Nail Challenge Day 8

And here we have Day 8-Polka Dots!

Another toughie. But after poking around, I decided to try my hand at this dotticure by Lucysstash.



It was a bit of a bear to photograph because the dark purple (which is actually more of a neon IRL) didn't want to show up. All in all though, I think it turned out quite pretty despite the fact that I did it while suffering from the plague.

Polishes used were:

-Nails Inc. 'Granville Place'---Untried
-Nails Inc. 'Holland Park Road'
-Nails Inc. 'York Street'
-Some random #17 white

Nail Challenge Day 7

And here we are at Day 7--Inspired By a Tutorial.

This was difficult in that there's SO many tutorials out there...it's really hard to settle on only one.  But I wanted to do something different, so I went with this sheep nail art tutorial by Chalkboard Nails.

I tried it out on the nail wheel first and just couldn't get the eyes and mouth right.  So I did some Googling and found this sheep manicure by Holymanicures and ultimately combined the two. And with no further ado....



This was a really fun, and easy, manicure and the sheep were done entirely with dotting tools. Please forgive the zombie black sheep...however I do think he's on the appropriate finger ;)

Polishes used were:

-Picture Polish 'Kryptonite'
-Essie 'Sexy Divide'
-Orly 'Flare'---Untried
-Orly 'Miss Conduct'---Untried
-Picture Polish 'Cosmos'---Untried
-Essie 'Blanc'
-A-England 'Camelot'
-Barry M 'Mushroom'

Nail Challenge Day 6

The challenge this time is a gradient nail. At first I wasn't too sure, cause I haven't really done many of them. But it was surprisingly easier this time around and didn't take much time at all. Only thing I can say about the pictures is that they're a bit darker than this mani actually looked *kicks camera*.





Polishes used -both untried- were:

-A-England 'Elaine'
-A-England 'Princess Tears'

Nail Challenge Day 5

The next theme is Valentines Day. I was hellbound and determined to do a water marble for this. I won't go into what a pain that turned out to be (I have no luck when it comes to water temperature). I managed to get it done, but the next day I decided I could do better so I took it off. Anyway...a few hours, much cursing and way too much wasted polish later, I finally managed something I was happy with:



It's not the best, but it's not the worst either. I plan to really practice doing these once the weather warms up and room temperature water is easier to come by (old house, drafty, etc.). Boiling the water and letting it cool to room temp. helped a lot, as did setting a bottle of it in hot water for a while. But since I'm lazy, I'm going to wait until Mother Nature is more willing to lend a hand (no pun intended).

I'm dubbing this entry the 'Magical Mystery Marble' because the polishes used were:
-Essie Mystery Polish #1.....Found it at TK Maxx w/no name. It's pinkish white.----Untried
-Essie Mystery Polish #2....Same as #1, but a nice red.----Untried
-OPI 'Skyfall'----Untried

Nail Challenge Day 4

This days challenge is 'Inspired by a pattern'. And let me tell ya, I struggled with this one. Mainly because I can't paint a straight line using my left hand. The eliminated at least 3 ideas I'd had. Somehow, once again I found myself looking at Mardi Gras related pictures and found this:

See that white, purple, green and yellow diamond one in the lower right corner? That's what I decided to go for. 'I can just use striping tape' I thought to myself.

Epic fail for reasons unknown. Finally, I kept playing around and came up with this:

Please excuse my finger in the way in the second one.

Polishes used in this were:

-Models Own 'Gold Rush'
-Essie 'Sexy Divide'-----Untried
-Models Own 'Purple Haze'-----Untried
-Picture Polish 'Kryptonite'
-Nails Inc. 'Piccadilly Arcade'

Nail Challenge Day 3

Day 3 of the month long challenge is 'Glitter Loaded'. Which is fine, cause I have LOTS of glitter polishes so it was easy to fill the untried part of the contest requirements. My inspiration was Mardi Gras. I had some colors picked out and my friend Angie Tordoff said they looked like MG colors, so I had a look at some masks, switched one of the colors for the green and this was born:

Out of all the manicures I've done (contest and otherwise), I think this is my favorite. I wish the pictures did it justice, cause this is one of those manies that has you staring at your hands most of the day.

Polishes used were:

-A-England 'Camelot'-----Untried
-Revlon 'Scandalous'-----Untried
-Butter London 'Shambolic'-----Untried
-Orly 'HALO'-----Untried
-Picture Polish 'Kryptonite'
-Nails Inc. 'Piccadilly Arcade'

Nail Challenge Day 2

And now we have Day 2 of the challenge, the Half Moon manicure:

This was a bit of a tough one due to having to use those round paper hole reinforcement thingies like this:

I actually ended up cutting mine in half which helped keep them pressed onto the nail a bit better.

The polishes used for this were:

-Models Own 'Gold Rush'-----Previously untried
-Illamasqua Phallic

I know the Phallic looks almost black, but it's actually a really cool blue as you can see in this picture from Scrangie:

Overall, I'm pleased with the way this came out despite all the cursing I did while trying to get those damn stickers lined up properly.