Inspired by Nature

Day 23 of the Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Inspired by Nature

Oh my... Seeing what amazing manis the other people created let me think I didn't got inspired at all.

But it's spring and everything greens so why not to let some plants sprout on my nails?

I used plant patterns from Gals Princess set GA37 and GA35 over the fake OPI gargantuan green grape. As stamping polish I used Voyeuristic Green by alessandro which is opaque and has metallic shimmer.

Inspired by Fabric

Day 22 of the Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Inspired by Fabric

As I saw this beautiful kimono-like blouse by ZARA I thought I want something like this on my nails!

As base colour I took butter london big smoke, which looks like the ground colour of the blouse. The next step was stamping with light blue KONAD stamping polish and Gals plate GA37.

Then I brought some pink accents with essence free hugs and Konad blue stamping polish and soome glitters as well.

I am not really happy with this design, but if you look on from afar it's still okay.

Merge or Melt

Day 21 of the Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Merge or Melt

It had been explained that everything is suited for "merge and melt" if it's like gradient or other techniques with colour mixing. I like gradients :). First I did a simple gradient with essence 106 free hugs, IsaDora 629 icy purple and Yves Roches 42 Violet electrique. 

And then I added glitter polishes also like gradient (glitters above are light pink and glitter at the nail edge are purple).

Texture

Day 20 of the Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Texture

Unfortunately I already did some texture polish for the "favorite polish" and I am going to write about new polishes launched in april, which are textured again, so I didn't want to repeat myself and looked into downs of my nail art boxes. I found there Japanese 3D nail sticker I've got from a friend of mine who was often enough to Japan before 3/11. The stickers are really voluminous and stand out and above your nail plates.

First I painted my nails with white polish by essence floral GRUNGE Lily Bloom (but basically it could be just any other white polish). Then I sponged different pink and purple colours over the base. I added a whitish spot on each nail to the places where branches were supposed to be. I painted the branches with grey and brown acrylic paints and let them dry. And then I added the stickers and golden glitter. Here I didn't use top coat yet.

So, and this is a final product cleaned up and covered with top coat.

Here the stickers are seen a bit better, and how they rise over my nails. :)

And that much polishes were used for sponging and decorating:

Does this design remind you of sakura and so on? One description for these stickers says there are plum flowers. Anyway it is the very time to get spring feeling with blossoming trees.

Favorite Polish

Day 19 of the Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Favourite polish.

Help! It is the hardest challenge ever - I like every polish I've got! :) And I buy generally only the lovely ones. :) So I took a newest favourite polish - ANNY 690 "after dinner show". This is a minty glitter-glitter consisting of small and a bit bigger glitter particles. I guess the name of the polish should be something like "after eight", but since it's patented name for some sweets ANNY thought another name out.

I don't know why ANNY don't announce the small specials which are always in small flacons (6 ml) just like this one. Also you wouldn't find them on the shopping page of Douglas. I discovered them in a Douglas store and fell in love with this polish.

Although it covers the nails with one coat, two are more intense. The surface is rough, in any case not smooth. but I think it's normal for 100% glitter polishes.

I let the surface without top coat, because of the way it reflects light in different angles.

Here you can see different particles:

Oldest Untried

Day 18 of the Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Oldest Untried

There were so many polishes I almost forgot about I couln't deside, what to do. So I excavated from the bottom of my polish pile a set "Chrystal PUNK" by alessandro. As I remember I could get it for half the price.

The set consists of a black polish and of a top coat with blue flakies. According to the package the effect of them is called "Blue rocks the club".

When they are inside the bottle the flakies are shimmering mysteriously with ghostly blue tones.

Over the black base they look different, more solid, especialy on photographs.

I liked the look in real better then photo, because you don't really see borders of the single flakies.

A new technique

Day 17 of Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - A new technique

Well, I found water marbling amazing when other people do it on tutorials. But my trial is not that pretty. God knows how much polish I used for experimenting, what colours/ polishes would work and how to create some kind of good patterns... *sigh* The only thing I discovered so far, that among not expensive polishes the best choice would be p2 and misslyn, then some colours by catrice and essence would also work. Metallics and other polishes with glitters are generally bad for water marbling.

So and here is my miserable failure with egg colours since we have Easter today. White is snow-white by misslyn, and yellow polish is p2 Color Victim 790 summer to go!

Colour Opposites

Day 16 of Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Colour Opposites

First I had to confirm if I understand the colour opposites correctly. Generally I did, but my knowledge about colours was limited to some pairs like green - red. And I thought that blue would be opposed by yellow. But I learned from this circle the true opposite pair is blue and orange.

It was all the way better for me, because some time ago I spotted a lovely sweater with blue and orange stripes. It inspired me to do a mani with that colours.

I applied white polish as a base, stamped the knitted pattern from KONAD plate m69 and then painted orange and blue stripes:

Blue for stamping and stripes was Insta-Dri Blazing Blue. I mixed the orange colour from some other polishes like more intense orange and yellow.

Water Colour

Day 15 of Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Water Colour.

Water colour is a technique to thin down drops of colour polishes with acetone so that they look like watercolour. The base is usually white. I did it also over white. I don't own pure acetone, so I took polish remover with acetone instead. Maybe that was the reason, but watering down war probably not watery enough or the polish would get thicker too soon, so that the colours are not homogenously smooth. The thin top coat by p2 (glamorous FINISH nail art top coat), that I don't normally use because it tends to smut my stamping if it's done with intense dark colours, helped a little to smooth the areas of different colours and kind of blended them.

To smoothen colours even more I used another top coat by p2 - silver matte.

And then I thought that in this purply mist some mystic "fern" should grow: it's one of the first essence stamping plates and Insta-Dri Blazing Blue:

Stamping

Day 14 of Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Stamping

Yeah, stamping!
I've tried this combination already, and I think chocolate color and copper look good together. This time both polishes belong to Catrice: 720 Bruno Brownani with its intense choco-brown tone and 870 Copper Cabana (does exactly what it says on the tin :) ).

The lovely pattern comes from KONAD plate m70.