Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : Round Up

So here's the round up post for all the nail designs I've done throughout the Alphabet Nail Art Challenge, I'm having a short break from nail art whilst recovering from the last few weeks ! Each photo is linked to its post, so all you have to do is click on the image to see it !

I'd like to know which, if any, of these designs (or in fact any design I've posted on my blog) you would like tutorials for ? I've already got the "F for Floral" tutorial done, I just need to sort the photos for that, but I'd be happy to do tutorials for any other designs you like ! Just let me know in the comments ! 

http://trymyhand.blogspot.fr/2013/08/alphabet-nail-art-challenge-p-for.html

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : Z for Zebra

Helloooooooo everyone ! So it's the final theme today for the last letter in the alphabet, and today it's "Z for Zebra". It doesn't feel like it's been a month (including the 4 day gap when I went on holiday to Brittany) since I started this challenge as it's gone really quickly ! I'm going out with a bang with today's design though, so here it is !

I've done zebra print once before but that was a long time ago, waaaay before I started blogging and sharing photos on here and to be honest it really didn't look that great and I found it quite difficult to paint ! I loved the zebra print stamp on the Konad M-57 plate but I've gone off stamping recently and so I decided that I really needed to try doing it freehand again and I'm so glad I did !

I started with a base of OPI Can't Find My Czechbook, which I left to dry completely before starting my gradient (to avoid getting annoying bits of make-up sponge on my nails) using OPI Planks A Lot and OPI Suzi's Hungary Again, and I used black acrylic paint to do the zebra stripes. The rough effect of the stripes were done by doing a "dabbing" effect with my nail art brush when painting on the acrylic, which I think really adds to the whole look !

I did think about maybe doing the stripes in white to make a bigger contrast with the gradient background, but I'm glad I stuck to the black because it really does look good in my opinion ! I even did both  hands, I'm glad I'll be able to keep my designs on for a bit longer than 24 hours for a while now as there were several days during this challenge when I would have loved to keep the design on !

Right, it's getting late now and I'm heading off to Ikea tomorrow so I'm going to go to bed to make sure I get plenty of sleep ! Goodnight everyone !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : Y for Yin Yang

Hey there everyone ! So I'm here with the penultimate post in the Alphabet Nail Art Challenge and today's theme is "Y for Yin Yang", and I really need to get a move on and write this before it's too late and not today anymore ! I really need to stop all this procrastination ! Anyway, here are the nails !

I had the idea of doing the yin yang symbol on all of my nails but got bored of that idea pretty quickly and decided to go with something else. I considered doing different black and white looks on each nail and I think that could have looked good, but I didn't want to distract from the main theme which is yin and yang and so ended up settling with some black and white glitter !

The yin yang nails were done using a base of American Apparel T-Shirt and then black acrylic paint, the shape was surprisingly easy to paint on once I'd decided what I wanted it to look like ! For the other nails I used OPI Can't Find my Czechbook (love this blue) and 17 Monochrome. I now have 3 black and white glitters that I have acquired since May, and this is the only one with bar glitter ! I really like how it looks, it's probably my favourite of the B&W glitters I have !

Right, I'm going to watch Dexter for a bit and then I'm off to bed ! I'll see you all tomorrow for the final theme in the challenge : zebra ! I'm actually quite looking forward to that theme so we'll see what I come up with ! Byeeeeee !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : X for XOXO

Good evening everyone ! Now I'm a bit disappointed with today's nail art as it's a bit boring, but I'm feeling uninspired since the frustration with my watermarbling yesterday, I'm quite looking forward to this challenge being over and done with soon and being able to have a break from nail art for a bit ! Perhaps I'll do some swatching after that as a sort of "palette cleaser" !

See what I mean ? I love the half hearts design and everything, but the colours I chose are just... bleh ! I wanted to write "xoxo" on a couple of my nails, but that didn't really work with the size of letters I wanted to do so I just went with the hearts. I should have really chosen a darker pink colour instead of the light one, or if I'd have paired the light pink with a dark pink that would have been fine, I don't know why I didn't just do that but hey ho, it's done now !

The pink I used was an unamed Color Club polish and the silver was Barry M Silver Foil. I don't know whether it's just me but my Gold Foil polish seems to be a lot more opaque than its silver counterpart, have any of you noticed this if you own these polishes ?

Right well that's all I have to say about this design really, it's nothing special, here's hoping I come up with something slightly better for tomorrow's ying yang theme ! I'm off to bed now as I'm really tired, perhaps a good night's sleep will help with my nail-art-uninspiration ! See you then !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : W for Watermarble

Okay... I'll just go ahead and take back anything nice I have previously said about watermarbling. I can't believe I actually started to look forward to trying this technique out again, as after today's attempt(s) I don't think I'll even be remotely interested in doing a watermarble design for a long long long long time ! I'm relatively happy with the final outcome, but all the fuss and time it took to actually do it is soooo not worth it !

I initially wanted to combine two different purples, one creme and one shimmer, but that didn't work. So I then moved on to the idea idea but with blue polishes and guess what, that didn't work either. I then trolled through all of my collection to try to find polishes that would work, as only the Essie ones I had seemed to be working but of course my last watermarble was done using all Essie, and I wanted something different ! Ugh the choices we have to make !

So I started with a base of American Apparel T-Shirt, to make sure all the colour on top would show up properly, as is recommended by all the good watermarblers out there ! The two colours I used for the actual watermarbling were Catrice Aretha's R.E.S.P.I.N.K and Essie Mint Candy Apple. You can't actually tell that I used Mint Candy Apple as it just looks white on the design, I suppose because it must have been too sheer but oh well I don't mind, I'm just glad it worked ! I suppose it's just as well that the pink was nice and opaque otherwise we wouldn't hae had any design at all !

So that's it for today... it's alright I suppose, I'm just annoyed about how long it took and how much nail polish I must have wasted on all the unsuccessful attempts ! Maybe I'll get better at it one day, but for the moment I'm going steer well clear of it !

I'll see you all tomorrow for the "X for XOXO" theme, perhaps I'll do something nice and simple, although I have had an idea for it since the beginning !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : V for Vintage

Good evening everyone ! We'll start here tonight by confirming that vintage is anything older than roughly 50 years old ? Okay ? So that makes 3 years of the 1960's vintage, right ? Perfect ! Glad we got that all out of the way, so now we can move on to the design ! I spent ages researching the differences between the words "antique", "vintage" and "retro" and after understanding the apparently much-debated subtleties, was able to decide on what I wanted to do on my nails !

I looked through a load of vintage patterns and wallpapers/backgrounds etc and didn't find much I liked other than a few floral designs, and I really wanted to do something other than flowers seeing as I already did the "F for Floral" theme in this challenge ! I then decided to google some 60's wallpaper patterns (we've already agreed that 3 years of that are vintage so I'm allowed !) and eventually found this design on Pinterest that I absolutely had to do !

I started with a base of OPI You Don't Know Jacques on my index, middle and little fingers, and P2 Hug Me on my thumb and ring fingers. For the circular design I used P2 Hug Me, OPI My Back Pocket, Essie Meet Me at Sunset and OPI You Don't Know Jacques. I did the stripes on the accent nails using those same colours, although I think it would have looked better with a different colour to the brown, there's just something about it !

So do you like this design as much as I do ? I love the circular gradient design, I really think it looks like real 60's kitchen wallpaper with the gross colours, there were loads of different wallpaper patterns I saw but this one really inspired me, and I'm so glad I steered clear of the floral designs for today's theme !

Tomorrow I've got to do watermarbling for the "W" theme of the challenge, and I remember saying in my post last time when I wrote about my first successful attempt at it that I was excited about trying it again, but I'm not so sure now ! I'm feeling nervous about it ! Wish me lots and lots of luck !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : U for Universe

Hello everybody ! So what do you all think of the new layout then ? I'm really excited about it and really proud of what I've come up with, it's definitely a change for the better ! Anyway, I'm writing this post rather late tonight as we've had someone over for dinner, and while I managed to fit in painting my nails this evening, I didn't manage to get my photos or post sorted, so that's why it's late tonight ! Enough rambing, on to the nails !

I was excited about doing galaxy nails for the "U for Universe" theme, but as I've already done normal galaxy nails twice before (here and here, jeez those ones from last year seem like such a long time ago, I've definitely improved !) I decided that I wanted to do something different to the usual. I've been seeing plenty of pastel galaxy nail designs floating around the web recently, notably from The Nailasaurus, but I tried looking for plain pink galaxy nails and couldn't find anything so I knew that was my calling !

I started with a base of Essie Splash of Grenadine on my fingers, and then sponged on a cocktail of different pink shades, including OPI My Very First Knockwurst, OPI Suzi's Hungary Again, OPI Dim Sum Plum, OPI Sparrow Me the Drama, OPI Steady As She Rose, as well as OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I topped that with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust and then painted on some stars and representative spots in American Apparel T-Shirt using my nail art brush.

It's exactly the same method as I've used before for my previous galaxy nail designs, just with a different colour scheme !

So what do you all think of my pink galaxy nails ? You could do this in loads of different colours schemes, obviously, but since pink is one of my favourite colours (it's the one I have the most nail varnish shades of in any case) I think it's very fitting ! I just love galaxy nails in general really, they're so easy to do and not time consuming if you're not aiming to be particularly precise ! I do think that the Fairy Dust is a must-have though, it just adds so much depth to the whole thing !

Tomorrow's theme is vintage, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do for that, so any suggestions are hugely welcomed ! Ta ta for now everyone !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : T for Triangles

Hey there guys ! I've been busy trying to sort out my new blog layout all afternoon/evening today, and I think I'll be finishing it all up tonight hopefully, so keep an eye out for that ! I'll be sorting the major stuff out now and then doing the small tweaks in the next couple of days ! One of the major changes for the blog is that I'm contemplating changing the commenting system to Disqus, as I feel it'll be a big step towards being able to communicate properly with my followers in the comments, so let me know what you all think and your experiences with Disqus !

Anyway, I did manage to fit in some nail art today, of course, so here's today's installment in the alphabet nail art challenge !

The final result of today's design is completely different to what I had in mind last night ! I fancied doing something along the lines of this design by Very Emily, doing a pattern underneath and a geometrical triangle design on top in white. In the end I rather liked my thumb and ring finger accent nails with just a chevron so I just decided to add a white chevron on each of the other nails ! Do you think the geometric pattern on top would have looked better ?

For this design I used a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls on my thumb and ring finger, and OPI Steady as She Rose on the others. The squiggly stripes were done using OPI Dim Sum Plum, OPI Can't Find my Czechbook and P2 Who Cares, as well as Steady as She Rose. I feehanded all the chevrons as really didn't feel patient enough (I barely ever do) to use tape and while I really love the chevrons on my thumb, middle and ring fingers, I feel the ones on my index and little fingers could look better !

That's all for today, it's scary to think that this challenge is nearing to an end as it's gone so quickly ! Tomorrow is "U for Universe"...yay galaxy nails ! I'll see you all then, but in the meantime, apologies for any (if any) inconvenience the change of layouts may cause ! Hopefully it'll all going swimmingly !