Blue Swatch-athon

   Mornin' everyone! For today's post, I have lots and lots (and lots!) of pictures to share with y'all! I was so excited to have received my Emily De Molly order and my swap package from Jen on Monday, I got straight into swatching to show you all :D It just so happened that at least half the polishes were blue, so a BLUE swatch-athon it is!

Nail mail makes me happy :D

   First up is a gorgeous, absolutely stunning, blue/ purple duochrome Butter London Scouse.

   The colour shift is a lot stronger in the bottle, and was terribly hard to capture on my nails. But I managed to capture a hint of the purple where the sun was hitting my nails.

You can see the hint of purple peeking through on the edge ^^

   I took at least 80 photos of these outside and wanted to show you all at least 20, but controlled myself and chose the best 4 shots I had. I hope the photos did the polish justice, because I'm absolutely in love with it *swoons*

   Next up is a blue mix-n-match mani using glitter toppers, loose glitter, fine glitter polish and flakies over a bright royal blue Sinful Colors Endless Blue.

   The glitter on the index finger is China Glaze Mosaic Madness from the Glitz-Bitz 'n Pieces Collection; the loose glitter on the middle finger I ordered from the Born Pretty Store online; the ring finger is topped with Revlon Galactic from the Moon Candy collection; and the pinky is one coat of Butter London Scallywag (another new favourite!).

Can you tell I like blue yet? :P 

   Last but not least is a squishy blue jelly jam packed with glitter, Emily De Molly Turbulence.

   This is 2 coats over 1 coat of Revlon Royal. It is absolutely stunning, with so much depth!

It's so squishy and sparkly too, it's actually quite distracting :P

A shot in the daylight

   *Phew. That was a lot of photos. But I hoped y'all enjoyed the swatches as much as I loved staring at them on my nails :P

xx Christine

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

BAM: FLORALS

   Welcome to the second instalment of my "then and now, and all the manis in between" series! And today's theme is florals! :D

   Just before we start, y'all know how the first picture in the post is what's used as the blog post thumbnail? (Unless I'm just a noob that doesn't know how to pick a thumbnail??) Well, I didn't really want my first ever floral nails to show as the thumbnail, so I'll show you a sneak peak of my most recent floral design first :P

   And here is where I started with floral nails:

We all gotta start somewhere right? I took pretty horrible photos too, 

and thought a border would make it look better! :p

   From there I just tried different representations of flower:

 

From roses to rose bushes and trees...

To more abstract floral designs.

I tried realistic looking flowers...

As well as floral patterns based off of clothes.

   More recently, I remembered one of my earlier floral designs and decided to recreate it.

Another horrible photo, but GOSH do I love this design!

   And my recreation:

Mini red roses over a blue to teal gradient, with Femme Fatale 

Cosmetics Winter Hyacinth on the index and pinky nails.

   I used Australis Aqua and Essence BBC Splash Refresh for the gradient; Butter London Pillar Box Red, Sally Hansen I Pink I Can, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Ulta3 Tahitian Lime and Frog Prince for the roses and leaves; and 2 coats of Rubi Call Me Maybe as undies  for the glitter.

   I am absolutely in love with Femme Fatale Cosmetics Winter Hyacinth, it matches the roses so well! You can purchase this from their website Femme Fatale Cosmetics or from one of their international stockists. 

   Do any of you purchase indie polishes, and if so do you have a favourite? I'm all up for finding new indies to look at and try :P

And one final photo in the sun!

   And one more thing before you go. Ever wondered where I get the studs and glitter I use in my manis? I purchase them all online (along with my brushes, thinner and other nail art knick knacks) at www.bornprettystore.com and they've now given me a discount code to share with my readers! 

   Just type in XFSQ10 at check out for 10% off your entire purchase! And that's all for now, stay tuned for the next theme: GRADIENTS!

xx Christine

BAM: IKATS

   Hey y'all! It's been a while eh? I've been real slack on updating the blog in the past month, and in all honesty, I haven't had any motivation to post anything. I've found it easier to just post my Nails of the day (NOTD) on Instagram everyday instead, I've even slacked on my tumblr posts. (My laziness never ceases to amaze me haha)

   I was going to start up again by just posting the usual NOTD pics, BUT (with a little extra kick from Kirstie at Nail Cake) I thought it'd be fun to restart by starting at the start.. if that makes any sense!? 

   I was thinking maybe a couple of posts based on the very first nail designs I ever posted, and how I've sort of evolved and made it my own.. like a then and now progress sort of thing. 

   So today's theme is IKATS. When I first did this technique, I knew that it'd be one of my favourites!

Ikat Pattern

First ever attempt at IKAT nails 

   I LOVED the messy look of IKAT nails; I also loved chevrons.. and one day I thought to combine the two. 

Chevron IKAT nails

   Then I really went IKAT crazy and created some IKAT hearts. (I have a soft spot for the pink IKAT hearts! :P)

   More recently, I've gone back to the simple IKAT design, but experimented with much brighter and eye searing colours :D

Green and Pink IKATS on nubbins

   And now, for today's NOTD, a hot pink IKAT on a neon yellow base. 

Yellow is Ulta3 Citrus, Pink is China Glaze Pool Party

   So what do you all think? Y'all love IKATS as much as I do?! :P Any feedback is welcome, just drop a line in the comments.

   Stay tuned for the next instalment in the next couple of days :D 

xx Christine