Look who’s back?!! Day 1- Red

HELLO OUT THERE! Yes I’m yelling! I’m not even going to mention “slack blogger” and just dive right into today’s post. So it’s September, first day of Spring here in the Southern Hemisphere and first day of ….. the 31 day challenge! Are you thinking how are you going to pull this off Michelle? Yeah…me too! Well perhaps this is the kick that I need to get me back into doing nail art on a regular basis. While I still follow blogs and instagram accounts, I miss posting my own nails and interacting with you guys. There will be some shameless self promotion as I post some of my own polishes.

Over a base of black gel polish, I’ve stamped with Messy Mansion plate “The Bridal Nail 01” on the ring and middle finger using “Hit the Bottle” stamping polish in “Poison Apple”. This colour is not a true red as in tomato colour but more the deep red crimson colour of an apple.

On the ring finger I made a decal, so I could reverse the design. The other two fingers are stamped using plate JQ-L12 which I think I bought from Aliexpress. I always struggle with high shine top coats…so I dulled the shine with some Satin finish top coat.

So expect lots of simple manis and for better photos, that bit I’ve always struggled with the most. Okay better post quick before today is not today anymore!

Soup-er…

Hello out there, I love soup! That is one of my favourite lines to explain why I like soup, because it is soup-er! I think Pop Art and Andy Warhol are pretty super too, and the soup can image on Moyou London plate 03 from the Rebel collection is probably the main reason why I bought this plate! So I’m glad to have an excuse to use it for the Sunday (yeah I know its Tuesday!) AIS stamping challenge, which is to stamp with three colours.

Here I’ve stamped with Hit the Bottle stamping polishes and made decals by filling in the blank space with a different colour. I’ve stamped with “Blue-tiful”, “Purple Reign”, “In the Limelight” and “Snowed In”. It’s late, I’m tired, back soon 🙂

 

Halloween decals BPS…

Another product that I got to review from the Born pretty store, was these cool silhouette style waterslide decals. I’m not really an orange fan, but these screamed out to be put over orange.

First I started with a coat of white, then I applied two coats of Color Club “Koo-Koo Cachoo” (um … bless you!). Toward the cuticle I sponged a little Ulta 3 “Burnt Orange” and then added a layer of orange jelly glitter polish that a friend got me from the Philippines, Caronia “Sunset”.  Then I added the decals of the witch and her cat and a couple of gold studs. This turned out so much more striking than I thought it would and I love how the gold studs match the orange/gold glitter.  I’m really liking studs at the moment and I find when I paint my nails I think….Ooh “Put a stud on it!” after watching this clip “Put a bird on it!” from the show Portlandia.

Born pretty product review…

I have used some goodies from Born pretty store today to make this mani. The middle two nails are painted with OPI “My Boyfriend Scales Walls” over that I sponged some greenish colour. The outer two nails are painted with Layla softouch effect “03”, I don’t see a  colour name on this bottle anywhere, but it is a beautiful colour and finish.

Then I applied golden square studs and a couple of waterslide decals from Born pretty store. There decals are always good quality and easy to use. These designs came from a big sheet with lots of other images for Halloween.  The wheel that I got has many studs to choose from in square and round, silver and gold. Use my code ABL91 to get 10% off you order for your nail art supplies.

Day 29 Inspired by supernatural….

Can’t say I’m all that inspired for this prompt or really feeling in a nail art mood today. So I took the easy way out and made a waterslide decal using this image from Point Blank designs. I really like Sara’s paintings and think she should sell waterslide decals of her work. How cool would that be?

I’ve painted the two middle fingers with OPI “My Vampire Is Buff” (how could I choose any other?!) and the two outside fingers with A England “Sleeping Palace”. Over that I’ve stamped with Revlon Red using bundle monster plate BM-416 for the blood splatter pattern.

 

An InLinkz Link-up

Day 24 Inspired by a book…

Inspired by the book Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, I made a decal (using printable waterslide decal paper) from this artwork by Sara Bowerstock. You can see more of her work in her Etsy shop, Point Blank Design.

I added to Frankenstein’s head with green and yellow nail polish, to make the design fit the whole nail. The other three nails are painted with OPI “My Vampire Is Buff”, over that I smeared some greyish brown polish to look like old book pages. Then I stamped with Messy Mansion plate MM24. I finished with OPI matte top coat, because you just can’t have shiny book pages! I love the matte look, it even feels like paper! Since making this decal, I have found this image on a stamping plate, it is Sugar Bubbles SB010.

An InLinkz Link-up

Day 22 Inspired by a song….

Totally late for this one, wrong day even! I had an idea for a song and then changed it at the last minute. You might know that I like dance music, so instead of being inspired by one song, I took my inspiration from a style of music. This was also another mani on my to-do list! I found this great tutorial and a new way of applying nail art foil, which I have never had much luck with. This method is brilliant and so easy, I did find I needed to use of few coats of polish though.

After I had applied the green, gold to orange foil, I used Sally Hansen “Nail Shine Miracle” top coat. Over some striping tape I gently sponged black polish, removed the tape and hey presto….lazers! Then I stamped the crowd using Messy Mansion plate MM02. I printed a Ministry of Sound logo on waterslide decal paper and applied that over OPI “Push and Shove”. I love this mani, it would have to be one of my favourites…ever!!

It’s one of those ones I never want to take off! Here’s the photo I used as inspiration, can’t wait for the new M.O.S. Annual next month.

Day 21 inspired by a colour…

I had no idea what to do for this prompt or even really what it meant. So I chose a simple mani, inspired by the colour blue. Using flocking powder, which I think I bought here and these decals from the born pretty online store.

I had a lovely grey to blue gradient going on, to put the decals over and then discovered they need to go over a white base! Use my code ABL91 for 10% off and free worldwide shipping.

 

Day 19 galaxy…

Late again, but still here, just! I’ve done galaxy nails before, which you can see here and was at a bit of a loss how to make them interesting this time. I thought what is there in space….then I remembered “Pigs in Space” from the Muppet Show, yes I know I’m showing my age!

Over a “regular” galaxy base, I added a decal of Miss Piggy, that I printed onto waterslide decal paper. Read more about decal paper here.

Can’t chat today…must paint nails!

 

Day 14 flowers…

Halfway and still here! Well I love flowers, all of them, even thistle flowers have their own beauty, but somehow I don’t like paintings of flowers. I think it comes down to you just can’t beat the beauty of nature, so very rarely do I see flowers painted that I’m impressed by, but that’s just me. Having said that I found these gorgeous water slide decals on Ebay and now is the perfect time to finally use them.

They were a bit hard to apply because on some of them the clear plastic layer that you peel off before you put them into the water would not come off without taking the flower with it, so I lost about three. This mani was getting a bit flowery so I added some pink acrylic gems to break it up a little. Possibly the problem with flowers is they are so hard to paint realistically and make them look good. Although there are some nail artists that do fantastic flower manis. I’m looking at you Lacqerstyle!

An InLinkz Link-up