Daisy Duke Bikini by Chi Chi Cosmetics - Design 5 - A fox in the ruffian

Today is the last design using Daisy Duke Bikini! Now I am kind of sick of orange. In the next few days I'll put up an over view post and the tutorials for each design created. After that there might be some random nail art before I commence on my next round of 1 Polish, 5 Designs. But back to today's nail art.

I'm calling this a fox in the ruffian as I freehanded a fox and some ruffian nails, duh. The brownish grey base is a BC Co. colour I picked up for 50 cents at Kmart, it has no name. The orange is Daisy Duke Bikini, the white is Sinful Colours Snow Me White and the black another 50 cent BC Co. nail polish. I freehanded the fox using a cut down craft brush and the fox design is based of a bed spread I saw while shopping (no pictures sorry). Everything was topped with Essie, No Chips Ahead, top coat.

Hopefully you've enjoyed this series. I have plenty of other polishes but it's just a matter of finding the inspiration. Check for the overview posts in the next few days if you want to know how to do any of these designs. Until then, more pictures.

Close up of the fox!

This is the design as done on my none dominant hand. I always paint both my hands because I  generally always wear my designs for a few days before doing a new one. I also always do the same design on both hands so I just wanted to use this picture to show that it is possible to do these designs on both hands so you can wear the look. 

Swatch||Design 1||Design 2||Design 3||Design 4

Daisy Duke Bikini by Chi Chi Cosmetics - Design 4 - Triangle and stud

After not painting my nails for a few days, because I was busy making a light box and organising my polishes, I've finally painted design 4 using Daisy Duke Bikini. I've actually had this design in my head since I began this series but it didn't turn out as well as I had imagined. Ah well, you win some and you lose some! Check out the image below, my first using a light box, to see the design.

This was a super easy mani, because I was feeling a little lazy. I first painted a base of Daisy Duke Bikini, then used sticky tape to mark off the triangles and used Snow Me White by Sinful Colors to paint fill in the gaps. Using a trimmed down paint brush, I then used BC Co. Shade 11, to line the edges of the triangle. I then used Essie, No Chips Ahead as a top coat and added the orange studs from the Born Pretty Store whilst the top coat was still wet. I then added another coat of Essie, No Chips Ahead to seal the deal.

You can see the nails are really messy as I did them super quickly BUT, to distract you from that, LOOK AT MY PRETTY PICTURES! I think I actually prefer not using a light box but the weather here has been very grey the past few days, so light box pictures look a billion times better. But that's my opinion, what do you think? Light box or outdoors? As you ponder that, look at the rest of the pictures below (and I'll stop rambling).

Swatch||Design 1||Design 2||Design 3

Daisy Duke Bikini by Chi Chi Cosmetics - Design 3 - Florals

Major procrastination whist doing an assignment today lead to me creating design 3 with Daisy Duke Bikini. This doesn't bode well for my assignments but did turn into some pretty cool nail art, which looked absolutely stunning in the lovely autumn afternoon sun we had today.

Design 3, as you can see, are some pretty funky, messy, florals. I love how messy these are mainly because I'm not trying to create perfect nailart, I'm trying to create something that can be easily reproduced. The only thing is that I wish I had some black studs but the black dots, although kind of meh in the photo. look awesome in real life.

Amazingly this design was created using pretty much the same polishes as in Design 2: African Sunset. The colours I used were:

For the Floral nails

• Base - Sinful Colors - Snow Me White
• Black Acrylic Paint for the flower outlines
• Rimmel - Sunshine for the yellow flower centres
• Chi Chi Cosmetics - Daisy Duke Bikini for the petals
• And Chi Chi Cosmetics - Relax Don't Do It! for the leaves

For the other nails

• Base - Chi Chi Cosmetics - Daisy Duke Bikini
• Dot in black acrylic paint

All nails had a top coat of Essie - No Chips Ahead (I need to invest in a different topcoat I think...)

Anyway, I hope you enjoy these as much as I do. I will not be posting again until the weekend as I MUST finish these stupid assignments but until then, look over the other designs and the pictures below!

Swatch||Design 1||Design 2

Daisy Duke Bikini by Chi Chi Cosmetics - Design 2 - African Sunset

I've been seeing a lot of sunset gradient manicures lately and I thought this orange would go well in such a gradient. However I didn't want to do a traditional sunset gradient because the orange of Daisy Duke Bikini wouldn't have been the feature, which is what I want to show in these design series. Therefore I created an African Sunset manicure with Daisy Duke Bikini as the main feature of the gradient, as shown below.

To create this design I painted a base of Sinful Color - Snow Me White and then, using a make up sponge, created a gradient using Chi Chi - Daisy Duke Bikini (orange), Rimmel - Sunshine (yellow) and the back to Chi Chi - Daisy Duke Bikini (orange). Using a large fan brush from the born pretty store, I ran over the gradient a few times to make it blend to a more sunsetty colour (it's kind of hard to explain, I do have a picture tutorial I'll post in the overview once all designs are created). To smmoth the gradient I used 1 coat of Essie, No Chips Ahead and waited for the whole thing to dry. 

After the top coat had dried, I used black acrylic paint and a thin nail art brush, once again from the born pretty store, to free hand the trees, birds and grass. I know when you think Africa, you think desert and therefore no grass but I added it in because otherwise it was quite boring. Also the birds were not a preplanned idea. I was planning on an elephant silhouette but as you can see, my nail shape and size has changed from my last post and therefore I didn't realise how little canvas I was working with, so I had to change my idea.

After free-handing the birds and trees, I topped the whole thing with another coat of Essie, No Chips Ahead. The only problem I have with this topcoat is it'll bubble or get bedsheet imprints if it's not had most of the day to dry. Therefore, as you'll be able to see (because I took pictures the day after I painted these) the nails are slightly textured. I overcame this by adding a matte top coat. These look wayyyy better matte. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this design. I still think it's pretty simple and it's another way to think of wearing that one nail polish you have no idea what to do with! I'll leave you with more pictures.

Swatch||Design 1

Daisy Duke Bikini by Chi Chi Cosmetics- Design 1 - Black Tips

Yesterday I introduced the polish I would be using for the first of my 5 designs. It was Chi Chi cosmetics, Daisy Duke Bikini and swatches can be seen here. The first design I came up with using this polish is super simple and was done on top of the swatches from yesterday. I'll give you a picture of the design and talk about it more after the visual.

For this design I used stripping tape from the born pretty store to mark off the two segments (below the bottom thin black line and above it where the orange stripe is) and then painted black polish carefully over the top, not going below the bottom piece of tape. I immediately removed the stripping tape after painting the polish (important to get clean lines) and coated it with Essie, No Chips Ahead, topcoat.

This design is super easy and you could get the same effect by cutting thin strips of sticky/scotch tape if you didn't have stripping tape. The only thing I would say is that the orange and black look does come off a little halloween-y. Therefore I think this would be a really cute look with a nude base and colourful tips. Also this taping technique would be a great way to jazz up a chipping polish. If you're too lazy to remove the old polish fully you could give new life to your old polish by adding some funky tips. The possibilities are almost endless :D

Hopefully you like this design, the next one will be posted soon! Also, there will be picture tutorials for all the designs I create with a polish, posted when I do the overview post.

Both hands, as you can see this is a design easily achieved on both your dominant and non-dominant hand.

Swatch

Daisy Duke Bikini by Chi Chi Cosmetics - Swatch

Today marks the first post of this blogs new direction. I've decided to change the name of my blog (and my instagram) to match my 1 polish, 5 designs, challenge (used to be the-nail-gun for those who don't know). To explain a bit more fully I wanted to show the diversity of a nail colour by creating 5 nail art designs using that colour. I'm hoping most of these designs will be fairly simple so the average girl doing her nails can see just how exciting that one bottle of polish she has stashed away, really is.

Unless otherwise stated, all the polishes I'm going to be using for these posts have been brought by me or have been given to me by friends and family. I'll try and state where I got each polish, or provide you an location where you can buy it, so you have the chance to recreate these designs or just own the colour.

How I shall be posting these series is one at a time. I'll first post a swatch of the colour I'll be creating 5 designs with and then there will be 5 separate posts for the nail art created. Finally there will be a final post with all designs completed to sum up how versatile the polish really is. But enough explaining, let get down to it, with the first polish!

The first polish to undergo my 1 polish, 5 designs, challenge is Daisy Duke Bikini by Chi Chi Cosmetics. It's a bright orange polish that is luminous in the sunlight. I got this polish at a Target store in Victoria for the bargain price of $3.50, however it's regular retail price is $5, which I still believe is a bargain. I'll add another picture just to show just how bright it can look in the sunlight.

In these swatches I applied 3 thin coats of polish, but I possibly could have got the same effect with two thicker ones. On the positive side, this polish is super fast drying but can be a little streaky if not applied correctly. I possibly could have gotten away without a top coat but it dries slightly matte so I added one coat of Essie, No Chips Ahead, to make it shine.

I really love the colour of this polish, you can't help but feel happy when you see it. I'd say it's a colour that makes you smile. I can't wait to start designing with this polish and I hope you are too! 

Now to leave you with some final swatches. Look for my post on the art created with this polish coming soon!

First NEW Blog Post: Freehand Bird Cage Nail Art + Blog Direction

Hello and welcome to my brand new blog. I'm not new to blogging but I'm beginning again now I've decided to dedicate myself more wholly to my nail art. I'll start off with a quick introduction about myself and get right into today's nail art, seeing as that is what this blog is for.

My name is Melissa, but most people call me Mel. I'm currently 21 years old, living near Melbourne, Australia. In about 6 weeks I will officially complete my Bachelor of Science degree and be desperately searching for a job. My dream in life is to become a Mycologist, which is a microbiologist who specialises in (environmental/not medical) fungi. Some final interesting facts about me are that; I have my black belt in Tae Kwon-do and once spent 6 months working as a bush fire-fighter. Now onto the nails with more after the first image.

For today I free-handed French tips over a baby pink base and then added the free handed bird cage and bird. I didn't place the bird in the cage as 1. It would have been too difficult to draw and 2. I liked the symbolism of the bird having escaped it's cage and being free to fly where ever it pleases. 

The polishes I used were

• Rimmel - Princess Pink as the base, 
• Sinful Colors - Snow Me White for the tips 
• And a 50 cent black polish diluted with polish remover.

The process I used was:

• First I painted a base coat and added one layer of Princess Pink
• Next I used a nail art brush from the Born Pretty Store to add the white tips with Snow Me White. This was awkward as I have one nail (the second finger), is a really odd shape, which you can see in the pictures below and above.
• I used a fine nail art brush, also from the Born Pretty Store, to add the bird cage, which I copied from google :P
• Finally I coated the whole thing with Essie, No Chips Ahead

Now I leave you with more pictures, after which I'm going to announce something I'm really excited about, which is some future direction for this blog!

Close up of the free hand bird cage.

In front of the pretty autumn leaves

Princess Pink is actually the perfect base for a French manicure

 And now, for my brilliant idea. I don't have a huge collection of nail polishes but what I do have, I want to show off. Therefore I have come up with the idea of 1 polish, 5 designs. How it will work is I'll swatch one of my polishes from my stash and then create 5 nail art designs that show off the polish. I'm quite excited by this idea and I hope you are too. I'm so excited I even made this terrible picture I might put on my instagram some time soon. Hopefully my next post will be part of this new campaign!

Until next time,

The Nail Gun :P