31 day challenge day 17- recreate a mani by your favourite blogger

Favourite blogger? What is this?!...I'm completely incapable of choosing a favourite anything but the idea of picking just one blogger is just, eep!
Actually, if I'm honest, I've been a little lax in my blog following lately. Starting this challenge has helped, because I've been hopping around looking at the other participants...but that's about it. So i decided to choose from the handful of blogs that i have been keeping up with.

After a little browsing i came up with this mani from special girl nails. I love Cazzy's  blog because she has such a wide range of different styles...but her blog also ha a strong sense of identity and lots of fun quirky touches.

Anyway. I didn't have any of the same polishes for this so i used barry m coconut on base, and then nails Inc the hurlingham and barry m black for the taped bits. As you might be able to see the result is a lesson in the importance of patience in nail art. I didn't wait nearly long enough for my layers to dry...something that's particularly obvious on the ring finger. Ah well I'm reasonably happy apart from that. x

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31 day challenge day 16- tranquillity

Blimey, now over halfway through this challenge. ..I'll be honest i wasn't entirely sure I'd get this far! Actually i wasn't entirely sure I'd get past the first week haha. But I'm having a lot of fun :D and i hippie all the other ladies are too.

So, tranquillity. It had to be water. For me personally swimming is one of the most peaceful things i can think of. As a Norfolk girl i was brought up with water pretty much everywhere and was taken swimming basically as soon as i got home from the hospital lol. I love it. We (that is, baby brother and me) swam a lot as kids. Was part of the local swimming club, swam everywhere we went on holiday, lakes, rivers, the sea. I seriously love it.
I don't go very often any more because, well, self harm and scars and stuff. I'm not ashamed per se, it's just that they're very obvious. They let people know a certain amount about me and my past. And as a reasonably private person i find it quite uncomfortable making that kind of statement about myself to the general public.
When we went to Mexico we went to a water park and swam with dolphins....the whole dolphin thing was cool and all but tbh i was more excited just about the general water park and being able to swim. Lol.

Anyway, major ramble! The nails started with barry m elderberry. I then sponged on barry m blackberry, polished by KPT bleu cruiser (which is pretty much made for watery manis btw) and magic goose Hebridean Sea (appropriate! Lol). Next i added a very sparse coat of a fine silver holo glitter from nails inspire (there's no name on the bottle). Lastly i did some water spotting! After the trials and tribulations of the water spotting prompt earlier in this challenge i got scared here and took photos before i started haha. But i think the water spotting actually turned out kinda ok. I used the same 17 silver holo i used for my  holo mani and it seemed to spread nicely in the water, definitely less stress than last time anyway lol.

Oh my goodness it's late...and this is long again! Must be bed time lol. x

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31 day challenge day 15- green base

Ah, another colour prompt! And green no less. I hardly ever wear green!

So i did vines because...no idea, just because lol. I started with barry m cardamom. Then, having decided on the vine thong (ok so that's a prefictive text error bur it made me laugh so I'm leaving it lol) i realised i needed a lighter base. I rectified this by sponging on some barry m caramel. Because, well, it was already out whereas its similar coloured friends are tucked away in their drawer, three whole places away across the room!

Having evidently not learnt from yesterday's mixing experience, i then darkened cardamom with barry m black and drew some random vines. Lazily. It's getting late lol. It looked kinda dull so o added some random dots of Barry m elderberry (why is this light blue called elderberry?! Lol) and rimmel lose your lingerie.

I don't know what i think about this mani. I think i like it better in theory than in reality. But then, as you may have noticed,  I've been in a lazy mood tonight so maybe I'll try it again properly some time. x

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31 day challenge day 14- holo

Holo, yay! Who doesn't love a bit of holo, right? And, even better, i had remarkably little indecision over this mani.

One of my favourite things to do with holos is stamp. Usually over black. So that's what i did (actually toys isn't quite black but I'll come back to that). And i wanted to try stamping with more than one colour at a time. So i picked three colours, which was easy enough as i don't own many holos, and started stamping. The potential sticking point over which stamp to use was overcome but using loads of them haha. The random stamping wasn't based on any artistic merit, i was just playing and wanted to try out the different patterns haha.

Now. The base is, for some reason, nails Inc black taxi mixed with barry m coconut. I say 'for some reason' basically because i randomly decided I'd rather have a deep grey than a pure black base. This would have been fine if it weren't for the fact i don't own one! Lol. So most of the work in this mani went into a barely perceptible lightening of the black lol. The holos are fancy lacquer moody blue (damn i love this polish! Sadly the bottle is nearly empty!), 17 silver holo and freckles polish I'll need wine. The freckles will appear as a swatch at some point...it's beautiful!

So that's my holo effort. The photos are pretty unrevealing...i don't think mobile phone cameras and holo polishes were ever made to be best friends! There's a random matted picture at the end just to try to show the stamps better. x

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31 day challenge day 13- inspired by pinterest

Day 13, unlucky for some? Well for me at least! The prompt is so promising...i mean really, i love it. I'm totally pinterest obsessed and my 'nail inspiration' board is jam packed with all sorts of things. Unfortunately everything i attempted went horribly wrong. I'm not entirely sure why, just one of those days i guess.

Anyway, having tried every which way to get my original few ideas to work (all variations on a theme) a random idea popped into my head and i changed direction entirely. Anyone who follows the digital dozen will remember the The Dalai Lama's Nails doing a version of the last polar bear by John Tibbott for their December week. I'd had the image pinned for a while and when i saw her post i felt a. Strangely validated that not all my ideas were totally stupid and b. Totally intimated about actually trying the idea now since hers were so totally immaculate.

That's not really relevant. The image just popped into my head for no real reason and it occurred to me that i could mix it up by changing the colours about. So blues have been replaced by browns and polar bears have been replaced by frogs. Why? I have absolutely no idea! But they're kinda cute lol. I like frogs.

Polishes are barry m caramel as base, barry m paprika for the lines, barry m spring green for the froggies and nails Inc floral street and black taxi for white and black. Seems that barry is well and truly back haha. x

31 day challenge day 12- film

So, while everyone else was busy worrying about the infamous 'reversed polarities' i was over here quietly freaking out about film!

I  confess I rarely watch films. I'm the person that prompts those incredulous looks and cries of 'you've never seen....?!'. So i was at a total loss today. I considered cheating and doing a mani using the cling *film* technique...except that's generally regarded as a saran wrap mani. I also considered cheating by using quirk 'eponine' except I've never seen les mis the film and a well never quite get my head around it being one haha.

This is how desperate i was getting lol. Then i remembered a conversation in the pub a while ago about how i only seem to watch films with Johnny Depp in. Then i started thinking about Johnny Depp films and remembered how desperate i was to see Alice in Wonderland when it came out in the cinemas. I love a Alice. And i love Stephen Fry (featured as the Cheshire cat) And i love Tim Burton. A lot. In fact that explains why most of the films i watch star Johnny Depp lol. I just love anything that leans towards quirky and bizarre.

Aaanyway! We have opi my boyfriend scales walls (my bottle is nearly empty, wah!) And nails in black taxi as bases (and for black and white details). A-England galahad for the hat band and Cheshire cats eyes. Maybelline winner takes all is the gold. And new kid Eton mess is the red.

Phew this is long! I'm actually pretty happy with this one...i tend to avoid free hand because I'm not good at it. This is of course far, far from perfect but it gets the general idea across and I'm proud of myself got giving it a go. x

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31 day challenge day 11- reversed polarities

Ah, the most dramatic of all the prompts...this one seems to have caused chaos amongst participants! And yes that definitely includes me haha. I had several vague ideas but no real inspiration. For a long time i was planning to do blue clouds on a white background.
In the end though i went for blobby roses. They were one of the first real nail arty things i tried (back when i had about ten polishes and a box of toothpicks haha) and i have kind of a soft spot for them. So yes, reverse the colours, we'll have blue roses in a pink background. Except that just like funky colour roses haha. So i added in the 'before' of pink roses on a blue background, just to hander home the point haha.

Blue is color club but there's no name on the bottle. Pink is Sally Hanse Xtreme wear raspberry rave. Green is Barry m (yay barry's back! Lol) watermelon. The lighter colours are just the above mixed with nails Inc floral street.

I was convinced i was going to hate this mani all the way through doing it...but i thunk i kinda like it haha. It's not my favouritetist most bestest thing ever or anything but the colours are fun...and i do like roses haha. x

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31 day challenge day 10- glitter base

Glitter! I figured a full coverage glitter was the best way forward here and the best company i can think of for those is shimmer (i still have some shimmer swatches to post, oops!). I picked Anna...for no real reason other than it matched today's outfit haha.

My favourite thing to do over glitter bombs is striping. So i grabbed some striping tape and applied it pretty much at random before whacking on a coat of a- England guinevere. Because, well because i love it haha. One of my favourites. Plus my challenge manis have been seriously lacking in purple haha. Oh yea, guinevere is purple! I've included some flash shots to prove it. I can never get it to photograph properly (erm, maybe because you're photo set up is your phone and a bedside lamp katie?! Lol).

Anyway. Note the return of the accent...i wanted to keep some nails plain just to show off the prettiness that is Anna. Basically the theme for today is 'because i wanted to!' Haha. Excuse the tip wear, i painted the glitter earlier and then went to a pantomime and to ring bells before coming home and adding the striping. Nvm. Eep tomorrow we come up against the dreaded 'reversed polarities' wish me luck lol. x

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