Soft and simple nail art for piCture pOlish Blogfest!

I am super duper excited to have been chosen to take part in the piCture pOlish blogfest for 2013! We were asked to create a nail art tutorial using 3 different shades. I decided to go with some simple skittle nail art that doesn't require a lot of tools, time or skills.

Striping tape and dotting tool from Born Pretty

NotD: Sunset Butterfly

I asked my partner what colour I should paint my nails and got a ridiculously specific nail art request instead! "Orange with a yellow stripe and red butterflies!"

Way to make it easy, babe...

NotD: Grey gradient and glitter!

Felt like doing something a bit more understated with my nails this time around. The weather is doing its usual weirdness - autumn in Australia is very much like spring, in one week you'll have a cold and drizzly day followed by a warm and sunny one! I decided to do something a bit wintry.

Polishes used:
Mode Cosmetics VIP
Zoya Harley
Revlon Steel-her Heart
Nubar White Polka Dots

NotD: Teal Paisley

After the reverse ladybug manicure, I wanted something that wouldn't show tip-wear as much, and I wanted to pull out my very neglected Konad plates.

NoTD: Reverse Ladybug

I decided to pull out my dotting tools. I purposely didn't try for an even/neat arrangement and I think that worked out a LOT better than trying to emulate my work with my uncoordinated left hand.

Base: Manicare Glam Nails Paint It Black
Dots: Illamasqua Throb

NotD: Light as Air Bubbles

Shopped my stash and picked out Light As Air. I love the colour and haven't worn it in ages. Remembered I had bought a wheel of rhinestones from eBay to use for nail art, so I dug those out too.

Yes, that is a giant air bubble under the middle rhinestone. It happened on my right hand as well!

What can I say, I'm just really good at messing up nail polish :P

Notd: Starboard bling

 A while ago I ordered a wheel of various sized clear rhinestones and a heap of different coloured nail tape from ebay.

This was my first go at using them. It is a bit easier than Konading, but still fiddly.

Starboard by China Glaze is of my favourite green polishes.These photos were taken after several days of wear - I used a regular top coat over the tape and rhinestone before covering it all with a layer of my usual fast-dry top coat and they stayed very secure. Removal was extremely easy, I used an acetone-based remover and both tape and rhinestone slid right off with hardly any pressure/time. I would actually rate the removal of both as being easier than glitter polish.

Sadly I have to trim my nails now as I had a break on my right hand yesterday :( I can't wait to play with more tape though, there's holo patterned ones!

Born Pretty haul

I pretty much covered all the details in my NoTD post, but here's pics of what I got from Born Pretty.

Set of dotting tools

Double-ended stamper, and scraper

Five (!) stamping plates. Lots of simple, cutesy designs like flowers,

butterflies, bows, hearts etc. and a few of the full-nail designs like

fishnets and swirls, which I will need to learn how to apply properly.

Stamping polishes (god I hope these work well) and nail glue.

Fimo wheel (SO CUTE ZOMG I WANT MOAR)

I'm definitely going to be getting more plates and Fimo. I've gotten the hang of Konad-ing now (mostly) and Fimo is dead easy, if you don't mind having weird protrusions on your nails for a while. Born Pretty have free shipping internationally and there's usually a 10-15% off coupon floating around cyberspace somewhere. If you're interested in nail art at all, they're a great resource.