Twin Post with The Polished Fangirl: Hibiscus

I’m back with another twin post. This month I was paired up with Erika from The Polished Fangirl for the theme of flowers. Our flower was hibiscus which we were really pleased about as it’s a favourite for both of us.

We agreed that a flower like this requires some bright tropical shades and wanted to use a turquoise background and a pink flower. I was inspired by this beautiful photo and while browsing what other people had done with hibiscus nail art came across this beautiful manicure by Pretty Project which is almost exactly what Erika and I had been talking about doing.

Initially I didn’t intend to do an accent nail with rhinestones like she had done but after a horrible break on my index finger earlier in the week I thought it was the best way to hide a nail that’s not a particularly nice shape at the moment!

I’m really pleased with how this mani turned out. Make sure you check out Erika’s hibiscus nails and the other participants in this month’s flower themed twin post through the inlinkz. (We’re posting all this week so check back later if it’s looking a bit empty at the moment!)

I used: 389 – Kiko, Hoopla – Ciaté, Indian Rose – Rituals, Melodious Utopia – Orly

Tri Polish Tuesday: Pink, blue and yellow cherry blossoms

I’ve seen a lot of photos of cherry blossoms on my facebook feed recently from my friends in Japan where it’s probably beautiful and filled with pink blossoms at the moment unlike Spain where it’s already peaking over 30C this week.

I looked for some simple illustrations of sakura but they were anything but easy to paint and mine are pretty wonky. I still quite like the result and don’t think their lack of regularity makes the mani a disaster. I really like the colours I used especially the pink.

I realised I’ve done two flower manis for the two April Tri polish Tuesdays so far. I guess I’m happy that it’s spring! Next week I’ll have to do something non-floral!

I used: Blu – Zoya, Ivory Queen – Ciaté, Notting Hill Carnival – Nails Inc

Finger Food’s Theme Buffet: Flowers

I had grand plans for this mani but by the time I got round to doing it I was feeling pretty exhausted and decided to keep it simple. I was excited to use a new polish I’d recently bought from Liquid Sky Lacquers so figured that with such a gorgeous base colour I could get away with some very simple white flowers.

Raspberry Dawn – Liquid Sky Lacquer, My Boyfriend Scales Walls – OPI, Yellow – Sweets Sweet, French Quarter For Your Thoughts – OPI

GOT Polish Challenge: Valentines

I wasn’t really inspired to do a typical Valentines mani with lots of pink and red hearts so I wanted to come at it from a different angle. I’d been doing simple Valentines poems with some of my students at work so decided to go with “roses are red, violets are blue..” as my theme (although my violets are purple not blue…)

I found a couple of stock images of rose and violet pattern illustrations which you can see here and here which I used as the base for my design.
I was pretty pleased with how it turned out and think my freehand skills are getting a lot better and considerably neater!

As well as this mani being for the GOT Polish challenge being hosted by Crumpet’s Nail Tarts, I’m going to enter it into the Valentines Nail Art competition which Luchessa and the Polish Alcoholic are hosting. There are some absolutely amazing entries which have already been submitted to their competition but I’d love to have the chance of winning a gift card for Polish Alcoholic’s online store which is the very exciting prize!

I used: My Boyfriend Scales Walls – OPI, Black – Decorative Nail, Impulsive – Revlon, Do You Lilac It? – OPI, The Boltons – Nails Inc.

33DC: Flowers

I have a dress which I love with a grey background and red poppies on it and I wanted to do something inspired by that for the flowers day of the challenge. I did a quick search to see what other people had done with poppies in nail art and liked this design and tutorial by Paulina’s Passions so used it to guide me.

I got a lot of compliments on these nails and really enjoyed wearing them. Flowers are definitely something I should do more often!

I used: Porchester Square – Nails Inc, Revlon Red – Revlon, Lime Cocktail – Sephora, Black Taxi – Nails Inc.

33DC – Most used colour polish

The theme for the second day of the Crumpet Nail Tarts challenge was a mani featuring your most used colour polish. I tried looking back over my past manis to work out which was my most used polish but didn’t get very far and decided just to go with polishes which I love and therefore must have used a lot. Blue has always been my favourite colour to put on my nails and two of my all time favourite blues are Baker Street – Nails Inc and Matte Aqua – BYS. So those are the polishes featured in this mani.

I’m still hunting for the perfect pale blue – I thought I’d found it in the gorgeously pale Blueberry Muffin – Models Own this summer until I actually applied the polish and found out it was much like spreading blueberry muffin batter on my nails… I’m also looking for a nice metallic blue that will match my new car! Anyway, getting side-tracked here with my love for blue polishes, back to today’s mani…

I was going to do something floral but wanted a kind of spiky edgy floral and ended up with something vaguely reminiscent of cactus or maybe palm trees… I added the peachy/coppery outline to stop it being to try and complement the blue and make it stand out a bit more.

I quite like the result but wish I’d taken a bit more time and made my blue leaves/petals a bit neater.

I used: Baker Street – Nails Inc, Matte. Aqua – BYS, Secret of Love – Anny

Couture Nail Art Challenge: Inspired by Oscar de la Renta

Oscar de la Renta was a tough one as there were so many gorgeous gowns to choose from. I loved this bright and fun yellow dress. It feels summery and I thought the black and white flowers would work well for nail art.

I didn’t have a yellow that matched the dress colour well, but I think the overall effect works. I wish I had gone over the black lines one more time to make them look a bit smoother – this is not my neatest work ever! I used acrylic paint for the flowers and I still haven’t quite mastered using it. Sometimes it works really well for me, other time it just feels so thick and heavy to work with…

I used: Mellow Yellow – Sally Hansen, black and white acrylic paint.

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.

Stripes and Flowers

After my success with water marbling which I had been so worried about trying, I decided to give the striping brush (my least favourite tool) another try. I’d had a couple of goes with it when I first got into nail art and neither of them were particularly successful and left me feeling that it was too advanced for me and I actively avoided any designs that required stripes, or found another way around doing them that didn’t involve that brush!

Anyway, I was in a confident mood and when I saw Dressed Up Nails’ tutorial it looked so pretty and easy and I thought it was high time I conquered my fear of the striping brush.

Her tutorial was easy to follow and I appreciated the tip about laying the brush on the nail and then dragging it. My stripes were nowhere near perfect, but a lot lot better than the last time I tried using it and I won’t be so afraid to use it in future designs!

I received a lot of compliments on this manicure and really enjoyed wearing it.

I used: Keep Calm Paint On – China Glaze, Matte Aqua – BYS, Pink Rose – GOSH, Holland Park Road – Nails Inc, Don’t Mess With OPI – OPI.