Week of Love Nail Art Challenge - Freestyle/Recreate

Hello everyone and Happy Valentine's Day! Today sees the end of the 5 day Week of Love Nail Art challenge being hosted by Jessica from Be Happy and Buy Polish. If you check out the links from all the posts and the Pinterest board, you will find some fantastic, creative, lovey dovey nail art.

The last prompt was Freestyle/Recreate, so I went with Freestyle to create an old school tattoo style mani. I started with an LA Colors sandy nude with a shimmer - I'd give you the name but its worn off the bottle (oops!). I then painted on the letters with Black Velvet and French White and added the heart using Color Club Art of Seduction which I then outlined with the black. 

I think that along with the chalkboard hearts and crosses I did last week that these are my favourite Valentines nails that I've done this year! They are very me and you can expect more tattoo style nails when my competition length nails arrive in the next week or so, although I think that they are going to be a long term project!

This has been an awesome challenge (perfect length!) and I wish that I'd been able to get more involved. Big thanks to Jessica for hosting and organising! Check out all the other final manis by following the links below! :)

Sam xx

An InLinkz Link-up

NAILS Mag 31DC Day 24 - Chained Hearts

Hello everyone! As always I've been avoiding the Valentines manis up to this point, but as its a prompt for the 31DC I thought I'd give it a go and maybe put my own little anti-Valentines spin on it :) I'm not against love, romance or anything like that (quite the opposite in fact!), but I'm against a day where flowers, champagne and chocolate all cost 75% more than they do the week before or after, especially as it means that I have to stock up on all three in advance! So my "chained hearts" mani reflects all that in one way or another...

I started with a base of LA Colors Black Velvet and then painted in some white hearts. Once dry I went over the white with LA Colors Red Carnation. I then added in the chain effect with a dotting tool using Nail Essentials Silver Shimmer and a little more black. All finished with a healthy coat of Seche Vite.

I can't say that this mani turned out exactly how I expected it to, or that it even went remotely in the direction of what I had in my head when I started, but I still think its cool. I still have my last few 31DC manis heading your way, but due to a hectic posting schedule (get me!), they'll be saved for February :)

Sam xx