Summer Frangipani Nails.

This week is the last week of Summer in Australia, so I thought I would do one last Summery nail design. That, and on Instagram I was nominated for last week's nails to be in a contest. I was very surprised and quite excited. So I had a think about what summer is to me. Besides the dry heat that I hate, I thought of flowers. Sunflowers, hibiscus and frangipanis. I had seen nail art with sunflowers and hibiscus on YouTube and Instagram before, but I haven't seen any with fragipanis. I'm sure people have done it before, but I don't recall seeing any.

So I went with the common yellow ones instead of the orange or pink ones you can get. I quite like how they turned out actually.

I think if I had used acrylic paints for the middles of the flowers it would have blended better.

This is the picture I posted to Instagram for my competition entry. My Instagram is @magicalpolish in case anyone was wondering :)

Colours Used:
Blue - China Glaze: Electric Beat
White - Sinful Colors: Snow Me White
Yellow - China Glaze: Lemon Fizz
Coral - Rimmel London: In Style Coral
Green - China Glaze: Starboard

Underwater Nails.

This week I decided to use one of my MoYou London Stamping plates with my new $2.50 XL squishy stamper from eBay. I did test out my stamper when it arrived and it;s not as good as I was hoping, but for $2.50 it;s not bad.

Who knew that deciding which MoYou London Stamping Plate to use would be so hard? I finally chose my Sailor Collection Plate 8 to do an Underwater scene. I was inspired by some underwater nails I saw on a blog called Spellbound Nails.

I started off with a light to dark blue ombre/gradient for the water because it gets darker the deeper down you go. Then I added some sand with sea weeds and corals growing out of it.

After that, I added some sea creatures, mainly fish in the spaces. The stamper isn't as good as I had hoped, so some parts didn't transfer perfectly. I also added a few bubbles, just because I couldn't not have bubbles :)
I really wish I hadn't added that fish in black on my pointer finger, it seems rather bold and out of place. Also, I tried layering the images, but it doesn't look as good as I thought; a bit messy even :( Never mind, I still like it.

Colours Used:
Light Blue - Essie: Borrowed and Blue
Darker Blue - OPI: No Room For The Blues
Sandy Colour - OPI: Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?
Green - China Glaze: Starboard
Black - OPI: Black Onyx
Coral - Rimmel London: In Style Coral
Orange - Revlon: Alluring Amber
Silver - Rimmel London: Your Majesty
Purpley Blue - Rimmel London: Blue My Mind
Yellow - China Glaze: Lemon Fizz
Bronze/Copper - Sally Hansen: Pennies For Heaven
White - Sinful Colors: Snow Me White

MoYou London Stamping Plates III

I got these plates nearly a month ago now with the ones I showed in the previous MoYou London Stamping Plates post, but decided not to show them all at once because there would be too many pictures. So all the details for where to buy these, how much they are, shipping etc are in the previous posts named MoYou London Stamping plates I & II.

These three plates are my random ones; they are the only ones from the collections that they belong to that I have. These plates and the next set that I will show come with really cute covers. I'm not sure why the Fairytale Collection didn't.

First up is the Princess Collection Plate 7. I really like the cute covers they come with because they are different for each collection.

This plate isn't one of the ones with the whole scene or the full nail designs. It has tiny little objects that you can do whatever you want with. There's a fairy, a mermaid, a unicorn, a castle, some crowns/tiaras and other cute little magical things including Alice and the Cheshire Cat! This one is perfect for adding cute little accent/details to nails without over crowding.

Next is the Pro Collection Plate 3. This collection is pretty much just full nail designs. In this collection there are regular sized full nail designs and then there is XL designs. There are some designs that come in both sizes or are only slightly different.

I ended up getting the Pro Collection Plate 3, which has different animal prints on it. I didn't really think about it when I bought it because I just saw that this one has more designs than the XL design plate had. These are not annoyingly small images or anything, i think they're pretty standard, it's just that my nails are too long now for these to fit. I will still try to make them work some how. I have no complaints for this plate because it was my own fault that they are too small for my nails, I just wanted more images on the plate.

Here you can see the image size compared to my thumb nail. I don't have any of the XL designs to compare it to. Depending on whether I can get these to work for my nails or not, I might end up getting some.

The last one is the Sailor Collection Plate 8. This one is the kind of the same layout as the Princess Plate 7 with the little designs.

This one has sea creatures and sea weed and bubbles. It's really cute and I'll be doing underwater nails using this next now that I've taken a picture of it before using it. They look like they are a good size, not too big. For me, it's missing a little crab or maybe a little treasure chest. Other than that, I really like it.

I will show the last three that I have soon, so there won't be too many pictures in one post.

I'm really looking forward to using all of my MoYou London plates, I just don't have enough fingers!!

Woven Nail Art.

Nothing too exciting this week. I was a bit lost for inspiration. Since it will be Valentine's Day soon, I thought I would do a Valentine's theme. I didn't want something over the top lovey-dovey smothered in pink and red with hearts; but at the same time I didn't want any thing anti-Valentine's Day either.

So in the end, I settled for a simple woven look. I believe it is also called the fishtail braid or the braided manicure, but for me it seems more woven. I have no idea who the original creator of this idea is because there is so many people who have done it.

But here's mine:

I went with three colours; two types of pinks and white. It's not obviously a Valentine's Day nail art, but there is a hint of it there. I quite like how it turned out, a few not so straight lines, but never mind :)

Colours Used:

White - Sinful Colors: Snow Me White

Light Pink - Essie: Neo-Whimsical

Dark Pink - A-England: Briar Rose Sleeping Beauty

Who's Been Painting My Roses Red?!!

This week, my nail art is inspired by Disney's Alice in Wonderland. While I was thinking about what I should do, I noticed that all the other Alice in Wonderland nail art that I saw featured the Cheshire Cat, watches and/or blue, white and black. And since I have been meaning to do roses on my nails I figured I would make it the main theme.

Here's what I came up with:

I painted the pattern from the Queen's dress on my thumb, one of the Queen's card servants on my middle finger and all the rest with the white roses painted red. I quite like how the roses turned out for my first attempt on nails. If they weren't supposed to be white painted red, I think I would use two shades of one colour instead.

This is the pattern from the Queens dress that I used, only I used one shade of yellow.

It's not usually the style I go for, but I'm quite pleased with it. And it would be better if my topcoat didn't smudge it :(

A bit more of a close up. Not sure if I should have given the card eyes?

I love Disney movies, always have and probably always will :D
I hope I can get inspired and create more Disney inspired manicures :)

Colours Used:
Gold - Essie: Good As Gold the OPI: Glitzerland on top
Greens - China Glaze: Starboard and China Glaze: Gaga For Green
White - Sinful Colours: Snow Me White
Black - OPI: Black Onyx
Red: Rimmel London: Double Decker Red
Yellow - China Glaze: Lemon Fizz