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: L

Hello!! Happy October!! October's the best month IMHO - it's properly Spring-y, Christmas is creeping nearer, and it's my birthday month! What more could you want!? Oh, more blog posts? Okay! XD

Today's post is brought to you by the letter 'L'. Anyone who follows me on IG knows I have an addiction to the Liquid Sand / Pixie Dust glitter 'texture' polishes, so naturally I had to share this gorgeous grey one with you. Here's Zoya London!

ABC Challenge: F

Hello! Happy Sunday! It is so bright and sunny and beautiful here today - it really feels like Spring is here! In the spirit of things looking lighter, today's polish is a nice bright minty green: Essie First Timer!

ABC Challenge: C

Well hello again, friends! Welcome to day 3 of my ABC Challenge! As mentioned at the end of yesterday's post, I had no idea what I was gonna do for 'C', and since I'm crazy-indecisive, I decided to jam two (and a half) polishes into this post so I didn't have to choose which one to showcase. I'mma make today's one nice and quick - here's OPI Can't Find My Czechbook and Charged Up Cherry!

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! 

Dots on a Stranger Tide

Hello you lovely people! Hope you're having a wonderful day =D Mine was pretty wonderful - I did.... nothing. Absolutely nothing! It was great! Don't cha just love those days? Today's mani features a polish I bought a while ago and lost instantly to my mother's stash. I re-adopted it and found it extremely difficult to take off because I loved it so much! I'm really not a green-polish kinda gal, but OPI Stranger Tides won me over in a heartbeat.

This is two coats over a base coat of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu!. TBH, the base coat really doesn't make a difference to this shade, it's just a precaution because I'm trying to encourage my nails to un-stain themselves ;-). If any of you have at-home tips for nail stain removal, I'd appreciate them! I've already tried the lemon juice and the baking soda ones to no avail. Humph. 

Yummy yummy yummy! This grey-green has enough green in it to make sure it's definitely a green, but lacks enough green to be wearable everyday. My other couple of green polishes get pulled out for Christmas and St Patrick's day, and for the occasional rainbow, but otherwise I steer WELL clear of green polish. Not this baby. We've started a very serious affair ♥♥.

It took me a long time (and a couple of tries) to decide what, if any, design to put over Stranger Tides. I thought black would dampen it too much, stamping would hide too much of the shade, I didn't want to marble with it, I even considered pairing it with a lilac for a while (still a combo that I want to try sometime, whaddaya think?), and finally settled on a tape / dot design with white that amplifies the deliciousness that is this nail polish.

I used a small/medium dotting tool for the polka dots on my middle and pinky fingers, and used this technique on my index and ring fingers, except I taped down the nail on a diagonal instead of across the tip and painted the exposed nail in OPI Alpine Snow, the same polish I dotted with.

I think I'm getting pretty good at my polka dotting, whaddaya reckon?

I really like how this mani turned out, especially as it took me about 3 days to settle on a design I really liked! Yeah, I am extremely indecisive... Anywho, do you like it? What's your favourite polish that you can't bear to cover? Thank you so much for reading!! Hope you enjoy the rest of your week! =)

Tutorial: Interlocked Dot Mani

Hiya lovelies! Happy Saturday! Quick little post today - I haven't really been in the blogging mood since Wednesday's post =\ dunno why, maybe I'm low on whatever vitamin sparks the desire to blog? Anywho, I've had a crack at making my first picture tutorial for a mani that I don't really know what to call... It was this one here... I promised the next time I tried it I'd make a step-by-step guide, so that's exactly what I've done =). This time it's with China Glaze Aquadelic and OPI No Room For The Blues. Will shhh now... Enjoy!

**********************************************

If you give it a go I'd love to see the outcome! Tag me @RFTP_NZ on Twitter or post it to RFTP's Facebook wall =)

Do you prefer photo or video tutorials? Do you often try a mani you've seen around or do you just like seeing how it's done? Enjoy your weekends, lovely people, and thank you for reading! 

Play Time with OPI

Hiya lovely people! Today's mani is one that I wasn't sure I would ever post, but the response from some lovely ladies who saw it was so positive, I decided to share it here too =). I like to play around with different manis and techniques while watching TV / listening to music if I have down time, and this mani was born while watching Bedlam. Not the most amazing series ever, but I'm totally hooked! Anyway, onto the nails...

I started with two coats of OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips (have you noticed I've been using that a LOT lately? Can't help it, it's pink perfection!) and after applying some magical Seche Vite to speed the drying process along, I taped off the tips of my nails and created a thick french mani with OPI No Room For The Blues. With a medium-sized dotting tool I added dots of NRFTB at even spaces along the bottom edge of the 'french tip', then dotted KMOMTL between the blue dots on the other side... Do you kinda get what I mean? I didn't bother to take step-by-step snaps because I didn't know how it was going to turn out, but if I do this again I'll definitely keep a photo record for ya!

A coat of SV over everything dried and set it all, and took away *most* of the 3D effect of the dotting. Naturally I had to grab my Rimmel Lycra Pro Matte Top Coat for some yummy matte goodness. It's so nice to know that if a mani doesn't look great after applying a matte top coat, you can just apply another shiny top coat and pretend it never happened! ;-)

Whaddya reckon - is this a cool effect you'd want to try yourself, maybe with some colours that don't contrast so much? What does it remind you of? Do you love matte manis as much as I do? (As if that's possible... =P )

Thanks SO much for stopping by, lovelies! 

Boxed In

Hello lovelies! As I was going through the photos I have ready to post, I just wasn't feeling it and thought maybe I just wouldn't post today. Once I gave up, I moved a shoe box (with a new pair of shoes in it, yay shoes!) and thought the pattern on the box would make a nice mani. So I picked out my polishes and tried my first checkered tape mani. Check it out!

This is Miki No. 21 and China Glaze Urban-Night. Once my base colour of two coats of the Miki polish were dry (with a little help from my friend - Seche Vite), I cut some squares of sticky tape and stuck them where you can see the base colour. Then I applied a nice thick layer of Urban-Night and peeled the tape off. I learnt a valuable lesson with this mani - always take the tape off when the polish is wet! You get a much cleaner line and you don't risk peeling the polish off with the tape.  

Here's the shoe box that inspired the mani. Pretty close, no?

A snap with my new little buddy. Isn't he the cutest little owl ring you've ever seen?

Just a quickie today! Hope you're enjoying your Friday! Woo, weekend!! =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!

Cracked Apple

Hi hi lovely people! Hope you're all having wonderful relaxing Saturdays! So, I know crackle polish has come and gone and been done a million times in between, but I got my bottle of OPI Black Shatter toward the end of the craze and only used it a few times before I got seriously bored seeing crackle / shatter polish everywhere. Well it's been a while now, and my bottle was feeling lonely up there on the shelf, so I googled around for some inspiration on how to use it differently. This look was originally done in black with gold shatter over top and rhinestones, but I've adapted it for the colours I've got. Lookit!

Edit: I went back and re-googled to give credit where credit is due - check out the inspiration here! (Note this post was done a year ago! How behind the times am I, sheesh!

I applied one coat of OPI Big Apple Red, let it dry (aka applied some Seche Vite), then taped off an angle on the tips and applied some Black Shatter. I taped off the design with some black nail tape from the BornPrettyStore to give it a nice clean edge. Some more Seche Vite top coat sealed and settled it all in. Whaddaya think?

It can take a bit of practice to get the shatter to shatter properly, so I'm pretty pleased with how this lot turned out. Some of them aren't flash hot but on the whole, the effect's pretty neat, don'tcha think?

I think the black tape just gives it a finished / 'on purpose' look, as opposed to the random mess it was kinda looking like before I applied the tape... 

What are your thoughts on shatter / crackle polish? Love it, hate it, over it or want more? How do you mix up a mani that's been done a billion times before? Thanks for stopping by, sweet people. Happy weekends!

Pink Wednesday: Black Roses Pink

Hiya! It's Wednesday again, and as you know On Wednesdays We Wear Pink so today I have a yummy pink jelly mani using OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y?. Let's just jump in, shall we?

I started with three coats of Do You Think I'm Tex-y, then stamped it with BPS [Born Pretty Store] stamp m65 in my go-to black BYS Black Satin. 

I added some nail tape in silver to the tip just to give it a little something more, and I think it helps it to look 'finished'. It's a little bit more special than just a straight stamp, don'tcha think?

I absolutely lo-o-o-ove Do You Think I'm Tex-y? -it's such a yummy true jelly polish. No creme in sight here! Depending on the light, it does tend to lean more toward red than any other colour, but in daylight it is a deep dark delicious pink. Here in NZ we have these ice creams called 'Jelly Tips', and the finish on this polish is exactly what the frozen tip of jelly is like! Mmm I just love this polish! 

Spot the great big chunk of missing polish on my middle finger? When all was said and done last night, my Seche Vite top coat was all but dry, and Dog was snoozing on my computer chair. I went to stroke him and he jumped up, banging my finger on the corner of my desk. Bye-bye perfect polish finish. That's what I get for showing a little love!

A close up of the gorgeous stamp design. I had a heck of a time trying to get the tape to stay down at the edges! I top-coated the *bleep* out of my nails, and a few of them still peeled up at the corners over night! I ended up applying new pieces of tape to some of my nails right before I took the photos, and even then they just didn't want to stay down. There must be a knack to it - I'll figure it out some day!

THIS STUFF!! Oh my goodness, this stuff. Lemon Flutter cuticle butter by Lush. Since our local Lush store opened up before Christmas last year (my gosh they were busy!) I have been itching to get my paws on some of this most delicious cuticle butter. I had recently resolved to stop putting it off and grab a tub on my next pay day, and lo and behold my incredible Mum came home with it today, along with a couple of other tubs of pure deliciousness! This stuff is just magic for your fingers, and I know I look crazy sniffing my cuticles but I don't care! If you could smell this stuff, you wouldn't stop sniffing either! 

Thanks for stopping by, lovely people! =D