#33DC - Day 4 Tribal - Peace and Love and OPI

Hi Goddesses

A little bit of a catch up post this morning, as I didn't manage to get this mani done in time.  The advantage of that was that by the time I WAS ready to do it, my new Bundle Monster plates had arrived, and BM-402 just happened to feature a *perfect* tribal design.  Karma :)

On base today we have Peace & Love & OPI which is possibly one of the polishes of the year and is also possibly the best polish OPI have released in FOREVER.  It's a real throwback to some of their older, magic polishes, and also has a whiff of Have You Seen My Limo about it.

This is a dark, gothic grey polish, infused with purple to teal glimmers.  It's like the very fabric of the metal has these 2 colours pulsing through it.  It's sensational.

I struggled to capture the colour change ... until I switched up my lighting.  Seriously, this is some epic.  In some lights it also looked like emerald painted over black.   To be able to get 1 polish to show 4 or 5 colours simultaneously is quite the achievement.  As I said: epic.

And here is the cute tribal from BM-402.  For some reason, my photos of the OPI are much better here, and the polish and the design worked really well together.

I just love the movement of this polish - it's endlessly fascinating, and I ended up wearing this for 4 days lol, which is totally unheard of in CrumpetLand.

Barry M Gelly Week - Hot Hot Tribal with Mango and Dragonfruit

Hi Goddesses

Happy Hump Day!   Thank you to everyone for the awesome response to Monday’s mani of Barry M Gelly polka dots!  It’s been shared in so many places and been seen probably by more people than any other mani I’ve done, so thank you!

Whilst all that was going on, yesterday I hit 600k page views AND published my 1250th blog post.  That means I’ve done 750 in a year – whoops.  Stay tuned for the weekend when I launch a whole hoopla of changes for the blog to add to your viewing pleasure.  Not less, just better :)

So, today’s mani uses just 2 of the Gellys – Mango (the orange one) and Dragonfruit (the reddy corally one) – as well as my Barry M nail art pen.  You may remember I initially had some problems with my nail art pens.  Well, I think I’ve worked out it’s because I had them sat right next to the laptop, in front of all the heat blowing out.  I’ve kept the new ones horizontal and cooler, and so far, they are surviving life in the nail room!

One of the reasons I was excited to get the nail art pens is because I want to master tribal.  It always looks so awesome when other people do it, and although I have a LONG way to go, I am loving how this turned out.

The base has been sponged.  Each nail started off with 2 coats of Mango and then had Dragonfruit sponging.   Each nail is different, some have a top to bottom gradient, some a bottom to top, others have splodged lines, or just general randomness.  One of the things I like about these 2 polishes is how very well they play together – it’s almost impossible to tell there are 2 polishes here.

I tried to needle drag with them too – STILL not mastered that – but again, look how they moosh and merge together to make pure fire – lovely!

So, there we go, tribal on fire!  Enjoy xx :)

31DC Day 16 - Tribal Nails

Hi Goddesses

Shit.  Today is Tribal Nails.  Shit.  And double shit.

I've never been able to do tribal - AND it daunts me.  I think it's partly because I haven't practiced it, but also partly because it seems to require very fine brush strokes - and we all know how clunky I am.

So this is my first attempt at Tribal.  It's not even Tribal, it's "Crumpet Practices Tribal".   This was done on top of Enkelini's glorious orange holo Lainey Lou which I wore back on Day 2 - HERE.

I never intended this to be a proper post, but illness screws up even the finest of schedules .... I was going to have another attempt, but sinuses have left us both dealing with this one instead!

I only added 3 colours - Barry M Block Orange, a white and my trusty CG Ink Pot.   Mainly, this was experimentation with no plan for how it would turn out, just let's see what happens.  As usually is the case when I do this, the first nail (the thumb) is the best, because I at least had half an idea for that one, whereas as we work our way round to the pinkie, we really are wondering what to do next lol.

I love that a lot of you follow this blog because I am not perfect, and this is a classic example of me practicing what I preach. I'm a big believer in Recycled Nails and in playing with your mani before you take it off - and that's exactly what happened here:  I wanted to give tribal a go, and this was my first practice session.

I'm determined I'm going to get good at this - there's too many fab examples out there that keep cooing at me :) 

Enjoy xx :)