Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : J for Japanese

Hello again everyone ! I'm back from my trip away with family in Brittany, worked all day yesterday and I finally got a chance to do my nails again today (I was dying to do them as I hadn't since the last challenge I posted, they'd started peeling) ! Today's theme is Japanese and this is what I came up with :

I started thinking about what I would do for today's theme last week. The "Japanese" theme seemed a bit ambiguous to me, so I did a lot of research and after trolling through pictures of all sorts of writing/kimonos/cherry blossom, and even considering mega-jewelled japanese nail art trends, I eventually settled with the Rising Sun flag !

For this design I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and then using OPI Big Apple Red I made a small dot in the centre of each nail as a reference to draw a bigger circle. From that circle I then painted the lines coming out of it, simple really !

As much as I like the way this nail art design looks, I'm dreading having to remove it tomorrow because of the red nail varnish ! I usually avoid it like the plague for that very reason, I'll just have to put up with it ! I think it would look good with different colours as well - another thing to add to my long list of things to try out !

I'm off to bed now, so I'll see you all again tomorrow with... kittens !

NOTD : Stars and Shiny Stripes

Hola everyone ! So I had my first exam today which went pretty well so I'm really happy, and so I decided to reward my good work with some baking and some nail art ! I made some reaaaaaally tasty macadamia nut caramel squares which are seriously tasty, and after that I just decided to chill and do my nails whilst watching ANTM (oh lord I have spent far too long watching it during this past week..) ! So without further ado, the nails !

This is an idea I've had in my head for quite a while, but I have never got around to executing it ! I'm really glad I did finally get to do this nail design though because I think it looks great ! I think I'm getting slightly over-the-top with the amount of nail art designs with these two accent nails recently, it seems to me that I've been doing rather a lot of them ! Never mind !

So the nail polishes I used for today's design are American Apparel T-Shirt, China Glaze Man Hunt and OPI Die Another Day, plus my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in white for the stars on my accent nails. I thought that Die Another Day would be a bit too orangey for the stripes for the USA flag, but as it turns out it really works quite well and the orange-ness isn't that noticeable ! I think a deeper red polish would have been too much maybe !

And that's that for today everyone ! I hope you all enjoyed today's design, now I'm off to watch a bit more ANTM before a friend comes over to watch Team America ! Happy times ! Hopefully it won't be too too long before my next post, my next and last exam is on Thursday (unless of course it gets cancelled because of this damn snow, ugh I hate snow so much right now), so hopefully I can post something after that as I'll be revising all day tomorrow !

Hope you all have a great evening !

NOTD : Language Nails

Hello again everyone ! I've got a special NOTD design for you all today ! I'll start off with the big news first though : I majorly broke a nail on my right hand this morning when I was swimming, so I'm going to cut all my nails down really quite short because I can't cope with irregularly sized nails ! Unfortunately it broke almost half way down the nail and it's super painful (especially when I had to take the nail polish off the nail afterwards, it stung so much) so I've had to cut it down a substantial amount so it was easier to repair, oh well !

So anyway, as for the nails, as some of you may know, I'm studying Germany and Russian at university ! Today the university organised some talks about careers in translating and interpreting (and of course I was incredibly interested) so I decided to do special nails for the occasion ! On my four fingers on both hands I did a flag to represent each language I can speak and in the order I learnt them : English, French, German and Russian ! Then on my two thumbs I did the UN flag on my left hand, and the EU flag on my right.

For the design, I used Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream, China Glaze Manhunt, American Apparel T-Shirt, OPI Big Apple Red, American Apparel Hassid, P2 Hug Me, and my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in white for the detailing on the UN flag. I really enjoy painting flags on my nails, but I always seem to struggle to get the proportions right !

Right well I'm off now in a bit of a rush, hopefully going to see Skyfall in a bit with a friend so I'm super excited ! Better head off now, will see you all tomorrow !

Have a great day !

NOTD : Airplane

Well hello there everybody ! Today's nails are slightly different than what I usually do in the way of nail art, but I think they're pretty cool nonetheless ! I'm pretty happy with how they turned out (considering I'm usually awful at drawing planes), so let me tell you the story behind them !

Airplane nails ! So these nails were set as a challenge for me by a family friend who works with buying parts for airplanes, so he naturally wanted me to do special airplane nails for him ! The challenge was set for me as a comment on my Facebook page on yesterday's cherry nails that I posted, and of  course, I accepted ! I hate drawing airplanes, so I just went with a simple silhouette with just a plain colour, and then I did the flypast colours like you get at ceremonial events and all that (I honestly know nothing about planes, can you tell ?) !

So for this design the colours I used were Models Own Blooboo for the base and American Apparel T-Shirt for the clouds. For the aircraft I used OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine!, and then the coloured stuff that's coming out the back of the plane (that's the technical term, I believe) I did using 17 Baked Cherry, OPI Skull and Glossbones and China Glaze Manhunt. I actually really like the way the clouds look, I did them using just a cotton bud Q-tip ! I got a bit of fluff from it but I just picked it off with tweezers !

And that's it for today ! I'll have to sort out a scheduled post for tomorrow as I've got a very busy day ahead of me ! I may just do a quick cute pattern in the morning when I have a bit of time, we'll see how it goes !

See you all tomorrow everyone ! Have an awesome day !

Union Jack Pastel

Hi there everybody ! Today I've got an old mani to show you all (running low on stuff to show you when I can't do my nails daily) because I really like yesterday's nails and I'm not ready to take them off yet (plus the fact it's pretty late and I can't be bothered to start nails now) ! I don't have very many decent photos of my nails from before I started blogging left (pretty much none now I've done this post), so I'm going to have to sort out what to do when I can't do my nails !

I did these nails back in May, around the Queen's Diamond Jubilee as I was feeling patriotic ! I can only imagine all the jubilee nails I could have done for you all had I been motivated by a daily blog ! I didn't want to go for the traditional red and blue colours, so instead opted for a pastel Union Jack look, which I think worked quite well !

The colours I used for these nails were OPI Alpine Snow, OPI Planks A Lot and OPI Sparrow Me the Drama. When I did this design, I did it the hard way by painting my nails with a white base colour, and then painting on all the triangles myself. I've realised that the easier way to do these nails is by starting off with the triangle colour as the base colour, then just striping on the white and selected middle stripe colours !

And I'm afraid I onl have 2 photos for you today ! I'll be back tomorrow with a new NOTD, hopefully something original as well, we'll see what I can come up with (or what inspiration my mother gives me) !

Have a great day everyone !

NOTD : Paralympic Nails

Waaaaaah, hey guys ! Oh my god I can't believe how late I'm posting this ! But I promise it's totally related to today's events, as you may have seen in the title of this post, I've done Paralympic nails ! Now there's not as much of a hype about about the Paralympics as there was for the actual Olympics, but nonetheless, I'm continuing the tradition after my Olympic Nails !

So I have to admit, I was actually going to post an old manicure for today's post, but then whilst watching the news and all the reports about the Paralympics opening ceremony, I saw the logo for the 2012 Paralympics and thought it'd look pretty good translated into nail art ! I decided to keep it simple, doing one design on each nail rather than actually copying out the logo, and then I did the Union Jack on my thumbs (as you can see) in the appropriate logo colours.

I only used four different polishes for this design (not too much compared to my original Olympic nails) which were OPI Dim Sum Plum, P2 Hug Me !, H&M U Must Have This and OPI My Back Pocket, plus my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in white for the white on the Union Jacks. The design was pretty easy to do, plus I love that framed nail ! My first attempt at one and I think it looks awesome !

So that's it for today ! I hope you liked my second installment in my Olympics series haha, even though it wasn't planned and was purely on a whim ! Are you going to be watching any of the events ? I think I may have to tune in to the wheelchair basketball !

NOTD : These Are a Few of My Favourite Things

Hey guys ! This post needs to be reaaaaally really quick today as we're having a BBQ with over 15 guests and some of them have actually already arrived ! AHHHH ! I'm so unsociable !

So I didn't actually plan on spending over 2 hours on my nails, but I guess I got kind of carried away. I did a kitty on my sister's thumb earlier this morning and it's been bugging me all day, but I really didn't want to do just kitties, but never mind. It is how it is !

I've been wanting to do galaxy nails for absolutely aaaaages but have never got round to it, and I've been feeling all patriotic today watching the Olympics so I just had to include a Union Jack flag, and I guess the rest just sort of appeared on my nails in my flood of inspiration for this design !

Right so I'm going to do a list for each nail for the list of polishes I used because I used waaaay too many for one paragraph !

Thumb : OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh ?, OPI You Don't Know Jacques, Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black.
Index : OPI Steady as She Rose, OPI Dim Sum Plum, OPI Funkey Dunkey, Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black and white.
Middle : Barry M Black, Barry M Lemon Ice Cream, Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream, Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black.
Ring : Barry M black, Kiko Electric Blue, P2 Who Cares ?, Barry M Berry Ice Cream, Essence Hello Holo, OPI Alpine White.
Little : Kiko Electric Blue, OPI Big Apple Red, Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in white.

And there's a quick recap of each nail for you ! I guess the post wasn't actually that quick but rest assured it was written relatively quickly (please excuse any typos, I'm not checking for them !).

Hope you enjoyed the unplanned madness ! Now it's time to partay !

Wah Leopard Print + BONUS Union Jacks

Helloooo everybody ! Just a quick post today as I've been supe busy and actually still haven't haven't my Olympic nails yet ! Oh the blasphemy !

So I did this design a while ago, and the colour scheme sort of reminded me of the classic Wah Nails leopard print colours, except obviously I used stamping for this mani ! Can you believe this is the first time I've posted stamping on this blog ?

The colours I used to create this design were OPI Strawberry Margarita for the base colour, then when that was dry I taped off half of the nail and painted on a coat of OPI My Back Pocket ! For the stamping I used the leopard print stamp from Konad M57 with Konad Special Black polish.

So that's it for that manicure, but as you have seen in the title, I have bonus Union Jacks for you ! We had some friends from England over for dinner, one of whom was my lovely friend Kate, and it has become a bit of a tradition for me to her nails every time we see eachother ! And for this time's design, she wanted Union Jacks (after seeing my awesome Union Jack nail from my Olympic Nails) !

The colours I used for Kate's design are the same as what I used for my own Union Jack, that being Kiko Electric Blue, OPI Big Apple Red and my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in white.

And there we are ! Not such a short post I guess, but tomorrow I promise I'll be posting a NOTD ! I swear !