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!

N.A.I.L.’d It

I realized the other day that I have lately been most remiss in contributing my lacquered designs to the Nail Art Ideas Linkup, a mostly informal monthly nail art challenge hosted by the fine ladies at Brijit’s Digits, Craftynail, Eeeek! Nail Polish! and Nail That Accent. I played along with the weekly themes – discovering all sorts of terrific blogs and bloggers in the process – for maybe half of 2014, and then not-so-mysteriously got waylaid by life and two super intensive, back-to-back 31-day challenges. So with my sails thoroughly deflated, I wound down the N.A.I.L. stuff, a decision I’ve regretted, as I’ve missed it very much.

So I’m back in the polished swing of things and quite naturally already a week and a smidge behind, because it is a day ending in Y. If you’d like to join in the fun, the weekly prompts can be completed and posted at any time during the month, and there’s no requirement that you participate every week. So please do stop on by and share your talents. There’s lots to be inspired by, and in turn, you might even find yourself doing some of the inspiring. 🙂

Challenge Yourself

It occurred to me today that in the nearly 12 months I’ve been doing this nail art thang, I haven’t taken part in a single 30-day challenge. For any of you nail art noobs out there, a 30-day challenge is about as self-explanatory as it gets – another blogger or group of bloggers or even yourself if you’re feeling kind of masochistic lay out a collection of themes over the month, one a day, and you paint your nails accordingly.  And then share them, of course, so others can bask in your creativity and you can bask in theirs.  I’m in the habit of painting my nails and blogging just about every day, so daily acetone-inhalation is not quite as big a deal for me as it might be for others who only post every now and then, but I love it when someone else does the thinking for me, so I’ll join up and follow the leader! Or leaders, plural, in this case, as this particular challenge, Oh Mon Dieu (Part 2), was conceived of and is being hosted by the fine ladies of Craftynail, Brijits Digits, Eeeek! Nail Polish! and Nail That Accent.

I was busy being Canadian yesterday (if you don’t have a cottage, that means you sit in the sweltering heat in front of a fan with a Caesar in one hand and a Molson in the other, watching The Trailer Park Boys on endless, drunken repeat) so I’m already a day off the pace, but looking to catch up quickly. Should you wish to join in on all the lacquered fun (there’s prizes!), it’s as simple as following the themes (every day or just those of your choosing) and remembering to share and share alike. For a more comprehensive list of the “rules and regulations” of Oh Mon Dieu (Version 2.0), please click here. Best of luck and happy nail art-ing, polished peeps!

Jinxed It

Back in January I announced, with some moderate fanfare, that I was entering my first nail art challenge (or more accurately, nail art collective; a group of bloggers tossing fun nail art ideas out into the great cyber unknown and seeing what comes back, with very few rules and limitations.)

So I posted my first manicure to the January Nail Art Ideas Linkup (N.A.I.L.) Challenge, thumped my chest a bit and nattered a bunch of slightly new agey nonsense about how inspired I was for a new year of nail art and nail art-related activities. You know, ain’t nothin’ was gonna break my stride, nobody was gonna hold me down, oh no, I had to keep on movin’.

Aaaaaannnnndddd then I got sick for approximately the entire month of January and couldn’t find the energy to paint my nails or blog (or eat or stay conscious for longer than two hours.) So the lesson to be learned here, kids? Don’t make a big show out of announcing your intentions, just do them. Carpe diem and all that jazz, because otherwise you just might be jinxing yourself into a month-long bout of something stupid you just don’t need in your life.

But one thing you might need is another nail art challenge (or prompts, as I think of them.) Once again coming to the rescue on the N.A.I.L. front are Brijit’s Digits, Craftynail and Eeeek! Nail Polish! with a quartet of themes for the month of February, beginning with “Red” and ending with my favourite, “Glitter.” I’m taking part, and you should, too! Just don’t make a big show out of it, yeah? 😉

Fanning the Flames

Inspiration comes in all sorts of unlikely shapes and sizes, but one thing I think we can all agree on is come January, inspiring thought is in relatively short supply. Oh sure, it’s the new year and you’ve got all sorts of sparkling fresh goals. You’re an unstoppable creative thinking machine! But you’re also exhausted and broke after the holidays and, if you’re anything like me, in a state of short-term hibernation designed to wait out the worst of the bummy winter weather. Not exactly conducive to getting the creative fires burning toasty warm.

So it was with great interest that I noted Crafty Nail‘s call for participants in January’s N.A.I.L. Challenge, a four-week, no-real-rules kind of project designed to bring together nail bloggers and nail art enthusiasts alike to share tips and tricks, make some new friends and hopefully walk away inspired and rejuvenated.

So it’s quite apropos that for the first week of the challenge, challenge creators Crafty Nail, Eeeek! Nail Polish and Brijit’s Digits have chosen the wide open theme of health and wellness. I say start with creative health – there’s time enough to do lunge squats and eat kale once your nails are done!

As always, the more the merrier, so should you care to contribute your own, go for it!