Friday Triad: Inspired by badgirlnails

It's Triad time and I decided to torture Joyce and Michelle. Neither of them are big on Halloween and they hate sheer polishes that show VNL, so I chose both, in one mani!

I chose this mani by @badgirlnails, I love Sonia's work. There is actually more than one of her mani's that I have on my list.

So I started with a coat of I love Hean 408 on my pinky, index and thumb. My middle finger has two coats of Catrice oyster & champagne. And my ring finger there is three coats of a sheer black polish I mixed myself.

I did a gradient with 408 and Essence black is back. For my ring finger I stamped with a black stamping polish and plate QA26. The spider is a Revlon stencil and Colours by Llarowe gemini rising.

I of course matted (is that a word?) with OPI matte and then it made white specks! Very annoyed by that. It was a bit late when I did this mani, so I do have a selfie light version.

I don't know if that makes a difference or not. I did frame my ring finger like Sonia did, but I cheated. I used a straight line stamp for the tip and a nail art pen for the cuticle end.

What do you think? I'm not too sure about my choice of textured polish and technically it wasn't my choice, it was BF's. But everyone loved the gradient and asked me to do it for them.

Don't forget to head over to Joyce and Michelle and give them some love.

Thanks for stopping by!

#52weeknailchallenge: blue

Okay, blue is a bit of a double whammy. Besides that the polish is blue, the name is blue marlin. So two blues! Also this is a bit of an archive mani. I did it ages ago and then I started the challenge and never got around to posting it.

I started with two coats of Ulta3 blue marlin on all my nails except my ring finger. On my ring finger I sponged on Essence I love my golden pumps.

On my index finger I made a decal using stamping plate BP-75 and Nubar silver mist. I coloured in the centre using I love Hean 880 and 878. On my middle finger I stamped using the same plate and silver mist.

For my ring finger I made another decal, again from the same stamping plate, using essence stampy polish in black. Coloured it in with I love Hean 878 and 880.

I'm a little disappointed with the image on my index finger... I couldn't get the crisp lines I wanted. The bottom part of the image kept getting a bit smudged. Eventually I just made do.

What do you think? I really liked this mani, even with the stupid feather not looking how I wanted it to look.

Thanks for reading!

#52weeknailchallenge: food

I've seen people do weird things with their nails and food... So I decided to go the not weird way and use cupcake vinyls from becauseishop.

I wanted to use a light base and preferably one that was holo, so I opted for Nubar brilliant.

This is either three or four coats and a flash shot so you can see the holo. There isn't much of it though. This is what I meant with Nubar being a hit and a miss... Last time I had this amazing one coater of a polish and now this. And there is still VNL.

For my cupcakes, I placed the vinyls on my miracle mat and coloured them in. For the base of the cupcakes on my index and ring finger I used Hean City Fashion 166, for the frosting Tip Top milkyway and the cherries Essence santa baby. I chose the crellies for the frosting so it looks like sprinkles!

For the base of the cupcake on my middle finger I used OPI dining al frisco and for the frosting Tip Top speck-tacular. For the cherry I used a bow shaped rhinestone I got from Aliexpress.

Most people were like cupcakes aren't food, but I'm sure there will be some who will disagree...

courtesy of google

What do you think? Does it count?

Thanks for reading!

Happy Friday 13th

I wasn't planning on posting today, but yesterday was such a bad day, that today can't be all that bad, right?

So with keeping in the theme of Friday 13th and halloween and all that I decided to share this mani early. As in I did it yesterday! Here's my mummie nails!

I started with two coats of Hean City Fashion white on all my nails. Once that was dry I took a piece of sponge and randomly sponged Sally Hansen honey whip, Sorbet chic me baby and Hean 273 from the jungle pop collection. I then double stamped from plate BP 67 using a gold stamping from BPS and caramel from Mundo de Unas.

I laid down some manicure guides (the old ones) on my miracle mat to make the black strip for the eyes. When that was dry, I placed it on my middle finger, made two white dots and two smaller red dots in the centre.

I then top coated, smudged my index finger and then painted a coat of OPI matte coat over it.

What do you think? Someone said it looks like melted chocolate or someting... With googley eyes.So I rolled my eyes at them.

As I side note and a rant, I hate it when people have no consideration for other people's time. Why come 4 mins before we close with a problem you have had the whole day?

Anyway, thanks for reading!

#52weeknailchallenge: inspired by a pattern

Soooo, pattern... It's probably a "difficult" prompt, but I've been wanting to do something, but I felt that I never had the right tools... I've never really had proper stamping polishes or a large variety of vinyls... Now I have a bit of both and I could finally do what I wanted to do for so long.

My one colleague has this scarf... Grey with almost neon orangey butterflies and I just love it! This is what I came up with.

I started with two coats of Tip Top triple putty on my index, middle and ring finger. On my thumb and pinky is two coats of Essence off to miami!.

I then placed some thousand butterflies vinyls from Cherry Blossom Store on my miracle mat. Then I painted a thin coat of off to miami! over the vinyls removing them and using it again... I found that I could use the same vinyl twice. I assume it's because I'm not placing them on my nail. Once they were semi dry I painted a clear coat of polish over it and waited again.

Once it was dry I peeled them off my mat and placed it on my nail. I top coated that and then painted OPI matt top coat over that. I left my pinky and thumb shiny.

And that is my pattern mani. What do you think? I love these vinyls even if they are a bit of a pain when it comes to peeling them off the backing.

Thanks for stopping by.

#52weeknailchallenge: pink

And so week 40 rolls by and... Wait, WHAT?! Week 40? Surely someones mistaken, it can't be... Only 12 weeks left of this year? Time to go on leave.

So I actually remembered with this prompt that I don't have to only use pink... And I had this bright pink sitting on my table begging me to use it... I actually have a swatch of this one for you.

This is two coats of Nubar hollywood pink. Its actually a one coater but you know how us nail artists are, it's two coats all the way.

I can't get over how stunning this polish is and with Nubar polishes being a bit of a hit and miss.... I'm so glad I snagged it. I also managed to get my hands on OPI dining al frisco for a steal at R20 (which is about $1.50). I decided to use them together with some decals I got recently.

I laid the decals on my mat and used dining al frisco to colour in the roses and Hean City Fashion 200 for the leaves. Once it was semi dry I painted a coat of clear polish over it and waited for it to dry. I then used my clear stamper to place it on my nails.

Top coated and then when I was taking my pictures I realised that the decals kinda melted... It's not super obvious, but it happened. Now it kinda looks like I didn't paint inside the lines!

What do you think? I feel like I should have painted a coat of clear polish on my mat before the decal, maybe it didn't like Seche. Or Seche didn't like it. That is a theory I'll test...

Thanks for stopping by!