Day 16. Tribal print

I had no idea what to do for this challenge!
So I experimented... I did two whole, complicated manis before this one and I wasn't satisfied with them.

This is the third luck and I'm pleased everyone I met yesterday guessed what it was supposed to be.

For base polish I used Essence Sundancer and with scotch tape I added two surfaces of Essence Chacalaca (dark blue).
Then I used tip painter with some unknown red polish to paint red stripes and dots and the same with P2 Elegant (new version) for beige stripes and dots.

I find this mani very eye catching and everyone I met yesterday while wearing it asked me how I did this. Even the boys at my college, who usually don't notice anything, asked me if that's supposed to be tribal or native print.

All I can say is: in almost a year of doing various manicures this was the hardest one I've ever done. It took me an hour and a half, painting, drying it enough for using scotch tape without pulling the polish off and drawing the stripes and dots... Lot of effort and I'm not that overwhelmed by the result.

What do you think? Worth the trouble?

Bye
Stickers

Day 15. Delicate print with All Hail McQueen

Delicate for me means something hardly visible, subtle and gentle.
I find Butter London All Hail McQueen polish just fit to that description.

And since the main theme is print, I chose this delicate, lace-like print in a color just slightly darker than base color. I used Sephora Smurf for stamping.

Now, a few words about the polish (All Hail McQueen).
I'm not satisfied at all!

When I found out I'm about to get this polish in a swap, I was thrilled! I wanted this polish for so long!
But after first application I was dissapointed.
It took three coats to achieve full opacity (it dried quickly, but still...), the tipwear was visible after less than 24 hours and the holo effect wasn't at all visible.
Acording to swatches available on the internet I expected a deep, beige holo polish. But holo effect was minimal, or, should I say not visible at all.

 But a pretty color anyway. Just not worth the price.

Bye
Stickers

Day 14. Flowers

Base polish: Avon Deluxe Chocolate
Stamping polish: Sally Hansen Opal Chrome

I had so many beautiful ideas for flower mani, but these cold autumn days made me change my mind and choose this brown base polish instead.
Flowers are usually connected with pastel and bright colors. But who could resist to this nice brown color with gold shimmer? Not me!

I just loooove brown polishes, too bad they're so unpopular. I'm still searching for a decent replacement for OPI's Holiday Glow. Does any of you, dear readers have any idea of some cool brown polish you'd like to recommend to me?

Please ignore the 'tipwear', it's just those damn fast dry Top Coats... In this case, it's Poshe, but all of them just pull your polish off the tip of the nail. It annoys me so much that I don't use them anymore. I'd rather have my hands in the air for two hours than have nails like this. It looks as my mani is a week old, when, in fact it's just few hours 'old'!
:Frustrated:

Bye
Stickers

Day 13. Animal print with Leopard mani

Hi everyone!

As much as I like stamping, I wanted to do this mani on my own. I used thin brush from Essence's tip painter to create a black rim over the brown polish.

But unfortunatelly, it would have been better if I did it with Konad, since noone recognised it was a leopard.
I got all sorts of comments, once again, and the most common one was that it resembled grains of coffee!

What do you think? Leopard, coffee, or something else?

And one photo on direct sunlight

I believe the main reason for this was the color of the base polish.

While P2 Elegant (new version) is a perfect nude/neutral color, it just isn't a leopard's coat color.
I searched in my polish collection, but I couldn't find such a color (wow, I can't believe there is a color missing in my stash!) so now I'm in search of it.
Elegant is really what it's name says: super subtle and elegant! The opacity and application was more than great for that type of color. One coat would have been enough, but I did two for the photos.
I also like durability of the polish. It's the third day now, and still NO chipping or tiwear! Wow!

For spots I used Essence Always Hippie, and for black rim Manhattan's black creme polish.

I went outside my apartment to take photos and in front of the building several neigbour's cats decided to join me.
I took some photos of them, too, and they're so cute that I just have to post them here!

Whiskas cat:

 Re-mix your stile cat:

I love how funny this little guy turned out! Garfield's head and neck, and the rest of the coat orange fighting with black!

Bye
Stickers

Day 12. Stripes

I kept this mani simple and easy.
Just blue polish with silver stripes.

 For blue base I used Pure Ice French Kiss and for stripes my standard konading polish: Sally Hansen Opal Chrome.

My nails are now so long that old Bundle Monster plates' whole image is not big enough to cover them, and that's why you can see large blue spots near the nail's root.
But I'm not complaining! :)  It's a reason to order new plates!

And I have to share with you what I had for lunch today: stuffed mediterranean squids with ham and cheese with french fries and tartar sauce!

And for the end I must say I really like what Emerald Sparkled did for her Stripes days, take a look:
Burberry Mani

As a great fan of this sample I can't wait to try something like that myself. I hope she won't mind me copying :)

Bye
Stickers

Day 11. Polka Dots

First I'll show you my inspiration:

I'm a nature type of person and I will always choose a walk though the forest than a walk through a shopping center.
I enjoy hunting for mushrooms and identifying them. I took a course few years ago and since then I can recognize around 20 types of mushrooms with 100% accuracy.

Did you know there are only 15 poisonous mushrooms in Croatia? And this one, Amanita muscaria isn't really as dangerous as the rest of them. I mean, it isn't eatable, but you won't die if you eat it by mistake. Altough with this kind of color you would have had to be blind if you'd mistaken it for any other mushroom.

And here's my mani, that reminded so many people of this amazing mushroom.

This was one of the easiest manis I did, but it was so noticeable and lots of people praised it.

I used Deborah 161 (red) and Essence white Stampy polish for dots. I tried to do dots with BM plate, but the result was more like old fashioned tablecloth than a mushroom. Dots had to be larger and irregular.
So I used hairpin's point to make the dots.

I am at a great phase of my nail world: I like my mani and the length of my nails. They have never been longer and I have to thank Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle for that.
I also like the shape of my nails and when I look at the photos of my square shaped nails from last year I'm seeing improvement.

I hope I didn't cast a spell on my nails with what I've just said...!

Bye
Stickers

Day 10. Gradient nails

200 followers!!!

Thank you guys very much for following. And sorry for my dissapearance last week!

It's just that these gradient nails gave me so much trouble. I did them three times 'till I was satisfied.
I didn't want to skip day 10. or post something else because I knew that would be the end of my challenge, I would never do it in that case.

So I tried and tried and finally came up with this:

I still don't get it why this easy mani was such a problem for me. In theory: just take the sponge and tap the polish.
In my case I either pushed too hard and the gradation was uneven or I chose too similar polish and the gradation wasn't visible at all!

I used these polishes, from lightest to darkest:
Golden Rose 221
Catrice Sweets for my Sweets
Essence Bloom-a-Loom

I added a shimmery top coat from Smart girls get more and a sealing top coat Up to 10 days from Catrice.

I like my gradient nails because the gradation is not so visible at a first glance, but when you look again, you can clearly see it's not just one color.

Do you like more visible gradations or subtle ones like mine?

Bye
Stickers