Easter Eggstravaganza

Happy Easter everyone!  Hope you're all enjoying the festive season (if I can use that term?).  And remember, chocolate and lollies are a sometimes food . . . (sometimes during each day!!!).

Before I get onto a couple of Easter nail designs, I thought I would share with you my favourite Easter goodies.  Well, I can't literally share them with you, one, because I haven't got enough to go around, two, because they haven't invented eatable internet yet (and lookout when they do!), and three, because I don't wanna! 

All jokes aside, I ADORE marshmallow eggs.  A uniquely Kiwi treat (but slowly becoming more readily available in Oz), these delights come in a number of different flavours.  Plain marshmallow & chocolate (as pictured below) is the original, but you can get Pineapple Lumps flavour (as pictured below) and Hokey Pokey (which is like a soft honeycomb goodness).

I also have a soft spot for Cadbury Creme Eggs, which come in the "egg" form, or the Twisted bar form (as pictured below). 

Finally, I can't go past a good Hot Cross Bun - without the orange peel please, and HOT, not cold, thank you!  What are your favourite Easter goodies?

 

 

Now for a couple of nail designs I prepared earlier.

 

 

 

 

 





As you can see, I'm still working out how to drive the Glamart Nail Art Pens, but at least the colours are occasion appropriate.

NN

Australis Nail Colour

 

With Easter fast approaching, I wanted to share some polishes that I've recently acquired.

 

 

 Knickers In A Knot is a hot coral/orangey-pink polish with a shine finish.

Acid Rain is a fluro yellow polish, with a slightly matte finish.

Sky's the Limit is a cornflower blue polish, with a finish which is a cross between a matte and shine.

Aqua is, well, a light aqua polish (almost Tiffany's green), with a shine finish.

Manic Panic is a grape polish with a shine finish.

Paparazzi Purple is a grape polish, with a shimmer finish.

At this point, I should also mention Blue Tiger which I have previously reviewed here.  Blue Tiger is a violet polish, with a matte finish.

I love the colours in the Australis collection, especially the two matte colours, Blue Tiger and Acid Rain.  The matte finish gives them a different texture to a lot of polishes out there at the moment, and it also makes Konad stamping stand out a little better.

I would really like to use these polishes to do Easter Egg designs - they're certainly the right colours for it - but I'm just not sure I'm that skilled at using the brushes to paint with.  We'll see.  I might Konad over top of them, or even use my nail art pens.  Stay tuned.


NN

More stamping!

Just a real quick post with less words and more stamping pics - enjoy!

 

NN

Stamping ideas/combos

Can I just say that ever since I bought the proper Konad stamper and plates, stamping has become a much more enjoyable experience for me.  Wanna know why?  Because the designs look good!


I think having the smaller, shorter stamper has made all of the difference.  Compared with the Salon Express stamper, which is quite long and difficult to control, the Konad stamper gives me a lot more control over where I'm placing the stamp on my nails.  For someone who is still learning how to stamp, this can make all the difference to your confidence.


These are a few images of what I've been up to lately:

Base colour:  OPI - Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh
Stamp colour:  Kleancolor - Black
Stamp #: Konad M64

 

Base colour:  Revlon - Cloud
Stamp colour:  Models Prefer - Love to Shop
Stamp #: Konad M64



 

 

Base colour:  Models Prefer - Free Style
Stamp colour:  Revlon - Copper Penny
Stamp #: Konad M78


NN

Updates - Milky Way & Space Jam

I have been meaning to post an update to this post, where I detailed Australis' Milky Way and Space Jam polishes.  It seems, using a base colour was the right way to go!


For Milky Way, I first painted my nails with Sinful Colors - Snow Me White and then added a couple of coats of Milky Way over top.  Opacity solved.


Application was as per usual - the glitter polish wasn't easy to apply.  Glitter polish has a mind of its own and likes to gather its glitters all in one area on your nail.  If you paint your nail multiple times, it starts becoming a bit of a nightmare and can get streaky, or the other extreme - gluggy.  Less is more because you can always do another coat once they're dry.

For Space Jam, I used Sally Hansen's Lacquer Shine - Glossy as the base colour, and then Space Jam over top.


Similar to Milky Way, the application wasn't great.  In fact, it was even worse.  I added some thinner to the polish and it still wasn't cooperative.  It also took absolutely ages to dry, and before you ask, I only added one thin coat of Space Jam on top.

While this is a problematic and tricky customer, it's still very pretty in theory (see thumbnail macro pic below).  I just haven't left it on my nails long enough to see how it wears, simply for the fact that it took such a long time to dry.

I think Australis needs to work on the formula for this one - it could be a really great polish, but it's gluggy, slow-drying formula lets it down.


NN

Random dotting design

I was mucking around with my dotting tool and came up with the below design, which looked great prior to the photo, but the dots decided to spread and smear a little in the meantime, but I thought I'd post it anyway. Doesn't the colour combo look great?


I used China Glaze's Turned Up Turquoise as the base colour, and Revlon's Gold Coin for the dots.

 

 

NN