31 Day Challenge Day 1 - Red: Hello Kitty Dotticure!

 Hey guys! So my sister Jenny and I have been talking about doing the 31 Day Nail art Challenge for awhile, and recently she decided to jump in and start, inspiring me to give it a go as well! Now obviously anyone who follows my blog knows I'm pretty much all indie glitter, all the time. I have done very little nail art and I'm not so great at it... but it is always fun to try new things! I have to say that I will likely be following this challenge somewhat loosely, not everyday and possibly not 100% in order or maybe even with unrelated posts in between. I like to think of my blog as fun, and following rules for it not so necessarily fun, so we will see what happens :) But I am looking forward to seeing what the challenges inspire me to do!

Today's Day 1 theme is the color red -- perfect to start on, since I have been wanting to try out a mani like this for a long time! I wanted to go for a slightly preppy adorable Hello Kitty mani. I started out with two coats of Essie Rose Bowl, a slightly rosy red jelly (at least I think it is jelly, as it goes on very opaque but still with squishy VNL) and Cult Nails Tempest for my white accent nails. Unfortunately while I have heard amazing 1-coat rumors for Tempest I found it to behave about the same as most whites -- not bad or anything but still a bit of a nuisance. Still a lovely white though! I then painstakingly did my first dotting ever over Rose Bowl in Tempest with a dotting tool... don't think it turned out too bad myself :) The Hello Kitty faces were harder though, I ended up having to redo my accent nails completely over a couple times because I kept on messing up and making ugly faces. I used Cult Nails Evermore to dot on the eyes and a very very skinny nail art brush I got at Sally's to paint on the whiskers, and China Glaze Sunshine Pop to dot on the nose. I luckily had some cute nail art stickers to use to for the bow. Finally, to give it a little extra holo sparkle I topped it off with China Glaze Fairy Dust.. and that was that for my first real nail art mani -- take a look!

outdoors, partial sun

outdoors, shade

 On my nails:
1 coat Nail Tek III Protection Plus
2 coats Essie Rose Bowl (red) / 3 coats Cult Nails Tempest (white)
1 coat Seche Vite
White dotting on red nails in Cult Nails Tempest
Black eyes/whiskers in Cult Nails Nevermore
Yellow nose in China Glaze Sunshine Pop
Bow - Sanrio Hello Kitty nail art sticker sheet
1 coat Seche Vite
1 coat China Glaze Fairy Dust
1 coat Seche Vite

outdoors, sun -- full mani!

upclose Hello Kitty face! This one turned out the best

So it's certainly not perfect -- major smearing on the dotting, the faces turned out pretty bad on my right hand, etc -- but I am super thrilled with how my first real nail art attempt turned out! I am kind of Hello Kitty obsessed to be honest, and I think I did her proud with this mani, haha :) Looking forward to carrying on with the rest of the challenge! For reference here is the list:

 Can't help but laugh a little at Day 17 since glitter is pretty much all I ever do... I will just have to come up with something extra specially glittery for that day :)

outdoors, sun

Have a great day! ♥