#52weeknailchallenge: unused plate

Yay for my second monochrome mani... And yes I know, this one has colour too!! This was inspired by @cassis_p. I've always been super inspired by her and I've wanted to do this one for ages. When I shared my inspiration with the group of nail polish enthusiasts I'm part of, they suggested I add some colour... So let me show you what I did. I will be showing you two different finishes, I was pressed for time and wasn't too sure if I would be able to finish in time doing the on with the striping tape...

I started with two coats of Ulta3 black satin on my thumb and pinky, the rest has two coats of Hean City Fashion white.

Here I used a piece of make up sponge and randomly dabbed on some black satin. I then stamped the bamboo image from Lina Summer 2 with Mundo de Unas green. And in case you were wondering, summer 2 was my unused plate.

On Cindy I actually taped off vertical lines and then sponged on black satin removing the tape as I was finished. And then stamped the bamboo image.

I do have a side by side comparison for you, okay not so much side by side, but close enough.

The difference is not super obvious, but it is there.... My colleague noticed it immediately! So for you zoomers out there, zoom!!

I love how this turned out. I'm glad I added the green to it. What do you think?

Thanks for reading!

#52weeknailchallenge: spring

I must say I did not look forward to this prompt. Reason being next week's prompt is flowers... Spring is flowers, so do I do flowers 2 weeks in a row? That was the dilemma I chatted to Michelle about and she suggested a dry brush with pastel colours...

I then remembered this mani done by @juli_addicted. And I wanted to do something similar. So I started with two coats of Hean City Fashion white on all my nails... I initially played around with some polishes to get the colours I wanted to use. Even called in the help of BF.

I settled on I love Hean 878, 876, 872, all from the pastel collection and Tip Top cha cha cha. I dry brushed them on and while that was drying I laid down some striping tape on my mat for the black strip of polish. I used I love Hean black for that.

While that was drying I painted a coat of Essence I love my golden pumps on my nails. And then another round of drying started. I then cut up the black strips randomly placed them on my nails, top coated and eventually tried to ignore the brown tinge that was starting to form around the black.

All in all I kinda like it. What do you think? I'm not sure if it's quite spring, but it will have to do.

#52weeknailchallenge: inspired by a country

I was seriously wondering what the hell I was going to do for this prompt... I mean inspired by a country? Seriously... Then I remembered I have stamping plates that are inspired by countries. And I ended up choosing France, because Eiffel Tower.

I started with two coats of I love Hean 870 from the pastel collection on my index, middle and ring finger. Top coated that for vinyls. On my thumb and pinky is two coats of Hean Ordinary Misfit. Once 870 was dry I added striping tape vertically across my nails and painted ordinary misfit over that, removing the striping tape immediately.

On my index and ring finger I stamped the fleur de lis design with Nubar silver mist and plate BP 36. Once that was dry, stamped the Ooh la la and Paris with my essence stampy polish in black. On my middle finger I stamped the Eiffel Tower, which unfortunately came out more looking like the leaning tower of Pisa.

So that's my inspired by a country mani... What do you think?

For some reason neither my clear stampers (one from BPS and other from bliss kiss) will pick up images using essence stampy polish. So I'm a little worried about our triad post for March... The image I chose will require being precise with placing it, so I might have to end up using a normal polish to stamp with, which won't be opaque enough... Ugh And I know Joyce will suggest double stamping it using the clear stamper, but I've tried that already and I suck at it!!

Thanks for reading guys!

#52weeknailchallenge: negative space

So I have realized that I am terrible at explaining things... Here I am randomly doing this 52 week challenge and you have no idea what it is, where or how? So here's a link that will take you to Michelle's blog and she explains it all.

There. Explanation done. Anyway for this prompt, the negative space prompt, I took some inspiration from this mani done by Paulina. I started with two coats of a polish that was gifted to me, it has no name, no number, just HD on the bottle, on my thumb and pinky. On my index, middle and ring finger I stamped using plate BC-10 that was sent to me by Cherry Blossom Store and essence stampy polish white.

I top coated as I was going to use striping tape. I then taped off sections of my nails and used the same HD polish to fill in the blanks.

Top coat over that and then added a square stud to my middle finger. It bothered BF slightly as the stud was off centre, but hey it's not that easy placing it.

So I really like it, but I'm a little iffy about it too. What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by!!

Whatever!

I meant to post this yesterday, but I spent most of Sunday in bed. This weekend was a very miserable one for me as I felt real crap. So as I'm sure you can tell from my title, I was feeling very whatever when I did this mani. It's a bit of an anti-Valentine mani.

I just did it for the sake of having something on my nails.

I have two coats of Tip Top Broken Soul on my ring finger and the rest is Blueberry Pie.

I stamped using Nubar Silver Mist and BP-L012. I've always wanted to use the "whatever" and now I finally have. It's very sheer but I couldn't have it too obvious for work. I might want to wave my hand in the patient's face when they give me a hard time LoL

I used silver striping tape for the accent and just trimmed the edges. For some reason that always got peoples attention. What do you think of this "whatever" mani? Is it "whatever" enough?

Thanks for reading!

Betrayed and Grape Dance

I'm going to start this post of with a bit of a ramble, so if you don't wanna read it. Just scroll down to the bottom, as I do have some nail art I want to show you.

Our clinic hours have changed since the first of Jan, now due to this our working hours had to change as well, since we have to work a certain amount of hours. Now I have a a good relationship with our HOD and she tells me things that she wouldn't normally tell the other staff. I'm also her most reliable receptionist, I stand in for any one and any time. If somebody calls in sick and she needs someone, she calls me. And I'm always available. So in November I worked about 24 hours overtime, yip, 24 hours. And then they still short paid me on it. When I queried it and when she got back to me, it was because I owed the company hours and they deducted those hours from my approved overtime hours. So naturally I was pissed off, I said the her if that is going to be the case I'm not going to work overtime again. Why would I work overtime and there's no guarantee that I would get paid for it? I mean I've been a kippie for her, but this is really pushing it.

My dad brought me some paperwork to complete last year, to apply for positions that was available by him for admin work. I completed it, not thinking much and not hoping for any more than that. So on Wednesday I got a call, I need to go for fingerprints, obviously to check for a criminal background. When I got to work my HOD called me to her office and asked me why didn't I tell her about me applying for another job. And if I got it, would I take it. Skipping that conversation, I assumed they called for a reference. Thursday morning my dad calls me and says to me, that when they called for the reference, she was rude to them and she said she doesn't have time for it. So I asked one of the doctors as I needed that ASAP.

I feel betrayed by this, some of my colleagues have said this is a slap in the face, considering all I have done for her and for her to do that to me... What has she not done to some of the other receptionists that have left? I have asked my dad to find out if she ever did do that reference, because if she hasn't done it... I am going to report her, as this is my future she's jeopardising. Besides all this she still has the nerve to ask me to stay till next year as she has earmarked me for another position. And when I asked what it may be, she told me it would be hers. Now I do not want hers as I don't want the shit she has to put up with.

Okay enough rambling. Here's the art. I started with two coats of Tip Top Grape Dance on my pinky, middle and thumb. Grape Dance is a purple jelly or at least it seems jellyish to me. On my ring and index fingers I did one careful coat of Sinful Colors Snow me White. Used some striping tape and one of my new dotting tools, went to town on my index fingers with some dots and lines on my ring fingers.

When that was dry I added some pretty flower decals from BPS.

So what do you guys think?

Lazy gold Christmas tree

So I've been dying to try my hand at a Christmas tree... On my nails.... Obviously. But I've kinda been stuck with my colour scheme.

I've been thinking of doing a base of Tip Top (sob) As The Beat Grows On with a tree in purple using Catrice PlumDogMillionare, but then I was thinking neon green is not really a christmassy colour. And I have done that colour scheme before.... Maybe I should rather use Tip Top (sob) Lazy Lizard or (sob) Volcanic Eruption. But then I thought again "a purple tree?", maybe I should rather use Gold Mine for a tree. And then I was like, but I wanna use a textured polish for my tree and I only have two...... Aaaand I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this rant.

So I asked BF and he gave me a completely different thing to do and I was like no. Then I asked my mother and we came to a conclusion.

I started of with 2 coats of Lazy Lizard on all my nails, after my base coat obviously. I used some striping tape and nail guides that I bought ages ago on my ring finger to make a tree. For the tree I used Gold Mine...

I did some dots on my index finger also using Gold Mine. I did a bit of a glitter placement using Tip Top Rocky Road. I put some polish on a piece of plastic and fished out the pieces I wanted to place them on my nails.

I actually had some left over and as I absolutely hate wasting I stuck them on the dots on my index finger.

Don't forget to drop me a comment to let me know what you think.

Jazzberry Blue is the Cat's Whiskers

As I'm sure you've noticed, I've changed the look of my blog a bit (more like a lot). So please let me know what you think. Drop me a comment, email or find me on FaceBook.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I cut my nails. So for the moment I have little stumps, but I did this mani last weekend and was actually wearing it when I made that horrible decision to cut.

My colleague bought me an early Christmas present. When we had discussed what we each wanted I was heavily hinting at a new purse, as my current one is growing to be a little tatty. So she surprised me early!!

And it's soooo pretty, don't you think?

Obviously I wanted to try and do a mani that looks similar... And this is what I ended up with. I started off with two coats of Tip Top Cat's Whiskers on all my nails except my ring finger. I taped my ring finger using striping tape. I painted the middle piece using Tip Top Jazzberry Blue and the remaining with Cat's Whiskers. Got some negative space going there ;)

Both these polishes have a beautiful shimmer to it. I loved wearing it even if it was only for 2 days.

What do you think? Is Jazzberry Blue really the Cat's Whiskers?

Blue meets Green and Armourplate

I was attempting to catch up on my blog reading the other day and I got to this post by V over at For the Love of Nailart(hope I got that right). I loved the panda, so cute, and since I'm a curious person by nature I always read the comments section. The subject of the one comment thread was teal.... So naturally I thought of Tip Top's Blue Meets Green. This is one of my favourite colours. And naturally I had to do a mani with it.

I previously did a mani with this colour for a competition Tip Top Nails South Africa was hosting. It had a bling theme... Something along the lines of what you would wear Saturday night for a party.

I wanted to recreate it, as I think I'm better at nail art than what I used to be... So this is what I came up with. Also here you can see the colour of Blue meets Green much better than in my previous art.

 

I used striping tape and Tip Top Armourplate for the line. For the stamping I also used Armourplate and BPS m79 stamping plate. The rhinestones are ones I got a while ago, so where eludes me.

I think my stamping is improving! Yay! You would think this is the only stamping plate I have, but it's not. I have 2 essence ones, but I don't like them that much. It feels like the image is too shallow, so I can't pick it up properly on the stamper, but I think I'll give it another go, just to test it. And I'm waiting (still) for more stamping plates that I ordered from BPS. Who knows when I'll get that.

Let me know what you think or if you have any ideas for me. Always willing to try something new.

And as usual here is my BPS banner again if you want to order anyhting from them.

Lazy Lizard's Tango with a Mango

Got something new for today. It didn't quite come out the way I had pictured it, but it's not too bad. I used some decals I got from BPS and striping tape I got from Ordinary Misfit. All the products I used is from Tip Top Nails South Africa. Except my topcoat which is a Yardley treatment. 

I started with my normal base coat of MR (Miraculous Results), Then with 2 coats of Lazy Lizard on my thumb, index, middle and pinky. For my ring finger I did 2 coats of Mango Tango. Both these polishes have a pretty shimmer to them, Lazy Lizard seems to dry slightly matte but it's still an awesome colour. As green is my favourite!! Here is it before any art...

It's not very obvious in the picture, but you can see the difference between the shine in the 2 colours.
And here it is with the art :)

I posted on Facebook if I should do stripes or dots for my mani, it was 50/50. So I just decided to do both.

What do you guys think? Any tips or ideas that you would like to share? Drop me a line :)

Nail Art

So I've been going nail art crazy nowadays. I found an amazing page on Facebook, Tip Top Nails South Africa.The company was started by the nicest lady named Joan. She is absolutely wonderful.  She always has tips and advice for all to help. She has the best product ever.  Anyway I wanted to share my newest mani with you. For this I used striping tape that I got from Ordinary Misfit. She is awesome, she's been helping me with some tips and advice. Feels like I found a new friend ;)

Anyway I used the striping tape on my ring finger, the colours I used was Purple Reign and As the beat grows on. All from Tip Top. I didn't do my whole nail in purple and then the green over it, I did the green and once that was dry, I taped and did the purple in between the tape. My middle finger I top coated with Matt-nificent. A mattifying topcoat from Tip Top. My index finger I stamped with my Essence stamp set.

The tip of the snake didn't come out clearly and it did streak a little, but that was when I stamped. Actually I cheated a little, bf did the stamping, because he is a natural!

Gonna try and post some more of my art. It's not the best, but it's mine :D