WAH Nails Pink Stripes and Zigzags

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Essie Coral Reef, Kester Black Fairy Floss, BYS Black Striper

Like every other nail art fan on the planet, I follow WAH Nails on Instagram. A while back I saw this fabulous manicure by WAH Girl Ellie and had to try it out on my nails. 

This mani reinforced the fact that I really need to keep practising my freehand painting. Some of those zig zags are a bit iffy, but from an arm length away it's hard to notice those little mistakes. I loved this design so much I did it in blue a few days later when this one chipped. 

Lavender Lemon Nails

OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, Kester Black French Lavender, Seed Lemon, BYS Black Striper

I saw a manicure on Pinterest recently and tracked it back to SuPa Nails (while we're on the subject of Pinterest, I hate it when people pin without links back to the source. So annoying!) Susanne is a nail art wizard and the second I saw this manicure I knew I had to have it on my nails. Can't Find My Czechbook and French Lavender were already sitting out on my desk and all of a sudden my nails were like this! Well, a good while later they looked like this. Seriously, this was super tricky and it just goes to show how talented someone like Susanne is! First I tried creating the diamonds with tape, but with four colours and not ever waiting long enough for the polish to dry it did not go well. I ended up (painstakingly) hand painting the diamonds with a nail art brush. I definitely need to practice my brush skills, so I'm sure this kind of mani will be popping up on my nails a lot over the next couple of months. 

Day 14 - Flowers

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Dutch Tulips, BYS Black Striper, OPI Jade is the New Black

I felt like doing something a little different for flower day and I ended up with these odd looking blobby poppies hanging out on my nails. They were deceptively easy to do; I just used a big dotter to make some red petals on the top half of my nails, used a striper brush to give them a stem each and make the base of the flower, then I used a nail art brush to add a bit of random grass.

I actually did this manicure over a week ago, but I thought that today would be an appropriate day to post a poppy manicure because it's Remembrance Day here in Australia.

Day 7 - Black & White

OPI Alpine Snow, BYS Nail Art Striper Black

I love randomly making up patterns with the good ol' nail art striper brush and I couldn't resist getting it out for black and white day! 

Pink Nails & Zebra Chevrons

OPI ElePhantastic Pink, OPI Mod-ern Girl, OPI Alpine Snow, BYS Black Striper

Another chevron mani! I just can't get enough of them! This time I tried my hand at thicker zig zags, and while they're a wobbly on the edges when you inspect them closely, I think they still looked pretty good from a distance. I'll definitely have to practice my corners!

The non-zebra nails are painted with ElePhantastic Pink, and then a coat of Mod-ern Girl. I've realised that my nail polish collection is missing a crucial shade of pink - a pink that's not too bright, not too pastel, still pink, but with a hearty splash of coral to it. I was going to use OPI's I Eat Mainely Lobster, but I had my heart set on a lovely creme/jelly and I Eat Mainely Lobster has a delightful shimmer to it. 

All the pinks I own are either too pale or too red. For the time being, Mod-ern Girl over ElePhantastic Pink will have to do the job.  

Gold & Green Chevrons & Spots

Barry M Gold, BYS Striper Aqua Blue

While I was interneting the other day I came across this iPhone cover -

I really want it (may even pop into the Apple store next time I'm there and see if they have it!) and I loved the colour combination. I have a aqua-ish greeny striper that I've never used so I decided to do some serious striping and replicate the always popular chevron/zig zag pattern. 

I did get slightly lazy part of the way through so I did a couple of dotty accent nails. Next time I tackle a chevron pattern I'm going to attempt all my nails! And sorry about the tip wear, it's been hideously rainy and dark in Sydney the past few days and there was no light so these photos were taken on day 2.

Mixed Up Stripey Holo

Ozotic 513, BYS Striper

I've been in an Ozotic mood lately, and couldn't help but add some stripes when I had Ozotic 513 on the other day. 513 is super lovely, but I've raved about its loveliness before. 

I also bought my first 'indie' nail polish a few weeks ago, and they arrived last week. I now own three Lush Lacquers - Salt n Peppa, Party Rockin and Birthday Cake... and they're awesome! So prepare to see a bit of them over the next week or so!

Red Roses

OPI Dutch Tulips, OPI Alpine Snow, BYS Black Striper

I was in the mood for a bit of striping, but was also feeling a little bit lazy. This was what I ended up with. Bizarrely, lately my non-dominant hand has been steadier and better at striping than my dominant hand. I'm a leftie, and I think that the top photo of my left hand is a whole lot neater and smoother than my right hand! Weird! 

I ended up taking off the flowery nails the morning after I painted them (they never saw the light of day, poor things) because when I woke up, I thought they looked a bit like rissoles cooking on a barbecue. And once you see something like that on your nails you can't unsee it. So they went back to being plain red for the day.  

Brittney Inspired Blue & Orange Arrows

China Glaze Electric Beat, China Glaze Peachy Keen, BYS Black Nail Art Striper

Here's my second Brittney inspired mani. Check out her original manicure here. The best thing about this mani is that it was relatively easy to do. If you can do a straight line with a striper brush then you're set! You don't even need to worry too much about doing the coloured stripe neatly because the black stripe will cover the edges. 

Brittney did a super handy video tutorial which includes this pattern. The only thing I did differently, mainly because I was a bit lazy, was that I didn't start with a black base, I just really carefully did a stripe along the edge of my nails. 

New Skirt Nails

OPI Skull & Glossbones, OPI Bronzed To Perfection, BYS Black Nail Art Striper

A while ago I came across this manicure by the amazing Brittney from Precious Polish. She is just the greatest at lines and patterns! I originally wanted to do it on all my nails, but for some reason my brain just couldn't quite get the way the zig zaggy stripes were meant to go, so I limited that pattern to two nails on each hand and did some simpler liney patterns on the other nails. 

This mani also matched my new skirt that I wore to work today. It was almost the same colour as Bronzed To Perfection, and I've never actually worn BTP so I figured it was a good time to try it out! 

I think that my favourite design from this mani was the one on my middle finger in the top photo and my thumb in the bottom. It's another Brittney inspired pattern. (That girl! Line genius she is!) My next mani is going to be line madness! 

You may also have noticed that Little Nails is blue/green now! I was getting a bit sick of the purple layout, but now I think I might miss it! Perhaps I'll change it back.

Beauty Department Bows

China Glaze Kinetic Candy, OPI Alpine Snow, BYS Black Nail Striper, two dots of glitter from Milani Gold

I was quite keen to try this tutorial from The Beauty Department because I love bows, and bows on nails? Well, just how could you get any cuter? Initially I was all set to do the bows on every nail, but as I do with most nail art, I started on my ring finger (my favourite accent nail) just in case I decided to only do one. 

Man, am I glad I started there. There was no way I was ever going to do this on all my nails. It was tricky! I like to think that I'm pretty decent with the nail striper after my obsession with tribal nails a while back, but I seem to have overestimated my skills. The curves completely threw me off. So much concentration went into those two bows! 

They did look super cute in the end though! 

Monochromatic Ladders

China Glaze Recycle, China Glaze Concrete Catwalk, BYS Black Nail Striper

I was in the mood for a bit of a grey stripy manicure and this was what I ended up with! I haven't used a nail art striper in so long and now I'm addicted again! I want to use it all the time! 

Ikat Nails a la Mr. Candiipants

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!

Purple Patchworks

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! 

Patchwork Stripes

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!

Reindeer and Candy Canes!

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!

Strawberry Stripes

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

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! 

Roses Everywhere!

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

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!