Day 18: Half Moon

I am almost a week behind on my posts, so over the next three days I'm going to cut the chit chat and just catch you guys up! Here was my half moon sunset-inspired nails.

Yellow is "Lightening" by Sally Hansen Insta-Dri, pink is "Exotic Pink" by LA Colors, and the purple is from the Monster High nail polishes I got from Claire's.

Day 17: Glitter

My mom is an editor for a fashion magazine, so she's always up on all the latest trends. For Christmas/my birthday, she gave me a set of "mixed metal" jewellery because it was fashionable and because it would go with so many things. It is, by far, my favourite set of jewellery. So for this day, I decided to do a tribute to the mixed metal look.

The base coat is Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in "Golden-I", and the glitter is LA Colors in "Sparkling Diamonds". It was really hard to get a picture that catches the colours really well. Here's a few pictures with the ring I was trying to match with, hopefully that will give you a better idea of what I was going for.

I'm sad that the camera really didn't capture how pretty this manicure was. This is why I usually go for much more contrasting colours for most of my manicures. I got many compliments on it in real life though,, so I guess it showed better than I thought.

Day 16: Tribal Print

This is, by far, the most labour-intensive manicure I have ever done. It took me 3.5 hours. That being said, I think it turned out fantastic and was worth every gruelling minute.

I know it's not quite the usual tribal, but I didn't want to do the usual tribal. I decided to use an Aztec calendar my boyfriend gave me as inspiration. To get the effect I wanted, I painted the whole nail with Sally Hansen nailgrowth Miracle in "White Tip", then sponged Revlon Top Speed in "Espresso" all over the nails. After that, I used a toothpick (because my brushes seem to have gone walkabout) to make the design in the brown, then added some more white to accent the design. Here's some picture of the calendar to show you the effect I was going for:

The design I was trying to copy is running through the middle again. I'm very happy with how the manicure turned out, but I will probably never do it ever again because it just took way too long.

Day 15: Delicate Print

I think I actually decided to do this nail design before I started the 31 day challenge. Thankfully my Bundle Monster stamps had a design that worked out really well for this! I present to you my delicate print nails:

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The bluish-green colour I used is "Jungle Fever" by LA Colors, and the stamp that I used is BM11. I think this is my new favourite stamp, I love the lace effect! Thankfully my regular polish worked pretty well for stamping, I thought this would make a cool accent nail but I wasn't sure it would work.

Painting the accent nail was a challenge though. I can't find my regular white nail polish, so I had to use the Konad special nail polish. That stuff really isn't made for doing all-over nails. It took me a couple tries, but in the end it turned out all right. Hopefully I can find my normal white polish soon though, I want to use it for the next design.

Day 14: Flowers

I will admit that I wasn't very inspired by flowers. I wanted to so something fun and pretty that took up the whole nail, but my skills weren't quite up to my ideas. Finally, my boyfriend suggested that I make the thumb the centre of the flower and my fingers the petals, and I thought this was brilliant. I figured a sunflower would be best for this because they have large centers and small petals. Unfortunately, my follow-through was not as good as the idea. Part of the issue is that I was rushing to do it at work and therefore couldn't spend as much time on the details that I normally would. The rest of the issue is that I was just lazy. In any case, here's how it turned out:

The effect is really meant to work with both hands put together, but I had to use one of my hands to take the picture. I photoshopped it to try and get the effect, but it really didn't work all that well. It looks better when I do it in person.

Neither of these pictures shows the effort I put in to making the thumb look like the centre of the flower:

All in all, this is not my favourite manicure I've done and I'll probably take it off tomorrow and move to the next one. The yellow is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri's "Lightening" and the brown is Revlon Top Speed's "Espresso". The orange and black are both acrylic paint.

On a positive note, I really like this brown. I bought it specifically for this manicure but I'll definitely be using it again!

And now for something completely different...

I'm taking a very brief break from the 31-day challenge because I've come across a nail polish that has quickly become one of my favourites. I tried it out at work, and loved it so much that I ran out and bought it today! Here's a picture:

The colour is "Golden-I" by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear. It's almost a silvery-gold, and I've already got a whole bunch of ideas of what to do with it! Also, it was really cheap - only $3 a bottle. So I got this, and a darkish grey that I haven't actually tried on yet. After putting it on, I thought that it would look fantastic with a black crackle, hence the "accent nail" which was really just me trying it out.

If you're disappointed that I don't have a real design this week, never fear. I'll be back to the challenge next week!