Little Nails

Spot Overload

2012-02-24T19:25:00.000+11:00

OPI Dating A Royal, OPI Dutch Tulips, China Glaze Electric Beat

Sarah, from the amazing nail blog Chalkboard Nails is having a little bit of a dotty contest! If you've checked out my blog before, you'll know that I am quite a fan of the humble dot. There's just so many things you can do with a dot! Turn them into flowers, make patterns, make crazy mermaid nails, robotic dots, Christmas trees, the possibilities really are endless!

I had dots on the brain when I did this mani (obviously) but I wasn't all that happy with how it turned out. Not sure if the two dotty patterns go all that well together, or even go together at all!

And here's some proof of how much I love dots!

After this slight fail, I decided to use my Girly Mermaid manicure as my entry for Sarah's competition.

I highly recommend checking out the entries so far and submitting your own awesome dotty manis. There are some super cool dots in there!

Blue Moon Manicure

2012-02-22T22:32:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Devotion, China Glaze Electric Beat

This is the perfect mani for when you want something awesome looking with not that much extra effort. It's just like painting your nails twice! Super easy. The Ruffian/Moon Manicure has been around for a while now, but China Glaze Devotion was just begging to be used in this kind of a manicure and I was inspired!

Can I just say again how much I love these blues from the new CG's Electropop collection. I think I've had at least one of these colours on my nails at all times since I got them. I just can't resist them!

Electric Kinetic Keen Flowers

2012-02-20T21:38:00.001+11:00

China Glaze Kinetic Candy, China Glaze Electric Beat, China Glaze Peachy Keen

Just some simple little dotted flowers today. I loved the colours together when the bottles were lined up next to each other, but on my nails, not so much. Perhaps if I had've swapped the blues around it might've looked better.

Kinetic Candy & Rock It

2012-02-17T23:34:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Kinetic Candy

I was quite excited about China Glaze's Electropop collection. I am such a sucker for blue and green nail polishes that I had to get all three blues/greens. Kinetic Candy may perhaps be my new absolute favourite colour! It's just the loveliest blue, with a gorgeous dusty sort of hint to it, and I think it goes really well with my skin tone. I got so many comments on what a lovely blue it was when I wore it. I can't wait to wear it again!

And because I feel bad that there's no nail art you get two swatchy photos! I normally try to avoid just doing regular swatches because there are so many other bloggers who do it so much better, but sadly, I have had boring one colour nails ALL week this week. It's been tragic really.

Orly Rock It

Here's Orly Rock It from the dazzling Mineral FX collection. The more Orly polishes I buy the more I wish I owned! Rock It is super gorgeous, and has a lovely orange flash to it, which was really quite tricky to capture on camera (you can see it most in the bottle in the lower picture) but was lovely in real life. And it had fabulous staying power. I put this manicure through a lot at work today, and all I ended up with was tip wear. Impressive, Orly.

Ozotic 513

2012-02-13T18:09:00.000+11:00

Ozotic 513

I don't have much to say about Ozotic 513, apart from the fact that it is AMAZING! It's a little bit pink, a little bit purple, a lot of awesome! Look at that holo! And sadly, this picture does not do it justice! It's even more amazing in real life. Another great thing about it is it's actually quite a lovely colour even when it's not being all sunny and holo-dazzling.

In other news, I may be posting slightly less over the next 3-4 weeks (by less I mean twice a week instead of three times a week). We're coming up to an excruciatingly busy part of the year at work, known to staff as "Rush". Pretty much says it all. To give you guys a bit of a scale of the whole rush factor, we'll go from having about 100 customers a day to 5000 a day for a solid two weeks. Yep, it's called Rush for a reason! So, I'm guessing (since I've never actually experienced Rush) that I'll be pretty tired of an evening and might not be the chirpy bloggie lass you're all used to. I guess we'll see how it goes!

The Girly Mermaid

2012-02-11T00:18:00.000+11:00

OPI Ate Berries In The Canaries, OPI Planks A Lot, China Glaze Light As Air, China Glaze Heli-Yum, Barry M Gold

I felt it was high time I did another mermaid style manicure and I was in the mood for a bit of therapeutic nail polishing last night so this was what I ended up with! After seeing all the Valentines Day inspired manis that have been popping up I was in a bit of a pink and purple mood! I really should do these mermaid style dotty nails more often! They're so easy (even if they are a bit time consuming)!

Cyberspace Mind Control

2012-02-08T22:14:00.000+11:00

Milani Cyberspace, OPI Black Onyx, Bundle Monster BM-221

I sadly had a horrible afternoon at work today, my first not awesome day since I started my new job in January. It was insanely busy all day and ended with a potential disaster that had to be time consumingly averted so unfortunately I wasn't much in the mood for nails this evening when I finally made it home. Usually in cases like these when I've got boring nails happening I'd almost always have some photos of a mani I'd done earlier in the week that was waiting to be posted, but alas, today was not one of those days.

I've been rocking my new holos all week and not really doing nail art because they're just so amazing on their own, but unfortunately because of this sad sunless weather I haven't been able to get any photos of their amazing rainbowness! Today I had on Milani Cyberspace from the 3D Holographic collection. Man are they sparkly! To jazz it up a bit and make up for not being able to capture the awesome holo in a photo I decided to stamp over it. I'm pretty sure I've seen black geometric patterns over holo polishes somewhere around the interwebs and always thought they looked amazing! This particular combination reminds me of something you'd see on a sci fi show. Or perhaps I just had aliens/outer space on the brain because the polish is called Cyberspace! I'm pretty happy with how it turned out in the end!

Ikat Nails a la Mr. Candiipants

2012-02-06T17:46:00.000+11:00

Most people would've seen this photo from Lucky Mag's tumblr where they were all "In our next issue we'll show the tutorial for these nails!"

We nail polish and nail art lovers were all "Hooray! They look so cool! Let's do this!" Then it turned out they were just nail wraps. Sadness all round, no tutorial. It's like showing someone an amazing plate of muffins, saying I'm going to show you how to create these, and they get all excited, then you just hold up a packet muffin mix, and they wanted to make those muffins from scratch and show off their madly cooking skills! A little bit disappointing.

Candice, of Mr.Candiipants, nail art genius on Tumblr decided that she'd do what we all thought Lucky Mag would do and make a nail art tutorial for these nails. And man did she do a good job! Check out her amazing YouTube tutorial here. Here is what I ended up with after watching her tutorial. Aren't they cool!

OPI Fly, OPI Alpine Snow, China Glaze Heli-Yum, BYS Black Nail Striper

They were super easy too, apart from a nail striper, you don't need any kind of special tools or anything like that. You don't have any pesky drying time to deal with, like tape manicures, you can just paint your nails, blob on some white, blob on some other colour, and stripe away, as messily as you please and they'll still look pretty super! I realised after I'd put the top coat on that I forgot to do the black bits in the middle, but oh well, they're still cool without it. And, they look even more amazing from a bit of a distance!

And another nail polish haul update... My order from piCture pOlish arrived today! I got piCture pOlish Heavy Metal and Ozotics 513, 531 and 534. Man, are they sparkly! Now if only the sun would show its face here. Seriously, it's meant to be summer! Come back sun!

Black Glitter Gradient

2012-02-03T18:35:00.001+11:00

OPI Skull & Glossbones, LA Girl Glitter Addict Uninhibited, OPI Black Onyx

Black glitter! So epically amazing!!! I recently received one of my massive hauls of nail polish and one of the polishes I was quite excited about was this LA Girl Glitter Addict one. I love all kinds of glitter. It's one of my favourite substances, especially when it's in nail polish form. So of course I just had to have this one. Black glitter! I just can't get over how cool it is!

I had to do something special with this glitter in honour of its awesomeness so I attempted a glitter gradient over OPI Skull & Glossbones (you know how I love it!). On my first attempt I actually tried to do the much cooler gradient mani where the glitter is the most dense at the cuticle end instead of the tip, but it was quite the failure. So I went back to the easier version of the glitter gradient and was quite impressed with the results, if I do say so myself! To make the tips that little bit extra black I kind of dabbed on some Black Onyx to fill in some stubborn gaps.

I actually still have this manicure on, and I did it on Wednesday night, which is a really long time for a mani for me! That's how much I loved it!

Anyhoo, back to the haul... I got:

LA Girl Glitter Addict Uninhibited
LA Girl Glitter Addict Celebrate
LA Girl Disco Brites Strobe Light
NYX Girls Carnival
NYX Girls Robotic
Kleancolor Metallic Red
Kleancolor Blue Satin
Kleancolor Disco Ball
Kleancolor Holo Chrome
Milani 3D Holographic Digital
Milani 3D Holographic Cyber Space
Milani 3D Holographic High Res

I think that was it. I couldn't wait to try Kleancolor Holo Chome... look how sparkly it is! So amazing. And this wasn't even in proper sunlight! It was a dodgy flash photo. Sydney has been depressingly rainy for the past week, so this was as good as I could get. Excuse the lack of clean up, I was just too dazzled by all the colours of the rainbow coming out of my fingers to bother with any of that!

Mattified Pointy Moon Thing

2012-02-01T22:42:00.001+11:00

OPI Skull & Glossbones, OPI I Eat Mainely Lobster, Milani Gold, Essie Matt About You

Whoa, am I obsessed with Skull & Glossbones or what? I've only had it a few weeks and already I've used it at least twice a week! Which is an amazingly massive amount of usage for one nail polish! In fact, I'm using it for the mani I'm doing tonight! I just can't get enough!

I've been seeing these triangular reverse french manicures (does anyone know what on earth these things are called???) on the interwebs and finally got around to doing one. My lines aren't all that crisp because I was a little impatient, but from arm's length they looked pretty cool!

For a bit of bling I used my dotter to pick one piece of glitter from Milani Gold and stuck it on the point. Then I mattified the whole lot!

Robot Dots & Sad Nail Polish Purchasing News

2012-01-30T19:35:00.000+11:00

Orly Rococo A Go-Go, Sally Hansen Celeb City

I did this dotty manicure about a week ago, but then kind of forgot about it. There's only a photo of one hand because my camera battery ran out before I could get the second hand! I'm going to call this mani my robot mani because it's all metallic and robot-like! And I love robots! Strangely, all the comments I got on this manicure were from men! Over the course of my day two guys mentioned my "nice" nails!

Orly Rococo A Go-Go is such a beautiful shade. I hadn't really intended to get any of the other Mineral FX polishes, but after seeing this one in real life I decided to get Rock It as well! (As well as Androgynie and Fowl Play while I'm buying Orlys). They haven't arrived yet but I'm quite excited!

On the subject of polishes that have not arrived, I have decided to ban myself from buying nail polish for at least 2 months due to my recent multiple purchasing sprees of epic proportions. I was adding all of my 'in transit' polishes to my spreadsheet of polishes when I realised that at this moment I have 27 nail polishes coming in the mail from various places. 27! That's more than most regular people even own! And I've bought 4 retail in the past week on top of that! 31! That's an even more ridiculous number! I've just been a bit more nail polish crazy lately than usual it seems! Luckily, I've already bought the only polishes I want from OPIs new Holland collection, as well as my picks from the Nicki Minaj collection and China Glaze's Electropop collection. So there's not really anything new coming out for the next little while that I will desperately need.

So, I am on a purchasing ban until let's say, April 1st, 2012. I wonder how big my 'want' list will be by then!

Spotty Dots

2012-01-28T19:15:00.001+11:00

OPI Dating A Royal, OPI Skull & Glossbones, OPI Mermaid's Tears, Essence Forget Me Not, China Glaze Heli-Yum

I've been in a bit of a dotty mood lately, and thought I'd try out some multi coloured dots. I was a bit too dot keen on my left hand (I'm a leftie, so I blame my right hand for not spacing the dots correctly), and they're closer together and a little less great than on my right hand but oh well, they still looked all right.

I had to go into the city today and it was a great trip for nail polish! I randomly found a stand of Barry M's in a chemist (I didn't even know they were available in Australia!) and they were half price! ($5.50 down from $11). I grabbed three, Gold 289, Navy 296 and Vivid Purple 161. It was actually a bit bizarre seeing such boring nail polish names.

Continuing on with my Good Luck Nail Polish Day, in David Jones the OPI Holland collection was on display! They got it in this morning! I was just so excited because I'd been at the Bondi Junction DJs yesterday and the lady there said she thought they were getting it in in a couple of weeks! I'd only been lusting after one colour, I Have A Herring Problem, so I caved and picked that up!

Happy Hottest 100 Day (AKA Australia Day)

2012-01-26T16:59:00.000+11:00

OPI Skull & Glossbones, China Glaze Street Chic, OPI Mermaid's Tears, China Glaze Recycle, China Glaze Go Go Pink

Happy Australia Day everyone! My favourite thing about Australia Day, apart from the fact that you get a day off work, is that it is the day when Triple J does its Hottest 100 countdown! If you're one of my non-Aussie readers, Triple J is a national radio station and every Australia Day they have a countdown of the previous year's 100 top songs, as voted by listeners. This year there were 1,378,869 votes! It's 5pm here in Australia and so far they're up to #39 and two of the songs I voted for have popped up. Hooray!

Anyway, back to the manicure... everyone is guessing that Gotye will take out the top spot this year with his amazing song Somebody That I Used To Know. I voted for it and I really hope it comes in at #1! My manicure is inspired by the video for Somebody That I Used To Know, which you should all watch and listen to. I even stuck it in this post for you so you don't have to go searching for it!

P.S. I have an increased level of respect for Jane from Nailside and her amazing patience for tape manicures. I did this mani with tape, and because I am an impatient lassie I took most of the sticky out of the sticky tape so I could use it over polish that wasn't 100% dry, so my lines aren't quite as clean as they could've been.

The weather in Sydney today has been quite un-Australian. It's been pouring rain! I had planned on making a trip to the beach today, but sadly the weather's not really beach appropriate. There's also been a complete lack of sun, so my photos are a bit dodgy today. Sorry!

Update:
GOTYE got #1! Woo! And 8 of the 10 songs I voted for made it in the top 100! Woo!

Off With Her Red!

2012-01-25T22:59:00.000+11:00

OPI Off With Her Red

Today I was a bit boring when it came to my mani. A friend commented last week that I never wore classic red nail polish, and it's true. I rarely do. I barely ever even wear pink! So I decided to rock the classic red look for a day, and after a bit of a glitter bomb (which didn't turn out all that great so you won't be seeing it on here) I had a bit of an urge for a simple, traditional, one coloured manicure. By yesterday afternoon I was actually really looking forward to my red nails!

My dilemma with red nails is that I am yet to find my perfect red nail polish. The only true red I own is OPI's Off With Her Red, and I think it might be a little too warm, or a a little too red to be my perfect red. In real life it seems to be quite a lot darker than in this photo. All the other reds I own are really more corals or pinks.

Can any of my lovely followers recommend good red nail polish? I have olive skin and it seems to be quite tricky! There are just way too many to choose from! At the moment I'm thinking OPI Dutch Tulips or OPI Colour So Hot It Burns. And while we're getting into the nitty gritty, should I get a blue toned red or a yellow toned red?

Oh, Peridot! I'm so glad you're finally mine!

2012-01-23T18:19:00.001+11:00

Chanel Peridot

My amazing birthday surprise nail polish was Chanel Peridot. Isn't it gorgeous!!! It was even more amazing in real life. Thanks again to Lucy, the best housemate for buying it for me. Unfortunately, now that I know how amazing Chanel polishes are I may not be able to control myself around them! I always justified not buying them because they were so expensive compared to other good quality nail polishes. I could get one Chanel, which retails for $39 in Australia (US$40.90, yep ladies, 40 bucks!), or I could pay retail for two OPIs, or I could get like, thirteen China Glazes online (not including postage of course)! Why buy one when you can have thirteen? Next time however, now that I know how amazing they are, I may just be tempted!

Peridot was a dream to apply, so smooth and it flowed beautifully! It was everything you want in a nail polish. And it lasted a lot longer than most other polishes. You can see a tiny bit of tip wear, but that was after three days so I think it lasted quite well for me, considering usually when I change my polish after one day the tip wear is just as bad, if not a lot worse!

China Glaze Concrete Catwalk, Chanel Peridot, Bundle Monster BM-203

Even though I should never even think about using a precious polish like Peridot to stamp, I'd seen online somewhere (and of course can't find it anymore) a mani that appeared to use Peridot, or a similar polish as a stamp and it just looked beautiful. Even thought this turned out quite nice, I think from now on I'll keep Peridot on its own, where it looks most beautiful!

Lady Nicki & Crazy Nicki

2012-01-20T18:56:00.000+11:00

Lady Nicki

OPI Skull and Glossbones, OPI Fly, Bundle Monster BM-225

Crazy Nicki

OPI Fly, OPI Ate Berries In The Canaries, Essence Make It Golden

I am a massive green / turquoise / blue kind of girl so Fly from OPI's Nicki Minaj was just calling my name. I kind of thought it might be the same as China Glaze Custom Kicks, one of my favourites, just without the gold bits, but it's different enough that it's clear now that I definitely needed it. At the same time I also got Skull & Glossbones. Now, I was all kinds of obsessed over the Pirates of the Caribbean collection when it came out, but thought that Skull & Glossbones was too boring, so I didn't get it. Big mistake Rosie! Then, over the past few weeks I've been seeing it everywhere on the internet, looking all lovely and neutral, so of course I had to have it!

Today I present to you: Nicki Minaj, two ways. The first mani is my classy lady Nicki Minaj mani. It kind of looks like wallpaper and I love that! And of course to balance out the classy demure Nicki I had to do a crazy Nicki mani. Bright colours? Check. Out there accent nail? Check. Glitter explosion? Check.

In other news, today just happens to be my birthday and my awesome housemate Lucy surprised me with a very special nail polish, which I am sure will be featured heavily in Monday's post. I'll give you some hints... it's one of the most talked about polishes of 2011 (in my humble opinion), it changes colour, it is amazing and it comes in a square bottle. I have it on my nails as I type this, and I just can't tear my eyes away from my fingers! Have you guessed it yet????

Stampy Flowers Everywhere!

2012-01-18T20:15:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Peachy Keen, China Glaze Grape Pop, Bundle Monster BM-205

Argh, I just can't get over how awesome stamping is. I keep on adding it to manicures, but it's made me become a little lazy in the nail art department.

I was quite excited about this colour combination, and I assumed that Grape Pop would be fabulous for stamping because it's such an opaque colour, but it wasn't as impressive as I'd hoped. Does anyone have any suggestions for polishes that are great for stamping? I think I at least need a super good black and white to stamp with, but I can't be bothered to get the Konad polishes.

Purple Patchworks

2012-01-16T20:09:00.002+11:00

OPI Planks A Lot, OPI Teal The Cows Come Home, China Glaze First Mate, OPI DS Extravagance, BYS Metallic Violet Striper

I've been seeing oodles of theses geometric patchwork nails all over the interwebs over the past few days. So many of them look super awesome because they've used what appears to be really thin metallic tape to make the lines (or they're awesome at using sticky tape!) I don't have any of this tape, but I did recently buy a metallic purple striper so I used that instead! This was really fun to do, I just did patches of different coloured nail polish over my base coat (Planks a Lot) and then covered the messy joins with the striper. No having to wait for the base to dry before sticking on the tape, and no worry about messy edges!

Pretty Zombie Girl Nails?

2012-01-13T20:33:00.002+11:00

OPI Moon Over Mumbai, OPI Mermaid's Tears, OPI Planks A Lot, OPI What's With The Cattitude?, Bundle Monster BM-201

I'm still not sure if I like this manicure or not. I bought Moon Over Mumbai before Christmas is my eternal search for the perfect wearable white, and it ended up being more of a grey than a white. It's still a beautiful colour but it was a bit sheer, so after the third coat I decided to chuck a bit of stamping over the top. Keeping with the whole pale, dusty grey theme I used Mermaid's Tears and Planks A Lot. Believe it or not there is a stamp of What's With The Cattitude over the top in there. It's just very well disguised it seems.

I think it ended up quite pretty, but it also kind of looks like I have the hands of a zombie or something, with weird little nail polish veins going on all over there.

Also, I'm going to try and get back into a regular posting schedule, hopefully three times a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from now on. Hooray!

Minty Spots

2012-01-12T18:27:00.000+11:00

Essie Mint Candy Apple, Ulta3 Gold Rush Fever, Bundle Monster BM-211

Again with the new polishes! This whole living in the city, having access to lots of nail polish is not good for my bank account! Myer was having a sale and Essie was 30% off. I only have one Essie polish and Matt About You, but I've always wanted Mint Candy Apple. I've been really into green nail polish lately, which is a bit strange because I used to have so few greens now I have about a billion of them! Mint Candy Apple is a beautiful mint colour, but was a little b*tch to apply. It was a bit goopy, a bit chalky, kept on making little bald spots, not levelling properly and just generally being annoying. But I forgive it because it's so pretty! Might add a few drops of thinner and see how it goes next time. Of course, I couldn't resist so I stamped a spotty pattern from BM-211 over the top too.

More flakies!

2012-01-09T21:22:00.000+11:00

OPI Black Onyx, Inglot 204

It's official. I am on a flakie spree! I can't wait for winter when I can wear dark nail polish constantly. It always feels a bit weird wearing super vampy colours when it's super hot outside. I spotted an Inglot store the other day and carefully looked at the whole place for the famous flakies. I couldn't find them so I asked the girl working there, and she had some that weren't on display that she let me have a look at. Even though they're $16 for a teensie bottle I couldn't resist! 204 is amazingly blue and I've always wanted a really blue flakie.

Sorry about the lack of actual nail art recently. Hopefully I'll have some cool stuff coming up soon!

Hello Chi Chi, you look familiar...

2012-01-08T15:30:00.001+11:00

I was in Myer yesterday, perusing the beauty area when this little Chi Chi polish caught my eye. A flakie! For only $12.95! And 30% off! Right in my hot little hand! How could I say no? In the shop I had a great suspicion that Chi Chi Crystal Top Coat was a dupe for piCture pOlish Festival. I still bought it, because well, who can say no to multi coloured flakies?

Both piCture pOlish and Chi Chi are Australian brands, both bottles are labeled "Made in Australia"and I'm wondering if both these polishes actually came from the same big vat of nail polish in whatever factory they're made in. Both polishes are pretty much the same price, $11.90 for Festival from the piCture pOlish website, and $12.95 for Crystal Top Coat from stores that stock Chi Chi. Apart from the different lids, it seems like these are the exact same thing. Not that I'm complaining. It's always good to have spare flakies!

Now... onto the swatch!

Which one do you think is which? They're pretty much the same aren't they!

So this was two coats of both Chi Chi Crystal Top Coat and piCture pOlish Festival and as you can see they're pretty much the exact same. I'm not sure how easy it is to get Chi Chi outside of Australia, but for us Aussie girls, if you don't live near a Myer or a Target (who also stock Chi Chi, but when I checked didn't have it) you can get Festival online, and if you don't like buying online you can get Crystal Top Coat in store!

Flakies for everyone!!! Hooray!!!

I will never have plain nails again!

2012-01-07T13:32:00.000+11:00

China Glaze For Audrey, China Glaze Custom Kicks, Bundle Monster BM-206

Stamping is just the best thing ever! This was my first whole mani attempt (after a couple of practice/playing around nails) and I was so happy with how it turned out. I was really expecting to have to redo at least a couple of my nails but they all turned out pretty good! For this first attempt I stuck to a very subtle combination in case of any mistakes. My hands are a mess in this photo. Just goes to show how much of a difference regular moisturising makes on your hands.

OPI Teal The Cows Come Home, China Glaze Heli-Yum, OPI The It Colour, Bundle Monster BM-221

Because I've been super slack all year (it sounds funny to say that since it's only been a week!) I thought I'd chuck in my second stamping attempt too. I went with a bit of a more contrasting/out there colour combination and I just love it! I also bought a tub of Lush Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter which I'd been reading about online and was desperate to have. It totally lives up to all the hype and smells just delicious. Lemon is one of my all time favourite smells/flavours and you so rarely see it in beauty products so I was super excited to get something lemony smelling that I'll be able to use every day.

I Lily Love You Festival

2012-01-06T00:23:00.001+11:00

China Glaze First Mate, OPI I Lily Love You, piCture pOlish Festival

It's been a hectic start to the new year so far. With all the moving and unpacking and building flat-packed furniture I haven't had any time to do my nails. I've been keeping my eye out for I Lily Love You for a while now and just as it always happens, the second you start looking for something it'll disappear. Finally I found it a couple of days ago at DJs (have I mentioned I love living in the city!), the last bottle too!

This mani was just thrown together. I wanted a darker base for I Lily Love You and I hadn't tried out First Mate yet so they were thrown on. It turned out to be quite an awesome combo! Definitely needed a shade photo as well as a sun photo to show off the awesomeness of I Lily Love You. Then, just to make it a little bit more special I added a smidge of Festival on top.

And exciting news... I finally joined the stamping madness! I ordered the second set of Bundle Monster plates and a Konad stamper and scraper and they both arrived in the mail yesterday. I can't wait to try them out!

Patchwork Stripes

2012-01-01T23:31:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Heli-Yum, China Glaze Custom Kicks, China Glaze Grape Pop, BYS Black Nail Striper

I was looking at some of the amazing manicures that Erika over at Chloe's Nails has created when I came across her patchwork mani tutorial. When I tried it out I felt like something was missing from my nails, so I grabbed my trusty black nail striper and went on a striping spree! I absolutely loved how they looked in the end and I think I'll definitely be playing around with this whole patchwork thing again soon!

New Year's Glitter Fest

2011-12-30T21:18:00.000+11:00

Sally Hansen Celeb City, Milani Silver, China Glaze Blue Year's Eve

These are my New Year's Eve nails. Of course I had to use China Glaze Blue Year's Eve, none of my other nail polishes are have New Year's specific names so I figured it was a definite. I've always loved glitter accent nails and have recently seen a few reverse sort of accent nails, where the crazy glitter bombs are on all the nails and the accent nail is just a plain colour. So I blinged out all my nails and did a little gradient type thing over Blue Year's Eve. I was trying to go for a glittery gradient like getnail-d's accent nail on her mermaid nails mani but I kind of went a little bit overboard.

In other news... I'm moving from my little home town in the country to the big bad city! On New Year's day I'm heading off to live in Sydney, which is why I've done my New Year's nails a day early. I'll be too busy packing tomorrow. Of course I'm taking all my polishes, and getting them through the six hour drive meant packing them securely. I had a cardboard box from work and some packing bubbles so I made a little double storey nail polish box to transport them. This photo shows about two thirds of my current collection, all snug in their little box.

Go Go Teenage Dream

2011-12-29T22:40:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Go Go Pink, OPI Teenage Dream

After the craziness of all my Christmas nails I thought I needed a nice simple sort of manicure. I've been looking for the perfect light pink to suit my skin tone. So many pinks look weird on me, but I quite liked this. It was actually a lot pinker in real life, the sun scared it away a bit. And because I haven't had a plain ol' mani in what feels like forever I had to add a glitter accent nail.

Mermaid Nail Tutorial

2011-12-28T17:00:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Custom Kicks, China Glaze Grape Pop, China Glaze Rodeo Diva, Essence You Belong To Me, Face Of Australia White Gold

A few people have been asking how I did the scaley nail on my Sparkly Mermaid Nails mani, so here's a tutorial for it. It's really very simple, all you need to be able to do is to make dots.

First I start with a base coat, usually using one of the colours I'll be using for the dots. Then, starting from the tip of my nail I make a row of dots using different colours. Sometimes I put a blob of each nail polish on my desk and dip my dotter in there, other times if I don't want to waste any polish I'll just poke the brush of the polish with my dotter. After each dot I wipe the dotter on a cotton ball soaked with nail polish remover so the colours don't get all mixed up.

The reason I use so many different colours is that it looks better if there aren't any dots of the same colour next to each other, and having lots of colours makes it easy to keep them all separated.

After the first row, I just keep dotting different coloured dots down the nail, overlapping them like the scales of a fish.

At the end I use the same colour as the base coat to sort of form a start off point for the scales. In my original mani I started from the bottom, instead of the top, so it was backwards to this, but you can do it either way. And finally, finish it all off with a nice top coat!

This one is a little bit messier looking because I used smaller dots but it's the same process. So, if you can use a dotting tool and have a bit of time then you can do this mani! I hope this made sense. If you're unclear about anything just comment and I'll try to explain it in a better way.

***** a little extra *****

Since I popped this online I've seen a couple of other nail bloggers' designs using this tutorial and they just look so amazing that I wanted to share them here, so you can all see how awesome they look and the great colour schemes and whatnot so check out getnail-d and Delaynee's versions! Now I want to do this mani in a million different colour schemes! Thanks ladies!

Black Glitter Franken

2011-12-27T17:11:00.000+11:00

Black Glitter Franken

After googling Butter London Black Knight about a million times I decided to try and franken up something similar. I had a bit of clear and black polish left over from when I created my My Private Jet concoction so I thought I'd add a bit of Ulta3 Confetti to it and see how it went. Confetti is mainly purple and green glitter, with a bit of blue and gold glitter in a clear base. Then I thought, why not add more glitter? I can't exactly remember what I added, but I think there's a bit of OPI Simmer and Shimmer, OPI Glow Up Already, Extra-Va-Vaganza and Sally Hansen Celeb City in there. Perhaps even some Amour Rain Glitter too!

From far away it just looks like an odd black nail polish, but up close you can see all the different glitter.

So much glitter!!!

Pointy Glitter Tape Manicure

2011-12-26T17:58:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Grape Pop, China Glaze Recycle, China Glaze Heli-Yum, Milani Gold

I've been wanting to do a pointy tape manicure for a while now. I'd been waiting to find colours that go together nicely, and were opaque in one coat. In my Christmas haul of nail polish I got a heap of China Glazes, including Grape Pop and Heli-Yum. I was super impressed with how dense the colour was! Grape Pop was better with two coats, but Heli-Yum was a solid one coater! Finally! I had my matching one coaters for tape manis! I did this mani while watching a movie so I could give each coat enough time to dry before putting the sticky tape on it. Then, at the end for a little bit of extra flair I dotted on some glitter from a bottle of Milani Gold, from the Gems FX collection.

The one thing that confused me with this kind of layering tape mani was the tips of my fingers. Because I have such short nails I never wrap the edges (I think that's what it's called, when you sort of paint the tip edges too) because there just ends up being polish all over my fingers! So when I finished off this manicure I could see each layer of colour on the tips of my nails, and as they wore, the darker colours underneath became really noticeable. Has anyone else had this problem? The only solution I could think of for next time was to remove the polish from the tips of my nails before the last coat, so the last coat would be the only one on the ends, just like a normal mani. I guess I'll just have to do another like this so I can see if that works!

Happy Christmas Everyone!

2011-12-25T10:30:00.000+11:00

OPI Black Onyx, piCture pOlish Festival, China Glaze Atlantis, Milani Gold

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

This was my Christmas Eve/Christmas Day manicure. I couldn't wait to use Festival. It's SO AWESOME!!! So many colours! I have to say... I may not need Cult Nails Clairvoyant now. Then I added a Christmas tree to make give it a bit more festive spirit. Festival was beautiful to apply, this was three coats. One of the things I really love about Festival is that it's in a clear base, so you can put it over any colour and get flakie awesomeness without changing your base colour. Festival is made by an Aussie company called piCture pOlish. The girls at piCture pOlish were just lovely. I received a cute little email along with my order invoice. It makes you feel all nice and special when you get personalised service! While I was on their website I picked up a couple of Ozotic polishes as well. Prepare yourself for some awesome holo goodness and colour shifting glitter in the not so distant future!

Anyhoo, off to eat my weight in Christmas chocolate now! Have a happy and safe holiday!

Reindeer and Candy Canes!

2011-12-23T19:28:00.000+11:00

Orly Au Champagne, China Glaze Love Marilyn, China Glaze Street Chic, China Glaze Ruby Pumps, BYS Black Striper, OPI Black Onyx, OPI Alpine Snow

Inspired by all the reindeer manis going around at the moment, mainly Nailasaurus's reindeer mani which is just adorable! My candy canes bled a bit under the tape which was annoying but oh well.

Au Champagne is my first Orly nail polish. They're quite robust little bottles, aren't they! Who would've thought a few extra millilitres of polish would make the bottles look so massive! I bought Au Champagne in my quest to find a wearable white, and I think I've now found it! It's so shimmery and lovely but still nice and white.

I can't wait until Christmas!

Nailside Christmas Tree Mani

2011-12-22T20:00:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic China Glaze Heli-Yum, Milani Gold, Essence Make It Golden

Nailside is so good at coming up with super easy tape nail art. This Christmas tree came from her Abstract Christmas Tree Tutorial. It's so easy and so cute! I wanted to keep doing Christmas themed nails, but I just received a bunch of new polishes in the post and I wanted to try them out. So this ended up being less Christmasy coloured than my other Christmas manis. My nails are a mess at the moment. My job kind of kills them every day and it's been so busy with the Christmas rush that they're getting a real bang around each day!

And another one!

2011-12-19T08:30:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Custom Kicks, China Glaze For Audrey, OPI Jade Is The New Black, Rimmel Red Carpet

Yep, another Christmas themed manicure. I blame working in retail. All the decorations and the music and saying "Have a great Christmas" six billion times a day puts me in a festive kinda mood. This mani is similar to my mermaid/fish dot manicure a while ago, but with rows of the same coloured dots. I was going for a Christmas tree look, not sure if it ended up being all that tree like, but I reckon it's still a pretty Christmasy pattern.

Another Christmas Mani

2011-12-17T19:05:00.000+11:00

OPI Jade Is The New Black, Spectraflair Top Coat, Sally Hansen Celeb City, Rimmel Red Carpet

Since there's just over a week to go before Christmas I thought I should do another Christmas manicure. This one was really easy and simple to do, it's just dots. I made little silver dots on my nails and put a green dot inside it to make a little hook/handle thing for my red baubles. I think they look quite cute!

Glitter In The Sandwich

2011-12-16T12:25:00.001+11:00

Essence Forget Me Not, Essie Lapis of Luxury, Essence Make It Golden, Milani Silver

This is a bizarre sort of mani. Lots of different layers happening here. I'd spent the whole day before I did this mani lusting over Deborah Lippmann's Glitter In The Air. When I got home I felt like doing a bit of a glitter sandwich and Essie Lapis Of Luxury is usually annoyingly sheer to me so I thought it'd do well as a top colour! The layers here are 1 coat of Forget Me Not, 2 coats of Lapis of Luxury, 1 of Make It Golden, 1 of Silver and another 1 of Lapis of Luxury.

I took this photo the next evening, after a very busy day at work. I think it held up quite well, considering my job is very hands on and they get banged about quite a bit!

My "My Private Jet" Franken

2011-12-14T10:25:00.000+11:00

My "My Private Jet" Franken

The original OPI My Private Jet has become a sort of holy grail of nail polish. I have what I think is considered to be the crappiest version of MPJ, the charcoaley brown version with silvery flecks and not much holo goodness, but I still really love it! It reminds me of like really good potting mix, packed full of nutrients. Having said that, I've always wanted a polish like the original 'good' MPJ with its amazing holo goodness. But where would I get it???

Enter Cathy, the Queen of Holo and fellow Aussie, who has one of my favourite nail blogs, More Nail Polish. I bought some Spectraflair and colour morphing powders from her and they are awesome! When we were emailing I asked if she'd tried adding Spectraflair to a non-awesome MPJ to convert it to an awesome MPJ. She gave me a handy little recipe for frankening up a similar looking polish and I love it! Thanks Cathy!

Essence Swatches

2011-12-13T23:00:00.000+11:00

Oh, Essence. I need to stop gushing about you. There was a surprise in Target when I popped in the other day. The little shelf below the row of Colour & Go polishes in the Essence display that I usually use as a sorting/storage area while shopping had been filled with the Vampire's Love collection. It's quite strange being in Australia when we're in the middle of summer to see colours for autumn and winter. My nails always seem to be confused seasonally. In summer I want to wear dark wintery colours because that's what's being released and plastered across the internet, and in winter I want to wear crazy bright colours! We just can't win down here!

Essence Into The Dark

Into The Dark only needed one coat! That's right, that up there is just one coat. I think out of my bajillion nail polishes I only have about three that only need one coat. Good job Essence!

Essence True Love

True Love is a lovely sort of shimmery polish. I don't have any purple polishes similar to this shade so it was a must have. This was two coats.

Essence Choose Me

Choose Me (from the regular Colour & Go collection) is apparently a dupe for OPI Catch Me In Your Net, Zoya Charla and Orly Halley's Comet. I don't own any of these (and now apparently don't need to!) so I can't compare them. Choose Me is really beautiful in real life, although while it looks completely opaque in two coats in the shade, in the sun it seemed to become a bit sheer. This was three coats.

Christmas Candy Cane Nails

2011-12-11T23:30:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Ruby Pumps, OPI Alpine Snow

My work Christmas party was on over the weekend and I thought the occasion was worthy of special Christmas nails. Candy cane nails seem to be all over the internet at the moment and they're just so cute and easy! I was running a little short on time so I just did a candy cane accent nail. I kinda screwed up the top candy cane nail because I think I didn't have enough topcoat on the brush and it smudged a bit. But I still think they looked awesome!

I need more flakies!

2011-12-10T15:00:00.000+11:00

OPI Russian Navy, Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black, Avon Crystal Vision Crystal Nail Topcoat

Like everyone else on the internet who likes nail polish, I was absolutely amazed at the awesomeness of Cult Nails' limited edition flake gem Unicorn Puke. When I read that it was being re-released as Clairvoyant I was so excited! Unfortunately it'd already sold out so I'll have to wait a while to get my Clairvoyant/Unicorn Puke fix. In the meantime, I tried to make a colourful flakie manicure with the few flakie style polishes I have. I used OPI Russian Navy as a base to try and get some blue in the mani, topped with a few coats of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black and then a few coats of a little gem I found in my nail polish bag from when I was a young'un. Avon Crystal Vision Crystal Nail Topcoat has little blue-green flakies in it, and is the only flakie I own. It was super runny and watery when I found it, but I left the lid off for a day and it thickened up nicely! The result was a crazy colour shifting flakie style manicure.

For a bit of fun I made a little thumb gif to show the colour changes!

Forget Me Not & Party Fever

2011-12-08T08:30:00.000+11:00

Essence Forget Me Not, Kleancolor Party Fever

Essence is my new favourite brand. I'm really amazed at the quality of these polishes considering their price (compared to the standard $18-20 for other brands). Forget Me Not is a cornflower blue, almost purple polish with a very subtle shimmer. It's applied like a dream and was just a delight! This one came from the Blossoms etc collection and was only $3.50 (I think? Around that price). The one thing I didn't like about it was the shape of the bottle. It's tall and thin, like a nail art bottle and I kept on feeling like I might accidentally tip it over.

For a bit of fun I did a coat of Kleancolor Party Fever on top. I got a bunch of Kleancolors a few months ago, all of them glitters, and all of them awesome!

Pink Shatter

2011-12-07T12:00:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Light As Air, OPI Pink Of Hearts Pink Shatter

I love shatters. It's by far the easiest way to get awesome looking nail art, without needing any special skills or tools. If you can paint your nails, you can rock fab looking shatter! I found with this particular shatter, the thicker your layer was, the more dense the colour ended up as, and of course the bigger the cracks were!

The other reason why I absolutely adore having shatter on my nails is because of all the little things you can discover in the patterns it makes. Like finding animals in the clouds, I always seem to 'see' something in shattered nails. (and food, weird houses, furniture and cars)

So what did I see in these nails? If I list everything you'll think I'm a crazy person! In this particular mani there's lots of things, including an old lady wearing a scary cape, elephants walking in a row and a flailing sea monster!

Blue Addicted

2011-12-06T09:00:00.000+11:00

Essence Blue Addicted

Whoa! I was so excited to find Essence in my local Target the other day and the thing that had me the most excited was that they had this polish! Blue Addicted is from the Colour & Go range and is a pretty spot on dupe of Deborah Lippmann's Across the Universe (or so I have been told. I don't have AtU to compare it with sadly). It's just a crazily beautiful polish. It looks like a seaweedy under-sea sparkle-fest on your nails. And for only $2.55 a bottle how can you say no? I even went back to get a second bottle since it is only 5mls.

Look at that glitter!

As you can also probably tell, I cut my nails. This blog isn't called Little Nails for nothing! Trying out the whole squared shape thing, usually I like them super rounded, but I thought I'd try something different!

Strawberry Stripes

2011-12-05T09:00:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Strawberry Fields, BYS Black Nail Striper

In an attempt to do something fabulously bright and summery to celebrate the beginning of summer I ended up with this on my nails. And I reckon it's awesome! I used China Glaze Strawberry Fields, which I got a few weeks ago, but hadn't actually used yet for a full mani. It may just be my favourite pink from my growing collection of nail polish. During my hunt for a 'summery' colour I realised I don't actually have many pinks, reds or purples. I do have about a million 'almost black' polishes though. I think dark colours always look great on shorter nails.

As always, I just can't cope with plain ol' painted nails. I need some glitter, or some shatter, or something awesome, so I jazzed it up with some cool stripes after seeing an awesome mani on a random beauty website, which featured photos from Nail It. You can see Nail It's original post here. It's really simple, just lines, and great for if you're practising using a nail art brush or a striper.

P.S. Since this photo was taken I've cut my nails. This length is the absolute longest I can get my nails to without them driving me crazy or breaking. Prepare yourselves for my little short nails next post.

Citrusy Tribal/Aztec Mani

2011-12-02T22:31:00.000+11:00

OPI Alpine Snow, OPI Hot & Spicy, OPI Fiercely Fiona, China Glaze Custom Kicks, BYS Black Striper

Oh, how I love the whole tribal, aztec thing that's in right now. This mani is quite similar to another I did, just with different colours. It kind of reminds me of oranges and lemons!

Excuse Moi! I can't eat this!

2011-11-30T09:00:00.000+11:00

OPI Excuse Moi!

After my Houston Purple Glitter mess I thought I'd go with a glitter that I knew was guaranteed to be amazing. Excuse Moi! from the OPI Muppets collection is so beautiful. All pink and glittery, and multi coloured glittery too! Everything I love about glitter is in this polish, and it was a dream to apply too. While photographing my nails, my cat joined in the fun by attempting to eat my mini bottle of Excuse Moi! He seemed quite annoyed when he realised it was not edible, or even nice tasting. Actually, it probably tasted like nail polish remover. Sorry kittycat!

Houston, we have too much glitter!

2011-11-28T09:00:00.000+11:00

OPI Houston We Have A Purple, Essence Make It Golden, Milani Gold

You can buy Essence in Australia!!! At Target!!! And I'd never even known! I'd been eyeing off a few Essence polishes for a while after seeing them on the interwebs (mainly on Nailside) but I was pretty sure the brand was only available in Europe. So imagine my surprise when there they were in my little country town's Target! They only had the Colour & Go range (not the Nail Art Twins that I so desperately wanted). I managed to limit myself to three - Make It Golden, Blue Addiction and You Belong To Me, but for only $2.55 a bottle (only 5ml, but oh well) I may have to go grab a few other colours!

My original plan with this mani was to use Houston We Have A Purple as the base and then just put one coat of Make It Golden over the top. But... the glitter mad part of my brain decided that it just wasn't enough glitter, so I added a coat of Gold and instantly I knew I'd gone too far. Never thought I'd say it, but there was too much glitter! This mani didn't last long because of the over-glittering, also I banged my hand and put a massive dent/hole in one finger just after taking this photo so I would have had to do some serious damage control if I was to keep it on. Just easier to do another mani. And a good excuse to paint my nails twice in one day!

Roses Everywhere!

2011-11-25T09:00:00.000+11:00

OPI Alpine Snow, OPI Sparrow Me The Drama, OPI Panda-Monium Pink, OPI Jade Is The New Black, BYS Black Striper

I am in love with my stripey thing. I've been using it a lot lately, mainly just for stripes, but I thought I should test myself on some round shapes and this is what I ended up with. It's spring here in Australia and my Mum's garden is bursting with roses and colour so I've been wanting to have spring, flowery nails constantly! I have no clue how all the clever nail art people out there get their perfect, tiny thin lines on their nails. This was tricky enough!

Below Deck Stripes

2011-11-23T09:00:00.000+11:00

China Glaze Below Deck, China Glaze Light As Air, Ulta3 Gold Rush Fever, BYS Black Nail Striper

After seeing Nailside's awesome striped nails I was inspired. And while these look nowhere and perfect as hers, I still like them! I wore these to a friend's 21st birthday party over the weekend and the colours sort of matched my dress. Also I really wanted to try China Glaze Below Deck. I used it as the base in this mani and it's such a beautiful colour! I guess it's my version of a neutral- dark, but not black or some crazy colour! They're a little worse for wear in this photo, it took me three days to get a chance to photograph them!

Rainbow Connection is Glitter Perfection

2011-11-20T18:21:00.001+11:00

China Glaze For Audrey, OPI Rainbow Connection

I have a serious glitter addiction. I tried to convince myself that I didn't need Rainbow Connection because I already owned Milani Gems, but the whole "it has bigger bits of glitter and pretty colours" won out in the end and I caved and bought it (and I had to console myself somehow for not being able to find Zom-body to Love). It's so pretty and I'm really glad that I ended up getting it. And really, you can never have too many multi coloured glitter nail polishes to choose from!

Sparkly Mermaid Nails

2011-11-17T08:55:00.001+11:00

China Glaze Custom Kicks, China Glaze Blue Year's Eve, China Glaze Snow Globe, China Glaze Skyscraper (over Blue Year's Eve), OPI Mermaid's Tears, OPI Planks A Lot, Face of Australia White Gold.

I was in Sydney over the weekend and managed to do the fabulous Sculptures by the Sea walk, and man the ocean is lovely to look at! This is my attempt at 'mermaid nails'. They didn't really come out the way I wanted, and it seems I was slightly too eager in my top coat application. While I was in Sydney I desperately wanted to get OPI Zom-body to Love, just for the glow in the dark-ness, but it seems that it might not be available in Australia! To console myself I picked up the mini Muppets set and a regular size Rainbow Connection. I still really want the glow in the dark polish though!

A little bit of everything

2011-11-14T11:00:00.000+11:00

China Glaze - For Audrey, OPI I Eat Mainely Lobster, OPI Jade Is The New Black, OPI Alpine Snow, OPI Sparrow Me The Drama, OPI Teenage Dream, China Glaze Snow Globe

Just playing around with some different patterns and trying out my brand new China Glaze For Audrey, which I've been waiting to get for what seems like forever! It's just as lovely as I had hoped it would be!

Tribal Nails

2011-11-11T11:00:00.000+11:00

OPI Alpine Snow, OPI I Eat Mainely Lobster, BYS Kung Fu Blue, BYS Black Nail Art Striper

My attempt at the tribal nail fad that seems to be going on at the moment, and my first try using a stripey thing. I've had nail art brushes for a while, but recently just bought a BYS Nail Art striper which is awesome! May have to invest in a few other colours!

My China Glaze Haul...Blue Year's Eve

2011-11-09T11:36:00.000+11:00

China Glaze - Blue Year's Eve

I recently had a bit of an "end of university forever" celebratory splurge on nail polish, and ordered a bunch of China Glaze polishes. So far, my collection has mainly been OPI (my first nail polish love), with the odd China Glaze thrown in (Recycle, Nova and Snow Globe, from whatever collection it was from before it was in Let It Snow), so I thought it was time to change that. Recycle is one of my all time favourite polishes, it's just such a lovely grey and is a dream to apply, so after that amazing experience a lot more China Glazes made it onto my list. I ended up getting Blue Year's Eve, Ruby Pumps, Below Deck, Light As Air, Strawberry Fields, Concrete Catwalk, For Audrey (which I'd been waiting to get for ages!), Custom Kicks and Skyscraper. After painting each nail a different colour, I committed to the amazing Blue Year's Eve, from the new 2011 holiday collection Let It Snow.

I was really excited about Blue Year's Eve after reading about it online and it lived up to all of my expectations! It looks just amazing in full sun, but is also incredibly beautiful and shimmery in the shade/inside.

Hello Internet Land! These are my little nails!

2011-11-07T11:07:00.002+11:00

OPI Green-Wich Village, OPI The "It" Colour, OPI What's With The Cattitude?, OPI ElePhantastic Pink, OPI Black Onyx

Hello Internet Land! I'm Rosie and I love nail polish and nail art! I'm from Australia and recently decided that I should jump on the nail polish blogging bandwagon and start a little blog.

I've been obsessively reading nail polish blogs, and drooling over nail art on Tumblr for quite some time but every time I see a design or a swatch it seem to be featured on long, beautiful nails and I wonder what it'd look like on my little nails. As hard as I try, I can't ever seem to grow my nails longer that what you see above. I think it's my nails getting revenge for me constantly biting them for the first 15 years of my life. I've now decided to embrace my little nails! They may be shorter than all the other blogger ladies, but I can still paint them awesome colours!

This mani was inspired by a video on China Glaze's official YouTube channel. It's what happens when I'm left alone for the day with not much to do!