Friday, October 31, 2014

by Kitties26 on Friday, October 31, 2014 6 comments

Happy Halloween

Remember how I was complaining yesterday about Halloween manis and feeling a bit over them. Well this is my last one! I was inspired by an amazing mani on Instagram by @tinas_polish. Her free hand nail art is really incredible and if you are not following her, you must!

Most of this mani came together really fast, the gradient and the black buildings etc, but holy cow painting Oogie boogie into the sky was nearly impossible for me. I top coated the whole design and then painted that white part on with white acrylic paint, as I knew I could rub it off with some water. Lucky I did, because I must have tried to paint him 15 times!

It's not even a patch on what Christina created, but I'm still happy with this for my Halloween mani!

Don't forget any last chance entries to win a nail polish calendar. Entries close tomorrow night.

Thursday, October 30, 2014

by Kitties26 on Thursday, October 30, 2014 7 comments

Candy Corn inspired watermarble

Man, is it Halloween yet? I'm starting to feel a bit over all the Halloween manis at the moment. And you know what, soon we are going to start seeing an endless stream of Christmas and holiday themed art.

I have a Halloween inspired look today, although it doesn't feel too Halloweeny at all. I used used the three candy corn colours of orange, yellow and white to create this water marble, and then matched it up with some large Swarovski crystals.

Can you guys tell that I'm tired? I've written about 4 sentences and I'm done and ready to hit publish. Geez this must be exciting for you guys to read! Do you know what amazing me even more, you awesome ladies that comment (and comment all the time). You are awesome! I'm usually too lazy to comment on blogs because I'm on my ipad and it's a pain having to log into all the different comment widgets and tying is a pain in the butt. So I know how much effort it takes to comment, and I'll say it again - you ladies that comment here are awesome.

I'm about to go and paint my nails. Recently my nightly routine has included watching Sons of Anarchy whilst painting my nails. I'd not seen any of it before, and I've been watching two episodes a night for the last few weeks. I'm up to the last episode of Season 4 tonight and am enjoying it very much. Before watching SoA I watched the Discovery Channel's Vikings. That was pretty awesome too, and has anyone else noticed how similar the two actors are that play Ragnar Lothbrok and Jax Teller? I actually had to google them when I first started watching SoA to see if they were the same actor.

Well look at that, I managed to write four paragraphs of drivel! Let's just move onto the nails.

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

by Kitties26 on Wednesday, October 29, 2014 2 comments

Pretty Serious Elm Street

I've had this polish for what seems like forever, and not got around to wearing it (same goes for the two other polishes in this collection - which I still haven't worn). Pretty Serious Elm Street really is a perfect Halloween shade, but it also makes a damn fine Christmas polish with it's mix of red and green.

Pretty Serious Elm Street has a dark brownish red jelly base (think drying blood if you are wearing this for Halloween - or red wine if you are wearing it for Christmas) with small red and green hexes and shortish bar glitters. The inspiration for this polish of Freddy Kruger's striped jumper is interpreted beautifully.

I did a little free hand nail art on my middle finger. Some red and green strips for the jumper again, as well as some sharp metal claws ripping some holes the in shirt. My free hand is rather sucky, but it sort of looks like what I was going for.

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

by Kitties26 on Tuesday, October 28, 2014 6 comments

Ghostly temporary tattoo Halloween nail art

Two years ago I participated in a really fun Halloween nail art challenge. Back then I hadn't yet attempted the 31 Day challenge the month prior, so I was chomping at the bit to do some nail art, and having a theme to work to every couple of days was so fun. I really must try do a Halloween nail art challenge again next year.

One of the nail designs I did back in 2012 was some ghostly temporary tattoos over a holographic polish. I really loved the look, but my application left little to be desired, my nails were wonky from a few breaks and the tips looked really worn. This left me wanting to do the design again, and do a much better job at it. I'm pleased to say that I achieved that!

Here is my 2014 version of the Ghostly temporary tattoo nail design. I love how to most people these just look like an abstract swirly design, almost a watermarble. It's only when you take a closer look that you see the different ghostly shapes across my nails.

If you scroll down below you will find a full length video of how I created this look using the temporary tattoo paper.

If you are interesting in checking out some other Halloween nail art designs, jump over to the boohoo.com blog. So far they have two Halloween themed nail art blog posts:

Monday, October 27, 2014

by Kitties26 on Monday, October 27, 2014 3 comments

Green Halloween inspired nail art

I paint my nails nearly every single night, but let me tell you, the nail art ideas don't always flow! Some nights I sit there with just base coat painted on my nails with absolutely no clue what to paint. This mani started out like that, and just evolved into this.

I first decided I would do something Halloweeny, and then thinking about the Halloween colours (in my head they are orange, purple, green and black) I chose green. I did a coat of Ulta3 Emerald Inten-city, but that didn't lead me to any great inspiration. Next I brightened it up a bit and added two coats of Contrary Polish West Bottoms. This not only gave it a gorgeous shimmer, bit it also glows in the dark.

Next, I dug through my draws looking for some decals or stamping plates to inspire me. That's where I spotted these textured Ulta3 nail stickers. I liked that each nail sticker had a circular gap in a different location on each nail, and then I thought I could fill in the gap with a different Halloween themed stamp. The spider and bat are from a Bundle Monster plate, the cat from Konad plate M91 and the witch and pumpkin are from Messy Mansion MM22.

Not my best work, but still and interesting outcome.

Sunday, October 26, 2014

by Kitties26 on Sunday, October 26, 2014 4 comments

Watermarble Mummies

From now up to Halloween, I've got a few spooky (and not so spooky) nail designs to show you.

Now I actually did these water marble mummies more than a month ago, as I was invited my boohoo.com to do up some Halloween nail designs for their blog. I used a range of nude colours from the Face of Australia Screen Sirens collection, as well as Ulta3 Cocoa. They all marbled well, although the Ulta3 polish needed a bit of thinner so it would spread better.

Not much more to say about these, except that I did actually film a full tutorial and put it on you tube.

(Yes, I have a you tube channel. No I don't do videos very often)

Saturday, October 25, 2014

by Kitties26 on Saturday, October 25, 2014 13 comments

Win an Ulta3 Nail Polish Advent Calendar

In the lead up to Christmas, my children have always had an advent calendar. For a few years, the calendar contained a little Santa chocolate each day, but for the last couple of years they have had a Lego Advent Calendar. The delight on their little faces every day when they crack open the date to reveal their little surprise is adorable.

That same delight could now be yours, if you win this Ulta3 Nail Polish Advent Calendar. The Ulta3 Advent Calendar contains 24 festive colours in mini 5ml nail polish bottles. Each bottle is contained within a numbered compartment, waiting for your to count down to Christmas.

The 24 polishes included are:

Row one: Bright me, disco fever, orchid, emerald inten-city, pot of gold, lily white.
Row two: Bon bon, palette play, over the rainbow, tahiti, glamour puss, blue marlin.
Row three: Gold rush fever, new year's eve, strawberry sunday, luck of the irish, sizzling red, lilac bloom.
Row four: Twinkle toes, black stain, pale dahlia, block it out,fruit tingle, pacific fever.
Check out my Ulta3 colour guide to see swatches of each colour.

The calendar is brand new, this image is a sample image showing the open compartments.

This image is of the back of the actual Advent Calendar I will be sending to the winner.

Entry is really easy. You just need to follow Ulta3 on Facebook - that's it! The Rafflecopter widget contains entry terms and conditions.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Want to double your chances of winning? Then jump over to my Instagram account for details of a second Advent Calendar giveaway!!

Thursday, October 23, 2014

by Kitties26 on Thursday, October 23, 2014 6 comments

Blue and gold gradient with stamping and Mont Blue Glass file winner

Hello everyone. First up, my Mont Blue Nail file set giveaway ended last night, and I've just drawn the winner. I have to say that I absolutely loved all your comments, so thank you everyone for making me smile! Congratulations to the winner Giovanna Iglesias Croccia. I've sent you an email.

I have another very exciting giveaway planned that I will kick off this weekend, with a totally awesome and fun prize that I know a lot of you would love to win - plus it will also be open internationally. So make sure you hang around for that!

Now onto today's nails. I did a really simple gold and blue gradient using Priti NYC Chrysanthos and Kleancolor Metallic Sapphire. I then stamped over it using Mundo de Unas white stamping polish.

When I applied top coat, something rather magical happened, and it's something that is particular to the Kleancolor Metallic polishes. The blue colour from the Kleancolor leached up through the white stamping to make it blue stamping. The Kleancolor metallic polishes are quite notorious for doing weird things when you apply top coat. They stamp really well because of their pigmentation, but when you top coat them they bleed and go fuzzy. Same as when you just wear the colours on their own, they change colour slightly when you put top coat on. The mind boggles at what sort of crazy chemical reaction is going on there to make this happen.

Wednesday, October 22, 2014

by Kitties26 on Wednesday, October 22, 2014 3 comments

Picture Polish Fool's Gold

Picture Polish Fool's Gold, the collaboration shade with nail blogger and art superstar Sammy The Nailsaurus, is a stunning turquoise blue with a scattered holo flakies and small gold hexes. The formula is perfect and mix of gold and turquoise feels very rich.

Here are my swatches of this beauty, shown at two coats with Seche Vite top coat.

How did I wear it? Well, I had to try really hard and force myself not to do turquoise stone nail art with this polish, that was already done beautifully by Sammy herself and Tammy from OhMyGosh polish.

Instead I pulled out some other polishes and really blinged it up. On my pinky I did two coats of Picture Polish Majesty and then a layer of Rocky. On the middle and ring finger I did a tip gradient using Rocky. On my index finger I added a gold dolphin hex nail charm.

On my thumb I attempted some stamping with gold nail art foil, as I had done here. It started out good, and then my brain exploded as I was applying top coat, and I instinctively painted good old Seche Vite on all my nails. Then I watched the gold foil lose all it's foily goodness right before my eyes. Oh well. It looked pretty awesome before Seche Vite ruined it!

Picture Polish Fool's Gold is available from Picture Polish. International ladies can purchase through one of the many Network stockists.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

by Kitties26 on Tuesday, October 21, 2014 3 comments

Black Dahlia Lacquer - Basket of Gold, Lily of the Valley & Olaf's Snowflowers

Hey everyone! I'm not going to repeat myself with the details about Black Dahlia Lacquer, as I covered that yesterday, instead I'm going to get straight into the swatches of the glitters and shimmers.

Basket of Gold - If you ground me up and turned me into a bottle of nail polish, this is what I would be, a basket of gold. This is a multi-dimensional full coverage gold glitter - but it's also got silver glitters in there so it's a nice cool toned gold, with a mega serving of holo! I decided to wear this as one thin coat of a milky sheer base, OPI Don't touch my tutu.

Lily of the Valley - a light gray shimmer with taupe and white flakies and gold glass flecks. I love this gray shade, it's very chic and edgy. This is two thin coats with Seche Vite top coat.

Olaf's Snowflowers - a white crelly base filled with various sizes of gold and silver holographic glitters. This built up easily and only needed two coats for full opacity. This is two coats with Seche Vite top coat.

The gold glitters in this remind me of this comment from Olaf about winter "I'm thinking like maybe some crimson, chartreuse. How about yellow? No, not yellow. Yellow and snow? Brrrr...no go!"

These polishes, along with the other 21 shades that form the three launch collections are available from Black Dahlia Lacquer. Their polishes are also very competitively priced at just $6 for glitter, cremes and shimmer shades and $6.75 for holos.

Polishes provided for consideration.