31DC: Something You Never Tried Before

This was another difficult one for me. Most techniques I like the look of I try!

Eventually I came up with Sugar Spun nail art. I haven't tried it previously and thought I might be able to make it look ok!

I found it quite tricky to create as the polish strings went really  thin, but I think it looks ok.

I used all Barry M polishes for this; Rosehip, Papaya and an old LE pink polish without a name on (#NPP1).

An InLinkz Link-up

31DC: Complement and Contrast

Day 25's prompt was complement and contrast.
I opted to use complementary colours from the colour wheel. Pink and purple paired with yellow and orange in a colour blocked design.

Sorry about the Instagram photo. I painted and photographed these before I killed my laptop, so the 'proper' photos are still on my old laptop, where I cannot access them. :(

I started with a base of Ciaté Amazing Gracie, then used Sinful Colours Cream Pink, Maybelline Fuchsia Fever , Missguided Missmatch and Ciaté Big Yellow Taxi with striping tape to create the squared pattern.

I really love these!

Check out the other ladies work:

An InLinkz Link-up

Watercolour Nails

Hello!
Today I have followed the SIMPLES tutorial to do some watercolour nails.
This is something I have wanted to try for quite a long time, but have never got round to doing!

I absolutely love how this turned out! So pretty!

I started with a basecoat of Barry M Matte White. For the watercolour I wanted to use a colour scheme, rather than a selection of contrasting colours. I chose to use Barry M Papaya, Sally Hansen Fuschia Flare and Revlon Infamous and mushed them all together using acetone!

It's so summery and pretty!

I expected the colours to be a lot lighter than they ended up, due to the acetone, but I still love it!

MNDA Ice Bucket Nail Art

I'm sure everybody has seen an Ice Bucket Challenge, if you have not participated yourself!
This is to raise awareness of ALS, or MND, as it is known here in the UK.

A few days ago I was nominated to take part!
So, alongside doing my ice bucket challenge and donating, I also painted my nails for the occasion with the MND Association logo!

I thought you might like a laugh, so here are a few pictures from my challenge too!

Les Miserables

Hello! I haven't been able to post for a while as I have just moved and don't have internet until next Thursday! I'm using BT WI-FI at the moment and it is soooo slow and keeps disconnecting. There is only one picture in this post as it literally took an hour to upload!!

So this week the theme for the Llama Nails Challenge was Historical films/books. I decided to base this mani on the film Les Miserables. I'm trying to stick with films I would actually watch to base my mani's on so it was a choice of Les Mis or Titanic! I'm saving Titanic for later in the year, as I will be teaching it at school!

I also found out after doing this mani that it was Bastille Day on Monday, so it was quite an apt time to have this on my nails really!

The polishes I used were:

• Barry M Matt White
• Rimmel Red, Steady, Go!
• Rimmel Golden Hour
• Rimmel Sunny Days 
• H&M Unnamed Blue

An InLinkz Link-up

Saran Wrap

Last week for the Simples group, the challenge was to do a Saran Wrap mani.
I had a go but mine was not very successful in the end (here, if anyone really wants to see!), so I decided to have another go at the weekend!

This was the outcome:

I much prefer them to my last attempt and may even be  beginning to like Saran Wrap mani's!! 

This time I chose to use more contrasting colours, to make the effect more obvious, as I felt this was the biggest problem last time (OPI, Where Did Suzi's Man-Go? and Barry M Black). I also used a 'dabbing-off' technique, rather than dabbing the second colour on, which I did last time. I think this was much more successful! :)

OPI, Where Did Suzi's Man-Go?

Here is the next swatch from the OPI Brazil Copaca Babies Collection.
This is 'Where Did Suzi's Man-go?', which is a pale orangey crème.

I am in love with this colour! It's a really one off in-between type colour. I would say it's somewhere between pastel orange and peach. However, my boyfriend described it as Coral. I would say Coral is a bit pinker, but you get the point, this isn't really any particular colour!

As with the other OPI's in the collection, I found it applied quite streaky, needing 3 coats for an even, opaque finish. I have decided this streakiness might be something to do with the brush rather than the formula, as it doesn't seem to hold the polish very well and I find myself re-dipping between every stroke. However, I found this one dried smoother than the other two I have tried and has a much shinier finish. The picture is without topcoat.

I am much happier with this one than the first two. :) 

Hopefully the last one, 'Kiss Me I'm Brazilian' will be more like this too!

Lace Saran

This week's Simples technique was Saran Wrap.

I used Sally Hansen Fuchsia Flare as my base colour, then dabbed on Sinful Colours Cream Pink and Barry M Papaya. These blended much more than I had hoped, creating a very, very subtle saran effect! You can tell if you look very closely but only just!

If you haven't already realised, I can never leave my nails plain, so I had to add some nail art! I used white acrylic paint to paint a lace design onto my nails, varying the pattern between each nail. I then finished with a matte top coat.

I really like these! My middle finger didn't quite turn out as planned but overall I still like them. :)

Neon Skittle

Today I have experimented with the ultimate summer mani!!
The Neon Skittle! It's so so bright, way too bright for everyday wear, but it's still amazing!

These are the polishes I used:

H & M, blue nail art polish

Sinful Colours, Cream Pink

W7, Fluorescent Yellow,

La Femme Beauty, Ultra Green

Missguided, Missmatch.

OPI Copaca Babies Collection

Look what arrived yesterday! :)

My first ever OPI polishes: The Brazil Copaca Babies Collection.

I haven't had a chance to try them out yet. I have an interview today so didn't want to go for anything too bright on my nails!

First impressions, I like the colours and the bottle, it is a really nice shape to hold. Next Stop... The Bikini Zone (on the left) looks very much like a Barry M polish I have (Dusky Mauve), which I can't say I have used more than once or twice, so I'm not sure this one will get much use. But I love the colours of the other three.

Watch out for some swatches of these over the weekend!!

Africa Inspired: Tiger Nails

Next Saturday I am going out to Africa, to teach in a school out there. So this week I wanted to do a few mani's inspired by Africa, as its a good excuse to Google pictures and get myself even more excited!!

But yesterday my bf came home with a new polish he had bought me :) He really liked the colour and was desperate for me to try it out. I thought, maybe I'll see tigers on safari, they're orange! So I went for a Tiger mani. I have since found out that tigers tend not to live in Africa, so I probably won't see one but shh! We'll just forget about that!

I started off with my new Sally Hansen Nail Nutrition base coat. I'll be doing a review of this in a few weeks, once I've been using it long enough to see how well it works! I then did two layers of Rimmel Golden Hour. This didn't really need two coats as it covered really well with just one, but I did another anyway, out of habit really. Then I sponged a little Barry M Matt White onto my thumb and ring finger, to create those little white patches tigers have! Next, I got a thin striping brush and freehanded some stripes on using Barry M Black. I didn't want these to be too neat and tidy, as that wouldn't be realistic! Finally, I finished off with a Barry M topcoat on the Thumb and ring finger. The Rimmel polish is so nice and shiny I didn't really need topcoat on the other nails.

I didn't think I'd say this when I first saw it, but I really like the colour of this polish. In some lights it's a vibrant orange, but as you move your hands, there's a lovely gold shimmer to it which isn't immediately obvious but makes its very pretty! You can just about see this on my little finger in the below picture.