Inspired by my new blue dress

This past weekend I bought a simple but lovely blue dress from Target. On Monday I wore this dress going to training off-site from my regular workplace. Why not go the full package and wow them? Yes, my nails were going to match the jacquard design you can not quite see in the below picture.

Target

As my base colour I chose to use Orly Royal Navy. I thought that Royal Navy would be a lot lighter than the blue in the dress but that I needed a lighter colour when stamping black over the top. The added blue shimmer would help give a little extra and define the design.

After going through quite a number of plates and using different black polishes, I ended up stamping with Konad Black. I really did not want to use Konad Black because it is such a pain to clean up. Even then, I had trouble with the stamping. To combat this, I had to suffer for my nails and turn both the air conditioning and the fan off. This enabled me to stamp properly but I only had time to stamp an accent on my middle finger. A Bundle Monster image plate was used. I know I tried both BM 20 and BM 21 but I am not sure which one I used in the end as both plates have a similar design on them.

On my ring finger I placed a black bow to match the ribbon belt on my dress.  Manicure complete. It drew some admirers too. That is always a sign of a job well done.

Happy Birthday November! Citrines and Chrysanthemums

Some of the symbols of November are citrine for the birthstone and chrysanthemums for the flower. I have used both of these elements for this birthday manicure for November.

I started with Kleancolor Metallic Yellow for the base colour. This was the best shade I had with that yellow colour to match citrines. Granted citrines come in a range of colour but I wanted a rich yellow that had that gem like quality and shine. That is a little hard since all I have are either golds or creme yellows that were not quite right. I was surprised by rainbow flashes of shimmer in Metallic Yellow when the light hit it. I never expected that as I thought it would be a simple gold.

In Australia, chrysanthemums are usually sold in May for Mother's Day. I have never liked chrysanthemums because the cut flower smells terrible. Pyrethrum keeps me away as well as the insects. Thankfully, Mr R and Miss L have never bought me any, yet.

Nevertheless, I find the stylised chrysanthemum image from Bundle Monster BM-313 pretty. This was stamped in Konad Black. I was going to use Kleancolor Metallic Black but I knew the Konad was the best for that dark, black and crisp image. If this had been an all over image with a lot of clean up required, I would have chosen something else as Konad Black is horrendous to clean up.

The placement may seem all over the place but I was trying to do the same design differently to add interest. My right hand that I did afterwards has a more even placement and it looks good all lined up together. Unfortunately my left hand refuses to assist in taking a photograph to show you.

Lest We Forget - Remembrance Day 2012

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives…

You are now living in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours…

You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace, after having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well."

Ataturk, 1934 - Gallipoli Memorial at ANZAC Cove

My base colour is two coats of essence Viva La Green. My bottle was very thick and tacky. As this is the first time I used it, I think people had opened the bottle in the store before I bought it.

Poppies are an enduring symbol of Remembrance Day and I chose to use these for my manicure. Both of the images that I believe to be poppies are from Bundle Monster image plates. The image with the two poppies comes from BM09 and the single poppy is from BM06. Konad special polishes in red and green were used for the stamping.

All You Need is Love

"All You Need is Love" has been running through my head. I have loved The Beatles music for as long as I can remember. Was I born loving their music? How do you translate the song onto the nail? This is what I did for it.

I feel all rainbowy and holographic lately and I wanted to use Sally Hansen Diamond as my base colour. Diamond is sheer and although I have built it up for a base in the past, I conserved this jewel by applying two coats over China Glaze Millenium. The scattered holographic in Diamond is enough to give you little flashes of rainbow colour in normal indoor lighting.

Next I had a look at my image plates and decided that Bundle Monster's BM-311 would be ideal as it has love written over and over around a heart. My image plate did not stamp well with the text portion of the image. For the stamping polish I went with Konad Dark Red after discarding many other polishes because test runs did not stamp well.

To make this manicure completely love, I should have done all of my nails. I did not do all of my nails as I was unhappy with how this image was picking up.

Nothing you can make that can't be made.
No one you can save that can't be saved.
Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time.
It's easy.

All you need is love...

Happy Together! - Rainbow Smiles

For some reason my manicure makes The Turtles' song "Happy Together" get stuck in my head. Is it the rainbow of colour? Then there is the extra rainbow goodness from the holographic polish... Maybe it is just because there are so many happy faces all together on my nails?

So we have:
Thumb - China Glaze Gr8
Index - A-England Dragon
Middle - Spectraflair franken made from Rimmel Blue My Mind
Ring - China Glaze LOL
Little - Sally Hansen Nail Prisms Pink Rose Diamond

I made a little bit of a mess on my little finger by stamping a little too hard and smooshing my polish.

My stamping was done in Konad White Pearl and I used a Bundle Monster image plate. The plate itself is BM-304. On my right hand I used the negative image that is also found on this plate. I did an even worse job on my right hand I did on my left. This is what happens when you try to rush through a manicure in the morning before work. I also have a hard time trying to photograph my right hand. I know, any excuse.

Me and you and you and me
No matter how they toss the dice, it has to be
The only one for me is you, and you for me
So happy together...

Inspiration: Purple Animal Print Jacket

Recently I was trying to pack for a little weekend away. What do I pack to wear? I am not usually one for animal prints but I liked a jacket in a purple and cream animal print. It inspired me to have a manicure to match.

To start with I used Sephora by OPI Don't Feed the Hand Models so that I would not need so many coats of Avon Vanilla Shake. Two coats of Vanilla Shake was applied and then I let it dry. A gradient was sponged on with a make up sponge with both Vanilla Shake and China Glaze Cowgirl Up. I alternated the direction of the gradient to match the jacket better.

There seem to be a few different styles of animal print on the jacket. I decided to use the cheetah image from Bundle Monster plate BM-221 and I stamped with Konad Black.

This manicure was effective and I think it matched my inspiration well. Cowgirl Up's shimmer also mimicked the sheen from the material. I am very pleased with my first animal print manicure. Maybe I should try another?

When Shift Happens over a Tequila Sunrise with a lot of pictures.

When I first tried Girly Bits Shift Happens, I wondered how fiery it would be over orange. For that orange I chose Rimmel Tequila Sunrise. I was pleasantly surprised that two coats of this did not look terrible on me. Admittedly, it is a little bright for my taste but I could not say it looked awful.

Next I applied two coats of Shift Happens. I took a LOT of pictures.

The red part of the colour shift did not appear over orange.

I found orange and gold. At the very extreme I could tease out green.

Not that I could get the green to appear well on the camera...

It did not look in the least bit like fire. Nice but no dice. I had anticipated this and I had already decided that I would stamp over this combination. I dragged out a few choices but I did not have anything that was a flame image. Well, not one that would show the above polish rather than the stamping polish.

I used Konad Black as my stamping polish and you can tell with the shoddy clean up. Why oh why does this polish have to be so hard to clean up? It smears everywhere and it is terrible. The image plate was from Bundle Monster (yet again) and was BM-312.

This manicure looks nothing like fire. Maybe tiger stripes? A colour shifting tiger?

Shift Happens over Purple Velvet

I had a disaster of the nail kind. Nails on both of my hands broke and I had to trim the others off to suit. Thankfully it was my right hand that had the worst damage where I had to cut them down drastically. Now my fingernails are nubbier than ever.

There was a quick removal of my Dragon with an Iridescent Eye manicure and I had to apply a quick manicure before I had to head off to work. What to wear? What would dry in time? I know, I would use Orly Purple Velvet. Matte polishes are always a good choice because they look good and dry quickly.

After a day of wear the polish was looking pretty bad. I really did not feel like removing it and applying something else. There was not the time for that! What to do? Girly Bits Shift Happens was one of my deeply craved polishes and it was sitting in my "to be used" area. Yes, I would add Shift Happens over Purple Velvet and see how it looks. Two coats went on and of course I had multichromatic loveliness. Hmmm but I had a similar loveliness when I used Fantasy Fire earlier this month...

Aha! I know that the Orly Matte polishes stamp reasonably well so I decided to stamp over the top of my manicure and see how well that worked. I think it is wonderful because you are surprised by the design when you get the colour shift. I used an image from Bundle Monster BM-224

When I wore this indoors, I tended to get mainly a red sparkle. Shift Happens did change colour more readily than Fantasy Fire but I do find Fantasy Fire prettier. This is most likely due to the colour I wore underneath Shift Happens. Purple Velvet gives the polish an unusual purple colour that seems almost a dusty colour. And obviously this shift was stronger because I was able to photograph these colours unlike when I attempted to do the same with Fantasy Fire. Being a top coat, Shift Happens would be more versatile. I am interested to see how fiery it would look over an orange base colour.

As you can see from my pictures, I did not clean up well and there is a lot of chipped wear out of my tips. I almost did not take pictures of this because I did not really want to share how lazy/awful I was with this manicure. On the other hand, you can not deny that it is very pretty. I especially like the first picture were you can see all of the colours over the nail. Below is a picture of what it looked like most of the time but much more red. Artificial light seemed to bring out the red play in Shift Happens.

Eye Spy an Addition to the Dragon...

I know I said that I would not add anything to the Dragon with an Iridescent Eye manicure. I was wrong. What I used did not fit with any reptilian or dragonish idea.

Over yesterday's A-England Dragon and Jessica Iridescent Eye gradient I stamped with Konad Moss Green. I used an image from Bundle Monster BM-316. I am thrilled with how well Moss Green went over this combination. It is such an elegant manicure and very simple too. Sometimes I wonder why I ever bought all of the rhinestones and other fripperies to put on my nails when stamping provides so much.

And here is the end of a short post to share how I updated the manicure. I don't have anything else to add.

Happy Birthday September! A Regal Manicure

Sapphires come in all colours apart from red. Red "sapphires" are called rubies. Most people think of sapphire as blue and this is the representation I went with today. The Ceylon sapphire is one of my favourite stones with that unique shade of cornflower blue.

As you may have guessed, sapphire is the birthstone for September.

My base colour for this manicure is Orly Royal Navy. I have used three coats here and some more where I had some fails with my stamping. You can tell I shook the bottle well before use as I also have the blue shimmer that likes to settle to the bottom of the bottle on my nail.

For the stamping I used Nails Inc Cleopatra's Kiss and two different Bundle Monster image plates. On my ring finger is the crown from BM-215 and on my thumb is the crown from BM08. I accented both of these with blue shaded rhinestones. I also used a row of rhinestones along my middle fingernails.

Daily Manicure Week - Wednesday Stamping

Oh here it is, Hump Day.

Now that you have removed the horrible manicure that looked like you went on a murder spree...

Out comes Don't Feed the Hand Models and Red Velvet because they are the only two polishes you can find. URGH! Hump Day. You apply Don't Feed the Hand Models as a base colour and then quickly stamp over it with Red Velvet.

I used an image from Bundle Monster's BM-322. Now this looks a lot better than the blood caked manicure from Tuesday. Red Velvet may not be the best polish for stamping with but it still looks pretty good. There is not a top coat in these pictures and this enhances the appearance.

Wear Teal Day for Ovarian Cancer

Teal is one of my favourite colours. I really favour the dark versions and not the light aqua leaning colours.

The base colour I chose for my Wear Teal Day manicure was L'Oreal Blue Reef. Such a lovely colour with great application. I did have to trim some stray bristles in my brush before I started. I had the same  problem with the other L'Oreal polish I have. Would you believe that I applied this colour without the need for clean up? That is a major bonus in my books.

With all of the things I could go with, I ended up stamping with the awareness ribbon design from Bundle Monster BM-321. The polish I used for the subtle stamping was BYS Kung Fu Blue. It may not have been the best to stamp with but it complemented the colour of Blue Reef well for an understated look. Originally I had considered trying to freehand ovaries... I think this was a much better option.

June Roses - A prickly profile picture

I thought I should have a profile picture for my blog. In my opinion with me being MsPrickle the best solution was a thorny one. To be more precise, I will make roses to symbolise my thorns.

For this purpose I had to buy myself a bunch of roses to take the pictures with. It's a tough life but one way to get flowers.

This was the second attempt to get the right look for the manicure. I first used Natio Brandy as a base for OPI Fit for a Queensland. It would be perfect with the pink shimmer and white base and stamped with Konad Dark Red. As mentioned in my Natio Brandy post, I ruined the manicure before I could stamp it. Too many layers to dry!

For my second attempt, I used essie Pearly White and stamped with Konad Dark Red. In my opinion, Konad Dark Red is the perfect match for the red roses. Pearly White did not dry until after I stamped it. I used Seche Vite before stamping and this still did not make the manicure firm for early stamping. The end result is not too bad but would be better if the base was pearly and smooth. These must be those bumpy freshwater pearls. After allowing the stamping to dry a little so that it would not smear, I topped with more Seche Vite. The roses are from BM-323.

I could have left this post for a year and used it for celebrating June birthdays. Pearl is the birthstone for June and rose is the flower. Another manicure will have to be created when we get to June.

Awesome Aussie August: Farewell Winter - Ozotic 509

Today is officially the last day of Winter here in the Southern Hemisphere. How I wish that this means that the first of September would be magically warm to usher in Spring. It will most likely continue being chilly on and off for a while yet.

For my base I used three coats of Ozotic 509. Of course the sun hid for the day since I used a holographic polish. I had to resort to taking my pictures in the house.

So I took a picture in the kitchen with the flash...

In the bathroom directly under the heat light.

I had always planned on using Ozotic 509 for the base of a Winter manicure. Originally I was going to stamp with my spectraflaired blue holographic franken. I decided against it because I thought that might be too holographic. Is there any such thing? Konad Dark Blue was used to provide a contrast between the holographic awesomeness and the stamping.

The snowflake design is from Bundle Monster's image plate BM-323. This seems to be one of my favourite plates because it has so many good designs. I did try stamping with a contrast of a dark silver. With the light hitting the holographic goodness on my nails you can not notice the mess that I made on my thumb. I stamped with Nails Inc. Cleopatra's Kiss over the top of my Konad Dark Blue. On my ring finger I stamped first with Cleopatra's Kiss and then with Konad Dark Blue. You can not see it unless you look hard and up very close on my ring finger.

Last of all I took a picture in the shade so you can see the design and some of the mess I made on my thumb with my over-stamping. Excuse the shoddy clean up. I did not intend on keeping this manicure on when I had finished because of the thumb nail and the chipping on my right hand.

Goodbye Winter and hello Spring. Sorry Winter, I am not sad to see you go!

Smurf Droppings - A Franken

Smurf Droppings was my first eye shadow franken and I deem it a failure. I thought I would get a nicely shimmery, vampy polish. Instead I received a coffee coloured mess. Granted it does have some shimmer that appears dark blue or purple in the bottle or direct sunlight. This shimmer and the blue colour is especially evident when the shimmer settles out of the polish. Mr R named this one Smurf Droppings. I am not sure I should allow him to name future frankens...

The pigment for Smurf Droppings is Everyday Minerals Starry Eyed.

After I finished making the polish and first swatched it on my fingers, I removed it right away because it was awful. Today I applied it again and used four coats to cover up nail line and bald patches. Seche Vite did not behave with this polish and caused serious shrinkage. It was so bad that it was pulling and crinkling around all edges.

In the sun the blue shimmer sparkles with a slight rainbow with purple and blue being the main contenders for colour.

To bring the polish into line with the name I decided to add some dots in Satin Nail Enamel 10 with N.Y.C. Color Casper dotted on top of that. It is just a wavering smurf trail across my fingers. La la lalala... My thumb was graced with a mushroom stamped in Konad White Pearl and Nail Enamel 10 dots. The image is from Bundle Monster's plate BM-302.

Awesome Aussie August: Duck Feathers aka Ozotic 505

Some time ago when it was much warmer than it is now, I was at the park with my Strumpet and our children. There is a creek that runs through this park and some ducks inhabit the creek. It is not difficult to get me started on nail polish since I am obsessed with it. My Strumpet said that she thought it would be great to have a nail polish that flashes the different colours of a duck's feather.

I finally have something to offer here that I think resembles the flash from green to blue to purple. Just like a duck's feather. Yes, it is Ozotic 505 and it will always be Duck Feathers to me. Sadly it is discontinued. Each time I look at it I am always mesmerised. I catch a glimpse of emerald green or the elusive pink and gold shift. Sometimes it is purple and teal. How many pictures you could take of this and still not capture the beauty.

Just out of the water - the pink and gold shift.

My manicure is two coats of Duck Feathers over the Fantasy Maker's Wet N Wild Black. It would take too much to try to build it up to opacity. Sadly, I don't have pictures of the emerald green shift because my camera will not co-operate with the awesomeness of the multichromatic pigments in this polish.

To complete the theme, I stamped some feathers with China Glaze 2030. Both images are from Bundle Monster. The single feather is from BM15 and the other is from BM-214.

I think I need more moisturiser with this harsh Winter weather.

Again and again I try to get the colours and emerald green is there on my nail but not on the camera. I did capture this glorious purple.

To my Strumpet,

I hope you love Duck Feathers as much as I do.

<3 ME xoxoxox