October Challenges - Harvest and Thanksgiving

I have combined two prompts as there seemed to be such an overlap - when I looked for images of Canadian Thanksgiving I figured that if Thanksgiving was for a successful harvest then I could combine the two.
I started with a nice harvesty colour, Nails Inc Hamstead Gardens, which I think I love as long as I am wearing the right colours and my hands are warm!
Then I added some wheaty stamping with SV By Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops & Born Pretty BP-L 003.
Then more wheat, or barley or some such harvestable crop with Born Pretty BP-19 and Esmaltes da Kelly Bee and Frogger, smooshed together on the stamping plate.
I am British so the concept of Thanksgiving is a bit of an unknown and until my husband put me right I didn't realise Canadian Thanksgiving was earlier than the American one! Now I know.
Anyway, it seemed a maple leaf was a must and maybe a pumpkin so I used Colour Alike Red Wine and Born Pretty BP-19 and Colour Alike Scary Pumpkin & Cici&sisi 10 to add some maple leaves and pumpkins to the harvest.

Nails Inc Hampstead Gardens

SV By Sparkly Vernis Gilded Lemon Drops &
Born Pretty BP-L 003

Born Pretty BP-19 and Esmaltes da Kelly Bee and Frogger

Colour Alike Red Wine and BP 19 and
Colour Alike Scary Pumpkin & Cici&sisi 10

 

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October Challenges - Quilted

The prompt for #30daysofcolourchallenge was Quilted. I was wondering what to do for this whilst making the bed one day last week and realised that I have a stamping plate with same image as the stitching on my pretty floral throwover, so that's how this design came about.
I had to try out my lovely new Sascha Gossen plates from Nail Artisan so I started with a leafy base using Esmaltes da Kelly Frogger and Yours Cosmetics Sascha Gossen YS06 over Jacava Kings Road.
Then, on a whim really, I decided to try stamping with OPI Skyfall as I had dug it out to use later. I was pleasantly surprised how well it stamped and I used it with YS06 to add flowers over the leafy base.
Then I added the quilty bit with Barry M Cotton and Born Pretty BP-L 003.
Finally I added a coat of OPI Matte top coat.

Esmaltes da Kelly Frogger and YS06

OPI Skyfall and YS06

Barry M Cotton and Born Pretty BP-L 003

Barry M Cotton and Born Pretty BP-L 003 - matte

 

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September Challenges - Turquoise, Magenta, Indigo and Mosaic

Here I am with another late post. It is my intention to catch up and stay on track but there's always so much going on!
Anyway, I have combined 4 prompts for this mani- 3 for #30daysofcolourchallenge and the final pictures are for #clairestelle8sept.
The first prompt was Turquoise - I used Fancy Gloss Mermaid Tales - in my mind I am not too sure on the strict definitions of teal and turquoise - as far as I know either can be used for any colour between blue and green, although I suspect this is a bit dark for turquoise. This is a lovely colour anyway with a gorgeous holo, it applied really nicely with great coverage and I have used this before so I know it stamps well too.
The next prompt was Magenta and I used Nails Inc Piccadilly Circus - one of the first pinks I ever loved. Perhaps not purply enough for magenta but the closest I could get and I used this to paint a freehand diagonal over the turquiose.
The next prompt was Indigo and I used Nails Inc Wigmore Street - a bluey purple, maybe not quite blue enough but it is a lovely colour and I think it goes nicely with the magenta and turquoise.
Finally Claire's prompt was mosaic. I had big plan for this with fantastic reverse stamping but my stamping skills appear to have left me and with limited time I decided to cheat! So the ring finger is reverse stamped, the others are just stamped with Born Pretty BP-L 003 and Hit the Bottle Snowed Under over Fancy Gloss Mermaid Tales, Nails Inc Piccadilly Circus and Nails Inc Wigmore Street. Perhaps not as impressive as if I had reverse stamped all the nails but I think from a distance it looks good and I was quite pleased with it.

Fancy Gloss Mermaid Tales

Nails Inc Piccadilly Circus

Nails Inc Wigmore Street

Born Pretty BP-L 003 and Hit the Bottle Snowed Under

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April Challenges - Shimmer and Retro

Today's challenges are Shimmer for #30daysofcolourchallenge and Retro for #clairestelle8april.
For the shimmer I have chosen Danglefoot Polish Grandma's Dress. I bought this polish recently in the Vintage Trio from UK Indie maker, Danglefoot Polish. The trio included this polish, a gorgeous mid-blue and a lovely darkish nude.
Grandma's dress is a pretty pinky nude shimmer, quite a dusky shade and very wearable.
This applied really nicely and pictures are taken with top coat. Although a bit wary of pink, I like the duskier shades like this and the shimmer is lovely.
The retro part of the mani was all planned out but the first image wouldn't stamp nicely, the first polish looked wrong, so after a couple of false starts I made it up as I went along. I had googled retro patterns and had an idea of the colour combinations I wanted - they all reminded me of 70's wallpaper!
In the end I stamped with Virtuous Polish Ruth (peach) and Naomi (teal) and Moyou London Back to the 20s 05 over the vintage dusky pink. I wasn't entirely happy with that - something was missing so I stamped Born Pretty Store BP L-003 with Essence Stampy 001. I liked that a lot more- the white seemed to bring it all together.

Danglefoot Polish Grandma's Dress
#30daysofcolourchallenge

 

 

Retro - Moyou London Back to the 20s 05
and Born Pretty Store BP L-003,
Virtuous polish Ruth and Naomi, Essence Stampy 001
#clairestelle8april

 

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Stamping! Born Pretty BP-L 003 over multicoloured pastel base

I wasn't quite ready to part with the pretty multicoloured nails I had done for Holi, so today I have stamped a 3rd layer. This time I have stamped in white over the pastel base and I really love the finished look.
The pattern on Born Pretty BP-L 003 is so pretty and it reminds me of the engravings you see on the side of Egyptian tombs and temples. I really like the contrast of the crisp white Essence Stampy 001 over the random pastel base.

Born Pretty BP-L 003 over multicoloured pastel base

 

 

A2Z Series - M is for Multi-coloured

This Thursday's letter is M, for Multi-coloured.
I thought about using pastel rainbow colours for this, but then I decided I'd move out of my comfort zone and go brighter and use the 7 colours of the spectrum, or some approximation to them.
I chose Nails Inc St James, Nails Inc Atomic, Leighton Denny Brick Road, Nella Milano Evergreen, Nails Inc Baker Street, Nails Inc Wigmore Streeet and Jacava Blueberry Muffin.
I painted freehand stripes on each nail, red through to violet. This was scary, the challenge of trying to be quite neat and space 7 colours equally on nails that are all different lengths. The stripes are a bit wobbly but as I planned to stamp on top, I thought I'd get away with that!
I was going to stamp in black and then I changed my mind to white, and in the end I decided why not try both! So that's what I did - I stamped using Born Pretty BP-L 003 and the 2 Essence polishes Stampy 001 and 002.
The end result is not something I would wear for long, a bit too colourful for me but what a great way to try a new plate and test 2 colours over 7 others!! I really like this plate, it has some great images on, I think I'll be using it a lot!
I have to say, these turned out exactly as they were in my mind, in fact maybe the stripes were a bit more successful than I had expected - certainly I think I fulfilled the "multi-coloured" brief.

M is for Multi-coloured - 7 colours
and black and whire stamping BP-L 003

 

 

 

 

Look HERE to see what everyone else got up to.

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