Face Of Australia Some Like It Hot and OPI Jinx- Orange for Untried May

Hello...orange..do you love it or hate it? I never gave orange polish much thought in the past apart from "only old people wear orange"..boy was I wrong. Corals and oranges are amongst some of my most fave polishes to wear, neon on toes is a must for summer and suprisingly the brighter the better on my nails is the only way to go. So, I was out and  about and saw Face of Australia had a sale in Big W. So I thought I was ping the barcode on the Screen Siren collection and to my suprise they were a whole $1.75, so of course..they all came home with me. This collection is all inspired by Marilyn Monroe and this one is called Some Like It Hot and is a bright leaning neon orange.

This is 2 coats of FOA Some Like It hot with top coat.

Then to add a bit of bling I thought I would do texture tips with OPI Jinx which is a Coral orange but looks like I dipped my fingers in sugar! 

So, this wasn't particularly nail arty, but I sometimes the simple manis are the most effective. I really loved how this one looked. The contrast in the oranges and the textures was so bling and I really didn't want to take it off! 

Illamasqua Glitterati - Glitter for Untried May

Hey guys, today I have for you a nail art look this is using Glitter for May 4th in the Untried May and The Amy's Untried Challenge. Now, I have quite a few glitter polishes that I haven't tried but when I was looking among all the pretty polish I realized I haven't tried either of the 2 Illamasqua's I own and Glitterati is the perfect cold weather color. For the base of this nail art look I used another untried OPI Meet Me on the Star Ferry, 2 coats with a top coat then I used striping tape placed at different thicknesses to create and increasing width stripe down each nail. Glitterati is a gorgeous maroon polish with holo gitter..so I did an accent nail with the full glitter polish in all it's glory.

 Pics are in a lightbox with flash

Holographic glitter goodness!

 The flash captures what I would imagine sunlight would, and OPI Meet Me on the Star Ferry has a surprising scattered holographic bling to it.Illamasqua Glitterati is lovely and squishy and the holo glitters are easy to apply with not much fishing required. I wish I had some daylight to take better pics but with 10 hour shifts and winter coming, it gets harder :( 

OPI Taylor Blue..and sorry it's been so long!

Oh my goodness..where did the last half of the month go? I haven't blogged in forever! I hurt my eye last Sunday (complete clumsiness!) and haven't been up to doing much the last week. I have quite a few pics of polish and nail art that I have done, including Untried Polish for May that are piling up. So..instead of a really long blog post..there is going to be a few seperate posts all at once...

So, first off..OPI Taylor Blue, now there is a story behind the Taylor Blue. I have been meaning to buy this off the Taylors Gift website for a while and in the meantime I bought a bottle from a blog sale. Then, of course I saw on facebook the other day that signed bottles of Taylor Blue were being sold with one of my fave actors, Alex O'Loughlin! I have a thing for B-Grade tv shows and movies, and Moonlight was a fave :) I picked up a signed bottle of Taylor Blue and a hoodie for a good cause and now I have two bottles of Taylor Blue...one to use, one to look at, LOL. So onto it, here is my swatch of Taylor Blue.

Do you love it? I do! This is 2 coats with a top coat holding my Alex signed version..The hoodie is a gorgeous aqua and looks so warm and it's shaping up to be a cold winter here is Australia. If you are after Taylor Blue, do check out the store at Taylor's Gift Store

Christmas Red and Gold Bling Manicure

Merry Christmas! Today is Christmas Day and here is what I wore today for Christmas with my family and is for tomorrow for celebrations with my husbands family tomorrow. I started with the base of Dance Legend New Messiah I already had and blinged things up with gold and red to match my dress.
So here it is

First finger is a dotticure with Essence Fame Fatale and OPI You Only Live Twice, Middle finger has stamping with OPI You Only Live Twice, Ring finger has Candeo Colors Old Gold and the Pinkie has OPI Honey Ryder.

 My thumb had stamping with OPI You Only Live Twice :)

 Christmas Bling!

 Gah! Too many photos but it was so pretty and shiny! Anyways..the blingy made me happy and I had a great Christmas day but ate far too much of course. I could have done with a nanna nap! Anyways, Christmas continues for me tomorrow and then back to work on Friday ..nawhh.

Black, Gold and Silver striping manicure

Hey hey, I was feeling productive today, but that's waning off. Was meant to have to carpets steam cleaned but that didn't go off as planned. But that's okay, got a quote on air conditioning for our upstairs bedroom and caught the gardener to come an fix our dismal back yard (erm, outta control weeds anyone!). So I am feeling slightly happier that I am getting stuff done.
 Today I have an idea taken from the Aussie Nails Monday chicks..which was a mani with gold, silver, white or black using Aussie Indie polishes. I do have quite a few Aussie Indi Polishes but it was late in the day so I just used the theme with any old polishes I could easily put my hands on! Here is the end result.

 For this look I painted a coat of MUD Dark Room, waited for it to dry and applied striping tape in patterns. I then sponged over the top in gold with OPI Goldeneye and Bond, James Bond and silver colors of China Glaze Cosmic Dust and Savvy Starburst.

This look was particularly sparkly but difficult to catch all the different characteristics of each polish. There was holographic, sparkly, large glass flecks all thrown in there. I am sure I could have randomized my striping a bit more but I just can't help myself, I like them to look the same! 
It's hot here today I might put on a holo and catch a some sun and rainbows..see you soon!

Ulta3 Blue Heaven with Holographic Stamping

Hi all! Well, it finally happened. I got my stamping nail art mojo back. Has taken forever since I have felt I have had inspiration to do some nail art, and then actually getting it right :) My inspiration was this lovely Ulta3 Blue Heaven that I stumbled across the other day..so pretty. I teamed it up OPI Call me Gwen-Ever which I found at a bargain price. Can I say, it's a very orange, orange? Anyways, to complete the look I had in mind I did some gradient nails with Gwen-Ever and Pretty Serious Generally Hazardous. I double stamped over Blue Heaven with China Glaze Sci Fly By and Take a Trek with Mash 43 plate. 

Right Hand- Blue Heaven with Call me Gwen-Ever Accent

Left Hand, Call Me Gwen-Ever with Blue Heaven accent

 Side by side comparison. Which do you like best?

 Up close pic of stamping holo goodness :)

I loved how this came together overall.. I did have run outside like an idiot to catch the transient sun for these pics. Who says it's almost summer here?? Will see it when I believe it! Anyways, this was so fun and I enjoyed wearing this alot. Hope you liked it!

AN Monday China Glaze Ruby Pumps Leopard Nails!

Hi guys, today I have for you ANMonday which today (erm, Wednesday is close to Monday,yeah?) is Leopard Print. I actually wore this on the weekend to the work Christmas party.. it being Christmas in July of course! This dictated what color the Leopard spots were, which being Christmassy I chose red :) I really loved how this look, but unfortunately when I took the picture..there was no sun, so the sparkle of China Glaze Ruby Pumps didn't come out to play, ah well. Onto the pics!

OPI My Vampire is Buff with Leopard Print stamping and China Glaze Ruby Pumps accent nail and accents leopard spots :)

This was actually super sparkly in the sunlight, but sad I didn't get to catch that in a pac....but it was very fun to wear and I had matching toe nails as well :)  Of course after I work this I broke a nail! LOL. Oh well, nubbin life for me for a bit. Hope you guys are having a great week. Mine is the highs and the lows..with excitement for my trip to the USA getting great as it's now nearly only a month to go..can't wait!

If your in the US, please comment and let me know the places to shop for American polishes..and bubble wrap ...for the stuff I am going to bring back! :)

OPI Honey Ryder Gold and Red Manicure

Hi guys, just a quick post of a mani I did the other day but I wasn't completely happy with my cuticles..but I loved the look I created so please ignore the crappy winter cuticles and focus on the lovely polish :) I wanted to create a bling but more than just texture that you get with the OPI Liquid Sand, so I used a combination of OPI Honey Ryder and Essie As Good as Gold with some stamping with my new Bundle Monster Holiday Plates to complete the look.

LEssie As Good As Gold x 2 coats with China Glaze Heli-Yum stamping on first 2 fingers, 2 coats of OPI Honey Ryder on last 2 fingers.

 With flash to show the brightness of the gold in Honey Ryder..so pretty!

Closer look at the Bundle Monster stamping using the holiday plates with 'Chinese New Year' images.

I really really loved how this looked in real life. I do hope it translates to you. OPI Honey Ryder was easy to apply and is such an interesting polish that you can't help looking and touching the finish. Essie As Good As Good was also easy to apply and relatively new-to-me Bundle Monster Holiday stamped easily and had quite a range of images in Chinese New Year Catagory :)
I have my work Xmas in July Christmas party tomorrow and I am looking forwards to having some fun and a few beverages. I'll post the look I went for on Sunday though so never fear. What did you think of the gold polish, yay or nay?

OPI Don't Burst My Bubble mix mani

So, I am back at work..and back on my "healthy" diet after a week of eating whatever I felt like (within reason) and I actually feel much better when I am eating more sensibly. Funny that. Being back at work means "work appropriate nail polish" so this my NOTD..or more like Nails of the week, and for this I have been rocking OPI Don't Burst My Bubble. Of course after I put it on..I did some subtle stamping with China Glaze Pinkie Promise so I had pink ALIENS on my ring finger and thumb.  Today I added a gradient, a reverse gradient and an glitter nail with Face Of Australia Heart of Glass. Also I think I have my lightbox set up better, the pics are more true to color :)

 L-R, FOA Heart of Glass, reverse gradient, alien stamping and gradient!

Lightbox lighting

Very cute all over mani!

I actually really like this! The Face of Australia Heart of Glass was super cute although I didn't glitter fish to get some of the bigger glitter out like I should have. I love the pink alien stamping! Only I really know it's there and I have a full thumb stamped with the same. The gradients make this more interesting and I must say how much I love China Glaze Pinkie Promise as a lovely pink but not too girly! I've also been wearing this mani for 4 days with minimal tip wear which I am attributing to OPI Chip Skip which I just purchased and used on this mani. TGIF is all I can when tomorrow comes! I am feeling like I need a polish Sunday coming on :)

OPI Catch Me In Your Net

Evening boys and girls..hmm, I wonder if boys actually stumble across nail polish blogs and think wtf?? Hehe. I sometimes wish my husband showed more interest in my hobby..would kinda feel like sharing a bit more of something that is important in my life. Anyways, enough musing. Today I have a polish I picked up in a blog sale, and yes, I know there are dupes but I just couldn't help myself. I had to have OPI Catch Me in Your Net. This is a pic I took just before I filed my nails down. The best thing about this pic is that I figured out how to do a curved watermark!! When I say I, I mean I made my husband learn then teach me..I just couldn't quite get the last few steps..doh! See how I went below.

OPI Catch Me In Your Net, 2 x Coats

Loving the blue flakie look!

Blue and Green all at once!

So blue!

Definitely can't regret purchasing this polish, I have heard rumors that this polish does stain, so I was careful to put a base plus a buffer layer of polish so it didn't. It's a lovely blue green foil and opaque in 2 coats, how can you go wrong. OPI Catch Me In Your Net is from the 2010 Summer Flutter collection. I wonder if I can get my hands on Flower-to-Flower from the same collection :)

Hope your weekend is shaping up to be fun or relaxing, whichever way you want to enjoy it..

OPI Black Spotted over Layla Metal Chrome

Hey All! Tonight I have a post for you with a special polish. Well, to me most polishes are special in their own way :) This one is a cousin of the shatter polishes and a part of the European OPI Spiderman collection- it's called Black Spotted. For those of the polish world you all know of Black Spotted. Love it, hate it, not sure about it. I have been through all those phases. I knew I had to have it though to give it a chance in person... it's how I roll :)  So onto ebay I went as I have no European connections in da polish blogging world (me the newbish blogger) and last week my OPI Black Spotted arrived :) Here is my first attempt at Black Spotted..onto the photo spam!

 OPI Black Spotted, yes..I dipped my fingers in oil!

What did I use?:  Ulta 3 Base Coat

                                                  Layla Metal Chrome - 1 Coat

                                             OPI Black Spotted- I Coat

                                   Seche Vite Top Coat

Macro without and with flash 

Black Spotted with Flash

So, do my nails look the picture with the instructions?

I'll let you decide..

Thoughts on Black Spotted, do I love it, YES! It's awesome in an oily looking kind of way...it's so interesting. I was going for a blingy through the darkness look but I feel that because the Black Spotted doesn't "shatter" cleanly I got a bit of bronzish discoloration in the holes. I also think the size of the spottedness holes depends on the polish and as I had a majority of small ones I attribute this to the consistency of the Layla Metal Chrome. I can't wait to try this again over a few different polishes and see the results!

Love, meh or hate?

OPI My Pointe Exactly with Pirouette My Whistle

I have been pouring over the swatches of the OPI Ballet Collection for a little while and last week I finally got my grubby little hands on some of the lovely little sheer bottles of goodness. Yes, it was hard to decide on which to get. Yes, I got most of them! LOL. Tonight I am going to show you a swatch of My Pointe Exactly and Pirouette My Whistle.

My Pointe Exactly and Pirouette My Whistle

Macro of Piroeutte My Whistle

 My Pointe Exactly without and without flash, this is 4 coats with no Top coat

 Not so visible nail line!

 Accent with Pirouette My Whistle

 Lovely silver glittery sparkle :)

Now, the whole point of a sheer polish is to be able to see your nail underneath the polish and have a visible nail line which may not be everyone's favorite thing. Most of the Ballet range are great for sheerness, but My Pointe exactly is a grey, and a sheer grey can sometimes look like dirty nails... so for this particular look I did 4 coats of polish to make sure there was some opacity. Piroeutte my Whistle is the glitter that goes with the whole collection and does look lovely for the accent nail, so much more shimmery and sparkly in real life :)

Have you got these sheer polishes in your collection?