31DC2013: Day 24 - Inspired by a book

Hi there guys!! Happy weekend!! I'm gonna have to catch up with homework and notes whilst procrastinating, we can all guess what's gonna happen. I actually didn't have too many difficulties picking which book, I thought of my book collection and which was the most visual for nail art. So I picked "Battle Hymn Of The Tiger Mother" by Amy Chua, really about her and her family and her struggles with parenting. I was surprised I really liked this book as it's not like I could emphasise with her experiences but she's pretty funny and her writing keeps you interested. I'm trying to not sound corny but it's just gonna happen, it's like there's always lots of stories in everyone's lives.

So tiger and stripes and I'm kind of loving the design. I knew I wanted to paint a realistic tiger, and realism is not a thing at PlumeriaPainted so I needed help. And I got the beyond perfect help with Emily's Nail Files tiger tutorial, for one her tiger looked amazing and when she broke it down, it's actually really easy!! I didn't even do my normal white twinkle in the eye cause I was going for realism man.
I went for the textured polish again cause I love Jinx and I really like incorporating textured polish into my manis. I went for the textured on smooth and smooth on textured, but I top-coated the whole design at the end. I wasn't sure if the red-ish Jinx would work for the tiger but I think it's fab, the sparkle is still wonderful. Then I got my white base, randomly painted swipes of orange polish and painted red tiger stripes on top cause of the red title of the book.

I didn't expect to like this book as I don't necessarily agree with extremely strict "Asian" parenting, but it's definitely an enjoyable read for the reasons stated at the top of this post. I guess the author herself learnt there are pros and cons, personally I don't think I could cope with strict parenting. I would crack under the pressure haha.
But one thing I found the last time I read this book a couple of months ago was I would bawl my eyes out when reading, this wasn't the first time I'd read the book and the first crying I was not crying my eyes out. There are sad parts of this book, but when she'd mention her daughter Lulu and what she'd say I felt I really could relate and the worst part about it was her mother wouldn't understand. Sometimes I would just start crying uncontrollably and not understand why, to be honest I still don't really understand why. My mother is no where near as strict as the author but I really empathised with her daughter. Haha it was totes emosh (sorry for all the emotionalness :P). I wonder if I read it again if the same effect would be there, maybe I was particularly emotional at that time :P

Red: OPI - Jinx
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black
White: Lovely Me:Ex - White
Green: Max Factor - Cool Jade
Pink: OPI - Japanese Rose Garden
Darker Pink: Barry M - Boots LE Xmas 2012 B
Brush stroke base: Barry M - Matt White (base), Models Own - Beach Party, Chili Pepper - Orange (no name) and w7 - Golden Sands

Thank you for reading and I hope you have a really great day!!! :)

Pop Art Nails

Hey there, I've been a bit stuck with my nails lately, I have a long list of ideas but I never seem to be in the mood for any of them. I'll just have to wait until I am :/ But I wanted to paint something "edgy", I was so stuck I looked around other blogs for inspiration, I settled with a pop art design from Kayla Shevonne. She used a tutorial from Professionaldq whom I'd never heard of but she has some really cute pop art nails and I will definitely be using her tutorials in the future (or maybe just the pictures :)).

I wanted to do this nail art design for the colour scheme alone. I love it. And after this manicure I absolutely adore the look of pop art, especially the dots. I've done a pop art design before and I really liked it, but I haven't gone back til now. I just love the way it looks, I think it's fantastic (pop art, no narcissism intended) and I need more pop art in my life.
Red: OPI - Dutch Tulips
Yellow: Barry M - Lemon Ice Cream
Blue: Barry M - Blueberry Ice Cream
White: Models Own - Snow White and No7 - Snowflake (as base) and Lovely Me:Ex - White
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black
And I made it matte which made me love it more. I'll confess, I haven't used topcoat properly for 6 months. Yep you read that right, 6 months. I used to be the girl who needed topcoat for everything, but then I grew to hate topcoat (it was a bad time). Simply because it always smudged and smeared my nail art (I would wait days before putting on topcoat and it still smeared :/), my previous pop nail design is a prime example. So to stop my nail art from getting messed I stopped using topcoat. The reason I'm coming back to topcoat though (not only because of matte nails) is because at Christmas my friends got me some rapid dry. I was a bit wary and decided the proof would be if after using the rapid dry the design wouldn't smudge after topcoat. And result... SUCCESS!!!! As also proven by the picture, obviously I will be doing more testing and dipping toes back into topcoat territory, but I think it's looking good. Um topcoat ramble?

I wanted to used a different colour scheme on my right hand, which I think is ok. But could use some revising. I'm growing to like Basket Case a lot.
Pink: Orly - Basket Case
Light Blue: Revlon - Blue Lagoon
Dark Blue: Kiko - 265
Peachy/Orange: Essie - Tart Deco
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black
White: Lovely Me:Ex - White

Thank you very much for reading and have a wonderful day!!!

31 Day Challenge - Day 27 - Inspired by artwork

Also inspired by my need to use OPI Charged Up Cherry, it's pretty new and it's so pretty I had to try it. I love hot pink. Charged Up Cherry keeps making me think of "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People. "All the other kids with their um charged up cherries, you better berry, better berry, outrun my cherry" :L These things come to my head. I thought about using standard comic book colours like red, yellow and blue but I thought pink would look just as cute :)

This is inspired by pop art, specifically pop art in comic books. I love how it's so cool and cute. It's just SO funky. Also I love Charged Up Cherry, I put it on and automatically it became one of my favourites. It's bright and pretty. I'm proud of how neatly I wrote the words with my left hand (I'm right handed). It did take utmost care and precision though. 

(The pink didn't really show up true to colour, I tried all different kinds of lighting but it always looked too orange, so I left it)

This is my left hand, I preferred it on my right hand as the dots just looked better, my white nail polishes were really "stringy". If you know what I mean. When the little strings of nail polish drag everywhere. But that doesn't mean I don't like it on my left hand. I do :)

Colours used:

Hot Pink: OPI - Charged Up Cherry
White: Natural Collection - White (no name), Sally Hansen - French White Tip and No7 - Snowflake
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black (no name)

Equipment used:
Bobby pins
Toothpicks

31 Day Challenge - Day 24 - Inspired by a book

I wanted this to be inspired by a children's book as generally there are pretty pictures to copy from. I chose Lettice the Dancing Rabbit by Mandy Stanley. It was a childhood favourite of mine. The pictures within the book are adorable so I had to try and copy them.

                    I basically copied pictures from the book onto my nails.

It didn't turn out well. My second finger with the ballet shoe just didn't work at all. And otherwise the pictures were of bad standard, I guess I was tired and not very bothered.

The only finger I liked was my thumb, where the rabbit "Lettice" was. Looks cute :3 Gosh my fingers are so messy :P

Colours used:

(I have a different picture for this as the original picture got deleted acidentally, nothing to do with technology, just me failing)

Pale Yellow: w7 - Sheer Lemon
White: Natural Collection - White and Sally Hansen - French White Tip
Pink: Per Una - Pink
Pale Pink: Barry M - Strawberry Ice Cream
Brown: Paris Collection - Olive Glow
Peach: w7 - Linen
Glitter: Barry M - Silver Glitter
Mint: China Glaze - Re-Fresh Mint
Green: Barry M - Mint Green (it is NOT mint green)
Yellow: Rimmel - Sunshine

Equipment used:
Toothpicks
Bobby pins