Day 3 - Yellow

OPI Houston We Have A Purple, OPI The "It" Color

Well, you can't say I didn't warn you. Yes, these are my "yellow" nails. And yes, I know they're actually mostly pink. Like most people, I can only pull off yellow in very special circumstances. I especially can't pull it off on my nails.  I've accepted this fact and actually only own two yellow nail polishes (OPI The "It" Color and Ulta3 Citrus). 

I saw this tutorial over on Small Good Things and it lodged in my brain as a way to do a kind of ruffian/jelly/gradient manicure where you can see the different layers of colour building up along the nails. I grabbed my go-to jelly and absolutely loved the way it turned out! I'd planned to add yellow somewhere to this mani, not just because I was doing it for my yellow day, but because I love how these two colours look together! 

Day 2 - Orange

China Glaze Peachy Keen, OPI Hot & Spicy

Day 2 was orange nails and I was in a very stripy mood! I really should've let the stripes dry for a little longer before top coating because some of them smeared so badly. Oh well. 

I have to say that the striping tape may be my favourite nail art thing ever, closely followed by my dotter of course!

Day 1 - Red

Essie Silken Cord, OPI Alpine Snow

Well, I'm jumping on the 31 day nail art challenge bandwagon! Only my wagon started late and is a lot slower than everyone else's. So often have no idea what to paint on my nails so this challenge seems to be the perfect thing to give me a bit of nail direction! 

Day 1 is red, which suited me perfectly, because I bought a dress on the weekend that has red and white stripes so I decided I'd match when I wore it to work.

Fair warning to you all... judging by what I've done these first few days (yes I'm a little ahead!), I won't be posting every day, I may paint my nails out of order (but I'll try to post them in the challenge order) and sometimes I may take the theme for the day as a gentle suggestion rather than a direct order (which you'll see when we get to day 3, the infamous yellow day). 

P.S. I just would like to say thank you to Essie for giving your mini polishes regular sized brushes.  OPI you should take note (and make your mini bottles bigger too!).

Blue Green Lines

OPI Skull & Glossbones, OPI Fly, OPI Dating A Royal, China Glaze For Audrey, China Glaze Electric Beat

These nails were my attempt at recreating this fabulous mani by the amazing Mr. Candiipants (well the thumb and ring finger). I did each colour individually and after doing the first batch of lines in OPI Fly, I realised my lines were too big and my nails too were too small to get the amount of lines and colours that Candice's nails had. I still love how this turned out.   

Sparkly Hearts and Stripes

OPI DS Extravagance, China Glaze Devotion

I am always amazed at what a little bit of sticky tape can do for a manicure. After two days of DS Extravagance on its own my nails were looking quite worn, but it's such a beautiful colour that I couldn't bear to take it off. My solution was to use some stick tape and China Glaze Devotion to cover up the tips. I haven't worn Devotion in quite a long time. I don't know why though. It's such a great polish! It's opaque in only one coat (all my nails have one coat of Devotion over DS Extravagance) and it's so, so lovely! 

I was also a little bored over the weekend and played around with the look of the blog as you may have noticed. It's now filled with paper flowers, which I know have nothing to do with nail polish, but they sure look cute! 

New Skirt Nails (again!)

China Glaze Below Deck, China Glaze First Mate, OPI Don't Touch My Tutu, OPI Jade Is The New Black

These nails kind of matched the new skirt that I wore to work today. Well, the general colours did. I scrounged the interwebs trying to find a photo of it to pop on here but I sadly couldn't (it's green with white apples and the stems are purple and navy, just in case you were wondering). 

I'm really loving using weird nails for my accent nails. I can't remember the last time I did the 'traditional' ring finger/thumb combo on both hands! 

Neon and Grey Nails

China Glaze Concrete Catwalk, OPI Alpine Snow, Ulta3 Citrus

Lately it seems that neon yellow is just everywhere! While it's not a colour I'd usually be able to pull off with clothes (apart from the reflective high vis vest I wear while riding my bike home from work, which I totally rock), I love neon nails. I was feeling a bit boring a few days ago and did a regular mani with China Glaze Concrete Catwalk (which, along with CG Recycle are my two all time favourite greys!). Last night I thought i'd neon it up a tad! 

I also tried 'saran wrap' nails, or 'glad wrap' as we Aussies call it (if we're going for the brand name stuff!) on this manicure. I had been a little bit confused about this kind of mani, but after seeing a tutorial for it on Criminal Nails, it all made sense! For some reason when I'd seen photos, I thought you had to use the cling wrap to dab on the nail polish, not use it to take the nail polish off! Silly me. Anyway, once I figured that all out I just had to try it! Those nails were a little too tennis-bally on their own, so I added some dots. I can't wait to try it with different colour combinations!