Parrot Print Nails

Hey there guys, hope you're having a good start to your October. I think things have slightly calmed down, at least this week I know things are going to get insane again in a couple of days. By the time you read this I will have done a concert with the BBC and I guess that'll be cool :) I'm quite behind when it comes to writing up posts but I remember being very happy with this design, hopefully you'll think it's pretty sweet :P

This is inspired by a parrot top I got during the summer from New Look, it's cobalt blue with rainbow parrots and it's my favourite top ever. However not too long ago I did a butterfly design (which I also loved) and the colour scheme is very very similar.
So that called for a more green/pink colour scheme which is very feminine, an aspect I like from time to time. I think the green and pink combo is a good one, I added a little bit of blue too for fun. This is the first time I've done something unintentionally artsy and I think it actually works!! Highly suitable for a bird too. The bar glitter is also for a feather effect (like the Nails Inc polish but this is a Barry M but it's totally a dupe for the Nails Inc polish).

I started with a white base, I didn't intend to completely cover it but I'm glad I did. I started with the beaks, and I tried to highlight certain areas with different shades of green. I did the same with the pink, blue and bonus green, trying to make the dark colours fade to lighter colours (art yo). Finally I got my black polish and toothpick and did light strokes and just generally not completely stark opaque lines.
I'm proud that it worked cause when I want to do something artsy it normally doesn't work haha. But success!! Generally I think prints are really nice.
On another note, I added extra glitter to find that it was overkill, and while I managed to pick most of it off some of the glitter was quite jammed on so I painted over it, covering up = another solution.

Base: Barry M - Greenberry, Barry M - Sour Apple and Claire's - Dizzy (which I painted over)
Black: Rimmel - Black Pearl
Green (from light to dark): Etude House - No. 86, China Glaze - I'm With The Lifeguard and Barry M - Kiwi
Pink (from light to dark): Barry M - Dragonfruit, Barry M - Superdrug Summer LE 2013 A, The Face Shop - PK105 and Madame Milly - Pink (no name)
Blue (from light to dark): Revlon - Blue Lagoon and Revlon - Dreamer
White: Barry M - Matt White

Thank you much for reading and I hope you have a wonderful day!! :)

Pick 'N Mix: Animal Print

Hi there lovely people!!! I hope you are doing well and are having a great start to your week. Pick 'N Mix is the series I started for when I do skittles, and yes today I have some. It was originally meant to something completely different, but I got the colour scheme wrong so I scrapped that used the colour scheme for something else. Hopefully you'll see that design another time in another Pick 'N Mix post. I was kind of stuck after messing up, but of course what do I fall back on? Leopard print, but this time let's mix a bunch of animal prints.

Ok it's mostly leopard and tiger, but they are all different. I wasn't willing to branch out too far this time, I would but I wasn't in the mood. Except ring finger kind of just turned into a zigzag, but it's variety.

The pink on my thumb is Orly - Basket Case (love it) with spots of Essie - Tart Deco (peachy orange) and Barry M - Berry Ice Cream (pale purple).
My index finger has Essie - Fear Or Desire, I have to say I love a good orange polish. I tried doing a gradient spot thing but it didn't really work, the base should have gradiented too. It starts with The Face Shop - BL501 and goes darker into Barry M - Blueberry Ice Cream (super opaque but mine is really gloopy).
For my middle finger I sandwiched OPI - Rainbow Connection (I like to sandwich this polish) with Barry M - Mint Green and Essie - Turquoise and Caicos.
I used a black base of Rimmel - Black Pearl under OPI - Metallic 4 Life for my ring finger.
My pinky has quite a few polishes. I started with Rimmel - Purple Pulse, but then I realised I hated the colour. It's one of those red toned purples I can't stand (I'm considering giving it away), so I had to cover it up with Butter LONDON - Shambolic which looks awesome on top. I was meant to do the spots with Barry M - Amethyst but it ended up not working and I just put a coat on top. Amethyst looks so awesome as the mix of glitter is great, but it is SO DIFFICULT to remove, it's one of those glitters that embeds itself on your nail. But it looks cool so it's up to you whether it's worth the battle. So I did the spots in OPI - Charged Up Cherry.
Finally I did the details in Lovely Me:Ex - Black and White.

I can't say this is my favourite animal print design, but I am enjoying it, it's interesting. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a lovely day!!! :)

Neutral Leopard Print

Hello there!!!! I'm back!!! I'm probably the only one excited by this :P But I hope you all had a fun Halloween, and I really hope everyone who had to cope with Hurricane Sandy are ok and safe.

I was away on a trip to Taiwan for my uncle's birthday. It was super fun and I got a few polishes that I will be posting about :) I did this before I went on my trip but I decided to save it til now. Obviously I have been going a bit leopard print crazy, but I went for neutral :O What is this I am using neutral colours??!! But honestly, I really really liked it.

Sorry that around my nails are so messed, I'm not sure what happened. I got inspiration from Lauren Conrad's website and she featured something similar to this on the homepage sometimes. Except now that the format of the website has changed I'm not sure where to find it :/ But anyway, I think it's great, I actually did a slightly different leopard print formula, I spaced the spots more and I did the lines differently... Ground-breaking I know.
Nude: w7 - Linen
White: Models Own -Snow White
Black: Lovely Me:Ex  - Black (no name)
I won't be going neutral crazy anytime soon (or ever) but it's nice for this. I need more leopard print!!!

As good as it is to be back (I really am very excited!!!), it got dark early (so I couldn't take pictures) and it's absolutely freezing. I have been shivering and got burnt by the shower (if you understand what I'm talking about, it's not fun). But thankfully it's not that bad and I have fluffy boots and a bed with an electric blanket (you do not know what you're missing if you haven't experienced one) so I'm very lucky.

I hope you all have had a wonderful week (if not I hope you're making it through :)) and have a great time in the week to come!!! We're in a wonderful month!!!! :D

Gradient Leopard Print

Hello there!!! I've been super busy this week, so no painting or blogging the past couple of days, but hopefully as the week is winding down I'll have a bit more time on my hands. I've kind of been going gradient crazy, it just ever since I perfected my gradient technique (it's still not very good :P) I've been doing lots. I've also apparently gone leopard print crazy too. But really, I want to do leopard prints all the time. It's amazing, to think there was a time I didn't like leopard print :O

This is potentially one of my favourite manicures I have ever done, as shown I combined leopard print and a gradient. I love it so much, I went into it without a clue with what I was doing. But sometimes it's better that way (most of the time, no). I started with a gradient.

Ok I had better lighting when I took that picture and it looked better once I added I Lily Love You, but it shows the bare bones of the gradient.
Light Pink: Barry M - Strawberry Ice Cream
Middle Pink: Per Una - Pink (no name) (this really tied the gradient together)
Hot Pink: OPI - Charged Up Cherry 
Glitter: Barry M - Pink Iridescent and OPI - I Lily Love You
Light Blue: The Face Shop - BL601
Blue: Revlon - Dreamer
Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black
I loved the colours :)

Right hand picture, my photography skills were failing me as the lighting wasn't great and I was really shaky for some reason. I added the light blue spots. But I thought it didn't look right, and I always thought Charged Up Cherry and Dreamer would look really nice together so I went over the bottom spots with Dreamer, and voila. This happened. As mentioned before, I love it, I definitely love it more than I thought it would. I was also surprised that it worked, cause normally when I don't have a clue what I'm doing it never turns out right. But not this time, the gradient combined with leopard print fills my heart with joy with it's beauty ;P

How to: Leopard Print

This is a basic tutorial on how to paint leopard print nails. Or for the experts an insight in how I do leopard print :) I do leopard print quite a lot, I love multi-coloured leopard print, which is why it's the only type of leopard print I will do :P But this "tutorial" applies to all leopard print :)

Step 1
Paint your nails in your desired colour. I have chosen Nails Inc. - Baker Street (cause it's amazing ;)).

Step 2
This step is optional, depending on how opaque the colours of your nail polish is. Using the brush of a white nail polish (Models Own - Snow White) blob random spots on your nails (emphasise random). Size of spots doesn't matter, it depends on you.

Step 3
Fill in the spots with whatever colour (or colours) you wish. The colours did not show up correct at all, but other pictures later in the post are better.

Pink: OPI - Charged Up Cherry
Orange: Essie - Tart Deco over Bourjois - Tangerine Fatal (I changed my mind ;))
Blue: The Face Shop - GR501
Purple: Essie - Lilacism

Step 4
The magic step where everything comes together. Cause currently it just looks like random blobs of colour on the nails. In my case, using a black nail art pen (Lovely Me:Ex - Black) or a toothpick/dotting tool dipped in black nail polish draw 2 not so round "C"shapes around each spot.

And voila!!! Leopard Print. You could put small black lines in-between the spots, but I chose not to. Of course you could use a different colour to outline the spots. But when using black to outline the spots, very dark colours are not recommended. Basically you can't see the black outline therefore making the leopard print futile (I learned the hard way :( ;)).

(The better pictures of the colours :P)

Honestly I love it, just cramming so many colours on my nails a "sophisticated" way. It's fierce ;P

31 Day Challenge - Day 16 - Tribal Nails

I think Tribal Print is really funky and cool. I’ve done a tribal print type thing before, but it was the same design for every nail, so it was much simpler. With tribal print there are so many possibilities, and I think that’s just the best thing about tribal print. 

It was a one nail at a time kind of situation. It took me a while but mostly because I just didn’t know what to do for each nail. In practice tribal nails are really easy, but they look more complicated than they actually are. Anyway, I am super proud of my tribal nails, I’m really happy with how they came out. They just scream fierce :P I was trying to use minimum white, as mine is running out. I used 2 lines of white :D  

Yep I love it :P

                                                               (Proud of my right hand)

Colours used:

It goes without saying, but I used quite a lot of colours. 

Thumb:

Orange Coral: Essie – Tart Deco

Dark Blue: Barry M – Indigo

Light Blue: Barry M – Blueberry Ice Cream

White: Sally Hansen – French White Tip (not pictured)

Pink: Per Una – Fuchsia (no name)

Index Finger:

Purple: Essie – Lilacism (looked more blue-toned today :))

Pink: OPI – Japanese Rose Garden

Middle Finger

Pink: H&M – Check Me Out

Purple: Rimmel – Purple Pulse

Green: China Glaze – Re-Fresh Mint

Ring Finger

Blue: Revlon – Dreamer

Purple/Blue Shimmer: Models Own – Indian Ocean (had to try it over blue, and as I thought it’s wonderful :))

Red: OPI – Dutch Tulips

Pinky Finger

Yellow: Barry M – Lemon Ice Cream

Green: Barry M – Mint Green

Pink: Per Una – Pink (no name)

Orange: Bourjois – Tangerine Fatal

 

Black: Lovely Me:Ex – Black

Equipment used:

Toothpick

31 Day Challenge - Day 15 - Delicate Print

Thanks for being vague, I have no clue what delicate print is but I decided to have a stab at it. I had a simple plan, Japanese Rose Garden with the black pen. But I recently got Indian Ocean from Models Own and I had to try it out over the pink. I like it but it would’ve been better without. It looks amazing over purple though and I can’t wait to try it over blue. Anyway my “delicate print” is a wallpaper pattern.

What is that?? I don't even. Slowly I stopped copying the picture and went a little crazy. It looks super strange, its ok I guess. I like the thumb. The shimmer makes it look very purple toned. It’s more “random print” than “delicate print”.

Colours used:

Pink: OPI – Japanese Rose Garden

Blue/Purple Shimmer: Models Own – Indian Ocean

Black: Lovely Me:Ex – Black

31 Day Challenge - Day 13 - Animal Print

My friend asked me to do this a while ago. So this is for her :P She likes cows and that.

The easy route out would’ve been leopard print. I do like leopard but I wanted to do something different. I didn’t have any reinforcement stickers for the half moons and my friend said she would lend me some circle stickers. She did not deliver. They were from the Mister Maker book (I take what I can get). So I had to improvise. My French manicure set’s been getting a lot of use; I just used the rounded sticker for the half moons. I wanted to use a paler pink but it (Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream) has become a gloopy mess (I’ve had it for a while) so I’d prefer not to use it. I’m all about improvisation. 
 

 Cow print is nice, and it looks really interesting, I think it’s nice on my nails.

Colours used:

Pink: Per Una – Pink (no name)

White: Sally Hansen Hard As Nails – French White Tip

Black: Lovely Me:Ex - Black