Neon dotticure

Firstly an apology for disappearing for a little while. I had to make an unplanned trip back to the UK last week due to a death in the family and decided to take a short break from blogging and blog-related stuff.

I’m back home now and ready to get back to painting my nails and blogging about it!

The nails I’m showing you today were some I did for a prompt on the GOT Polish challenge a few weeks ago and never got round to posting. It’s far too late to post them for the challenge now but I quite like this mani and thought posting a few pics that have been hanging around and need to see the light of day would be a good way to bring my blog back to life!

It’s a nice simple dotticure using neon(ish) shades which I was quite pleased with and really like the dots in various sizes and mosaic-like effect.

I used: My Boyfriend Scales Walls – OPI, Lady in Black – OPI, Psychedelic Orange – Rimmel, 420 – Flormar, Matt Aqua – BYS, Pink Rose – GOSH, NA07 – Flormar

GOT Polish Challenge: Dots

My idea for this one was to do a kind of gradient of dot sizes from big fat ones at one corner of the nail to little tiny ones in the opposite corner. The size gradient didn’t come out as clearly as I’d hoped it would but I still love the combination of these two polishes, and that is after all what this challenge is about – rediscovering old polishes that you love!

I think these were the first two polishes I bought after moving to Spain in October 2012 and I’d never heard of the makeup brand GOSH before. I don’t think they’re a massively popular brand but they have some lovely bright colours and are sold in quite a lot of cosmetics stores in Spain.

So a great colour combination, but I think I’ll come back and try the design again another time and rethink how to make it more striking looking.

I used: Miss Grey – GOSH, Ocean – GOSH

33DC: Based on a pattern in my house

My apartment is in the old part of town and in the hallway of my building the walls are tiled with Andalucian tiles as is traditional in this area. They have a kind of mosaic look to them and I thought they’d be fun and a bit of a challenge for a pattern in my house translated onto my nails.

They were actually easier than I thought they’d be and I enjoyed doing them and trying to create a mosaic effect with a dotting tool. I’m pretty pleased with the result as I thought they had the potential to either look great or be a huge disaster! I hope I’ve gone more towards the great end of the spectrum!

And here are the tiles which inspired the nail art:

I used: French Quarter for. Your Thoughts – OPI, Don’t Mess with OPI, My Boyfriend Scales Walls – OPI, Southwark – Nails Inc, Secret of Love – Anny

Polka Dots – Inspired by Flamenco Dresses

I went to the Feria in Córdoba at the weekend, which is an annual event in the city where everyone goes out for dancing, drinking and fun times for 10 days at the end of May. We also had a friend visiting over the weekend, so I didn’t have a lot of time for nail art as we were pretty busy.

I wanted to do something special for the Feria and although I was given all kinds of fantastic suggestions, due to time constraints, I ended up with simple polka dot nails inspired by the gitana flamenco dresses which most of the women there wear. They were fun and Feria appropriate!

I used: Do You Lilac It? – OPI, Mellow Yellow – Sally Hansen

April 30 Day Challenge Day 5: Blue

Blue is one of my favourite colours to have on my nails so here’s my entry for Short and Sweet in Texas’ April challenge.

I’ve seen so many versions of this manicure around and always wanted to try it. It’s a fairly simple idea and just requires a dotting tool, but I found it a little tricky to get my dots equally spaced. Most of my nails came out looking pretty good, just my ring finger looked a little bit clustered in one area.
I love this design as it looks impressive both from a distance and close up. I might try the classic rainbow version of this manicure if I come back to it again in the future.

I used: My Boyfriend Scales Walls – OPI, Dreamer – Revlon, Matte Aqua – BYS, Baker Street – Nails Inc, Sea Blue – Kiko, Vintage Blue – Marionnaud, Jacob’s Protection – Essence, (the very pale blue is a mix of Dreamer and My Boyfriend… as I didn’t have a really pale blue shade!)