Oh goddesses, goddesses, goddesses, this post is soooooo late. This was due to be my post last Friday, at which point I had been battling a sinus infection for a week. Finally armed with anti-biotics, I went to bed, determined to post over the weekend, only to not actually manage to get out of bed all weekend. I've been back at work this week but soooo low on energy. In fact, it's a whole week since I even sat at my laptop (oh yeh, AND I have bare nails - eeeek!).
Which is a shame because I LOVE THIS MANI !!!! This is one of my favourites that I've ever done and I loved wearing it.
So, what we got? Well, this week's (last week's) 40 Great Nail Art Ideas theme was 3 shades of purple - obviously, that's always going to be a good idea - and my prompt was decals. I decided to only decal 2 nails and I'm glad I did - it saved time, but also gave the mani room to breathe.
I deliberately picked 3 "living" purples - colours that have extra life and shift to them. So on the thumb we have Lorelei from Powder Perfect, a stunning flecked lilac. On index we have Protect Your Girly Bits, a stunning purple holo twinkling with copper lights. And finally on pinkie we have one of my all time faves - OPI Planks A Lot.
My stroke of genius was to apply my decals to a silver background. It was unusual, and really made the whole mani pop. I used the super sparkly Stinky Little Truck from Literary Lacquers and this gorgeous flower image from UberChic 5-02.
Wow, that was a catchy post title eh? Lol. Today I am doubling up, with my final post of the DD's New & Improved week, as well as nail art for Things That Fly, this week's 40 Great Nail Art Ideas challenge.
Today the 2 are united by .... decals. Ever since I saw the Things That Fly prompt, I've wanted to use this super cute bumblebee design from UberChic. I'm also obsessed with the notion that logically, there is no way a bumblebee SHOULD be able to fly, and yet it can. Oh, and I love their lovely dumpling shape!
This mani is also a bit more evolved than my usual nail art, bringing it back to the Improved element. I have 3 nails stamped with flowers, and 2 bumblebee nails.
For the garden, I did a base coat of Literary Lacquers Phizzwizard, a great pale green holo, stamped it with these super cute daisies from UberChic 5-01 and dotted their centres with OPI Hot & Spicy, Planks a Lot and Jessica Ocean Bloom. I liked those nails a lot.
My bumblebees are from the same UberChic plate, and I coloured my decals in with OPI The It Color. I got some smudginess from the bees' faces, but other than that, did better with my decals than before - mainly, I think, because I cut them to size before applying them to my nails. (Over Barry M Huckleberry).
That's it for this week - I hope you've enjoyed what you've seen from us, and maybe it's inspired you to try something new or give something another go. Have a great weekend.
Wow this week's passing fast! I hope you're enjoying all the DD posts this week AND that you've checked out our new members.
Today is needle drag, a technique that I adore. It's a technique that looks so simple and effortless when I see other people do it (Sveta Sanders, I'm looking at you), but comes out looking like it was done by a challenged chimp when I try. I used a beautiful Indigo Bananas combo - Sequins of Events (the rose gold holo) and Break The Wheel.
So again .... semi fail. I feel I've learnt to do the stripe of polish down the middle better, but I still can't get the flow that these other bloggers get. If you look closely, yup, still got groove marks on this one.
Ok, I'm off to our DD cave to ask Cathy for advice :)
Today I am going to back to a "messy" style of nail art - waterspotting. I love messy patterns because there is no right or wrong, so you can never be too critical of them!
I tried waterspotting a couple of times last year, and for the most part failed miserably because I didn't have "enough" alcohol - the only thing I could get to disperse the polish was a tester bottle of Jo Malone perfume - a TAD expensive, plus I smelt like a tart all week from the amount I had to use!
Sooooo .... 70% alcohol is no good, you need the 99.9% version and thank you Amazon, that's now what I have, in a lovely squirty bottle.
That said, this isn't a total success. The polish I wanted to use wouldn't disperse (it had too much glitter in it, even though they were super fine particles), and when I eventually used Essie No Place Like Chrome, it was a bit hit and miss how it spread in the water. Stick to cremes I think.
The glorious base here is Veronika, by Literary Lacquers, which I was sent for review.
