Day 27 - Inspired by Artwork

MUD Santorini Sea, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Dutch Tulips, Orly Liquid Vinyl, Orly Glitz

Inspired by Artwork. Geez, it took me a while to decide what to be inspired by with this one! I was almost going to do Mark Rothko inspired nails with some kind of colour block type manicure but I ended up going for something a little more "nail arty". Joan Miró has always been one of my favourite artists. I saw my favourite Miró, Woman and Bird in the Moonlight a few years ago and it was incredible, but definitely outside of my skill level for nail art! 

These nails are inspired by Dancer which was perfect for nail art.

Day 25 - Inspired by Fashion

Kester Black Buttercream, Kester Black Blue Raspberry, Kester Black Paradise Punch, Kester Black Tutti Fruity, Ulta3 Citrus, Orly Liquid Vinyl

It's 31 Day Challenge time again and I figure I should attempt to actually finish my 31 day challenge from last year. Day 26 is fashion. I love clothes but I'm not that much of a fashion buff. Honestly, my favourite fashion website is Go Fug Yourself. It's hilarious. One outfit which caught my attention recently was this one worn by AnnaSophia Robb, on the set of The Carrie Diaries.

Neon colours? Check! Crazy triangles? Check! Sheer checkerboard? Check! Perfect for nail art. A little later than scheduled, on day 358, I painted these crazy nails.

Navy & Gold Madeline Poole Nails

Orly Glitz, OPI My Vampire is Buff, China Glaze First Mate

I've been eyeing off this Madeline Poole mani for what feels like forever. I finally got around to recreating it!

It's been so dreary in Sydney and it's been raining for what feels like forever (seriously, there was something on the news about only having had 7 hours of sunshine in the past week). There was some kind of miracle after I finished this mani and the sun was out for about 15 minutes. Just enough time to take some photos!

Lunar Love Song Chevrons

OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, OPI DS Extravagance, Orly Glitz, My Ten Friends Lunar Love Song

I've been eyeing off some Hare Polish pretties for quite some time and finally bought a couple from Femme Fatale Cosmetics here in Australia. On a bit of an impulse I added My Ten Friends Lunar Love Song to the order. Gosh am I glad I did. It ended up being the polish I was most excited about and I had to try it out first.

I layered it over OPI Can't Find My Czechbook and added some Chevrons for good measure (also because I hate having to take glitter off all ten fingers). 

I have a feeling my next little polish order will have a couple of bottles of MTF in it (Hailing Frequencies Open, I'm looking at you). Although I may have to wait for the new collection to come out to get Space Opera and Starry Night. 

New Blog Design Nails

OPI Ate Berries in the Canaries, Orly Glitz, OPI French Quarter for your Thoughts, OPI The Man with the Golden Gun

Little Nails has had a makeover! Hooray! I tend to get bored quite quickly of how my blog looks, and while I never play around much with the structure and layout of the blog, I like to mix the style of it up every now and then. And when I saw this glitter background I couldn't help myself!

Now, on to the nails... I decided to match my nails this weekend to the latest look of the blog. I used the same polish that I used to make the stripes along the sidebars; OPI's Ate Berries in the Canaries and French Quarter for your Thoughts and Orly's Glitz. For good measure I threw on some Man with the Golden Gun. 

Goodbye Summer Stripes

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI The 'It Color', OPI Dating A Royal, OPI Mermaid's Tears, China Glaze Kinetic Candy, China Glaze Electric Beat

I was in the mood for one last summery hurrah before we settle into brisk Autumn weather, and these stripes were what I ended up with.I usually love the crisp lines you get with tape manis, but this time I painted the stripes freehand with a nail art brush. It's so much easier than waiting for a million coats of polish to dry enough to be able to put tape on!

The next day I was in the mood for something a bit more edgy, so I added some Orly Liquid Vinyl, which has become my holy grail black nail polish. This was one coat people! One! 

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI The 'It Color', OPI Dating A Royal, OPI Mermaid's Tears, China Glaze Kinetic Candy, China Glaze Electric Beat, Orly Liquid Vinyl

Day 23 - Inspired by a Movie

Orly Androgynie, piCture pOlish Heavy Metal, Spectraflair Topcoat

Finally, day 23! Posted 242 days after day one, but let's not dwell on how long this thing is taking me (to be honest, I kind of forgot about it for a while). Fingers crossed I'll get all 31 days done within a year! 

Day 23 is Inspired by a Movie. Saturday was May the 4th, also known as Star Wars Day. I originally attempted a mani with a Stormtrooper, R2-D2 and C-3PO, but it was a giant fail and I gave up half way through. I settled for painting my nails with Orly's Androgynie, which is the most space/galaxy looking polish I own, and then later in the day I added some piCture pOlish Heavy Metal and spectraflair sparkles! 

I'm back! And Ikea scissors have changed my nail life!

Orly Fowl Play, Orly Glitz, Ozotic 513

Hello everyone! Sorry I've not been around for the past little while, it's the usual hectic life excuse. My housemate and I moved house (not so conveniently timed to occur at the same time as our insane period at work) and my poor nails were not given the attention they deserved and I didn't want to put them out in the internet world when they weren't looking their best. And, to top things off I ran out of top coat. It was a disaster. 

I had to become the queen of the 5+ day manicure, but now, most of the boxes are unpacked so I can paint my nails whenever I want!  

During this little hiatus of sorts, on one of my trips to Ikea, I spontaneously bought a pair of pinking shears. Quite some time ago I saw this post on how to make your own "nail sticker" type things. I bought a cheap set of fancy scissors off eBay and eagerly tried the tutorial. It was quite the fail. The scissors weren't sharp enough to cut cleanly through the nail polish and paper so I gave up after only one mildly successful manicure.

Sharper scissors were the key, but dressmaking pinking shears are around $30, and really, did I need to pay $30 just to have some cool zigzags on my nails a few times? No, I did not.

Until I saw them at Ikea for $10! I've been in chevron heaven ever since! 

(On another note, can you believe that these are the only nail art type manis I've had in the past month. Sadly, they were only captured on the iPhone, not the real camera.)

Spotted Fail Stripes

OPI Sparrow Me The Drama, OPI Green-wich Village, China Glaze First Mate, Orly Liquid Vinyl

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, nail art is an epic failure. This manicure was originally going to be a "spotted" mani based off Chelsea's great looking tutorial. I painted my base colours, blobbed on the extra colours on the nails I was going to add the spots to and filled my nail art cup with water to get spotting. That's when the failure began. Chelsea suggests using body spray to create the spots but I didn't have any. I figured any kind of spray should do the job but I was wrong. I tried anti-static spray, environmentally friendly shower cleaner, a water/detergent solution we use to keep the bugs off our herbs, perfume and even acetone. Basically anything in the apartment that sprayed in a mist was sprayed on the nail polish. Those little cute spots just would not appear. 

My sad best attempt.

After a lot of Liquid Vinyl ended up on the end of an orange stick I decided to save this look for another day when I've obtained some body spray and just add some black stripes to my accent nails. I'm actually quite pleased with how they turned out so I guess the fail was a good thing in the end.

Day 22 - Inspired by a Song / Hottest 100 Day Nails!

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Jade Is The New Black, Essie Coral Reef, OPI Panda-monium Pink, Orly Liquid Vinyl

Happy Hottest 100 Day everyone (and Happy Australia Day too!). If you guys were around here last year, you'll know I love the Hottest 100. I thought I'd start a bit of a Australia Day tradition and have another Hottest 100 themed manicure. This year, it also coincided with my inspired by a song post of the 31 day challenge. This manicure is inspired by the amazing Aussie band Alpine and their album art, designed by Tim Royall. I used nail art tape and sponged on the colour with a makeup sponge. 

One of the songs I voted for was Gasoline which I'm hoping will place really high in the countdown. I'm also seeing Alpine next weekend at Laneway. So excited! I might have to recreate these nails for the day!

Day 19 - Galaxies

Orly Liquid Vinyl, Ozotic 903, Ozotic 908, Ozotic 534, China Glaze Snow Globe, Milani Jewel FX Silver, Sinful Colors Queen Of Beauty

Gosh there are a lot of different polishes in this mani! I was quite excited about Galaxy day, but I think it's a mani that I'll definitely have to try again. I did like how these turned out, and they were a lot sparklier in real life, but after doing them, I think that less would've been more.

Dressed Up Stripey Nails

OPI Fly, OPI Mermaid's Tears, OPI Planks a Lot, China Glaze Electric Beat, Orly Liquid Vinyl, China Glaze Skyscraper

First off... you all must see Whitney's (Dressed Up Nails) stellar manicure which I've shamelessly ripped off here. Click on it! Be amazed! I love stripes, so when her mani popped up on my computer screen as I was having breakfast yesterday I knew I had to do one too! 

Whitney seems to be some kind of nail art robot lady because she had the patience to paint this pattern on all 10 nails. I planned to limit it to six because I had a sneaky suspicion that it would take me  longer than I expected. I'm glad I stuck to six. It took me a lot longer to do than I'm willing to admit but I think it was time well spent!

Day 18 - Half Moons

Orly Glitz, OPI Dutch Tulips, Essence Make It Golden, Essie Matte About You

I'll admit I kind of cheated on this whole half moon thing. I know they're meant to be done with little circular stickers over your cuticles, but every time I attempt it that way they just look really bizarre on my hands (and weirdly not anything at all like everyone else's  Perhaps my stickers are too big?) and I have to change my mani straight away! So, for Half Moon day I decided to go for the skinnier moon and rock it ruffian style. It's still moon shaped so I say it still counts.

I was quite happy with this mani before I added the glitter, but some days you just can't help but add glitter and I couldn't resist! And who doesn't love mattified glitter?

NYE 2013

China Glaze Grape Pop, Essie Silken Cord, Sally Hansen Celeb City, Sinful Colors Queen of Beauty, Orly Liquid Vinyl, Glimmer by Erica Drizzt

Happy 2013 everyone! I hope you all had a fabulous New Year's Eve. I celebrated my first NYE in Sydney with a bunch of friends in a park overlooking Sydney Harbour and the Sydney Harbour Bridge (where the greatest NYE fireworks in Australia are!). Our park had a view of the bridge to the front of us and cliffs that overlooked the ocean behind us and it was so beautiful! 

Of course I needed a glitter fest on my nails for this amazing event! I based this mani around Drizzt, which is one of my favourite glitters. I even attempted to write 2013! After a lot of touching up with black polish I was quite please with how it turned out. I have even more respect now for people who do insanely intricate nail art with little bitty brushes. I think I'll stick to my dots and stripes!

Christmas Presents

Chanel Frenzy, Butter London Pillar Box Red, Orly Glitz

It's almost Christmas guys! Are you all excited? Last year I went all out with the Christmas themed manis, but this year I've only been able to do a couple sadly. This mani was inspired by one of the many rolls of Christmas wrapping paper that we have at work. It's brown paper with lovely big red dots. Of course, I couldn't help but to match my nails to it!

piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2012 - Pshiiit

piCture pOlish Pshiiit is part of the Collaboration Collection and was jointly created with Camille from Pshiiit. Pshiiit will be available from piCture pOlish online and through Pshiiit Boutique.

I just can't get over how much I love this nail polish. Firstly, it's green. I love green. Secondly, it has flakies. Thirdly, the shimmer seems to secretly have all the colour of the rainbow in it. Fourthly, the flakies change colour. Fifthly, this could go on all day so I'll stop here.

Pshiiit's flakies change from green to blue, and the nail polish has a duochromeyness to it also. It's one of those polishes that looks completely different at different angles and lighting. It's just all round awesome! Here's my thumb nail in different light and from different angles.

Because it's a perfect sea green kind of colour, I couldn't help but add some mermaid accent nails.

piCture pOlish Pshiiit, OPI Teal The Cows Come Home, Orly Glitz, Deborah Lippmann Brown Eyed Girl

piCture pOlish is available through their website (check out the piCture pOlish Network if you don't live in Australia). You can also check them out on Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest!

Check out all the other bloggers participating:

I nabbed the Inlink code from the lovely Cathy at More Nail Polish

The Lucy Appreciation Post, featuring Chanel Frenzy

Chanel Frenzy, Deborah Lippmann I Know What Boys Like, Orly Glitz

My housemate Lucy, who will now be known as the Provider of Fancy Polish was in New York this month, and while she was there she did a bit of nail polish shopping for me. She left Sydney with a modest little list of makeup and just two nail polishes to buy in the US for me (the difference in recommended retails between the US and Australia is just ridiculous). Deborah Lippmann polishes have no stockists in Australia sadly. I desperately wanted Glitter in the Air and Bad Romance and initially managed to restrain myself and only ask her to get those two. But, you all know how it is... I added I Know What Boys Like to the list, because really, I've never come across a blue like it, so I may as well get it! 

Aren't they just lovely. 

Then, a magical thing happened. Lucy was in Barney's buying my precious Lippmanns and mentioned to the lady serving her how they were for me, and how we can't get DL in Australia and the amazing Barney's lady told Lucy that she could pick one of three old DLs that she had floating around to keep for free (Constant Craving, Purple Rain and Brown Eyed Girl). While Lucy was pondering which colour I'd appreciate most, the lady suddenly put all three in her bag and said just to have them all!!! What a lovely lady! And that is the story of how I went from being completely Lippmann-less to being the proud owner of SIX of them!!!  

And the polish goodness continues! Lucy also bought me and our other housemate Anna a Chanel each!! I got Frenzy and Anna got Vertigo. 

After a day of straight up Frenzy I jazzed it up with some Lippmann dots and stripes and some Orly Glitz for added goodness. 

Kinetic Candy & Rock It

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.

Robot Dots & Sad Nail Polish Purchasing News

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!

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!