33 Day Challenge day 3 - tape manicure!

Hi!

Let it be known that I suck at tape manicures. They are not my bag. For some people it's watermarbling, others can't stamp. I can't get to grips with tape. I just don't have the patience or the co-ordination - something which you need for tape to work! So I went for something simple and fairly difficult to mess up and it came out ok (this was my second attempt mind...)

I went for a black base, lay down some tape in stripes and painted over them with matte topcoat, pulled off the tape and voila! Two stripy accent nails and shiny dots on matte on the rest and I called it a day before I messed something up!

I love the contrast between the shiny and matte, and I think this would make a great subtle Halloween mani. But who needs subtle at Halloween!

Hx

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New 31 day challenge day 12, tape mani

Hello again!

Just warning you from the start: I fail at tape manis. I think I have only ever had one truly successful one, and that was a fluke. Whether I use striping tape, sellotape (scotch tape), masking tape, french tip guides, hole reinforcers, stickers - I always foul it up somehow. Anyway, I've seen a lot of gold and teal coloured manis done with striping tape and thought I'd give it a go...first mistake. Second mistake was the gold I chose, a cheap drugstore brand that wasn't opaque enough and needed too many thick coats. I thought I'd just do an accent nail, and that made all the mistakes more blindingly obvious. But never mind, you live and learn! You can kinda see what I was trying to do, right?

Also, it was the darkest, dullest day ever when I took the pictures, so it looks doubly awful. Anyway, I was in love with the mani I did for tomorrow's challenge so I hope I will redeem myself!

Hx

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New 31 day challenge, day 4 - pink

Morning,

Catching up with my challenge posts - day 4's was pink, and another skittle. This one didn't come out as I imagined it in my head - but do they ever?! I used OPI Steady as she Rose as the base, and Models Own Pink Fizz with striping tape and stamping. A cute idea for Valentines day maybe?

Excuse the glitter herpes! Coming up later is day 5s purple nails, a mani I was proud of for once!

Hx

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NOTD - Nautical LOVE

I heart nautical style. Knots and anchors and stripes and navy - yes please! I've created a few nautical nail looks before, but not for a while, so I thought it was about time I did it again! I also took pictures of each step, tutorial stylee. I hope you like it!

1. Start with a base coat of your favourite primary red. I used 17 Knockout Red and applied two coats.

2. Once it's completely dry, tape off a third of your nail and paint the other 2/3 with navy blue, I used China Glaze Starboard. It doesn't matter if this is messy, you'll tidy it up later.

 3. Use a white striper, or striping brush dipped in white polish to create stripes on the blue part of the nail. You can tidy up the edge between the red and blue here too, although I added striping tape in the next step.

  4. Add a strip of gold striping tape between the red and blue sections before adding topcoat.

Easy peasy nautical nails!

What do you think of my tutorial? Would you like to see more? I've never really thought of doing any before because I don't think my nail art is very tutorial worthy!

Hx

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Monkey See Monkey Do Monday...on Tuesday

Great start, right? SO over at the Purple Crumpet Fairy Challenge (originators of the Spring Challenge) there is a new challenge going on - on a Monday you recreate a challenge you've seen somewhere else, whether it be Pinterest, another blog, tumblr or whatever. I have seen the laser mani lots of times and as Debbie did one last Monday I decided to follow her lead and corrupt Whimsical with one. I just placed striping tape randomly over my nails, trying to make sure I would get some glitter poking through, and then painted over it with a coat of W7 Metallic Neptune (previously untried, as it is untried month!). I took the tape off straight away and this is what I was left with. I really liked it :)

Metallic Neptune is a blue/Green/Purple duochrome that was so hard to photograph, especially with the fantasticly wet weather we're having. Hooray for hosepipe bans. Anyway, you can just see the purple in the last picture at the edges of the nails. I'm pretty sure it would be a stainer, so using it this way is perfect ;)

Hopefully next week's MSMD will actually be on Monday...

Hx

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