NOTD: Neon Gradient + Watermarble

   ♫♪ I can't sleep at night, when you are on my mind ... We belong together babyyyyy~ 

   Anyone listen to old school Mariah Carey? :P I found a playlist of old school songs in a folder on my laptop and now I'm getting sidetracked and instead find myself singing along (trying to) with whatever lyrics I remember - it's a tad hard writing this post with impulses to sing every 2 seconds ♪Your lips, your smile, I love it when you kiss me baby (next track - Mesmerized Ja Rule).

   Okay. Anyways. I put the volume down, maybe that'll help - and here I thought I was good at multitasking. SO. NAILS. This neon gradient is by far my most fave! From a lime green to a medium blue to bright pink  (Tony Moly P004, Australis Sky's The Limit and #totesamaze) - it just screams Summer. I was so tempted to leave it as is, cos come on, just look at it, it's so stinkin' cute! :P 

   As for what to layer on top of the gradient, I had a couple of ideas: waterspotting, black tribal pattern, or I could have taken the lazy way out and just added a glitter topper... but I was feeling adventurous, so I gave water marbling a go. Just as an FYI, water marbling and I do not mix well: I attempt it, I fail miserably, I try another 10 times, and finally, successfully marble 1 nail - ONE nail. This little escapade wasn't any different, just my left hand took at least an hour and a half! 

   And the bubbles! Damn the bubbles! I pull my finger out of the water and there are air bubbles in my water marble - it drives me nuts! What am I doing wrong?? ): What I did to try and salvage them, without having to redo the gradient and the marble, was to pop the bubbles and paint over it with a small brush and black nail polish. You can sort of see in the photos where the black is slightly darker - that's where I painted over :P

   Buuuuuuuut... the results are just so pretty, I don't mind facing off against my arch nemesis every now and then.

   So water marbling is my love/ hate relationship, what's yours? 

   ALSO, NAIL MAIL :P Swatches of these will be up on the blog within the week ♥

BAM: GRADIENTS

Then and Now, and All the Manis in Between: Part III

   My top 3 favourite nail art "trends" or "designs" have to be ikats, florals and Gradients! As I've covered ikats and florals already, in today's instalment, we journey through my past gradients and show you just how versatile and fun they are!

   The first ever gradient I attempted was on my sister. I can't remember whose tutorial it was I followed but I started by painting the nail the light blue colour first, then with a sponge, I sponged on the darker colour after. 

Excuse my sister's awkward hand pose.

   Then I tried it for myself. This time, I followed a different tutorial on how to do gradients: I painted each nail white first, then painted the colours directly onto the sponge before sponging it onto my nail. And to this day, it's still the same method that I use to do my gradients.

Not the best picture, so you can't see how patchy the gradient actually was. But for a first attempt, I was pretty stoked!

   Then I started getting fancy :P I watched a tutorial by Candice (from MrCandiipants) for her 'striped gradient' and I fell in love with it straight away! It's basically painting stripe after stripe on the nail, creating a gradient. I remember these took A LOT LONGER than I first thought it would, probably because I decided to paint in really thin lines! D'oh!

   As if painting tiny lines across my nails weren't enough, I went ahead and tried a colour block gradient. Yes these were neon bright, and yes I still wore them to work :P

   Since then, I've experimented with different colour combinations, using more than 2 colours on a sponge, adding glitter to the gradient, using the actual glitter as the gradient, painting designs over the gradient... Gosh the possibilities are endless!!

 

 

   And for today's nails, I decided to go with an autumn themed gradient (brown - red - orange - yellow) topped with a black frame, accents and studs.

I used Revlon Hot For Chocolate, Butter London Pillar Box Red, Ulta3 Tangelo and Honolulu for the gradient, and Sinful Colors Black on Black for the lines.

   Well that's 3 out of 3! I'll have something a little different for the next blog post, but I'm sure these "then and now" posts will be back soon enough (I'm thinking a look at all my past galaxy nails, or tribal nails)!

xx Christine

White Tribal Over A Sponged Gradient

   Hey y'all :D Today's NOTD is a white tribal print hand painted over a sponged gradient. Fun fact: This took me about an episode of Charmed, JAG, Judging Amy, Power Rangers and Ben 10 (random tv shows that I kind of enjoyed actually :P I hardly ever watch tv). 

   The colours I used for this were recent BYS purchases from Kmart: Glowing Around, Anyone For Tennis and Baby Let's Cruise. They caught my eye because they were pastels, but screamed "bright"! So question: what do you call a polish that's obviously a pastel, but is bright like a neon, but not quite a neon...? Am I making any sense? 

   ANYWHOS, this is the gradient that's under the white tribal pattern. My mum asked me as I was painting the tribal on why I bother to do such a nice gradient only to "cover it up" and "hide" it underneath. *facepalm moment, oh how my mother makes me laugh* hahaha I agree with her to a degree, but I try to think of it as the background that shines through the tribal, making it more interesting (:

 

Pretty Pastels

   Hey y'all! Sooooo... here we are again, another day, another mani. Though, if you're anything like me, then that means playtime! :P With Easter right around the corner, I've had an urge to play with pastels, and since I haven't attempted a watermarble and/or gradient in a while, thought I'd mash the two together for a pretty pastel mani.

   I started off with two coats of Sinful Colors Easy Going (this is such a pretty delicate pink shade, so bummed I didn't take a shot of it on my nails *sob*). Then with Chi Chi Plastic Fantastic, BC Co. Shade 21, Essence Bloom-A-Loom and Sinful Colors Easy Going, I did a simple watermarble pattern for the accents. Using those same colours, I sponged on the gradient for the rest of the nails.

   I know that there are different methods people use to do gradients, but what works best for me is painting my base coat of colour first and letting it dry, then painting on the strips of colour directly onto the sponge and dabbing it onto the nail in sort of an up (towards the cuticle) and down (towards the free edge) motion (i am terrible at explaining, I hope that made sense).

   And just because I felt like a little sparkle :P I topped everything off with Bloom Cosmetics Aspen (sort of like an extremely fine version of CG Fairy Dust).

Though I really do like the end result, it still feels incomplete... so maybe a design on top tomorrow? We'll see :P

Christmas Craze

   First and foremost: 

I want to wish everyone a Merry and Blessed Christmas!!

   Apologies for being MIA this past week, but Christmas in retail is one busy BUSY season! I was stuck at work until 6pm Christmas Eve with shoppers still wandering the store looking for VERY late minute presents! haha (I laugh now, but back then, I was ready to chase those people out of the store so I could finally leave and go home grrr)

   I have a couple of manis for you lovely people today (: First of which is a design I did for a guest post on Katy's blog: Nailed It. She has kindly obliged by allowing me to write up a guest post while she's on vacation. If you aren't already following this creative young lady, then I kindly urge you to take a peek at her nails and see for yourself. 

Guest post on Nailed It

   Second, is a festive glitter gradient I wore to work during the week. 

   I used 2 coats of China Glaze Twinkle Lights for the base, OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air and BYS Dazzling for the green gradient on top. 

   I LOVED THESE. So bright, sparkly and fun! Don't they just scream Christmas to you?!

   Finally, today's mani: something really quick and random. I'm still on the fence with these. May even take them off tonight and attempt something else :/

   Until then I hope everyone has a safe and blessed Christmas break! I promise my next post won't take as long as this did! 

   P.S. I would share with you all what I got for Christmas, but it's kind of hard when I didn't get anything. hahaha This year my brother and I spoiled my parents and younger siblings instead with gifts. Though I did buy myself a purple macaron patterned onesie from Target :P 

Black Houndstooth

   Mornin' y'all! Everyone excited for the weekend? I know I am! Why, you ask? Because after working seven days straight I finally get 2 days off! haha

   So today, I have for you a pastel gradient topped with a black houndstooth design!

   I watched Chelsea's (from Get Nail-d) houndstooth tutorial on youtube and altered it to fit my design. Since I was using a pastel gradient as a backdrop I couldn't just use a black and white striper to create the squares, so instead i painted on the black squares individually, one by one. Then added the accents. It was a long and tedious process, but hey, totally worth it in my opinion! Seriously digging this look!

   OH and not wanting to neglect the pastel gradient underneath, here's a shot of it before I covered it all in houndstooth :P 

   My middle finger was the first nail I did the pattern on and the houndstooth turned out great! Unfortunately, I got restless and the rest turned out clumsy and fat ): ! haha but once you put them together, it's not TOO obvious, so I guess it's alright :D

   It was a pain drawing all those black square free hand! Take a closer look and some aren't even square, they look more like ovals! haha

Colour Block ...Gradient!

   Mornin' y'all! Hope everyone had a good relaxing weekend (: Today's post is inspired by neon colours yet again, this time in a gradient... a colour block gradient. 

   I wanted to take the 'gradient nail' a step further, so I thought why not pixelate the whole thing and paint the colours in blocks instead of a smooth transition with a sponge. 

   Is it just me or do they kind of remind you of candy corn? But candy corn's not pink, or purple, so it is probably just me... probably from all these polish fumes I've been inhaling, I've gone a little cuckooo haha 

   These were a pain in the butt to paint. But it was all worth it in the end. Although these ended up looking so damn flashy and bright I wore them to work anyway, and received a compliment or two  on them, one coming from my manager, so I guess she's given the fancy nail art the green light! Until the next instalment of "colourful nails for work" toodles!