31 Day Challenge Wrap-Up

Hmm, that should probably read “33 Day Challenge Wrap-Up,” because I was never, not once, on pace with the challenge themes, and as such, ended the whole thing two or maybe even three days beyond everyone else. I had a hard time motivating myself in the early days when the challenge prompts were overly broad (blue? dots? florals?) but I like to think I kicked it into high gear in the final two weeks, producing some of my favourite manicures ever, actually.

As always when I complete one of these month-long challenges, I like to look back on the past four weeks to see what I did right (fun new designs using a wealth of different techniques and tools), what I did wrong (um, pretty much never keeping pace with the challenge schedule) and what I can do differently next time (stop procrasturbating – intentional spelling mistake – and just do the damn blue, dotted, floral nails already!)

These are eight of my own designs (and one homage) that I think rocked this challenge. And why nine? Well, because nine photos make for a more visually pleasing collage, for one, and why not be all random when the original challenge is pretty random in itself (as in the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge takes place every year in a month with only 30 days. Huh.) Enjoy!

1. Lacey, floral nails inspired by a Monique Lhullier dress for day 14’s theme of flowers.

2. Time rip nails inspired by the Stephen King novella, The Langoliers, for day 24’s theme of a book.

3. A striped, Cheshire Cat manicure for day 21’s theme of inspired by a colour.

4. A glittery, rainbow-on-rainbow jelly sandwich manicure for day nine’s theme of rainbow nails.

5. Attack the Block nails, featuring actual blue, glow-in-the-dark monster jaws, for day 23’s theme of inspired by a movie. Ratings!

6. Another Alice in Wonderland-themed manicure, this one inspired by the Queen of Hearts’ preference for blood red roses for day one’s theme of red.

7. Super detailed Halloween Town nails from The Nightmare Before Christmas for day 29’s theme of the supernatural.

8. A recreation of Chalkboard Nails’ delightfully adorable circus cookie dotticure for day 31’s theme of honouring nails you love.

9. Another watery water marble, this one featuring a little cucumber and mint accent nail, for day 20’s theme of a water marble.

Nails on Film (31DC2015)

Or, more accurately, film on my nails for day seven’s theme of black and white in the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge.

Purple Posies (31DC2015)

Just a simple, dotted-on floral design for day six’s theme of purple in the 31 Day Nail Art Challenge. Feeling terrifically unmotivated by the first week and a half’s batch of themes, which cover the one-colour-a-day rainbow spectrum before concluding with an actual rainbow print. So that would explain why I am already four days behind. I swear I’ll snap to it when we get to something a little less broad strokes.

Painting the Roses Red (31DC2015)

The 31 Day Challenge is starting at the beginning of the rainbow this year (and every year, as I’m discovering – the challenge prompts have not changed in at least three cycles) with the colour red. I went for a more thematic approach to day one’s prompt, eschewing the actual colour (there’s quite a bit of green in these supposedly red nails) in favour of an idea, specifically that of the Queen of Hearts’ preference for blood red roses, whether natural or of the painted variety. And matted, of course, because matte florals always look like gorgeous, vintage wallpaper, which is precisely the look I was going for.

31 Days of Pretty Great: An OMD3 Wrap-Up Post

If I may toot my own horn (toot toot!) I thought I made quite a good showing of this year’s Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge, given the month’s rather inauspicious start. That set me back a few days right from the very beginning, and that’s where I resolutely stayed until the very end of the challenge – one or two days firmly off the pace. But scheduling issues notwithstanding, I’m really quite proud of the nail art work I did during this challenge. I tried out a new-to-me product (nail stickers), I matched my nails to a favourite pair of glittery shoes in look AND texture, I used 3D nail art embellishments (twice!) and I did a ton of super detailed free-handed work. I’d say that puts me squarely in the win column!

The 10 manicures I’ve highlighted in the photo gallery above are my favourites from the past month. If you’d like to see all 31 of my challenge entries, you can find them here under the tag OMD3NAILS. But if you’re simply curious as to which are my preferred manis from the challenge, they would be the following 10, in no particular order of fondness:

1. Little House on the Prairie-inspired foodie nails.

2. Glittery stiletto-inspired textured nails.

3. Adventure Time princess nails.

4. Lush, vibrant seaweed nails.

5. Simpsons nails, featuring the drunken fish of the Duff Gardens Beerquarium.

6. Opal ring-inspired nails.

7. Tinkerbell-inspired nails.

8. Skull and crossbones glitter nails.

9. Knuckle duster, tattoo-type nails.

10. Refreshingly simple, blue-on-blue branch nails.

And for the third year in a row (although I have only participated the last two), thanks go out to the ladies of Craftynail, Eeeek! Nail Polish!, Brijits Digits and Nail That Accent for hosting the challenge, creating some really fun themes and putting together some very tempting prizes, which I of course am hoping I will win. See you all next year!

Four Seasons (OMD3)

Weather is today’s theme in the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge (stop to marvel for a moment at the fact that I’m posting a mani on the same day as its actual prompt) and so I thought I’d take one lacquered tree through all four weather-laden seasons we experience around my province, with a special thumbnail nod to the weather we seemingly experience the most, crapass, icy cold precipitation.

Taco Saturday! (OMD3)

Hmm, doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, does it? If only there were a more alliterative day, or two, on which we could consume our tacos! 😉

These yummy taco nails are my entry towards day 16’s theme of fast food in the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge. Tacos are one of my favourite take-out foods, and one I indulge in at least every few weeks (although if I’m being totally honest, the big draw for me when I’m dining down Mexico way are the chips and salsa; I swear, I could drink VATS of fresh salsa, I love it so much.) I don’t have a particularly great back story as to why one of the tacos is smiling and one is frowning. Perhaps Frowny Taco is dressed in fat free sour cream – that’d make me grumpy, too.

Space Kitties! (OMD3)

Having lost my dear old cat, Porky, to old age not two weeks ago, I initially wasn’t super keen on tackling a manicure to fit day 15’s theme of cats in the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge. I have lost pets before – my childhood Cocker Spaniel, Boo, my young adulthood cat, Puddin’, my goldfish, Fred – but none have hurt like this. She was just such a major part of my life for so very long – 15 of her 22 years – and there’s a weird part of me that doesn’t know how to be without her.

All that to say I’m not quite ready to put brush to nail to create a wonderous bit of nail art honouring my kitty. Or any kitty, really. 😦 So what better time to bust out some glittery kitten nail stickers to do all the heavy lifting for me? I bought these particular stickers through Daily Charme, and they’re adorable – the cutest little glittery cats, shooting stars and tantalizing fish bones. I’m typically not one to think there’s too much of something, particularly when that something is either holographic glitter or cats (or in this case, in the best of both worlds, BOTH) but with the holo base I used here, Enchanted Polish’s Instant Galaxy holographic topper over a plain black creme, I think there may be a touch too much going on. You can barely even see Darth Kitty hiding out there on my middle finger! It’s just a lot to process, what with the glimmering rainbows, hand-painted holographic stars and glittery kitties floating in space. Huh, didn’t think that’s a sentence you’d ever hear me say – too many glittery kitties floating in space? 😉

Home of the World’s Happiest Fish! (OMD3)

I’m a theme park nerd and Simpsons fan more or less in equal measure, and I’ve always taken great delight in the episodes where the Simpsons clan go to an amusement park, lampooning the genuinely magical, but ultimately financially-driven, nature of the Disneys and Universals of our world. I think the episode where the Simpsons fight off a roving band of murderous, off-program animatronics at Itchy & Scratchy Land might be my favourite theme park-inspired episode, but I also love – as do so many; it’s a classic for a reason – the 13th episode of season 4 in which Marge’s sister Selma takes the Simpsons kids to Duff Gardens, a Magic Kingdom-esque amusement park run by the Duff Beer Corporation. There’s all the usual Disney-type tropes at work here – endless parades, beleaguered costumed characters and “It’s a Duff World,” an “It’s a Small World” parody whose toxic waters bear hallucinogenic properties – although they also bring Sea World into the mix with the introduction of the Beerquarium, a suds-filled aquatic habitat filled with, apparently, “The World’s Happiest Fish!” Except they really don’t look so happy, listlessly circling the tank belching, groaning and trying not to vomit.

Anyhow, when day 14 of the Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge called for the theme of fish, I decided to do a Simpsons-inspired manicure featuring the drunken fish of Duff Garden’s Beerquarium (although later in the episode a character references something called a Fermentarium, which has to be the same thing, right? I move to change the name to Fermentarium on the grounds that it’s much funnier.)

I did these nails using the very-appropriate-in-these-circumstances pond manicure technique, this time encasing the inebriated fish in multiple layers of an amber-hued jelly polish, Nfu Oh’s JS39, instead of Duff Beer. Not really sure which one might be less toxic.

Little Cakes on the Prairie (OMD3)

The Oh Mon Dieu Nail Art Challenge took a turn for the literary on day 13 with the theme of books. Seeing as my favourite book, The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides, is wholly unsuitable as the basis for any kind of nail art (like, I can’t even imagine!) and having wanted to do some sweets-themed nail art for ages now, I decided to combine the two and drew inspiration from a favourite childhood novel, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie, in particular a wonderful passage depicting little Laura Ingalls’ first Christmas in Kansas in the late 1800s. I adored this book as a child (once faked the severity of a legitimate illness so I could stay home two extra days and read the other books in the series!) and I LOVED the chapter entitled “Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus” in which Laura and her sister are treated to a magical Christmas by a kindhearted neighbour. The girls receive a number of charming, big-deal gifts for the time – a tin cup! a penny! – but my favourite were the little heart-shaped tea cakes dusted with sparkling white sugar.

I may have gone a bit overboard with the depiction of these particular sweets, however, because molasses, jam filling and refined white sugar anything, as I’ve shown here, were not yet common foodstuffs; super special ingredients for super special occasions only, as they were pricey and difficult to come by. But oh, those sparkling little cakes!

As a bit of an aside, I think it’s interesting how (as a child and now) I totally glossed over the many dangerous hardships that made up daily living at the time and focused entirely on the baked goods. Because what’s disease, exposure and nasty run-ins with the locals when you’ve got cake, amirite?