Day 5 - Ladybirds

Ahhh dear another weekend over before I could even get a chance to relax! Been a busy day - went to body step at the gym (my goodness it's tough!), coffee with the girls and then off to work for the afternoon. Finally got a chance to sit down and do some swatching now! Today I'm wearing OPI's Color So Hot It Berns and a really simple and cute ladybird nail art design! Check it out:

Color So Hot It Berns

What an unbelievable red! I would highly recommend if you are after a good, classic, bright red cream. The colour is gorgeous and the formula is perfect!! Even with one coat the colour is really even - not streaky at all - and almost opaque! Here's what it looks like with one coat:

As you can see it is almost the colour in the bottle with just one coat and really even and opaque. You can barely see my nails underneath and with 2 coats this colour is perfect - just needs a top coat to make the polish glossier and really 'pop'. This is from the 2010 Swiss Collection. The minis from this collection are called "Irre-swiss-ables" which I just find adorable! I think OPI did a really great job with this range - just the right combination of colours, shimmers and creams! My other favourite picks from this collection are Ski Teal We Drop, Diva of Geneva and Just A Little Rösti At This (debatably my favourite deep red) - all of which I purchased when they came out last year because I just couldn't resist!

Here's what the minis look like:

Ladybird nail art

After painting the base colour, I started off by painting the tips of my nails black with Black Onyx and then painting a thin black line down the centre of my nail, using a thin nail art brush.

I then used a medium-tipped dotting tool to paint of the ladybird's spots, spacing them evenly.

I finished with the eyes, using a larger-tipped dotting tool and Alpine Snow to dot on the white back of the eyes and then my smallest-tipped dotting tool for the black pupils. I then finished with OPI RapiDry Top Coat for a really glossy finish. Here are a few more pics:

It looks really tricky but as I said, it's actually really simple and quick if you have the tools for it. I had a request from an anonymous reader yesterday for me to post a picture up of the tools I use so here they are :)

Not an amazing photo I'm sorry but on the left I've got a little manicure set by Sally Hansen (file, clippers, cuticle trimmer and buffer), then my favourite scissors, then on the right you have my dotting tools (I bought these really cheaply off eBay and they work great!) - just have to remember to clean them after every use. Then you have my nail art brushes which also require lots of cleaning afterwards and during. As you can see the paint on the handles has worn away a little because of dipping them into remover to clean them :P. I've misplaced one of these unfortunately so I'm managing with these two at the moment - will have to purchase some more off eBay (also very cheap and work perfectly fine). Then underneath you have my polish corrector pen which is great for touch-ups after you've painted your nails!

Hope you all have had a great weekend! Cya tomorrow!

Day 4 - Checked nails!

Happy Saturday everyone! And wowza what a hot one it was in Melbourne today! I don't deal very well with the heat and so swatching this evening has been very unpleasant...but here they are! Today I thought I would try out my new striping tape to do a checked pattern with two gorgeous colours, OPI Shorts Story and Dim Sum Plum. I didn't realise until afterwards but these are a very similar combination of colours that I did for Valentine's Day...whoops! But just goes to show how awesome they look together. I'll let you see for yourselves:

Finished Product

The colours I used...

Here's a series of photos so you can see the process:

The striping tape left purple marks on the polish so I added black lines over where the tape was, makes the pattern stand out a little better too I think :)

It took aaaaaaages. A very slow and tedious process because the tape is so fiddly and it was really hard trying to paint in the tiny boxes without making the polish too thick. I think they turned out alright though. Not bad for a first attempt with the tape!

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Please send me comments or ideas if you have any, input is always appreciated!