After two solid days of bed rest I'm think I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Tonsillitis really knocks me around, I seem to get it an awful lot, at least once every year I think.  My tonsils are still huge and white and I've not eaten for two days, but I did just manage a cup of green tea and feel much better for it.  Mind you, not well enough to stay up and paint my nails, but luckily I still have two manis up my sleeve.

Today's prompt is inspired by a song. I find this last part of the challenge the hardest.  I had no idea what to for this mani, no songs were jumping out at me for a theme.  I actually sat at my nail painting table for half an hour trying to think of something, then an ad came on TV for part two of a mini series shown here in Australia - Peter Allen - Not the boy next door.  Once of the song featured in the ad, and ultimately in the show is my favourite Peter Allen song - I still call Australia home.

As soon as I hear the song my nail art theme immediately came to mind.  The first line of the song is 

The nail polish colour that I chose to be inspired by is Dance Legend Optical Illusion.  I then stamped with some optical illusion design using Hit the Bottle Polish.

I'm sorry that I all I have tonight, I have tonsillitis and have been sleeping all day.  I wont be doing my nails tonight with means I probably will fall behind in the challenge.  Such is life.

I used to get so worried about watermarble day in the challenge, it's either going to work amazing for you, or be a horrible mess.  Generally if you have the Pipedream ANIVC then it's going to be a good watermarbling day, and luckily for me - I do!

I really wanted to get all the colours from the collection onto each nail, which meant I needed to do a very tight watermarble.  I used my own polish mix for the clear polish between each drop when making the bullseye and was happy that I got all seven colours on each nail.

My base is Nfu Oh 61 - silver holo and then I added the watermarble over the top. I like how these almost look like a spiders web.

I love galaxy prompt, cause it doesn't matter how many times you have done a galaxy mani, it will always turn out differently.

Looking back at previous galaxy designs I've done, I realised that I've never done a pastel galaxy, so I figured now was the right time.

I started with a white base and only used three polishes to create the galaxy effect, Picture Polish Wisteria and Fairy Floss and Cult nails Time Traveler (mixed with white).  I applied a very thin, dry brushy stroke of Dance Legend Steel Panther to get a sparkly sheen.

How is everyone else fairing with the Challenge.  I'm finding the daily blogging tiring, and often wonder if should drop the blog and just stick with Instagram. It's so quick and easy to post there.  But then I wouldn't have this ongoing written history.

After wearing the bling of glitter yesterday I went with something very classic for my half moon design, a nude and black half moon french.

I liked how this looked on me in real life, but now that I've edited my photos, I'm feeling a bit 'meh' about it.  Maybe different colours would have worked better for the photos, because the black gets lost on the bottle lid or background and the neutral colour blends very closely to my skin. The end result makes it look like I have really, really short round nails!

If there is any day that calls for a glitter placement mani, then it's the glitter prompt for the 31 Day challenge.  I did one last year using much larger glitters and it was tiring but ultimately successful.  This year I wanted to take it to another level.  

I prepped ahead of time and placed an order from the sparkly shop for a range of mini glitters.  I purchased my glitters from the Sparkly Shop as it's run by the queen of glitter placement - Laura from Polish All the Nails. I'll just wait here while you go and look at the awesomeness that glitter placement can look like if done by a God of glitter placement, then you can come back here and see what a regular person can achieve!

Looking at these independently you'd think they are actually pretty awesome, but I tell you, I don't know how Laura manages to line up each and every single piece of glitter so perfectly!  I'd be lucky if two pieces were aligned straight!  

Anyway, I actually used five shades of holo glitter for this mani from warm gold, yellow gold, teal green, blue and sapphire.  And I did all five fingers.  

Do you want to know how long this too me to do?  Ok, well each nail took 30 mins on it's own, so for these five fingers it was two and a half hours. After the first hour my back and shoulders were killing me and I felt I was going blind from looking at the tiny glitter and trying to get it lined up.

I did not do my right hand with glitter placement, instead I did a black base, then applied top coat and then smooshed the same glitters randomly onto my nails.  They were sparkly and similar and certainly close enough for my liking during the 31 Day challenge.

I think it will be a while before I attempt another glitter placement - maybe another year!

Arrggh, I didn't paint my nails last night and I'm at risk of falling behind in the challenge.  I might just have to do a double mani this weekend if I can squeeze it in, to give me some breathing room.

Tonight I have another mani courtesy of my Uber Mat.  It makes doing stamping decals so easy, and I've never had them work out so perfectly before I got my Uber Chic mat.

I used Born Pretty Store plate BP-L03 for the stamping image.  I stamped the image on my Uber Chic mat and then coloured it in with the Pipe dream A Night in Vegas collection. I applied top coat, and then waited about 10 minutes for them to dry enough to peel off cleanly.  I painted a white base on my nails and then simply pressed down the decals, trimmed the edges and cleaned up with acetone and a brush.

Now, off to paint my nails...

I've always interpreted the delicate prompt to be something that is delicate, rather that doing an actual delicate print on my nails, such a fine filigree designs or lace.  My first year I chose some on my mum's Noritake china, and last year I chose our Swarovski crystal wine glasses.  

This year I pulled out my husbands and my wedding china, which is the full place setting of Mikasa china, in a design called 'Millefleur'.  This is the china setting that we rarely use, cause we are too scared to break it, so most of the time it sits in the display cabinet collecting dust.

I'm so pleased with how this came out.  It's not the most perfect design, cause it's all free hand. Of course I would have loved to find a stamping plate that had the exact pattern, cause then my lines and dots would have been nearly perfect, but still I think this is really special.  Probably because it means something to me.