ER31DC Day 24 - Inspired by a Book

Good morning!

Got another episode of the 31DC for you today - I'm getting there! Today's is inspired by a book. I recently finished book 3 and 4 of the Rachel Mariana Morgan / The Hollows series by Kim Harrison.

If you haven't read any of these books, then check out the first one here:

Dead Witch Walking

I really love all the characters, but I instantly thought 'this is what I'm doing for the 31DC' when I first read about Ivy and her cross necklace. She always dresses in black leather (hence the black matted nails) and I dotted and freehanded my imagined version of her cross necklace onto my accent nail.

What do you think? I'm still not a fan of matte.. maybe in time it may grow on me!

Rachael xxx

ER31DC Day 23 - Inspired by a Movie

Hello all!

First of all, I want to say sorry for being absent a fair bit this week. Work is hectic and I am so busy teaching myself everything before I can teach it to my kids. So I have some nails done, but havent had the chance to crop, watermark and write posts for them all yet!

Here is one though - my movie nails. I already did some Stargate ones before, so I went for one of the best movies I have seen this year, and one that has seen a lot of nail art love already - Despicable Me 2! Minion nails!

Hope you enjoy them!

Rachael xxx

ER31DC - Inspired by a Song

Hey all!

Another installment of the 31DC today - Inspired by a Song. 

The song I chose was Shinedown - Miracle. This is the song that my partner and I are having as our first dance. We chose it for the words and how we feel about each other, so I thought I would do some bridal style nails.

These come from 'something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue'. My nails have the blue element and also the old lace.. sort of.

I used 2 coats of Cadillacquer - Morning Comes as my base. This is a stunning periwinkle blue base with various blue / lilac glitters. Its so beautiful! I then freehanded and dotted a lace corner design over the top.

What do you think? Not sure this is refined enough for my wedding, but I do love the blue base, but think I would change the overall design.

Don't forget to check out everyone else's song inspired nails!

Rachael xxx

ER31DC - Day 21 Inspired by a Colour (Nail Lacquer Heart or Love review)

Day 21 - Inspired by a colour time!

I was not inspired by this at all, so asked Becca from Kittys Painted Claws to suggest something, anything for me. She then delegated the choice to her other half.. who not knowing me so well.. chose PURPLE. ARGH!

My initial thoughts.. do I OWN any purple polish? So I had a little rummage about in my unorganised helmer drawers and discovered my little untried beauty from Megan at Nail Lacquer.

When she announced this was coming soon, I just had to have it. Megan was kind enough to give me one as a present, before it was released for sale. How lovely is that?

Heart or Love is a beautiful glitter topper packed full of circle glitter. Heaven. I LOVE CIRCLE GLITTER!

Not my usual colour combination - theres some purple in there, along with pink and blue.. but omg I love it so much! Here I have it layered over Sinful Colors Black on Black. Didn't want to take it off! Perfect going out / special occasion mani! Application was great, lots of glitter and the circles came out fairly easily. It levelled nicely and dried in good time. The circles laid flat to the nail with no curling. Can't fault it!

Don't forget to check out everyone else's mani's for this week!

Rachael xxx

ER31DC - Day 19 Galaxy Nails

Day 19 tiiiiiiime :) Galaxy Nails!

I've done these before but it doesn't matter how many times I do them, they always feel new! I do always try different colours - this time I used Illamasqua Faux Pas and a dark navy blue Sally Hansen I can't remember the name of. I really quite like the result!

What do you think? This could be my favourite colour combo I've tried so far!

Don't forget to check out everyone else's galaxy nails!

Other posts you might like:

ER31DC - Day 18 Half Moons

Hello again, its Half Moon Day!

I went a little outside of my own personal box today and started with a yellow base (Ciaté Big Yellow Taxi). I then chose to paint white triangles where my moons would be, and outlined with a double black line. 

What do you think? I'm not sure yet. But it reminds me of Brownies. Did anyone go to Brownies as a kid? It reminds me of the jumper and neckerchief I had to wear :)


Don't forget to check out everyone elses Half Moon manis!

Other posts you might like:

ER31DC - Day 17 Glitter

Good morning!

Its yet ANOTHER 31DC mani today. Glitter! YAY for glitter!

I have pulled out one of my favourites for today - Ellagee - Beyond The Sea.

Laura originally sent me this for review, but I loved it so much I had to buy a large bottle of it. I have it here over Butter London Slapper.

What do you think? Do you like it? Would you wear it? Do you have either of these polishes? Want them?

Don't forget to check out everyone else's glitterbomb manis!

Other posts you might like:

ER31DC - Day 16 Tribal

Hey all!

Here I am again - am I sick? Maybe. Catching up super quick for the 31 Day Challenge. Today is Tribal. I took inspiration from the tribal artwork we used to study in art at school. Absolutely loved it and still stop to ogle it if i see it in a gallery or shop window. This is the picture I took inspiration from - can you see the different sections I took from? 

The colours I used were Sally Hansen - The Sky's the Limit, Barry M - Mushroom and Sinful Colors - Black to Black and Snow Me White.

What do you think? Would you wear it? Does it look tribal to you?

Other posts you might like:

ER31DC - Day 15 Delicate Print

Good morning! Catching up quickly with the 31DC again. Here's my 'delicate print' mani.

I think I may have gone off on a tangent here, but I did these because I have seen them done and I always think they look delicate - so this is what popped into my head when I looked at today's theme. Dreamcatcher nails!

What do you think? Would you wear them? I have to admit, I am in LOVE with the base colour - Deborah Lippmann Modern Love. The other colours I used were Sinful Colors Black to Black and Snow Me White. I think this would look lovely with another colour interjected, maybe for the beads and feathers such as pink or blue. Will definitely do these again!

Don't forget to check out everyone's delicate print manis!

Other posts you might like:

ER31DC - Day 14 Flowers

Hey all!

Back again with Day 14 of the Extra Relaxed 31 Day Challenge. Today is Flowers. As you know I love floral patterns and you'll see a lot of vintage roses, poppies and sunflowers on my nails. I decided to go a bit different today though and took inspiration from another of my favourite flowers - the Iris. Then I just went a bit abstract on my nails - they're sort of IKATish maybe?

What do you think? It looks quite nice from afar - I quite like the colour combination, but it doesnt really look anything like an iris, does it? The colours I used were Illamasqua Faux Pas for the base, Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Black on Black and Lets Meet.

Don't forget to check out everyone else's floral manis!

Other posts you might like:

ER31DC - Day 12 Stripes

Hey all!

Still trying my best to catch up - here is my Day 12 - Stripes. I'm still in love with my Essie Naughty Nautical and Barry M Gold Foil Effects combo, so here it is another way :)

Don't forget to check out everyone else's nails for Stripes day!

Other posts you might like:

ER31DC - Day 11 Polka Dots

Hey all!

Here I am again with the 31 Day Challenge - today is Day 11, Polka Dots.

I decided to try out my new polish as a base - Essie Naughty Nautical. I LOVE IT! My dots are Barry M Gold Foil Effects.

What do you think? Would you wear it? 

Don't forget to check out everyone else's polka dot posts!

Other posts you might like:

ER31DC - Day 10 - Gradient Nails

Hey all!

I am trying my hardest here to catch up with this challenge - everyone else I believe is on.. Day 22/23. I am on... Day 10! Yaaaaaay for Day 10 haha! Got to be positive about these things :)

So anyway. I was not looking forward to today - I am not great at gradients they always look not blended. I try my hardest - maybe its just the polish I choose. 

Today I went for something unusual for me - a mix of orange and coral orange/pink. I used Barry M Gelly Papaya and one of my new Taras Talons polishes - Orange Juice.

I've worn Papaya before - its a very bright juicy orange. Orange Juice is a corally orange, which looks a bit pinker when you put it with Papaya. I think they work well together. I used two coats of Papaya, and then sponged Orange Juice on at the tip. What do you think?

I then thought it didn't look quite finished, so I went for your typical sunset look and freehanded a palm tree silhouette onto my accent nail.

Don't forget to check out what everyone else did for gradient week!

Other posts you might like:

ER31DC - Day 8 - Metallic Nails

Hi all! Guess what? Yeah, I'm still not on time!

Today is my metallic nails for the Extra Relaxed 31 Day Challenge. I am not a massive fan of metallics, but I did pick up a few in my latest Nails Inc Lucky dip.

The two metallics I got were Roland Gardens (a beautiful red) and Great Tichfield Street (a pinky gold). GTS is more of a foil, but I still like it none the less.

I decided I was going to try and conquer one of my fears today - tape. Becca from Kittys Painted Claws normally helps me if I need to do anything tape related, so I'm sure she will be very proud that I tried these out myself!

As you can see, I still need some practice - some parts are not perfect but I was pretty pleased after my previous attempts!

What do you think?

Rachael xxx

Check out the other metallic nails (which were done on time!)

ER31DC - Week 6 - Violet Nails

These ended up being a little bit of a cop out - I wanted to do some stamping (after seeing the lush nails at Never Mind Suzi) so I did.. but I failed massively at full nails so ended up with some smaller ones.

They're not my style, but its a learning curve - I will eventually manage some full nail stamping!

The colour I used was one of my new Essence Colour and Go shades - a lovely purple called Oh My Glitter. It has a beautiful pinky red shimmer in it and only took one coat! I think a second may have improved it though as you can see it shrank away from my tips quite a bit when it was completely dried.

 

The stamping plate I used was one of the Cheeky ones - either CH3 or CH4 I think, can't remember (would check but I'm not at home!)

Check out everyone else's much better manis!

ER31DC - Week 5 - Blue Nails

I was panicking that I was really behind with this, when I realised that I did a blue mani for my birthday nails yesterday.

The base I used is a beautiful almost periwinkle blue shade from a pack of Color Club minis I picked up at TKMaxx. I am not 100% sure atm what the name of it is (possibly Hydrangea Kiss). It is really quite good for a pastel shade - only 2 coats needed for full coverage and it was much less streaky than I expected. Nice quick dry time too :)

On top, I added some pink glitter half moons (very large half moons!) using a new, as yet unreleased shade from Ellagee - I've Gotta Crush On You. Its an absolutely gorgeous mix of small pink and silver glitters, with fine glitter, hexes and squares in both colours. Fell in love with it as soon as I put it on my nails and have already put in a preorder for a large bottle when its officially released this month.

My official review of this will be sometime this week, along with the wildflowers collection she released this weekend, so watch this space :)

What do you think? Would you wear it? It went perfectly with my birthday outfit, and I think its a lovely spring mani :)

Don't forget to check out everyone else's blue nails this week! xxx

ER31DC - Week 3 - Yellow Nails

I hate yellow week! Yellow is the colour that is either yellow yellow, or pastel yellow. So I have 4 polishes in yellow, 3 are yellow yellow, one is pastel yellow. They often look different in the bottle but they all end up the same on your nails!

So i hope its okay that I twisted the yellow theme slightly to things i associate with yellow. Pikachu, and lightning (which is also associated with pikachu - win win :))

I was a little disappointed with the eyes because i got them just a smidge too close together but otherwise got to be one of my best pokemon nails to date :) never done lightning nails either so canny pleased with those too.

Polishes used: Loréal - soft chinchilla, ciaté - big yellow taxi, Essie - Forever Yummy, Zoya - Raven / Purity.

 

What do you think? 

Don't forget to check out everyone else's yellow nails! x

 

Extra Relaxed 31DC - Day 2 - Orange Nails

I was so stuck over these but i'm quite pleased with the end result! :)

I was totally decided on my base - this just arrived around a week ago and I've been dying to try it - Kunimitsu Nail Potions - Orange Tabby.

Totally in love with this muted orange! Then I got REALLY stuck. Tried loads of different designs - I wanted something cat related as I bought Orange Tabby because of Milo, my cat :) (picture included, of course!)

Totally off-topic, but did anyone ever play Catz / Dogz on the computer YEARS ago? I love this picture because it reminds me of Scaredy cat.. hes stood just like Scaredy did in the game.. and its totally fitting of his personality. When its quiet hes relaxed and loves a cuddle on his own terms but anything new and this is what he's like! This was taken when I was poorly and he didn't like it one bit bless him!

Anyway back onto nails (sorry for the off on a tangent moment!) - so I tried cat eyes, which were SO creepy I had to remove them cause they made me feel uneasy.. then I painted on a cat to look like the Kunimitsu label and it was totally deformed.. and then I was just about to give up and I spied my trusty dotting tools :)

Check out everyone else's oranges nails for Day 2 :)

Extra Relaxed 31DC - Day 1 - Red Nails

Hello!

So I joined a new challenge! :)

Yes, I do still have two posts outstanding from the last one which are coming, I promise! I couldn't miss out on this one though. I've recently joined The Crumpet's Nail Tarts - a facebook group for all people who love painting nails :)

They have various challenges going on, such as the Tri-Polish contest, MSMDM (Monkey See Monkey Do Mondays) and various different 31 Day challenges. After last month's 28 day challenge, I don't have the energy for an every day thing, so this is perfect for me! 31 Days, but stretched out even further than the laid back version, so there is only one post a week. Post day is supposed to be friday, but I doubt I will always have mine on time for fridays as its not a great day for me!



Today I went for a very VERY relaxed start. I am first of all, in love with this new polish. It is one of my very first NYC polishes, which Becca from Kitty's Painted Claws gave me for free (thanks Becca, love thee :D ). It's called Penn Station, and because it is borderline red / pink, I can actually pull it off :) The formula for this was great - ALMOST a one coater - but I did two just to be sure.

I also used some of Born Pretty Store's studs. I love these and don't get to use them often as they come off easily when I'm at work, but someone else said they always use superglue to keep them on, and it doesnt affect their nails, so I thought I would I would give them a try!

Already had compliments on them from the OH (massive surprise actually!) and also from his dad.. don't know what that means but i'll take all the compliments I can get haha :)

Don't forget to check everyone else's red nails! x