#33DC Day[9] - Indian

So right off the bat, this is Thailand not India, I'm adding a few letters and removing an i so that I can do this design and calling it kosher since Thailand and India have influence over one another. Alright, without further ado now, here is my design!

It's based off of a pair of harem pants I got from ThaiHippieBoho on Etsy. They are amazingly comfortable and unique and, surprisingly, I haven't owned something that gets more compliments more frequently. But enough about the pants, I'm already memorializing them in nail polish.

I used Sally Hansen Blue It for the base colour, Sally Hansen Hi-Res for the hearts and a gold and a white striper for the rest along with my trusty dotting tool.

I just want to gush for a moment about drawing hearts with a dotting tool, it is so fast and simple and easy. Just a little pull down after two dots gets you wonderful hearts, I keep doing hearts just to practice more.

Alright, that's all, but I'll see you on Thanksgiving (Woo! Canada!) for day 10 of this challenge!

Oh, did anyone else get the Day[9] reference I giggled over while posting this 9th day of the challenge? If you did you might be excited to hear I'm going to the WCS season 3 finals in Toronto! If you didn't don't worry, I'm just nerding out a little.

#31DC2013 Day 27 - Inspired by an Artwork

The artwork I chose for today is Barnett Newman's Voice of Fire. Barnett Newman is my favourite colour field painter, and I saw Voice of Fire at the National Gallery of Canada a few years ago and it left a serious impression on me. It has become rather synonymous with red and blue together for me. You can't give the same feel through nails that you can with a canvas that is almost 18 feet tall but I liked thinking about Voice of Fire whenever I looked at my nails.

What do you think of colour field as a style of abstract painting?

#31DC2013 Day 25 - Inspired by Fashion

I was nervous for today, I love what I've seen others do for inspired by fashion challenges and I'm not that fashion focused, but it was really very easy and fun. So if you feel the same and haven't tried it I say you should go for it!

Here is my inspiration for this challenge:

#31DC2013 Day 24 - Inspired by a Book

The book I chose for today's post is Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, specifically the book I own. I wanted to go with something a bit more abstract so I chose to design something based off of the cover of a book rather than the content.

#33DC Day 1 - Dots

Whoa, whoa self, what are you doing? You aren't even done your other challenge! This is insane, but here we go, I'm starting another. I think I'm addicted.

Dots are incredibly versatile. I really do love them. I used the dots as a gradient here and I feel like I've got pastel teal fizzy drink on my nails, but maybe that's just me.

What do you think of my pastel combination? Thanks for visiting, see you tomorrow for #31DC2013 or on Wednesday for day 2, most used colour. And if you want to participate check out our facebook group here, this challenge is every Mon, Wed, Fri and should be a lot of fun.

#31DC2013 Day 5 - Blue Nails

Today is (the day after) blue day and day 5 of the 31 day challenge. Here is my contribution to the day, one day late since blogger and I had an argument.

I like the colour combination here, and I had a lot of fun with my dotting tool which has since gone MIA. Oh dotting tool, please come back before day 11 of this challenge or I'll have to replace you with a toothpick and no one wants that.

Thanks for visiting, see you tomorrow!

Glittery Randomness

So.. November sure is a busy month. I'd been grinding away at my homework and grad school applications and whatnot and then suddenly a few weeks had just flown by. I've still been taking pictures of my nails though so never fear. I'm actually still pretty busy but I missed my blog so much that I'm taking some time away from the last mad dash to the end of term to post this.

I'm not sure what this is, but I do like it. It's a little reminiscent of seaweed or something, I'm not sure. But there are plenty of sparkles and I got to use OPI Don't Touch My Tutu outside of a jelly sandwich so I'm happy.

I also used Dollish Polish Spank You Very Much for the glitter gradient. I also used a touch of Claire's Ice Ice Baby for some bigger glitter pieces and my Kiss Soft Blue striper for the lines.

More pictures! And another compliment for Spank You Very Much, it goes on like a dream for such a glitter packed polish. Love it.

 I had fun with this and didn't go into it with a plan. It may be a little odd but I'm happy.

 What do you think of this design? Too weird? Let me know!

Fishtail Braid in Cool Colours

I hadn't tried a fishtail braid design before now, it's a lot of fun and really very pretty! I chose to use dark colours here so the difference is pretty subtle, I definitely want to try this out with some bright different colours as well for a different effect.

This was freehanded, I considered taping but decided against it, most of the time I managed to keep things pretty even in width. One problem with this type of design is the polish on the tips of your nails can get a little thick if you aren't careful.

I love a good top coat over dark colours, I'm using Seche Vite here. Haven't had a problem with shrinkage since the first time I used it when I put on far too much, maybe wrapping my tips is helping with that.

Thanks for looking!

Blue Jelly Sandwich

Ooh, look how pretty this is! Glittery lil jelly sandwich, aren't you cute!

To anyone who hasn't done this before, it looks really very neat in real life. The picture shows it in high detail and close up which is one aspect of it, but the one I enjoy the most is spotting your nails randomly during the day and initially seeing a pale pale blue that slowly resolves into this intricate, depth filled manicure.

I used OPI Don't Touch My Tutu! for the bread part of this sandwich. It is a milky, translucent white that applies fabulously. This is my first time using all of the polishes in this design and I adore Don't Touch My Tutu. Amazing. My middle finger also has a coat of China Glaze Techno over the blue glitter. My excuse was an accent nail but mostly I wanted to try a glitter that applies well after using that blue one.

The blue glitter is from Claire's and is called Ice Ice Baby. I love it in the bottle, the name made me smile in embarrassed nostalgia and the hexagonal glitter chunks with the smaller pieces of glitter are really quite pretty, but it also comes with an awful lot of big square flakes of blue glitter which I didn't love and applies like spreading concrete filled with chunks of glitter. I entirely understand what other bloggers mean when they say they find themselves pushing glitter around on the nail cause whoa, that's what I did here trying to get a nice even distribution of glitter without too many of those huge hunks of blue.

It was also incredibly bumpy and sharp edged. The blue squares of glitter all curve slightly and if I couldn't get them to face down then even in the finished design, which had two coats of Don't Touch My Tutu! and two coats of SV over top was still sharp in a couple places. But gosh.. it is so pretty.. 

I think I'll do this again anyways. Removal is happening now.. I'm out of polish remover mid-removal and I'm going to have to pop down to the shoppers near by to buy more while the glitter isn't quite gone and I'm still saying I'll do it again. Maybe I'll start pulling out the squares of glitter as I take out the brush from the bottle and maybe I'll give that PVA Glue thing that is going around a shot for easy glitter removal but I'll definitely do it again.

What do you think? How much better is this with a higher quality glitter?