A few weeks ago I spotted a lady selling a bunch of Minx nail wraps on an Aussie nail polish sale site. I was pretty excited to see that she had a whole bunch of metallic designs (and they were only $5 a set!).  I remember reading reviews about Minx way back in 2009 on All Lacquered up, and then more recently in 2013 on ChitChatNails, and ever since I've really wanted to try them out.  

When Minx Professional wraps first came out, there was nothing else really like them. Today however there are so many different brand of nail wraps.  So far in my testing, I've come across three types of nail wraps.  

I've only ever seen Minx available as a salon service, as they aren't designed to be applied by your average Joe at home, but how hard can it be, right?

I used a small fan heater to heat these up as I was applying them, and I nearly managed to get them applied without any wrinkles on the sides (if you look closely you will see some).  I didn't find them any more difficult any any other brand to apply, but I can't really comment on the wear, because this is the 31 Day Challenge after all and ain't nobody got time for that.

This colour is called Spartan White Gold and it's a light silvery toned gold.  Of course I love how metallic these are, because they are UBER metallic. In fact they are just as metallic as my previous stick on metallic nails in Gold, Silver and Blue. But the thing I love more about these than the stick on's is that they are so thin and still look like my real nails (or at least as real as any nails can look when they look like they have been dipped in molten gold!)

Welcome to Black and White day. In the past I've struggled to go past simple stamped black and white nails, and as it turned out my black and white optical illusion nails last year were one of my most popular from the entire 31 Day Challenge.  I nearly did stamping again, but wanted to find another technique and push myself a bit more.

I ended up revisiting a design I have done already two times - just cause I love it that much!  A simple gradient with advanced stamped flowers.  I just love how this turned out, but with one exception.  Can you spot it??  That damn ring finger and the flower that didn't stick down the first time I transferred it, and then stuck down in the wrong place making my alignment a total screw up.  I know, it's probably just me being a perfectionist again, but it's really sticking out like dogs balls to me :).

The flowers are from Moyou Suki 01 plate and the rest of the design is just black or white polish.

I must confess, I actually did these nails before the challenge started.  Miss 4 had been asking and asking for Twilight Sparkle nails ever since we did Rainbow Dash nails together. I totally forgot to get a shot of our nails together this time unfortunately. After I had finished editing the photos I realised how perfectly these fit the Violet prompt of the 31 Day challenge, so I hung onto them to post today.  Plus is gave me an extra day up my sleeve to ensure I got all the prompt completed.

The base shade here is the new version of Picture Polish wisteria. Twilight is painted using wisteria, flirt and violet femme, over a base of beige.  The dark blue polish is Cult Nails Time Traveler, with a drop of white added to make it a touch lighter.

One thing I truly love about the 31 Day Challenge if finding new talented nail artists out there to follow.  Now I'm talking to all you ladies using the inlinkz, because whether you blog or post to instagram, I'm now following some many new blogs and new instagram accounts - its' awesome.

Moving onto day 5 - Blue.  The design I chose to do was inspired by a photo I saw of blue mountains going off into the distance.  I only used two shades of blue for this look, Picture Polish sky and Cult nails Time traveler. For all the in between shades I just mixed the two colours together.  

I'm a bit bummed at the bubbles I got in my top coat, I think it's because I ended up doing three layers of top coat to ensure it was glassy smooth, as painting the mountains like this means its much thicker at the nail tip than it is at the cuticle.

Oh man I love how these came out.  My Son is obsessed with Minecraft and he thought these were awesome.  They were also the perfect thing to paint on my nails for the green prompt because they use so many shades of green.

To create this look I first painted my nails with Ulta3 Kiwi Kaos.  I then did random dots all over my nails using about 5 or six shades of green.  

I used the Creeper nail vinyls that I received from Loki's Nail Vinyls.  With out them I don't think this mani would have turned out anywhere near as good. So far I've only ever used vinyls as stencils to paint over and then peel off.  In this instance I just stuck the vinyls down on my nail and put top coat over them.  So simple and so effective.

It was only after I had applied the vinyls that I realized that I hadn't used a light shade of green, especially when compared to an actual creeper image, so I had to add the light green ones in after the vinyls.  In these close up photos you can see the unevenness of those ones compared to the others.

Even though the Creepers design is very square for the other colours, using a dotting tool and only having round dots didn't make a difference at all. Effect achieved 100%.

Ok, I pushed myself on this one.  No stamping here today, all freehand. I think this mani proves the point as to why I prefer stamping, because I sure ain't no artist when it comes to painting on tiny nail sized canvases.

I was thinking of what design I should do and started thinking about things that are yellow.  Bananas... nah, I need to move away from the fruit theme with the picnic basket then oranges, bananas would have been a bit much. Minions... nah everyone does Minions nails, even though I haven't.  Lego mini figures... ooh maybe, they would be pretty easy to paint. Simpsons... sure I love The Simpsons and I can totally pull that off!! Ha!

I was inspired by the designs done my Polish Art Addict (I used to read Leslie's blog all the time and it's sad she has stopped blogging this year).  The big difference is that she painted hers with acrylic paint and I did this all with nail polish (plus her's are actually really good and mine are pretty crap - except for Homer, I'm happy with how he came out).

I'm all kinda pissed at myself that I forgot to photograph my right hand.  It was damn funny to see my attempt at this same design painted with my left hand. Although I could see some serious improvement with my brush control and that I'm definitely improving with my left hand.

The yellow polish is OPI I can't cope-a-cabana.  Red is OPI Big apple red and blue is OPI No room for the blues.  Time to move away from the freehand work me thinks!

Argh - could I be any more predictable for the orange prompt than Oranges!!  Seriously, get your act together women and use your brain a bit more to be more creative.  Despite my lack of creativity for this one, I do really love how it turned out.

I started with a white base and did a gradient using Ulta3 Atomic OJ and OPI Orange you Stylish.  I then applied some yellow/red flakies in the form of Colors by Llarowe Face of Boe.  Finally I stamped, using a mix of red and orange stamping polishes from Mundo de Unas with the oranges design from BM-308.  I especially love the orange flakies, as it looks so juicy.

And so it begins again - the 31 Day Challenge.  Thanks once again to Sarah from Chalkboard nails for getting us all motivated to collectively participate.  I'm not sure how many will participate this year, there were lots the last two years so I hope this year is just as good.  If you do join in, make sure you link up using the in-links below, even if you are just posting on instragram, you can still link up.  I'll definitely be checking out everyone's posts who link up.

The first prompt is RED.  The first week of prompts are very simple, just being a single colour, so you can really let your imagination run wide.  However the best my imagination could do was some stamping.  I'm really going to have to push myself to do some more free hand designs.

I used a plaid pattern stamping image from a Born Pretty store plate and the ants are off MJ III plate.