Random Picks – China Glaze Westside Warrior & OPI Embarca-Dare Ya

I’m continuing my mission to use up all of my untried polishes, and today my random picks from my untrieds drawer are China Glaze Westside Warrior and OPI Embarca-Dare Ya. I was unsure about how to bring these two together in a mani as they're both so different. I initially thought of doing a floral type design, but I didn't give myself enough time, so I then decided to the stamping efficiency of the OPI polish.

The base is two coats of Westside Warrior, a dark, camo-green creme. I’m in the habit of painting my coats a bit thick, so I might have gotten away with one coat, but went for two to be safe. I then stamped a tribal hand pattern MoYou London's Explorer 11 plate on random spots on my nails, using Embarca-Dare Ya, a lovely magenta shimmer. I topped it off with one coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl for a super shiny finish.

I really like both of these colours – in the bottle, Westide Warrior looked like one of those love-them-or-hate-them ugly colours, and I’ve been really attracted to these colours recently! I got Embarca-Dare Ya in a 4 pack set of the OPI San Fransisco collection; I got the pack mostly for Alcatraz…Rocks (a gorgeous blue/purple texture polish, also still untried!), and I probably wouldn't have bought Embarca-Dare Ya on its own, but I'm glad I got it in the set. I want to use this as a full mani soon, to see what it’s like on a full nail. It's definitely a winner for stamping though, I had no issues using this on the plate, and the design came out really well. I’m also in love with MoYou’s stamping plates, I need to pick up some more!

All in all, a pretty successful mani, and another two polishes out of the untrieds drawer!

Lacquer Legion: Adoration – Tatooine Sunset

A few of my favourite bloggers, Chalkboard Nails, The Nailasaurus, Rebecca Likes Nails, and Work Play Polish have created a new monthly nail art challenge called the Lacquer Legion, and this month I decided to join in! This month’s prompt is Adoration, so I decided to try and combine a nail art technique that I love with one of my favourite nerdy fandoms – gradients and Star Wars!

Star Wars was my very first proper nerdy obsession, but I admit, I have been neglecting it for some of my other fandoms of late, so I felt it was time to give it some love again. I have done some Star Wars art before, in the shape of different helmets, but the idea of painting the famous Tatooine Twin Sunset came to me a few weeks ago, and I thought this nail art challenge would be the perfect excuse to try it out.

Solo thumb shot (Please excuse the cut!)

I started with a base of China Glaze Life Is Rosy, and sponged a gradient of Life Is Rosy with China Glaze Fade Into Hue once that was dry. After about 4 to 5 layers of sponging, I put one coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl for a quick dry and to help blend the gradient together. The sandy tips are a mixture of Rimmel Beige Style, Beige Babe, and OPI My Vampire Is Buff. The suns were done using the end of a striper brush, with OPI MVIB again (middle finger), and Essence Free Hugs (ring finger). The dome of the Beru household was done using the sandy mixture again, and MVIB for the detail.

In hindsight, I should have painted the thumb design sideways on my thumb, as trying to take a photo of all of my nails together was awkward, and resulted in some creepy hand poses!

I enjoyed painting this for the challenge, even though I think my gradient could have been much better. Nice for the practice though! I can’t wait to see all of the other manicures from this challenge, I think there are going to be some great ones!

Belated Valentine Stripes and Gradient

I didn't really get around to doing much nail art for Valentine's Day this year, although I did try out a few ideas to see how they would look. Two I did in particular looked quite good together, I thought, so I decided to use them as a full set. Plus, I painted these on Valentine's Day, so this technically is a Valentine's mani. I'm sticking with that anyway, lol!

For the gradient nails, my base is 2 coats of Barry M Pomegranate, followed by a sponging of A-England Rose Bower on the tips. I think I went a bit high with the gradient, it's not the best! It still looks ok though!

For the stripe nails, I started with a base of 2 coats of OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby from the Gwen Stefani collection. This is a gorgeous gold with a satin like matte finish; I've been wanting this ever since swatches started popping up on nail blogs, and I'm really glad I decided to splash out on it! The stripes were done with Pomegranate and Rose Bower.

I took some pics with my flash on as well, because why not? I think Rose Bower stands out much better in the flash photos.

I was really impressed with the amount of stripes I managed to get on my thumb, but I ended up being a bit more heavy-handed with the other nails as I got a bit more complacent!

One last close up with flash to catch a bit of the A-England holoness! <3

I really like the simplicity of this, mani - I like getting the striping practice in, and it took me less than an hour to do both of my hands, which is unusual for me! It's nice getting a good mani done in record time!

Nerdy Nails: Exploding TARDIS

My other passion in life, aside from nail art, is the many fandoms in which I currently partake. I love bringing my two passions together, and celebrating my fandoms in my nail art, so I am very happy to bring my Nerdy Nails back to the blog! I was really in the mood for a good nail art session this week, and after seeing this amazing rendition of the Exploding TARDIS on Adventures in Acetone a few months back, I knew I wanted to try to recreate it myself. Figured now was as good a time as any!

For some background, the Exploding TARDIS came about in series 5 of Doctor Who, as a painting done by Vincent Van Gogh in the episode The Pandorica Opens. One of my favourite episodes, with my favourite Doctor, so I was keen to try and do this as best as I could!

I started off with a base of Bobbing For Baubles from Essie (2 coats). The blue I used in the TARDIS pieces is OPI Keeping Suzi At Bay, and I mixed this blue with some white (NYC Pinstripe White) for some highlighting. The white detail for the windows and note on my index finger is OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (I really need to get a new bottle of this – I use it a lot for nail art, but it’s half gone now, and gone all Super-Gloop, and getting harder to use!). For the flame sections and spirals on my pinky and all of my right hand, I used Essence Little Miss Sunrise and OPI My Vampire Is Buff on their own, as well as mixing them for a paler yellow to add to the mix. The burnt orangey-red mix is a mixture of a bunch of colours just to add a bit of contrast (Essence Little Miss Sunrise, OPI My Vampire Is Buff, Barry M Mango, Rimmel Jungle Princess, NYC Fine Red Wine, Rimmel Celebrity Bash).

There was no way I was going to be able to paint a TARDIS with my non-dominant hand, so I took a leaf out of Jacki's book and just replicated some of the swirly flame aspects of the painting to bring both hands together. Everything’s topped off with two coats of Glisten & Glow HK Girl Topcoat.

This type of nail art always looks much better in my head than it does when I actually get to paint it on my nails, but I’m quite happy with how this turned out. And, as always, practice makes perfect, so I know all of these hours will pay off in the long run!

Peacock-style stamp with Picture Polish Kryptonite

For as long as I've been reading nail blogs, I've been dying to get my hands on some Picture Polish shades, but, seeing as they are an Australian brand, and I’m half the world away, it's not been the easiest task. But now, to my delight (and my bank balance's dismay) a UK based online polish store, Rainbow Connection, have started to stock Picture Polish! Needless to say, I was super excited when I heard the news, and snapped up two polishes the minute the brand launched on the store.

Today I’m showing the gorgeous Kryptonite. This shade was part of one of the brand's Blogger collaborations, and was made in collaboration with More Nail Polish. It’s a beautiful, squishy green jelly with a scattered holo effect. I’ve been eyeing this one for over a year now, so it was a no brainer that I’d snap this one up given half the chance. Here, I've done a simple accent stamp, using a peacock tail style (it's not really, but that's what it reminds me of!) stamp from Bundle Monster plate BM 212, and Barry M Gold Foil. The round parts of the stamp were filled in using OPI Tomorrow Never Dies and a dotting tool. I topped it off with a coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl topcoat (which I also picked up on Rainbow Connection, and after my first use, I'm really impressed!).

Here's a mediocre shot in direct light, as I try to catch the holo goodness! :p

I really like the stamp on this, and I'm totally in love with the polish. I’m already trying to think up of more nail art ideas for this one so I can use it again! So, Picture Polish definitely get a thumbs up from me, and I already have my eyes on lots more of their shades!

Grungy Tribal

I love checking out other nail art blogs, and seeing all the new techniques and ideas that the amazing bloggers are coming out with. I can struggle a lot with thinking up with unique ideas myself, so I find reading other blogs great for sparking inspiration and ideas. With today's mani, I decided to try out the Distressed Nail Art technique from one of my favourite blogs, the amazing Chalkboard Nails. I thought that this technique, done with some bright colours, would be a great base for a dark tribal design.

I started out with a white base of NYC Pinstripe White. Then, I followed Sarah's tutorial for her Distressed Nail Art, and painted the almost-dry polish brushes in stripes over the white (the tutorial explains this a lot better!), using Essence colours Wanna Be Your Sunshine (yellow), Upper Green Side (green) and Free Hugs (pink), Barry M's Gelly Nail Paint in Mango (orange), OPI You're Such A Budapest (purple) and NYC Blue.L.ita (blue) (also, what a strange name!). I then topped all of this with a coat of No 7 Stay Perfect Topcoat to quickly dry everything and to smooth it out a bit. I then stamped a great tribal design from MoYou London’s Explorer collection plate 11, using Essence's matte black stamping polish. A final coat of No7 Stay Perfect topped everything off and sealed it in.

In hindsight, I think I used too many colours when doing the distressed technique, I probably could have done with only using two or three colours at most (as Sarah also advises in the tutorial). A couple of my nails looked a bit muddy when I put the orange over the green, but once I put the stamp on and finished it up, I actually really liked the result. I'll definitely try this technique again with some other colours, and I'll remember to take a picture of that part before putting anything else over it the next time!

Girly Argyle

Howdy peeps! Today I've got a girly take on a jumper design – the Argyle sweater! I've been wanting to try this design out for a while, but just never got around to it until now. Also, I made a light box during my time-out, so this was my first time trying it out!

The base is Essence Free Hugs, and I used some squares of sticky tape and then painted on OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips to create the diamond effect. I used Barry M Silver Foil to finish off the silver stripes. Everything's topped off with a coat of Seche Vite. Nice design for some tape and striping practice!

I remember that I used to have a string top when I was about 17 with this design and colour scheme, and I loved it, and thought I looked the bee's knees when I wore it out! I think I’ll stick with wearing this on my nails from now on!

Ciao for now! x

Nerdy Nails Issue 7: Legend Of Zelda

It’s the weekend! Which means more Nerdy Nails! I have to say, I always look forward to the end of the week and getting stuck into my geeky nail art. It doesn’t always turn out how I imagine, but I love getting the proper art practice in, and I love figuring out the best/easiest way to draw a particular idea.

This week, I've picked one of my favourite video game franchises, Legend of Zelda! This Nintendo classic has been around donkeys years, but I only started to fall in love when The Windwaker came out on the Nintendo GameCube. A great fantasy take on the classic average boy on a quest to save the world from the bad guy, and saving the girl in the process. As always, I've listed each design and colours used to save word space.

Nerdy Nails Issue 6: Avatar: The Last Airbender

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Howdy peeps! Time for another issue of Nerdy Nails! After the unexpected hiatus last week, I decided I would come back with an idea I've had and have been wanting to paint for ages. These are in tribute to one of my favourite animated shows, Avatar: The Last Airbender!

Easter nails with (mostly) OPI and Essence!

Howdy peeps!

I hope everyone is having a good long weekend, and enjoying the end of Lent and eating loads of chocolate!

In celebration, I’ve decided to decorate my nails with some Easter egg and chick and bunny art! I was thrilled to get stuck into these ones – the bright colours really cheered me up after the miserable week of snow and coldness we’ve had.

Nerdy Nails Issue 5: Doctor Who

Happy Easter y'all!

Hope everyone's enjoying the long weekend so far. Mine has just started, as I had to work today, but I'm looking forward to enjoying my three days off!

Today's Nerdy Nails are in celebration of one of my favourite TV shows, Doctor Who! DW is back this Saturday for the second half of Series 7, and its very exciting! So I had to do my nails in tribute to everyone's favourite Time Lord. As before, I'll try to keep it short, and explain the design for each nail and the colours used.

Nerdy Nails Issue 4: Star Wars

I'm really happy with how my Nerdy Nails turned out this week; after my mediocre Avengers attempt last week, I wasn't feeling too confident but I managed to pull these out of the bag. Star Wars holds a special place in my heart - it's the first thing I ever went totally nuts for, and the first fandom I fell into. I really wanted to pay a decent tribute to my first love, and I think I did a pretty good job. I'll try to keep it short, so I'll just list the character on each nail and the colours used.

Spring Gradient with OPI Euro Centrale

I was excited to pick up some nail mail from Parcel Motel last week - it contained some OPIs and China Glaze polishes I had ordered from some of their most recent collections, and I was dying to try them out!

I decided to crack out the OPIs first. I thought the two colours would look good together, and thought that I might as well have a stab at doing a gradient with them.

OPI Liquid Sand Swatch & French Tipped

Howdy y'all!

I'm trying out my first texture polish today, and also have my first swatch! This is Stay the Night, one of the Liquid Sand polishes from OPI's Mariah Carey collection. This is a black base with red glitter flowing through it. I decided on this one after seeing it on some other blogs and how amazing it looks when it's top-coated. 

I decided to make it a bit more nail arty by adding some freehand chevron tips. The red I used for these is Chelsea from NYC's In A New York Minute range. I was hoping the tips would show up a bit more, but I was putting it over black, so I'm not sure why I was expecting it to stand out more (duh, Marilyn!).

I top-coated Stay The Night with two coats of Seche Vite before adding the tips, and I added one more coat after the tips were dry. These textured polishes eat top-coat though, after a few hours of drying, my nails still had a slightly rough texture to them.

I haven't worn this in its natural state for a long period yet, so I'm not sure if I'd like having the rough texture on my nails permanently, but I'll report back once I've had a chance to live with it for a while. I do love this one with topcoat though, the glitter really stands out.

I think I like this textured trend. I think the OPI and Zoya collections look best though, as they have added glitter, which I think sets these apart from other brands. The others just tend to look like your normal polish that's been slept on before it's fully dried. I do have one from 17 that I haven't tried yet though, so maybe that will change my mind. I'll post some pics of that one soon.

Thanks for reading!

Ciao for now x

Nerdy Nails Issue 2: Pac-Man!

As well as being a sci-fi nerd, I’m also a big lover of video games. There’s little I love more than sitting down and spending hours being immersed in a completely new world and forget about real life for a while. 

I have quite a few ideas inspired by my favourite video games that I want to try out on my nails, but I thought I’d start out with something relatively simple, so I decided on Pac-Man! Everyone loves this little circle “wakka wakka”-ing his way around the screen collecting his pellets while being chased around by the colourful monsters, Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. It’s a classic, but one that always frustrates me! I’m ashamed to say, I don’t think I’ve ever actually been able to get passed one level on this without losing all my lives! Clearly, I just need more practice! :p

So, for my nail art, I decided to dedicate each nail to the five main characters of the game.

Thumb – Pac-Man: I was dreading doing my thumb, as I knew I had to draw a circle free-hand. It didn’t turn out too bad, but this was my second attempt, the first was awful. Colours used were: OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (base), NYC Lexington Yellow (yellow), China Glaze Liquid Leather (black)

Index – Blinky: These guys were easy enough to do – I just painted my full nail the colour for the monster, then filled in the eyes and the black bits with a dotting tool and a brush. The main colour for Blinky was China Glaze Red Satin, and his eyes were OPI MBSW again, and Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream for the blue. The black is Liquid Leather.

Middle – Pinky: Next is Pinky. I followed the same method as Blinky above, the base pink is Show Off from Rimmel’s Lycra Pro range, and eyes and black bits are the same as above.

Ring – Inky after power pellet: uh-oh! Poor Inky isn’t looking too good! This is what happens to the monster when Pac-Man eats one of the power pellets, so he can eat these guys and give himself a break from the chase. Here, I used Essence The Boy Next Door for the main blue, and his eyes and mouth were done with Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream. Black is LL again.

Pinky – Clyde: I love that he has a normal name that doesn’t have any resemblance to the other guys. I’m also easily amused :p This little guys was painted with Coral from Barry M, with eyes and black bits the same as the rest of the guys above.

 

Here's a close up of ol' Pac-Man himself (I didn't notice the two random yellow spots until after I had taken the photos, I must have dented the polish doing something)

I could have done these guys a little better, but I’m happy with them for now. Pac-Man was the hardest, as I’m still getting used to free-handing art, but hopefully with more practice I’ll get there in the end.

Hope you enjoyed this issue of my Nerdy Nails. I have a great idea to assemble for next week’s edition, I just hope I can pull it off!

Thanks for reading!

Ciao for now x