Monday, November 30, 2015

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My other cartoon nails

Last weeks prompt for the 52 week nail art challenge was cartoons or comics.  I painted these nails during the week with full intentions of posting them.  However I had two people specifically comment on my nails and they both said the same thing.  

First it was my mum.  She did a double take and looked at my nails and said, "Woah, I thought your nails looked disgusting. And by that I mean it looks like you've been digging in the dirt and you really need to scrub your nails". Ah thanks mum!

Then I get to work, and one of the guys I work with does a double take and says "Woah what's on your nails, *I show nails and explain they are cartoon design*. Oh, it just looked like you have been digging in the dirt and have really dirty nails". 

Seriously, two people within an hour.  Now I've done cartoon nails before, but I'm guessing it's because I did a pastel pink base this time that freaked everyone out.  I even remember talking to the lady at the front counter where my kids do swimming lessons and her eyes just kept looking down at my nails.  She didn't say anything, but I bet she was thinking EWWW, this lady needs to wash her hands!

I was actually really happy with these. They are about as neat as my work is ever going to get when doing framed nails.  But yeah, those two comments kind of rocked me, and made me uncertain about posting these for the prompt.  But I know you nail girls will be ok with them.





Saturday, November 28, 2015

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DRK Seasons XL plate with clear jelly stamper

I recently received a selection of DRK stamping plates to review, and tonight I have the first mani that I have created with the DRK Seasons plate. I've also got my first thoughts on the clear jelly stamper which I used for this mani.

Let's talk about this plate. I love it.  Firstly it is huge, secondly is it jam packed full of unique designs and thirdly, the theme of this plate is so clever.  You have stamping images to suit the whole year round.  The quality of the plate is awesome too.  I have DRK XL 1 and 2 plates that I got several years ago, and this one is just as good.  The etching is deep and sharp and all the images I've tested so far have picked up beautifully.

Despite the fact that Summer starts here in 3 days, I went with a design from the winter section of the plate.  That little selection of pine trees in the bottom right to be exact.


You can see how nicely etched the plate is in this photo of mine.


Let's look at my nails next.  I created a gradient using Ulta3 Honolulu and Midnight, and China Glaze Highlight of my Summer.  I sponged on a tiny bit of Kester Place Milky Way, which is a fine holo glitter, for the stars.  Man I just love it when polishes names match up to the purpose you use them for in nail art.  This one had Midnight and Milkyway for a starry night scene. I geek out at that sort of thing.

After top coating my gradient, I used my clear jelly stamper to place the black trees.  I then finished it off with a coat of SuperChic Lacquer Marvel Top Coat.





Next is a quick review on the clear jelly stamper.  I will talk more about this in another post, but seeing as I used it for this mani I though I would mention it here.  The holder that comes with the stamper is the purple one. I found this a bit too long to have to look through. Instead I grabbed this plastic coupling piece from Bunnings.  I got three on them in a bag for 35 cents.  It's the perfect width and much shorter, so it made placing the images easier.

Now about the stamper.  It's a bit tricky.  I have to say I had terrible trouble using the layered Jelly Stamper plate that I also purchased, that plate appears to be etched too shallow and is faulty, but I'll talk about that another day.  I had much better luck with the DRK plate, in fact it worked really well.  I think that because the DRK plate is etched so nicely that this stamper works well.



The DRK Seasons plate is available from the DRK Nails website.

Plate provided for review, polish and stamper purchased by me.

Friday, November 27, 2015

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40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Cartoons and Comics - My Little Pony

This weeks theme in the 40 Great Nail Art Ideas challenge is Cartoons or Comics. This provided me another opportunity to create some more My Little Pony Nail art.

Today we have Princess  Celestia. I wanted to try out the stamping image of Princess Celestia on Moon Nail Supplies NS3 plate. Unlike the previous image I used from the Moon Nails plate, which was Pinky Pie, this one is a solid image.  Pinky Pie was an outline which meant I could colour it in like a decal.  I wish this one was an outline only.  I tried to paint on top of the stamping to put her flowing hair, but the whole thing looks a bit washed out.  

On my other nails I have Princess Celestia's cutie mark, which is the golden sun, and wavy free hand lines that represent her hair.







And just like my previous MLP manis, I had to do Miss 4's nails too.



Wednesday, November 25, 2015

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Rescue Beauty Lounge - Many Splendors

Way back in September last year, I was contacted by a fellow Aussie polish addict Angela who had been selected as a finalist in the RBL Fan Collection 3.0.  I did a shout out to try help her get some more votes.  In the end she secured just enough votes to have her polish created, and it was finally released last month.

In case you haven't heard, RBL has since shut up shop. No more blog, no shop, nada, gonski! RBL was one of the very first indies, so it's sad to her her gone.  She was certainly the first brands to ever do collaboration shades. I'm not even sure where you can pick up these polishes any more.  

But I'm super lucky, because Angela wanted to send me a bottle of the polish he helped create, if I was interested.  Are you serious! Of course I'm interested.  This is such an amazing polish that photos do no justice for.  I've looked at a lot of photos in reviews of this polish, and they are look similar to this, whereas in real life this textured polish is so sparkly!  

Firstly I want to take you back to the concept board and the inspiration that Angela submitted.

"My Motherland, my country, my island home...my Australia. Rich in natural wonder, indigenous culture and diverse landscapes, many associate Australia with vast blue sky, turquoise oceans and lush green rainforests...and for good reason. But there is another side to the palette of this magical island continent. The black volcanic rock that shaped so many landscapes, holding the memories of the fiery lava that created it within. The black of its desert sky. The glowing orange of its sunsets. The red ochre of its outback soil. The black of its native bush forests after they have been ravaged by scorching bushfire. And the mystical hues of Uluru, or "The Rock" as it is nicknamed, which literally takes centre stage in the middle of this huge land. Uluru magically responds to its environment by changing from orange in the light of day, black when it rains, to glowing red at sunset.

One of the most famous poems written about Australia is called "I Love A Sunburnt Country" by Dorothea McKellar. One of its verses proclaims:
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!
 The poem concludes with the author declaring "Though earth holds many splendours" Australia is the only country for her. This work resonates deeply with those of us who hold our land dear.

I envisage "Many Splendours" as been a night-sky black polish that, like Uluru, responds to its environment revealing fiery flashes of red orange from within. "Many Splendours" could be thought of as a darker sister to my beloved bottle of Piu Mosso, however like the island that inspired her, she will be truly one of a kind."

So lets look at the polish...
 
The polish is made up of tiny black, gold and orange glitters, as well as texture stuff in a black jelly base. It's interesting how the black, gold and orange glitters combine to give an overall sparkly brown appearance, especially as polish has no brown in it.  But you have to trust me when I say this has such much more life to it when you see it in person.  I was surprised to find this was a textured polish, because in the bottle it looks so sparkly and smooth. But I actually like that it's a texture, because if you have ever traveled to central Australia you'd know that that damn red dirt gets everywhere, and it makes me think of that!

I definitely think RBL nailed the vision Angela had of a night sky black polish with fiery flashes of red and orange.

This is two coats, and it's coverage is very good.  It dried quickly for a texture and lasted well on my nails.




Here is a macro shot of a single layer of the polish on my UberChic mat.



I also tried it with top coat, and it's even more beautiful.  I did three layers to ensure it was totally glassy smooth.



Thank you so much to Angela for gifting me this beauty.

Monday, November 23, 2015

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Picutre Polish Arabian with Cat sequins

Today I have a review of some gorgeous little gold cat sequins that I received from Lady Queen.  Lady Queen is an online store that supplies a multitude of nail art and other beauty items.  The container the cats comes in is a small clear round one and it has 100 pieces.  

I love that these are very, very thin metal so you can actually roll the cat around a pencil to give it a curve if you have a strong 'c' curve like I do.  They lay very flat, but you will want to make sure you put on two layers of top over the cats to ensure the tails and feet dont get caught on anything and stick up.  I wish I had these cat sequins before Halloween, as they would look pretty amazing in some Halloween nail art.

My base polish here is Picture Polish Arabian, which is a crimson red scattered holo with a gold spark and some rainbow shimmer. Arabian is a collaboration shade with Didoline. Her blog post has a good comparison of Arabian an o'hara, which is a similar colour, and yes I'm still planning to do a Picture Polish red comparison post one day.
abian is a dark crimson red scatter holo with the added touch of gold spark + rainbow flecks - See more at: http://www.picturepolish.com.au/arabian#sthash.z6k2TC2x.dpuf






Miss 4 is totally a crazy cat lady in the making.  She loves our kitties so much and is finally strong enough to pick them up and carry them around.  She fell in love with my nails and just had to get matching ones.  I'm amazing that she actually kept this mani on her nails for three days before they magically fell off (so I'm told!).


I also have a 15% off code for you all to use, YHOS15.


As these products were sent for review, I can't really comment about LadyQueen's turn around time for shipping or customer service (other than to say they were lovely to deal with when arranging products to review). So I'd love to hear from anyone that has ordered from them to know what their TAT and service is like.

Products provided for review.

Saturday, November 21, 2015

on 3 comments

40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Grey and a colour

Another week, another new challenge prompt.  I have to say that I'm very grateful for this challenge, because it is ensuring I keep up with some interesting combinations that I wouldn't ordinarily try, and therefore fall into the same patterns of the same sort of nail art manis.  

This weeks prompt for the 40 great nail art ideas challenge is to use grey +  a colour, plus your personal technique prompt.  My prompt this week is negative space.

This is a bit of a random one.  I started with a layer of base coat and then a layer of clear coat.  On that I stamped a swirly pattern using light grey polish.  I then outlined all my nails with a light grey.  I needed to add my pop of colour, and this is what happened.  I wish they were more perfectly even, but that's never going to happen when I'm free handing them on. 

I used Pretty Serious The Pink One, which is an amazing neon pink with a bright blue shimmer.  I then outlined the diamond shapes with a dark grey polish.  

I'm not sure that I like this one in pictures, although I did like how it looked wearing it, although maybe because it ended up matching my outfit.  I do love it when my nails and clothes match.  I'm most definitely in the matchy matchy camp rather than the contrast camp when it comes to nails and outfits





Thursday, November 19, 2015

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Picture Polish Nougat with Lace Stamping

I'm pulling this one from the vault as it's a quick and easy mani to write up about, plus its a good contrast to my last mani.

This is a very simple one, which uses my favourite lace stamping plate Messy Mansion MM44, stamped with Mundo de Unas White over Picture Polish Nougat.

I'm tired, it is late so that is all.





Tuesday, November 17, 2015

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Red carpet nails for a movie premier

I have some very showy, jewel encrusted nails for you today that I actually did to show support to some friends of mine who are in Kochi, India right now, about to attend a red carpet movie premier for a screen play they wrote and directed, which was filmed around my home town of Canberra, Australia.  

My daughter has a very small part in the movie, and as such we were invited to the red carpet premier in India, but unfortunately we were not able to make it. So to show my support, I wore these nails today, inspired by Indian wedding jewellery, which I pretended I was wearing to attend the red carpet event.

The base polish is Ozotic pro 621. While I know the Picture Polish Bridget is suppose to be the same polish, I find the picture polish version more orange and not as intense.  I'll have to do you a comparison one day.  The jewels are Swarovski crystals that I hand placed with gold bullions and the silver dotted lines are individual nail sticker strips that I was gifted.





Now let me tell you a bit more about the movie. The movie is called Salt Bridge and it's a Hindi movie, and I'm not even certain what the story is about, other than it's a drama about an migrant Indian family in a town called Salt Bridge and the various relationships they make, particularly the main lead man with an Australian woman and how the local community reacts.  At least that's my take on it from a few conversations and watching a few scenes being recorded.  I hope to see it released in Australia where I can sit and watch it through with the English captions, then I'll finally know what it's about.

Like I mentioned above, my daughter has a small role in the movie, playing the main female lead's daughter.  That role is played by New Zealand actor Chelsea Preston Crayford, which Aussies might remember her from playing the brothel owner in Underbelly: Razor, which she won the silver logie for in 2012. I'm told that both my mum and I make an appearance in the background of a few scenes too, I think we were in the wrong places at the right time!

This is a photo from the Salt Bridge website, which shows my cutie daughter feeding the swans and ducks with the main lead actor, Rajeev Khandelwal.


Monday, November 16, 2015

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Picture Polish Wanderlust with MLP Pinkie Pie

A few weeks back I saw some new stamping plates on facebook group Adventures in Stamping, by Moon Nail Supplies. The plates I saw had a whole range of My Little Pony images on them.  This is plate Moon NS1, (NS3 is the second one). There was no way I could resist buying the plates given my daughters obsession with all things MLP.

I also recently received Picture Polish Wanderlust in the mail which was just the most perfect pink polish to pair up with Pinkie Pie (oh that line is almost a tongue twister).

I created a decal for Pinkie Pie using my Uber Chic mat, colouring it in with Picture Polish Fairy Floss and Hot Lips. 

Wonderlust is a gorgeous bright candy pink with a strong blue shimmer and a fine sprinkling of scattered holo. Coverage is great and is shown here at two coats. Wonderlust is a collaboration shade with Canadian Instagrammer Manal aka Naildecor.
 



Of course Miss 4 had to have matching Pinkie Pie nails!  She managed to keep these on for more than 24 hours before picking them off.  I figure if she can wear a mani for as long as me, then she's doing ok, but I've told her I will only paint her nails once a week, so if she picks them off earlier she will have naked nails until the weekend.


Picture Polish Wanderlust is available from Picture Polish. International readers may be able purchase through one of the many Network stockists if they have this in stock.
Polish provided for consideration.

About Me

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I live in Canberra, Australia with my husband, Mr Ten and Miss Eight. My blog is all about nail polish, and a few other bits in between. You can contact me at morenailpolish@iinet.net.au