#52weeknailchallenge: unused polish

Before I start this post I would like to say something about the Corona outbreak... I'm not going to tell you to wash your hands and cover up when you cough and sneeze, because you should KNOW to do that in any way!!! As most of you might know, I am a medical receptionist at a practice with 13 Dr's.  On an average day we see about 250 patients per day. On a busy day we have closer to 300, now imagine having to deal with over 300 people for a couple of days in a row...

In the past 2 weeks I have experienced people lying about traveling, people refusing to follow our protocols of sanitizing their hands before they enter our practice and refusing to wear face masks. Putting our whole practice and subsequently putting all of the staff members, the Dr's and our families at risk. The selfishness of people shocks me to my core. BUT I have also seen people in our community offer to do shopping and odd tasks for the immune compromised and the elderly and that gives me a tiny bit of hope for humanity.

And as exhausted as my colleagues and myself are, we still try and do the best to our abilities for our patients. So if you happen to find yourself in a medical facility and the staff look harassed and exhausted, try and take it easy on them. We are worried of being a risk to our families and we are worried for the well being of our patients. We don't need you to be assholes. Hell offer us a cup of coffee! We will love you for it. With that said, be safe and look after each other.

Now to the nails.... That's what we here for right? It was easy finding an unused polish, but doing a manicure with it is the tricky part. Let me show you what I did.

I started with three coats of ILNP funhouse on my thumb, index and middle finger. On my ring finger and pinky I have two coats of Catrice PLUMdogmillionare.

I then stamped a design from Lina @urbannailart collab plate with Nicole Diary black on my middle finger.

Easy peasy and I absolutely loved this!! Funhouse almost glowed in low light and I was constantly shifting my nails looking at the pretty.

Quick and easy nail art for a long ass post. What do you think? Both of the nail art and the outbreak? Are you also in the medical field and feeling it with me?

Thanks for reading!!

#52weeknailchallenge: hearts

I'm glad that we don't have a valentine's day prompt for this year, but I'm not too happy about this one either. I generally have all these ideas I want to use, but I can't seem to pull it together. And that frustrates me. But let me show you what I did.

I started with two coats of Starrily gamma ray on my thumb and index finger. On my middle and ring finger I have two coats of China Glaze let's chalk about it. And lastly, on my pinky I have two coats of Hean 852 sugar.

I then stamped some hearts from Lina @shannasnailadventures colab with BPS gold polish and Nicole Diary NS05.

Top coated and that's that. I do like how this turned out. I feel like it's missing something though, but I didn't want to mess with it.

What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

#52weeknailchallenge: blue & gold

Try as I may, it seems that I'm going to be constantly late with posting! Everytime I remind myself to sit my ass down and start, I'm busy with something else. And when I do have time, it's when we have loadshedding. And then I obviously don't have internet. sigh Maybe one day I'll be ahead or on time.

So, blue and gold. Let me show you what I did.

I started with two coats of Hean 852 sugar on my ring finger and pinky. On my thumb, index and middle finger I have two coats of OPI keeping Suzi at bay.

I then stamped an image from Lina @tanya_wish collab with BPS gold stamping polish over keeping Suzi at bay.

Easy. I really like how it came together. I wonder how it would have looked matte... What do you think?

Thanks for reading!!

#52weeknailchallenge: zig zag

For this prompt I checked out Pinterest, hoping for some inspiration. So I combined a couple of looks. Let me show you what I did.

I started with two coats of essence gossip girl on my thumb, index and pinky. On my ring finger I have two coats of OPI DS pewter and on my middle finger is two coats of essence pink dreams are made of this.

I then stamped the zig zag image from Lina feeling shapely 1 with Mundo de Unas light grey. I'm pretty happy that light grey matched so well to gossip girl.

I added a dot of pink dreams are made of this to all the nails with gossip girl. What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by!

#52weeknailchallenge: texture

I was kind of excited for this prompt, especially since I had just received a new black texture and I couldn't wait to try it. So let me show you what I did.

I started with two coats of Orly hip and outlandish on my thumb, index and middle finger. On my ring and pinky I have two coats of China Glaze bump in the night.

Now to be honest.... I'm not a huge fan of this texture. It's almost like its too much polish and not enough grit. Anyway it's black and texture, it works.

I then used some twisty turvy vinyls from becauseishop and painted a thick coat of bump in the night over it, removing them immediately. I'm totally digging these vinyls, since they come in 3 sizes I could fit them to my nails perfectly. On my index I have the smallest and the biggest on my thumb.

What do you think? Do you have bump in the night? What is your opinion?

Thanks for reading!

#52weeknailchallenge: vinyls

I'm kinda happy this prompt is here. It gives great opportunity to use all my untouched vinyls, but!! the problem is choosing one to use! I knew I wanted to attempt a gradient, but I was scared of bleeding polish and all over failure, so I decided to use my miracle mat and the honeycomb vinyls from becauseishop.

I started with two coats of Pahlish Rowena on my thumb and index. On my middle and ring finger I have two coats of Catrice good lack! and lastly on my pinky I have two coats of I love Hean 854 indygo (weird spelling, I know). This is a "sugar" polish, but I also know not all the sugars were textured.. Anyway..

I started on my vinyls, by placing them on my miracle mat. I then painted them in, gradient style with, light to dark, I love Hean 879, Sorbet vanilla ice, Essie lapiz of luxury and Sorbet cool calm. Once it was somewhat dry I added a coat of Essence clear polish.

When everything was dry I lifted the decals from my mat and used a stamper to place them on my nail. I tried to get all of the colours on to nail, but the lightest colour is barely visible.

What do you think? Rowena is stunning, super sparkly and shows off even in normal light.

Thanks for reading!!

#52weeknailchallenge: glitter

I wanted to use my Skyrim vinyls for this prompt. And my new Skyrim inspired polishes I got from Color4Nails. I ordered some polishes with Heather when they had their Black Friday Sale and when I saw the Skyrim ones, I knew I had to have them.

I started with two coats of OPI DS Pewter on my ring finger and pinky. On my thumb, index and middle finger I have two coats of Bee's Knees Lacquer Hermaeus Mora (HM).

I was quite surprised by HM, besides the fact that it's almost a one coater, it's holo too! Imagine my surprise when I was out in the sun and the holo started to shine.

Once HM was dry, I added my special vinyls. These are custom made vinyls from becauseishop and I'm sure she still has some available.

I then painted a coat of DS pewter over it and removed the vinyl immediately. I messed it up a little in my middle finger, and on my thumb my base lifted! What a nightmare!! My plan was to leave DS pewter without a top coat to keep the texture, but now I had to. Luckily the top coat sealed the polish on my thumb where it lifted and I forgot about that. My middle finger.............

Hopefully DS pewter is glitter enough for this prompt and I also don't care... I finally got to do my Skyrim mani!!

What do you think? I loved this sooooo much!!

Thanks for stopping by.

#52weeknailchallenge: pink & gold

Sooo this post is a little late again!. I will get to a point where my posts will be one time! Just not today...

I decided on a gradient for this prompt. I started with two coats of Hean City Fashion 150 on my thumb and index finger. On my pinky I have two coats of Hean Sugar 852. For the gradient on my middle and ring finger I used City Fashion 177, 150 and Tip Top gold mine.

I wanted to use CF 150 as it has this pretty gold sparkle, which you cannot see after top coat! You can only see it in bottle and before top coat.

What do you think? I kinda like how this turned out. The only thing that bothered me is the weird shrinkage I got at the tips with gold mine. But I suspect it's because it's a foil and doesn't want to gradient.

Thanks for reading!

Friday Triad; Inspired by @playfulpolishes

It's Triad time again!! This month was my turn to choose our inspiration, so I chose this mani by @playfulpolishes. I only realised after I sent the inspo link that it's very similar to a previous Triad mani, but no one complained, so here we are.

Funny thing about this, I meant to do it the weekend, sat down at my table and promptly started on my glitter mani for the challenge. Completely forgot about it. So this would have been a midnight mani, but instead I got up slightly early and did it this morning.

Let me show you what I have. I started with three coats of Essie turquoise & caicos on my thumb, index and middle finger. On my ring finger and pinky I have two coats of OPI DS pewter. I loved it so much from my previous mani, I decided to keep it.

I then stamped an image from Konad 35 with Moyra 253 a green holo polish that stamps. I then added another leaf image from Lina Summer 3 with Mundo de Unas avocado.

The animal print as a decal since I didn't have time for freehand (which I suck at anyway) and I didn't have a stamp with a small enough print.

So yes, it may be slightly rushed, but I love how it came out. It's exactly what I had in mind when I chose this! 

So head on over to see Joyce's midnight mani and Michelle's I-was-done-a-month-ago mani.

Thanks for reading!!

#52weeknailchallenge: flowers

With last year's challenge spring and flowers were right after each other, so I'm kinda glad that they got separated this year. Also my mani isn't very floral-ey, but it has flowers and that counts, right? Right? It's inspired by this look by @badgirlnails

So I started with two coats Hean I love Hean 900 on my thumb and ring finger. On my pinky I have two coats of I love Hean 898 and on my middle finger I have two coats of Hean Sugar 852. This is my only and favourite gold texture polish.

On my index finger I have a gradient with I love Hean 904 and City Fashion white. The flowers are decals from Aliexpress, since I don't have the freehand skills Sonia does! And can we just take a second and admire these decals? I mean look how great they look over a dark colour!

I should have made these matte but I only realised a couple of days after I should have done that. What do you think?

Thanks for reading!

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: black

We up to week five of the 52 week challenge and the prompt for this one is black. I decided to keep it very simple. So this will be a very short post. I started with two coats of I love Hean 10t (black) on all my nails. Top coated and waited for it to dry as I was planning on using vinyls.

The vinyls reminded me of honeycomb. It's not quite, but it does kinda look like it.

The gold is I love Hean 852 sugar. I love the textured look of this gold.

What do you think of this easy mani?

 

Thanks for stopping by!!