Dec 4, 2012

Aussie Nails Monday and Aussie Christmas Nail Challenges

Today's a double challenge day and it also happens that today my 4yo was sick so it's been a bit of a struggle to paint my nails while mopping up after a snotty kid.  I'm done though, both challenges and on time for once :)
Let's start with Aussie Nails Monday.  Today's challenge is Glad Wrap nails.  Some parts of the world may call it Saran Wrap or Cling Wrap but here our plastic wrap is most often called Glad Wrap. 

I still have my red Gelicious polish on so my plan was to just work with that as my base colour but after some tests on a nail wheel I realised, for the look I wanted, I needed a lighter base.  So I covered the red with 3 coats of piCture pOlish Fake Tan.  Fake Tan is a brilliant orange neon but tends to be streaky so I needed that 3rd coat to cover the red.  Then I used balls of Glad Wrap to dab on a layer of Cult Nails Annalicious and then a layer of Layla Ceramic Effect 53.  I finished of with a shiny layer of Out the Door topcoat.

I thought this combination looked a lot like the skin on a nectarine.   Yum!  I have to confess though that I ran out of little balls of Glad Wrap after the coat of Cult Nails and I was too lazy to go to the kitchen and cut up some more so I just grabbed some bubble wrap from today's nail mail and used that.  So the Layla layer is actually bubble wrap art :)

I love the way these colours worked together.  The shimmer in the Cult Nails and the colour shifting flakes in the Layla give this a bit of a metallic/foily look in real life that I just couldn't capture in the photos.  It looks hot!  I really enjoyed this technique, it's easy and not as messy as I expected.
Next we have the Aussie Christmas Nail Challenge for the 3rd and today's challenge is '6 White Boomers'.  This one will take some explaining for the non Aussies.  Six White Boomers is a song by Rolf Harris.  I remember having to sing this in the school choir back in the 70s.  In primary school we performed it as part of our carols by candle light night each year.  It's not a carol but it was a suitable Aussie Christmas song for us kids and a nice break between Silent Night and other 'real' carols.  Everyone in the audience knew the words in those days but I doubt many would now.  Here's a youtube link to the song if you want to check it out - http://youtu.be/2FdVXca9hys  A boomer is a big Kangaroo so in the song Santa's sleigh is pulled by six white kangaroos instead of reindeer because the heat of the blazing Aussie sun is too much for reindeer.
So I used my Glad Wrap manicure as the blazing sun background and attempted to paint some white kangaroos.  I used Ulta3 Lily White for my boomers (and a dodgy brush with bristles in all directions).

Yeh I know that's only 4 boomers but 2 of them are banging cymbals.  It's a boom, crash, opera which makes 2 of them double boomers, so that makes 6 boomers right?  No?  Ok well it's all you're getting.  I much preferred my nails before the boomers made a mess of them.  BTW they're wearing sunglasses.
Now I have two days to come up with something for the next theme, pool party, and so far none of my ideas will work with a red gel base colour :(
BTW another Aussie song we had to perform each year for the carols night was The Carol of the Birds by John Wheeler.  I love this song and it always seemed like the most Australian Christmas carol to me.  You can hear a version of it on youtube here - http://youtu.be/2uBOhFCL-hA and read the lyrics here - http://www.traditionalmusic.co.uk/song-midis/Carol_of_the_Birds.htm  I love the sound of currawongs and bell birds and the brolga is a long legged crane that really does dance, it's also the official bird emblem for the state of Queensland.   </trivia lesson>
Here's the rest of the girls doing the Aussie Nails Monday Challenge.

Courtney - Tales From The Makeup Bag     Sarah - Shatter Me Claire     Chantelle - A Polished Prance
Teneil - Tee Bee’s Nails     Nicole - The Epitome of Superficiality      Bec - Lacquer Dreams
Naomi - NananaisNails     Eboni - Enamoured With Enamel     Katie - Pretty Polish Please
Adelle - Adelle1985(Instagram)     Kelly - Kelly's Kolors     Nicki,     Rosemarie - Every Little Polish
Melissa - Mel My Issta     Natalie - Walk In My Eyeshadow     Jennifer - JennLojko(Instagram)
Kristy - The Polish Haven     Emma - Nails In The Desert     Erin - Erinzi(Instagram)
Brie - Strawbrie(Instagram)     Astrid - Lovessweetas(Instagram)     Jasmyn - Jas’ Blingtastic Nails
Kate - Mckfresh (Instagram)     Jessica - starting January :)



4 comments:

  1. whoa! That's multi-tasking at its core~ two challenges in one day with the same base! The bubble wrap mani is awesome.

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  2. I would not be so sure that children don't know the "Six White Boomers" since both of my children would sing this for their school break up performances. :)

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