Autumn Days

Today I have an autumnal mani to show you.
 I have been planning this one a while but was awaiting the arrival of the leaves from the Born Pretty Store which took two months to arrive. Hence, this is not really seasonal anymore!

The above photo was taken in natural light and is a lot more colour accurate. The below photo was taken under my new LED lamp, which is a lot better than photographing under my 'normal' lights, but still not great. I am contemplating making another light box.

Anyway, I was going for a 'leaves blowing in the wind' look for this. I quite like how it came out, though it's not quite as I envisioned it would be! My pinky was supposed to be the pile of leaves, then the other fingers showing them blowing away, with the swirly lines representing the wind.

I used Jess polish in Innocence for the background. The swirls were Sinful Colors Nirvana and an unnamed gold PS by Primark polish. The gold leaves were from the Born Pretty Store.

You can get 10% off these leaves and anything else on the Born Pretty Store with my discount code: EHG10.

Fringed Nail Art

Today I have some very... different nail art!
I heard about the Quiz Dress Your Nails competition and wanted to take part. I was looking through their dresses to find the one I wanted to use when I came across this fringed dress.

Straight away I knew what I wanted to do, I just had to figure out how I could possibly make it work!

A quick Google search found a grand total of 0 other fringed nail designs, so I had to figure it out for myself!!

.

This is how it turned out. Not quite what I had in mind, but not too bad!!

I had a nightmare trying to figure out how I was going to do this! I ended up using white cotton thread. I used a piece of kitchen towel, which I painted in Barry M Black. Once dry I began gluing pieces of cotton onto the kitchen towel. I then splodged the ends of the cotton with black acrylic paint and a small amount of gold Primark nail polish to get the colour.

Once I had two pieces of kitchen roll complete with 'dyed' cotton thread I painted the nail black. I then used clear topcoat to attach the kitchen roll pieces onto the nail, overlapping them slightly as is the case with the dress.

These didn't turn out quite as I had imagined, but it took an awful lot of experimenting and I am quite proud that I eventually found a way to make this idea work, even if they aren't the most attractive nail art! At least they are original! :)

Pretty Peacocks

I recently received a long awaited order from Born Pretty Store which I have been waiting for since September!
I bought two of their new stamping plates and had to try one out!

This is Born Pretty Plate 04 'Dancing Peacock'. This plate has some lovely images on it. It is well engraved and my stamper had no problems picking up the details of the image.

I started with a base of George Natural White on my middle and ring fingers, with Revlon Aquamarine on my index and pinky fingers. I then stamped the peacock using Sinful Colors Kissy and added a Born Pretty green stud to my index finger. I felt the bottom of my ring finger needed something so I created a glitter gradient with H&M Blue bliss, also adding this on top of my pinky finger. I finished with a coat of Barry M Diamond over my middle, ring and little fingers to give a bit of sparkle. :)

Use code EHG10 to get 10% off these and other items at the Born Pretty Store.

Glow in the Dark by Primark

A few weeks ago I bought two glow in the dark polishes in Primark. One looked yellow in the bottle but was a clear topcoat, the other was blue.
I didn't expect much from these. The blue barely glowed at all, as I expected.
But the clear topcoat was pretty impressive!

Here are my nails in 'normal' light:

I started with a base colour of Rimmel New Romantic. This was followed by a coat of the Glow in the Dark polish. Once all was dry I stamped on top using MoYou London Princess plate 08 and Rimmel Right Royal Red and topcoated with my usual Essence Quick Dry Topcoat.

Now you'll have to excuse the picture quality, photographing glow in the dark nails is so difficult!! I took around 100 pictures and this was the best I got.

But wow, I was amazed when I saw this in the dark! I did not expect it to be so bright! If you want a glow in the dark topcoat on a budget I definitely recommend this! Bargain!

Plaid Scarf

I have been struggling to keep up to date with posting my nails on here recently so I will be playing catch-up over the next few weeks. If you follow me on Instagram, sorry you may be seeing some mani's you already saw on there!  If you don't follow me on Instagram, please start now!! @nailsmustbepainted. I update much more regularly than I do here!

Now for the nails...
I painted these a few weeks ago for The Nail Art Guild's Fall Fashion prompt, based on my favourite Tartan/ plaid scarf.

I painted these right before going to bed and didn't take photos until morning. Somehow through the night  my nice straight lines became distorted! I promise they were straight... the picture below is from Instagram and is the only photo I took straight after painting!

For these I used Maybelline Leather Effect in Mudslide Tote as the base colour. I then painted the red stripes using Maybelline Berry Sweet and the white lines using Ciaté Amazing Gracie.

I was really pleased with how these turned out, except for the smudged lines!

Silver Rose

With Christmas in the pipeline I am starting to introduce a bit more sparkle into my mani's, christmassy without being full-on!

For this mani I used Ciaté Boudoir and Ciaté Fit for a Queen as christmassy colours. Then to tone it down I used my MoYou London Mother Nature Collection Plate 01 to stamp the rose. The Ciaté polsih didn't stamp too well so I ended up painting over most of it again to make the colour stand out! I then finished with a matte topcoat by Jess Polish.

I really like how this turned out. I don't wear silver polish very often, but I really like this one. Just a shame the red isn't more opaque so that black stain didn't show through.

This could easily get away with being a Valentines mani, 3 months early!!

Remembrance Poppies

Here in the UK it is Remembrance Day today. We all buy and wear poppies to remember those who have served and those who have fallen for our country, allowing us to be where we are today. This also raises money for the Royal British Legion who support past servicemen and women.

This year I have painted two mani's for Remembrance Day.

The first is a watercolour mani which I love! Particularly my middle finger (macro above), which I am really proud of!

I used a George polish in Natural White as the base colour then created the watercolour using Rimmel Ready, Steady, GO! and Missguided Missmatch before painting the details of the flowers with acrylic paint.

Here is my second mani. It is very different and creates a darker mood. The 'poppies' are dried flowersfrom the Born Pretty Store and the cross is hand painted using acrylic. The base colour is Nails Inc Glamour Hanover Square which is a lovely colour.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

Llama Nails Movies/Books Challenge

So the Llama Nails Movies/Books challenge is finished. :(
This is the first challenge I have ever managed to take part in every single week and see right through to the end!
So I thought I would be a little 'round-up' post of all the mani's from the challenge to celebrate!

1. Comedy - 27 Dresses

2. Historical - Les Miserables

3. Thriller - Black Swan

4. B Movie - Snakes on a Plane

5. Romance - 50 First Dates

6. Cult - Rocky Horror

 7. Action - Kung Fu Panda

8. Crime - Kill Bill

9. Mystery - Harry Potter

10. Fantasy - Alice in Wonderland

11. Science Fiction - Avatar 

12. Anime - Dragonball 

13. Disney - Minnie Mouse & Ratatouille

14. Fairytale - The Swan Princess & Ella the Ladybird

15. Mythology - Hercules

16. Poetry - Winnie the Pooh 

17. Horror - Goosebumps

And that's it! I can't believe I have been doing this challenge for 17 weeks!

Which was your favourite mani from the challenge? I can't possibly choose a favourite, I love them all for different reasons (Exceptt Snakes on a Plane - that one was just bad!)!

Got to find something else to take part in now, any suggestions most welcome! :)

Firework Inspired Nails

Here is a very quick post to show you my nails for Bonfire Night.
I didn't have much time so it had to be something simple, so I opted for a bit of glitter to represent fireworks! :)

Excuse the poor quality picture from my Instagram (Follow me @nailsmustbepainted). I have been very busy!

The base colour is Nails Inc Wigmore Street, a very deep purple which was free with Glamour magazine. I then sponged On Rimmel Space Dust in Aurora, followed by Ciaté Party Shoes, for lots of glittery goodness! This looks much better than the picture!

Although this mani is super simple and took me about 5 minutes to do I really like it! The colours contrast nicely and the glitter creates a very firework-y feel.

Nutra Nail Gel Perfect

A few weeks ago I spotted this 'Gel' nail polish in Poundland.
It claims to be a gel which requires no UV light and dries in 5 minutes without smudging.
I was rather sceptical, so I bought it to try out. The colour I picked up was 'Ginger'.

I have kept a diary of my thoughts on the polish over the week:

Day 1:
Having just applied the polish, I found it was fairly quick and easy to apply. Basically each time you want to apply a coat of polish you have to apply a coat of activator first.
Each coat dried within about 30 seconds and once dry there was definitely no smudging despite my best efforts at scraping the polish on the side of my desk!! It is rock solid, as advertised!
The application is a little streaky, but not hugely so.

The main downside of this is the activator. Basically, it smells and feels like I am just applying super glue to my nails! I guess I could be for all I know?!
Also, neat application is key. Although I put the polish on neatly in the first place, I wanted to see how well it would clean-up. In all honestly, once it is on it seems to be staying on! So I wouldn't recommend this if you like to make a mess in application and just clean up afterwards!
I ended up with a strange sort of lump of polish on my thumbnail. Tried to clean this up with Acetone, no chance! The lump is staying for the foreseeable future!

Day 2:
OK, last night I did a quick Google on this polish and found that the activator which I said smelt like superglue literally is just nail glue. Great, I've just covered my nails in three coats of glue!

Anyway, day 2 and my nails are still looking good. No chips or tip wear.

Although, my thumb nail is missing a chunk of polish but that's my fault really... that big lumpy bit I had on my thumbnail was irritating me, so in a conference today I picked the lump off (Clearly I was having loads of fun and concentrating well!). Now it looks like I have 2 weeks worth of growth and need my nails re-doing!

Day 3.
I woke up this morning and it all went downhill!!
I haven't done anything much different to yesterday, yet my nails now look like this:

(Excuse the completely different lighting! I promise it is the same polish!)

 Also, my cuticles seem really dry. Probably because I basically applied 3 coats of superglue to my nails!

I think its safe to say I will be taking what is left off today!

This polish came off reasonable easily. It was no more difficult than a glitter polish, definitely not like removing gel.

Overall, I would not recommend this polish! Yes, it looks pretty at first, but I can get more than 2 days wear from a normal polish and the glue-like 'activator' wreaks havoc with your nail/cuticle health. Don't bother!

Halloween Nail Art

I have been very busy this week and haven't had much time to post, so all my Halloween nails are going to be under this one post. Yes, I am aware that I am late, Halloween was two days ago!

The first of these mani's was also done for the final instalment of the Llama Nails Movie/Book challenge. This week's prompt was Horror, so I based my mani on the Goosebumps series of books.

The purple is a Jess Polish called Madison and the green is La Femme Beauty Ultra Green.

The next is my favourite of the 3 halloween manis I have done.

I used W7 'Party' as the base for this mani and the spider and webs are decals from the Born Pretty Store. In real life they were much more subtle than the picture. I love them!

But, the best thing about this mani is that the W7 polish a a UV polish, so it glows. It's so amazing!! Although the UV light seems to make every little imperfection show up.

Excuse the poor quality picture from my Instagram. Somehow I don't seem to have taken any pictures of it glowing on my camera, only my phone.

Finally, my last mani. I wanted this to be very imperfect, which it is. Hence the lack of clean up!

I used Sally Hansen Sugar Coat in Sweetie and dabbed on Ciaté Boudoir to create the look of blood. I don't love this. But then I don't love Halloween themed mani's in general!