Spotty Christmas Snowflakes

Butter London Pillar Box Red, Deborah Lippmann Constant Craving, OPI Alpine Snow

Merry Christmas everyone! Even though I live in Australia in the southern hemisphere (where we have a lovely summer Christmas) I couldn't resist doing a festive snowflake mani. They're all over the internet at the moment, and even though it is quite warm here (currently 37ºC, or 98.7ºF) and definitely not snowing I think it's still quite Christmasy. 

I've been using Butter London Pillar Box Red so much lately. I've never really been a big red nail polish fan and don't actually own that many believe it or not! It's the only Butter London polish that I own and I got it for free on a magazine! Despite all that, it may actually be my favourite classic red. And, of course it's the perfect Christmas red!

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 Gene Doll

piCture pOlish Gene Doll, OPI I Eat Mainely Lobster, OPI Ate Berries in the Canaries

I love a good glitter. piCture pOlish's Gene Doll is a lovely fuchsia glitter polish. I've been obsessed with feature nails lately, and Gene Doll matched perfectly to OPI's Ate Berries in the Canaries. 

Summer is in full swing here in Australia and I love being able to wear super bright, colourful nail polish. And what's better than bright polish? Bright glitter!

piCture pOlish Gene Doll can be purchased online from piCture pOlish.

This polish was sent to me for review.

Day 17 - Glitter

China Glaze Riveting,  Glimmer by Erica Muy Caliente 

I am a huge fan of glitter. Glitter nail polish, and just glitter in general. To give you an idea of my love, I currently have a 250g tub of glitter sitting on my desk. It's just my general, everyday use glitter. 

For Glitter day I couldn't resist Muy Caliente. It's super sparkly and amazingly bright and summery! I layered it over China Glaze Riveting, which is also a sparkle fest. These were just the most epic glitter overload nails. They were awesome!

Day 16 - Tribal Print

China Glaze Riveting, Inglot 204, Topshop AWOL

I have a soft spot for these patterns. Tribal print manis were an early favourite of mine when I started to get into nail art and I haven't done one in what seems like forever! My original intention was to keep it a simple two colour pattern, but I added Inglot 204 to Riveting because I just can't help myself with that combination and it ended up being quite blingy with the flakies and the sparkle and the blue pattern on the top!

Ozotic Beam 908

China Glaze Kinetic Candy, Ozotic 908

OPI Lincoln Park After Dark, Ozotic 908

Ozotic 908 is a new polish from Ozotic's Sugar & Beam collection. This one was really hard to take photos of. It's so sparkly in real life! The glittery pieces are pink and green. Like most Ozotics, it looks amazing over black and dark colours, but I prefer 908 over lighter colours for a more subtle shimmer. I rocked it over China Glaze Kinetic Candy and, believe it or not, on its own! Yep, if you're happy with four coats (I'm a solid three coater, so one extra is no big deal) 908 is opaque enough to wear on its own. It's my current favourite wearable white!

I also played around with making nail art decals after seeing this tutorial on Small Good Things using 908.

Ozotic 908 can be purchased online from piCture pOlish.

(This polish was sent to me for review) 

Day 15 - Delicate Print

Essie Mint Candy Apple, Essie Lapis of Luxury, Essie Coral Reef

In the end, this mani didn't really end up being the most delicate looking thing, but they're dainty little spots and stripes so I'm going to say it's a delicate print. A few months ago I bought a new little set of drawers for my nail polishes, and these three Essies were sitting nicely in a row in their drawer and I couldn't resist using them together!

Ozotic Scatter Chrome 912

Ozotic 912

This sparkly thing is one of Ozotic's new Scatter Chrome polishes. It's a lovely purple polish with little bits of holo goodness in it. It's not holo glitter, more like chunky shards of holo-ness. For this mani I used three coats of 912. I'm a solid three coat kind of girl, but you could get away with two coats. I'm just so used to three that I can't help myself, especially when it's a smooth lovely polish and such a pleasure to apply! 

One of the things I really like about 912 compared to some other Ozotic polishes I own is that you don't need a base colour (Mish Mash 534 and 531 I'm looking at you...) It's opaque on its own! Hooray! 

The effect of the size and shape of the holo bits is really interesting. I think that if you did layer this polish over black it would make a fantastic start to a galaxy manicure! I'll definitely be getting this out when I finally make it to Day 19 of the 31 Day Challenge (which could be in one million years at the rate I'm going!)

Ozotic can be purchased online from the lovely girls at piCture pOlish.

(This polish was sent to me for review)

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.

Ozotic Sugar 903

Ozotic 903 (over China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic)

Hello people. Do I have a doozie for you. This is Ozotic 903 from Ozotic's new Sugar & Beam collection. I honestly haven't been this obsessed with a nail polish in a very long time. It was on my nails in various forms for over a week, which is an insane amount of time for me to have one polish on my nails. Basically, I spent last week staring at my hands. I was mesmerised! No work was done at all! 

I also saved this very special nail polish for a very special post... It was exactly one year ago today that I first posted on Little Nails! Hooray!

Straight after I opened my nail mail I tried it out on one nail (over Essie Coral Reef and white dots!), then I tried it out over black on one nail. Then last week I wore it over China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic (one of my all time favourite nail polishes), OPI Russian Navy, OPI The One That Got Away and lastly back over Rodeo Fanatic for the weekend and to take these photos. 

903 is made up of these little particles of magic (I don't really know what to call them) which kind of have the same look as glass fleck polishes. It's like someone went at some flakies with a mortar and pestle and crushed them down into tinier pieces of awesome. 

Apart from being super sparkly and sugary looking, 903 has a kick a** duo chrome colour change happening. I had so many comments on my nails while wearing this. And it looks amazing in all kinds of light. As much as I love holo polishes, when you're not in the sun all day I feel like you miss out on a lot of the amazingness. 903 even looked amazing under the florescent lights in my office! It looked great everywhere!

I couldn't help myself so I made this to show the colour change. Look at it go! 

Ozotic can be purchased online at piCture pOlish and for only AU$12 it's an absolute steal!

(This polish was sent to me for review)

Day 13 - Animal Print

OPI On Her Majesty's Secret Service, OPI Mermaid's Tears

On Her Majesty's Secret Service was the one and only polish I bought from OPI's Skyfall collection. I restrained myself and have not yet purchased The Man With The Golden Gun (although I did carry it around the beauty department of David Jones for a good 10 minutes, gently stroking its shiny gold packaging and generally looking like a loon, before putting it back on the shelf). OHMSS is such an amazing polish, and one of those ones that you can never seem to get a good photo of! It's infinitely more amazing in real life than in these photos. 

Day 13 was animal print, and originally I was going to do another mermaid mani, but I thought it was a tad insulting to merpeople to imply that they're animals, so I did these scale things instead and I'm calling this a fish manicure.

Day 12 - Stripes

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, China Glaze First Mate

I had a little nail mail package arrive recently and the polish I was most excited for was OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I seem to constantly be searching for that perfect, elusive, "wearable white". I had hoped that MBSW might have been it, but on its own it makes me look like I have zombie girl nails. As an alternative to Alpine Snow for a white nail art base colour it's pretty awesome! 

To get rid of my dead zombie nails, I added some sailor stripes! 

Day 11 - Polka Dots

Topshop AWOL, OPI Don't Touch My Tutu

Topshop finally opened in Sydney a few weeks ago (woo!), and it was with great restraint that I only purchased one nail polish on my first visit there. I have oodles of blue nail polishes, but absolutely nothing like AWOL. I couldn't resist it. It's just so bright and friendly and blue! 

Day 10 - Gradient

Deborah Lippmann Constant Craving, OPI Hot & Spicy

I know they're colours that are never meant to be seen together, but I love pink and orange and had my heart set on this combo for gradient day. Now that we're well and truly into spring in the here in Australia my nails have just been getting brighter and brighter! Bring on summer!

Day 9 - Rainbow

OPI Fly, Butter London Pillar Box Red, OPI Hot & Spicy, OPI The "It" Color, China Glaze First Mate, China Glaze Grape Pop

I couldn't help but to do a few crazy rainbow mermaid nails for rainbow day. They were so bright and colourful. I felt like I had confetti on my nails!

Day 8 - Metallic

China Glaze Devotion, Ozotic 534

When I was doing this mani I realised that I don't actually have all that many metallic nail polishes. China Glaze Devotion is one of my favourite polishes to stamp with, but I rarely use it to paint the whole of my nails. To add some extra bling I topped it off with a coat of Ozotic 534. So much holo! 

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! 

Day 6 (again!) - Purple

OPI Planks A Lot, China Glaze Grape Pop

I just love purple so much that I couldn't help but do day 6 twice! Nah, I was actually just too excited over the first day 6's glitter explosion and forgot about this mani!

This mani actually started out as me attempting to recreate Sarah's (from Chalkboard Nails) fabulous wibbly lined black and white manicure, but after the first line ended up being a little too wibbly wobbly, I realised it wasn't going to happen, so I switched to this. It reminds me of a strange purple leaf. 

Also, apologies all round for being MIA for the past week or so. It was a combination of going home to visit my lovely family for an extra long weekend (and taking only 2 nail polishes, such restraint!) and being struck down by illness last week. It was the flu and it was gross. Anyhoo, am going to try and post up a storm and get stuck into this 30 day challenge. I feel as though I should seeing as everyone who was doing it properly has finished!

Day 6 - Purple

Deborah Lipmann I Know What Boys Like, Glimmer By Erica Drizzt

Day 6 was purple and another Glimmer By Erica glitter explosion. I popped Drizzt over DL I Know What Boys Like (which looks super purple in these photos). It's another amazing glitter and I couldn't stop staring at my nails the whole time I had it on! I can't wait to try it over other colours. 

Day 5 - Blue

Kink Ink, Beneath The Blue Glimmer by Erica

This is seriously one of the most beautiful glitter nail polishes I've ever seen. A few weeks ago I couldn't help but buy some of Erica's amazing nail polishes on Etsy (check out her Etsy shop here). Day 5 of the challenge was blue and I couldn't wait to try out Beneath The Blue. It was even more beautiful in real life!

This is also my 100th post (woo!). I'm glad it's celebrated with such a lovely glitter! 

Day 4 - Green

Essence You Belong To Me, China Glaze Aquadelic, OPI Fly, Milani Gold

Day 4 was green, and I was originally going to try and do some kind of leaf themed elaborate mani. I had planned to add more lines (little tiny perpendicular ones between these lines, like the veins on a leaf) but when I got to this point I liked it so I stopped. I did however add some glitter from Milani Gold to the corners for a bit of fun!

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!

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

piCture pOlish Blog Fest 2012 - Tease

Happy piCutre pOlish Blog Fest Day! I was lucky enough to get the chance to participate in this year's piCture pOlish blog fest. I was super excited about just being able to be a part of it, but also slightly worried about possibly not liking the polishes I ended up with, or getting ones that were similar to ones I already had. Sometimes I can be quite fussy with my nail polish. Luckily, I didn't need to worry. Both polishes I ended up with were ones that definitely would've caught my eye (and probably ended up in my little stash eventually!)

piCture pOlish Tease

Tease is a new Mesh shade from piCture pOlish. Tease has a gorgeous pink base with teeny tiny silver glitter and it's just so sparkly! So sparkly that I felt the need to show it in motion...

Tease applied beautifully and looked awesome with just two coats. It's one dense glitter and I like that! I have quite a soft spot in my heart for glitter, especially glitter that doesn't need a base colour to cover your nails. 

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

Wincing The Night Away Nails

OPI Skull & Glossbones, Kink Ink

I'm going to see one of my all time favourite bands tonight, The Shins (woo!), which of course means that I've been rocking Shins inspired nails all day today. I love all of their album covers, but for this mani I went for my favourite album, Wincing The Night Away, which coincidentally, was the most nail art friendly cover. Hooray!

Anyhoo, no time to blog about nails, I have a band to see!

Deborah Lippmann Glitter In The Air

OPI Skull & Glossbones, Deborah Lippmann Glitter In The Air

It's finally mine! It's on my fingers! Deborah Lippmann's Glitter In The Air is everything I hoped it would be. It's so pretty that I've already worn it twice this week (the other time was over Essence You Belong To Me). After seeing so many photos of it on the internet I still can't really believe that it's mine!  I can't wait to try it over all kinds of colours.

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. 

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.  

Lush Lacquer Birthday Cake

Lush Lacquer Birthday Cake

I've been a bit lazy this week, no nail art. To make up for it, I've been using glitter nail polish! This mani is Lush Lacquer's Birthday Cake. It was a tricky one to photograph (it didn't help that it's been miserable and raining here in Sydney with dreary light). The glitter is so much more obvious and bright in real life. 

One amazing thing I noticed about this nail polish is that it was strangely very easy to remove. So much easier than pretty much every other glitter nail polish ever. I wish all glitter nail polish was this easy to remove. 

Spots, Gradients & Stripes

OPI Hot & Spicy, OPI Dating A Royal, China Glaze Kinetic Candy

This manicure came about in a very random way. It was one of those ones where you grab a few colours, start painting and see where it ends up. I was watching The Good Wife (I'm super far behind, I only started season 1 last week, but oh my goodness it's a good show!) and painting my nails without really thinking what they would end up looking like. 

I started with some orange nails, and some pale blue accent nails. Since I discovered how easy it is to do gradients I've been a tad obsessed, so I added a gradient on the orange nails. Why not add spots too? Get all the colours on the nail! A vertical stripe here, and some horizontal stripes there and this mani was born. 

I'm still not sure if I love or hate the colour combination, but I'm quite liking the fact that there are three different patterns in this manicure.

Edit: So, I totally thought I'd posted a gradient mani before this one. Apparently not. This was actually the third I'd done, but the first to make it on the blog. I followed Sammy's tutorial at The Nailasaurus, which makes gradients super easy! Sometimes if I'm feeling lazy I'll just paint the different colours right on the sponge in two stripes, instead of mixing and dabbing it on the sponge, although you do get a nicer gradient if you mix them first. 

Lush Lacquer - Salt n Peppa

OPI Moon Over Mumbai, Lush Lacquer Salt n Peppa

A while ago, I succumbed to the handmade polish insanity and bought my first "indies". Etsy seemed to be the place to start, and after coming across a few nail polish stores that were closed for various reasons I happened upon Lush Lacquer. Glitter heaven! I promptly made an Etsy account and went shopping!

This is actually the third time I've worn Lush Lacquer's fabulous Salt n Peppa, but the first time I've photographed it. It always seems to be raining and dreary when I wear this polish (I put it on to cheer up my nails!) with no good photo takin' light to be seen! Today was no exception and I ended up taking the photo with the flash, which I usually try to avoid at all costs.

After a day of Moon Over Mumbai (oh, I am in light grey love), I couldn't be bothered to take the manicure off completely, but I was up for a bit of a change, so I kept with the monochromatic theme and added Salt n Peppa. It's just an all round awesome polish. The black and white glitter is fab, and on top of that there's opalescent glitter in there too (think China Glaze Snow Globe but smaller). It's the kind of polish that looks great over absolutely everything. 

When I bought Salt n Peppa, I also got Party Rockin and Birthday Cake, which are also fabulous. Now I have my eye on Lite Brite and Mr Bubble. You can buy Lush Lacquers through their Etsy store.