Today's post, like the rest of the week, was all about where the polish was from. In this case, Russia, and therefore in the Asian continent. Yet I ended up doing an Egyptian theme, so you could also say that this mani represents the African continent.

This mani was so amazing, and I'm really pissed at myself. You see I created this beautiful design with a light blue to yellow gradient as the background. I then used the Bow thermal polishes to create a dark sunset gradient over the top. Then I only remembered to photograph it in the warm state, were you can't even see the Bow thermal top coats except for the holo sparkles.

The only thing I did remember to do was a transition video. So that's the only way you will get to see the cold state.

Whenever I get a gradient prompt in a nail art challenge I have a secret desire to make it a rainbow gradient.  I love rainbow's so much and particularly love them on my nails.  In fact in my facebook feed the other day there were stunning rings with gemstones in rainbow colours.  They are marketed toward the LGBT as pride rings, and if they weren't so expensive I'd have bought several.

So today's gradient is classic rainbow, topped with a thinned out layer of Kester Black Milky Way, which is a fine grade but very holoy silver glitter topper.

Last year Sveta Sanders on Instagram did an amazing dragon skin gradient using crackle polish.  It was the first the I saw crackle polish look amazing and I knew back then that i had to attempt her design.  Then last month when it was Digital Dozen Nail Heroes week, Laurie over at Dressed up Digits tried her hand at the design and reminded me that I hadn't yet done it.

So then the search began through my helmers to actually find a bottle of crackle polish.  It turns out I actually don't own much of it.  I have a few bottle of China Glaze metallic crackles, but they don't crackle the right sort of way, they are more shatter than crackle.  The only bottle I had was a bright orange Barry M version that was a 'web' effect.  It created exactly the pattern I wanted but it did one strange thing.

I started with a white base and then applied the web effect Barry M polish.  As it dried it created a nice crackle look that was a good match to dragon skin. But then as I applied my metallic gradient over the top i noticed that the crackle polish just kept shrinking and shrinking, and the gaps between each scale became larger and larger.  It didn't matter how much I then tried to add more gradient on top to fill in the gaps that were starting to show bare nail through, cause it just kept shrinking up.  In the end I just left it with the huge gaps.  I didn't end up putting top coat on either as I didn't want it to shrink even more.

The used some Sally Hansen Color foils for the gradient.

I had another huge day at work today, very stressful and very busy.  Yesterday my section upgraded our intranet operating system and migrated all content from one site to another, which was the culmination of about 4 months of work.  Today everyone was back at work and it was the real test as to whether everything was ok or not.  My team was awesome fixing issues straight away, not that there were too many issues. But some things out of our control went wrong, which stressed me out pretty bad and the executives were very reactive about getting us to double and triple check everything.  Anyway, I made it through the day, and hopefully things can only get better from here. I think I might have an early night tonight.

So today I'll leave you with this little gem of a mani.  The combo of neon and this stamping image from on of the Moyou 80's plate definitely gave this mani a retro vibe.  In fact one of my work colleagues checked out this mani when we had a meeting together, and her comment was "hmm, they are very eighties", with a smile and a nod.  I was very impressed that they looked 80's to someone who wasn't a nail polish nutter!

I used Pipedream polish Day of Light, 110 degrees and Happy Hour for the gradient. Mundo de Unas black polish for the stamping and Swarovski crystals on my ring finger over black.

Half moons -  one of the least inspiring prompts for me.  I had no idea what to put on my nails until I was talking to my mum about it.  She reminded me of her favorite half moon mani that I did back in March last year.  It was a skittle gradient half moon.  After talking it through a bit, we came up with the idea of doing the same thing, but with holo polishes for the gradient.

I don't have the patience to list out all the polishes, because there were a lot! Each gradient used three holo colours, then there was the base creme. I think in the end I used 16 polishes, but the results are totally worth it!

I've really taken today's prompt of polka dots to a whole 'nother level.  I was a bit stuck for a new idea to create for a dotticure, especially as I loved my dotticure mani from last year's challenge so much!  So, I ended up doing something completely different.  I created a spring scene using nothing but dots.

The background is a soft blue gradient, but other than that, it's all dots.  I particularly like how the clouds and birds turned out.  Of course the size perspective of the flowers and trees is totally out of whack, but I still love the final mani, and it's just perfect for us Aussies and other southern hemisphere dwellers, given that all the blossom trees are in full bloom at the moment.

I feel like I've entered a fairy wonderland with these nails.  The colours are so magical, then there is the glitter top coat and then the pretty golden butterfly nail charms.

I used five of the six creme colours from last years China Glaze Sunsational collection to create a vertical gradient across my nails.  I topped the gradient with Kester Black Milky Way, which is beautifully sparkly fine holographic silver holo polish.  It's also the perfect opacity, because you can do a very thin coat to make it look like this, or you can use three normal coats and get full coverage.

I couldn't just leave it at one nail charm, I add to add both butterflies I had purchased from Hex Nail Charms.  I attached these with the supplied glue from Hex Nail Charms to my finished mani.  They lasted beautifully, until literally just before I went to remove my polish for the next mani.  I checked my nails and noticed that I had lost the large butterfly off my right hand.  I'm not sure if I lost it preparing dinner (ummm, nomm nomm), or whilst showering the kids, but now I don't have a matching set which makes me sad.  I guess I will just have to place another Hex Charms order.

I created this mani after being inspired by @bettinanails on instagram. I started with a white base and applied a four colour gradient using Picture Polish Flirt, Wisteria, Swagger and Lime Lite.  It all felt very bright at this stage and I was worried that the glitter I was planning to put on top wouldn't show up very well, so I then applied two coats to OPI Don't touch my tutu.  This really softened the colours and gave them a more pastel appearance.

Next I tried to create a neat and detailed glitter placement using the glitters out of Penelope Luz Picasso.  I wasn't able to get them as neat as the ones Bettinanails did, but I was still thrilled with the results.  The easiest way for me to get the glitters out of a bottle of polish for placement on my nails is to apply a few brush strokes to a small flat dish that I used for my nail art. I then grab each litter using my dotting tool by pushing on it and sliding it along to the edge of the dish and then it stays on the tip of the dotting tool.

Here is a quick and easy mani which has mix of a gradient with stamping.

The polishes I used were Picture Polish tango, chillax and marine in the gradient. The glitter is Kester Black Milky Way and it's a fine mix of bright silver holographic glitter. The base for the stamping is tango and it is stamped with Mundo de Unas Aqua stamping polish. The plate is Lily Anna plate LA13 and I love the design, because it looks like a complex tape mani, but instead it's a super quick and easy stamp.

When my nail art mojo bottoms out, I turn to instagram for inspiration.  This happened one night a few weeks ago.

This groovy design is inspired by @nailartdiary and @packapunch and something they both created nearly two years ago!  Don't ask me what I was doing scrolling through old feeds, I sometime just get lost in people feeds and checking out what the've done for the last few years.  I then snap shot them on my ipad and save them for when my inspiration is dead.

I did a base of OPI Push and Shove.  I then taped off the top and bottom leaving the middle part of the nail exposed.  I then did a rainbow gradient across my nails.  Lastly I added the black edges with a striping brush and the white lines with white acrylic paint.

This mani felt very retro and the combo of the metallic silver and the rainbow sure was attention grabbing.

I've been wearing quite a few 'spring' feeling manis recently and I finally got the urge to do an Autumn one.  The leaves are just starting to change colour here now and Canberra always looks so pretty in Autumn.  

This mani was done by starting with a white base.  I then taped off the top at the base of the nail and applied a piece of striping tape down the centre of each nail.  Next I used a sponge to create the gradient.  The colours I used were Picture Polish Violet Femme, Frank-n-furter and Citrus and OPI I Can't Cope-a-cabana. I finished it all of with a coat of OPI Matte Top Coat.

Thanks for stopping by.