Coral Nails (Not Including Coral Polish)

The other night I asked the Hubby THE QUESTION!

(No, it's not 'Will you marry me'  It's: 'How should I paint my nails')
:D

 And he answered: 'Paint corals!'
I have absolutely no idea, where that came from. We have never seen corals. We are not planning a diving holiday. We haven't even watched a documentary with corals on it.
But corals he said, and corals it was.

I painted a base with two coats of Zoya Wednesday, and sponged on a slight gradient using Wednesday, Sinful Colors Cinderella and a random white polish.

The stamping was made with Mundo de Unhas 13 which is a Reddish orange stamping polish, and DRK-A plate.

To top it all, I chose from my untrieds the Liquid Sky Lacquer Great White. You see one coat over Wednesday in the index finger - and some dabs on the other nails. Just watch the gorgeous shimmer!! The Great White fits in perfectly to the theme! ... This coral reef isn't safe anymore.... Watch out you little fish.... Duunn dun... dunnn dun...

Tri Polish Challenge - Gilding the Lily

And here, ladies and gentleman, we have the last Tri Polish Challenge post with April's colours: pink, orange and turquoise:

The pinky and pointer got three coats of ChG Turned up Turquoise spiced up with some saran wrap and Barry M Gold Foil.

Ring finger was done kind of vice versa with two coats of Gold first, and then a saran wrap technique with Sinful Colors Cream Pink. Isn't it odd how difficult it is to tell afterwards, which colour was put on first and which was saran wrapped? At least for me, that is...

The middle finger was the officially decorated one in this manicure, with two coats of Cream Pink and stripes in Gold foil and ChG Papaya Punch made using striping tape.

I kept the thumb simple with two coats of Cream Pink. (What do you mean 'was I busy'?!? I have been packing all our things up for a removal, but I've arranged myself plenty of time to do my nails and kept everything strictly under control... cough cough... as if...)

I noticed some other bloggers too have decided to combine gold with the challenge polishes today. Let's see them and many other talented participants!

Tri Polish Challenge: Foaming Sea and Flip Flops

Bright summery trend continues here with the Tri Polish Challenge. The weather has been really inspiring here for that kind of manicures - plus what else could I do with three bright neon polishes :)

 The base in this manicure is China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise, except on the ring finger where I used Sinful Colors Cream Pink. Over the turquoise I did a drag marble using white (Wild and Crazy Montana) and turquoise.

 To compliment the beachy look I added some stamped flip flops with BM 309 and Konad white. To get to use all of the challenge polsihes (although it isn't required in the challenge), I coloured some of the flip flops with ChG Papaya punch.

This is one of the "new" Bundle Monster plates I hadn't used before. Why oh why?? Now that I peeled the plastic off and can really see the patterns, I want to stamp each and every one of them! I need to get my act together and use all the plates in this series soon anyway, because I've made a promise I'll only order a new set of plates when I've used all I already own at least once. Do you ever make these kinds of "promises to self"? Do they work for you?

Now let's have a look at the other participants of this challenge:

Tri-Polish Challenge: Monarch and Other Butterflies

It's the second day out of four in this months Tri-polish challenge, and I'm still on schedule! Yay for me! Keeping up with schedules is not my strongest point - at least if it's only me who benefits/suffers. I very extremely seriously sincerely hope, I'll get better on it... Any procrastinators out there, who know how bad it can make you feel?

What?!? You did come to my blog to see pretty nails, not to read a random rant???!! Alright, here's some prettiness for you.

The base here is, again, China Glaze Papaya Punch. On it I stamped some butterflies from m40 with Konad black special polish and coloured them using a toothpick and the other two challenge polishes: ChG Turned up Turquoise and Sinful Colors Cream Pink.

 On the accent finger I went for a monarch butterfly design: sponged gradient on the orange with Cream pink, painted black sectors using a Mavala Black polish and nail art brush, and added white dots covered with turquoise.

 The thumb got a simple design: a line of dots in alternating colours. (In a hurry? me?!?)

Let's see what others have created today:

Tri-Polish Challenge: Sunset Beach

I know I'm still in the middle of the ABC challenge, but I ran into another, simply brilliant one in FB and I just had to join it.

The challenge is run by Debbie at The Crumpet, and it's called the Tri-Polish Challenge.
The idea is to pick three polishes of the colours given in each month's challenge, and post four manicures using those polishes on the last two tuesdays and thursdays of each month. In addition to the chosen polishes, we're allowed free use of white, black, gold and silver (which really is a blessing!!)

 The colours of April are orange, turquoise and pink. I let out a little yay, because I've really been needing some brights in my life. So my polish picks are China Glaze Papaya Punch, China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise and Sinful Colors Cream Pink. Guess how many naughty words I had to use when I noticed all of these polishes were extremy hard to photograph on the nail...

And when I say hard to photograph, this is what I mean:

Kaboom!!! For the rest of the pics I had to grab my battery charger to get some white in the pic. It helped my poor camera a little..

Anyways, for this first day I made a base with Papaya Punch, and then proceeded to wet sponge gradient with all the three colours.

 The palm trees are stamped with Konad Black special polish and BM-315. I freehanded the lovers using black polish and a toothpick, and then stamped the hearts from m59. Lastly, I filled out some of the hearts with a toothpick and CP. A coat of Seche Vite set it all perfectly.

Now, let's see what all the other talented participants have been up to:

A - All About You

Now I've extended my collection once more (see previous post), I'm finally ready to take this challenge.

It's known as the ABC-challenge, originally run and done by so many talented bloggers I'm not able to even name them all here. But the idea is simple: on the first day you post a polish with a name beginning with the letter A, on the second one that begins with the letter B, and so on. I think you got the idea..

My first polish, the A, is Sinful Colors All About You.  It's a mix of the finest gold and a bit bigger copper glitters in a clear base. It looks gorgeus on the bottle, and I think I've used it once until now. Shame on me....

The base here is one coat (!) of Essence Colour&go Nude it! This is definitely my new go-to nude polish! I'll run to buy a reserve bottle..

I taped my nails with some regular magic tape, and applied three coats of Sinful Colors All About You to all fingers except the ring fingers. That one got a coat of Barry M Croc Effect (which took me ages to master...). A coat of Seche Vite to all, and I was ready to go. And off I went - sorry about the tipwear...

I won't be posting daily, but I'll try to get to the end of the alphabet sometime in January. There will surely be some non-challenge posts I'll just have to publish, but otherwise you know what to expect.

Astral Butterfly

This is a happy neon mani I made, just for fun! Isn't that how nail art should always be?

This post is dedicated to the dazzling and dainty C at certain classes I take. She complimented this colour recently, and I could imagine her wearing this, too. She always manages to make me laugh, no matter how surly I am, no matter how little clue do I have about what she is up to. If you know the type, you'll agree everyone should have at least one in their vicinity.

The base is two coats of Color Club Ultra-Astral, my new favourite pink. I eBayed it recently and from the moment I opened the package I've been regretting I didn't get the whole Starry Temptress collection.

Something was still missing after those two coats, and I remembered seeing all the Starry Temptress collection polishes swatched with the matching top coat. That one I didn't have, but I added a coat of Essence Colour&Go Space Queen, which gives quite a similar effect.

Lastly, I added a butterfly fimo from a chinese store and some dots with Wild and Crazy Montana and Sinful Colors Summer Peach. I almost got the right colours in this pic - propably because of the white polish I'm holding. I'll keep that in mind... And here are the other polishes.

That's it. Tomorrow I'll be back with more manis for the Girly Girl challenge - as if this wasn't girly, too.

Buffy Bronzed

Rather than a proper manicure this one turned out to be a study on how various bronze glitters look over dark colours.

The base here is Essence Vampire's Love 'Gold Old Buffy', two coats. (And a pre-cleanup pic..sorry!) I was about to whip up some tired jokes here about vampires, their slayers and bronzer, but let's forget that, because bronze was the colour I picked up to decorate this mani - mostly because of these bronze studs I wanted to use.

After adding the studs I decided to try on different glitters/flakies as follows:
Thumb: Essence Circus Circus My Sparkling Acrobat
Pinky: OPI Pros and Bronze
Middle finger: Nfu'Oh 39 (Looove!! <3)
Index finger: Sinful Colors All About You

You could propably guess that the Nfu'Oh is the one I liked most. You can see a crazy colour shift from green to deep red in it - even in this pic! I've never tried it on a dark black-ish colour before, and now I'm more than ready to try it on everything. I'm still sooo much into flakies..

There you have the polishes, and that's all, folks!

Day 1: Think Pink!

It's the first day of the girly-girl challenge, and we're all going to think pink!

 I took the challenge literally and picked up my favourite pink polish: Sinful Colors Cream Pink. It's an awesome neon-but-not-hurting-your-eyes -pink with a hidden golden shimmer. Application is ok, if you wouldn't try it outside in direct sunlight as I did.

This is two coats. Why-oh-why did I have to pick the polish that is almost impossible to photo color accurately? But you can at least get a glimpse of the golden shimmer in this pic..

I then sponged it with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure I Pink I Can, Revlon Bubble Gum and Sally Hansen HD LCD (Why am I always trying to type LSD here.?.?.)

To freshen up, I added some three-dot hearts (some of them looking like hearts, some of them like mickey mouse heads...) using Konad White and a dotting tool. I stamped on a fishnet pattern from BM209 with the said Konad white to create a lace effect.

 Lastly, I brushed on a coat of Essence Colour&Go Space Queen for the glitter and levelled it all with Seche Vite. And here are the polishes (minus Space Queen... oops..)

Somehow I liked this mani more before stamping the fishnet pattern. Oh well, I'll get my hands on some serious glitter for the day 2... As do the other girls! Let's see what they've created:

Lindsey of Neverland Nail Blog
Ashley of Follow The Yellow Polish Road
Stephanie of A Little Polish
Kelly of PolishEnthusiast
Jodi of Captivating Claws
Danielle of Lacquer Lover
Elly of Polishable
Olivia of Unprofessional Nails
Kate of This Charming Kate
Bethany of  A Plethora of Nails
Lizzy of The Do It Yourself Lady
Johanna of Neues vom Kellerkind 

Amanda of Nox Nails 

Ashley of Smashley Sparkles
Sarah of See Sarah Swatch 

Emily of The Lacquerologist 

Jess of LuvMyLacquer
Tressa of O' Natur Nail 

ChiChi of I'm just me...ChiChi 

CR of Color Me Silly

Amanda of Berry Polished 

Robin, Erin, and Anna of Polished Cousins

Minaj My Way

As you "might" know, OPI recently released the Nicki Minaj collection. Well, I wasn't too inspired by the colours, but after reading about the collection a gazillion times I just had to find out who this girl is. So I went to Youtube, typed "Super Bass" into the search field and BOOM BADOOM was instantly inspired to do some nail art.

This mani is dedicated to the neon pink/white one-piece she is wearing in the beginning of the video. The outfit (and the girl inside it) is so outrageously cool that I spent a few moments gathering my jaw from the floor. Watch the vid here if you don't believe me! (And yes, it's tawdry just like me...)

My pick for the neon pink polish was, as so often, Sinful Colors Cream Pink. If you're looking for great value, look no further: for under 2 dollars (depends on where you buy, OFC) you get a true neon pink polish that applies smoothly and is even good for stamping.

I used three coats of Wild and Crazy Montana and painted the ring fingers with one coat of CP after that. Stamping was made with BM 215, CP and Konad special white.

Sadly, I didn't have anythig neon yellow to put on my nails (as seen in the accessories of miss Minaj's outfit), so I had to resort to some neon green stars. The only positive thing about the colour in these pics is, that the green stars look like they were yellow! Otherwise, these pics don't show the real bright neon shine this mani has. If anyone has tips for photographing neon nails, please share!

But why all these pics?? Because I LOOOOOVE this mani, that's why! I would have wanted to paint my nails -or anyone's nails- again today, but I didn't want to take this off. Where have all my nail buddies gone? All my little bottles are now in perfect order just waiting for you...