Pink Chalkboard Nails Distressed Tutorial Nails

Kester Black Poppy, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Kester Black Tutti Frutti, Topshop AWOL, Orly Glitz

Sarah, from Chalkboard Nails, has created what is possibly my favourite tutorial of 2013 - Distressed Nail Art  (check out her YouTube video tutorial here). 

It's super simple, super easy and looks amazing. Originally I was planning on adding the black to the top of this mani, the same as in the tutorial, but I loved the patterns and colours in it as it was and couldn't bear to hide any of it under black. A few hours later I felt like it needed a bit of gold so I took advantage of my dry polish and used sticky tape to add some gold triangles. 

I love this technique so much, I did it another three times. With a darker base and blues, purples and some glitter or gold leaf it makes for a really easy galaxy inspired mani. I loved that combo so much I did it again a few days later!

 

WAH Nails in Blue

OPI My Vampire is Buff, OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, Kester Black Blueberry Tart, China Glaze First Mate 

I loved this WAH Nails mani so much that I had to try it again in blue. I kept the design simpler on this blue mani than on my pink mani and I loved the way it turned out. Painting one row of triangles was more than enough! 

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. 

Blobbie Nails

OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Charged Up Cherry, OPI Mod-ern Girl, Kester Black Poppy, Kester Black French Lavender, Seed Lemon, China Glaze Grape Pop

This manicure is pretty much a recreation of my Inspired by a Book manicure from  months ago. Usually my nail art style is quite structured and geometric. I like lines and angles and order but occasionally it's fun to just completely wing it. Just blob the polish on, add some swirls or stripes and it'll all come together.

Kester Black - Tropicana Collection

Kester Black's Spring/Summer collection Tropicana is a bright, lively bundle of colour. Anna, the brains behind Kester Black, has such a knack for creating beautiful, cohesive collections. All five colours are fantastically bright and summery and match each other perfectly. All apart from Laugua are practically neon and don't require a white base coat to get that intense neon colour. All colours were swatched with three coats. 

Kester Black has quickly become one of my favourite and most used brands of nail polish. Looking back at my manis over the past few months (I knew having that daily Flickr photo would pay off!), there weren't many days when I didn't have Kester Black polish on my nails. The formula is fabulous and the colours are beautiful. 

Swatch photos are below and were all taken with one coat of topcoat. Like most other neon polishes, they dry with a slightly matt finish (apart from Laugua) if you don't use a topcoat. 

You can purchase Kester Black nail polish online (shipping is to Australia and New Zealand only) and in stores.

They are five free (no Toluene, no DBP, no Camphor, no Formaldehyde, no Formaldehyde Resin), made in Australia, cruelty free, CCF accredited (Choose Cruelty Free) and vegan!

Kester Black Bougainvillea

Kester Black Dragonfruit

Kester Black Laugua

Kester Black Papaya

Kester Black Parrot

These polishes were provided to me for review.

Day 31 - Recreate a Manicure You Love

OPI Russian Navy, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI I Lily Love You, Hare Polish Midsummer's Midnight

Take that, 31 Day Challenge! 396 days after I started the 31 Day Challenge it's finally finished. I have so much admiration for bloggers who actually do it in 31 days. Crazy kids!

Day 31 for the 2012 31 Day Challenge was 'Recreate a Manicure You Love'. I absolutely loved this manicure by Rose from Every Little Polish. I've been wanting to attempt it for a while and this seemed to be the perfect time to do it. 

My version didn't come out anywhere near as sophisticated as Rose's but I still liked it. Bigger dots and an overlaying polish that was a little too sheer were the failing points compared to Rose's mani. Next time I'll have to plan the colours more and try to track down my missing dotter (I used the end of a nail art brush for this one which is why the dots were so huge). 

Day 30 - Inspired by a Tutorial

OPI My Vampire is Buff, Kester Black Poppy, Kester black Peony, Kester Black Fairy Floss, Kester Black Buttercream, OPI The "It" Colour, Essence Nude It, China Glaze Street Chic, OPI Mermaid's Tears

Oh, Mr Candiipants, you sure know how to make a fab tutorial. I was tossing up between a few tutorials for this manicure when this video tutorial popped up on my tumblr dashboard and well, that was that. 

This mani is deceptively easy and looks super impressive. Candice did it on a black background for the start of autumn in the northern hemisphere, but here in the southern hemisphere, spring had just begun, so I did it on a lighter background and stuck with pink flowers. 

Day 29 - Inspired by the Supernatural

Kester Black Starflower, Milani Hi-Res, Milani Cyberspace

I guess this isn't really supernatural inspired, more space robot inspired, but this is what I ended up with! It's been such a long time since I've worn holo nail polish. It was so sparkly!

Day 28 - Inspired by a Flag

OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Charged Up Cherry

I was quite uninspired by this day's challenge. I tried to find a flag that wasn't for a country, that was a little more interesting or exciting but I ended up going with the good ol' Union Jack pattern. It felt a little weird to have flag nails for no particular reason so I switched the colours up a little. 

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 26 - Inspired by a Pattern

China Glaze A Grape Fit, OPI Dating A Royal, OPI My Vampire is Buff, OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, OPI What's With The Cattitude, Kester Black Poppy, Kester Black Peony, OPI Dutch Tulips, Essence Nude It China Glaze For Audrey

I have been painting up a storm over the past few days to try and get through the last days of the 31 Day Challenge. I started it on the 5th of September last year and I'm determined to finish it within a year! There may be some double posts.

Day 26 was inspired by this pattern. I love patterns. 

This one came from a design pattern book and I knew that it'd be great for nail art. It was also a great excuse to practice my freehand painting skills. 

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.

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. 

Kester Black - Winter Garden

I love Kester Black's Winter Garden collection. As I mentioned in my previous post, I started playing around with the polishes and all of a sudden I'd swatched most of them (and I never swatch! It was quite fun!) Application was great and most of these were two coaters. I'm a dedicated three coat kind of gal, and I surprised myself by happily leaving a lot of these at only two coats. Snowdrop was the only one that gave me a bit of grief, but that's more due to the fact that it's a frosty kind of finish and all frosty polishes are notoriously tricky.

This whole collection has a lovely wintery dustiness to it.  I especially love Moss, Silver Birch, Snapdragon and Periwinkle. In the two weeks since Anna sent me the polishes I have not worn another brand of nail polish. 

You can purchase Kester Black nail polish online (shipping is to Australia and New Zealand only) and in stores. 

They are five free (no Toluene, no DBP, no Camphor, no Formaldehyde, no Formaldehyde Resin), made in Australia, cruelty free, CCF accredited (Choose Cruelty Free) and vegan!

Kester Black Black Rose

Kester Black Periwinkle

Kester Black Snapdragon

Kester Black Poppy

Kester Black Deep Violet

Kester Black Peony

Kester Black French Lavender

Kester Black Forget Me Not

Kester Black Moss

Kester Black Silver Birch

Kester Black Starflower

Kester Black Snowdrop

These polishes were provided to me for review.

Deep Violet x French Lavender Gradient

Kester Black French Lavender, Kester Black Deep Violet

I feel like I should do gradient nails more often. They're surprisingly easy if you don't mind the clean up and they always look fab! 

Anna from Kester Black sent me some of her polishes a couple of weeks ago and I couldn't resist starting with a gradient. French Lavender and Deep Violet are both from Kester Black's Winter Garden collection (which you can buy online and in store around Australia and New Zealand) and match each other perfectly. Winter Garden is full of polish gems but I'll flail over the collection as a whole shortly. It deserves its own post. I was so excited that I went from 'playing around with a few' to swatching the entire collection. I couldn't help myself! 

These polishes were sent to me for review.