Challenge Your Nail Art: Skittles Meets 30 Days Of Colour: Blue

My last nail art mani for this month (I'll have my monthly favourites post tomorrow)  Anyway today I am back combining challenges again!  This time I am joining Challenge Your Nail Art theme of skittles with 30 Days Of Colour's blue theme.  I mean how could I not just do a blue skittle mani?  It's funny really, I put these in my planner together because it made sense to do them together but then when it can time to do the mani I went completely blank on what to actually do.  Then I remembered that Christy (@he.chosethenails on Instagram) recently did a blue skittle mani and I thought why not steal her idea?  So that is exactly what I did. 

For this mani I used China Glaze DJ Blue My Mind, Capacity To See Beyond and Liquid Crystal.  Stamping design is from Bundle Monster BM-S185.

Thanks Christy for the mani! And thank you for being an amazing follower of mine.

30 Days Of Colour: Bright

Now if there is any nail art theme that I love it's today's 30 Days Of Colour - Bright!  I love bright nails!  I also love when themes are so broad that you really can do anything you want.  I had quite a few ideas going and was struggling to pick one.  Then inspiration struck in the most random place - my daughter's swimming lesson.  Her swim teacher had one these really bright bathers (they are the Speedo Women's Sunrise Dye Y Back One Piece Swimsuit in case you want to see what they bathers look like) and all I could think was that I need something like that on my nails.  Naturally I went home and did my nails.

For this mani I did a smoosh mani using China Glaze Thistle Do Nicely, Flip Flop Fantasy and Daisy Know My Name? over a white base.  These babies are so bright in person.  My poor camera just freaked out!

I can't believe how quick this month is flying by.   There is only one more mani left for this challenge.  So crazy!

Seriously loving having such bright nails again!  I am so excited to see what everyone else comes up with for this challenge.

Challenge Your Nail Art: Gradient meets 30 Days Of Colour: Hearts/Love

For this first time ever on my blog I am actually going to combine two challenge manis together.  I use to combine challenge themes like crazy on Instagram back when I was doing four plus challenges (crazy times! But super fun).  With themes like Gradient and Hearts/Love how could you not combine them?

I recently received my Lina Nail Art Supplies with the new Make Your Mark 03 stamping plate.  It has a blank image with is designed for things like gradients to make it easier.  I thought this was the perfect opportunity to test it out.  Well, I'll go into more details when I do my actually review but for this gradient I used the good old sponge method.  So easy, blends nicely, less mucking around and a better result (for me).  For this gradient I used Bundle Monster's Mercury Baseline, Monarch Dream and Kandi Spirit.

And now for the 30 Days Of Colour portion of this post.  I couldn't go past using this heart image from Lina Nail Art Supplies Make Your Mark 03 stamping plate.  I can see me using this image a fair bit.  Anyway I stamped the image using Powder Perfect's White Stamping Polish.

Now I am currently still obsessed with matte nails so I just had to break out the Matte Top Coat for this mani.  I think the matte is my favourite version of this mani.  Which is your favourite glossy or matte?

Given I have two different challenges in this post there will be double the blog links with everyone who is participating in these challenges.  So many pretty manis to look at.

30 Days Of Colour: Sparkle

What is this?  Two posts in one day?  What is going on?  Well originally I had planned to do the 30 Days Of Colour theme Sparkle in the same post as my Emily de Molly Valentine's Trio swatches but then I thought no they really do deserve to have their own post.  I have my blog planner loaded up for this month and didn't really want to have to wait to swatch the Emily de Molly's and I didn't want to fall behind the challenge either, so my solution: two blog posts in one day.  

I am back doing the 30 Days Of Colour Challenge again this month (obviously) because I really enjoyed it last month.  Plus there are some good themes and it's only one mani a week.  Easy!  This week's theme is sparkle and I couldn't go past using Emily de Molly Animated Hearts as my base.  This polish seriously is blinding in sunlight!  I stamped this image from Lina Nail Art Suppplies Feeling Shapely 07 using Powder Perfect's Black Stamping Polish.

Picture taken in light box

Picture taken in light box

Picture taken in overcast sunlight

I'm currently loving matte nails at the moment.  I am trying hard not to over do them, because I know I don't like seeing the same things over and over but I thought it would be fun to include a matte version of this mani too.

Picture taken in light box

 So who is joining in with this challenge with me?  These are the themes for this month:

30 Days Of Colour Challenge: Recreation

Today is the last mani for the 30 Days Of Colour Challenge...well for this month anyway.  I haven't seen the themes for February yet (or the dates) so I am not 100% certain if I will be joining in next month.  I guess only time will tell.  Anyway, today's theme is recreation.  Now I'm really not sure if this prompt is going for a hobby type of thing or more re-creating someone else's mani.  I am kinda going with both.  I spend hours scrolling through Instagram and Pinterest looking for a mani that I wanted to do when I came across Ana's Manis recent blog post and thought it was the perfect mani.  It's gorgeous!  If you haven't seen Ana's work definitely check it out!

For my base I used OPI's You're Such A BudaPest (which is such a stunning polish.  I have fallen in love with it again).  I then used OPI's Flip Flops & Crop Tops and Love Angel Music Baby for the followers and OPI Alpine Snow for the dots.

I couldn't resist grabbing out OPI's Matte Top Coat for this one.  I seriously need to do more matte manis.

I'm so glad I saw Ana's mani and recreated it.  Not only is it a gorgeous mani but it made me fall in love with OPI's You're Such A BudaPest and Matte manis all over again.

Did you complete this challenge?

An InLinkz Link-up

30 Days Of Colour Challenge: Jewels

Today's theme for the 30 Days Of Colour Challenge is jewels.  Now when I saw this theme I thought it was the perfect opportunity to play in my stud drawers.  Yes believe it or not I do own a lot of studs and other nail art things but don't use them very often.  Why?  No clue.  There really is no good reason.  Anyway,  I have been busy swatching some gel polishes (which I will being a post about tomorrow) and thought why not team the gel polishes with some bling?  This definitely isn't a mani that I would wear on a day to day basis but it was fun as a once off thing.

I used Opallac Gel Polish in Babes In Bondi and the rhinestones are from Born Pretty Store.

I'm excited to see what everyone else comes up with for this theme!

An InLinkz Link-up

30 Days of Colour Challenge: Calm

Today is one of those days where I feel like I am chasing my tail and going around in circles.  Ahh!  Hopefully I can get everything I need to get done.  All that being said I am going to make today's post a quick one.

Today's theme for the 30 Days Of Colour Challenge is Calm.  This theme really could go any which way but I thought I would go for a nice pastel colour and a simple design.  I originally was going to use China Glaze's Keep Calm, Paint On but switched to Re-fresh Mint.  They are quite similar colours, except Re-fresh Mint is a creme polish.  Fun fact: Re-fresh Mint was the first China Glaze polish that I ever purchased and it was the polish that really pushed me away from my "buy only OPI polishes".  It's great to revisit this polish.  Anyway, I decided to stamp this really pretty lace image from Uberchic Love & Marriage 03 stamping plate (I will have swatches and a review of this plate for you guys next week).

I think that the mint is such an unexpected colour for a lace mani.  Or maybe it's not unexpected at all, except to me.  I usually go for pinks, nudes or even reds for lace.  No idea why.  Right, now I must get moving.  I hope you all have a great day!

An InLinkz Link-up

30 Days Of Colour Challenge: Pink

It's funny to think that not so long ago my blog was all about swatches and reviews.  This year has definitely taken quite a turn and is more nail art focused.  Well it is as the moment anyway, and to be honest I am really enjoying it.  Hopefully you guys are too.  Never fear though I will have my usual swatches and reviews etc coming.  I'm just waiting for some orders to come in and waiting for some more polish releases.  Anyway, today I have my second 30 Days Of Colour post for you.  Today's theme is pink.  

We all know that I am a pink fan (including the musician P!nk - but really that is a whole other thing) so today's prompt is right up my alley.  I decided to go with something simple and girly.  For my base I used one of my go to pink's - OPI Mod About You and then stamped Bundle Monster's Kandi Spirit using their BM-S185 plate.

I really love this mani and these polishes really work so well together.  Pretty sure you will be seeing these two together again.

In case you are wondering what else is coming up for this challenge, here are the prompts.

An InLinkz Link-up

30 Days Of Colour Challenge: Celebration

Happy Saturday everyone!  I hope you all have a great start to the weekend.  I'm not entirely sure what our plans are as yet.  I know today will be something low key because it's meant to be super hot.  Have I mentioned that I really don't like summer?  I'm easily a spring girl.  Anyway, today I have another nail art post for you (and spoiler alert - I will have more nail art on my blog for the next six to seven days).  I have found yet another new nail art challenge for me to join.  Seriously there are so many nail challenges at the moment.  I'm finding it hard to decide which ones to do.  Soon I'll be back to doing two plus challenge posts a day (similar to me a few years ago on Instagram).

This week's theme is celebration.  Given we just had New Years I thought it was appropriate to do some fireworks.  For this mani I used Pretty Serious Cosmetics Absence and then stamped using Bundle Monster's stamping polishes in Monarch Dream, Tranceland, Mercury Bassline and Rave Babe.  Stamping design is also from Bundle Monster - BM-H14.

Are you joining in with this challenge?

An InLinkz Link-up