31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 14 - Delicate Print

I originally wanted to do lace nails for Day 14 but every time I tried I ended up taking them off and starting over. I just couldn't get them how I wanted and if I'm going to do lace nails I'm going to do it right so I decided to give that one a bit more practice.

But that left me with no ideas for Day 14, until I spotted THIS lace/henna style design on Pinterest. It's another Robin Moses design that I fell in love with, the video is HERE.

As you can see I didn't follow her video completely, just took a few bits that I really liked from it and added random bits of my own pattern. Also I didn't use pink foil because I don't have any (yet). 

I did toy with the idea of using pink glitter instead but decided it wouldn't give anywhere near the same effect so I just used some small diamantes.

I really like this henna look, it doesn't have to be perfect to look good either. Next time I want to try THIS one!

The polishes used are - 

Base - Barry M Nude.

Pattern - Barry M Mushroom.

♥ A ♥

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 14 - Flowers

I find that when I'm in a nail art slump Pinterest always gets me back in the mood for painting my nails.

The other day whilst having a nosey around on there I came across THIS which I fell in love with and decided to use it as my inspiration for todays nails.

I started with two coats of Barry M Matt White then I used the water colour technique with Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream, Blueberry Ice Cream, Lemon Ice Cream, Mint Green and Berry Ice Cream. Then I used the same colours plus Peach Melba and Grey but not watered down to add details.

To finish off I used Models Own Disco Heaven glitter.

 Unfortunately I can't tell you much about who originally did this design as the site it's from HERE is in Japanese and the Google translate still doesn't make much sense of it. There are quite a few beautiful designs on there though!

♥ A ♥

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 13 - Animal Print

I'd just like to say first of all a huge thank you to anyone who has voted for my nails so far in the Makeup Savvy Challenge!

My Tangled nails were picked as one of Fee's three favorites and I am absolutely thrilled! Although they are not my favorites from the challenge they were the ones which were the most challenging for me took the longest, a good three hours was spent on them! So for anyone else to see the effort it took is a huge compliment!

Now the challenge is over I can get back to the 31 Day Nail Challenge I was plodding my way through.

I am now on Day 13 which is Animal Print.

I have done these nails before but as I wasn't blogging back then I only have a crappy phone pic of them, so I decided to recreate them for today's challenge.

I used 2 coats of Barry M Matt White as a base then Barry M Pure Turquoise and Shocking Pink for the gradient. For the middle of the leopard spots I used China Glaze Beach Cruise-R and Spilsh Splash then Barry M Black for the outside and Zebra Stripes. Then I added a bit of Models Own Juicy Jules through the stripes for a bit of sparkle.

♥ A ♥ 

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 12 - Stripes

It wasn't until this challenge came up that it occurred to me I have never done stripes on my nails before.

I've done zebra stripes but never actual straight line stripes, so this was new to me!

I honestly had no idea what I wanted to do so I just picked some colours and decided as I went, but I was pretty happy with the outcome.

I used two coats of Essie Mint Candy Apple as the my base colour. Then with a nail art brush I added a stripe of Barry M Berry Ice Cream, Pink Silver Glitter and Peach Melba, then I decided it needed something else so I added the two stripes of Barry M Gold Foil and topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite.

♥ A ♥

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 11 - Polka Dots

I am on Day 11 of the 31 Day Nail Challenge and Day 11 calls for Polka Dots.

I love polka dot nails.

They are so quick and easy to do and always look good. 

Plus it's such a versatile design it can never get boring!

For mine I used Essie Mint Candy Apple as my base colour then used my dotting tool with the largest round tip to make the white dots. The white I used is just a nameless white from a French Manicure kit I have.

Then I used GOSH Gold and a smaller dotting tool to do smaller dots in the center of the white ones.

So simple but pretty.

♥ A ♥

31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 10 - Gradient Nails

I have only done gradient nails once before. Seen here.

I did them by painting the base colour then sponging the tip colour on in layers.

It took me a whole Saturday afternoon, while the kids were out and MrGT was being entertained by his Xbox.

These afternoons are hard to come by in my house so when I saw day 10 was gradient nails I did consider doing a nice easy glitter gradient, but this is a challenge, and a glitter gradient is no longer a challenge for me.

Knowing it was going to take an age to do I had been putting it off and putting it off. 

Until I got my China Glaze Summer Neons Collection 2012 order through.

They were just asking to be a gradient nail.

(Please 'scuse the shoddy clean up attempt! I had the smallest dribble of acetone left!)

For this I applied two coats of white polish (Boots 17 Mini Skirt) then applied with a kitchen sponge I used CG Sun Kissed (yellow) Orange You Hot? (obviously orange) and Beach Cruise-R (purple) then topped it off with Seche Vite.

I actually painted the colours straight onto the sponge to get this affect, it was a bit messy but the gradient is much better than my first attempt and took a few minutes rather than hours!

If you would like me to have a go at a tutorial for the method I used let me know in the comments and I'll give that a go for you as I'm desperate to try the rest of the CG polishes I bought in a gradient and maybe even try a pastel gradient.

♥ A ♥