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: Blue Base

Just last week I received an order from Born Pretty Store which included plate BP-33.
The plate is nautical themed, so this prompt seemed like the perfect opportunity to try it out.

I love it! I like that it is nautical, but more traditionally nautical rather than the red, white and blue patterns you see more often.

I used Make Up Gallery Sky Blue as the base colour and stamped using Rimmel Punk Rock. All the images stamped are from BP plate 33.

Use discount code EHG10 at Born Pretty Store to get 10% off.

Check out more 'blue' nail art:

An InLinkz Link-up

31DC: Non-Glitter Topper

This was another prompt where I knew exactly which polish I wanted to use.

I have a blue Barry M crackle polish which I bought on a whim about a year ago. I have no idea why as I was never a fan of the crackle look. This was the perfect opportunity to give it a try!

I used Rimmel Punk Rock as my base colour and the Barry M blue crackle over the top, no topcoat.

I actually really like this. It has a very grungy feel to it and was so, so simple.

An InLinkz Link-up

Day 14: Holo

I don't own many holo polishes. I think this may even be the only one, and I kind of think of it as more of a topcoat than a polish. Hence, this prompt was tricky for me.
Plus with meetings at work this evening, I have been short on time so I apologize for this post being rather boring!

Although simple, I do quite like this. I used a few coats of Ciaté Unrestricted Glam, then painted over it in this grey holo indie topcoat by Wonderful and Strange Nails. On my ring finger I stamped at few simple stars using Ciaté Sand Dune and Plate MLS301 from Born Pretty Store.

Remember, you can get a 10% discount at Born Pretty Store using the code: EHG10.

I took this blurred picture in an attempt to show the real-life sparkly-ness and all the beautiful colours in there!

Everybody else's photos are much more interesting than mine today, so go check them out!

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.

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

Disney: Ratatouille Nail Art

And I've done another Disney!
Can you tell I love Disney?! Haha!

This time I went for a less common Disney film though... Ratatouille.

I really like the colours of this mani.

I used Revlon Blue Lagoon as a base colour. On my ring finger I did the Saran Wrap method with Blue Lagoon and Sinful Colors Cool Gray. This was followed by a coat of Grey Holo by Wonderful and Strange Polish, which I also used on my little finger (3 thick coats, no base).

I painted Remy the Rat using acrylic paints and the Eiffel Tower was stamped using a No17 unnamed dark metallic grey and a BornPretty stamping plate.

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! 

Simples: Splodging

I've been a bit quiet on the blogging front for the past few weeks, as I have been busy working a second job. But now I'm back. So, I've got a bit of catching up to do!

First is the SIMPLES challenge. Two weeks ago the theme for this was splodging mani's.
Splodging is something I have never tried before and didn't really expect to like, but I am actually quite pleased with how it turned out.

I used quite neutral colours for this mani. 1. Because I am quite big on colour co-ordination and hate using too contrasting colours together and 2. Because I plan on doing some nail art over this and don't want the background to be too distracting!

The polishes are all Ciaté: Amazing Gracie, Pillow Fight and Ivory Queen.

This was super easy to do and can create some quite nice effects.

Black Swan

This weeks Llama Nails Challenge prompt is Thriller Movies/Books.

 I found this prompt really really hard! Thriller's are not my thing, at all!! After trawling through IMDB's top 100 Thriller's I finally found a film I had actually seen at number 80!! Black Swan.

Although it took a while to get there, I actually really like this mani. I tried to show the progression of the transformation from white to black swan. Not sure how well I did that, but I still really like it!

I used quite a few polishes in this mani so I'm just going to list them below:

• Sinful Colors Cool Gray
• Barry M Matt White
• Barry M Black
• Rimmel Cupcake Pink
• Rimmel Golden Hour
• Rimmel Red, Steady, Go.

The feathers on my middle finger are water decals from the Born Pretty Store.

I'm really enjoying this challenge, it always makes me think carefully about what to do and I actually spend a lot of time on the mani's for it, rather than just rushing something!

An InLinkz Link-up

Bunting Gradient

When I did these nails (Admittedly, a few days ago but I've been too busy to post!), I wanted something summery but a little bit different. Also, I seem to have had a bit of a pink phase recently, so I didn't want to use pink!

So I ended up with bunting painted on my accent nail over a gradient of lilac and grey. I really like these nails. They are subtle but still pretty!

(Sorry about the upside-down picture!!)

For the gradient I used Sally Hansen Grape Race and Sinful Colours Cool Gray.

For the bunting I used Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream and Sally Hansen Pinch of Punch then outlined the flags in Barry M Black.

 Here are my leftie and rightie pictures! I didn't even attempt the bunting on my right hand!

It is a long time since I have done a gradient but this one seems to very bubbly! I'm not sure if this was the polishes I used, the sponge I used or something else!? I still like the overall effect though!

My First Tri Polish Tuesday

So a few days ago I was looking around for nail challenges to take part in, without having to do my nails quite every day! I found Crumpets Nail Tarts on Facebook and their challenges: GOT challenge and Tri Polish Tuesdays. Although I have a few old polishes, I only got really into having fancy nails in the past year so I don't have enough to use old ones regularly. But I thought the Tri Polish Tuesday Challenge sounded good, and it allows me to do whatever design I want. I know it's the last Tuesday of the month, but I decided to have a go this week, so here's my entry:

I've never done any sort of Aztec design before, but wanted to have a go. And I thought these colours lent themselves quite nicely to it. I don't like it though. Not sure if its the colours, the design, or just that I need more practice for it to look anything like, but I'm not a fan!

Anyway, the polishes I used were Revlon Stormy, as the brown/nude base colour, Sally Hansen Pinch of Punch for the pink stripes and a Boots 17 polish which is unnamed, but is a dark metallic grey/silver. I also used some black striping tape and finished it with a matte top coat.

I'm really not sure. I like the idea of aztec nails, I just can't do them!! Maybe I need a stamping plate design so the hard bit is done for me!!!