Girly-Girl Nail Art Challenge

I'm going to be participating in my first nail art challenge :) starting tomorrow. Every Tuesday and Thursday I shall be doing the mani from this list.

The challenge is hosted by Lindsey of Neverland Nail Blog and here is a list of the other girls doing it.

Ashley of Follow The Yellow Polish Road

Stephanie of A Little Polish

Kelly of Devilish Polish

Jodi of Captivating Claws

Danielle of Polish. Glitter. Rock & Roll!

Olivia of Unprofessional Nails

Kate of This Charming Kate

Bethany of  A Plethora of Nails

Lizzy of The Do It Yourself Lady

Eugenia of Talon-ted

Johanna of Neues vom Kellerkind

Amanda of Nox Nails

Ashley of Smashley Sparkles

Sarah of See Sarah Swatch

Emily of The Lacquerologist

Jess of LuvMyLacquer

Tressa of O' Natur Nail 

ChiChi of I'm just me...ChiChi 

CR of Color Me Silly

Amanda of Berry Polished 

Robin, Erin, and Anna of Polished Cousins

I'm looking forward to having a reason to stick to a schedule for blogging and also coming up with ideas to match the days :)

Rainbow Dotting Mani

I just noticed that there is a nail art (specifically dotting) competition on one of the blogs I follow http://www.chalkboardnails.com and it ends today. I'm trying to step out of my comfort zone manicure wise and do things I'm not very good at, lol, so I figured why not give dotting another go. I actually don't own a dotting too so I had to make do with the end of a hair clip :)

This is what I started with:

Then I played about with the hair clip:

It is by no means perfect but I'm happy with it and I think will purchase some actual dotting tools so I can get different sized dots more easily :)

Green Layering Experiment

So the idea was simple, I wanted a mani to match my hair, which was green...sort of :) my hair never goes one shade when I dye it, its now a greeny blue. I went with Bettina Mojito as a base, I love this green, it takes 2 coats for decent coverage but its easy to work with. I then popped on a layer of Max Factor max effects Graffiti to give it a slightly blue tone. I couldn't resist putting on some flakies to liven it up a little, I used Nfu Oh 39, its not a subtle flakie its pretty densely packed but goes on smoothly. And then to top it off I used my newly acquired Nostalgic Underground..

It was so shiny and complex looking, I was happy but I think it was a little too shiny for me so I got out my trusty matte top coat and I loved it even more.

Here it is in the sun:

And in the shade:

And more importantly it matches my hair :) I added some scales to my ring finger.

Glitter Gal White and Bronze Swatches

I received my first glitter gal polishes yesterday and I have to say they are fantastic. I got these as part of a swap and I'm so made up with the shades I got, White Sparkle and Bronze. I used a white base coat with the white as I checked it on a false nail and it needed a lot of coats for it to be opaque and as they are small bottles I didn't want to waste them (9ml). They can be ordered directly from Glitter Gal or Llarowe and I hear they are getting a UK distributor soon.

There's also a very strong pink shine to it

And it looks beautiful under any lighting

The bronze is best described as a holographic foil, I really don't want to take this off.

The white dried quite quickly, I used 1 coat of Barry M white and then 2 coats of Glitter Gal, with a slightly rough texture due to the holographic glitter but that was easily sorted with one coat of China Glaze Fast Forward Top Coat. The bronze dried really quickly, I used 2 coats, 3 might be better or using a base coat in a similar colour to save on polish. It dried really smoothly so I didn't use a topcoat. The only problem is I now need some of the 3D ones to try :D

Polished Components

I had about 20 nail polishes turn up in the post today so it was tough to decide where to start :)
So I went with the ones that came in the cutest packaging :) My 3 mini's from Ashley - Polished Components, I love her nyan cat collection http://www.etsy.com/listing/91144892/nyan-cat-collection, I might get that next. She also does super cute jewellery. I'm really enjoying the choice of "home-made" nail varnishes you can get now and want to add more to my collection. I used camelot from A-England as a base, its a perfect black, one coat.

The first one I tried, my favourite of the bunch was Water's Night, its a blue to purple duochrome with holographic glitter, looks navy blue in some lights and a lovely bright blue in others. And the purple is so pretty but very hard to capture. Absolutely perfect for doing galaxy nails I think.

Second I tried Earth's Night, Its a green/yellow to awesome dusky pink duochrome, with the holographic glitter.

And last was Fire's Night, this looked the strongest in darker lighter conditions. A beautiful shade of pink, and not forgetting the colour shift to a sort of red-coppery glow. Not forgetting the holographic glitter of course.

These are amazing topcoats and I cant wait to try some different layering options :) The application was perfect, they smell a little strong but I expect that from home-made stuff. Ashley does a great job and her shipping is very reasonable.

Valentine Mani!

Well it had to be done, didn't it? :)

I used Barry M Matt white and China Glaze Velvet Bow. The Glitter on the ring finger is China Glaze Ring in the Red.

Playing with St George

This is a really quick post, mainly pictures really. I was bored today and got out my lovely A-England to do some stamping with. I used St George which happens to be the gem of the month on Adina's website and Princess Tears. I then added some flakies over the top, Nfu Oh 39 on St George and Nubar 2010 on Princess Tears

Which looked very pretty but I decided to add a matte topcoat to make it a little different. Which looked amazing on the Princess Tears I think.

 And then I stamped (using St George) a little design to finish the mani off :)

So that was fun :)