A Girl and Her Polish's Soft Neon Gradient - NCC Recreations

Hey y'all!

It's finally Friday, and that of course brings the next round of Nail Challenge Collaborative posts!  This month we're celebrating 3 years of NCC nail art by recreating past NCC looks.  For my third, I've elected to recreate A Girl and Her Polish's Soft Neon Gradient, a gorgeous look on which I think I missed the mark.

31DC-D19 - Fire

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Happy Monday!  For my American readers, I hope you're able to take advantage of today's national holiday (MLK Day) to do something good.  Incidentally, today is also Robert E Lee's birthday, which is kind of ironic but I suppose those two days fall simultaneously every once in a while.  In further unfortunate coincidence, today is also marked as Confederate Heroes day in a couple of states, and on an even more bizarre turn of events, it's also National Gun Appreciation Day.  Seriously?  Does anyone else see the unfolding problem here?  I just... okay, let's just be clear here... on a day of unfortunate convergences of suspiciously differing ideological memorials, a) don't be a racist, b) don't shoot anyone.  With all that said, it seems almost comical to segue into today's nail art prompt, which is... I can't.  I just can't.  It's Fire, people.  We're doing Fire nail art today, so c) don't blow anything up or set anything on fire.  Dot have mercy.

Magical Mondays and 31DC-D12 - Film

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Happy Magical Monday!  Today I'm back with the next installment of the collab series I'm doing with Belle Glamour, celebrating one of our favorite mutual interests, Harry Potter.  It also works out quite nicely that today's prompt for the 31-Day Challenge is Film, so I could kill two birds with one stone!  This month, Cat and I are showcasing our favorite characters from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's (Sorceror's) Stone.  My personal favorite character is Hagrid, played by Robbie Coltrane in the films.

31DC-D11 - Reversed Polarities

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Today's prompt for the 31-Day Challenge is Reversed Polarities, which confused quite a few people, apparently.  Originally I had intended to do a purple and yellow half-and-half nail with some needle dragging in concentric circles, but after Debbie explained what she meant with this prompt on a group discussion board, I had to rethink what I was doing.  The less confusing term for this look would be something like photo negative, or inverted colors, where the colors of a nail art are flipped to the opposite color.  I almost immediately thought a skyline mani would look cool with the colors inverted, and possibly because we just booked our next trip to Austin, I just had to give it a try with my hometown's skyline.

31DC-D8 - Monochromatic

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I feel like I've lost track of the days.  I had gotten into so such a good groove with the M-W-F-S posting schedule, and then December came and the 12DOC challenge threw that all askew, and now we've rolled on into 2015 with this 31DC and I don't know what I'm doing WITH MY LIFE anymore.  Also because Mr. Faff and I have not bought new calendars yet, I have a blank space on my wall where I normally track the days, so it's like, where am I?  What am I doing?  WHO AM I???  So exhausting!  Okay, vent over.  Today I think is Thursday, and today's prompt for the 31DC is Monochromatic.  I toyed with the idea of doing shades of a single color (because did you know that monochrome doesn't just mean black and white?) but ultimately decided that I wanted to play with something in my stash that I hadn't tried yet, so I went to greyscale for this look.

12DOC: Freestyle Christmas Tartan Plaid

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Today is an exciting day for two reasons!  First, it is the final prompt for the 12 Days of Christmas challenge which has consumed this month's blogging activity for me, and the second reason is a fairly big blogging milestone.  This is my 300th post!  Who would've thought when I started this journey just over a year ago that I'd have logged 300 entries into this blog?  It's very bizarre for me.  In any event, today's final prompt for this challenge is Freestyle, leaving it completely open to each artist's interpretation.  I took inspiration from another artist's design for the Red and Green prompt and while my attempt is nowhere near as sophisticated or chic as Natasja's of Love Life Lacquer, here are my Christmas tartan/plaid nails!

12DOC: Snowmen

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Happy Friday!  Can you believe we've already made it through the first week of December, and Christmas is only 3 weeks away?  Sometimes it feels like the first half of the year drags on and takes forever, then as soon as September hits, everything whizzes past!  Marching right along in the 12 Days of Christmas challenge is today's prompt: Snowmen, so I turned once again to that trusty pack of nail charms I bought at Poundland, and added some freehand nail art to flesh out my look.

12DOC: Christmas Trees

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I'm back with the second prompt for the 12 Days of Christmas challenge, and today we're covering Christmas trees!

60s Mod Negative Space nail art

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Happy Monday everyone!  We're almost halfway through October and this is normally where I would start getting really excited about Halloween, but unfortunately I have no fabulous fun plans this year (or last year, for that matter).  The British don't celebrate All Hallows Eve the same way we do it up in the US - but it's always been my favorite holiday, so at least I can celebrate on my nails.  This week's themes for the Pick-n-Mix challenge are the 60s and matte or texture.  I worked really hard on a design that would encompass all of those themes, and came up with this kind of funky look, which I can tell you unequivocally, Mr. Faff *hated*.  I'll let you be the final judge.

Disney's Little Mermaid Nail Art - LNMBC

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It's been a while since I did any nail art for the Llama Nails Movies/Books Challenge, but this week's prompt of Disney finally motivated me to do something I've been debating for a very long time - glitter placement.  After having a long think about my favorite Disney movies, I settled on one that is both a personal favorite for the music and which I felt I had a good supply of appropriate glitters to get the look I wanted, so, today's look is inspired by Disney's Little Mermaid.

Battle of: the Matte Top Coats!

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Before we get into this, I just want to take a moment to thank you all for the really astonishing amount of support I received for my No H8 post a couple days ago.  I'm kind of taken aback by it, to be honest, and feeling thoroughly humbled that so many of you read it and took the time to show your support!  That said, I hope I can continue to bring you back to read my ramblings.  :)  I've been threatening to do this post for a while now, and a week of challenge prompts that left me, well, "less-than-inspired" provides a good opportunity to show you my breakdown of five mainstream matte topcoats in the first of what I hope to become a series of "Battle of:" challenges.

No H8 in the nail art community

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So over the weekend, some events transpired.  Instead of giving more attention to the low-class troublemakers in question or further pouring salt in the wound of those who were bullied, I am just going to say that it's really easy to be a cyber bully because you can do so anonymously, but it takes strength of character, maturity, and class to help lift others up when you're feeling down, instead of trying to drag them down with you.   At the end of the day, this is all JUST.NAIL.POLISH and I'd rather help spread a message of love and acceptance.  The manicure that I'm sporting today is a show of support for the No H8 movement - not just in nail polish, but in everything, really.  Hate is such a useless emotion and I wish we could all just move past it and stop hurting one another.

Colour Me Crazy: Red Hearts Tips

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Quickie double-post today for two reasons.  First off, the British Nail Bloggers have started a new weekly challenge centered around colors, and this first week is all RED!  I am sooo late to the ball game on this one, but I'm gonna sneak in really quick before the linkup closes.  Secondly, I wanted to announce that I won 2nd place in BGPolish's first week of nail art competitions with my duochrome lace mani, so I will receive a 30% off coupon for Dark Metal Lacquers, a UK indie.  So that's cool.  Anyway... to kick off the Colour Me Crazy challenge, here's my tribute to red.

Red White & Blue and Fireworks too!

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Continuing on my slightly homesick nail art journey, I wanted to sneak in a patriotic Independence Day mani for y'all, with full knowledge that these Brits may kick me out for doing so.  In fairness, I drink more tea than I throw in the harbor, and while I still haven't started using all those extraneous "U"s in my writing, I have begun naturally referring to my phone as my mobile instead of my cell, and I now complain about how many adverts interrupt my television, rather than fast-forwarding through the commercials.  Expat life really does change a person, yo.  Anyway... the upcoming holiday gave me a chance to showcase a beautiful UK indie that I picked up from a shop which closed earlier this year, and I was able to snatch up several bottles before they were gone for good.  Additionally, I got to play with a new stamping plate from Vivid Lacquer, so all's good on the home front, and I bring you this installment of Sunday Stamping.

Funky Leopard - TPTC

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Today I have a bright and funky stamped leopard print nail art for you.  Unfortunately I'm not very happy with the quality of the stamping plate, but I am pleased with the overall finished look for today's Tri Polish Tuesday.

These aren't the droids you're looking for - Twinsie post with Geeky Owl

Pastel textured negative space nail art featuring Born Pretty Store studs

*** This post contains items which were sent for review and affiliate links. ***

Hey y'all!

If you read my birthday haul post, you may recall me spending a Marks&Spencer gift certificate on, what else, nail supplies! Part of that haul was a set of 4 pastel textured polishes from the M&S Limited Collection. Then, Born Pretty Store sent me some really cute colored nail art studs in spring-toned green, purple, and blue, and this nail art just sort of fell into place!

Purple and Blue Water Marble LTNC

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So today's look is actually one that I did while we were on holiday in Texas, and there's a really good reason for it - I can't watermarble in England!  I'm not sure if it's a temperature thing, or just that I have a hard time finding distilled water, or what the deal is, but I have tried it a fair few times with lots of different polishes and water types and temperatures, and it just never works out.  SO... when I saw that the Llama Nails Technique this week was water marbling, I knew I was going to have to do some serious forward planning.  These are also the last pictures of my long square nails before ThatDay(tm), so this post is a bit bittersweet for me on that note anyway, but just look how pretty!

Hols Haul!

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First off... today's my birthday, but I'm finally going to the doctor to take care of the lingering sinus and sore throat problems that we brought back with us from Texas last month.  As promised, I wanted to give you guys a haul post that trip, and today's your lucky day.  I certainly did quite the spree, beginning in January by online ordering things and having them shipped to Momma Faff's house.  By the time it was all said and done, there were a few too many boxes and she got onto me about it.  I couldn't help it - I needed things!  Anyway... the morning after we arrived, I sat down to the most wonderful breakfast of coffee and opening boxes, and managed to consolidate everything into one tiny pic that went on my Instagram feed immediately.

Purple Roses? Ombre, claro! LNTC

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Today's prompt in the Llama Nails Technique Challenge is Ombre, which is a look I hadn't yet really done but just couldn't leave it plain, so I spruced it up with some stamping using the same colors on staggered nails.