Owl love you forever - cute owl nail art!

This is a bit of a belated post because the day after I finished these nails and posted them on instagram, I copped a mega chest infection and have been knocked out ALL week! These were inspired by looking at wedding cake toppers last weekend as the fiance and I are trying to plan our wedding, yay!

I was looking at Etsy and found these super cute wedding cake toppers and thought these would make cute nails. I'm so tempted! They would make great keepsakes too.

The base nail colour is butter London's Fruit Machine from their spring 2013 collection and it took maybe 2-3 coats to get a nice opaque colour. The darker pink is also butter London Primrose Hill Picnic, a gorgeous hot pink. I wish I did white on the outside so the owls would be a bit more contrasted but they're still super cute. The tree branch is Essie Very Structured which is a chocolate brown (I've been looking for such a colour!) and the orange is Essie Fear or Desire. Can't say that I needed another orange but adorebeauty had a buy 2 get 1 free GWP promo and I'm a sucker for promos :-(

I wanted to do owls and a matte top coat on all nails but dinner took priority ;-) Maybe next time! Anyway I'm still sniffly and cold so I'm going to go back to bed and relax. It's a cold rainy day and those are meant to be spent warm in bed. Until next time...

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Dj Donk butter London, Essie, Nail Art

Yoshi Nail Art with Essie Mojito Madness

So this was a bit of a mistake, I was aiming for an Animal Crossing themed design (namely the trees) but it turned into Yoshi! I'm happy with it though, Animal Crossing shall be another day (or probably not as I will be too busy playing the New Leaf that's coming out June 15 :-D) I ended up with just one thumb accent and a spotty design (representing the eggs) on the rest of the nails:

I believe the eggs are white and green but this looks nicer. It is also the first time I got to try out my new Essie Mojito Madness! I dotted Mojito Madness with the large end of a dotting tool over Essie's Pretty Edgy:

Ah so much gloss! I'm a little late to the matte party (I've tried matte polishes but I really wanted to try the top coat). I purchased Essie's Matte About You top coat and you can see the difference it makes here:

Despite the fact that it says to apply a thin layer, if you haven't waited long enough for your polish to dry it'll drag your colour :-( So I opted for the big fat layer dabbed on carefully method instead! I'm in love with this matte look now, so cool! Of course, despite waiting 3 hours for my yoshi to dry, I completely forgot about the 'dab method' and destroyed poor yoshi:

Yuck! And this is the 'fixed' version! I tried to repaint some of the green and white and re-apply the top coat but the black still shows through. Ah well lesson learnt... until I forget again ;)

Unfortunately this is the end of my Essie Pretty Edgy mini. I'm down to the bottom of the bottle and it's so gloopy I'm amazed I got in on my nails without looking like a 3d mountain of mess. I will have to repurchase though because it's such a gorgeous green. RIP Mini Pretty Edgy, you've been awesome.

And this I just had to post because it was delicious. Ok it may have been the 30 minutes on the elliptical that made me ravenous but the Crunchie McFlurry was heavenly. Enough said.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the post! I'm keen to try other brands of Matte top coat, but we'll see how long this trend lasts. Well at least in my household :-) Until next time lovelies...

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Dj Donk Essie, Matte, Nail Art

Braziliant! Essie Summer 2011 Collection Swatches

I have been looking forward to this latest Essie collection! There are some seriously gorgeous shimmers in this collection as well as some 'sorbet' shades and a creme. Something for everyone I would say.

Left to right we have Too Too Hot (jelly/sorbet finish), Meet Me At Sunset (another jelly/sorbet), Braziliant (orange with pink pearl reflects), Super Bossa Nova (shimmer with blue purple reflects), Smooth Sailing (periwinkle blue with silver pearly glitter) and Absolutely Shore (pale green creme). Onto the swatches!

Above is a flash shot of Smooth Sailing. This looks slightly more spectacular in the bottle. When on the nail the glitter is more silver than pearly as it looks in the bottle.

Above is a natural light shot of Smooth Sailing. Only 2 coats required here. You could maybe do one thick coat but two light coats would suffice.

Above is a flash shot of Super Bossa Nova, possibly the star of the collection as it's so bright and gorgeous.

Above is a natural light shot of Super Bossa Nova. Only one coat was needed for this polish, impressive.

Above is a flash shot of Absolutely Shore. Very pale green, almost minty.

Above is a natural light shot of Absolutely Shore. This was 3 coats and it was still sheer. I'm not a fan of having to work with sheer cremes.

Above is a flash shot of Braziliant. Ah, the brilliance of Braziliant. It was hard to capture the prettiness of this polish but the subtle shimmer is there if you check out the full size of this picture.

Above is a natural light shot of Essie Braziliant. This was two coats and left a suede/non-glossy finish. This definitely is one to look out for if you like orange :-)

Above is a flash shot of Meet Me At Sunset. This had a clear jelly like finish, much like that of the OPI Texas collection polishes, maybe less glossy.

Above is a natural light shot of Meet Me At Sunset. This was two coats.

Above is a flash shot of Too Too Hot. And wow it IS hot! I don't normally go for reds but I like this.

Above is a natural light shot of Too Too Hot. Only one coated needed.

My favourite colour is a toss up between Smooth Sailing and Super Bossa Nova. I ended up with a simple floral design when I started to draw with no real goal in mind :-) As you can see Braziliant made an appearance, it all it's shimmery loveliness @_@ Well I hope you enjoyed the swatches. I'm probably going to skip the Resort 2011 collection as it really does not appeal to me except one or two colours... we shall see. I hope you're all having a wonderful weekend! Until next time...

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Dj Donk Essie, Nail Art, Nail Polish

Hello Kitty Nail Art with Essie Wedding 2011 swatches!

Hi everyone, I have some cute nail art to show you today - hello kitty! I LOVE hello kitty, well actually I love Sanrio. I've been collecting Sanrio character 'stuff' since I was about 14 or 15 (way before Australia even knew what hello kitty was) so I had to rely on hard to come across stores that sold random 'for sale in Japan only' Sanrio stuff and of course drooled over ebay. I was reluctant to do this art because it's SO easy to butcher. Hopefully I haven't butchered her too much:

Even though my favourite character is actually Keroppi, I thought I'd start with hello kitty :-) I'll show you how I did this look below but first onto the swatches! This look features a light blue creme from Essie's Wedding 2011 collection 'Borrowed & Blue'. The collection has four colours and I picked up the mini set:

Left to right we have Borrowed & Blue, Better Together, Made To Honor and First Dance. None of them are shimmer, Borrowed and Blue is the only opaque creme, while the other three are quite sheer.

Above we have Borrowed & Blue - the absolute standout of this collection in my opinion. I do not have a light blue creme that is this gorgeous. I'm not even a blue fan but I must have a full size of this. It is love. Three coats to get the best look but you could get away with two heavy coats.

Above is Better Together and this is a very sheer pink. I actually did 4 coats because I didn't like the sheerness of three.

Above is Made To Honor and it is a very very sheer nude pink. Three coats above and you can see how sheer it still is.

Above is First Dance and it is a bright red that is slightly sheer and I believe this is just two coats. Very bright.

Back to hello kitty nail art! For this look I only need a few colours:

Left to right we have Illamasqua Boosh, Essie Borrowed & Blue (as the base), Essie First Dance (bow), China Glaze Snow (hello kitty head), OPI Fiercely Fiona (nose) and a black nail art pen to touch up the eyes since black scares me.

I started with the kitty heads. And look how messy it is! But not to worry, top coats fixes everything - well unless you're like me and are too eager and paint the top coat on before the red is dry :-| The bows did run actually but it's not too obvious after I made a few touch ups.

Here I've added the eyes, whiskers and nose. Well I didn't like the position of the middle finger nose so I ended up redoing it :-P

Final progress shot before top coat! Looks really awful but the top coat does smooth it all out :-)

Close up thumb swatch above. I think the key was to get the heads wide enough but that's difficult on small natural nails and while your hand is half twisted around on its side :-| But I tried!

Hope everyone is having a good weekend - it is freaking cold here! There was something on the news about Canberra having its coldest Autumn day in 71 years. Was not happy yesterday that's for sure. And neither was my Basil! My poor herb garden is copping it rather bad at the moment. Anyhoo, I hope you enjoyed the swatches and hello kitties :-) Until next time...

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Dj Donk Essie, Nail Art, Nail Polish

Easter Egg Basket Nail Art!

Happy Easter everyone! Woo! One of my favourite holidays. It's cute, it's pastel, it's springy, it encourages us to eat lots and lots of choccy and to celebrate we have Easter egg basket nail art:

So I figured I had done everything leading up to Easter in terms of nail art - bunnies, chickens, eggs... time to conclude with some cute baskets of eggs. And while it was a bit of effort, it was actually not that complicated. I'll take you through some progress shots. First I started off with a blue base which was OPI What's With The Cattitude layered with something very special and have been dying to share: Deborah Lippmann's Glitter In The Air:

Every since I saw the Deborah Lippmann polish go up on the website I was looking for it. Finally got a hold of it and have been waiting for the right look to use it. I think it's very pretty when layered over blue.

Once the base was dry I drew the outline of the basket with Essie Mink Muffs, filled the middle of the basket with Essie Chips No Potatoes and when that was dry, did the basket weave pattern inside.

The thumb is usually the 'trial' nail so I used OPI Flashbulb Fuchsia to draw a bow then drew three eggs in the basket using OPI Rumple's Wiggin', OPI Fiercely Fiona and Essie French Affair (shown left to right).

Decided that looked ok so decorated the eggs with white polka dots, blue stripes and pink zigzags and added some grass using a combination of Essie's Pretty Edgy and OPI Gargantuan Green Grape. Then I drew the baskets on the other fingers and did the same as what was on the thumb nail.

Whew what a lot of polishes! FYI the egg polka dots were China Glaze Snow, the stripes Essie Coat Azure and the zigzags Essie Splash of Grenadine. And I think that's it! Whew.

Close up of the thumb above. Excuse my icky dry fingers. You don't put a lot of hand care effort in when you're coughing all over place :-P

Aren't these cuuuuute? I bought some baskets because I think I'm going on an Easter Egg hunt tomorrow :-) They are from a dollar shop so they weren't very expensive but I couldn't decide between the two so I got both. And a little basket to carry around with me on my hunt. Someone my age can still go on Easter Egg hunts right? Hehe. Well I hope you enjoyed this look and that you're having an awesome Easter long weekend (we get 5 days with Anzac Day Tuesday so woohoo :-) Until next time my lovelies...

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Dj Donk Deborah Lippmann, Essie, Nail Art, Nail Polish, OPI

Essie Spring 2011 Collection mini set swatches feat. Spring Break Beach Nails!

The Essie Spring collection is here! Sadly it's not spring in Australia but I'm going to pretend it is because I don't want autumn/winter to come any closer. So I present to you my spring break beach nails featuring the Essie Spring collection colours:

Cute! I had this look in mind for a while and although a little wonky, the beach umbrellas are cool ;-)

The latest Essie collection has a French theme and consists of 6 colours, 4 of which are available in a mini set as shown below:

There is Nice is Nice (purple/lavendar cream), French Affair (pink cream), Topless & Barefoot (Beige cream) and Coat Azure (a medium blue shimmer). Onto the swatches!

Topless & Barefoot is the most raved about in this collection. It's that 'perfect nude' and while the colour is beige, it is surprisingly flattering on the nails. I didn't expect it to be. A few coats are required though for some patchiness in the formula. Flash shot above.

You'll have to excuse my poor battered hands. Too much housework! Natural light shot above. I really like this colour.

Coat Azure is beautiful. Opaque in one coat and just shimmery gorgeousness. I don't like blue so that's saying something :-) Flash shot above.

Natural light shot above. A bit bubbly on the index finger but other than that, applied beautifully.

French Affair is a pale pink cream and a few coats here too I believe. Not as opaque as it looks. Flash shot above.

Nothing to write home about, yet another Essie pink :-) Surely they've run out of pink colours to do?! Natural light shot above.

Nice is Nice, a light purple/lavendar cream. A few coats here as well (basically Coat Azure was the only one coat polish). While purple is my favourite colour, I think OPI's Rumple's Wiggin' wins for me personally. Flash shot above.

Natural light shot above. All in all a great set and I might still pick up the other 2 colours that are full sized. They are more nude/sheer colours though. But interesting looking. From the mini set, the standouts for me are Topless & Barefoot and Coat Azure. Just gorgeous.

Here's a close up of the nail design with Topless & Barefoot. I tried to use all the Essie Spring mini set colours for the spring break beach nails but there were a few extras (China Glaze Snow and Orly Blue Belle to create the 'wave' effect).

Well I hope you enjoyed the swatches and beach nails look. It's more summery than spring but you visit the beach on your spring break right?! I have no idea... we don't have 'spring break' as such here... :-P Anyway, I hope everyone is having a lovely week and I shall see you next time :-)

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Dj Donk Essie, Nail Art, Nail Polish