Aussie Christmas Challenge 19/12 - Candy Cane

Hey guys! To start off, yes, I know this theme isn't very "Aussie", but I think almost every country that celebrates Christmas would have candy canes and I had to put at least a few "traditional" Christmas themes in the challenge! ;) Oh. And I changed my nail shape again. Ha! I didn't do a very good job as I'm now seeing in my photos though...

The mani I'm showing you today for the Aussie Christmas Challenge was not what I had originally planned on doing. :( I had planned a really cool-looking water marble and of course, being a water marble, it didn't go to plan at all. I spent 3-4 hours on it before I gave up and decided to do something else!
The mani I decided to do in the end, was inspired by THIS MANI by Chloe's Nails, which I have been seeing all over Pinterest and the rest of the internet! I think her stripes look absolutely flawless and perfecto!

I started off with two coats of Ulta3 Lily White and then taped off my nail using regular tape for the stripes, and painted over the nail with China Glaze Ruby Pumps, which is now one of my all time favourite polishes! After pulling off the tape I had a few mistakes but they were easily fixed up with a white striper. :)
As you can see though, I did have a little smudgey problem on my index finger because of my topcoat. :( I tend to stroke with the brush too many times.

Less than a week until Christmas! Woohoo! Have you done all your Christmas shopping? I don't really wanna go anywhere near the shops until the new year now. It's too hectic at this time of the year!

31DC2012: Day 12 - Stripes

Today's theme is stripes! I have a tape mani to show you! :) I don't have a whole lot to say so I'll just get right into it!

The lovely Yvonne (lafemmelulu) on Instagram inspired this mani! She is the queen of tape manis! She does absolutely gorgeous manis every time! If you have IG and aren't following her, you're crazy! Go and follow her right now! :)

For the base I used Essence - Sweet as Candy, a sheer jelly pink. It's not really streaky, but I wish it leveled out as nicely as the OPI Ballet Collection sheer jellies do! I then used a thin coat of Essie - Good to Go fast drying top coat so that layer would dry faster. I waited about 40 minutes and then taped off a section of my nail and painted the tip of my nail with China Glaze - Fast Track, a new polish to me from the Hunger Games collection that is a nude with tons of gorgeous gold shimmer. I then used another coat of Good to Go over that, and once it was dry, I taped off a section slightly lower down and used Essie - Super Bossa Nova, a hot pink with loads of pink and blue-ish shimmer. And then I topped it off with Seche Vite top coat.

Sadly I didn't get to wear this mani for longer than a couple hours because it just would NOT dry completely. I guess I had way too many layers of polish. :( I'd love to try this again though, and try to wait longer in between coats of polish.

I'm kinda excited about tomorrow's mani I have to show you! :) Animal print! Sadly tomorrow is the last day you'll be seeing my nails at a length that I actually like. :(

Elissa