November Challenges - HJ Manicure Thunderstorm and a purple reciprocal gradient

HJ Manicure Thunderstorm is a beautiful delicate lilac/grey creme. This polish is so wearable, the colour is just lovely. I am torn between recording it as pale purple and neutral. It applied beautifully, with excellent coverage and dried well. I am always a bit wary of paler shades for being streaky but no problem here at all - I am completely in love with this one!
I decided to use this as my base for a Purple Gradient for the Pancreatic Cancer Awareness mani #pcanovember15.
I started with a purple gradient of HJ Manicure Thunderstorm, HJ Manicure Lavender and Nails Inc Wigmore Street.
Then I decided to try another reciprocal gradient. I really wanted to see if I could do this with stamping rather than vinyls - so I used the same polishes again to stamp with Moyou London Pro XL 01. It took a few attempts to get this right and in the end by about the 7th nail I gave up trying to blend three colours and used Thunderstorm and Wigmore Street on the stamping plate. That seemed to be more efficient and gave the same result but neater so I'd do that again.

HJ Manicure Thunderstorm

Stamped reciprocal gradient

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

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

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.

An InLinkz Link-up

Dotticure over Saran wrap mani using 3 Nails Inc Glamour freebies

A while back I joined one of Debbie Crumpet's facebook groups, Simples - Nails Art from Muggles to Mastery. In this group Debbie does tutorials on simple nail art techniques, and more recently is combining the skills learned to do more complex manis. I joined the group late and have been doing catch up, although picking the skills that appeal most to me. One of the most recent tutorials was for a dotticure (spotty mani) over a saran wrap base. I have done the saran wrap a couple of times so I figured I'd skip the dotticure on its own and do it straight over a saran wrap - wrong!! I really should have practiced the dotting a bit more first, but anyway, this is what happened.
Having succesfully tracked down the 3 of the Nails Inc freebies from Glamour magazine, I decided I'd try them all out at once.
I painted my nails with Wigmore Street, a beautiful pure purple. Excellent quality, impossible to photograph, my camera is adamant it is blue, unless I stand in bright sunlight, then I have over exposed fingers but the nails are a better colour.
Then I did the saran wrap bit, being braver as promised, I used the contrasting Marylebone Mews, which is a creamy grey lilac. The effect I think was fantastic, giving a stunning marble type finish, which I have to say looked a bit messy when I was done until I top coated it and fell completely in love with it.
Finally, the dotty bit. I used my largest dotting tool and Hanover Square which is a deep warm burgundy shade, which I think worked well over the lightened purple. I have watched the video and taken note of the key points: only one dot and then back to the polish for the next one so they stay consistent in size, don't use the polish once it gets sticky, place the dots equally - what could go wrong?
Well, dot 1 was fine, dot 2, I aimed for being in line with dot 1 but didn't quite manage that! got to the top of the nail, ah ha- my nails are the wrong length, so no room for the final dot based on my spacings!! So they are not quite equidistant, not all the same size, and my hand ached by the time I'd done the first hand. Second hand was even trickier and certainly not symmetrical with the first one.
They did look a whole lot better with top coat on and although I was pretty disappointed with them yesterday, they look better today, I am tolerating their imperfections!
I am pleased with the colour combination, and think the burgundy does work well over the marbley purple. I was ready to abandon dots but no - I will try again and I will get better!

Nails Inc Hanover Square Dotticure

Nails Inc Wigmore Street

Nails Inc Wigmore Street and
Marylebone Mews Saran wrap

 

Nails Inc Hanover Square Dotticure