31DC2013 Day 30: Inspired By a Tutorial

It's me again!

Back to back posts trying to catch up! Now the only problem with this one is which one do I want to do? There are SO many awesome tutorial out there! I browse youtube for nail art tutorials, and stumbled upon this one channel, Selinas Nail Art. You should go check her out, she has some cute nail art designs that are quite easy to follow. The one I chose to do is Galaxy Heart Nails. I changed up the colors a little bit, but overall I followed all her instructions.

My white base here is OPI My Boyfriend Scales The Walls. The galaxy on my thumb, index, and pinkie are Butter London Cake-Hole, OPI Do You Lilac It?, OPI What's With The Cattitude. For my middle and ring nails I used What's With The Cattitude, Butter London Cake-Hole, and Butter London Wellies. I also added a layer of INM Northern Lights before I pulled off the scotch tape. The outline on the hearts is with Color Club Eternal Beauty.

If you're interested in creating this look, you can find the tutorial here. I think this is so cute and easy to do. I'll be sad having to remove this tomorrow.. 

XO
Novi

31DC2013 Day 29: Inspired by Supernatural

*sigh*

Now that we've come to an end of the creative part of the challenge, I can finally say this is the hardest one for me. I really struggled trying to come up with an (original) idea for a nail art. Some friends suggested to do ghosties, fangs, which I thought pretty cool too. But  somehow I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Maybe I just don't feel like it? No idea why. 

Then an idea came to me, ouija board! 

Seemed like a pretty cool idea, and easy to do. But I couldn't quite transform the idea on the nails :(. I've called a few of my mani as fail before, even though they were not too bad. But this one.. it's a complete fail. I almost didn't want to post it, and try to create another one, but what the heck! I am allowed to fail, and show it! :p

For the base, I did a saran wrap mani using OPI DUlce de Leche and OPI San Tan-tonio, but the effect is too subtle you can barely see it on the pics (fail!). The writing on the tip of my middle nail says 'good bye'. I figured you'll probably wonder wth is that? lol. My nails are so curved they hide some of the design I have on the sides. The letters & numbers were painted with OPI You Don't Know Jacques.

Overall, I don't see anything good from this design at all. If I ever gonna do this challenge again, I'll be sure to think of an idea way ahead of time!

XO

Novi

31DC2013 Day 28: Inspired By aFlag

Happy weekend guys!!

Due to my recent activity in fighting evil, witches and the undead, I (purposely) forgot to do my challenge yesterday. Yeah.. I admit it, I'm bad. I have been avoiding these kind of games for a long time, cause I know what they do to me. But the bf got me Diablo 3, so I have to try it, right? And now I'm hooked again *sigh*

Anyways! For my inspired by flag challenge, I did Jamaican flag. I don't have specific reasons why I picked Jamaica. I just google 'world flags' and this one caught my eyes. It's simple, but the colors look so good together. I'm happy with how the nails look too! 

I started with a yellow base, Butter London Pimms is what I used here. After completely dried, I used a striping tape and make a cross with it. I used 2 stands of striping tape on each line. Then I filled up each sides, the green is Sally Hansen Green With Envy, and the black is China Glaze Liquid Leather, and pulled up the tape immediately.

I really like this mani. Plus it's nice that it didn't long to do at all, compared to some of my challenge mani :p. Hope you guys like it too! 

XO

Novi

31DC2013 Day 27: Inspired by Artwork

Hi guys,

4 days left in the challenge! Today's theme is another difficult one for me. First, which one to choose from so many great artwork. I finally picked one at the very last minute before I sat down and start working on my nails. And there's the pressure (for me) to create something good when you're inspired by someone else's work. For me personally it's my way of saying thank you for inspiring me. So I hope what I've done today did some justice to the original work.

The artwork that inspired me were created by danroots on instagram. A few other nail artists on instagram have also created mani inspired by him. I used 2 of his grafitti paintings as inspiration, a butterfly and flowers.

The base for my nail art here is a saran wrap mani using OPI My Vampire Is Buff and OPI SanTantonio on a white base, and I bling it up a bit with INM Northern Lights.

List of shades used:

For the butterfly: Butter London Silly Billy, Zoya Darcy, Josie & piCture pOlish Hot Lips, Peaches 'n Cream, Marine

Flower on thumb: Zoya Darcy, piCture pOlish Peaches 'n Cream, OPI Red My Fortune Cookie & Anti Bleak

Flower on index: OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender, Dutch Ya Just Love OPI, Eurso..Euro, Zoya Yummy, Josie, Butter London Wellies

Flower on pinkie: OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender, Dutch Ya Just Love OPI

Black  polish used is China Glaze Liquid Leather

So, what are your thoughts? :)


XO
Novi

31DC2013 Day 26:Inspired By a Pattern

Hi guys!

For today challenge, I'm keeping it quick and simple. I was going to do stripes pattern, then remembered that there's already a stripe day. So I chose to do houndstooth pattern with my Bundle Monster plate. Easy peasy!

Base color: ILNP Grape Taffy

Stamping polish: ILNP Sniffany

Nail plate: BM-322

XO
Novi

31DC2013 Day 25: Inspired by Fashion

Hi guys!

I'm playing catch up again with the challenge. I just haven't been inspired much lately, but I try my best not to be a quitter! Lol! I was a bit stumped to find inspiration for this mani. I never paid much attention in fashion world. I'm a t-shirt and jeans gal, and not even into cute purses or shoes (don't hate me :p). So you can see how this can be a problem. Then I saw a friend's post, who also participated on 31 Day Challenge, she was inspired by shoes she saw in a magazine. That kind of open up my mind and think I don't have to look for inspiration just from dresses! And I found this handbags from Kate Spade to use as my inspiration.

image courtesy of katespade.com

The base color I used here is OPI My Vampire Is Buff (shocker!). For the squares, I used Zoya Darcy, and a mixed of OPI Skull & Glossbones and China Glaze Liquid Leather to get the grey shades, since I don't own any polish with that color. I used a small detail brush and freehanded the squares. I added a yellow bow on my index, trying to imitate the one on the bag.

What do you think of it? I think the bag is nice ;)

XO
Novi

piCture pOlish 9 Week Review: #5 Mardi Gras

Hi guys!!

Today I have another piCture pOlish shade to share with you. It's a gorgeous glitter topper, Mardi Gras! I knew I would love this one even before I tried it on, and now that I have, I love it even better! It gives that party on your nail look without being over the top. 

Mardi Gras is a clear based glitter topper filled with silver, fuchsia, and light teal small hexes with silver micro glitter. Here I layered it over 2 different shades of purple, both are also piCture pOlish shade, Violet Femme and Wisteria. 

I did a vertical gradient for middle and ring nails, regular gradient on my thumb, painted my index with Violet Femme, and pinkie with Wisteria. For my swatches here, I used 2 coats of Mardi Gras, cause I want it to look more sparkly. But you are good with 1 coat if you preferred less glitter. I swirled the brush and then do a semi dabbing/semi brushing (if that make sense), that way I get a decent amount of glitter with each coat. Finished off with just 1 coat of OTD top coat and it smooth everything out.

a more close up shot..

Mardi Gras and other piCture pOlish & Ozotic shades can be purchased directly from their website, they ship worldwide, you can check their shipping rate here. If you live outside of Australia, (piCture pOlish is based in Australia), check out their network page to see which distributor is closer to you. Lastly, don't forget to follow and subscribe to piCture pOlish social media below :)

Facebook ~ Instagram ~ Twitter ~ Pinterest ~ Youtube

**product is provided for my honest review

XO

Novi

31DC2013 Day 24: Inspired By a Book

Happy Hump Day!!

This post was supposed to go up yesterday. I've done the mani yesterday, but I felt too tired to do the rest (taking pics, editing, writing the post..) So, here it is now! :)
For inspired by a book mani, I chose one of Stephen King's book that I actually knew the movie first. The mani was inspired by the book covers that I'll be showing below.

I'm sure most of you familiar with this evil clown, or even had your love of clown scarred by this book/movie. This was actually done pretty quick, which was probably one of the reason why I picked this. I've been feeling under the weather, on and off in  the last few days. Which made me think of ending my challenge early..

Here's the list of all the shades used for this mani:

OPI Light My Sapphire (base)

OPI My Boyfriend Scales The Walls

OPI Vodka & Caviar

OPI Red My Fortune Cookie

Sally Hansen Pacific Blues

Nicole by OPI Mermaid For Each Other
Butter London Matte top coat

XO
Novi

Swatches: Jindie Nails Princess Breath

Hi guys!

After creating nail art everyday for 3 weeks straight, swatching feels like a breeze and soo relaxing! No thinking, or sitting your butt flat for hours trying to do a detailed design. 

Tonight I have a new-to-me polish from Jindie Nails to share with you, Princess Breath. I've been eyeing this one for a while before finally grabbed it from Llarowe. 

Princess Breath,  a medium mint green crelly (cream jelly) base (really more of a cream base that is just right so that the glitter layers show through perfectly). This one has large magenta dots, medium magenta dots, lime green and teal holographic hex glitters, deep purple metallic glitter, satin matte teal glitters in several sizes of hex.

The description is pretty spot on. I used 3 coats of the polish with a generous coat of Poshe. You might need a coat of Gelous before your shiny top coat if you prefer a totally smooth surface. The glitter coverage is great, I didn't shake or put the bottle upside down before using. I just swirl the brush in the bottle and I got a decent amount of glitter on the brush. Overall, I don't regret getting this polish at all! I love the combination of the base color and glitters, I just wished it has more of the holographic teal glitter to make it more sparkly :)

Jindie Nails Princess Breath

Jindie Nails Princess Breath

Jindie Nails Princess Breath

Jindie Nails Princess Breath

Jindie Nails Princess Breath
(macro)

Jindie nails can be purchased directly from their online boutique here, or through the authorized retailer such as Llarowe, Harlow&Co, Mei Mei's Signatures, and a few others that you can find here. Don't forget to follow Jindie Nails on facebook to see their other and newest collection!

XO

Novi

31DC2013 Day 23: Inspired By a Movie

Hi guys!!

Movie day!! This is the challenge that I'm most excited but also terrified at the same time. There are so many movies to pick from, but I kept reminding myself that I'll be doing it on a tiny canvas, so pick carefully! Haha..

The movie I chose was the first disney animated movie, but I could be wrong, lol. All I remember, I was so in awe when watching it for the first time. Now I have to watch it again!! :D

 I chose 4 (and a half) of my top favorite character from the movie to feature on my nails :) Little green man on my index, who doesn't love these little guys?? And of course the main character, Buzz and Woddy! And don't forget Mr. Potato Head ;) Now I just want to rush and finish this post so I can watch the movie :p

Did you notice I said 4 and a half? That's because I only had Slinky's head on my thumb below the movie's logo :D Please forgive what I've done with Buzz & Woddy's faces, or the lack of face. I just couldn't give more details on them with my brush.

I'm not sure if you'd be interested in the colors used here. I blend some shades to get the colors I need, but don't have. My base color here is OPI My Vampire Is Buff. Let me know in the comment if you would like me to list the colors, and I will add them to my post! :)

XO
Novi

31DC2013 Day 22: Inspired By a Song

Hi guys!

In my attempt to catch up to the challenges, I disappoint myself for not giving enough time to think and create the mani I had in mind, and it resulted in a fail mani. Hope it's ok that I'm sharing it anyway! Haha..

For this inspired by a song challenge, I had a few ideas but none of them are actually a song, more like an album or the singer themselves. So my final choice was Katy Perry's Firework as the inspiration. I looked up images for fireworks, fireworks paintings, and I thought it would make an awesome mani. But in a quick attempt to do it before bed, I couldn't quite translate the fireworks on my nails :(

This is one mani that I plan to recreate again in the future, with proper preparation of course. I saw one painting that I need to bookmark and use as my inspiration next time!

XO
Novi

31DC2013 Day 21: Inspired By a Color

Hello!!

So.. I'm behind on my challenge. I was out almost all day yesterday, and wasn't feeling too good when I got home. But the main reason (read: excuse) is what the heck does it mean, inspired by a color?? Lol. But I was relieved when I see most of the bloggers who's doing this challenge has the same question about it. Anyway, I guess the idea of this challenge is to see how you interpret the theme on your mani. So you can do no wrong, since people don't always have the same idea of things, right? ;)

I decided to pick my favorite color, blue, and work with it. In this case, I picked 5 different shades of blue. I started with painting all my nails with white polish as a base, then I painted a stripe with all 5 shades side by side on a foil, dipped and drag a fan brush on it and did diagonal strokes to create this almost water color looks. 

Here's the list of colors used:

OPI My Boyfriend Scales The Walls

OPI What's With The Cattitude

OPI Can't Find My Czechbook

OPI Ogre The Shrek Blue

OPI Into he Night

Nails Inc. Baker Street

XO
Novi