Neon Dotticure

This week I have a bright summery mani to distract from this miserable weather we're having at the moment!

I have had this grey/neon yellow pattern pinned on my pinterest inspiration board for ages, but never got round to doing anything with it until now.

I used Ciaté 'Chinchilla' for the base, then used Barry M 'Black' and Illamasqua 'Rare' for the the dots. 

I really like how this mani turned out. It's just a shame my nails or so short and ugly at the moment! I think I'll be trying this design again with different colours once I get my nails back as I like them! 

31DC: Recreate a Favourite Blogger

I can honestly say I don't have one single favourite blogger. There are a handful of favourites. So I spent some time looking through them all to find a mani that I felt like recreating!

In the end I decided on this vintage rose mani by Gianna @NailStorming.

I was really pleased with how this turned out. It is the sort of style that I always wore when I first got into nail art just over a year ago, though it's not a look I wear very often anymore! In fact, on 20/1/14 I created a very similar mani using two of the same polishes which later became my first blog post. If you are interested you can find that here, though I'll warn you now, the photography is horrendous!

I used Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream as the base colour. The spots and stripes were painted with a white Nail Art Pen from Migi Nail Art. For the roses I used several pinks: Sally Hansen Pinch of Punch, Sally Hansen Fuschia Flare, Ciaté Strawberry Milkshake and white acrylic paint as well as Models Own Emerald Green for the leaves.

Why not have a look at some of the others amazing recreation's below:

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?

31DC: Follow a Tutorial

I have made a last minute decision to attempt the Crumpets Nail Tarts 31 Day Challenge. I have never before managed to complete a challenge where I have to post everyday, hence why I wasn't planning on participating, but I just changed my mind.

Day 1 was 'Follow a Tutorial'. Yes, this was technically meant to be posted yesterday but nevermind!

I followed an Instagram tutorial by @Nailstorming for a dotty gradient. 

The above photo is inside under my lamp, the below photo is in natural light.

I used 5 polishes for this: Colour Couture Beauty in Bloom, Sinful Colors Cream Pink, Sally Hansen Fuchsia Flare, Rimmel New Romantic and Jess Polish Innocence.

I really like how it turned out, and the staining on my natural nails creates a gradient-like effect!!

See everybody else's mani for this prompt:

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

Disney Nails: Minnie Mouse

This weeks Llama Nails theme is Disney.
Disney is my all time favourite film genre!! I know, I'm sad!

 I have chosen to paint Minnie Mouse on my nails today. Though I have to admit I have another  Disney mani coming tomorrow!
I know she doesn't feature in many Disney films nowadays, but in the past she has been in lots!

I used Essence Do You Speak Love? for the ring finger, thumb and the dots, Ciaté Amazing Gracie for the middle and pinky fingers and an unnamed nude Revlon for the index finger, with details painted using Barry M Black.

I really like these. Themed, without being too much for a change!!

An InLinkz Link-up

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!

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.

Going Dotty!

Today's mani has been done to work for two different challenges!
The Simples prompt for this week is dots within dots, and the British Nail Bloggers Colour Me Crazy Challenge has a Red theme for the week. 

So I have Red dots within dots on my nails! :)

I used Rimmel Red, Steady, Go as the background colour. Then for the dots I used Barry M Black Multiglitter, an unnamed No.17 Polish (Dark metallic silver) and an unnamed Animal Polish (Light metallic silver).

I'm not a huge fan of this look! I like my colour scheme, but the dots within dots thing is just not something I particularly like. Although I can't really say I dislike it either! But it's good to try everything once!

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

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!

Neon Dotticure

Today I have another super summery look!
This weeks Simples challenge is a dotticure using different sized dots together. So this is what I came up with:

I really like this. It reminds me of glow-sticks! I think a splatter mani in these colours would be amazing!

I used Barry M Matt White as a base colour.
Then I did the dots with dotting tools, using Sinful Colours Cream Pink, La Femme Beauty Ultra Green and W7 Fluorescent Yellow which I placed randomly around the nails.

Tropical Leaves

Last week I discovered this lovely website, Print and Pattern. I saved it straight away, knowing it would be great for Nail art inspiration. So today, when I needed help thinking of something to paint I headed here for ideas!

 This is what I came up with! I found the pretty pattern below, which is by Holly Maguire Illustration and loved it so this was my inspiration! Simple to paint without much difficulty, but pretty and summery at the same time!

Here is a close up of the flower:

I painted this completely using polish.

 The white base colour is Barry M Matt White. 

The pink and green are both OPI; Kiss Me I'm Brazilian and AmazON, AmazOFF.

The Yellow is a Sally Hansen Sugar Coat polish in Sweetie.

I really like this! And it's not very often I have so much Green on my nails so it's a nice change!

Red Roses and Dots

Here is my latest mani! I love it so much! Had so many lovely comments on these nails over the past few days. I had to use falsies for this though. :(  Two of my nails snapped whilst cleaning, so I had to cut them all short.

I used Barry M Matt White, Rimmel Red, Steady, Go! and Sally Hansen Kiwi Bikini for this.

I was so pleased with this mani that you even get a rare shot of both hands!! I think I may even prefer the Right hand. Although the dots aren't as even, I think the roses turned out better!

I was a little impatient with my topcoat on these so there is a little bit of smudging, especially on my thumb!

The sun is making me lazy with blogging these past few days. I've had my nails like this since Monday, but only just got around to posting them! Woops!

Roses and dots

These are my nails at the moment...

A bit of freehand nail art.
I think I prefer how they were before I added the dots. More simple and chic. But once those dots were there it was too late! Maybe I'll try these again sometime, without the dots.

 The polishes I used were, Barry M Blueberry for the base colour, Sally Hansen Pinch of Punch (Pink) and Red Hot (Red) for the roses and Barry M Matte White for the details of the roses and the dots.

And here are a few more pictures...
(Excuse the bad light! Some of the pictures were taken when I painted them, when the light was good, others were taken just now. These are not so good 1. because its getting dark out so there is no natural light 2. my nails have been like this 6 days now and are starting to chip and wear at the edges!)

These have got to be one of my all time favourite nail designs! So pretty!