Valentine's Day Mani

Argh this year I was a bit of a Valentine's grinch to be honest. It was going to be the first time in a lot of years where we both had the night off together, but the night before we found out one of us had to work, so it was another Valentine's alone. Oh well, on to the mani. I always struggle with ideas for Valentine's Day inspired nails. This year was no different and I ended up just putting polish on and adding things until I came to this end product...

As I was doing this mani, I was HATING it!! That's why I just kept adding things to it. In the end, I don't think it turned out too badly though. I tried using saran wrap again and I really liked it. It's such a cool effect.

For this I used Lime Crime 'Parfait Day' and Zoya 'Sooki'. The white I used was Sally Hansen 'White On' and over everything is a layer of Chi Chi 'Disco Diva'. I used studs from the Born Pretty Store.

How was your Valentine's Day? Better than mine hopefully!

Polish Days: Get Back To Nature

It's time for February Polish Days. I love Polish Days as it makes me do something a bit different each month. Trouble is, I always seem to go a little overboard and can't seem to ever just have one idea and a nice simple mani. This month is no different :) The theme this month is all about getting back to nature. I decided to go with the weather theme that Hannah suggested, in particular the four seasons...

I decided to use different techniques on each finger. For Autumn, on my pinkie I tried the saran wrap technique for the first time. I quite like how that turned out actually. I have to say, the seasons aren't particularly appropriate for New Zealand, but oh well (e.g. it doesn't snow in Auckland and it is certainly not Easter in spring). I used quite a few different polishes so I will just list them below...


Autumn:
• Enchanted Polish 'Mean Mr Mustard'
• Takko Lacquer 'Va Va Voom'
• a-england 'Holy Grail'
• OPI 'My Boyfriend Scales Walls'

Winter:
• KB Shimmer 'Witch Way?'
• Stamping - Konad Special White and Bundle Monster plate BM-323
• "Glequins" from Born Pretty Store

Spring:
• Lime Crime 'Lavendairy', 'Once In a Blue Mousse', 'Pastelchio' & 'Crema De Limón'
• Chi Chi 'Disco Diva'

Summer:
• OPI 'No Room For The Blues'
• Studs from Born Pretty Store


Make sure you check out all the other lovely Polish Days manis...

Neon Water Marble Take 2...

Hi guys!

Sorry for being slightly AWOL. We have had a busy last week in Wellington trying to spend lots of time with family before coming home. Anyway, I had another terrible time trying to marble in Wellington. There is something about that city that means I just can't make it work! After about 3 hours of trying, I managed to pull together something that looked like it worked. I had wanted to do some pastel colours, but the China Glaze neons were the only ones that I could make marble, so here we go...

Don't look too close, because it is not my best work, but considering how much went wrong I think it turned out ok. I used OPI 'My Boyfriend Scales Walls' with China Glaze 'Sun-Kissed', 'Surfin' For Boys', 'Splish Splash' and 'I'm With The Lifeguard'. On the top is a coat of Chi Chi 'Disco Diva'.

As to what went wrong, I have NO idea! I was using polishes that I knew marbled well as I have used them before but something just wasn't right. We tried everything to fix it (temperature, different water etc etc) and I have come to the conclusion that there is just some sort of curse against me marbling in Wellington :) Now I'm back home I am going to reattempt my original idea.

Polish Days - Something New

Polish Days time again! I love participating in Polish Days, because it pushes me to do something that I wouldn't necessarily get round to otherwise. So this month Hannah of Polly Polish set the theme to be 'Something New', as "January is all about new starts, resolutions and starting over". I took this as a good kick up the bum to finally try a new technique - Galaxy Nails. I had slightly limited supplies, as I did this mani in Wellington. When I go home and have more time and polish, I'd quite like to try a slightly more complex version with a different colour combination etc. For now though, I do quite like this simple galaxy mani...

I got my inspiration from a lot of googling of NASA images and also from the lovely Sarah from Chalkboard Nails.

This mani was so simple and I don't know why I thought it would be so hard?! Now I want to do more like these.

For this I used a-england 'Camelot' for the base, China Glaze 'Sweet Hook' and OPI 'No Room For The Blues' for the sponging. The dots are OPI 'My Boyfriend Scales Walls' and of course, a bit of Chi Chi 'Disco Diva' on there too.

Make sure you check out everyone elses 'Something New' manis...

Christmas Mani #2 - with Cult Nails, a-england & CrowsToes

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I have been away for a bit because we went camping in the Hawkes Bay with my brother and his girlfriend. It was kind of nice to be away from all technology for a few days and just enjoy some nature,  good company and a good book. Anyway, my nails have been naked and unfortunately we had a few breakages. That's ok though, my nails have been growing fairly quickly lately.

So today I have my actual Christmas Day mani to show you...

 I already told you in my previous post about how much I LOVE a-england 'Perceval' so naturally I simply had to use it again. And with the perfect red, I had to use the perfect green and in my book, greens don't get much better than Cult Nails 'Deal With It'!!

On top of the water marbled finger is, of course, a layer of Chi Chi 'Disco Diva' and on my middle finger is a coat of CrowsToes 'Maxxed Out'. Déjà vu anybody?

I am so much in love with the amazing golden shimmer in 'Deal With It' and the best part... It's really not shy. The golden shimmer is really quite visible in most lighting.


'Deal With It' had a really lovely formula and for this mani I used 3 thin coats. Again, I used 2 thin coats of 'Perceval' for my pinky finger. I am pretty happy with how this mani turned out and I think I am finally getting the hang of water marbling! Yay because I really love the effect of it.

Hope you are all having safe and happy New Year celebrations! I'm off for another roast dinner tonight! I think I'm going to burst if I keep eating like this!

Christmas #1 with a-england and CrowsToes

Merry Christmas everyone!!

I had such a nice Christmas Day yesterday. It was 29˚C in Wellington which is basically unheard of. Anyway, this is one of the Christmas manis I did before Christmas...

I loved wearing this mani. It felt so festive. a-england 'Perceval' is one of my most favourite polishes in my entire collection and I have been grabbing for it more and more lately. It seems such a perfect red for Christmas.

For the water marbling on my index and middle fingers, I used OPI 'My Boyfriend Scales Walls' and 'Perceval' with a coat of Chi Chi 'Disco Diva' on top (apparently I can't do anything without it these days). On my ring finger is a coat of CrowsToes 'Maxxed Out' (BEST CHRISTMAS GLITTER EVAH!!) and on my pinky is a coat of CrowsToes 'Hell Hath No Fury'.

As far as formula goes, 'Perceval' is about as good as it gets. For this mani, I did use 2 coats, but I have many times in the past worn it as one coat.The glitters were both great as well. I love the glitter payoff you get with all CrowsToes polishes.

Hope you are all having a safe and happy Christmas/Boxing Day. I'm off to have another family feast tonight :D

A Greyscale (-ish) Christmas Mani

I have my first christmas inspired mani to show you today. It's not your usual festive red and green mani, but rather a simple greyscale(-ish) mani...

This is a bit of a representation of Christmas around the world. I wanted to do snowflakes, but as it's summer here I figured I'd better bring a bit of Kiwi Christmas into it somehow, hence the jandals. Also when I did this mani last night, there were in fact 8 days till christmas here and right now as it's still Monday in America there are still 8 days till christmas for you guys! :)
P.S. please excuse the bleeding hearts on my pinky finger. I did more than one stroke of top coat in the same place on this tiny little nail and then wrapped it like an idiot after that. Will I ever learn?

Here's a pic of 'Grey Matters' on its own. I recently bought this from Steph from Nail Juice. I really like this polish. I love the little black shimmer in it. It gives the polish a look of felt to me.


For the stamping, I used Konad Special Red and White polishes and Ulta 'Black Satin'. I also used a coat of Chi Chi 'Disco Diva' on my pinky and a coat of that and China Glaze 'Snow Globe' on my middle finger.

'Grey Matters' had a really nice formula to work with and only needed 2 easy coats for full opacity.

Merman - Chi Chi & Pixie Dust - Dollish Polish

I have something that has been buried so far at the bottom of the vault that I had all but forgotten about it. Truth is, it's a gorgeous polish (two actually) that deserve to be shown off, so here we go...

First up, I am so surprised by how long my nails used to be! I never realised at the time. Weird!! (which reminds me, I hope you guys don't mind the lengths being all over the place in my photos at the moment).
Anyway... Chi chi is one of the "cheaper" brands in NZ (and by cheaper I mean ~$10-15 (I can't quite remember)). It's an Australian brand and I've never really even looked at their polishes, until I saw this little fella winking at me in Farmers one day. 'Merman' is a wonderful teal coloured polish, and as for the name, well the Zoolander lover in me kinda had to have it for this reason too...

On my middle and ring fingers, I decided to put a layer of Dollish Polish 'Pixie Dust'. I knew this would be really subtle and I was right, but I kinda like that it gives 'Merman' just the slightest shift in colour to blue at certain angles and it gives it a certain textured look that I actually quite liked. Kinda like mermaids' (mermen's??) scales.


Speaking of texture, 'Pixie Dust' is certainly not lacking in this department! She was a gritty little bugger! Luckily that doesn't really bother me too much and I just put an extra layer of top coat over it. These pictures show 3easy, thin coats of 'Merman' and one coat of 'Pixie Dust'.

I bought 'Merman' from Farmers a wee while ago, but I imagine it's still available there. I got 'Pixie Dust' from Llarowe for $11USD, but I've just looked and it doesn't appear to be available there at the moment. It's part of the Mythical Creatures set that Dolly will be restocking in her Big Cartel shop on the 5th of November though :)