Friday, May 31, 2013

on 12 comments

Guest Blogger - Jas from Jas's Blingtastic Nails

Where am I? - Just departing Mare island, where I probably spent the day relaxing, swimming, watching the kids play, playing games on my ipad and eating (of course)

Tonight's guest blogger is Jas from Jas's Blingtastic Nails. I love braided nails, and really love this look with them on the tips.  Jas, show 'em what you've got.

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Hello everyone, my name is Jas from Jas's Blingtastic Nails and tonight I have the honor of guest posting for you whilst Cathy is away. Today I have for you a twist on a couple of trends that have been floating around for a little while. This is the love child of the Fishtail Braid manicure and the Chevron tip look. I guess it's the half braid look? For this look I used a color I have been meaning to use for ages, Nubar Pasadena Purple. Of course, AFTER I used it I realized how hard it is to photograph, ah well, I loved the color so I hope I did it justice in the pics!

The finished look. Pic taken in lightbox

To start I did a base color with 2 coats of Nubar Pasadena Purple, this was a little tricky to apply.

Nubar Pasadena Purple in fading light.

Then starting around halfway down my nails I started to freehand the Fishtail Braid, which you can see an awesome tutorial at Lucy's Stash Fishtail Braid. I used China Glaze Liquid Leather and Millennium for the braid as I was going for an elegant look.

Pasadena Purple Half Braid. Ring accent with Nfu Oh 51. Full Sun





Gorgeous red flakies from Nfu-Oh 51


 I had to throw in a pic of what I saw when I looked down at my nails! :)

This look was reasonably easy to do if you have a steady hand and follow the tutorial from Lucy's stash step by step. With starting half way down the nail you don't have to worry about the polish building and thickening the more layers you apply which can be a downfall in the full fishtail look. The three different polishes you chose are best if they are reasonable opaque to cover each layer as you go along, and, you could also add the half braid look to a slightly older manicure to extend the life of manicure and cover any tip wear/chipping oh-so-easily.

I did add a top coat to make sure there were no lumps and this also helped with the streakiness I had in the first pic :)

Hope you found my post interesting and thanks for reading

xox
Jas
on 13 comments

Guest Blogger - Bec from Lacquer Dreams


Where am I today? - Arriving at the tropical island of Mare in New Caledonia - currently sleeping or eating.

Guest blogger #4 for you tonight is Bec from Lacquer Dreams sharing some colour block nail art. I love colour blocking, especially seeing different ways to tape of the nail. Thanks Bec and over to you.

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Hi guys! My name is Bec and I reside over at LacquerDreams. I am super excited to be posting here, More Nail Polish was one of the very first blogs I started reading, and gave me the courage to start my own!

Today I have a nude and neon combo for you. I love contrasting colours, and what better than this?! I used 2 coats of ButterLONDON Yummy Mummy, let it dry and then applied striping tape to the nail. Once I (eventually!) had the tape in place, I applied a thickish layer of the ultimate neon, China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy. As soon as I had the FFF on, I removed the tape, let it dry a little, and then added top coat.





I really hope you enjoyed this post, and a HUGE thanks to Cathy for the opportunity!

<3 Bec

Thursday, May 30, 2013

on 31 comments

Guest Blogger - Natalia from Cats-n-nails

Where am I today? - still off the east coast of Australia on a cruise ship, probably eating.

Tonight's post is from Natalia from Cats-n-nails and she is sharing a detailed post about applying full nail water decals.  I've never tried full nail water decals, but these look stunning and I really want to after seeing these.  Go for it Natalia.

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Many thanks to Cathy for inviting guest posts – makes me feel very privileged to write for such a well-known blog! I hope you enjoy my contribution ;)

Pictorial for applying full nail water decals

Ok so here goes, a couple of steps involved, but it’s a great quick and easy way to spruce up nails without spending too much time/money/effort. I have only done this about 3 times, so that just shows how easy it is.

First of all I recommend you have all the supplies ready.



I used a tiny little container for water, because the only thing you’ll be dipping is the decal. Plus essentials like paper towel, tweezers, scissors and a nail file.

I like to start with choosing a base colour to match the decals best, this way even if the application isn’t perfect or you get a little tear – no one will ever find out (shhh!).

 

I picked out a few that could be a good match, swatched them on a wheel and compared to the decal.



If you are wondering why I didn’t just use the bottles to see the colour – it’s because bottle colour can differ a shade or two.

Now that you’ve got everything ready, time to play! Paint your nails with a regular base coat (in my case I chose Duri).



Then add the base colour – here I used OPI Mermaid’s Tears



While your nails are drying, carefully cut the decals and roughly choose the sizes you’re going to use (there will most likely be more than 10 decal sizes). See how even the smallest one was a bit too large?



I used the scissors to trim a little bit to fit better.

Using the tweezers, drop the first decal into the water and leave for 15-20 seconds. After the allocated time, carefully take the decal out and blot on the paper towel.




Now you are ready to lift it onto the nail, being careful not to fold it.



It is quite delicate, but once it’s on the nail - you will have a little bit of time before it dries - to slide the decal into position and press down gently.

Once the decal is dry to the touch and does not move around, cut most of the excess off and gently file the remainder in a downward motion.



After you have done all of your nails – add a top coat (nothing fast drying, just a regular one – I used a Color Club clear polish in fact)

That’s it! The whole operation takes around a minute per nail. And to show you how easy it is I even did my right hand (I am right handed).



I do hope my little pictorial helps you and maybe you will try it out, if you haven’t already. Feel free to share with me at cats-n-nails!

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

on 13 comments

Guest Blogger - Michelle Lab Muffin

Where am I today? - Somewhere off the east coast of Australia, sipping a cocktail watching the kids play in the water park on the top of the cruise ship.

Guest blogger #2 for you tonight is Michelle from Lab Muffin sharing a drag marbling tutorial.  I've never tried this technique, so it's great to share something new on my blog. Take it away Michelle.

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I'm Michelle from Lab Muffin and Polish or Perish, and I'm very excited to be posting a tutorial here that many people have asked me about - drag marbling.



If you love the random swirly patterns of water marbles, but don't want to deal with the mess and frustration, you might want to try out one of my favourite techniques, drag marbling. The effect isn't quite as spectacular in my opinion, but to me it's got its own special charm, and it's much less trouble.
[first image]

The specific design I'll be showing today is a tortoiseshell design. It was the first nail art I ever posted on my blog, and I recently redid it here. Despite having a year more experience, I don't think it turned out much better (although my photography has improved a lot!), so I'd say it's a pretty foolproof technique!



You'll need:
- Base and top coat (Nails Inc Caviar and Seche Vite in my case)
- Two polishes, one creme and one metallic - I used ulta3 Black Satin and Sunkissed
- Pointy toothpick

First, prep all your nails with base coat and let it dry. It's easiest to work on one nail at a time through the next steps:

1. Paint a thick coat of your creme polish.

2. Immediately dab a stripe of your metallic down the middle of your nail. It doesn’t have to be neat, it'll soon be unrecognisable!

3. Grab your toothpick and quickly draw a messy zigzag down the middle of your nail (I've indicated my zigzag in purple).

4. If you worked fast enough, your nail should now look like this! If there are lots of bald patches, you can try working faster, making sure only the point of the toothpick is in the polish, or using slower drying polishes.

Clean up the edges and add top coat to finish.



I love this look because it's so easy to create interesting patterns with this technique! If you try it, I'd love to see the results :)

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

on 15 comments

Guest Blogger - Jen from The Polish Project

Right about now myself, Mr More Nail Polish and the two little kiddos will be sailing out of Sydney Harbour enjoying the vivid light festival as we leave the city for our south pacific cruise.

Tonight I get to share with you the first of 15 guest posts that I have scheduled while I'm away.

Please welcome my first guest blogger - Jen from The Polish Project.  I have a huge crush on her nails and her photography is always stunning. Over to you Jen.

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Hi Cathy's Readers! I'm standing in today for Cathy while she is off on holiday. This is my very first guest post so I thought I would do a skittlette manicure inspired by another first of mine - Emily de Molly Ego Friendly which was both my first EdM and first Australian indie polish. Ego Friendly is a gorgeous soft pale blue creme with turquoise, silver and green hex glitter and turquoise shards.


130519-NOTD-Turquoise-Skittlette-IMG_6791

After rummaging around in my helmers I came up with a trio of Zoyas to help complete the look - Dove, Wednesday and Zuza. I went with EdM Ego Friendly on my pointer and middle nails, Zoya Dove on my ring finger stamped with Zoya Zuza and a design from BundleMonster plate BM-310and a gradient on my thumb and little fingers using Zoya Wednesday and Essie Absolutely Shore.
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This came out looking even better than I anticipated (given that I completely forgot about this until the night before it was due...it's like leaving your homework until the last minute all over again!) I loved how delicate the stamping looked and the way the gradient turned out. All in all I think it's a perfect compliment to Ego Friendly :)

Monday, May 27, 2013

on 1 comment

... and a holiday

I've just moved this mani to a seperate post, because we're only allowed one mani in the entry for the Beauty and the Beach 2 contest. 

Here is the actual mani I've put on for our South Pacific Cruise holiday, because, while the other mani was uber pretty to look it, it's not really a pratical mani to wear on holiday.  So what would I wear?  Exactly this..

No surprises here - it's gold. I love gold polish, especially for holidays.  When you're away on holidays and your polish chips, you usually don't have the tools you need to fix your mani or change your polish. With a gold or flesh coloured polish, chipping isn't as noticeable.  The other thing I did for my holiday nails is started with a gel base.  I used Gelicious optional base coat, which is just a clear soak of gel polish, and Gelicious ultra glaze top coat.  Using a gel base for a holiday mani provides me with a much longer wear time than I would normally get from regular polish. Plus I'll be doing lots of swimming and polish always chips off lots when you're swimming, but a gel base really helps it last.

This is the mani that I put on last night and I truly will be wearing on our holiday, leaving tomorrow morning.

I created this simple look with Picture Polish Majesty as the base colour, then I did a simple freehand strip down the centre of the nail using OPI Golden Eye.  I finished it off using a striping brush and Essie No place like Chrome. Simple tone on tone gold.  It will match the sparking sand and twinkle in the sun.





So that's it folks, I'm off on vacation and wont be back on here for nearly two weeks!!  Myself, Mr More Nail Polish, Mr 5 and Miss 2 are off on a South Pacific cruise.  We sail out of Sydney tomorrow and I can't wait.  It will be warm and sunny and a delightful change from Canberra's start to the cold winter.  Big hugs to my folks who are house sitting and looking after my kitty cats while were are away.

Of course I wouldn't leave you all without having prepared something for while I'm away,. You will all be pleased to know that I have organised 15 guest blog posts from a whole range of awesome Aussie nail enthusiasts.  Needless to say, I wont be replying to emails or responding to comments while I'm gone, but I will catch up when I get home.

Enjoy!
on 28 comments

Beauty and the Beach 2

Last year, Travelsupermarket.com did an awesome competition called Beauty and the Beach which had three entry components related to beauty blogging.  They are at it again and have a new competition that closes on 5 June (yep there is still time to enter everyone) where you just need to share your perfect holiday hair, nails and make-up. There are three categories - one for hair, one for makeup and one for nails. There are some HUGE prizes for each category plus an overall prize for a blogger that enters all three.  You can find out all the details on the Beauty and the Beach 2 website.

Tonight's post is my entry for the competition and the timing really is perfect for me, because tonight is my last blog post before I head off on a holiday and an absence from my blog for a while.

My entry is an underwater layered 3D design.  

I created the look using a blue jelly polish and a silver foil polish.  I painted a layer of the blue jelly polish and let that dry, then I painted about five or six free hand little fish using a fine dotting tool and the silver foil polish across all my nails.  I also stamped some swirly seaweed from BM225. 

Then I layered another coat of the blue jelly polish, waited a bit for it to dry and added some more dotted fish.  I continued this process with layering blue jelly polish and dotted fish until I was happy with the layered 3D look.

Lastly I added a french tip using Zoya Godiva - cause I wanted that sandy textured finish. But I felt it wasn't sparkly enough, so I grabbed some gold glitter and added a bit of a gradient over the pixie dust polish.  To add a bit more colour I pushed some red star rhinestones into the polish to represent starfish and I added a few select round studs so they looked like little pearls on the ocean floor.

This was such an interesting mani to look at and when people checked out my nails they really were amazed and studied them for a while, rather than just the normal glance.
t is really simple to enter - all you need is a blog and your skills. Publish a blog post on to your site with pictures of either holiday hair, make-up or nails, or all three if you want to be in with a chance of winning the overall prize. Describe how you achieved the look for anyone trying to recreate it - you can even give details on what kind of holiday you would wear your look on, or where you have already worn it on. - See more at: http://www.travelsupermarket.com/c/holidays/beauty-and-the-beach-two/#sthash.VlL4OLAj.dpuf





So there you have it.  My crazy underwater beach nails, all ready for me to wear on our South Pacific Cruise leaving tomorrow.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

on 5 comments

Fake Tattoos - Jester / Harlequin nail art

Here is another design I created using the nail tattoos I received from Fake Tattoos.  This one features a little three pointed hat, which I interpreted as a jesters hat, from the Hearts & Bow design.

I created a skittlette with this mani, where I used three designs across five nails.  

For my thumb and pinky, I started with my nail painted with Pretty Serious Poltergeist Puddle and then sponged on a gradient with China Glaze Running in Circles.

For my index and middle fingers, I started with a base of Zoya Ziv and then painted on free hand diamond shapes using Pretty Serious Poltergeist Puddle, China Glaze Running in Circles and black.

On my ring finger, I used a white base and then applied the fake tattoo.  I then place alternative purple and green holographic hexes as a frame around the nail.

Up close my harlequin design looks pretty messy and uneven because it was done by hand, but at a normal distance these looked so effective.  I really loved this mani.

The other thing I discovered is that the Fake Tattoo really have to be placed over a pale nail colour.  I originally place the yellow jester hat tattoo over a base of Poltergeist Puddle, but you just couldn't see it at all.  The yellow colour is transparent, rather than an opaque yellow. Luckily the pack had five little hats, so I still had spares after redoing that nail.





Saturday, May 25, 2013

on 16 comments

Dance Legend - Rich Black Collection

I have a couple more Dance Legend polishes to show you tonight. Just to recap, Dance Legend are a big Russian brand that has recently started shipping worldwide - and from my experience so far, their polishes are amazing.

These two polishes are from the Rich Black Collection, which has nine different black finish polishes. Eight of the nine polishes contain various glitter combinations, and the last one contains green flakies.  I have one of the glitters and the green flaky to show you.

Christmas Eve - a black jelly base with silver holographic glitters in three sizes.  Glitter payoff was fantastic, this polish is chock full of glitter, in fact there is so much glitter that the formula is a little thick. The jelly base is just the right opacity, sheer enough for the glitters to shine and show maximum depth and opaque enough to provide full coverage. This is two coats of Christmas Eve with Seche Vite top coat.





Green Mamba - a black jelly base with green to blue duochrome flakies. The formula on this one was smooth and easy to apply.  These first photos show two coats of Green Mamba with Seche Vite.




I put this mani on at night time and photographed it in the morning - just like my usual routine.  After I photographed it shiny, I knew that flakies look great matte, so I grabbed out my new bottle of OPI Matte top coat and slapped on a quick coat before work (at least so I thought I did).  

As I applied the top coat, I thought how milky it looked, but I knew it would go more transparent as it dried to the matte finish.  I painted both hands with the top coat and waited a few minutes.  For some reason the polish was staying shiny and it still looked really milky.  It was only then that I realized that I had mistakenly grabbed my bottle of OPI Don't touch my tutu and applied a layer of it all over my perfect black nails - and just before work too!  Let me tell you I was rather pissed off at myself.  

So I did want only another nail polish fanatic would be, I decided to be 10 minutes later to work and I removed all my polish and did it over again, with the correct matte top coat. And luckily, I loved the final look and it didn't matter that I was late for work.



Dance Legend polishes are available from the Dance Legend website.The Rich Black polishes are $9 each and international postage is $10 (for free for more than 10 polishes).

Polishes provided for review.

Friday, May 24, 2013

on 6 comments

Fake Tattoos - The Birds

Here is another design I created using the nail tattoos I received from Fake Tattoos.  All these images are from the bird design.

I created a simple blue gradient with a white base and OPI No room for the Blues.  I got the darker shade by blending a little black polish with the OPI and the lighter shade by blending a little white.

I found placement a little tricky with these, because when the paper is face down you can't clearly see the angle of the design on your nails. This mean I had to create my black french tip a little uneven on each nail to cover the gap, otherwise some birds would be just sitting there in mid air.




I know a couple of girls that would be totally freaked out by these nails, complete ornithophobics!

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