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'.

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

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:

12 Days of Christmas: Red and Green

I am a little late with this post, it was supposed to be yesterday but I found it really difficult to think of a design for the prompt 'Red and Green'.

This prompt is probably one of my worst nightmares!
1. I hate colour prompts. They are just so vague!
2. I don't like contrasting colours. I am all about matchy colours!

But this is what I came up with:

I know, its kind of cheating using each colour on different fingers, rather than integrating them, but by this point I was fed up! I already tried using the colours together, creating designs with red on top of the green watermarble, but they turned out horrendous! This was my 3rd attempt and I wasn't going to try again!!

For the red fingers I used Essence, Do You Speak Love?, Rimmel, Red Steady, Go! and Nails Inc. Hanover Square.

For the green nails I used Essence, Thats What I Mint!, Essence, Lets Get Lost! and Sinful Colours, Kissy.

I'm really happy with how the green turned out... not so much the red!

Check everyone else's (much better) mani's for this prompt:

An InLinkz Link-up

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!

Remembrance Poppies

Here in the UK it is Remembrance Day today. We all buy and wear poppies to remember those who have served and those who have fallen for our country, allowing us to be where we are today. This also raises money for the Royal British Legion who support past servicemen and women.

This year I have painted two mani's for Remembrance Day.

The first is a watercolour mani which I love! Particularly my middle finger (macro above), which I am really proud of!

I used a George polish in Natural White as the base colour then created the watercolour using Rimmel Ready, Steady, GO! and Missguided Missmatch before painting the details of the flowers with acrylic paint.

Here is my second mani. It is very different and creates a darker mood. The 'poppies' are dried flowersfrom the Born Pretty Store and the cross is hand painted using acrylic. The base colour is Nails Inc Glamour Hanover Square which is a lovely colour.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

Firework Inspired Nails

Here is a very quick post to show you my nails for Bonfire Night.
I didn't have much time so it had to be something simple, so I opted for a bit of glitter to represent fireworks! :)

Excuse the poor quality picture from my Instagram (Follow me @nailsmustbepainted). I have been very busy!

The base colour is Nails Inc Wigmore Street, a very deep purple which was free with Glamour magazine. I then sponged On Rimmel Space Dust in Aurora, followed by Ciaté Party Shoes, for lots of glittery goodness! This looks much better than the picture!

Although this mani is super simple and took me about 5 minutes to do I really like it! The colours contrast nicely and the glitter creates a very firework-y feel.

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

Dragonball Nails

This week for the Llama Nails challenge the theme is Anime/Cartoon nails.
I wanted to try anime, although again it is not my sort of film. So I asked my boyfriend to name a good anime film, found out a bit about it from him and googled some images!

This is how it turned out! I actually quite like this. 

The polishes I used were Rimmel Golden Hour on my index finger, an unnamed H&M blue polish on my middle finger, Ciaté Amazing Gracie on my ring finger and Sally Hansen Sugar Coat Cherry Drop on my little finger and thumb. The rest of the details are acrylic paint.

An InLinkz Link-up

Harry Potter Nail Art

This week the theme for the Llama Nails Movie/Book Challenge is Mystery.
Again, this was a difficult one for me to think of a film for, so I turned to IMDB's top 50 Mystery films.

Harry Potter is not a film I would consider a mystery, but at least 4 of the films were in the top 50 mystery films, so I just went with it!! My mani is based around the Deathly Hallows films.

I'm really pleased with how these turned out! Particularly the round gradient!

I started with a base of a Nude Unnamed Revlon polish, over which I sponged a circular gradient of the same nude polish and Sally Hansen Kiwi Bikini. I was trying to recreate that eerie green Voldemort glow!!

 I then used Barry M Black and a thin paintbrush to paint the symbol of the Deathly Hallows and the Dark Mark on my ring and index fingers. On my middle finger I painted Harry's lightening bolt scar using Rimmel Sunny Days and outlined in Barry M Black. I then used a Jess Matte Topcoat on all but the lightning bolt, to make it stand out.

I enjoyed using the box as a photo prop way too much with this mani!! I don't know how I never thought of it before, as I have many of the films I have based my mani's on for this challenge on DVD!

An InLinkz Link-up

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

Yellow Quilting

Today I have done a Yellow mani, for the British Nails Bloggers Colour Me Crazy challenge.

I only own three yellow polishes as it is not a colour I wear very often. Like, at all!! I only really use them in Nail art.

For this mani I used Rimmel Sunny Days and Sally Hansen Sugar Coat Sweetie.

I decided to have a go at a quilted mani. I love the look of these but have been putting off trying it as I have a bad relationship with striping tape! Surprisingly, I managed OK with it today and I actually quite like how these turned out!

An InLinkz Link-up

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

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

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!

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

L'Oreal Confetti

Last weekend I had a little haul of 5 new polishes.

One of these was a L'Oreal Confetti called Graffiti D'Amour, which is a matte hexagonal glitter. I absolutely fell in love with this and couldn't wait to try it! I wouldn't normally buy these due to their price, but Superdrug had a 3 for 2 offer on!

I love it! My biggest problem was what colour to wear underneath it!! As it had white, pink and red pieces, it was difficult to find a colour which would go with all three, without hiding one of the colours.

So I used a grey accent nail. This is Sinful Colours Cool Gray and the red is Rimmel Red, Steady, Go (Both also new buys!).
It goes on nicely, with a reasonable spread of glitter pieces, although I did have to place some of them to ensure I had no bare patches.

Overall, I am glad I bought this polish! :) After using it I still love it as much as I do in the bottle!

Pink Ombre

This week in the Simples Nail Art group the theme was Ombre.

This is not something I have done before. I'm not a huge fan of having different colours on each nail unless they all tie in somehow. But I tried it out anyway, with a selection of pinks, intending to take it off again once I had taken photo's. I'm actually quite surprised how much I like this mani! I'm even considering doing the other hand the same, rather than just taking it off!!

I used (Thumb to pinky):
Barry M Superdrug Birthday Polish
Barry M Limited Edition Pink, Sorry I don't know the name!
Sally Hansen Fuchsia Flare
Rimmel Cupcake Pink with a topcoat of Kiss Glitter #EL1228 Step 2
Nails Inc. Warwick Avenue.

Beautiful Bows

A little while ago now I got a bit stuck for nail inspiration. As a result I joined lots of challenge groups, so I always had a theme and a starting point for my nail art.

Although I love these groups and participating each week, recently I have been feeling limited by these themes, as though they are stopping me from doing what I want! So I've decided to stop taking part in those so much, although not completely, and start doing my own thing more often! :)

This is my own thing!! Lots of pink and girly-ness!

This is 3 coats of Rimmel's Cupcake Pink which is a lovely pearl effect polish. I then painted the bow using Rimmel Urban Purple and some black acrylic paint. On my ring finger I used a Kiss pink glitter polish topcoat.

I love these!! I don't remember the last time I had such feminine nails! They remind me of being a child and candyfloss and they make me feel a little happy inside each time I look at them. I know, I'm sad!