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! 

Bedazzled

Hey!

Way back in November I bought a 2-pack of Rimmel glitter polishes. Up until now I still haven't got around to trying them out, so this week I decided that whatever I did with my nails I had to use one of them! So that's what I did!

I'm really pleased with how these turned out actually. :)

I used Barry M Black as a base on my index and middle fingers, followed by two coats of Rimmel 'Bedazzle'. I really like the colours in this glitter! I tried to match the other polish as closely as I could to the pink glitter, so I ended up using a really old unnamed pink polish by the sports brand 'Animal'.

Cheerful and Childish

Today's nails are, as the title says, very childish and cutesy. They make me feel cheerful and think of happy times!

I started painting my nails with very little direction or plan. I knew I wanted a gradient, so I picked two polishes at random to start with. I ended up with two Sally Hansen polishes: 'Pinch of Punch' and 'Coastin' By'.

The gradient I ended up with was cute, but felt it needed something else so I opted for some stamping. I used a plate from Born Pretty Store - MLS301, with a cute sweetie design and stamped using Barry M Silver Foil Effect polish.

I like how these turned out. They are very cutesy, remind me of unicorns and magic!! If only I hadn't had to cut all my nails short they would have looked even cuter!

NYE Nails

Hi!

Over Christmas I received a few random nail polishes as gifts. Usually I get much more than this, but lots of people told me they didn't know what I already had to get me any! 

I got 2 Cien polishes in 'Raspberry Glitter' and 'Metallic Rose', from Lidl. I tried these out and was surprised how good they were, especially for stamping with.

I also got Barry M 'Silver Foil Effects', George Gel Pro in 'Nude Pink' and an unnamed pink polish by High Brow, which I think came from B&M.

So, for my New Year nails, of course I had to use some of the new polishes:

They are not very New Year themed, but I like how they turned out. They are pretty, girly and glittery whilst still being simple and subtle.

I used George 'Nude Pink' as the base colour and Cien 'Raspberry Glitter' on my ring finger and to stamp on my index and middle fingers.

Hope you like these! xx

It's Christmassss!!

Hello!
So I know I said I would only be posting one photo per post, but as I am just restarting I wanted to show you some of the Christmas mani's I have painted this year! So this post will have several different mani's and several pictures!

I hand-painted these Christmas trees today, and these are the nails I will have for Christmas day.

I used Barry M 'Matte White' as a base colour, Revlon 'Rainforest' and Sinful Colours 'Kissy' for the Christmas trees and Ciaté 'Chinchilla' to add a bit of shading in the snow around the trees. I also sponged on some unnamed grey holo from Wonderful and Strange Nails, to add a bit of sparkle.

Next I have these adorable little penguins! I love these little guys, they are so cute!

I used Barry M 'Black Multiglitter' for the background, Barry M 'Matte White' for the tummies and eyes and NCLA 'I Only Fly Private' for the feet and beak.

I also painted some Christmas lights on my nails. These were very popular with my colleagues and my mum loved them too, although I wasn't too happy with the black lines.

I used W7 Gel polishes for the white background and the black line. Once these were set I then used Illamasqua 'Aorta' (Red) and 'Rare' (Yellow), Sally Hansen 'Pacific Blue' and 'Kiwi Bikini' (Green), and a small nail art brush to paint on the light bulbs.

Earlier in the month I had another Christmas tree mani. This is much more abstract, a dotticure tree!

I used Revlon 'Rainforest' as the green, Color Club 'Barely There' for the nude and Barry M 'Starlight' for the stars and glitter.

This was my first mani of December, so not too Christmassy! I went with more of a wintery, sweater look. I have no idea what polishes I used for this, it's too long ago to remember, sorry! I do know that the stickers were from last years Ciaté advent calendar.

Finally, I have this Rudolf mani, which I painted for my mum (Hence the awkward hand pose and misshapen nails!!). I used all gel polishes to do this. We mostly have W7 gels, but I know the Red is by OPI.

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!

Valentines Hearts

I painted these a few days ago, in the run up to Valentines day.
They are very cutesy and girly, not really my usual style of nails but I quite like them!

I used all Ciaté polishes for this skittlette design. 

The base colour is Strawberry Milkshake, which is one of my favourite pink polishes. I then used Serendipity to create a glitter accent nail and I stamped the heart pattern with Kiss Chase and MoYou London Mother Nature plate 01.

They are definitely girly-girl nails, which I am, but I very rarely show this side of me on my nails! 

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: Recreate your own mani

I struggled to find something I actually wanted to recreate for this!
A lot of my earlier mani's are horrendous designs, which would look no better for improved skills. They were just bad ideas!

Eventually, I found a lace design, which was my first mani posted on Instagram. I liked them at the time and I still like them now, so why not recreate them!

The first pic is the recreation and the second pic is the original.

I can definitely see huge improvements in my painting, clean-up and photography! Don't get me started on that watermark, so glad I downsized a little!!

I do miss that nail shape in the original photo, but working with kids it is just not practical! I don't want to accidentally stab anyone with my nails!

For the recreation I used Barry M Silk Poppy and white acrylic paint.

An InLinkz Link-up

31DC: Fishtail Braid

I have only ever painted a fishtail design once before and I wasn't too pleased with the outcome so I wasn't looking forward to this prompt.

However, I was surprisingly pleased with my mani!

I used Maybelline Berry Sweet, Maybelline Vibrant Fuchsia and Ciaté Silhouette.

Here are some of the other amazing mani's for this prompt:

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

31DC: Rainbow

Unfortunately, due to work I was unable to paint my nails yesterday so, sorry, this is a day late!

I have known for ages exactly what I wanted to do for this prompt!
I have a stamping plate (MLS301) from Born Pretty Store with a rainbow on which I have been meaning to use for a while.

I created the background by sponging on Ciaté Doll Face, Baby Doll and Poppet in random places on my nails. I then created a stamping decal of a rainbow using the Born Pretty plate and more polishes: Ciaté Unrestricted Glam , Colour Couture Pink and Lilac and Essence Let's Get Lost! Finally, I used the same plate to stamp lots of stars onto the design.

I'm really pleased with how this turned out! My stamping isn't perfect but I love the overall look!
The only thing I would want to change about this would be to add some glitter!!

The other girls did some amazing rainbows:

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: Glitter Base

Today I have done a glitter base with even more glitter on top!
I absolutely love how it turned out, shame the pictures don't really do it justice.

I used three polishes from my Ciaté Mini Mani Manor to do this: Silhouette, the dark burgundy base, Candy Cane, the pink glitter and Celestial, the silver glitter. 

I sponged the glitters on to create the gradient effect.

I literally can't stop looking at them and moving them around to see how they sparkle!

Check out everyone else's glittery goodness:

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!

12 Days of Christmas: Ugly Sweater

The prompt for today was 'Ugly Sweater Nails'.
I had what I thought were the perfect water decals for these nails, but unfortunately it didn't go quite to plan!

I have used water decals plenty of times before, I know what I am doing with them, but these just would not work. It seems that the plastic they are printed onto is way too thick for this purpose. Even after soaking in hot water the plastic remained rigid and wouldn't adhere to the nail the way decals usually do. I ended up covering the nail in topcoat and sticking the plastic to that. Even then I had problems getting the image to lay flat as the plastic was too rigid and I could feel them sitting on top of my nail, which isn't usually the case with decals. (The image below shows how bad this was!)

It's a shame as I have never has a 'bad' product from Born Pretty Store before, but these were so disappointing and I was so looking forward to using them!

Urgh, look at how bad those decals are! Not nice!

The base polish I used was Ciaté Cupcake queen, topped with Ciaté Candy Cane glitter. I love these two polishes together!

See the other, more successful entries for this challenge:

An InLinkz Link-up

12 Days of Christmas: Decorations

Yay, a prompt that is not colour based!! Today it is decorations.
On my tree I have lots of delicate, cut-out decorations, so I chose to base my mani on a particular one of these.

I'm really pleased with how these candles turned out, though the ribbon leaves a little to be desired!

I used a tiny detail brush and a whole load of Ciaté polishes: Strawberry Milkshake, Silhouette, Fit for a Queen, Velvet Tuxedo, Encore! and Big Yellow Taxi. I also used OPI AmazON... AmazOFF for the leaves.

You can see the other entries to this challenge here:

An InLinkz Link-up

Autumn Days

Today I have an autumnal mani to show you.
 I have been planning this one a while but was awaiting the arrival of the leaves from the Born Pretty Store which took two months to arrive. Hence, this is not really seasonal anymore!

The above photo was taken in natural light and is a lot more colour accurate. The below photo was taken under my new LED lamp, which is a lot better than photographing under my 'normal' lights, but still not great. I am contemplating making another light box.

Anyway, I was going for a 'leaves blowing in the wind' look for this. I quite like how it came out, though it's not quite as I envisioned it would be! My pinky was supposed to be the pile of leaves, then the other fingers showing them blowing away, with the swirly lines representing the wind.

I used Jess polish in Innocence for the background. The swirls were Sinful Colors Nirvana and an unnamed gold PS by Primark polish. The gold leaves were from the Born Pretty Store.

You can get 10% off these leaves and anything else on the Born Pretty Store with my discount code: EHG10.

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!

Watermarble Nail Art Tutorial

This week I have created some watermarble nail art. 

Over the past few weeks a lot of my non-nailie friends have been sharing pictures of watermarble nails on Facebook, so I thought I would create a tutorial to show them how to do it! :)

The polishes I used were Essence, That's What I Mint!, OPI Kiss Me I'm Brazilian and OPI Where Did Suzi's Man-Go?

Here is a pictorial. See below for step by step instructions to go with it!

1. First paint the nails you intend to watermarble onto in a light colour: white or nude are good options.

2. Now, gather together everything you will need. Water, polishes (open the lids), cocktail sticks, Vaseline, kitchen roll.

Some people recommend filtered water, however I just use tap water. I do let it sit for about an hour beforehand though, to ensure it is room temperature otherwise the polish will dry too quickly.

3. Cover your cuticles and the backs of your fingers in Vaseline. This makes cleaning up afterwards so much easier! Careful not to get it on your nails though.

4. Now you are ready to start. Drip your polish into the water and allow it to spread.

5. Working quickly add drops of your other chosen polishes into the centre.

6. Once you have plenty of polish in there take a cocktail stick and move the polish around to create a pattern.

7. When you are happy with the pattern you have created dip your fingers in, nails down and leave them in the water. Use a cocktail stick to gather up any leftover polish floating on the water, otherwise this will ruin your mani when you remove your fingers.

8. Take the fingers out of the water. Ta Da! You have a beautiful watermarble design. Don't be tempted to dry your fingers yet, allow them to air dry or you risk smudging your marble.

9. The excess polish on your fingers should wipe away easily with kitchen roll, because you used the Vaseline. More accurate clean up can be done around the cuticles with acetone and a small angled paintbrush.

10. Now all thats left to do is paint the rest of your nails and topcoat. I like to use one of the polishes I used for the marble, to keep it matchy!

I hope this has helped.

Try it yourself!