52 Week PICK N MIX Challenge Week 1: Teal & ‪#‎31Nails2014‬: Day 6: Inspired by a NAILS cover

Hello everyone!

This nail art was inspired by the NAILS cover of the October 2012 Issue. I made this for day 6 in Nails Magazine's 31 Days of Nail Art Challenge 2014 ‪(#‎31nails2014‬) back in January. But because I haven't showed it here on the blog yet, and because "teal" is one of the prompts for week 1 in the new 52 week challenge, I'm writing about both today. First I'll tell a little about the new challenge, and then about trying to solve the task for #‎31nails2014 Day 6, which should be inspired by a NAILS cover. And at the end of the post you can see what everyone made for week 1 if you click on the Inlinkz Link Up. I'll also link to the #31Nails2014 nail art I've made so far.

The 52 Week PICK N MIX Challenge #52WPNMC consists of two prompts each week for a year, and we can make one of them or both or combine them. Needless to say, I'll probably not be able to make nail art and blog about it every week, but I'll do it when I can. This week I chose to do "teal", and next week I hope to do both a pattern and a color. But most weeks I'll probably do a combination. If you want to find out more, you can read what the creator of this challenge writes. Just click here.

‎31nails2014‬: Day 6: Inspired by a NAILS cover:

I struggled with this challenge. First I tried to make the baby blue to white gradient, and stamp a puzzle pattern over it, but apparently my sponge had dust on it... Then I tried to make caviar nails... And some other things happened. So a week of valuable time was lost. Then I got stuck on day 6, although I had made the ombre nails a week earlier. Finally on Friday I tried the "blue and green spray on water/ spotted nails", and it looked horrible in my Ott- Lite and indoor lighting. I wish we had more daylight in winter, so that I could make more challenges per day. And I struggled taking pictures in indoor lighting/ with an Ott- Lite without making the polish looking matte.

What I did & how it was supposed to be done:

This manicure is inspired by the OCTOBER 2012 ISSUE NAILS cover. After I made this nail art and applied a second coat of Seche Vite, I found out how it can be done, and a bigger picture of the cover nail art... Lol. Here is a picture tutorial. I used regular nail polish, and used different techniques back and forth until it looked a bit like the original manicure.

As MaeLing Parrish does in her tutorial, I started with a random pattern, but I used blues and greens. Then I stamped with blue stamping polish and Messy Mansion MM02. I saw that I had too much contrast, and tried to darken the light areas and to lighten the dark areas. To do that, I turned the plate into a palette by turning it, and used a dotting tool and some sheer polishes; a blue jelly, green flakie and blue flakie. And then I felt it needed more green. If you compare my manicure to the tiny little picture that I tried to copy, this doesn't look that bad.

Products used:

Christian Dior #489 Cobalt and here
Yes Love: F23
MI-NY: #177 Blue Sky
Gosh: #540 Ocean
Gosh: #618 Tilted Blue
Essence: #02 I'm backstage
Ruby Kisses: MNP29 Blue Ray Drama
Konad: SP Blue
Messy Mansion: MM02 (stamping plate & pallette) (used many many times)
XL stamper
Dotting tool
H&M: Blue Wave
Lilypad Lacquer: Blueberry (blue jelly)
Nfu- Oh: #56 (green flakie in green jelly)
Nfu- Oh: #52 (blue flakie in blurple jelly)
And as usual back then: IsaDora #600 Clear as base coat and Seche Vite top coat.

After the stamping I saw that I needed to make some changes, so I ended up using a lot of colors. I hope I have remembered all of them. If I do this again I now know which ones that worked best, so the list will be shorter.

In January one of my goals was to do this 31 Day Challenge. I did the nail art for some of the days, and we were allowed to use old nail art, so I didn't have many left to do. But I only made a few blog posts about them. I hope to show the rest before the year is over. You can see the ones I've made so far in my facebook photo album.

Lani

An InLinkz Link-up

World Ovarian Cancer Day

Hello everyone!

Today is World Ovarian Cancer Day. This is a type of cancer that I didn't know anything about, but if you want to read about ovarian cancer, just click here. I am very glad that I found out that some girls were going to make teal nail art to help raise awareness about ovarian cancer, because that made me learn about it. Because this is a kind of cancer that often get detected late, it's important to be aware of the symptoms, and to read these 5 facts that every woman should know. According to MedlinePlus; "cancer of the ovary is not common, but it causes more deaths than other female reproductive cancers." You can see the other manicures made for ovarian cancer awareness at the end of the post.

List of what I used:

mi-ny: #56 Klimt- pastel turquoise

Messy Mansion: MM07- rose stamping plate
Gina Tricot: #76 Brilliant blue- turquoise, used for stamping (leafs)

Konad: Black- stamping polish (roses)

mi-ny:  #247 I love London- flakie (Some of the photos are taken before adding the flakies.)

Seche Vite after each step

mi-ny: Klimt, Gina Tricot: Brilliant blue, Konad: Black, mi-ny. I love London,
Messy Mansion: MM07

It was interesting to see how different mi-ny: 'I LOVE LONDON' looks over pastel teal and over black. I used only one coat. 'I love London' is a very sheer pastel turquoise base with red flakies and tiny blue flakies. The red flakies can shift to orange and yellow (as you can see over the black roses), and light green (as you can see in the bottle). mi-ny is not tested on animals :-)

mi-ny: I love London

I chose to use this Messy Mansion stamping plate today, not only because I love the rose images, but also  because Messy Mansion donate 10% of their website profits to projects that benefit women. One of the projects gives girls the opportunity to go to school even when they are menstruating. Many girls in developing countries can't go to school those days of the month because they can't afford sanitary products. When a more affordable product is made, it gives a job for those women who make them, and the risk that the girls drop out of school is also reduced. The other project getting money from Messy Mansion, gives women who are incontinent or have other problems after childbirth, a chance to have the operation they need to be able to live normal lives. When I checked Messy Mansion's web site now, I found out that it's a different charity each month. You can read more about their "Women Empowering Women"- project here.

Messy Mansion: MM07

Edit: After reading Nail-to-Nail Interpretations' blog post, I want to add a link to Teal Toes. You can  raise awareness of ovarian cancer by painting your toenails teal, and getting your friends to paint their toenails teal too, and talk about ovarian cancer when someone asks about it, and making sure that they know the signs of this disease.

Below, you can find more manicures made for ovarian cancer awareness. A click on the thumbnails, will take you to their blog post. If you want to join in, you can add the link to your blog post at the bottom of one of our blog posts. It looks like the Inlinkz will work for a few more days.

Lani

Nail Art for Cervix Cancer Awareness

Hello everyone!

Today I want to show you this stamping nail art that I made for cervix cancer awareness. In some countries January is the month for cervix cancer awareness. First I'm going to tell what I know about preventing this type of cancer and the importance of HPV vaccination and regular gynecological examinations, and then I'll tell about my teal nails. I also found a little video for you, that I felt was informative. So feel free to scroll down to the video.

According to the WHO (World Health Organization): The second most common cancer in women worldwide, cervical cancer affects close to half a million women every year, killing an estimated 275 000 of them. About 77% of new cases and 85% of deaths occur in the developing world, where cancer screening and treatment services are scarce.

Luckily, this is a type of cancer where research has given us a way to prevent it, and to detect the cancer early, and that can save many lives. We now know that a virus is the cause to 99% of the cases. The virus that gives cervical cancer is called the HUMAN PAPILLOMAVIRUS (HPV). Many types of HPV exists. Of the ones that has to do with cervical cancer, some of them are more aggressive than others. In many cases, the body is capable of getting rid of the viruses. Therefor most women with HPV don't develop cervical cancer. Some HPV viruses can make the cells in the cervix change slowly, and other viruses can make the cells change very fast. Any man or woman who has had any form of sex can get the virus. In some cases it can give genital warts, but other than that the virus has no symptoms. The good thing about finding the link between HPV and cervix cancer, is that vaccines could be made. So far, two HPV vaccines have been made, and used for some years, and probably saved many women's lives. Hopefully they will make vaccines that work for all types of HPV soon.

What can you do?

1. Get vaccinated 

-According to WHO, the two HPV vaccines currently available, are: GlaxoSmithKline’s Cervarix and Merck’s Gardasil. For more information, click here.
- The vaccines work against the HPV viruses that give the highest risk for cancer. So you can still get the other types of HPV viruses. So although the risk for cervix cancer is reduced, you still should get gynecological examinations done regularly.
-  In many countries all girls who are about 12 years old get vaccinated, and all young women of a certain age can get vaccinated if they want to, and those older can get it but have to pay for it themselves. (I don't know if they have started mass vaccination of boys anywhere yet.) You should ask your physician how it is in your country, if you or your daughters can get it.

2. Get gynecological examinations regularly to

A) take the HPV test to find out if you have HPV or not, and in case you have it, which type of HPV. This is important because it will let your physician know how big the risk is, and how often you should get gynecological examinations (for instance twice a year instead of every second year). If you for instance have a high risk virus, it's important to be aware of it, so that you make sure to get examined often enough to detect cell changes early enough. (Some countries have stopped performing the HPV test (although it is very quick and easy to do) because it's considered too expensive to give it to all women compared to the preventive effect, so the woman may have to pay for it. But all this is depends on where in the world you are)

B) find out if the cells in the cervix are normal, and if you have an early stage of cancer. In some countries they store your samples, so that they can compare them every third year or something.

Even though most of us don't like the examination, it only takes a few minutes, and it can save your life. Although the gynecologists disagree on the importance of HPV testing, they seem to agree on regular tests of the cells in cervix.

If the cervix cancer is detected very early, the prognosis is very good.

A woman I know told me that she had a very early stage of cell change, and that she needed a small operation. This was done by a local gynecologist with local anesthesia, it was done very quickly, she had no pain, and I was surprised that she felt OK afterwards, and could go home as if nothing had happened. This is now many years ago and she is still healthy. The reason why it went so well, is probably that it was detected early, because she had gynecological tests done regularly.
The other woman I know had this small operation done when she was in her twenties, and she thought that she couldn't get pregnant, but now has two children.

As with other types of cancer, early detection and early treatment is important, or the cancer can grow and  spread to other organs.

Here's a video from Australia, called: Just a Minute - Cervical Cancer video.



 For more information about cervix cancer, here is a link: Cancer Connect .

For this stamping nail art, I used:

Pieces: Aqua Blue Metallic (2 coats)
Gina Tricot: #76 Brilliant blue (for stamping)
Messy Mansion stamping plate: MM02 (bubbles)
Bundle Monster stamping plate: BM- 321 (ribbon)
IsaDora: Clear (base coat)
Seche Vite (top coat)

I started with base coat, and applied top coat before stamping, and after stamping. I'm still quite new at stamping, so this was not perfect, but I like this mani a lot.

If you want to see more nail art for cervical cancer awareness, take a look at what was made for Twinsie Tuesday, January 22nd.

Cervix Cancer Awareness

Lani

Teal Magnetic: IsaDora #856 Steel My Heart

Hello everyone!

(If the photos appear to be too far to the right, please use Google Chrome!)

IsaDora #856 Steel My Heart

This is IsaDora  #856 Steel My Heart.