Rosey Stripes

Hey!
Unfortunately I'm having to rely on false nails this week. I went climbing with my dad yesterday and so I had to cut all my nails short, otherwise they would have been broken anyway.

I really really love how these turned out though and I hope they last and don't all pop off tomorrow!!

I used some striped falsies from Primark to start and a plain white false nail on my index fingers. Then I painted the index fingers pink using George 'Raspberry Forest'. I dug out some old Born Pretty decals I had which matched the pink polish and added a few of these to jazz up the mani a bit! 

Valentines Roses

Earlier today I was thinking I wanted to paint my nails for Valentines day. I knew I wanted roses, but haven't been happy with lots of my roses recently. So I went on Youtube and watched millions of different rose painting tutorials before I began painting, not following any particular tutorial, just using the info I learnt.

I absolutely love how these turned out. 

By far my best roses yet. So happy with them!

I used Barry M Rosehip as the base colour, then painted the roses freehand using acrylic paints and detail brushes from Born Pretty Store.

I literally never want to take these off! Haha!

31DC: Decals

Yay, I'm back!
I spilt a glass of wine on my laptop last week and killed it. But, today I finally have a new laptop and lots of 31DC posts to catch up on! My ancient version of Photoshop won't work on my new laptop, so please excuse any dodgy photos whilst I try to find a decent editing app.

The first of the prompts I missed is decals.
I just want to say, I did keep up with the challenge, I was just unable to blog about it!

On my middle and ring fingers I used full nail decals from the Born Pretty Store. 

Remember, you can get 10% off these and other items using code EHG10.

On my index and pinky fingers I used Barry M Black.

I'm not a huge lover of these full decals but they are quick and easy so ideal if you don't have much time/ struggle with nail art!

An InLinkz Link-up

31DC: Monochrome

Monochrome nails today!
I have had a grey 'spotty' polish with black matte glitter pieces in for a while. It is from Primark and I havn't even tried it since I bought it around 6 months ago, so I was determined I would use that polish. Other than that I had no plan for this mani when I started out. I just started painting and thought, 'I'll see what I come up with!'.

I then stamped the diamond pattern and the roses using MoYou London Gothic plate 03 and Barry M Black Multiglitter.

The 3D rose, which can be found here was sent to me in a set by Born Pretty Store. They are the perfect size for my nails. Big enough to stand out but small enough that they don't take over my whole nail! You can see the size compared to a hair grip in the picture below. They also sit nice and flat on my nail, reducing the chance of them being pulled off each time I run my hand through my hair!

Remember you can get 10% these using the discount code EHG10.

31DC: Pink and Aqua

Today the prompt was a colour prompt; pink and aqua. This left me with lots of options!

I decided on a freehand floral design. To work with the colours I didn't want it to look too 'serious', so I made the flowers kind of cartoonish/child like.

I used Ciaté Paper Doll for the base, then I painted the flowers using acrylic paint for the outlining and filling in with Sinful Colors Cream Pink, an unnamed Glow in the Dark Primark polish and Sinful Colors Savage. I finished with my usual Essence Quick Dry Topcoat.

Visit the other blogs taking part to see what they have done!

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!

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!!

Fairytale Nails: Ella

This weeks theme is Fairytale. Of course, I could have just continued down the Disney route, however I wanted to do something a little less obvious.

These nails are based on a book I read to my class at school called Ella. Ella is a ladybird, who lives in Paris. She has two evil wasp stepsisters and she attends a ball, where she loses her glasses. The handsome spider who is holding the ball invites bugs to try on the glasses in an attempt to find her.

Yea, basically its a modern version of the classic fairytale Cinderella, with bugs!

I used Barry M Matte White as a base colour on most fingers, with Rimmel Red, Steady, Go! on my index finger. I then used Barry M Black for the dots. The flowers were done using Rimmel Cupcake Pink, Rimmel Space Dust in Luna Love and an old Limited Edition Barry M Pink, which I don't know the name of! The Eiffel Tower was stamped with a Born Pretty Store stamping plate and a dark silver No.17 polish. All finished off with my favourite topcoat, Essence Quick Dry.

An InLinkz Link-up

Regal Roses

Today I have a mani I have been meaning to post for some time!
This is in fact the mani which was my most popular on Instagram last month, however I never got round to posting it on here, oops!

I used two coats of Essence Do You Speak Love? for the base colour. I then used Barry M Matte White and Ciaté Pillow Fight to paint the Roses before finishing off with the Essence Quick Dry Topcoat.

This is such an amazing topcoat. I have quite a few of the budget brand topcoats and this is by far my favourite. Doesn't smell too bad, goes on nice and smooth, dries quickly and it is super dooper shiny! 

Kitsch Floral Nail Art

Tonight I have painted my mums nails rather than my own.
She wanted Cath Kidston style roses and dots, so that's what she got!

I very rarely paint anyone else's nails and it felt very strange, but we were both very happy with how they turned out. :)

The polishes I used were Ciate Ferris Wheel as the base colour. Sally Hansen Fuchsia Flare and Sally Hansen Wine Not for the pink roses. Sally Hansen Grape Race and Sally Hansen Plum Luck for the purple roses. I then added dots with Barry M Matte White and we finished with a clear UV gel polish to make it last as long as possible!

This is very similar to one of the first pieces of nail art I did, which you can see here and I have definitely improved!

50 First Dates

Hello! This week the Llama Nails Prompt is Romance Movies/Books.
I have based my mani on the film 50 First Dates and created a skittle, with each nail representing a different part of the film. This was one of my favourite films for a while!

I will explain the meaning behind each nail!

Thumb: Represents the sea, as the film is set on the island of Hawaii.

Index: This is the flower which is on the side of Lucy's car in the film.

Middle: Pineapples, as Lucy and her father pick a Pineapple every year on his birthday.

Ring: Newspaper, to represent the paper the family have reprinted each day for Lucy.

Pinky: Pink, the colour of the T-Shirt Lucy wears each day and her father has to wash each day!

Now for the polishes used:

• Sinful Colors Kissy (Thumb)
• Rimmel Sunny Days (Pineapples)
• Sally Hansen Fuchsia Flare (Pinky)
• Unbranded French White Polish (Middle and Ring base)
  
  The rest of the details were painted with Acrylics

I really like this mani. Although it is a skittle, the colours and themes seem to fit together really well.

Check out everybody elses mani's from the challenge:

An InLinkz Link-up

Yorkshire Rose's

Happy Yorkshire Day!
Being from Yorkshire (although not currently living there), I wanted to do some nails to celebrate the occasion!

Of course, it had to be the Yorkshire Rose!

I used acrylic paint to create the white roses and dots on top of H&M's Peachy Girl which I swatched yesterday (Review coming up!).

Excuse the mess on my hands, I had a bit of a fight with the white acrylic!!

The Yorkshire rose's are far from perfect, but I am fairly happy with them, as I have included most of the detail.

Nails of the Month: July

I seem to have done loads of mani's this month, although mostly in the first two weeks, as I have been extremely busy the past two weeks with moving and setting up my classroom.

This month's most popular mani was the same across the blog, my facebook page and my Instagram (@nailsmustbepainted).
The Black Swan Nail Art:

I can see why this was a particularly popular post. I love it too!!

Although, I am going to pick another favourite of the month, otherwise it would be a bit boring! 

In fact, there are two which I am struggling to choose between: Cappuccino Roses and the Chinese Lilac Flowers.

I love both of these for different reasons. The Cappuccino Flowers is so simple and easy, yet pretty at the same time, whereas the Chinese Floral is the opposite - a complex freehand painted flower on a gradient. 

I think I have to prefer the Chinese floral, just because of the time and effort that went into it!!

Capuccino Roses

Yesterday I didn't have much time to do my nails, yet I wanted them to be pretty. I have used some Born Pretty water decals I've had sitting around for a while as a quick and easy solution!

The base colour is Rimmel Coralicious, with an unnamed Nude Revlon colour on my Index fingers, to match with the roses.

I wasn't sure about these decals. I think it's the colour that put me off. But I actually really like this mani!

They were super easy to put on, however as the roses were rounded on the edges I felt very limited as to where I could place them on my nails.

Here they are with slightly different lighting!

Llama Nails: Comedy

Today the new Llama Nails Challenge starts. This time round it is based on Movies and Books, with a different genre each week. The Facebook group for this challenge is HERE, if anyone wants to join!

This first week the genre is Comedy, so I have based my mani on one of my favourite RomCom's - 27 Dresses! I have created a skittle where each nail is based on a different dress from the film!
I am well aware that my idea for this mani is much better than its implementation, but I don't care, I still love it!! Here are shots of my Right and Left hands:

Now I'm going to show you each nail individually, with the dress alongside it, so you can see where the inspiration came from! I will also list the polishes with each picture.

Sally Hansen Sugar Coat in Sweetie and Sally Hansen Fucshia Flare.

Sally Hansen Sugar Coat in Sweetie, Missguided Missmatch and Rimmel Golden Hour.

Barry M Silk Heather, Barry M White, Sally Hansen Grape Race and Missguided Missmatch.

Sally Hansen Fucshia Flare and Missguided Missmatch with Gold Sequins from Barry M Sequin Effects Black.

Sinful Colours Cool Gray, Sally Hansen Red Hot and Rimmel Urban Purple.

Barry M Matt White, Barry M Black and Sinful Colours Cool Gray.

Barry M Matt White, H&M Blue, Barry M Black and Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream.

This is my least favourite of the lot! Rimmel Golden Hour, Barry M Papaya, Rimmel Coralicious.

Barry M Matt White, Sally Hansen Fuschia Flare, Barry M Black.

Sally Hansen Grape Race, H&M Blue, No.17 Mettalic Grey and Barry M Black.

An InLinkz Link-up

Chinese Lilac Flower

A few days ago I did a mani for a challenge post, which has yet to be posted...
When I was taking it off, I loved my middle finger so much that I couldn't bring myself to get rid of it, so instead I incorporated it into a new mani, which is this one:

When I first painted this nail my boyfriend didn't believe I had painted it myself! He was convinced it was a decal and refused to believe me for ages!!

For my middle finger I used a base colour of Barry M Silk in Heather. I then painted the flowers using Barry M Matt White, Sally Hansen Grape Race, Missguided Missmatch and Sally Hansen Kiwi Bikini for the leaves.

On the rest of the fingers I sponged a purple-white gradient using Sally Hansen Grape Race, Barry M Silk Heather and Barry M Matt White.

I really really liked this mani and would quite happily have kept it on much longer than I did!!

Nails of the Month: June

OK, so I had an idea that each month I will do a 'Nails of the Month' post.
In these posts I will share my favourite mani from the past month and also the most popular mani's on the blog and my Facebook page.
It always amaze's me how the most popular posts are often the one's I actually really don't like!!

So I'm going to start with the most popular mani on the blog this month.
This was my Lace Saran mani:

Although I was quite proud of the freehand painting on this mani, I personally don't love it!!

The Facebook favourite was really close, so I'm going to show you both!!

First is my Leopard Print Mani:

Very closely followed by my Roses and Dots:

These nails were a huge hit with all my friends and I got so many comments on them! I even had a guy at Uni telling me 'I'm not gay, but I really love your nails!!'. They were also an Instagram favourite, although I don't post all my mani's to Instagram. 

I wasn't completely happy with them. There is some pretty bad smudging, although I do love the design.

My personal favourite of the month is a very simple but effective mani! The Neon Dotticure!

I love this so much, it just all goes together really well! It is very rare I do my nails and can't think of anything I want to change about it!

So that's the round up for this month! I hope people like me doing this! I think it's nice to have all the favourites together for comparison!