Valentines Hearts

I painted these a few days ago, in the run up to Valentines day.
They are very cutesy and girly, not really my usual style of nails but I quite like them!

I used all Ciaté polishes for this skittlette design. 

The base colour is Strawberry Milkshake, which is one of my favourite pink polishes. I then used Serendipity to create a glitter accent nail and I stamped the heart pattern with Kiss Chase and MoYou London Mother Nature plate 01.

They are definitely girly-girl nails, which I am, but I very rarely show this side of me on my nails! 

31DC: Glitter Base

Today I have done a glitter base with even more glitter on top!
I absolutely love how it turned out, shame the pictures don't really do it justice.

I used three polishes from my Ciaté Mini Mani Manor to do this: Silhouette, the dark burgundy base, Candy Cane, the pink glitter and Celestial, the silver glitter. 

I sponged the glitters on to create the gradient effect.

I literally can't stop looking at them and moving them around to see how they sparkle!

Check out everyone else's glittery goodness:

31DC: Half and Half

Half and half is the prompt today.

I kept it pretty simple, opting for two similar colours with contrasting finishes: porcelain and glitter!

These are both Ciaté; Sweet Pea from the Dolls House Collection and Gleam Dream, a green and silver loose glitter. 

This mani really reminds me of the sea. The colour is a very sea-green colour and the glitter creates a reflective water-like effect.

I can't stop looking at it shimmering!!

31DC: Dotting Tools

Can't believe I have made it to day 5 without falling behind yet!
Back to work after the Christmas break today though, so it'll only get harder to keep up.

Dotting tools is the prompt for today. I love my dotting tools, but I didn't want to do a plain old boring dotticure for this, so I went with a design I haven't tried before, swirls!

I'm not sure about these. Last night, when I did them, I wasn't a big fan. The more I look at them the more they are growing on me!

I used three polishes from the Ciaté Dolls House collection: Poppet, Paper Doll and Dollface. I think Dollface is a little too subtle, it is almost invisible against the lilac.

What do you think?

12 Days of Christmas: Glitter

Today the prompt for the 12 Days of Christmas challenge was Glitter!

I may have gone a little overboard with this, but I love it!

I used two Ciaté loose glitters from my Mini Mani Manor: Let it Snow and Slumber Party.

I used a wet brush to put them onto my nails and create a gradient effect.

I love how these turned out, so christmassy! The glitter is lasting really well too, I have been wearing this mani for two days now and there is only a small amount of tip wear.

Doesn't it look even more beautiful when blurred!!

An InLinkz Link-up

12 Days of Christmas: Decorations

Yay, a prompt that is not colour based!! Today it is decorations.
On my tree I have lots of delicate, cut-out decorations, so I chose to base my mani on a particular one of these.

I'm really pleased with how these candles turned out, though the ribbon leaves a little to be desired!

I used a tiny detail brush and a whole load of Ciaté polishes: Strawberry Milkshake, Silhouette, Fit for a Queen, Velvet Tuxedo, Encore! and Big Yellow Taxi. I also used OPI AmazON... AmazOFF for the leaves.

You can see the other entries to this challenge here:

An InLinkz Link-up

12 Days of Christmas: The Song

Today the prompt for the 12 days of Christmas challenge was the '12 Days of Christmas' song.

I have kept it quite simple and chosen the line '2 Turtle Doves'.

I started with two coats of Ciaté Mineral Clarity, which is such a gorgeous deep blue glittery texture polish. I then stamped the doves using George Natural White and this cute stamping plate from Born Pretty Store.

The doves don't stand out quite as much as I might have liked. The George white polish is not the best for stamping, but my favourite Barry M Matte White has thickened too much to use. I desperately need some polish thinner!

An InLinkz Link-up

12 Days of Christmas: Santa, Baby

Today the prompt was Santa and/or Elves.

I also just recieved my Ciaté Mini Mani Month Calendar, yay! So I wanted to incorporate some of the polishes from that.
BTW, I won't be posting swatches from the calendar on here each day but I will be posting them on Instagram @nailsmustbepainted so make sure you're following me if you want the updates! :)

The grey is Ciaté Sharp Tailoring (Day 2), the red is Ciaté Runway Ribbon and is a gorgeous loose glitter and the white is George Natural White. The Santa is a sticker I got from Poundland a few months ago! I am feeling poorly at the moment so didn't feel like concentrating long enough to do my usual freehand art.

Take a better look at that red glitter! I have never used a loose glitter before but wow this is gorgeous! The picture doesn't really do it justice. It is sooo sparkly and beautiful! 

I discovered just how difficult loose glitter is to clean up though!

Check out the other amazing entries:

An InLinkz Link-up

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!!

Poetry Nail Art: Winnie the Pooh

The Llama Nails challenge is nearly over, this is penultimate prompt! What am I going to paint on my nails when it ends!?

Anyway, this weeks prompt is Poetry.
The first poem which came to mind when I saw this was the 'Tiddely-Pom' poem from Winnie the Pooh! You can tell I spend too much time with children, haha! I have included the poem at the bottom, just in case anybody has no idea what I'm talking about!

I tried to represent the snow by doing a glitter gradient on my index and little fingers and using a flakie on all four nails. I painted Piglet and Pooh walking through the snow on the middle and ring fingers.

 I love this mani so much, piglet came out exactly how I planned. Pooh isn't bad either, although he is looking a little slim!!

I used all Ciaté polishes for this. Sweet Pea and Paper Doll from the Dolls House Collection, as well as Snow Globe and Confetti. Pooh and Piglet were painted with Black acrylic paint.

This is the image I based it on:

      The more it snows 
      (Tiddely pom), 
      The more it goes 
      (Tiddely pom), 
      The more it goes 
      (Tiddely pom) 
      On snowing. 
      And nobody knows 
      (Tiddely pom), 
      How cold my toes 
      (Tiddely pom), 
      How cold my toes 
      (Tiddely pom), 
      Are growing. 

Check out the other entries to the challenge:

An InLinkz Link-up