Frozen Nails

I've had this idea in mind for a little while now as Frozen is currently one of my fave films!

Every week I participate in Fingerfood's Buffet Challenge and this week's theme was 'For Scarlett'. I read on the Facebook page last week that she also likes Frozen, so I've waited until now to do this. I know it's not perfect but I hope she loves it as much as I do!

I used Barry M Matte White and Revlon Blue Lagoon as my base colours, on different nails, then painted the rest in acrylic paints.

Also, below I have included a picture taken without my DIY light box I showed you here, just to show how amazing the difference in picture quality is!

Fingerfood's Buffet: Oriental

This week's theme for the Fingerfood buffet challenge was oriental.

My boyfriend is a bit of a China enthusiast, so it had to be related as soon as I saw it! In fact, he helped me by painting the symbol on my right hand, which apparently means Cherry Blossom, hence why this is accompanied by some pink flowers on another finger.

On the other hand I had a slightly more adventurous idea... a dragon!

I'm not sure about this. My brush wasn't thin enough to get the lines as accurate or to get as much detail in as I would have liked. I still like the idea of it, and generally like how it turned out, I just wish I'd had a thinner brush. I feel this might be a mani I recreate sometime once I do have a thinner brush!

I used an unnamed Revlon polish as the base colour. In the bottle this looks like a nude colour, but on the nails it is a sort of soft gold. I used Rimmel Right Royal Red for the dragon and finished with a matte topcoat from Primark.

For the other hand I used the same base, the Chinese was done in acrylic paint and the flowers are stick on ones from Poundland.

Fingerfood's Challenge: Something New

Today for my something new nails I have gone all out on the 'new'!
I have used 2 new polishes and 2 new techniques. :)

The first new polish is the 'Jess' Polish, in Madison, which I reviewed here yesterday. This is the base colour in these pictures, and is actually a deep purple. The second new polish I have used is a crackle polish. I have to admit to having never used a crackle polish before. The look just doesn't do anything for me. But I saw one yesterday and thought I'd give it a go so this is Sally Hansen, Star Burst, on my index fingers. The crackle effect actually looks better than I imagined  and it has glitter in, which creates quite a cute look, so maybe it will get a bit of use!

 I also tried out two new techniques today. First, I tried the Saran wrap method on my ring fingers. I love how this looks on other people's pictures, but mine doesn't seem to have had the same effect. I did think this might be because I used an insta-dry polish so it dried before I could get much off, but I'm not sure. The top polish I used was Sally Hansen, Grape Race.

The second technique I tried was making my own decals. These are on my thumb nails and I kept it nice and simple with just a star on each hand. I used the sandwich bag and clear polish method of doing this and was surprised how easy it is and that you can't see or feel any edges at all of the clear polish once on the nail. Although, peeling the polish from the bag was extremely difficult and I ended up breaking one star in half, then having to line it back up on my nail!! I will definitely be doing this again, as it is so much easier than trying to paint designs straight onto the nail.

I then finished the whole mani off with a matte topcoat. :)

 Does anybody else's Blogger keep turning their photo's around? At least 3 of these photo's started off the other way around! It's very frustrating!

Fingerfoods Challenge: Gothic

The theme for this weeks Fingerfoods Buffet Challenge was Gothic.
Being a complete girly girl, I couldn't get any further from Gothic if I tried. Hence, I found this theme incredibly difficult!! I ended up basing my mani on Gothic Architecture after much Googling.
I'm not sure about the result... I like my thumb, reminds me of Alice in Wonderland! Not so keen on the others!

Excuse the sideways pictures, for some reason Blogger turned them when I uploaded.

I used Rimmel's Right Royal Red as the base colour, then freehanded the designs onto the nail using a Black Sharpie.
I've never used this Red polish before, but I really liked it! I love the pop of bright colour, which was achieved in just 1 coat. And I hadn't realised before that it's a gel finish polish, and it is super shiny! I just wish it had a better brush. I love the bigger, flat brushes most Rimmel polishes have and was disappointed this didn't have one. Nevermind!

Fingerfood Theme Buffet & Africa Inspired: Fishtail Braids.

So this week I entered the Fingerfood Theme Buffet, for the first time ever, although I was a little late! The theme was fishtail, which was apt considering this was one of the techniques I wanted to include in my Africa Inspired Mani's, so it works as both!

I wanted this included as an Africa inspired mani as all the girls in the school who actually had any hair, had their hair braided. Apparently, this is a bit of a status symbol. Many of the children had their hair shaved, including girls, for ease. Those who had their hair braided are the ones who have a little bit more money. The girls in the school also began to braid my hair whilst I was there, although they didn't get very far, as I have so much more hair than them!

I've never tried a fishtail technique before and found it to be very time consuming, despite two of the polishes I used being Insta-dry! Hence why I only did the technique on one finger, rather than the full hand. I just wish I had got the sizes of the stripes a little more accurate, as some are much smaller than others.

The colours I used are MUA Plum Noir, Sally Hansen Grape Race and Sally Hansen Fuchsia Flare.
I also wanted to give a quick review of the MUA polish in this post. I had heard good things about them, so invested in two, Plum Noir and Frozen Yoghurt. I used Plum Noir in this mani, (the main base colour) and have to admit I was not very impressed. The polish was difficult to apply evenly and left lines on my nails from the brush which you may be able to see in some of the pictures. This was two coats, but really it needed at least another one, if not more.