GOT Polish Challenge: BLUE and #31Nails2014 #18: Inspired by your favorite piece of clothing

Hello everyone!

Today I'm combining two challenges, so I'm using a blue vintage Dior nail polish (for the GOT Challenge) and was inspired by my blue silk top, which is my favourite piece of clothing (for Day 18 in the #31Nails2014 Challenge). Before publishing this blog post, I had hoped to make all the nail art for day 6- 17 and to have written about it here on the blog, but the submissions for the GOT challenge close today...

I'm probably using my favourite blue nail polish for the last time... :-( The bottle is nearly empty, so I really hope I'll find a dupe! Christian Dior #489 Cobalt is one of my oldest nail polishes. I've written about Dior Cobalt here, and about my tiny vintage nail polish collection here. If you know how old this bottle is, please let me know. My guess is that it's from 1993. So although I've showed this polish before, I had to take some last pictures of it on it's own too. And none of the photos show how beautiful this polish is.

2 coats, no top coat:  (IRL it looks shiny.)

With top coat:

Sadly there's not much daylight here this time of the year. I wish we had daylight in the afternoon. In the artificial light, the shine doesn't show. And the days I could take photos outside, it was snowing...

This is the first time I'm wearing Cobalt with nail art. I just used some Joby rhinestone stickers. I like them and they don't cover to much of the polish. And sealed with a generous coat of Seche Vite they stayed on.

Products used:

Christian Dior #489 Cobalt
Joby Nail Art: #351 Gemstone
and IsaDora #600 Clear as base coat and Seche Vite top coat.
and a false nail for my broken pinkie nail

Now I'm curious about how many are participating, and what they made for these challenges. If you want to, you can take a closer look at the blue nails and the other old blue nail polish bottles, by clicking on a thumbnail below.


Lani

#31Nails2014: #5 Rhinestones

Hello everyone!

The theme for day 5 is Rhinestones. And I had to ask Nails Magazine if it was OK to use these huge nail decorations. Lol! Although you can't see it behind all the foil and rhinestones, I have used some nail polish for this manicure too. First, I applied base coat, and silver nail polish, then nail glue, and nail foil, and after that I placed my stones. I hope you miss seeing tonns of photos! Lol! :-) I love photographing manicures like this. It was hard to only pick 12 photos. Which picture do you think I should share on Instagram?

   

If you feel some kind of Déjà vu, you have a very good memory, because although I haven't showed you this stage of this manicure before, you might have seen stage 4 (very bold sci- fi "Pepper Potts Nails" made for Polish Days in June), stage 2 (Holographic nail foil, and how to use it), and stage 1 (the beautiful silver nail polish). This is stage 3, which is without the glitter french tips.

Products used: 

IsaDora #600 Clear (fast drying base coat)
Pieces: Silver (silver foil nail polish)
N.NAIL Shiny Silver Nail Foil Transfer [NNAIL-E24] (nail foil +glue)
N.NAIL Drop Shaped Rhinestones Nail Art 6mmX8mm-Iridescent [NNAIL-DRN694] (rhinestones)
a Q- tip
scissors

What I didn't have when I made this mani, was a good top coat for nail foil. Next time I'll try Picture Polish: Revolution as top coat. It's cruelty- free, and I've heard that it works over foil without damaging it.

The nail foil, glue, and rhinestones can be bought from KKCenterHk, but the foil is sold out at the moment. If you want to buy something from KKCenterHk, feel free to use my 10% coupon code; "Nailphotos by Lani".

What's your favourite nail foil? And which of these pictures do you like best? I need help deciding which photo to share on Instagram for this Nails Magazine challenge. (I'm not on Instagram yet.)


Lani

#31Nails2014: #4 Radiant Orchid (Color of the Year)

Hello everyone!

The challenge for day 4 is Radiant Orchid. I first noticed the color called Radiant Orchid when I saw Chalkboard Nails had painted a beautiful Radiant Orchid on her nails. Then I learned that it's the Pantone color for 2014.

I think H&M Beauty Bandit is the nail polish that is closest to Radiant Orchid that I own. Here you see it on it's own:

This is 2 easy coats, no top coat. The formula was good, and I needed minimal clean- up. A nice purple cream.


Then I stamped with Pueen #13 and my lavender/ pink holographic nail polish. I really like how this turned out.

Products used:

IsaDora: #600 Clear (as fast drying base coat)
H&M: Beauty Bandit
Color Club: #977 Cloud Nine
XL stamper
Stamping plate: Pueen 13


EDITED: I've updated this post with the correct number for Cloud Nine. I also want to add that I used a very bright IKEA LED lamp for the photos. It's the same lamp that I've used for my holo pictures earlier. Sadly, I ruined this mani when I tried to apply studs, so I didn't get a chance to take pictures in the sun. And I had to use the photos that I took before applying top coat.

Sorry about posting so many blog posts, but I'm 14 days behind in Nails Magazines' 31 Day Challenge...


Lani

#31Nails2014: #3 Matte

Hello everyone!

MATTE is the theme for day 3 in the #31Nails2014 Challenge. Today I'm using a manicure from 2012, and I've chosen this photo for the challenge:

For this layering experiment I used:

GOSH #600 Matte Effect Top Coat over ORLY Sunglasses at Night, over Nfu- Oh #51, over OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest.

You can find the blog post about this manicure and more photos here, or by a click on the photo. The blog post abut the shiny version is here, if you want to compare them. The matte top coat made a huge difference. Even the colors look different! Which version do you like best? Is this something you would wear?


Lani

#31Nails2014: #2 Favorite color

Hello everyone!

I like very many colors, so to represent my favourite colors, I chose a multichrome nail polish that I've showed here on the blog before: Enchanted Polish 'Magical Mystery Tour'. I've used it for nail art several times. For Day 2 in Nails Magazine's 31 Days of Nail Art Challenge for January 2014 (31Nails2014), I've chosen to use this old photo:

Products used: Konad m51 & Enchanted Polish 'Magical Mystery Tour' & Konad: SP Black.

A click on the picture, or here, will take you to the blog post, where you can see lots of very different photos of this manicure. I've also used this multichrome polish for stamping nail art in this skittle, and this gradient. I've also written about this amazing nail polish and showed lots of photos of it on its own here.

This is my most photographed nail polish in 2013.

Lani

GOT Polish Challenge: PINK

Hello everyone!

The theme for day #1 in the GOT (Golden Oldie Thursdays) Polish Challenge, is PINK. It's run by the facebook group "Crumpet's Nail Tarts", and you can find information about it, and how to join in, on Debbie's blog; The Crumpet. I'll include a poster with all the themes below. What's special about this challenge, is that we have to use old nail polish! Yeay! At least one year old.

I got N°7 #70 Milan for Christmas about 4 years ago.

It came in a set together with the blackened blue Betty Blues, teal Totally Teal, vampy red Temptress, and a red nail polish called Rose Truffle:




I've used Milan several times, but never showed it here on the blog. Usually, I used it with a layer of holographic glitter over it, often on my toes. But this time I stamped over it and added glitter glue to the center of the flowers.

After a list of the products I've used, you'll find thumbnails with links to the other paticipants' pink nails.


The themes:



I like these themes, but I'm not sure if I can participate in this challenge in January, but I hope I can do more in February and March. What do you think about the GOT Challenge? Are you participating?


Products used:

IsaDora #600 Clear (as fast drying base coat)
N°7 Stay Perfect #70 Milan (pink)
Konad: SP Black (stamping polish)
MoYou London: Artist Collection #10 (stamping plate)
XL stamper
Stickles: Pink (glitter glue)
Dotting tool
Seche Vite (fast drying top coat)

I tried to only use products that are more than 1 year of age, but must have forgotten all about that when I saw my MoYou stamping plate...

This photo shows the stamping before top coat and before adding the glitter:

I'm surprised that so many are participating in this challenge. Just click on their thumbnails below, if you want to take a closer look. You can add your link with the Inlinkz on the end of any of our blogs.


Lani

Nails Magazine's 31 Days of Nail Art Challenge (#31Nails2014): #1 2014

Hello everyone!

I made this for Day #1 in Nails Magazine's 31 Days of Nail Art Challenge for January 2014. And you can see all the themes on the poster below, (after a few more photos). The theme for day 1 is 2014, and I hope you can read that on my nails too. Lol!

On my screen, the photos taken outside look a little too blue. In real life the color of the nail art looks more like you see it in the first photo and the photo below. I love these two polishes, and in my opinion they go really well together because of the glitter and the tiny glass flecks. (You can click on the photos to enlarge them.) The purple polish has blue, and the other one has white tiny glass flecks.

They are from the same Picture Polish collection, and I think I bought them in November 2013. Maybe I love them even more because they both are made by bloggers together with Picture Polish; the purple Imperial with The Swatchaholic, and Douceur with Tartofraises/ Cutenails. Just click on the links below to read their thoughts about their own collaboration polishes.

I was inspired by this tutorial made by Collette/ My Simple Little Pleasures, and how she used a needle to turn dots into hearts. After applying a third coat of Picture Polish: Douceur, while still wet, I put dots of Picture Polish: Imperial on one nail, and found my needle and used the drag marble technique to make each number. On the thumb I stamped the text from Messy Mansion MM02 with Konad SP: Violet Pearl, and then painted over the text with a brush dipped in Imperial. My pinkie nail is broken, so I had to use a fake nail here.

Click to enlarge

Because I found out about the challenge after it already had started, I don't know if I'll be able to make all the manicures during this month. But because we are allowed to use old photos, I have about 16 manis I can use. We are supposed to share each challenge mani on Instagram, but I have to figure out how that works first. I think I'll share every challenge day here on the blog, although it will be boring for those of you who have seen all my manis, but I think I'll just show the photo and link to the actual blog post. And we can also save time by making one mani for several challenge days.

For short, I'll use the suggested hashtag "#31Nails2014" as headline for my posts during the challenge.

Products used:

Picture Polish: Douceur by Tartofraises /Cutenails (nearly white pink)
Picture Polish: Imperial by The Swatchaholic (purple)
Needle
Dotting tool
Konad SP: Violet Pearl (purple)
XL stamper
Stamping plate: Messy Mansion: MM02
Small brush
Pallette

And now I hope to write one more blog post to catch up...

Are you participating in this challenge?


Lani

Fireworks

Happy New Year!!!

I hope you've all had a nice Christmas and New Year celebration, if you are celebrating. I've had two nice weeks on Gran Canaria, and I'm now back to snow and -11°C. I had planned to start the year with these fireworks nails, so here they are. The base is Viva la Diva: #160 Fireworks. For the stamped fireworks, I used Bundle Monster: BM-H14 and Konad: SP Psyche Pink. These photos are taken before I broke one nail on the left hand and one on the right...

I hope I'll be able to write more blog posts in 2014. In January, I think I'll participate in two challenges, so I'll probably have to prioritize them, and show you other things in February, like the Ciaté calendar I got, and the nail polish I bought abroad.

The GOT Polish Challenge is one of the challenges that I'm thinking about doing in 2014, because I can use my old and vintage nail polish. The other new challenge I want to try to participate in, is Nails Magazine's 31 Days of Nail Art Challenge, although it actually started in January 2014, and I first heard about it a week ago... But we are allowed to use pictures of old manis, so I guess it's still doable. So now I feel that I have too much to do... Lol.

What are your thoughts and nail polish plans for 2014?

Lani