Breast Cancer Awareness Mani: 22nd - Ombre

This month is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and every Wednesday, we wear pink to highlight the cause. Each week has a theme for the manicure, and today's was ombre:

I decided that the cause needed flowers, and my favourite pink gradients are usually done with white. I therefore chose a flower that exists in both colours: roses. I used probably my single most used plate stamp - the roses from Moyou Pro XL 07. With a strong, pink like Mundo de Unas 20 (Fuschia), I thought I'd go for a dark base that's a little less harsh than black - Essie's Luxedo, a midnight plum shade. All I had to do was paint the stamp with MdU 20, Konad white, and then mix where the two met with the wooden end of my nail art brush. I then scraped twice in different directions to ensure the mix of pink of white, then picked it up and voila! A stamped gradient of pink and white roses over plum :)

This isn't perfct - I think it shows that it was my first time doing a gradient stamp, but I rather like its imperfections. It has, more importantly, drawn a lot of comments including from my partner, for whom funky nails are a norm so often go unnoticed.

So, go on: why not give it a go yourself, and see how much fun you can have, and how many people you can discuss Breast Cancer Awareness month with? Just remember to use the following hashtags when posting to Instagram ( I'm boldandbeautyfool btw):

#maniroseenoctubre

#enoctubreusamosrosa

#OnWednesdaysWeWearPink

See you next week for flowers :)

The ingredients: Konad White, Essie Luxedo, Mundo de Unas 20 (Fuschia) and Moyou Pro XL 07

September Stamping Challenge: Day 6 - Flamingos

So, I had a look at Miss Tina's suggested daily list, and Travel is her theme for today (http://madricka.blogspot.ca/2014/08/september-is-stamping-month-mani-challenge.html?m=1). I don't own travel-themed plates per se, so started to think about what I might see on holiday that I don't see here. Well, flamingos are not native to Scotland and are on my gorgeous Moyou Tropical 06 plate. Decision made!

The mani has a few added bonuses too:

• it was quick, as only 2 fingers are stamped. (Given that I am riding with 200 other horses and riders through Edinburgh tomorrow, ensuring the boundaries of the city are still secure as per olden times, I will only ruin it when saddling up anyway! http://www.edinburghridingthemarches.co.uk)
• it uses my fave polish: Essie Cascade Cool. This polish looks so unassuming in the bottle, but is the perfect blue-toned pink for my skin tone.
• it uses the sparkly pink Insta-Dri polish I picked up in Poundland this morning. All North American bloggers swear by them, so it was nice to find them to play with in the UK for £1!

.I meant to do all of this manicure facing outwards, but totally forgot myself when stamping my ring finger. Oops! (I did remember for doing my right hand thankfully, it just doesn't look as good as I'm right-handed).

The ingredients (below) are:

• Essie Cascade Cool and Zoya Snow White as base colours
• Sally Hansen Instra-Dri Pink Fast and Konad White for stamping
• Moyou Tropical 06 and my Chinese marshmallow for stamping
• (as ever but unphotographed, my base was OPI Matte Nail Envy, and HK Girl was my top coat).

(Please excuse any lay out errors: I posted this using the Blogger App for the first time, and even from my laptop now, moving and changing the photographs seems impossible).