Obligatory Christmassy Stuff

Well Ho Ho Ho to y'all! I did some Christmas nail art in the few moments I had to myself in the raucous Christmas season! Yeah okay so I'm posting on Boxing Day, but I know a lot of you are still celebrating the Big Day, so I wanted to share. Hope you're ready for a whole lotta green, red and gold!

More after the jump......

Pink Wednesday: Nail Vinyls

Happy Wednesday, lovely people! I haven't done a Pink Wednesday post in forever, so I thought it was about time to reinstate the tradition! I have a couple of manis for you today with similar themes: obviously they're both pink, but they both utilise Nail Vinyls as well. Nail Vinyls are the genius brainchild of @teismom and they are absolutely brilliant. I'll explain a bit more about them further on, but first, enjoy some pics!

Simple Stripes: Pastel Edition

Whaaaaaat?? Two posts in two days??? This hasn't happened in months! Woo! Talk about starting off the way you wanna go on XP. Honestly, I just couldn't wait to share this mani - I LOVE how it turned out! Okay, there are still a couple of bumps along the road but this mani was super fun and easy to do, so I had to share straight away! The line-up:

L to R: piCture pOlish Fairy Floss (uh, duh...), Essie Liliacism (new formula, the old one is shite), Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau (haven't I seen that somewhere before...?), and Essie Mint Candy Apple (the one polish in my whole stash I have to stop myself from wearing EVERYDAY cos I luvs it so hard). Click on through to see what I got up to with these bad boys!

ABC Challenge: N

Hidey ho there, reader! I finally got a day off so I thought it was about time I post somethin' new! We're up to the letter 'N', and I (finally) settled on OPI No Room For The Blues. More over the jump!

ABC Challenge: M

Hiya! Two posts in two days? Woah!! I know, I'm shocked too XD. Let's get on with it! I've got a double whammy for you today - M is for OPI My Paprika Is Hotter Than Yours and My Chihuahua Bites!

ABC Challenge: B

Hi hi! Okay so I lied a little bit, I'm a day late with this post, but I have a legit reason! I know it sounds stupid, but my cat walked across my keyboard while I was editing in Photoshop and kinda reset all my settings, and changed some I didn't even know about. It took some pretty serious Googling to get everything back, but I'm sorted now, so on with the challenge!

ALL The Colours!!

Well hello there, friends! I have something bright and colourful to share with you today to get back into the swing of blogging. I've been MIA from here for a couple of reasons - 1) my nails took a serious beating when I was working on a construction site a few weeks ago, and I've been waiting for them to grow into something paintable, and 2) I got lazy and decided to post everything straight to Instagram instead of writing it up here - sorry! Last night I did the first properly nail-arty mani I've done in ages, and I knew it was time to share. I give you: ALL the colours!!

This one's pretty pic heavy so click through to see more ^_^

Quickie for Nickie

Hiya!! Hope your Mondays are off to a nice easy start! I've got a super quick post dedicated to one of the most wonderful ladies I've met in the nail-blogging community - Nicole of Young Wild and Polished. She is insanely talented, amazingly sweet and tears-in-your-eyes, rolling-on-the-ground-clutching-your-sides funny! On top of all of that, she's one of the most supportive and understanding ladies I've ever talked to, and she's dealt with more crap than anyone should have to and has come out smiling! 

Nic (and Dot) - this one's for you! ♥

Watermarbling is Nicole's self-confessed "gateway nail art", so I used OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips and Black Onyx for a double nail marbled accent à la Nic. I used the same colours on my pinky and index fingers to re-create a design that she's been playing with since she got her Born Pretty Store nail striping tape. Honestly, doll, I dunno how you do it so neatly - that tape was not cooperating with me!! A coat of Seche Vite topped it all off.

These flowers are absolutely 100% what I associate with Nicole! They are so trademark Young, Wild and Polished that if I ever see them re-created anywhere (not just stolen like on Instagram, grrrr...) I automatically think of her! She's got a quick and easy-to-follow tutorial to let you borrow some of her talent ^_^. I used the same polishes again, and added some light dots throughout in China Glaze Something Sweet. I stole this directly from one of her Instagram photos (obviously I highly recommend following her). 

So there ya go! Go check out Young, Wild and Polished for some gorgeous nail art and some serious lols, or follow her on Twitter and Instagram! Thanks for reading, babes! 

The Flaming Fishtail

Happy Saturday, lovely people! Today I have a fishtail mani accent nail featuring China Glaze Hey Sailor, Papaya Punch and Happy Go Lucky! Less talky talkies more picky pickies! ;-)

As you can see I used the three colours for my other fingers. This is one (thickish) coat of each over 2 coats of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu!. One coat of each! I do so love China Glaze polishes =). A coat of Seche Vite finished it off. Maybe it's because it's almost October and all you lovely Americans have been spreading the Halloween excitement, but there's something really Halloween-y about the orange and yellow to me. It doesn't help that my nails are shaped a little bit like candy corn kernels =P. Maybe I'm just imagining it... Whaddaya think?

It was around 3am when I eventually finished this mani (I took the slow /stupid route and consequently ended up with a LOT of drying time...) so excuse the obvious imperfections ;-). I never said my polishing was perfect, but as with so many of my attempted manis, it's a great effect until you look closely! 

See, it's cooler from further away =P. Do you get into the Halloween spirit (teehee, I made a pun...) or do you think it's all overrated / for kids? How do you celebrate if you do? And what colours do you like most for a tri-colour fishtail mani? I love hearing from you all! =D 

Thank you SOO much for reading, lovelies!! Enjoy your weekend ;-)

Painted Plait

Hiya! Today's mani is one I'm actually still wearing - shock horror! It's my first try at a 'fishtail braid' mani, and I only did the design on one finger to make sure it was really special =D. For the plait I used Miki No. 21, China Glaze Aquadelic and Icicle. Somewhat of a successful first attempt, I think...?

Credit where credit is due: This wicked mani idea came from here - I came across it while googling,so I went back and found it again to make sure this extremely talented young lady gets all the credit she deserves! Take a few minutes / hours / days and go through her stuff... Incredible or what??

For my other nine fingers I used 2 coats of OPI My Very First Knockwurst from the Germany collection. The Germany collection was released here in NZ about two and a half weeks before it was released in USA/Canada... Weird. I suspect one of our local stockists (won't say who...) got the shipment and maybe didn't read the info pack that came with it saying when to release them? Whatever it was, they were doing a 'buy two get one free' deal at the time too so naturally my Mum (who matches me for polish obsession) came home with three shades from the collection - My Very First Knockwurst, Don't Pretzel My Buttons and Berlin There, Done That. MVFK is my ultimate nude shade now! I could wear nothing else and be totally happy... For about four days, maybe... ;-)

On one of my many googling-for-inspiration binges, I came across something that looked like this. Only better. I had to figure out how she'd done it, but once I realised it was a straight forward plait, I had to try it! I reckon it's up the top of those 'simple yet effective' manis.

Okay so some of my lines are a bit average. I've already got ideas floating around in my tiny brain for other colour combos and how to improve my technique, so stay tuned! 

Where do you get most of your manispiration from? Have you got a favourite (or two or six...) from the new OPI Germany collection? Thanks for stopping by =D 

MOAR BLUE!!!

Okay, okay, this will be my last blue post in a while. Maybe. I know I've been going overboard with my blue polishes lately, so after today I'll try to give you guys a break =P. Today's mani is pretty simple - Revlon Indigo Night with blue nail tape from the BornPrettyStore for the accent nails.

This is two coats of Indigo Night though one probably would've done - the Revlon Colorstay polishes are massively saturated, love it! I thought about using silver nail tape for the accent nail but decided it would stand out too much, so I went for a matchy-matchy look instead. From a distance / without looking too hard, the accent nail wasn't particularly noticeable apart from it being a little bit shinier than the other nails. I like that - subtle fanciness!

I Seche Vite'd my nails after I painted them before starting to tape. I know from experience that the teeny tiny little stripes of tape don't always fall exactly where you were aiming for, so a seriously dry base is a must. Another coat of the magic Seche Vite over the stripes helped to smooth everything out and helps the tape wear longer.

When I showed this mani to my Mum, she said "They look like blue bottle flies bums!". Thanks, Mum. I see what she meant though - the colour and shimmery-ness of the tape has the same effect as those little guys when they're buzzing in the sunlight. 

Whaddaya think? Do you like an obvious accent nail or are you sweet as with the subtleness? What was the weirdest comment someone's made about one of your manis? Hope you're having lovely weekends, lovely people, and happy long weekend to you State-side peeps!

Happy Go YELLOW!!!!!!!

Happy Saturday, lovely people!! Today I have a very BRIGHT and sunshine-y yellow for you - China Glaze Happy Go Lucky. This is my first ever yellow nail polish, and I am definitely not disappointed. I got it primarily because it was the only colour I was missing to make rainbows (and everyone loves rainbows!) but I'm very happy to wear this stunning yummy goodness all on its own! It's much brighter than anything I usually wear and would take some getting used to, but it's such a perfect yellow that I think it's worth it!

I reshaped my nails today, can you tell? I've never had nails this square and honestly I wasn't crazy about the shape when my nails were bare, but once they were polished - love them! They look shorter than they are in the pic below because of the angle my hand is on. Square nails are surprisingly useful for random little things like doing up clips on necklaces. I think I'll keep them ;-).

The pic above is probably the most true to the colour IRL, though the shade was so ridiculously YELLOW and my skin is so ridiculously pale that my camera had a difficult time getting the white balance right. Think happy sunshine neon yellow with no trace of green, and you've got Happy Go Lucky.

With a yellow this bright and Summery, I had to add bumblebee stripes. They were entirely necessary for my first adventure into yellow polish. I cut strips of sticky tape to the width I wanted, made them tacky, stuck 'em on and painted over them with my go-to black, BYS Black Satin. Bzzzzz....!

Yep. I'm a yellow polish convert. I can't usually wear yellow with my skin tone so I've been hesitant, but it's just the trick of finding that right shade. This leans more toward orange-yellow than that bright green-y-yellow, and I think that's why it works for me (at least I think it does?? It's so darn bright it probably has the same level of wear-a-bility for everyone!). 


Do you dare wear YELLOW nail polish? Do you have a colour you can't wear as clothing but love on your tips? Thanks so much for checking in, babes, I really appreciate it =D.


- Ally xx