Pick N Mix Week 7 - Wild Animals / Yellow

I am a secret lover of yellow nails. Painted yellow, not just stained from too much polish yellow. I think they look super summery as long as you find the right tone of yellow for your skin. If you pick the wrong one you tend just make your hands - and thus by extension, yourself - look a little ill.

I tried this mani first with pastel yellow and had to change it - I liked the colour, but a) I wasn't sure if it liked me, and b) it got totally overpowered by the dark grey.

Armed and Ready ... to stamp!

I've been pretty good in December - I put myself on a no buy last pay day (22nd Nov) and I can honestly say I've not bought anything.

Mr Painted Claws, on the other hand, saw me looking longingly at the Essie that is the base colour for this mani and promptly informed me that he couldn't let me go home without it. 

ER31DC Week 22 - Inspired by a Song

Nothing jumped out at me to do for this one, so I decided to stick my iTunes on and let it decide for me. Thankfully my music collection is varied beyond most people's wildest imagination, and the first song it threw up on shuffle was this beauty...

Tri-Polish Challenge May - Toy Soldiers

For some reason these nails really remind me of the toy soldiers off the Nutcracker and I really do not know why.

I've managed to use all 3 colours in all 4 of my looks for this month's tri-polish challenge. Go me.

Tri-Polish Challenge May - Leopard Print

And we're up to look #3 for May's tri-polish challenge.

This picture was the first time I'd ever done leopard print. I liked it so much I did it two days in a row for two different challenges, haha.

Tri-Polish Challenge May - Stripes & Tips

Tri-polish challenge nails #2 - Stripes and Tips.

This was actually the first set of nails I did for the challenge, and I really have to admit that I had completely no direction when doing these nails. I just did stuff, and then these nails happened.

Tri-Polish Challenge May - Accidentally Mondrian?

My first attempt at the tri-polish challenge, although I sorely regret not throwing caution to the wind and doing last month's as the colour combination turned out to look amazing.

The rules for the Tri-polish Challenge are thus...

• Each month Crumpet's Nail Tarts will set 3 colours for the challenge.  You then choose 1 polish to represent each of those 3 colours.  You must stick to those same 3 polishes throughout the entire challenge.
• Each Challenge Day, you must use at least 2 of these 3 polishes in your mani.  You must also use all 3 polishes at least once.

Thats it. Simples.

This month's colour combination is gray, red and blue, and so the polishes for this month are - Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Ion for the gray, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Rapid Red and Nails Inc Albert Place for the blue.

My first look for the challenge this month reminds me of (and this is where I sound really arty and stuff) the painting by Piet Mondrian called Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow.

ER31DC - Week 3

Week 3 of the Extra Relaxed 31 Day Week Challenge, this week's colour is yellow.

I only own 2 yellow polishes - Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Yellow Kitty, which is a soft, pastel yellow; and BarryM Yellow, which looks like an American Taxi. I was fairly stumped with what to do this week to go with the yellow, until I remembered a really old website layout I created whilst in uni. Mid-grey, sky blue and sunflower yellow halftone gradients all over the place, with shy blue and sunflower yellow highlights on white text. It wasn't as awful as it sounds, honest. But when I remembered that, I pulled out my trusty dotting tools and created this...

Spring?

I'm being totally optimistic with the usage of the word spring. The snow has only just thawed and its still windy and freezing outside, but I felt the need for something a little less snowy on my nails.

Generally any mention of 'spring' involves pastels, which I've never really been fond of, so I went shuffling through my polish drawers and found something a little less on the saturated side.

The base colour, Sally Hansen Complete Manicure in Gray by Gray, is a lovely shade of slate-y blue gray which provides a lovely contrast for what is probably the most optimistically early daisy ever. Quite impressed at my first attempt at flowers, not that they're massively complex, but they're a wonderfully cheery alternative to the gray skies that are hanging about right now. Daisy was done in all-purpose BarryM White and Yellow.