Mod About Stamping

OPI Mod About You, China Glaze Concrete Catwalk, BM-201

It's been so long since I stamped anything on my nails but this chevron pattern has always been one of my favourites. 

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 21 - Inspired by a Colour

OPI A Grape Fit, China Glaze Grape Pop, OPI The Man With The Golden Gun, Essie As Gold As It Gets

I love gradients and I haven't done one in what feels like forever. I knew that I wanted my 'inspired by a colour' day of the 31 day challenge to be a single colour gradient and when I sat down to paint my nails I couldn't go past purple. I love these purples together and they both have 'grape' in their names. They're perfect for each other! 

My friend Julia gave me Essie As Gold As It Gets for my birthday earlier this week and I can't stop using it! It's so gorgeous! I also added a light coat of TMWTGG to make my mani extra golden.  

Day 20 - Water Marbled

China Glaze Kinetic Candy, Topshop AWOL, Essie Coral Reef

Guys, water marbles are hard! I usually avoid them at all costs. They're messy, only seem to work half the time and usually end up with me angrily painting my nails just one plain colour. 

But, they are day 20 of the challenge, and though I may be taking my sweet time working through the 31 day challenge, I fully intend of completing it. So... this is my water marble. The thought of doing more than four nails scared me, so I complemented them with some spots and stripes! 

Does anyone actually like doing water marbling  I love the look of it, but the effort and failure rate (well, my high failure rate) is normally enough to send me running! Does anyone have any tips?

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?

Wacky Space Rocks

Essence Jacob's Protection, OPI Pink Shatter, OPI Pirouette My Whistle

Hello all! Some of you may have noticed that I've added a new little thing just to the right of this post called Today's Nails. Call it an unofficial New Year's resolution, but I kind of want to intensely document what goes on my nails on a day to day basis. 

I like facts and spreadsheets and statistics, and I'm actually quite curious as to how often I really paint my nails, as well as what my most used brands, colours etc are. This led to me deciding to do a 365 of sorts on my nails this year. Every day I will take a photo on my phone (so no excuse not to do it!) of what's on my nails and it'll pop up in that little thing on the blog. 

I'm hoping it will also make me be less of a lazy bones and post my blog worthy manis more quickly, since you'll all be able to stalk Little Nails flickr and yell "Rosie, we know you did this mani two weeks ago! Stop being such a lazy bones!" at me when I'm slacking! 

So, onto today's mani, and yes, this is what's on my nails this very second! 

I'll be honest with you, this is perhaps one of the weirdest combinations of polish I've had on my nails in a long time. Yesterday I wore Essence's Jacob's Protection*. Then, after work I decided to add to it for today. On went a coat of Pink Shatter. Next I added a coat of Pirouette My Whistle because I couldn't be bothered to add a top coat. I was actually very surprised by the end result. They look kind of spacey and kind of rocky. Like fancy moon rocks!

*Ugh, it kind of annoys me that this is a Twilight themed polish. It was purchased on its own glittery merit, not because I'm "Team Jacob" or anything like that! 

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!