Aztec Love

Hey guys.

Today I have for you another foray into the Face of Australia pastels I bought a while back. This time I wanted them to be a little bit more punchy, and so did this tribal design with them.

It's quite simple, but really a striking look. What do you think? Something you'd recreate?

What I used:

ulta3 'lily white'

essence 'black is back'

Face of Australia 'boys 'n' berries', 'after dinner mint' and 'easy peasy lemon squeezy'

Thanks for dropping in,

xNai

Pastel Chagall

Hello...I've been expecting you...*strokes pure white cat with creepy look on face* (yeah, alright, so I'm weird...what were you expecting?)

ANYway...

This mani was inspired by the brand new (at the time) pastel collection put out by Face of Australia. It came at a 'FINALLY' kind of moment for me, because I had been scouring shops for pastels since about August, waiting for spring/summer because thats when all the pretty bright colours are released.

Everyone was raving about this collection, and I can see why. Have a look for yourselves:

These polishes are pastels, but so bright and punchy in their colour - just perfect for summer/spring!

I only have 5 of the 7 in the range, as the others (a dusty lavender/grey and a pretty pink) didn't really appeal to me.

Application for most of the colours was just amazing, considering their pastel nature. The purple, yellow and orange applied nicely to full opacity in 2 coats. The blue took three thin coats, but was easy to apply, whereas the green took 3 as well, but was a bit more temperamental - patchy at times. I've since been using Revlon 'Jaded' instead - almost a dupe in colour, and much nicer application.

What I used:

ulta3 'lily white'

Face of Australia 'boys 'n' berries' (purple), 'once in a blue moon' (blue), 'after dinner mint' (green), 'easy peasy lemon squeezy' (yellow), 'would you like some orange sherbet?' (orange)

While the names are adorbs, espesh the yellow and orange, they're a pita* to write or even talk about!

As always, thanks for stopping by!

xNai

*pain in the ass

French is overrated...

Hello again my darlings!

Today I have a quick and dirty mani for you.

I did this one Saturday morning when I was in a bit of a rush to go out, and had naked nails.

Since I started this whole adventure into nail art, I've become known for it among my friends and peers, and I knew I couldn't go out with nothing on my nails, even if it was as simple as these.

I decided to go for a sort of French mani with this nude and blue gradient, which didn't work as nicely as hoped (note the ring and middle fingers).

This picture also alerted me to my terrible habit of not filing my ring finger to the same shape as all the others! What the?!

Then I gave up on that time consumingness, and just did an actual french tip on the other hand.

I didn't want the blue to actually be the size of my free edge, as I thought that might end up being too much, so I just did a very thin tip, as you can see.

Clearly my frenching skills are in dire need of some improvement! eek!

What I used:

essence 'nude it!'

ulta3 'blue bird'

Anywho,
Thanks for stopping by, you gorgeous thangs you!
xNai

Once in a pink moon

Hello again there fellow nailies!

So sorry for my absence these past days, but I'm back!

Today I have for you some bright pink and white nails.

Sally wanted these to match a dress she was wearing to a 21st, so we did some pretty and simple half moons with a glitter placement twist.

On the ring finger I put OPI's 'I Lily Love You' for a little extra blang blang...

I'll be posting a tutorial for this design tomorrow.

What I used:

Essie 'Off the Shoulder'

ulta3 'Lily White'

OPI 'I Lily Love You'

Thanks for stopping by!

xNai

Like a bat out of hell

Hello lovelies!

Sadly today is the last day of the This is Halloween Challenge! Sad face.

But that also means a recreation mani, and boy do I have a recreation for you!

After looking through a lot of the manis that were done, I noticed a theme for a few of them: Spooky silhouettes in front of a moon.

This one by @paperkraftnpolish on Instagram was the main inspiration for my recreation mani. I think she did such a spectacular job.

My inspiration mani

Here is my recreation of her beautiful bats design.

Bats Silhouette

I decided for these to mattify the blue gradient before putting on the black detailing, which meant that I couldn't top coat to protect the design, but hey, these are the things we do for nail art..:)

Bats Silhouette

Bats Silhouette

What I used:

ulta3 'midnight fever', 'blue heaven', 'blue bird' and 'lily white'

essence 'black is back' and 'walk on air'

Hope you liked these as much as I enjoyed doing them!

As always, thanks for stopping by!
xNai

                                                            

The best wiz and witchard o' their age!

Hello there lovelies!

So, as I have previously mentioned, I'm just a little bit of a PotterHead...Just a touch of the mania..:)

So for today's nails, as it is the 26th of October, and the day for witches in the This Is Halloween Challenge, I decided to recreate one of my very favourite Potter manis: The Final Battle.

The Final Battle

These nails depict the last and intense battle between Voldemort (that's right, I'm a badass. Fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself...) and Harry. It's a movie reference rather than a book reference, because I don't believe this is what JK would have been picturing, and nor is it what I picture...ANYWAY.

I first saw these nails on @trincess on Instagram, and instantly fell in love with them. OMFG, they're glorious!

Granted mine aren't quite as insanely cool, but I think I did a decent job considering I'm not actually an artist...:)

On the thumb I did the Deathly Hallows:

Deathly Hallows

And on the other hand, I did the house colours and stylised crest again. This is the first halloween mani I've done for both hands, and how could I not? It's Harry!

House Colours and Crest

What I used (prepare for a long list...):

For the Final Battle:

essence 'black is back', 'LIME UP!', 'fateful desire', and 'fame fatal'.

ulta3 'frog prince', 'banana split', 'lemon', and 'mango mayhem'.

For the Deathly Hallows and Right Hand:

essence 'black is back', 'fame fatal'

ulta3 'banana split'

Revlon 'Metallic', 'Emerald', 'Royal'.

Chi Chi 'Glamourama', and 'Bronze Ambition'

Anywho, I hope you enjoy these as much as I genuinely did making them!
As always, thanks for stopping by!
xNai

                                           

Dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones!

Hello there!

Today is October 22, and as we inch ever closer to Halloween, I have some more funkalicious themed nails for you!

Today's theme is gradient.

I love me some gradient. I gotta tell you, I love that it's such a wonderful effect for so simple a technique! Aside from monstrous clean up, (like with black - could have kicked myself...), it's kinda my go-to technique.

So here we have some black and white gradient, with fading bones. I've done used this effect before, with greens and fading dots (which I'm sure you'll see sometime in the future on this here bloggyblog), and I loved the way it looked then, so I knew I wanted to do something similar. The issue then was what? I didn't want to infringe on any of the other days' themes, and so this idea was born.

I do realise, of course, that they look a bit more like dog bones than skeleton bones, but hey, you win some, you lose some, amiright?

What I used:

Essence 'Black is Back'

ulta3 'lily white'

Don't forget to check out some of the dozens of other awesome manis for this challenge!

Anywho,

Thanks for dropping by,

xNai

                                                            

There's a light...over at the Frankenstein place

Hello again lovelies!

Today is October 19, and as such I have some bats for you!

I didn't want to be too literal with the bats thing, so I decided to take it to a vampirey castle, in the dead of night, with some bats flying up and away into the distance.

In this next pic, I decided to mattify half of the mani, to see what it would look like, and to give a stone-like effect to the castle. I think it turned out rather well!

And then on the thumb, what better than some Batman?
My fingers don't meet up nicely to make those joined up images, especially not my thumb (I swear I'm missing a joint there...), so I decided to chuck in some random Batmaniness. Cuz I can!

What I used:

For the blue I layered Essie 'Aruba Blue' over Ulta3 'Midnight Fever' - such a gorgeous, rich blue. I did the mani by itself afterwards, and I don't wear plain manis often.

Essence 'Black is Back'

Ulta3 'Banana Split'

Rimmel 'Matte Finish' top coat

As always, thanks for dropping by!
xNai

PS, you all totally have some Rocky Horror in your heads now, don't you? Moo hahaha :)


                                          

Braaaiiins...

Hello lovelies!

So today we have one of the This is Halloween Challenge manis that I'm rather proud of - zombies!

Today's mani was inspired by an artist I've been following on Instagram for a while now. Her handle there is @spooksieboo - go check her out.
She has an Etsy shop I believe, where you can go and order paintings of you and your loved ones zombified! I'll link it once I've found it, as right now the link isn't on her profile.
Edit: This is the link to her easy shop where you can purchase prints of some of her more popular designs, and sometimes even order customs pics...CLICK ME!

Anywho, on with the show!

I've always loved the eyes on her paintings, so I decided to replicate those here, with the trademark green of slowly decaying zombie skin, and of course some barely healing gashes, poorly stitched up.
And of course, a matte finish on these, because I felt it just more fitting.

What I used:

Essie 'Navigate Her' and 'Mojito Madness'

Essence 'Black is Back' and 'Fateful Desire'

Ulta3 'Lily White'

Rimmel 'Matte Finish'

What do you think? Did I do the challenge, and Spooksieboo's paintings justice?

As always, thanks for stopping by!
xNai

                                               

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick

Today is October 12, and you know what that means!

Jack O'Lanterns!

For these nails I decided to keep it super simple, and just create the basic ideas of jack O'lanterns. (should all those be capitalised? hmm..)

You can see the detailing in the actual pumpkin background better in this pic and the next one - I used two different shades of orange (essence 'Wake Up!' and Ulta3 'Mango Mayhem') to create the shading, and then just a black (essence 'Black is Back) with a teeny tiny paintbrush, and LOTS of patience for the faces.

I wanted to give you a range of faces, so we have two nice/benign, and two seriously evil looking' mofos.

Hope you've enjoyed these, and don't forget to check out some of the other incredible entries!
If you're on instagram, check out the #thisishalloweenchallenge tag - I and a number of others have been uploading there as well, and there are some seriously incredible entries; @strawbrie never fails to impress.

Thanks for dropping by
xNai

                                          

Wee Little Ghosties

Hello there fellow Halloweenies!

Today's October 8th, and that means ghosties!

This mani comes in 2 parts.

When thinking about how I would go about this, I originally thought about pacman and the ghosts there, and automatically wanted to recreate some of the amazing pacman nails I've seen. Then I realised that's not very Halloweeny, so I came up with these instead!

"Plain white?!" I hear you exclaiming. Fear not my lovelies. I have not forgotten the task set me by Bec!
There is more here than meets the eye.

The white is two coats of Ulta3 Lily White - by far and away the best white I have used - beautiful streak free application in 2 easy coats. Woo!

And the piece de resistance!

GLOW IN THE DARK FLIPPING GHOSTS!
The theory is that you can't see ghosts until you turn off the lights, so what better way to pay homage than to only see them at night time?!

I thought it was rather brilliant myself...:)

For the glow in the dark I used BYS glow in the dark top coat, and very painstakingly painted on little ghosties and a boo nail!
Getting that pic was then such a challenge in and of itself!

Anywho, hope you enjoy this as much as I did!
xNai