Friday, August 31, 2012

Day 29 - Inspired by the Supernatural

Today's theme was without a doubt the one that I struggled most with throughout the challenge, I had a really difficult time coming up with something supernatural. I finally decided on something that I haven't played in a while, but definitely haven't forgotten - SkiFree. That's right, my supernatural being is the 8-bit Abominable Snow Monster from SkiFree.
To create this look I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where?, OPI Green-wich Village, OPI Jade is the New Black, OPI No Spain No Gain, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, China Glaze Sunset Sail, China Glaze Pelican Grey, China Glaze Liquid Leather, and Barry M Cobalt Blue.

I like these! They are supposed to be a little messy, I mean, the game wasn't the best quality.


I shouldn't have stressed so much about Day 29, it wasn't that difficult after all. Check out what the other ladies did to celebrate the supernatural!


Day 28 - Inspired by a Flag

Hi everyone! So today is officially the last day of the challenge, and here I am four days behind. Let's try to play some catch-up! Here are my nails for day 27 - Inspired by a Flag. I wasn't sure what to do - an Alberta flag? A Quebec flag? A Canada flag? So I decided to go with something a little more fun: a PIRATE flag.
So I decided on just a pirate accent nail, but to stick with the theme I used OPI Skull & Glossbones for the rest of the manicure.

I made the skull and crossbones with a dotting tool and a thin detailing nail art brush. The white is OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, and the black is China Glaze Liquid Leather.

I love these nails! They were so much fun to do and they look awesome! Do you like my interpretation of inspired by a flag?

You may already have seen what everyone else has done for their day, since I am so late posting this, but if not please check them out below!


Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Day 27 - Inspired by Art

Hi everyone! Sorry for being late again - the last week of this challenge is so hard, especially when I'm working every day helping what seems like every teenager in Calgary find some back to school jeans. So, I'm sure you've heard about the elder Spanish lady who took it upon herself to restore a painting of Jesus Christ from the 19th century. In case you haven't seen, this article has a nice summary. I wasn't feeling particularly inspired by this theme so when this story surfaced I knew what I had to do.
Though difficult to see, my nails say VIVA LA RESTAURACION - poking fun at the restoration of the painting and incorporating it into Che Guevara's iconic image that you see all over. If we're being honest, I ran out of room and scribbled the end of the word. :(

I used OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where? and China Glaze Liquid Leather.


I think everyone else took this theme a little more seriously than I did - check them out!

Monday, August 27, 2012

Fashionable Bows

Evening to you all! Today I have a little nail art mani consisting of little black bows on a greige-y background. I did this manicure to match the dress I wore for my school photos (even if you can't see my nails in the photos... but hey, a true nail freak needs to have matching nails right?) So yes, going into my last year of high school, totally in denial! Got my textbooks, locker, pictures, all that fun stuff. School starts on the 4th, when does it start for all the student followers out there? I'm probably going to get more excited as the week goes by and we get closer to the first day. That's usually what happens anyway! So here are the pics of my mani! Once again, excuse the dry cuticles, I'm going to have to buy some good cuticle cream or oil soon. Any suggestions?


3 coats Joe Fresh Putty + black striper + Seche Vite topcoat


Details on my dress - yay for fashion ;)


If you've already started school, hope you have a wonderful start to the year! If not, are you ready for the summer to end?

Thanks for reading!

Mandy

Giveaway at The Chaddabox

Hi ladies! Something a little different today, before I get around to doing and posting today's Art Inspired mani I wanted to share a giveaway that ends this evening. Anisha from The Chaddabox is giving away one bottle of OPI Absolutely Alice to celebrate finishing her MCATs! If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know Anisha and I used to be roommates and continue to be best friends - so of course I'm promoting her giveaway!
 You can follow this link to be taken to the giveaway directly, remember, it ends this evening! It is indeed open internationally so everyone has a chance to enter!

Come for the giveaway, stay for the nails. Here are a couple of Anisha's photos straight from her blog!



Thanks for checking out her giveaway, and best of luck to all entrants!

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Day 26 - Inspired by a Pattern

Happy Sunday everyone! For today's post I spent quite a bit of time on google searching for different patterns, I have limited stamping materials so I knew I had to do freehand, but I was having a hard time finding something simple enough to execute well. I finally found a pattern on this website.
The colours I used were OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Mod About You, China Glaze For Audrey, China Glaze Pelican Gray, and China Glaze Liquid Leather.


This mani was really fun and it wasn't difficult at all, all you need is a fine nail art brush and some patience.

Let's have a look at the patterns that inspired everyone else today!


Saturday, August 25, 2012

Day 25 - Inspired by Fashion

Hi everyone! Today's post is inspired by fashion, and I'll be the first to admit, I don't really follow fashion that closely. Luckily for me I do work at American Eagle as some of you may know, and so I do get some information about current trends. I decided to do skittles on my nails representing the different washes of coloured and patterned skinny jeans and jeggings that we have in store for Fall.
Here are my nails, and below are photos of the jeans themselves!

Would you wear any of these jeans? I'm skeptical about those ones with the leaves..

For this manicure I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Kiss Me on my Tulips, Do You Lilac It?, Pink Friday, Berlin There Done That, Zoya Wednesday, Zoya Kristen, Essie Mojito Madness, Essie A Crewed Interest, China Glaze Liquid Leather, China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy, and Barry M Cobalt Blue.

These were pretty fun to do! The floral nail is my favourite, which one is yours?
I love to see everyone's manicures and today is no exception, please take a moment to check out the blogs of the lovely ladies below!



Day 24 - Inspired by a Book

Hi everyone! So, I completely skipped yesterday's post, I apologize for that. Luckily I had my first day off work in 5 days (which may be normal for most people - but for a university student with a summer job it's quite a lot) and I had some free time to get both yesterday's and today's manicures done up.
I am pretty big on reading. I love books. I have read more books than most of my friends. I was startled when I realized that some people don't read for fun - they only read books when assigned to them at school. I grew up being read to daily and when I was old enough I would read for hours laying in bed. With all this reading, it has been crazy tough to pick just one book to base my manicure around. Should I go with my favourite books - the Harry Potter series and their profound impact on my adolescence, maybe a well loved Jane Austen classic? I finally decided to do the most recent book I've read, which was for my Italian class this past May/June: Io e Te.
My nails are obviously the cover of the book. The spine of the book is yellow, hence the stripe on my index finger.


I was pretty happy with how these turned out! The colours I used were OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI The Color of Minnie, China Glaze Liquid Leather, and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky.


I wonder which books everyone else honoured for their manicures!

Friday, August 24, 2012

Day 23 - Inspired by a Movie

I'm so sorry that I'm a day late with this, I had the mani all done and the pictures taken and it totally slipped my mind to write the post up yesterday! After a lot of thought, I decided to do my movie nails on one from my childhood that's a little off beat - A Grand Day Out with Wallace and Gromit!
As you hopefully know, this movie features Wallace and his dog Gromit, who run out of cheese and decide to look for some on the moon! On my index finger I have Shaun the Sheep (who is actually from another Wallace and Gromit movie, but he's so well recognized I had to include him), Wallace's signature outfit on my pointer finger, Gromit himself on my ring finger, and cheese on my pinky!

The colours I used to create this look are OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, OPI Skull & Glossbones, OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh?, OPI Jade is the New Black, OPI The Color of Minnie, OPI Suzi Loves Cowboys, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, and China Glaze Liquid Leather.

Everyone else came up with such great movie manis too - check them out below!


Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Day 22 - Inspired by a Song

Hi everyone! So my nails today are inspired by the song Primadonna by Marina and the Diamonds. You can check this song out on Youtube right here. I first heard this song at work, on the American Eagle playlist, and I quickly fell in love. My nails are inspired by the nails that Marina has in the video, I've taken some screen shots to show you what I mean.
To get this framed look I used OPI Mod About You and LA Colors Art Deco nail striper in black. I added a heart even though Marina doesn't have one on her nails, rather on her face.




A lemon was the only round fruit I could find, but I wanted to imitate her pose in the last photo.

This was such a fun mani to do! What do you think, both of my nails and of the song?
Check out what everyone else did up for today!


Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Day 21 - Inspired by a Colour

Good evening everyone! I am not too happy about today's post, really, what does this theme even mean? I went along the lines of "inspired by the name of a nail polish colour" and I chose OPI The Thrill of Brazil.
I used OPI The Thrill of Brazil on only one nail - to do the sunset gradient on my ring finger. So, my pinky finger is supposed to be inspired by Carnaval. My ring finger is supposed to be a sunset (or sunrise) behind the Cristo Redentor statue that towers above Rio de Janeiro. My middle finger is the back of Thiago Silva's jersey, he is the captain of the Brazilian national soccer team, and finally on my index finger there is an incomplete Brazilian flag.
Yeah, I'm not thrilled with this. :( The colours I used were OPI The Thrill of Brazil, OPI No Spain No Gain, OPI Do You Lilac It?, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, China Glaze Four Leaf Clover, Barry M Cobalt Blue, and A England Lady of the Lake.


I can't wait for tomorrow's challenge, I've been thinking of this one for quite some time now!


Monday, August 20, 2012

Day 20 - Water Marble

Hi everyone! Today is a day I've been looking forward to throughout the entire challenge, because I loooove doing water marbles. Yes, they don't always turn out, but when they do - WOW!
I chose an odd colour palate for this, but I'm loving it. I used Zoya Caitlin, Zoya Reagan, China Glaze Custom Kicks, and OPI Don't Talk Bach to Me. Not all of these wanted to cooperate with me in the water, but I think I pulled it off.


Do you guys have any tips or tricks you do for water marbles? I'm so lazy with cleanup that I did this yesterday and then just waited for the shower to take all the extra polish off from my fingertips.


I would love it if you could take the time to check out the water marbles that everyone else came up with today! Thanks for reading!



Sunday, August 19, 2012

Day 19 - Galaxies

Happy Sunday everyone! The weekend is too short, and since we're coming up on Back to School, I have to work every single day this coming week - no fun! In other news, today I have some awesome nails to show you. I've seen thousands of interpretations of galaxy nails but I've always been intimidated by this type of manicure. After finally facing my fears with today's challenge, I am so happy that I attempted this because they turned out perfectly!
I admit it: I am the new biggest fan of galaxy nails! I am over the moon, pun fully intended. 

The colours I used to create this look were OPI Russian Navy, OPI The Thrill of Brazil, OPI The Show Must Go On, OPI It's My Year, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Barry M Cobalt Blue, Zoya Arizona, and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky.

I think my favourite nail is my index finger, what do you guys think? Which is your favourite? I love how different each nail is!

Have you guys done galaxy nails? They are so much easier than I anticipated, they're so much fun. This is definitely a manicure that I'll be doing again and again and again. If you want to try these out and need some inspiration, check out the out-of-this-world manis of the lovely ladies who are accompanying me in this challenge!