Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : M for Mosaic

Hello everyone ! It feels like the day has gone seriously quickly today, perhaps because I didn't wake up until 11am this morning, I ended up not doing very much all day except for a bit of fiddling on my computer and doing my nails late this afternoon ! I'm really pleased with what I've come up with for today's mosaic theme in the nail art challenge, I hope you all like it !

I was thinking of maybe using some striping tape to make squares and just paint them all different colours but I didn't fancy the idea of waiting around for my base colours to dry before I could use the striping tape, so that idea went out the window ! Instead I settled on another freehand nail art design in a mosaic pattern, which I think looks far better than anything I could have done with striping tape !

For today's design I started by alternating base colours with OPI My Very First Knockwurst and OPI Dim Sum Plum. As well as those colours, I used OPI Sparrow Me the Drama, OPI Strawberry Margerita and OPI Planks A Lot for the mosaic pieces. I think I prefer the nails which have Dim Sum Plum for the base (index and ring) because the mosaic triangles on top look more pronounced in comparison to the other three nails, what do you reckon ?

So I may have managed to avoid using striping tape today but I don't think I'll be able to avoid it for tomorrow's nautical theme, not for what I have planned in any case ! You'll have to wait until tomorrow for that though, so I'll see you all then !

Geometric Gradient and my Belated Blogaversary !

Helloooooooo everyone ! So I was meant to write a post yesterday as it was my official first blogaversary, but I ended up getting completely sidetracked and totally forgot until I'd turned my computer off and was laying in bed, but by that time it was gone midnight anyway and no longer my blogaversary.. oh well, I'm here today ! But anyway, I've got a great design that I'm in love with to share with you today !

So these nails were inspired by a design I saw by Chelsea at Get Nailed, which just happened to pop up on my Tumblr feed when I sat down to do my nails on the day before I left home to come to Berlin. I loved the colour combination and just the way it was so simple and minimalistic, yet really eye-catching at the same time !

For this design, the nail varnishes I used were OPI Funkey Dunkey, OPI Planks A Lot and OPI Steady as She Rose, and topped off each nail with a plain silver stud. I think I prefer the lighter purple base, as on my thumb, ring and little fingers to the darker purple, but I also love the way the colours and reversed designs all fit together ! I'll definitely be trying this with different colours soon !

So that's all for today everyone, I still can't believe it's already been a year since I first started posting here, and I'm so glad that I've been able to entertain you all and share my designs with the world for a whole year now ! Here's to another year everyone !

NOTD : Duotone Skittles

Helloooooo everybody ! Now normally I would have posted something for you all last night, but I had some friends over for an early Christmas meal before we break up for the holidays which was great ! We even had our own personalised Christmas crackers hats (and would you believe that mine had nail varnish on it ?) ! But anyway, I'm back today with a NOTD for you all !

I was going to carry on with another manicure for my Advent Calendar series today, but I wasn't really feeling the Christmas nail inspiration when it came to doing my nails, so I just went with a simple pattern design ! I really love how the houndstooth turned out on my thumb, but for some reason it doesn't look right, and I can't seem to work out why !

So for this design, the colours I used were OPI My Very First Knockwurst, and then I did all the black detailing on top using my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black. I just looked up different black and white patterns on google images and it was pretty easy to fill up all 10 nails with a different pattern on each !

And here's an extremely bright iPhone picture to show you all what I did on my right hand (seeing as I can't physically hold my camera in my left hand and take a successful photo) ! Anyway, that's it for today, I hope you like this NOTD in comparison to all the Christmas nails I've been showering you with !

See you all tomorrow everybody !

NOTD : Dior Hearts

Helloooooo everybody ! Just a quick post from me today as I've got some work to do before tomorrow and I've got an early wake-up for lectures in the morning so I can't be too late to bed ! I've done another quick manicure today using another of my Dior polishes I got at the weekend.. I have to say, they really are all such stunning colours, and the application is divine !

So I needed a quick and simple design to do on my nails this evening, and my Mum (who always has the best ideas) told me to do hearts ! I originally pictured just one plain heart on each nail to make for a very uniform design, but ended up going with the three smaller hearts on three nails, and just sticking to a large heart accent nail. This was mainly because I didn't trust myself to paint on four plain simple and exactly the same size hearts.. oh well !

This design was done using Dior Red Ebony (813) and Barry M Gold Foil. The Dior polish dries A LOT darker than the bottle colour, which I wasn't expecting at all ! In the bottle it looks a very bright maroon-y colour, nothing ebony about it, but as soon as you get a couple of coats on your nails you really can see where the "ebony" name comes from. It's an almost-black red polish, just waiting to find out if it stains !

Aaaaaaaand that's it for today everyone ! I'm off to go and do some Russian before I go to bed, hopefully won't be too long ! I hope you enjoyed this manicure, despite the short post about it ! I'll make up for it tomorrow, I swear !

See you all then guys, have an awesome day !

NOTD : Houndstooth

Well hello there everybody ! So today I've got an AMAZING design on my nails which I'm super proud of ! What with all the houndstooth fashion craze and all the houndstooth nail designs going round at the moment, I decided I ought to give it a go for myself, and I have to say, I'm really really really pleased with the results !

So I've wanted to do houndstooth for ages now, and when Katy from Nailed It announced a couple of days ago that she was doing a nail art contest which only allowed you to use two bottles of polish, I started racking my brain trying to decide what design to do, when I realised that houndstooth would be the perfect pattern for using two different bottles of polish !

For this design the only two polishes I used (excluding base and top coat) were OPI Suzi and the 7 Düsseldorfs for the base colour and then for the black pattern I used Americal Apparel Hassid. May I add that I did this all freehand, including just painting plain squares instead of doing all the striping business, it seemed too much like hard work going over everything twice with my base colour and since I trimmed my nail art brush a bit it's a lot easier just to paint the squares !

And that's it for today everyone ! So it turned out this post hasn't been posted much earlier than the one yesterday, but oh well, these nails took forever to do and for a good cause as well (my satisfaction and the nail art contest, of course) ! Maybe tomorrow I'll post slightly earlier if I can, we'll see !

See you all then guys !

And also, there's only a few hours left in my giveaway ! Get in there while you can !

NOTD : Stained Glass Nails

Oh god oh god it's really late isn't it ? I'm sorry ! I've had soooo much to do, and still have got loads to do for the rest of this week, but I'm still posting ! I've set a good pace by posting every day since I first started this blog, and I'm going to aim to keep that record going as long as I can ! So today's nail art is inspired by something (I'll tell you after the first photo) I saw whilst I was on holiday in Cologne !

So these nails are inspired by the big stained glass window (just realised I probably gave the nail design away in the title.. oh well !) in the Cologne cathedral, designed by Gerhard Richter. The new window was put in in 2007, and it looks like loads of multicoloured-rainbow pixels, really stunning !

These nails are actually the kind that look really great and impressive from a distance, but that when you take photos it shows up all the imperfections. It's a shame really that you can't see how great they look in the photos I took, my camera picks up all the transparency from where I painted the squares on the white base colour I used.

I used LOADS of polishes for this design, and I'll do my best to name all of them ! They're all still out on the table so it shouldn't be too hard ! For the white base I used American Apparel T-Shirt, then for the different colours I used Essence Redvolution, 17 Baked Cherry, OPI My Back Pocket, P2 Hug Me, P2 Crazy About Green, Collection 2000 Ninja, Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream, Kiko Electric Blue, P2 Poetic, P2 Break the Rules and P2 Flirt With Me. See what I mean ? Loads of polishes !

So that's it ! I'll also include a photo of the stained glass at the end of the post so that you can see the inspiration behind the nails ! This design also reaaaaly reminds me of Elmer the Patchwork Elephant, man, I used to love that book !

Have a great day !

NOTD : Mini Multi Shapes

Hey there guys ! Does that title help at all in giving you indications as to what I've done for today's mani ? I actually have no idea what to call these nails, I originally thought of "jack in the box nails" because all the shapes reminded me of baby toys and stuff, but "mini multi shapes" is pretty precise too... well, as precise as it gets !

So my mother (once again) gave me the idea for these nails. She told me to do a mix of different shapes and different colours, so I grabbed my trusty nude base colour and a couple of nail art pens and away I went ! I absolutely love bright colours on nude bases, like my Bright Splatter mani I did the other day, as I find it more muted than what it would look like with a white base.

For this mani the polishes I used were OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh ?, then for the little shapes I used OPI Big Apple Red for the dots, and then my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pens in yellow and blue for the stars and squares. I really love how these nails look ! From a distance they all look like little dots, but close up you see that they're all different shapes, which I love !

I really need to remind myself before I do my nails again, to clean out my lightbox : there's a spider I evicted yesterday that's been rather busy spinning webs, and so each time I go to take photos of my nails, I keep getting coated in web.. not nice !

And so that's it for today ! Let me know if you can think of a good title for this design, I've got title block, you know ?