September Challenges - Orange and some stamping

I am a bit late with posting but on 6th September the prompt for #30daysofcolourchallenge was orange. I used Golden Rose Holiday 53, a lovely peachy orange textured polish that I bought whilst in Turkey.
This is a lovely polish, it applied really nicely, great coverage in two coats and dried well too. In different lights it is pinky and gold, and actually a pretty good dupe for OPI Jinx.
I thought I'd try stamping with Colors by Llarowe Aubergine Dreams and another of my new Vivid Lacquer plates VL041 - I think the CBL stamped rather nicely, quite subtle but really pretty over the orange.
Then I stamped again with VL041 and A England Proserpine. This was a bit of an experiment as the image was the negative sort, so that only a small amount of what was underneath showed through. It stamped well but did obscure most of the original mani. Finally I added top coat and I think the stamping appeared more precise and the orange and purple glow through the dark teal like embers.

Golden Rose Holiday 53

Colors by Llarowe Aubergine Dreams and VL041

A England Proserpine and VL041

A England Proserpine and VL041 - topcoated

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September Challenges - Green and Purple

My favourite combination of colours is green and purple so it made sense to combine these 2 challenges for #30daysofcolourchallenge.
Which green to use was an easy decision - I had ordered some of the new Esmaltes Da Kelly glitters from the Super Heroes and Villains Collection from Rainbow Connection and Green Lantern was the first one I saw swatches of and just had to have.
This is a perfect combination of emerald green glitter in a green base. I think you could use this as a topper over a dark shade but 2 coats is enough for full coverage. This is my first Esmaltes Da Kelly polish and I am pleased to say it applied nicely and dried well. The finish was rough and I did use 2 coats of top coat for a smooth glossy finish but I am really happy with it - looking forward to trying the others in this range.
The outdoor shots are reasonably colour accurate, the macro shots are a bit too blue but they do show how pretty the glitter is!
The next prompt was purple and as I didn't have any untried purples I decided to stamp Virtuous Polish Humility and Apipila P31 over my green glitter. Humility is a dark matte purple which stamps nicely but does dry quickly so not much time to think about placement.
Then I added more purple with SV by Sparkly Vernis Blurple Ice cubes and Apipila P31 again.
I am pretty pleased with these manis but the light this week has been rubbish, really hard to capture anything, it's so dull - I just want sunshine, or at least some decent daylight!

Esmaltes Da Kelly Green Lantern

Virtuous Polish Humility and Apipila P31

SV by Sparkly Vernis Blurple Ice Cubes and Apipila P31

An InLinkz Link-up

An InLinkz Link-up

September Challenges - Stained Glass using Jewel Tones

For some crazy reason I decided to join another challenge this month, because I liked the look of the challenges!
Realistically though, I think I will need to scale down the length of my blog posts for nail art manis as I am struggling to keep up! I feel an obligation to my regular readers and I would say if you are a regular reader and you want more information on any mani feel free to contact me.
I have done a little summary post of my decision here.
Anyway, back to this mani.
The brief was Stained Glass using Jewel Tones for #wnac2015. I decided to do some reverse stamping using China Glaze Liquid Leather and Apipila Super Plate B. I coloured the images in using Jacava Midnight's Secret, Nails Inc Emerald Street and Kleancolor Metallic Yellow over the base of Colors by Llarowe Love Actually.
Some nails looked great, some not so - the end result looked rather wobbly but I'll share anyway. I think maybe the CG was not a strong enough black for this mani. Anyway, I then stamped over it using Kleancolor Madly Black and Apipila Super Plate B.
I liked this much better, it had more definition although it does look rather dark!

reverse stamping

Apipila Super Plate B with Kleancolor Madly Black
over Jewel Tones

A decision about the nature of my blog

Over the last year you will have noticed a change to my blog, ie. I got bitten by the stamping bug! I got into nail art and more recently started joining in with regular challenges. As a result I am posting far more often and I think the blog may be suffering, it is taking such a lot of time and as I have an almost full time job I think I need to scale down the nail art posts.
When I am doing a mani with a new polish, I still intend to do a full post but for daily challenges I think a very brief posting will suffice. This is not a decision I take lightly, I don't like feeling like I am giving up or letting readers down but I do have to be practical.
If you ever want more detail on any mani that I do, feel free to comment on the blog, message me on facebook, as Knitty X Nails or Knitty Nails, or comment on an Instagram post and I'll be happy to give you more information.

September Challenges - Pink and Coral

I have combined 2 challenges today, Pink for #30daysofcolourchallenge and Coral for #clairestelle8sept.
I don't have a huge amount of pinks and only one untried which was Above the Curve Desk Clear #11. This is a lovely pale pink with a subtle shimmer. It applied really well, with great coverage in 2 coats and no streakiness - perfect!
For coral I decided to try something new but I wasn't confident about doing it on both hands, so the right hand got stamping, the left hand got the experimenting!
For the right hand I stamped with hehe 040 (the wonderful fake watermarbling plate) and OPI My Chihuahua Bites. I was pretty impressed with the way the OPI stamped and I think it looked really pretty with the pale pink.
For the left hand I decided to have a try at dry marbling, so I used the same two polishes - in theory it would all be very co-ordinated! I painted a thick coat of the ATC and then added a couple of small blobs of OPI and swirled them around with a cocktail stick. I think I was a bit heavy handed as I moved too much base so you can see the nail peeping through in a few places but overall I think it was a reasonable first stab.
Finally, in another attempt to unify it all I stamped with hehe 040 and the OPI over the dry marbling. That looked quite pretty but the pictures did not really do it justice.

Above the Curve Desk Clear #11

OPI My Chihuahua Bites and hehe 040

Dry Marbling with OPI My Chihuahua Bites

OPI My Chihuahua Bites and hehe 040

An InLinkz Link-up

September Challenges - Yellow - China Glaze Daisy Know My Name

I really don't like yellow nails. They don't look good with my skin tone and I don't really like yellow full stop! But there is was on the swatch list for #30daysofcolourchallenge.
Luckily I'd seen this list when I did my peacocks at the end of last month so I decided I'd take a quick pic before stamping.
The yellow I chose was China Glaze Daisy Know My Name, one of their neons from this summer. I didn't use a white base as I knew I was going to glitter and stamp over it and I really didn't want it to be that neon! As it was, the finish was pretty good, not too streaky and the nail line was visible but not horribly so.
Anyway, I added a coat of Leighton Denny Funky Town which is a really pretty tealy blue holo glitter. It is quite a fine glitter and I just went for one coat as I just wanted to break up the yellow - I was quite pleased with the combination.

China Glaze Daisy Know My Name and
Leighton Denny Funky Town

 

Emily de Molly EDM04 and A England Proserpine

An InLinkz Link-up

September Challenges - Red - Colors by Llarowe Love Actually

When I first saw this red, I just fell in love! I had to have it and that is BIG for me, I don't really do red. I am happy to like red on other people but not for me. I do have a few reds that I like but this is certainly now my most favourite red ever!
It was an easy choice to decide which red I would wear for the first #30daysofcolourchallenge.
Colors by Llarowe Love Actually is quite a dark red, but definitely red, not burgundy or wine. It has this warm glowing scattered holo that gives it incredible depth and I am totally in love.
This polish applied beautifully, fantastic coverage. I applied 2 coats and pictures are taken with top coat.
My photos are a bit disappointing, and I had to resort to flash to really try and capture that warm glow.

Colors by Llarowe Love Actually

 

 

An InLinkz Link-up