31 Day Challenge - Inspired by Fashion and a Pattern

Day 25 was a design inspired by fashion, so I took the design from a scarf I purchased recently as my inspiration rather than something from the catwalk. I've found it hard to find my own style over the years but something that always sticks with me and that also goes in and out of fashion is Grunge. I grew up in the 80's not really finding any music I liked or could identify and then in 1992/93 I found Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. This music scene, largely from Seattle had it's own signature fashion style too. The boys wore ripped jeans, band T-Shirts and lumberback shirts with green army Eddie Vedder style jackets. Whilst I wore DM's tie die tights and denim shorts with big baggy jumpers, and wishing I could carry off the Courtney Love Baby Doll dress. But looking more like a fat member of L7. 

Anyway, Grunge on the catwalk now tends to refer to these type of non coloured patterned items, and to my delight there is a lot of this about at the moment. This scarf looks like tree branches very similar to these nail wraps I bought a wee while ago.

So I tried to recreate this on my nails after seeing a similar manicure on Instagram by nailblazer and asking them how they created the effect. Using a fan nail art brush apparently, so that is what I did.

  

Similar to Day 25, I took inspiration for Day 26 'Inspired by a Pattern' from a dress I own from a company called Amari. There is a little shop in the town that I live and this is one of the brands they stock. This dress is made out of a light fleece like material and is just the best thing to wear in winter. I wear it over a pair of skinny jeans and it's so comfy and warm.

Anyway you can see the pattern here, and my attempt to replicate it. I'm thinking I need a lighter hand and also Mr Blobby springs to minds.

I'm massively behind with the challenge having been away for a long weekend during the last week of the challenge, and I was already 2, maybe 3 days behind then. I am however going to continue until I finish all manicures, I'm keen to do this again next year, like many nail blogger do and see if I've improved. I do hope so from the above attempt!

31 Day Challenge - Inspired by a film and a book

The last week or so of the 31 Day Challenge is a series of manicures inspired by different things. Day 23 was a film. One of my favourite films for ages directed by Spike Jonze is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. With my limited nail art skills how was I going to interpret the film on my nails though? So I Googled and I Pinteresed until I found this:

So I used the background of this Poster or DVD cover as the inspiration for my manicure and this is how it came out...

I do love a good gradient and the lines give it an added something. I wore this all day without the clouds as I was running out of time and added these the next day. Pretty pleased with how they came out!

Day 24 was inspired by a book, and I thought I'd use the book I was currently reading. I run a monthly book club at work and we've all put our suggestions into a hat and picked out a book to read each month. This month is The Crow Road by Iain Banks. The cover is black and white and I wanted to add a bird or birds, or even a feather to the design. But my tests looked rubbish and my birds like ticks. So I did this and left it how it was, I guess this could be inspired by any book...

I used Models Own 'Coconut Cream' as the base, this smells LOVELY. One of the better scented polishes I own.

31 Day Challenge - Inspired by a colour and a song

It was always going to be purple, I have a thing for purple and why complicate things when the colour says it all. I never really thought of purple as a girls colour, that is pink, but turns out it is. I don't care, it's a great colour and the below is pretty much the perfect shade of purple.

This is Illamasqua 'Faux Pas' and stupidly enough a polish I have never worn since purchasing it. This pic has no top coat as it dries matt, and I kinda like it.

Day 22 was inspired by a song and one of my favourite songs is 'Seasons' by Chris Cornell. The manicure doesn't reflect the songs lyrics, but the title and I tried to theme each nail around the four seasons.

So blue and white if for the Winter, red and orange is for the Autumn, yellow and orange is for the Summer and shades of green is for the Spring. 

I ended up using glitter top coats for extra effect, as my nail art painting of snow flakes and leaves didn't go according to plan. It kinda works except for the Autumn I think.

Going away to Berlin this weekend to run the marathon so the challenge will have to continue when I'm back!

31 Day Challenge - Galaxies and Water Marble

Day 19 was one of my first attempts at Nail Art, Galaxies. I love this design and I have to say this attempt was much more successful than my first.

Really, really love this design and again not a manicure that I wanted to take off once done. This was a base colour of black using Revlon Parfumerie in 'Espresso' (my new favourite black polish) and various polishes in white, yellow, purple, green and blue to create the galaxies. Just used a random sponging technique for the patterns. The real finishing touch to this was topping it all off with China Glaze's 'Fairy Dust'! 

Day 20 of the challenge is probably the day I feared the most! From reviewing Instagram I was not alone! A Water Marble manicure was required. I had NEVER been able to water marble despite several attempts before. I have studied this technique on YouTube for sometime, and the top tips I picked up from failing previously, were to use bottled water, ensure it was at room temperature and use the newest polishes I owned.

I had a couple of dummy runs with no particular pattern or colour combination in mind and managed to come up with a few marbles swatch sticks that were passible. So I decided it was time to stick my fingers in the watery polishy mess. Here's what happened!

It looks OK, I mean I've obviously seen better, but pretty happy that it worked AT ALL. The pinky is the favourite I think.  My thumb adopted a pretty weird design. But I'll be having a go again now that I know I can marble.

Design was marbled over Barry M 'Carousel' a limited edition polish for Boots, and the accent nail is topped with China Glaze 'Fairy Dust' too!

Also note, the nail on my middle finger broke last Sunday I think, and it's been patched with a bit of a tea bag and some nail glue. Surprised it lasted this long but now you can see the crack, so that's a gonner. Replaced it after this mani with a false one until it grows any decent length back. Always the middle finger nails that go with me!

31 Day Challenge - Glitter and Half Moons

Glitter was the order for Day 17, and I liked the look of this manicure from naildecor which she calls a glitter moon manicure. She also has a Youtube tutorial of how she does this, but I can't figure out what she paints the area of the nails where the glitter goes before putting the glitter on. No idea! So I just popped on a couple coats of China Glaze 'Lotus Begin' and painted on this lovely glitter polish I picked up from Urban Outfitters called 'Cloud 9'.

Fairly happy with this, and smoothed out the glitter with a good coat of HK Girl top coat. Picture is a wee bit burned out, but you can see that glitter polish pretty good in the bottle. It has purple and silver glitters and the odd star too.

Day 18 was half moons, and I've never done these before. I also didn't have, and couldn't find any ring binder hole reinforcements to create by half moons. I had a quick look on Youtube for some tutorials and a lot of people just painted then on. One lady used a plaster, the ones with the curved edges, so I gave that a go!

It's fairly neat, I painted China Glaze 'Oxygen' as the base the night before and top coated, before popping on the sticking plaster and painting on Revlon's 'Raven Red. The moons look a little straight in this photo, but I can assure you, there is a curve. You can see better on the thumb.

Not sure if I like it... I'm going to buy some of those Ring Binder thingies and give it another go, might look better with a smaller moon. Next two days are looming and Day 21 is WATER MARBLE. I have never done this successfully, dreading it and the mess I shall make...

31 Day Challenge - Delicate Print and Geometric Nails

Day 15 was entitled 'Delicate Print' and I didn't really know what that meant or how I was going to interpret it. Looking around Instagram and the Internet in general I got the impression it was pretty much fancy nails with a very fine or complex design... I was going to stuggle.

The only way I was going to do this was by searching through my stamping plates and finding some sort of intricate design. Inspired again by The Nailsaurus by her manicure for the theme. I went with a light colour which I normally don't wear and looked for a gold polish to stamp. And here's what I came up with...

I used Models Own in 'Peach Melba' as my base, a polish I bought a while ago and hadn't yet worn. I then tried stamping with practically every gold polish I had. The only one that really worked was Revlons Parfumerie polish in 'Italian Leather'. Both of these are scented polishes and the combination seemed to smell quite nice, although primarily of nail polish!

Stamping efforts still not great and the above took a few goes to get it to even look half decent. Still waiting for my new rectangular stamper to arrive from China, hoping it's here soon!

Day 16 is geometric and I love these type of designs, what I hate though is the lack of time I have this week to wait for each coat to dry before I can tape it up and paint the next colour and shape.

I rummaged around my polish draws looking for three untried polishes that would go together in this design I wanted to do. 

I started of with 'Loden Green' from Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure line. I've wanted to go Khaki green nails for a while, but have to say once painted on it reminded me more of diarrhoea! Or is that just me?

Once two coats were done, I'd gone to far to turn back, so I started with my design doing the grey colour first in Orlys 'Boho Bonnet'. The last shape in the dark blue is Revlons ColorStay in 'Midnight'. The Orly was a bit sheer for this type of nail art, I really needed something more opaque and the Revlon polish was perfect for the striping shapes. I used the last shape to cover up the mess I'd make with the first design where I could. 

Overall I like the design and colours, just wish I'd had more time to be careful with drying the polish before each colour. Now firmly two days behind with the challenge! 

31 Day Challenge - Animal Print and Flowers

Well after being chuffed with my last two manicures for the challenge, I really struggled with Day 13, Animal Print. 

I wanted to do something different, and when looking through my Bundle Monster stamping plates for inspiration I came across a plate that had an Octopus on it, and some rather spectacular tentacles.

I thought, this will be a great idea! I knew what base colour I wanted to use for the sea and the glitter topper I wanted to pair it with... the trouble came with the polish to use for stamping with. I was going to aim for a deep red for the octopus, and maybe something in a metallic finish. Unfortunately all polishes in this arena either didn't show up on this base colour or just didn't stamp well. So this is what I ended up with...

Stamping with the same Barry M Foil Effect polish I used for my metallic manicure on Day 7. You can just about make out the tentacles on my thumb and on the middle finger. Trust me this was the best picture I could get, the images were just not up to scratch. 

I love this deep duo-chrome polish though. It's from Sally Hansen's lustre shine line in 'Scarab'. Perfect for mermaid or peacock nails. Just ruined by my stamping efforts.

Day 14 however proved more fruitful! The challenge was flowers and I saw this post on Pinterest and I thought this is what I'll do! 

Anyway, needless to say mine, didn't quite come out as planned but overall happy with the effect.

I used Barry M's Gelly Shine in 'Blue Grape' and Sinful Colors 'Snow me White' for the accent nail. Both great polishes, particularly impressed with the white from Sinful. I created the flowers using a dotting tool and the two polishes.