Summer Challenge - Red, Orange, Yellow

Today's challenge, wanted us to use, the colours; red, orange, and yellow.
Wasn't hard to pick shades today, that's for sure. Specially since I only have two yellow (and one is a neon), and one orange, and four reds.

I wanted to have a matte background for this, but the Rimmel Matte, hardly did anything over my Matte Red, and Lemon Tree. Could it be the formula?

Bottleshot!!

For this mani, I painted the nail orange, using H&M - Lemon Tree, then I cut a tiny piece of make-up sponge and used it to apply Matte Red, to the tips.  Lets take a look at that step:

Then I allowed it to dry for a while. I grabbed BM plate - 313, and stamped using H&M - Yellow. Its great for stamping, all the H&M polishes I have tried are ( minis and those with the black cap, special editions, sux at stamping). Can you guess what I was trying to do here?

It`s a beehive with honey!
Or is it just me that can see it?

With Northern Lights holo topcoat

IsaDora - Winter Rose

I was actually looking for a plum colour, and though this might be a good one...but its not much of a plum at all. Its more chocolate brown, with a hint of red, than anything.

And I couldn't get a picture where you could see the hint of red in this colour.

Isadora - Winter Rose, I used two coats. And made a bow with a white stiper, for the cuteness.

Max Factor - Sunny Pink

Hi, everyone!
I`m finally back, from my trip to my father. My father is sick, and that's why he has gone Vegan, as I told you in the Oh My, Vegan Polish -post. It makes him feel better, and I cant remember seeing him so up-and-going, since I was a young girl, and then only for a few hours. Now he has energy all the time. Makes a daughter very happy.

Did`nt you just LOVE Missy`s Mani (link to her blog) on Saturday? She is so good! It was so nice of her to do a guest post, while I was away.

NOTD is a shimmer-y pink, and very fitting, its called Sunny Pink.

It has golden shimmer in it, which I like. 

The only thing I`m not the greatest fan of, is that you need really thin layers of this, to build it. If you don't do thin layers it will become streaky. And no one likes that. You can see that on my ringfinger. One of the coats was a bit to thick, and you can clearly see that its streaky. 

I think I bought this shade a bit to late in the year. Golden pinks are great for spring and summer, but its been raining here non-stop for the last three weeks, making it look like fall. I have brought out my fall-shades. So you might be seeing a lot more darker manis from now on.

I did four coats here, I could have done easily five or six coats, like I had to do with my other Max Factor mini; Emerald. Think this would be good for layering over another polish? 

Guest post - Katie (Missy's Mani's)

Hi everyone!

Dina is away visiting her father this weekend and so I stepped in to do a guest post for her! Dina is such a lovely girl and I love how creative her nail art is and so I'm really pleased to be doing this for her :)

I decided to go with a nice floral design for this post as personally I don't think you can beat a lovely floral manicure!

I started out with a base colour of Boots no7 - Vivid violet and sponged on both Sinful colors - Daddy's girl and Rimmel - Disco ball to the top left and bottom right areas of my nail.

Then I topped it off with Seche vite and created the flowers and details with acrylic paint and added another layer of Seche vite.

I'm loving how this turned out as I literally just added to it as I went along. I like how the white flowers pop against the dark purple background.

I hope you've all enjoyed this post, I've really enjoyed putting it together :)

Thanks for looking!

(http://missysmanis.blogspot.co.uk)

Summer Challenge - Buttercups

Todays challenge over at the Purple Crumpets Fairy Challenge, is Buttercups. Yupp, you heard it, Buttercups. Not cups of Butter, but the flowers. And no, not the girl from Power Puff, but it could of been, but not to me. When Power Puff girls where cool, I didn't own a channel that sent it. I lived in a cave, so to say. Haha.
But I have seen a few episodes of it, after I grew older. It`s fun.

I have been asked, " How to you decided what to wear?"
Well. Since this was a challenge, I went to Google Images and searched for Buttercups. I looked at the colours in the flower, the backgrounds, if anyone else had made manis with the same theme, and so on. You might say I use a lot of time on it, but I like researching before doing a "summer challenge mani".
Then I select one or two images that will work as my inspiration. Often these images have specific shades that I want to match.
I look in my collection to find the shades that matches in the image. For this challenge I had a close-up on a buttercup. You could see 4 different yellows in it, that made up the flower. I only had three shades that matched.
Buttercups have often 5 to 7 petals. I decided to go for 5, cause its easy to paint. Then I took a brush and created a star like pattern with Yellow from H&M, 5 petals. 
The middle of a buttercup often variate depending on how old it is. The older the brighter the colours. The buttercup image I was working with, was of a young flower. It still had some green in the middle of it. That`s why I picked up Lime, and Lemon Tree, darker shades of Yellow, running towards green. 
I used a tiny dotting tool to make the spores in the middle. I used both Lime, and Lemon Tree for this.
To finish it all of, I took the same dotting tool, dipped it in Licorice - ESSIE, and created the edge. I wanted it to be thinner than this, but I kinda rushed it, cause the sun was going down, and I wanted to get a decent picture, before it went all dark.
It still turned out pretty cool, a bit more cartoon esk, that I had planned, but its so cute.


Here are my flowery Buttercups.

I used Linda Johansen as a base for this mani. It took two coats.
For the flowers I used Lime, Lemon Tree, and Yellow, all H&M polishes. A tiny dotting tool for the middle, and, used Licorice from ESSIE for the black outline.

Linda Johansen - Key Lime

I love Key Lime Pai, so yummy, and so summery.
When I found this colour at Linda Johansen ( <--Link to store), I knew I had to own it.
And its such a lovely green as well.

I have wore this as a full mani many times, even paired it with For Audrey from China Glaze.
They go hand-in-hand together.


Here it is. 

Do you like Key Lime?

Oh So Nude - Franken

Guess what!

I made another Franken. Who would have though...

For this Franken, I used a 1/3 mix of white, nail hardener and clear polish from H&M. 50% of a nude eyeshadow with shimmer, from E.L.F. As seen on the picture. An empty minibottle from H&M. 

First I mixed the polishes, adding a small steel ball helped a lot. I poured the eyeshadow in a plastic zipper bag, and made sure there where no lumps in it. Added a little to the polish mix, and stirring well, before adding more, to ensure that the mixture what as smooth as possible. Kinda like baking cake!

I wish I had one of those mechanical shakers they use on hospitals for blood-samples to shake it. Haha, it took me a while.

Sorry for the terrible cuticles, and dry skin, the building has really left them looking terrible. Going to give them some intensive care.