Pick and Mix - Week 4

Week 4 time! I really struggled with inspiration for this one.

The choices were 70's or Grey and Colour. I really wanted to try 70's, but I found it really hard to come up with any ideas.

So here is my mani!

I used OPI French Quarter for Your Thoughts - a warm nude leaning grey, Sinful Colors - Snow Me White and China Glaze - Yellow Polka Dot Bikini for the accents. I had seen something like this somewhere recently, but after an extensive search of Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest I just can't find it. I really wanted to credit my original inspiration aswell. Nevermind.

What do you think?

Rachael xxx

An InLinkz Link-up

Pick and Mix - Week 3 Texture

Hi again! We're on week 3 already!

This week is Matte / Texture or 60's. I'm not really a massive fan of either, but I do like the odd texture so will give it a go!

So I raided Becca's (Kitty's Painted Claws) polishes for this - I (We) chose a base of Sally Hansen - Bewitched and Barry M - Duchess for the texture. I own Duchess myself, but it has sat untried for around a year.. poor polish!

I applied one coat of Barry M - Duchess to my thumb, pointer and pinky, and 1 thick coat of Bewitched to the other nails. 



I then wanted to try the 'quilted' sort of look, so I taped some criss cross diagonals and painted over with some Duchess and then removed the tape. 





I then added a second coat of Duchess to my other nails as it didnt look even. You can see the shift between purple to goldy-brown quite well on the above picture.

What do you think? Are you a texture fan? Have you done quilted nails before? Would love to know your thoughts!

Rachael xxx

An InLinkz Link-up

Pick and Mix - Week 2 - 2nd Prompt

Hiiiii

Well, I was feeling challenged, so I thought I would give a 3 colour gradient a go! I saw some beautiful nails over at Shamelessly Polished. I can't pull off those tones, but they inspired me to try my own version.

I used two coats of L'Oréal - Rose Bagatelle as a base, then sponged over a gradient of that plus Sinful Colors - Timbleberry and Sinful Colors - Soul Mate.

Here's my final gradient - not 100% but hopefully some more practice will make it better. I am certainly happy to have my beautiful points back anyway.

I then thought what can I add to improve this - the answer is always glitter. So I put a layer of China Glaze - Fairy Dust on it. 

What do you think? If you have any tips on gradients I'd love to hear them!

Rachael xxx

An InLinkz Link-up

Pick and Mix - Week 2

Hiiii!

Well I had this fantastic idea, but as per usual it involved something I am no good at - chevrons!

Practice will make perfect I hope! Anyway, this week one of the prompts is pink. I used two coats of Sinful Colors - Timbleberry, and one coat of Sinful Colors - Pinky Glitter for most of my nails.

My accent is 3 coats of China Glaze - Glistening Snow with some fairly wonky chevrons of Nails Inc - New York Noir.  I cut strips of Scotch tape and laid them over my accent nail before adding a layer of polish, but for some reason even though I removed straight away, the tape broke in two places so I had to go all surgery on them with a pair of tweezers to try and salvage it.

What do you think? If anyone has any tips for chevrons then I would love to hear them!

Rachael xxx

An InLinkz Link-up