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?

Indie Busy!

   Hey y'all! I've been suffering from a little polisher's block lately and it's been a slow unproductive week for nail art. So instead, I've paused the nail art and been a little indie busy trying out a couple of the untried indie polishes I have. 

   First up is Different Dimension Soft Kitty Warm Kitty. I've swatched it before on a nail wheel but never actually wore it on my nails. I don't normally like grey polishes (and I only bought this for it's name, Big Bang Theory fanatic over here :P) but it was a pleasantly surprising grey polish I really like. This is 2 coats over Max Factor Opal.

   Next up is Femme Fatale Lacquer Razzle Me Dazzled. This is two coats over Maybelline Mini Colorama Dark Plum. Again, this is a polish I wasn't too psyched about when I first got it. But now I'm completey converted, I absolutely love it. The purple jelly is too sheer to ever wear it without undies, instead it makes as a perfect glitter topper :D

   Third is Shades of Phoenix Hades from the "Olympus" collection. This is 3 coats, with no undies, with topcoat. There's something about black jellies that I absolutely love!

   Shades of Phoenix is a newly launched Aussie Indie Brand and I'm totally digging the polish names and the polishes themselves! I've also ordered Zeus and Chaos so keep an eye out for those swatches!

Links:
Different Dimension
Femme Fatale Lacquer
Shades of Phoenix

Loose Glitter and Mylar

   It's been a while my lovelies, I've been in such a rut this week, I've even worn naked nails to work *eeeep!* But yesterday, I received my surprise package from Lizz (IG misshoneybee475) and it contained this beautiful Julep polish Claire. It's a gorgeous sky blue colour and it's my first Julep!

   I painted two coats of this baby on, and topped it with individually placed loose glitter (yay for tedious glitter placement! haha), shiny mylar sheets and 2mm gold studs. This mani's such an attention seeker, I can't stop stealing glances at them, they're so blingy! 

   One thing I noticed about the mylar though, they were cut up in pretty big chunks so they were kind of hard to work onto the nail without looking messy. I know you can encase mylar into gel or acrylic nails, and also on top of polish like how I've done, but does anyone have any more creative uses for mylar? 

Simple Romantic Nails

   I was feeling a little girly today, so I've decided to try some 3D nail art with these pearls and and diamantes on a nude + glitter gradient base. 

   I've seen this look go around a couple of times, but it was so pretty and chic I had to try it for myself! For the base I used Sally Hansen Cafe Au Lait, topped with Revlon Sparkling (new favourite Revlon glitter FYI) for the gradient. 

   The pearls I purchased from the BornPrettyStore, it came in a wheel container with plenty of different sized pearls and all for around $5! How could I not?! The diamantes I got from the dollar store, they're just the normal flat back adhesive body jewels that I decided to use for nail art :P

   With V-day coming up, you may or may not see more 'girly' manis :P

BornPrettyStore 2mm Silver Studs

Mornin' y'all! So as I said in my last post, my recent BornPrettyStore purchase arrived in the mail this week and amongst the goodies were these 2mm square silver studs. I've purchased studs before from their store, but they were the larger 4mm sized squares.

The 2mm squares are a lot smaller, and I think much cuter :P So I decided to pair them with a pink and purple half moon gradient and glitter!

I used Australis Bombshell for the base colour and Ulta3 Orchid for the purple half moon and gradient. For the glitter accents, I used KattClaws Bubblegum Princess. The studs are just placed on with a small dab of nail glue, and then the whole thing is sealed off with a quick dry top coat.

Keepin' It Cool

   This week has got to be THE HOTTEST week in Sydney in like forever! Temperatures have reached 47degrees Celsius and it's said to continue into next week *gulp* 

   So to keep it cool, I paired KattClaws Polish 'Community Pool' with Sinful Colors 'Endless Blue' and silver square studs from the BornPrettyStore online to create this mix and match mani.

   I'll be keeping this post nice and short as I've also received the new set of nail art brushes, loose glitter and mylar sheet sets, also from the BornPrettyStore, and I'm itching to try them!! 

Nothin' But Neons

   LONG TIME NO SEE GUYS! And I do apologize for that! So first things first, belated HAPPY 2013! Hope the new year has started off great for you all :D I've been so busy with work, friends, and the holidays that I've slacked off in my posting... but I intend to make up for the week and a half I've missed with this post ^^ And as you have all probably noticed, my nails are mega super short now ): The nail on my middle finger broke after New Year's and it was too awkward not to file all the other nails down to the same length. Here's to hoping they grow back fast! *crosses fingers*

   I bought a set of ChiChi neon polishes the other week for only $19.95 (considering their full sized bottles are $12 each, I'd say that's a bargain!) and have been itching to try them. So today's nails of the day are a neon gradient topped with a black geometric pattern. There were 8 polishes in total: 6 neons and a black and white crackle polish. For this mani, I just used the green, blue and purple.

   I'm not sure if you can tell or not, but my gradient's not too smooth. I was too lazy to use a sponge, so I just started with a white base, then painted the gradient straight on with the brush from the bottle, blending the colours as I go. Needless to say, by the end of it all, I felt like my nails were wearing 10 layers of polish!

   Oh and do you guys remember these nails?

   Remember how I said I'd try adding black accents on them? Well, before I took them off I did. And here's the outcome (phone quality photo sorry!):

   More news! Though I haven't been painting my nails too often during the week, I have been painting... my nail polish rack!

   I'd love to take the credit for building this masterpiece, but its construction is all thanks to my dad. I just painted it :P It's 120cm x 90cm so it's pretty darn huge and takes up most of the wall in my room. I'm itching to fill it! haha

   And last but not least, I did have an awesome mani for new years that I absolutely loved, but I never got around to taking proper photos of it ): All I have is a phone camera picture I took at work (I worked New Year's Eve and Day!) I also bought this awesome Doctor Who T-shirt from target. EXTERMINATE!