Chanel Nails

Firstly I want to thank say you to all our followers who check back regularly to see what's happening here on our blog. In recent months I have been very slack posting, but I checked into the stats today and there are lots of you still checking in daily. So thanks! You have given me the push I needed to blog again xx It was only fitting I did something super glam for the super fans! CHANEL.

Jules and I share our nail art daily on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter and Tumblr,  so if you like to keep up to date with our manis please follow along. Facebook is making it really hard for our followers to see us :( So if you feel like you haven't seen anything in your newsfeed, you probably haven't...but we are posting...everyday! To have our posts show up please like and comment on our photos and facebook will start to put more DQN stuff in your newsfeed. Ok...on to the mani XD

Polishes used:

• OPI - White gold and silver topcoat
• OPI - Love, Music, Angel, Baby (gold satin)
• China Glaze: Liquid Leather

The Chanel logo is a water decal. I have had it for ages, I think it came free with a big order we did for nail decals. You can find them lots of places on the net. They are a bit fiddly to apply, but not too hard. Basically you cut out the shape really closely. Place it on your nail, then use a cotton tip soaked it water to wet it from behind. Then you peel the paper off. Its exactly like applying a fake tattoo. My decal was gold but when wet turned white gold...weird but cool! 

I will be posting again here on the blog later in the week...yeah I'm on a roll! xx

OPI Black Spotted

In 2012 when OPI released their Spiderman collection they teased us Aussie girls with a speciality polish called Black Spotted. Described as as oil meets water effect, this limited edition polish was only released in France which sent us nail crazies into a spin trying to figure out how to get our hands on it. It was almost as hard to get as trying to get a decent picture of this mani!  

Black Spotted is a really watery polish that you apply over regular nail polish to create a spotty, oily effect. You have to make sure your base colour is dry and I mean dry before you apply it or it cracks and ruins the bubbly look. I found adding a layer of Seche before the Black Spotted sped up this process however did make it a little harder to apply so that the spots didn't drag and turn into lines instead of bubbles. You need to apply it delicately and try not to overlap as it floods itself and you loose bubbles and end up with a black blob. Once I figured out how to apply it to get maximum effect it was quick and easy to use. It dried really quickly and didn't smudge when I applied top coat.

Black Spotted is available online from a variety of esellers however its not cheap. You can recreate this effect by dripping one drop of polish into a shot glass then spraying it with hairspray or alcohol spray, however it rarely comes out as good as Black Spotted and its a lot harder to clean up. So is it worth the price? I say yes, I love the effect, its easy to use and because you have to apply it in thin stokes you hardly use any polish so it should last a long time. I'm glad I have it in my collection.

I layered Black Spotted over China Glaze - Flip, Flop, Fantasy which is a neon coral creme from the 2011 Poolside collection. We have this colour at the markets if you like it. So will you be searching out the elusive Black Spotted for your collection?

Lush Lacquer - Clowning Around

Perhaps I'm too harsh on myself but the idea I had for this mani looked better in my head. I envisioned an opaque nude print for my accent nail over a striking neon pink, yet the reality is I'm yet to find the perfect nude stamping polish. The search continues......The neon glitter over the nude, now that's a different story, its Lush Lacquer - Clowning Around, its perfect in every way.

Clowning Around is a glitter topper polish. It has a variety of neon hexagon shaped glitter pieces suspended in a clear base. This is the type of glitter polish that needs to be applied using a dabbing motion to position the glitter pieces evenly across the nail. The suspension base is very forgiving allowing you to move the pieces easily without glitter drag or ruining your base colour.

It looks completely different in the bottle than it does on the nail. In the bottle it appears as if the glitters are mostly reds and oranges, on the nail you can clearly see the variety of colours. It would look great over black, white or grey. 

The nude is OPI - Don't Pretzel My Buttons  My most used nude that I lurve to death, it suits my skin tone perfectly and it has this subtle pink tint to it that stops it from looking too brown.

The swirly image is from Pueen26. I love these plates so much that the first time I used them I put so much pressure on myself to come up with something amazing to christen them with that I couldn't decide which plate to use,  so I had a massive drama queen rage quit and sulked for a day! 

And the verdict is still out on how to say Pueen......Pween like queen? Pooeen like a big Aussie bogan? Or is it just Peen? Perhaps its a Chinese typo and it was meant so say Queen all along, I mean it does have a picture of a crown on the storage pouch. Maybe we will never know......

Liquid Sand Gradient

So is it possible to use OPIs new Liquid Sand textured polish to create gradients? I think its safe to say, definitely! I love how this mani turned out, the sand polish was a dream to work with and dare I say, easier to use for gradients than normal creme polish. Its textured finish is far more forgiving of those little lumps and bumps you end up with sometimes when you're sponging. Read on for a guide on how to recreate this mani using polishes from the OPI 2013 Bond Girls Collection.

To create this design is actually very easy. Paint one thick coat of your base colour. Allow it to dry (the dry time on these liquid sand polishes is excellent, I waited about 3 minutes). Paint your accent colour onto the tip of your sponge then slowly dab it on the tip of your nail, working your way from nail tip towards the cuticle  Steady as she goes, dab excess polish from the sponge onto paper first before applying to nail to avoid building up colour too quickly. That's it, it's really that simple.

This stunning gold sand is OPI - Honey Rider. The blue is OPI - Tiffany Case. As with most sand textured polish you do not apply top coat as it dulls the sparkly finish. Without topcoat the wear of these polishes is good. You will get 2-3 days without chips if you apply a good base coat. They are easier to remove than glitter polish, but harder than a creme or jelly finish polish.

And well you know me, I love a good accent, albeit a little random I love how my ring finger turned out. I used light and dark blue square studs to create this design. You can get the studs here.

Pandemonium

How's this for a mix....its pandemonium! I mixed textures with stamping and an indie glitter to create a panda kitchensink mani. I think the combo works well, I mean come on, who doesn't love pandas?

The colours I used in this mani:

• Picture Polish - Jade (middle finger)
• BC - Shade 22 (Jade green)
• OPI - Solitaire - Liquid Sand
• Daring Digits - Blackberry Square (black and white glitter)
• Konad Special Polish in green
• Konad Special Polish in black

The panda image is from The Winstonia collection, plate 115. The bamboo is from Konad m66, a great Japanese themed plate.

So the verdict on liquid sand polish? The texture is interesting, it feels exactly like sand mixed with glue. The glitter flecks throughout is what takes them to the next level and helps to add dimension to what could otherwise be just a gimmicky effect. The bottle says not to wear topcoat with the liquid sand as it flattens the texture, however as I stamped over it I added a layer of Seche Vite and the texture was effected a little but still retained that bumpy feel.

Well hello there little panda, aren't you a cutie.

Jelly Sandwiches are so delicious

So you've been lusting after a stream of hard to find indie glitter polishes? The reality of being a nail polish collector is that you cant always have every polish (I know!). As much as you try some brands are just really difficult or very expensive to get to Australia. Nail mail buddies are great, but for those of us who need instant gratification why not try creating your own unique polish or duplicating a hard to find polish by making a jelly sandwich.

So what is a jelly sandwich? Its much like a normal sandwich, layers of stuff put together to make one delicious treat. Traditionally a jelly sandwich consists of 1 or 2 layers of a sheer polish, then a layer of glitter, plus another layer of the sheer polish. However I find the best way to create the sandwich is to start off with one coat of an opaque creme polish. This takes away the nasty VNL and speeds up the drying time.

Layer your favourite glitter over your base colour and give it a good chance to dry so that it doesn't move in the next step.  Choose a sheer version of the colour you used on the bottom. You can tell if a polish is sheer 2 ways. If you have to do more than 3 coats to get opacity you've got yourself a sheer. Also if you can see the polish brush easily through the polish, then its a good chance its a sheer. Apply one coat of the sheer polish over the top of the glitter. Let it dry then apply your top coat. Voila, jelly sandwich.

The polishes that I used: Bottom layer is OPI Skull and Glossbones, Glitter is Chi Chi Gliterazi and the sheer layer is OPI My Pointe Exactly.

I love how this turned out. If I would have used white on the bottom I reckon I could have gotten very close to recreating China Glaze Its a trapeze. So if you are lusting for some hard to find indie polishes, or perhaps you are on a no buy and looking to create something new to trick yourself into thinking you have new polish, then jelly sandwich it up! Mmmm tasty.

Confessions of a glequin addict

Yeah, yeah, so I used glequins again...I promise though, there was a plan behind it all. With my last few designs I have been curious to see just how many different ways you can use them to mimic painted nail art techniques. Also I get so many questions about 2 things, how to apply glequins and what is striping tape. So today's experiment was put all those nail art elements together in an attempt to show how I use both glequins and striping tape and also to see if glequins could;

1. Do a gradient
2. Be used as polka dots
3. Lastly be used with striping tape to make lines or cut out sections.

Well I'm not entirely sold on the gradient, it looks kinda messy and chunky and doesn't have the nice fade effect so I probably need to work on that and tweak it a bit. The polka dots look cool, will definitely be using glequins for that look again. And the striping tape...hmm well, the jury is out on this one. This is the first time I have tried something like this so it was bound to have its imperfections.  I do think there is something there though, just the placement of the stripes and the sections covered needs to be reworked. I think its important to show your nail failures as much as your successes as we learn from others and also ourselves and there are many times when I do a design just for the practice then take it off straight away.

The tools I use when working with glequins. A small dotting tool to pick up each sequin, a piece of tin foil to put a little dab of base coat on. I dip into the little dot to make the end of my dotting tool sticky so it can pick up things. I normally apply base coat directly on my nails where I want to apply sequins, working with small areas at a time so that it doesn't dry on me. If I have gaps to fill I will use the dotting tool to put a tiny dot of base coat in the hole then stick the sequin over it. You can get the glequins here.

To do the stripes on my middle finger I used striping tape. Striping tape is very thin tape that can be used to make straight lines or as a straight line feature over the top of polish. It comes in many colours but there are two main kinds, holographic pretty tape and plain matte rubbery tape. The rubbery kind is best for geometric designs likes lasers or the Rubiks Cube nails that I did. Whilst the fancy holographic  looks really nice as a feature. It does still make clean lines its just a bit more finicky. You can get striping tape here.

I applied the tape, then painted base coat in-between, like in rows, then applied the glequins. Normally I would advise to pull the striping tape off as soon as you are finished painting that area, it gives cleaner lines. However as I was working with something chunky that I didn't want to move until it was set I left the tape on until I was finished the whole nail.

The base colour I used was OPI Skull & Glossbones, a putty grey creme, my go to grey as it is opaque in two coats and the colour is just so fab and chic. This polish is from the Pirates of the Caribbean collection. I hope you guys had a few of your questions answered with this post. Please comment below if there is anything else you would like to know.

Glequin Zip Zags

You know I love a glequin at the best of times, but combine them with one of my other favourite designs zig zags, and you've got a winning combo. Don't even ask me how long they took, it was at least 2 vodkas! The nude colour is OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons. 

1. Start by painting all your nails with your contrast colour, or in my case I was going for a more muted background to tone down the explosion of colour of my accent nails.

2. Use a nail art pen or striper to roughly sketch out a zig zag line across the middle of your accent nails to get the general shape you want to follow when applying the glequins.

3. Use glue or base/top coat to apply glequins. I painted a bit of basecoat to one side of my zig zag (don't do the whole line because it will dry before you get to the other side) then put a dab of base coat on a bit of paper. I used a small dotting tool, dipped it in the tiny dot of base coat I had on the paper just to make the dotting tool a little sticky to enable me to pick up each glequin and precisely place it.

4. Move row by row working first down from the middle where you drew your line to the cuticle, then again from the middle up to the tip of your nail. Fill in any areas at the cuticle and tip with extra glequins to fill spaces if necessary.

4. Wait a few minutes for the glequins to set and dry.

5. Apply top coat making sure to re-stroke over any places where you see bubbles forming. It can happen, you have an uneven surface so bubbles may form near joins etc

6. Apply a 2nd coat of top coat to give a super flat glossy finish.

You could definately do all your nails with this design, it would look spectacular but realistically you are looking at 3 hours plus to do something like that.

These hexagons glequins are available now from Drama Queen Nails

OPI - Lincoln Park After Dark

OPI describes this polish as "where midnight meets purple". Spot on! In normal light it appears as black however in sunlight you can see the purple undertones. It looks more purple in the bottle then it does on your nails. This is 2 coats with top coat. Its a crème formula that applied very well and dried to a glossy finish. This polish is from the Chicago collection.

Clean up for this polish is tricky due to its opacity and dark colour so try really hard not to flood your cuticles.

Puzzle your friends with your amazing nails

Rubik's Cube! I had to throw these up here even though I did them a while ago as I still get heaps of questions about them from my followers on IG and FB. How did you do these? How did you get them so neat?

Simple answer...they took agesssssss! I will do a tutorial for them when I have more time but for now here is a quick explanation.

1. Paint your nails black. Wait for them to dry COMPLETELY or apply a fast drying top coat to cheat a little and get them to dry fast.
2. Cut up 30 pieces of striping tape
3. 3. Lay them in a tic-tac-toe arrangement however also add a strip to the top and bottom of the nail
4. Fill in all the little square spaces with a small detail brush. 
5. Remove tape in the reverse order to how you applied it - super important! 
6. Use a black striping brush/polish to run over the lines if they are a little messy and add some black to each side of the nail.
7. Wait for at least 10 min before applying top coat so that your lines or colours don't smudge or smear.

It's really not too hard just a little time consuming :) As for the polishes I used, well I kinda mixed and matched a few polishes together to get the right hue for the Rubik's Cube colours. If you give them a try I would love to see so please share. On a side note...I had a Rubik's cube when I was little and for the life of me I could never work it out and drove me to despair that I couldn't solve it lol 

Aussie Christmas Challenge Day 1: Red

Aussie Xmas Challenge Day 1: Red. 

I love challenges...I respond well to pressure and having a theme guides my decision making process and the nail art evolves from finger to finger. That's my favourite way of putting things together vs. going in with a set plan for a design.

• OPI Danke-shiny Red from the OPI Germany Collection is a shimmering medium red polish.
• OPI Gettin Miss Piggy With It from The Muppets Collection, a clear base glitter with tiny red glitter pieces mixed with red and silver hexagon glitter. Layered over DL Fashion.
• Deborah Lippman Fashion is the nude base colour, a mushroom brown with pink undertones.

Many wins here; I got to use some of my new studs, 2 new polishes and have ended up with another awesome nude to add to my collection that suits my skin tone.

I think these are super fab! Pity they have to die tomorrow to make way for six white boomers! Dang the song is back in my head now. 

Neon Heart

Sometimes a girl has limited time for nail art...life gets in the way. The solution? Sequins! Neon sequins even! This mani took about 10 minutes all up. The base colour is OPI Nein Nein Nein OK Fine, a dark charcoal grey creme. It looks black in this sunlight picture however in the bottle picture you can see its grey. I got these sequins from dollarnailart.com. You can buy individual colours for $1 each or a 10 pack of different colours for $7.99. I placed each heart using a small dotting tool then applied 2 coats of Seche Vite over the top to flatten and seal in the sequins. They were a little raised above the nail which gave them this cool 3D effect. Expect lots of sequins, I've got so many to try XD

OPI Germany Collection

OPI Germany Collection. I know I'm a little late to get this but better late then never right? I decided to get this collection after buying a mini set and stumbling upon Don't Pretzel My Buttons. It turned out to be my perfect nude. Then I tried the charcoal grey and the purple and it was all over...they had to be mine. I love buying collections as the colours compliment each other really well for nail art. There is also the crazy nail lady factor where I have to have them all lined up together. I really love all of the colours and OPI brushes are just the best. Sagenhaft! That's German for legend----ary!

Here are the names of the polishes in the collection.

OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons.

Battle of the Mannequin Hands!

My fascination with nail art and polish started in January of 2012. After starting a Facebook page, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest account I figured it was time to get serious and attempt a real blog. So please enjoy the often high pitched, squealing accounts of my adventures in the world of nail art.

For my first ever blog post I decided to go back to basics. Don't get me wrong I love bright colours and will often mix and match a tonne of colours in one mani. However sometimes its nice to strip back and wear a classic chic nude shade. After almost a year of collecting nudes from every brand, I have finally found 2 that are remarkably close to my skin tone and apply well.

First up we have OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons.  A creme polish from the Germany Collection released in 2012. Opaque in two coats with an excellent formula that is forgiving on application. Its mainly a sandy brown base with mushroom and pink undertones

Secondly we have Deborah Lippman Naked. A sheer nude polish, a sandy brown base with peach undertones. Another excellent formula that applied without streaking. It dried quickly with a high shine finish  My only grumble with this polish is that its a 3 coater. This is 2 coats and there is VNL *gasp* which I am not a massive fan of. However because the polish is quite thin I can't see 3 coats being an issue in terms of drying time and thickness on the nail.

I tend to gravitate towards the OPI for nail art due to its opacity. I used it with multi coloured stamping and its lightness complimented the 3 pink and purple shades, allowing them to stay true to form vs. adding a brown tinge to their original colour. I am sure that both of these polishes will be in high rotation, with the Deborah Lippman being a nice colour for when I have more of a tan in the summer months.