U Need a Manicure - Heart Nails

Kester Black Violet, Kester Black Periwinkle,  Kester Black Fairy Floss, OPI Dutch Tulips

Golly gosh. It's been a while! Jessica Washick's Half Hearted manicure from U Don't Need A Man, U Need a Manicure popped up on my Tumblr dashboard last week and the second I saw it I knew I had to get my nail art brushes out and give it a go. 

I had to wait a while though, because after having plain nails for what feels like forever, I dove headfirst back into nail art the other day and had my nails done at I Scream Nails. I rocked my cat/pineapple/unicorn/happy cloud/banana nails for as long as possible before taking them off and giving Jessica's heart design a go. 

I Scream Nails - Sydney

My nails on the left, my friend Emma's on the right. 

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! 

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.

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 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. 

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. 

I Know What Pandas Like

Deborah Lippmann I Know What Boys Like, OPI Panda-monium Pink

I've been a little obsessed with the 'solid colour pointer finger accent nail' recently. I couldn't help but add some stripes to this mani also, which are unfortunately a bit streaky. I was too keen on the topcoat!

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!

Pink and Navy Flowers

OPI Ate Berries In The Canaries, OPI My Vampire Is Buff, China Glaze First Mate

It's been a while since I've had any kind of freehand nail art on my fingers and I was in the mood for sitting in front of a trashy TV show and playing around with a nail art brush. This is what I ended up with at the end of it.  

And can I just say how much I love My Vampire is Buff? I've really been developing a taste for off white polishes over the past year or so. Every time I get a new one I think it's the be all and end all of off white polish then a new one comes along that seems to be even better. I think I've worked my way through a good chunk of OPI Skull & Glossbones, My Boyfriend Scales walls got quite the workout, and now I seem to be reaching for MVIB every time I sit down to paint my nails. 

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 Polish Mani

 

OPI My Vampire is Buff, OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, China Glaze Man Hunt

I haven't bought nail polish in such a long time, but recently I updated my stash just a little bit. OPI My Vampire is Buff, OPI Can't Find My Czechbook and China Glaze Man Hunt are my newest additions and I couldn't wait to use them in a mani. 

Sparkly Ozotic Chevrons

OPI William Tell Me About OPI, Ozotic 908, Ozotic 903

I wore this crazy chevron mani a couple of weeks ago and I have to say that glittery, shimmery polishes are fast becoming my favourite polishes to make these little chevron stickies with. They seem to be a lot more flexible and easy to work with. These photos don't do these Ozotic polishes justice (check out 903 in action here), it was so sparkly! 

For this mani, instead of using a base colour and having it show through between the chevrons, I completely covered my nails with chevrons and alternated 908 and 903 chevron strips. 

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. 

Space Jam Zig Zags

Australis Space Jam, OPI DS Extravagance, OPI Ate Berries in the Canaries, OPI Simmer & Shimmer, China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic

I bought this amazing looking Australis polish a few weeks ago, and after lurking in the bottom of my handbag for ages I finally added it to the stash and gave it a test run! It's super pretty, but man it was a pain to apply. I added some thinner, which helped it out but it was still quite thick and gluggy, which made the application difficult. It works fabulously with just one coat over a dark polish. I've settled in a quite a solid chevron phase ever since the purchase of the Ikea Scissors from Heaven and couldn't resist adding some colour matching zig zag feature nails to the mani.

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

Freestyle Flowers

OPI Skull & Glossbones, Essie Lapis of Luxury, OPI Dating A Royal, China Glaze Peachy Keen, China Glaze Electric Beat

After my foray into floral/abstract nails the other day with my Inspired by a Book mani I thought I'd give the style another go. Usually I like my manis to be quite geometric and structured. A grid of polka dots, evenly spaced lines; that's my kind of nail art. I had such fun blobbing on random spots of polish and squiggling lines around that I just had to do it again. They don't even really look that much like flowers, but I've discovered that that is the genius of this kind of manicure. It's very forgiving. 

This mani stayed on my nails for an epic five days! That's almost unheard of for me.