration for this manicure, but when I started I got more interested in recreating the denim texture, so I decided to go with denim effect nails.

I looked at a couple of tutorials but liked this one best.

I used: Vintage Blue – Marionnaud, Floral Street – Nails Inc, Sea Blue – Kiko, Boot Camp – GOSH

April 30 Day Challenge Day 25: Metallic

I know this one isn’t exactly metallic but I’d intended to use some gold leaf which I had in a set of nail art decorations. When it came to it, though, I just didn’t feel inspired and I couldn’t find any pics of gold leaf nails that looked particularly exciting on the Internet. There were some pink sequins in the same set which inspired me much more and I’d wanted to try mirror ball nails for a while, and they’re kind of metallic, right?

I saw some really great examples and especially liked these ones on Very Emily.

It didn’t take as long as I thought it would but I decided to do something different on my right hand and just did a line of sequins rather than full coverage.

I used: Chic Reloaded – Essence and mini pink sequins.

April 30 Day Challenge Day 23: Caviar

This was the first time I’d ever tried doing caviar nails. I’ve always been a bit wary of the practicality of sticking things to my nails and don’t do it very often!

I was given a caviar set as a gift and thought it was the perfect time to give it a try. I liked the look and even quite liked the feel, but also found it frustrating. The little beads looked great right after I did them but when I washed my hands I noticed that some of the colour had started to fade in the beads. So I went back and top-coated them which made the colour fade even worse than just washing them! So I only top-coated one hand. The beads stayed put on the hand with top-coat for the full 24 hours I wore this mani but the non-top coated hand was almost devoid of beads by the time I got the polish remover out. So I felt it was a choice between bright colours, longevity and clean hands!!! I guess other colours/brands of beads might not fade so much either with top coat or water – what are other people’s experiences of this?

I can only imagine wearing this for a special evening and one where I would have to avoid washing my hands at all costs!

Luckily I had a feeling it might not be the most durable mani ever and got them photographed the moment I finished them!

I used Knickerbockerglory – Ciaté, Candyshop (pearls) – Ciaté.

April 30 Day Challenge Day 21: Floral

I wasn’t going to participate in this day of the challenge as floral nails is something I’ve done before and I couldn’t think of a new technique to try or anything clever to do with the theme. Then as I was browsing through the Internet I came across this painting of some slightly abstract flowers which just inspired me and I wanted to give it a go.

I sponged a little bit of colour on top of my neutral base shade and then painted very rough flower petal shapes and finally added thin black sketchy lines. I think the bright colours were quite successful but the dark purple isn’t all that great as the black lines don’t stand out against it.

I used: Porchester Square – Nails Inc, Westferry Circus – Nails Inc, Papaya Punch – China Glaze, Light Blue – Kiko, Prom-berry – Essence, You’re Such a Budapest – OPI

April 30 Day Challenge Day 20: Border Mani

I’ve never been a huge fan of the border mani so I wasn’t sure what I’d do for this day of the challenge. At first I thought it was just the colour combination that would make it work for me, but while looking at other people’s attempts at border nails I came across this gorgeous mani by Kayla Shevonne and knew I wanted to give it a try.

I’ve never really got the hang of stamping – there are a thousand other techniques I prefer but I was so inspired by Kayla’s mani that I thought it was time to have another go at it. It still came out a bit messier than I’d hoped but I did end up with a border mani that I quite liked!

I used: Floral Street – Nails Inc, Baker Street – Nails Inc.

April 30 Day Challenge Day 18: Sugar Spun

I tried sugar spun nails a while back but it wasn’t particularly successful and they ended up really blobby and not at all like spun sugar. I was happy to see it was in the challenge as I wanted t have another go but felt a bit wary of it as I wasn’t sure how to do better than last time.

It turned out that all I needed was a bit more patience! It took quite a long time for the polish to go thick and stringy and I think that’s where I went wrong last time. I still didn’t manage to get the really fine strings and some still came out a bit blobby but I think it was a huge improvement on last time!

I used: Princess Tears – A England, Black – Decorative Nail, White – Bonbon.

April 30 Day Challenge Day 15: Water Marble

I was happy to have another go at water marbling after my first successful attempts last month. I encountered my first difficulty with the technique when one of the polishes I initially chose just didn’t want to spread out in the water. After a few tries, I abandoned it for another polish which worked fine.

The last time I tried water marbling the patterns I did we’re completely random and I loved that, but this time I wanted to see if I could get a more regular look across my nails and try to have a similar pattern on all of them.

I used: Mellow Yellow – Sally Hansen, Jungle Queen – China Glaze.

April 30 Day Challenge Day 13: Ruffian

I’m getting a bit behind with my posts… I did this manicure for day 13 of the April Challenge on Friday but went away for a weekend in Madrid and have only just got round to sorting out a post.

I had never done a Ruffian manicure before and it was one that I didn’t feel all that sure about. I’ve seen some that look great and others that just look like someone was too lazy to remove the last lot of polish they were wearing…

I followed a simple tutorial from Lacquerized and decided to add the little rhinestones as a finishing touch. I’d read that it was best to use a nice opaque polish for the second colour so that you only need one coat of it and I thought the colour I chose, The Last Trial by Anny fit the bill. When I did it on Friday evening it looked great and a really nice dark pink. On Saturday morning when I took the photos in the sunshine in Madrid I realised the polish had completely changed colour overnight and had become a brownish pink/red! I guess some of the green was showing through or the pink had absorbed some of the green in the drying process. So I wouldn’t say this photo is particularly representative of The Last Trial on its own!

I’ll catch up with my other posts soon!

I used: Def Defying – China Glaze, The Last Trial – Anny

April 30 Day Challenge Day 12: Fishtail Braid

I’d tried the fishtail manicure once before and loved the result so I was keen to have another go when I saw it was part of the April challenge. I wanted to do something a bit different with this one so it wasn’t just a repeat of last time and decided to try it with textured polishes. I wasn’t sure if it would work or if it would become too thick – it turned out quite well and I don’t think the texture made it much more difficult than a normal fishtail. I used all Kiko Sugar Mat polishes so they all had a similar consistency and thickness so that probably helped.

I’m quite pleased with them and must find some more creative ways of using my textured polishes.

I used: Sea Blue – Kiko, Golden Mandarin – Kiko, Starry Black – Kiko, Black – Decorative Nail

April 30 Day Challenge: Day 11 – Animal Print

This is my first time trying animal print nails. I know it’s a popular one to do but I’ve never really been an animal print person. When I saw it was on the April challengeI thought I’d give it a go as challenges are all about trying new techniques and things you might not usually do yourself.

After my disappointing result for Ancient Greece in the Time Periods Challenge yesterday, I felt pretty pleased with these. For a first attempt I think they look good and were easy and not too time consuming to do. I got my inspiration from Beautopia Nails’ version of Rihanna’s tiger print mani.

I used: Top of the Ice-Stream – Essence, Kalahari Kiss – China Glaze, Cadogan Square – Nails Inc, Brazilian Bikini – Sephora, Black – Decorative Nail.