Eek!

   What I have for you all today is... *drumroll please* a ripped flesh mani! Inspired by the ever awesome The Daily Nail's "I'm Going to Let It Slide" Halloween manicure. 

   I saw this design on tumblr a few weeks back and I thought it was pretty damn right cool! So now that Halloween is right around the corner, I may as well have spooky nails for work on Thursday! And just to add a little extra "eek" I added stitches *grin Though, half way through the mani it occurred to me why a zombie with ripped flesh would have stitches... right? So instead, I decided to just think of these nails as hacked body pieces that have been sewn together.. sounds a lot creepier huh?! 

   There really isn't much else to say other than Happy Halloween everyone! 

Naked Nails!

   Well.. half naked nails. 

   I started painting my nails frequently around May of this year and ever since then I've never worn my nails naked or half naked if I could help it. Of course back then I was a complete amateur and never wore base coat, which is probably why my nails stained faster. Only recently have I paid extra attention to painting 2 coats of base coat and lightly buffing my nails every now and then between manicures. And I'm so thrilled that after chopping my claws off, almost all the staining is gone! So thrilled that I decided on this black glitter tip mani on my naked nails:

   It's basically just sponging on a black "french" tip then sponging on a fine silver glitter polish to mask any hard lines and blend the black/naked nails better together for a smoother transition. The flowers on each of the nails are done by hand using a technique I saw on youtube years ago. I don't remember whose video it was, but if anyone knows let me know so I can credit them properly! 

   To create the flower, all you need to do is with a dotting tool (or use a bobby pin like me), paint 5 dots in a circle. Let them dry for a few seconds until the dots are a little tacky, then with a toothpick or a pin, drag each dot outwards, then drag inwards to create the petal shape. Finish it off with a large glitter piece, or a dot of glitter polish, et voila a flower!

   And a couple more snaps of the design:

Pinktober

   October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and is a time to show support for women and families affected by breast cancer. I personally know someone who is currently dealing with breast cancer and I can't possibly begin to imagine what they and their family have been going through. To show my support, I thought I'd take this opportunity and paint my nails pink, pink and more pink! 

   Before I start a mani, I tend to try out the design first on a finger to see if it turns out how I imagined it in my head. Because let's face it, some manis that look AMAZING in our heads turn into disasters on our nails. Here are two practice shots: 

   Fortunately they turned out how I had hoped so I didn't have to do too much fiddling *grin 

   As you can see the black lines in the final mani are a lot thicker than those in my test shots. I actually would have preferred the thinner lines but I couldn't get the straight edges I wanted so I kept going over them until I was satisfied, and hence the fat black lines. 

   The bottle of Chi Chi in the above photo is called "OMG" and omg it is the most vibrant neon (without being too fluro) pink ever! and I lalalalove it! The other pinks I used were Sally Hansen's "Sonic Boom" and "Flashy Fuchsia". The lightest pink was a combination of "OMG" and a whte polish. I've yet to lay hands on a nice light pink that I like. Suggestions?

   There's just something about matte nails I'm liking at the moment. Decided to try these with a matte top coat as well and I actually quite like them more matte than glossy!

Happy Pinktober!

Toodles~

Galaxy Glitter Goodness

   We've all seen galaxy nails, we've all seen galaxy "drip" nails, but then I saw these and I knew it was time to try my hand at it. I've dabbled in "galaxy nails" before but I was never happy with the outcome. Until today *grin

   This is my little spin on the drip nails. I decided to use a black base and had the "cosmic drips" dripping from the nail bed/ cuticles instead of towards it. From previous experience where my white dots (stars) turned the entire mani into a mess, I excluded them and opted for a fine glitter polish instead. And this is what came out:

   I'm actually quite happy with how these turned out! I mean, the drips look kind of wonky (I actually thought the drip shape would be the easiest part but creating perfectly shaped yet random drips was hard!) but it doesn't take too much away from the over all mani ;D 

   I might try these out with a white base next time, but first I need to get my hands on some white acrylic paint. My white polish, as awesome as it is, won't be opaque enough in one layer to outline the drips. (If any of that was confusing, I'm just referring to this tutorial by the same artist of the nails I was inspired by). 

   OH and before I forget: 

   These are the drips with a matte top coat. I was wearing the black polish, which is really a black glitter polish from Nine West, mattefied (is that a word?) before I attempted this mani so I decided to try the drips matte. They don't look too bad, but I prefer the shiny top coat, brings out all that glittery goodness :D

Toodles~

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!
________________________________________________________

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~

THE EMPTY CHILD

Hello, Sweetie~

I only discovered the wonderful world of Doctor Who (2005) this year and am completely smitten with it! Most of the episodes are light hearted and the banter between the Doctor(s) and his sidekick(s) and his quirky alien villains are always a treat to watch. There are also the tear jerkers like the latest episode "The Angels Take Over Manhatten". But then there are the few that leave me all creeped out! A perfect example would be "The Empty Child". 

That damn gas mask. That damn knocking on the door. That damn "are you my mummy?". This kid's creepy enough to give me nightmares! But what better way to embrace Halloween than painting him onto my nails! 

 

The weeping angels are another creep-tacular creature in Doctor Who that seriously give me the heebie-jeebies! It's because of them I can't look (and/or appreciate) statues the same way any more! Maybe the weeping angels will be next? 

Spoilers! ~

( I really do love the Melody Riversong twist)

Revlon Royal Blue Jelly Escapade!

   Hey y'all! So yesterday, along with the BYS graffiti nail enamel kit, I also bought a bottle of Revlon's Top Speed "Royal" polish from Target. For a while now, I've been on the look out for an awesome deep rich dark blue that's not too close to black, and Royal looked pretty damn close to what I was after. 

   THOUGH, to my surprise (pleasant surprise!) it actually turned out to be a jelly polish! And a lovely cobalt blue jelly polish at that! 

   I was not disappointed at all! Easy to apply and the jelly finish (this was 2 coats) was absolutely amazing! I was very very tempted to make a jelly sandwich with the Chi Chi "Glitterazzi" I also bought from Target that day (next time!) but instead opted for an orange ikat design. There's something about the blue and orange combination I really like. It's so bright and eye catching ;p

 

   So that ends my Revlon Royal Blue Jelly Escapade.. for now! I will revisit this chapter again sometime in the not too distant future! One more picture, and I wish you all an awesome day! 

Welcome!

   Mornin' everyone! First and foremost, welcome to the new blog! My latest post on tumblr was getting a little long winded so I thought I'd set up a blogspot especially for my random ramblings that come with every nail post of mine. So again, welcome! ;D It will probably take some time before this blog starts feeling like home so please bare with me.

   

   Second order of business. THIS:

   It's a BYS Graffiti Nail Enamel kit that I picked up from Gloss for $8.95. Basically, the concept of it is to paint your nails a base colour, then with the "graffiti activator" you paint on any design of your choice and the base enamel shifts to a darker richer version of the original. 

   This pack contained BYS Violet Vandal and is a metallic pearly purple that was easy to apply and covered perfectly in one coat! I wasn't even tempted to apply a second coat like I usually do.

   In my mind, I was expecting it to be more of a marbling effect, so I tried to free hand a design and although the graffiti activator had a fine brush I wasn't happy with what was created. So I decided to go with a tape mani instead, and it turned out great!

   ALTHOUGH I MUST WARN YOU ALL do not use top coat. What I realized after I put top coat on is that it also changes the colour of the base enamel. So essentially, the graffiti activator is top coat and can be used interchangeably.

   All in all, it’s a convenient pack for a quick manicure, but I would still prefer to use other polishes and a fine brush to paint on a design. On a positive note, I would purchase it again, if only for the metallic base colours in the pack! This pearly violet was so lovely!