Magpie Nails

Day 23 - inspired by a movie!

2012-03-12T17:55:00.001-07:00

Movie time :)

I had a random flash of inspiration and thought of doing Braveheart!!

After googling to check I was on the right tracks with what was in my head I went for a design inspired by the pre and post war scenes:

And what I did :) I've photoed them before the 'blood' too.

I used a white crackle varnish to do the stripe then filled the middle in with a plain white varnish. This was to make the effect of it fading out. And to do the blood I wiped off a lot of the varnish and then just shoved it down on top which caused the bristles to spread out - worked well!

2/5 for time and 2/5 for difficulty.

Without the 'blood' it's a quite a nice design!

HAVE a good day :)

Lovelove

xxxx

Day 22 - inspired by a song

2012-03-11T18:39:00.000-07:00

I did The Beatles - Yellow Submarine :D

Based on the lyric: " I'd like to be, under the sea, in an octopuses garden"

And here it is :D

Yes I know its only got 4 legs.... But you can line up its 4 legs :D:D

Happy varnish :D

2/5 for effort and 4/5 for time. Surprisingly easy but there are lots of coats to let dry :)

I want to do other color octopuses too.. :)

HAVE a great day,
lovelove
xxxx

Sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2012-03-09T06:58:00.003-08:00

I am so behind!!! I've been absent all week, and i'm so sorry! Had lots of field trips and presentations, so was a week of demure grown up nails lol :P

I'm back as of tomorrow though! I've already done the base coat for my 'inspired by a song' and i'm gonna wear that today and then do the art on top tomo! So stay tuned!!

One thing I noticed on my 2 field trips this week was the amount of litter!! FFS PICK IT UP.

It's the equivalent of going out and strangling a fox or bird! It's just so dangerous to the animals and horrible to be around!

So I joined this, and I hope many more people do! I went to Ireland last year, and didn't see one bit of rubbish on the floor! The streets are beautiful!!!

So anyway, i'll be back soon guys :D
<a href="http://www.cleanupbritain.org/blog/index.php/cleanupbritain-infographic/" title="Clean Up Britain | The cost of litter to YOU and Britain"><img src="http://www.cleanupbritain.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/cleanupbritain-infographic.jpg" alt="Clean Up Britain | The cost of litter to YOU and Britain" /></a>Provided by <a href="http://www.cleanupbritain.org">Clean Up Britain</a>

HAVE a litter free day!
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 21 - inspired by a colour

2012-03-05T04:48:00.001-08:00

This is a confusing one!
What I've done is pick out all my varnishes with cool names and done a design using that colour inspired by its name :)

Saucy brown:

Electric punk:

Fantasy fire:

There you go! Just a bit of fun :)
Also quite a good answer to this strange question.

HAVE a great day
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 20 = water marbling!!

2012-03-04T19:07:00.001-08:00

I love this, there are so many nice photos out there, I've even seen stars done like this!

Anyway, I have never had it successful enough to even do DIY in... I'm getting better and better, and this was my best so far!
But it's still pretty shocking... I think it's just practice makes perfect! You need to personally learn how your water and varnishes cope with it.
Anyway, here's the 5 best fingers, and I will try this again at the end :)
I'm gonna have a whole other challenge!!! What with the ones I missed and ones I wanna do again! Lol

Have a laugh! lol There are some good aspects but hey! Another attempt soon :):)

For me 5/5 for time and 5/5 for effort!! But don't take my word :p

HAVE a great day :D:D
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 19 = galaxies!!

2012-03-02T14:22:00.002-08:00

My first galaxies, and i'm quite pleased :)

Fun to do!

3/5 for difficulty and 5/5 for time. Not to difficult, a bit fiddly but it does take a lot of time. But sooo worth it!!
I used a small bit of make up sponge for the blotchy colours and a felt tip pen for the dots.
Lots of colours and lots of glitter is the trick I think!
My secret weapon is Max Factor Fantasy Fire, which I applied over the base and added more to dark bits at the end. It added so much depth! It doesn't really show in the photos but you can see a bit on the tip of the ring finger and the base of the thumb in the photo above.

HAVE a nice day :D
Lovelove
xxxx

New challenge - courtesy if my bf!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2012-03-01T08:55:00.000-08:00

I expressed my worry to my boyfriend that I wont be able to think up my own nail art after doing this challenge.

His reaction was to suggest making me another one himself!

I took him up on this, i'm desperate to see what he comes up with! LOL!

I'll let you know lol!

HAVE a great day :)
Lovelove
xxx

Day 18 = half moon

2012-03-01T08:48:00.002-08:00

I do love a half moon!
There's some great ones out there.
They're so easy to do too! So many exciting colour and finish varieties!

I used a very dark purple colour with pink shimmer in it, it's called Damson Dream if that helps! With a very pale blue/green called Peppermint :)

Look at my new shot nails after the 2 breaks! :( Although I think this design looks just as good short and long.

1/5 for difficult and 1/5 for time :) I painted the peppermint and then free-handed the damson over the top :)

Nice and easy!

HAVE a great day!
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 17: glitter!

2012-02-28T15:46:00.001-08:00

AS A MAGPIE - TODAY IS MY DAY :D:D:D:D

Day 17 - glitttttter :D

I painted the bad boys in one of my fav polises, it's called miracle miasma. Which doesn't help me tell you the colour...
It didn't photograph as well as it deserved :( It's a blue with silver shimmer. And I love it!

I then topped this with black glitter, applied with a topcoat. It looks awesome - really striking!

Anyway, here's the pictures that do no justice!

See! Not as good looking as it should!!

Anyway, looks great in real life :)

Give it a try!

HAVE a glittery day :)

One happy magpie signing out!

Lovelove
xxxx

Day 16: Tribal print :)

2012-02-28T11:21:00.000-08:00

Day 16 is tribal!

I've never done one of these, I love them tough!

I'm reasonably pleased with the outcome, deffo gonna give it another go because I'm not entirely happy and want to do it better :)

This was a first attempt that I then did again, but looking back at it I quite like it :)

And this is what I changed it too:

Apparently when I was finding the camera, my index finger wasn't dry :( hence the massive smudge!!
Grrrrrr.

Anyway, you get the idea! It's a bit messy but as I said, I plan to give it another go!

HAVE a colourful day :)
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 28 - inspired by a flag! (I'm cheating because of six nations :P)

2012-02-26T11:53:00.001-08:00

Today is day 15, but I'm going to tack that on at the end and do day 28 now!

Yesterday I had red roses for England playing, today I need something Scottish, so I'm swapping in inspired by a flag!

Both teams lost FYI :(

The Scottish flag, in case you don't know, is navy blue with a white 'x' on it.

So I took that but added more crosses, to make a sort of lattice.

I did 2 and 3 crosses to see what I liked best, and if i'm honest i've still not decided!!

I love the colour combo, deffo using that again! So doing this inspired by Scotland was useful :)

Even though they lost...

No one is appreciating my support!!

Anyway, I'm really taken with this, very happy!

1/5 for difficulty and 2/5 for time. I just free-handed it with a nail art brush.

So taken with this...

HAVE a winning day! (I promise not to support you - cos then you wont! lol!)
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 14 - flowers

2012-02-25T11:20:00.000-08:00

Today is day 14 - which is flowers, today is also the day England play Wales in the 6 Nations!

So red roses it is!!!

I swapped the ring finger and thumb design round for the different hands.

5/5 for difficulty and 5/5 for time! Took ages and was really difficult!

But worth it :)
EXCEPT WE LOST!

All my effort and we couldn't even win! Ah well

HAVE a great day, no matter what the score!
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 13 - animal print

2012-02-24T12:33:00.001-08:00

Day 13 - animal print :)

I did giraffe :)

I made it matte to look more like fur too!

I would like to say that the yellow is much paler without the flash - much more realistic to the actual fur as opposed to 'bee' yellow!

And no I haven't found my custard yellow yet! Still MIA :( this is a new nail art one.

1/5 for difficultness and 2/5 for time, the yellow needed 2 coats and it was quite hard going over it again, but other than that nice and simple :)

HAVE a epic day :)

Lovelove

xxxx

Day 12 - stripes!

2012-02-24T07:13:00.000-08:00

Day 12 is stripes!
Pretty simple, but hey, I like :)

Bit chipped, but as I've said I NEED a good topcoat! lol

1/5 for difficulty and 1/5 for time.
Quick and easy! That's what I like during the week!

HAVE a great day :)
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 11 - Polka dots!!

2012-02-22T11:27:00.000-08:00

Day 11 is polka dots :)

Pretty self-explanatory!

I just did the dots with the end of the brush (a first for me!) but i usually use a felt tip pen lol

Bit messy round the edges sorry! Didn't have time to clean up :|

I used 4 different colours fyi.

2/5 for effort and 3/5 for time, not too difficult - not too time consuming!

HAVE a dotty day!
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 10 - gradient

2012-02-21T13:36:00.000-08:00

I love gradients!
This is my first though, and its gone ok...! Not great, but I think that's because the base colour I used was really cheap, so doesn't stick as well!
I'll deffo do another one at the end, cos I love the look.
But anyway, here's a not great gradient - stay tuned for a better! :)

I used 4 different blues.

3/5 for difficulty and 2/5 for time. It was surprisingly quick to do, cos the paint sort of goes on dry. The difficulties I had were getting the paint into the edges (as well as crappy paint!! lol!)

HAVE a lovely day :)
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 9 - rainbow!!

2012-02-20T05:19:00.000-08:00

This is a bit picture filled sorry.. lol

I did 5 multicoloured, as close to true rainbow colours as possible, tips!

I then made them matte, very fun and colourful design - but what else are rainbows??? lol

First 3 pics are without matte, I swapped the order around on the other-hand to even out the colours :)

Now these are the matte ones :)

HAVE a very colourful day!!
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 8 - metallic!!

2012-02-19T13:14:00.003-08:00

Metallic time :D

I'm really pleased with this :):)
Not that it's complicated but I just LOVE these colours together!

In my about the blog section I said I wouldn't name varnishes used unless asked or very special. These i'm going to name to try to describe the colours!
The gunmetal like one is by No.7 and is called Miracle Taupe, very interesting polish.. It looks sort of brown/silver in the bottle but goes one more silver and then ends up sort of gun metal! The other is by MaxFactor and is called Meteorite, which doesn't exactly help describe the colour.. It's one of their infinity one's so it's incredibly glittery and is a silvery/purple/blue.
Basically I love these separately and LOVE them together! This would work with lots of colours obviously, but I was aiming for metallic = ACHIEVED! Woop lol :)

1/5 for difficulty and 1/5 for time, I just free-handed the lines, no tape - no nothing! So v quick and easy!

I promise some more complex designs soon! I just thought these colours were so great, and so shiny, that a delicate or intricate pattern wouldn't work.

Hope you all had a good weekend!
Don't be too disappointed by it being Monday tomo! Get an extra choccie bar or syrup in your coffee :)
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 6 : Purple :)

2012-02-18T06:27:00.000-08:00

Day 6 is purple!

Bit of silver crackle - went really well with this shade of purple :D

1/5 for effort and 1/5 for time :D

Simple but lovely :D

HAVE a good Saturday :)

Lovelove
xxxx

Day 5 - blue!

2012-02-17T14:57:00.000-08:00

Blue!!

I tried something a little more daring! I think it's worked out reasonably well....

It's a wave crashing down.

Quite happy :)

HAVE a great day :)

Lovelove

xxxx

Day 4 green!

2012-02-17T14:22:00.000-08:00

Had to skip day 3 until I find my yellow...

But it will happen!!

So - on with green!

Bit simple, but this green is one of my favs so I didn't want to do too much too it...

It's a proper jewel green (looks a bit blue in the pic)

1/5 for effort and 1/5 for time!

I love colourful tips :D

HAVE a spanking day!
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 2!

2012-02-15T16:54:00.000-08:00

Day 2 is orange :D
I really liked this design :)
My orange is more coral, but if you're that fussy - go away!!

2/5 for easiness and 2/5 for time! Was very quick and very easy :)
I used an Artdeco nail art brush and then an old felt tip pen for the dots - worked great!

I'm excited about trying this in other colours.. Enjoy!

HAVE a great day :) mines been a bit of a downer, so try make yours extra special to make up for mine!
I'll try extra hard tomo :p

Lovelove
xxxx

For V-day!!

2012-02-15T16:48:00.000-08:00

For valentines day I wore a red varnish and then did red glitter tips. I'm not going to post a photo because they all look AWFUL!!!!
All the tips went orange in the camera light :S and then with the flash off they just looked dirty...

But they looked good in person :D so I was happy lol

Hope you all had a good v-day!
Lovelove
xxxx

Day 1! Also v-day :D

2012-02-13T14:58:00.000-08:00

Day 1 of 31 day challenge!

And it's red, and because it's 13/2 I made it valentines too :)

2/5 for easiness, this is surprisingly easy! I used a tip marker tape and with a white nail art pen coloured in the top, except for 4 triangles. I then shaped in the loops at the top and changed to the red to fill in once the white was dry :)
3/5 for time, not too long for some lovely art!

So yeah, firstly that's day 1, and secondly happy valentines!

Don't think I'll be wearing this.. I'm feeling the urge to change, but I'll show you whatever I change to for the big day if it's any good :D

HAVE a great day, especially tomo if you have a special someone! If not, do something for yourself :)

Lovelove
xxxx

Matte and dotty!

2012-02-11T14:45:00.000-08:00

I love this! Was very proud of myself lol!

I painted all my nails purple then applied a matte top coat to all but my ring fingers.

Then I started dotting!!

As you can see I did the tips for all except the ring which I did in diagonal. I used 5 different blues and just randomly dotted away!

I applied a normal top coat over the ring finger and over the tips.

I love the contrast between matte and non-matte and all the different colours :):)

3/5 for difficulty and 5/5 for time, but soooo worth it :D

I see this as my first difficult art and I'm really pleased, It was inspired by what I've seen on others but was wholly my own creation. And I'm very pleased to share with y'all :):)

HAVE a lovely day!
Lovelove
xxxx