NOTD: Pastel vs Neon

   Mornin' all! You should all know by now that I have quite a soft spot for neons, but occasionally, my love for for them is diverted to pastels. I just can't help myself, the colours look so pretty in their bottles! One such colour is a new found love: Essie Mint Candy Apple. I paired it with Ulta3 Lilac Bloom and Sinful Colors Black on Black to create this pastel floral design.

   Though I did like it, I felt a little underwhelmed... the colours looked a little washed out ): Also, it is almost Summer here in Australia, so I think I was just subconsciously craving for something brighter! So I pulled out Emily De Molly Flurocious, Australis Peek-a-boo and #Totesamaze and a few golden nail studs to create a much brighter floral mani, with glitter too!

   I like this much better :P but then again, I am a sucker for bright colours. Which do you prefer? Are you a pastel person, or a neon lover like me?

Pastel / Tribal Mish Mash

BEFORE: 

AFTER:

   The tribal print really over powers the pretty pastel goodness underneath =O ..but it's alright since I have decent shots of it in the last post, and this was only to experiment :P Nonetheless, I still quite like how they turned out!

   I was going to use a nail art pen, or a liquid eye liner, to doodle on the tribal design but found it quite difficult *defeated sigh* so I ended up using a fine brush and black acrylic paint. 

   These will most likely come off tonight, and I'll probably replace them with some ikats (haven't done them in a while) or some cutout nails (saw some on IG that were really cool, stay tuned, I'll post the inspiration pics in the post!).

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

Dream Catcher Nails

   Yay for the return of the claw pose :D And my attempt at combining watercolour nails and dream catchers! I saw this image on google while searching for pictures of dream catchers and immediately fell in love with the design. 

 

   Of course I wasn't going to get such fine detail (not with my clumsy hands), but still I wanted to try. I first tried to imitate the watercolour background using Sinful Colors Island Coral, Sinful Colors Endless Blue and Essence Splash Refresh. Instead of acetone, I used polish thinner to create the waterclour effect.

   Then, just with regular black acrylic paint and a fine paint brush, I painted on the dream catcher. I must admit, this part took the longest because I kept erasing my dream catchers (Oh the beauty of acrylic paint! Washes away mistakes with water :P) and starting over until I was happy. But I got there in the end haha Also added some round flatback crystals to the other nails as an accent. 

   All in all, I'm pretty happy with how these turned out (: What do y'all think?

I♥IKAT TUTORIAL

Tada, tutorial! ;D

The picture tutorial itself is pretty self explanatory but I've provided, what I hope to be a clear description of the steps as well. So here goes!
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Start off with your base coat and 2 coats of white polish.

Need: 6 pastel polishes, 1 black polish, a nail art brush (base coat+top coat as per usual and acetone + brush for clean up)

For the purpose of this tutorial I've labelled the nails 1, 2 and 3.

For nail #1
1. With your nail art brush, starting with yellow, paint tiny vertical strokes/ dashes, one next to the other, creating the zigzag pattern.
2. With your remaining colours, paint on the same tiny strokes/ dashes following the zigzag pattern created in step 1.
3. With your nail art brush and black nail polish, using the same techniques in steps 1 and 2, paint tiny black strokes between the light pink and yellow, and between the blue and purple, also creating a zigzag pattern.

For nail #2
1. Using the same technique in Nail #1 create a V shape pattern with all 6 colours.2. With your black polish and nail art brush, create an ikat heart shape by painting small strokes following the V shape.

For nail #3
1. Create a dark pink to light pink to white gradient.2. With your nail art brush, create miniature heart shapes on top of the gradient.3. Again with your nail art brush and using the same technique in Nails #1 and #2, create an ikat heart shape by outlining the miniature hearts with your black polish.

Top it off with your favourite top coat and don't forget to clean up your cuticles (:

**Remember you don't have to follow the design colour for colour, be creative and if ever you try it, leave a comment with a link, I'd love to see what all your imaginations come up with! (:


Toodles~

I♥IKAT

   Hey y'all! Is it just me or is there something really addictive about the Ikat pattern? AND PASTELS. That's why when I saw this phone cover in Sportsgirl a few weeks back I knew I needed to have it on my nails!

   From previous experience, I've learnt that it's so much easier to get the colours to pop (especially neons!) if you paint a base coat of white polish first. So I did that, then chose 6 pastel polishes to match the colour scheme of the mobile phone case. Spring's just arrived here in Australia so pastels are pretty much the GO-TO colours at the moment. Slap on those characteristic black lines on top of the pastels, et voilà!

   The first time in a long time I painted the same design on my right hand, albeit a simplified version (meaning I replaced the mini hearts on the ring finger and thumb with the simple ikat zigzag on the middle finger!) Disclaimer: Please don't pay too much attention to my unusually short right index nail. It snapped right across while I was out of the house and had no nail glue on me to fix it ): Now I've bought a second nail glue bottle to keep in my bag always! 

I've also had a request for a tutorial on these so that should be up soon as well! 

Toodles~