On trend 2014: White Nails with Neon Ruffian

I enjoy the palette cleanser that white nails provide but find them a little stark and boring on their own so today I'm going to show you a way to add a pop of colour using a gradient ruffian.

I wanted a neon pop to this so I used Orly Hook Up and Holla and Lilypad Lacquer In Pink We Trust with OPI My Boyfriend Scales Wall. There was no particular order to where I put the neon polishes but my nail beds are only really wide enough for two colours- if you have wider nail beds you could put all three on each nail.

I have made a photo tutorial for this look so you can recreate it at home:

1) Freehand stripes of your chosen colours vertically on your nail- it does not matter what this looks like at the tip (one coat should do) but make sure you paint the whole nail to help the white polish level later on.

2) Top coat! Make sure you topcoat to prevent streaking of the colours onto the white later!

3) Paint a stripe of white up the middle of your nail leaving a small strip of the colours exposed at the cuticle

4) Paint up the sides of the nail so that the colour is seen in a crescent moon shape at the base of your nails. It will take two coats of white to make this fully opaque- have a tiny brush on hand to use with acetone incase you make a mistake (because you have a layer of top coat over the colours you can correct small mistakes without losing the colour)

Then topcoat your final design, clean up around your cuticle to get the perfect oval shape and you're good to go.

NB this design makes your nails look shorter but your fingers look longer- if you have short nails that you dislike you have been warned! This is easier if you use a white polish with a small brush (the OPI was a little too big for my tiny nails). If you use my tutorial I would love to see it :).

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33DC Inspired by a Tutorial

This wasn't really a tutorial but it is someone else's design. Dressed up Nails did these awesome dotty hearts and when I saw them I knew they were what I wanted to copy for this challenge. I did mine in neon pink and pastel lime green- a fabulous combination which is under appreciated.

The colours used here are Jessica Lime Cooler and Lilypad Lacquer In Pink We Trust- an exclusive made for the UK store Sally Magpies. I did the dots with a dotting tool and freehanded the stripes with a medium length striping brush.

I really like this manicure. I like how in your face it is but also isn't because the pastel green tones it down, just awesome :).

Tomorrow I will have a post summing up my top ten polishes for the winter season now that the clocks have gone back and some of them are a little wild cardy so come and see if you agree with me :).

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33 DC Mexican Sugar Skulls

The only thing I ever really see on people's nails about Mexico are the Cinco de Mayo sugar skulls. So I used this tutorial by Pretty Squared to draw skulls onto my nails.

The polishes I used in this were Barry M Guava and Passion Fruit, Jessica Radioactive, Lilypad Lacquer In Pink we Trust, NYC Lexington Yellow, OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, Orly Hottie and Holla. I used NYC Matte Me Crazy to give it a satiny matte finish. The details were all drawn on with Barry M Nail Art pen.

I've added a link to my giveaway below, enter to win a bottle of my Pocket Money Polish custom Sparks and OPI Tiffany Case. UK ONLY sorry international readers :(

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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31DC Inspired by a tutorial 33DC Tribal

To do a double challenge for this I just had to find a tribal tutorial that I liked. I found one by Simple nail art designs here .

I was doing these quite late at night so the lighting is a bit weird in these photos. I used A England Lady of the Lake, Essie The Girls are Out, Lilypad Lacquer Nature Calling and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the colours and painted on the details with acrylic paint.

Tomorrow is the very last day of the 31day challenge and I will be recreating an awesome mani so come back and check it out :).

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33DC Tape

I saw this done on another blog (although I can't remember whose) and I thought it looked really cool. Its a taped off gradient

I used Lilypad Lacquer Merlot for Me as the base, waited overnight for it to dry then applied my tape and sponged Emily de Molly Where Boys Fear to Tread over the top.

Thankfully the sun decided to come out to show off the magnificence of this look. It still looks good in the shade but different.

The 33 day challenge will resume on Monday and I have some exciting news on Monday as well :)

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31DC Half Moon

I'm revisiting the very first design I ever posted on my blog with this post, my half moon planets. I still love this idea and am very proud of my little planets.

Obviously my thumb is Earth but the rest are just random planets.

The polishes: Lilypad Lacquer Bluebell, W7 Silver, OPI Eurso Euro, Smitten Polish The Ghost of Jupiter, Tara's Talons Envy in a Bottle, NYC High Line Green, Orly Hook Up, Jessica Goddess, Hare Polish Dauphine of Decadence, NYC Chelsea Cherry, A England Bridal Veil, Dollish Polish The Man in Black.

I'll admit that I am now doing space themed nails two days in a row but I really wanted to recreate these, so tomorrow I will be doing galaxy nails without the galaxy.

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31DC Blue

This mani is a little more complex than it looks, the base is Barry M Guava with some OPI I have a herring problem and Barry M Blue Grape sponged on top and then stamped with Emily de Molly Where boys fear to tread in a fish pattern and Lilypad Lacquer Nature Calling in a seaweed pattern and then with Butter London Frilly Knickers on top.

I thought the holos would stamp well but the green doesn't really show up at all.

Not my favourite, but I think tomorrow's mani will more than make up for that! Check back in for purple.

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Holographic Brush Stroke Mani

I have been seeing brush stroke manis everywhere recently and after trying one out on my friend Heather (which you'll see tomorrow) I decided to do one on myself with a pink, blue and grey colour scheme. I also included two holographic polishes which gave this mani an extra dimension in the sun.

The above photo shows how this mani looks in the shade and the below shows how it transforms in the sunlight:

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Franken Frosting Whimsical Magic Ride Nail Art

Last night I sat down and planned out my blog posts for the next two weeks, it was pretty hard work and I feel a little drained of inspiration right now but boy do I have a lot lined up for you. Next week I plan to do some exciting nail art designs inspired by other bloggers and the week after will be a themed week, but more about that later. Today I have some nail art which turned into something completely different to what I had planned. I was aiming for a gradient running across the nails rather than the usual way but the colours I chose were too close to each other and just didn't really show up. This is what I ended up with

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