Little Night Flower

I have a love/hate affair with shoes.  I see lots of lovely shoes in the shops but as I have such little feet it is difficult to get anything that fits properly.  As for heels, anything over 2 1/2 inches is out of the question.  When I find something that fits and looks good I tend to go overboard.  I have these shoes by Ruby Shoo in grey and black too. More details after the jump.

This look is from a You Tube tutorial by MissJenFABULOUS as part of her Easy Nail Art for Beginners series. More details after the jump.

I'm rather fond of a bit of monochrome and thought I would go for something with a bit of drama for this theme. More details after the jump.

As I've been unwell for the past couple of months I've not had time to edit and upload all my manis for the 33 Day Challenge so I shall be posting quite a lot in the next few days to get them all online. Not one to do things in order I'm going back even further in the challenge and finally posting my South American inspired mani.  I tried to evoke the bright colours and excitement of the Mardi Gras in Rio with this look. More details after the jump.

My favourite brand has to be China Glaze, with a bit of Barry M in the mix too.  I know I have missed out the South America prompt but I wasn't happy with the way this turned out and need to have another go at it, so I will post that one later. More details after the jump.

For the animals prompt I thought I would have a go at a houndstooth check pattern.  While I need more practice at this on I was quite pleased with how this came out. More details after the jump

I'm playing catch up again so here is the first of a few posts for the 33 day challenge. This is what I was inspired to create as an abstract look. More details after the jump.

I had a lot of ideas for this one but decided to go on a design inspired by embroidered Chinese silk fabric. More details after the jump.

I had to pick the curtains in my living room for this one, although I have taken a bit of a liberty with the colours. More details after the jump.

I'm not really one for sticking things on my nails as I use my hands so much.  Also my nails have quite a curve so getting anything to stay flat on them is a challenge.  I will admit to rushing this one as it's not my thing so I don't have too may supplies available to do any kind of 3D art.  What I did have was a little pot of caviar beads, but rather than plastering them all over the nail I have tried to be a bit more precise with the placement.  Apologies for the quality of the picture with this one too as I couldn't seem to get the lighting right. More details after the jump.

Bloggers around the world have signed up to take part in Blog Action Day.  This is an event each year to raise awareness around a particular issue.  This year the issue is Human Rights. One of the partners for this year's event is Amnesty International and their logo has inspired this design. More about Blog Action Day, Amnesty International and the concept behind this design after the jump.

This is my interpretation of a Robin Moses Soft Floral Prom Nails design which you can find here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EfROIc2u-c More details after the jump.

India has such a rich design culture to draw ideas from that the choice is practically overwhelming. I have taken my inspiration from sari fabric for this design. More details after the jump.

This theme has fallen by chance on the day after the announcement of the death of The Pogues's guitarist Philip Cheveron ( see the story here ).  One of his well known songs for the group was Thousands are Sailing , about mass emigration from Ireland to America as a result of the famine.  I thought I would incorporate this idea into today's design as a small tribute.  More details after the jump.

My polish collection is fairly new and I tend to buy colours as I need them for something, so I don't have too many untried polishes.  However, earlier this year I was lucky enough to win a lovely bottle of Jacava Candy Floss from a competition on the Lucy's Stash  blog. More details after the jump.

Normally I would give a reference for my source of inspiration for a design but I can't for the life of me remember the name of the painting or the artist that inspired this one.  If you have any ideas please post them in the comments below. More details after the jump.

I wanted to find a different kind of image of this one so I Googled Mexican Art.  The results brought up a Mexican Folk Art Tree of Life which I though was very pretty.  I've tried to take a few elements from that design to create this look. More details after the jump.

As I did a standard tribal design for the 31 Day Challenge I thought I would try an Australian Aboriginal inspired design for the tribal theme of this challenge. More details after the jump.

I saw the design Chalkboard Nails created for the delicate print day of the challenge and wanted to have a go myself. More details after the jump.

This is inspired by a recent tutorial by Robin Moses which can be found here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1P7OMP2iXcQ More details after the jump.

I took my inspiration for today's challenge from The Crow. More details after the jump.

Today's look is a bit of a fun one.  I suspect quite a few bloggers will choose the Jolly Roger as their flag today. More details after the jump.

I have used tape to create quite a few looks so for this one I thought why not leave the tape on to create the design. More details after the jump.

This is another colourful look inspired by some multi coloured zebra artwork which can be found here . More details after the jump.

I appear to be playing catch up again.  Prepare for lots of posts over the next couple of days and lots of colour.  Summer has come to an end and it is getting very grey and cold in this little part of the world so I decided my nails needed to be a lot more colourful. I had a few ideas for this and I have maybe taken a few liberties interpreting the theme.  I have interpreted pattern as something you might see printed on fabric and I went for neon paint splatter on black. More details after the jump.

It seems studded leather is all over the place at the moment so I have recreated the look in polish. More details after the jump.

After much consideration I decided my most used colour polish was NYC Lexington Yellow.  This is my go to yellow polish and there has been quite a bit of yellow used for various challenges recently. Something quick and quirky for today. More details after the jump.

The very strong graphic of the red lips against the white face on the cover of Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden inspired this mani. More details after the jump.

Phew, having a bit of a blogging frenzy this weekend.  As you may have noticed I am also taking part in the 33 Day Challenge organised by the Crumpet's Nail Tarts.  There are only 3 posts a week for this and a small overlap with the 31 Day Challenge but I thought I should stretch myself a little bit.  Hopefully this will inspire me to come up with some new and original designs. My chosen movie for day 23 of the 31 Day Challenge is Despicable Me 2.  Everyone has had a go at painting Minions, but these little guys are just too cute not to try at least once. More details and pictures after the jump.

When I first decided to participate in a challenge I came up an idea for dots and had to paint it while it was still in my head.  Apologies for the orange tone of the picture, I was still getting to grips with my camera when this was taken and hadn't quite mastered indoor night-time pictures.  I've seen this look done before but I had a couple of polishes I thought would really work together for this. More details after the jump.

I have a decent sized music collection so was a little overwhelmed by choice for this one.  I decided to go with Green Day's American Idiot. More details and pictures after the jump.

This has to be one of the favourite polishes in my collection and blue is my favourite colour.  I wanted to create something simple and delicate. More details after the jump

Many bloggers have a love/hate relationship with water marbling ie love the way it looks (when done successfully), hate having to use this technique as it is so darn difficult to perfect. I envy the people in the tutorial videos on You Tube who make it look so easy - drop some polish in a cup, drag a cocktail stick or dotting tool through it to create a pattern and perfectly place your nail in the polish to get the exact design you want on your nail. If only... This is my attempt for day 20 of the challenge. More details and a bit of ranting after the jump.

I was going for a spaceship portal effect with this one. More details and pictures after the jump.

I have been going to lots of events at the Spirit of Moray Book Festival this week.  I've learned a lot and met some fantastic authors.  I might even have some inspiration for some of the later challenges.  This does mean both the blog and my nails have been a little neglected but I'm getting caught up as quickly as I can. Today's theme is half moon nails and this is what I came up with: More details after the jump.

I thought I should have a mani with a bit of colour, after yesterday's monochrome.  This is what I came up with: More details after the jump.

A very quick and simple mani to start the week. More details after the jump.

First of all I would like to thank everyone for the Liebster award nominations.  I am super busy at work at the moment as I start a new job in 2 weeks and need to get everything ready to hand over before I go.  Also organizing daily posts for the 31 Day Challenge has taken up a lot of my spare time.  However, I will get round to answering all the questions and linking back to everyone's blog when things have calmed down a bit.  This is also the reason I've not been responding to all the lovely comments, but I have read and appreciate them all. Right on with the business of the day and I would like to thank Cazzy Duncan over at SpecialGirl Nails  for testing out how well the 2truc Metallica polishes work for stamping.  As the results were so good I had to acquire them for myself.  I also had a special triple points offer on my Superdrug Beauty Card for the next purchase I made in September (a special offer as it was my birthday). This was the result...

I wanted to do something a little quirky for this theme. I'm sure there are some fantastic flower themed manis have been created for today's theme and I wanted to do something a little different. More details after the jump.

I'm giving my natural nails a rest today (I'm still wearing the stripes mani posted yesterday) and I've painted some tips instead.  As my cousin has been very supportive of my nail art I had no choice but to do tiger stripes for the animal print theme as they are her favourite animal. More details after the jump.

I'm much happier with today's mani than yesterday's polka dots, I was feeling much more inspired.  This idea was taken from a look created by Robin Moses.  You can check out the tutorial video here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPBdDNuMIf4 More details and another picture after the jump.

This post has taken me quite a while to put together as I wasn't quite happy with the various ideas I came up with for this theme.  While this design could have used a bit more planning it was the best of the bunch. More details after the jump.

I wanted to try out a colour combination for this gradient that wasn't mainstream.  I was inspired by this tutorial from Robin Moses on You Tube .  More details and pictures after the jump.

When I got the idea for yesterday's metallic nails it led very quickly to this one.  I was going to add the jukebox in with the shoes but I thought there was room to work with it all on its own.  I call this look my eclectic rainbow jukebox. More details and pictures after the jump.

I thought I would try something a little different for this one.  All but the black are metallic polishes.  More details after the jump.

Here's a little something for the weekend.  Day 7 of the 31 Day Challenge calls for black and white nails and I came up with this mani. More details after the jump.

Day 6 of the 31 Day Challenge and I managed to create an interesting colour by layering polishes. More details after the jump.

Day 5 of the 31 Day Challenge and I have toned down the colours for today's mani. More details and a picture of my 'Cinderella hand' after the jump.

The theme for day 4 of the the 31 day challenge is green nails. I love the combination of green and gold and this is what I came up with. More details after the jump.

Day 3 of the 31 Day Challenge and today's theme is yellow nails. More details after the jump.