The Digit-al Dozen does Metal Day 1

Hello everyone! I am very much enjoying my blogging break and hope that you are all enjoying a sunny June wherever you are. I'm back for this week to bring you five manis with all the other ladies in the Digit-al Dozen and this month our theme is metal. 

Once I saw this I was so annoyed that I hadn't saved my sheet metal mani from two months ago! It was my most popular mani to date and would've been perfect! Still, to kick off this week I decided to go with one of my fluid designs. 

I started with a base of Nail Essentials SIlver Shimmer and freehanded some sections of Color Club Pearl District. I then added sections of All About Nails Bronze, leaving a fine line of silver showing between the gold and the bronze. To finish, I went over the silver using Color Club Sex Symbol with a striping brush, and finished with Seche Vite.

I wish that the bronze was a little "bronzer", but I like the style and overall molten metal feel of this. They're not my usual sort of colours either, but I resisted to cover the whole thing in glitter and tried to make the sparkle an accent to the design instead. 

For those of you that missed this one, here's the mani that I wish I'd saved for this week :)

See you tomorrow!

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

The Digit-al Dozen does Texture - Day 2

Hello everyone! Today is the second day of Texture week and I have something a lot simpler than yesterday's creation featuring one of my favourite colour combinations (so much so that this was the colour scheme for my wedding)!

I painted freehand sections of Claire's Accessories Black Leather polish and Pretty Hot Pink Leather polish. Pretty is a brand I have only ever found in Poundland - the effects polishes are a bit hit and miss and the smell is not something they should be proud of, but some of their polishes are gems and this is one of them. I separated the colours with LA Colors Metallic Silver to add a little bit of shine and that was that!

This is a very "me" design, in very "me" colours, but I'm not a huge fan of textured polishes so I have ventured at least a little bit out of my safe zone! Tomorrow is a little bit more "out there" though, and doesn't really involve a whole lot of polish ;) Check out all of today's other awesome DD manis below!

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

The Digit-al Dozen does Texture - Day 1

Hello everyone! I am so excited (and not just a little bit nervous) to bring you today's post as it is my first with The Digit-al Dozen! 

I was thrilled to be invited to join this group of talented nail artists, but I was so nervous when I saw that the first theme was Texture! In fairness though, it could've been "Animal Print Abstracts and Neons" (there's my comfort zone!) and I would've been just as nervous, so here goes!!!

Starting with a confession - I'm a gamer. I love my Xbox. While thinking about this theme I've been playing Fallout 3 which features Rivet City (pictured at the end of the post) as part of the post apocalyptic landscape. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to try and recreate the rusty metal texture of the city wall (please note the use of the past tense - "thought" it was a good idea...).

I started with a base of Nail Essentials Silver Shimmer and then added in some guidelines for the panels with Ciate Vintage. I sponged along those lines with LA Colors Fiery Orange and Jessica Electric Teal to create the rusted effect and then redefined the lines with a little more Ciate Vintage. I dotted the rivets and screws with Silver Shimmer and Vintage and then sponged around a little more "rust" before finishing with OPI Matte Top Coat.

Finally, here's a picture of Rivet City:

 So, there's my first post for The Digital Dozen! I know its not exactly pretty nail art, but once I'd had the idea, I had to see it through and I'm actually pretty pleased with the results! 

I have four more Texture themed manis to show you this week, some a little more traditional than others ;) You can see all of today's other fabulous DD Texture manis by following the links below and I'll be back with another one for you tomorrow :)

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up