40 Great Nail Art Ideas - Orange and brush strokes

The most recent prompt for 40 Great Nail Art Ideas was orange and my pattern prompt was brush stokes.
I decided to do mine over my fanbrush mani since the main colour on that was the gorgeous China Glaze Riveting.
I think I need to practice brush strokes - they look more like blobs than brush strokes but I did try! Next time I think I'll do a few practice runs on my Ubermat first.
I used Virtuous Polish Diligence and Colour Alike Juicy Tangerine as I don't have a lot of orange polishes. It's possible using stamping polished didn't help my attempts!
Anyway, despite my reservations, they got a reasonable number of likes on Instagram so hopefully not a complete failure. I was more disappointed that the camera failed to pick up just how neon Virtuous Polish Diligence was.

Orange with brush strokes

 

 

 

February Challenges - Book or Film that I Love

The #clairestelle8feb prompts are all about love!

The first one was Books or Films that I Love. I read quite a varied selection of books but I don't get to go to the cinema much. However, with young teenage children we have been to the cinema as a family to see each of the Hunger Games films, and I have read all the books so it seemed like the obvious choice. What better excuse to use the wonderful flames plate from Messy Mansion.

I started with China Glaze Riveting, a wonderful orange flecked with gold and how apt since I believe this was from the China Glaze Hunger Games Collection way back in 2012!

Then I used Bundle Monster + Sloteazzy BM-XL210 and Kleancolor Metallic Yellow really just to add some yellow to the base, and I am delighted with how well that stamped.

Finally I added the flames with Messy Mansion MM27 and Colour Alike Kind of Black.

I was really pleased with how this turned out (as you can probably tell by the number of pictures I took)

China Glaze Riveting

 

Bundle Monster BM-XL210 and Kleancolor Metallic Yellow

 

Messy Mansion MM27

 

 

 

China Glaze Riveting

I am well outside my comfort zone with this one but I sort of love it anyway! I saw it on a lovely ladies nails last year, so when it came up on one of the sale pages I bought it, and then wondered if I'd be brave enough to wear it!
Riveting is from the China Glaze Hunger Games collection, and is a very bright vibrant orange with a golden shimmer. I generally don't go for shimmers but I really can't see me ever wearing a creme polish in this shade. This is actually beautiful, but each time I caught sight of my nails, I thought, ooh that's a bit bright! Application was good, opaque in 2 coats although some of my pictures did show a visible nail line, I couldn't see it myself.
I did put this on with the intention of putting a glitter over it, and the moment I did that I was really pleased with the result. I have found that in the past a colour that I wouldn't normally wear is softened by a layer of glitter, and who knows, I might go back to this again! It is a gorgeous polish and deserves to be worn.

China Glaze Riveting

 

 

Indy's Indies Dragon Dance

Another UK Indie polish for you today, especially for Chinese New Year, except that I'm a day late - sorry!
Indy's Indies latest collection is inspired by the Chinese New Year and includes 3 glitter polishes available here. I wore Red Envelope earlier this week, but I do think this one is my favourite.
Dragon Dance is made up of red and green sequins, purple, yellow and green hexes and squares, and some tiny red and green glitter.
I think this glitter would look great over black but I wanted to try it over something else. I still wanted to contrast the colours and I tried it over a few reds, and a brown. I liked it over all of them but the orange was perfect, contrasting the yellow, purple and green beautifully whilst still allowing the red to stand out too. And although orange is not a colour I would normally wear, I think China Glaze Riveting, with its stunning shimmer really captures the essence of images I have seen of Chinese New Year festivities.
I am really pleased with the way this mani turned out.

Indy's Indies Dragon Dance

 

  

 

 

 

swatches of Dragon Dance