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!

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: Film

Films are one of my favourite sources of inspiration, especially since doing the Movie/Book Challenge last year. However, because I did so many as part of that challenge it was difficult coming up with something new to do.

But then I remembered... Despicable Me!!
I know Minion nails have been done to death, hence why I have avoided them until now! But I love the film so wanted to do them anyway!

I was really pleased with how they turned out. And of course I had to take a picture of my minion nails with my minion toy!!

I used Ciaté Big Yellow Taxi and Sally Hansen Co-Bolt Blue. The details of the minion were all done with acrylic paints.

See which films the other girls based their nails on:

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: Do You Wanna Build A Snowman?

Today's prompt for the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge is Snowmen.
Of course, being a primary school teacher I had to paint everyone's favourite snowman of the moment... Olaf!!

I used a Primark Blue Glow in the Dark Polish for this. It doesn't actually glow, but the colour is just beautiful. Although the polish is blue, it has a very subtle gold shimmer which appears in certain lights. I also added a coat of Sally Hansen Sugar Coat in Royal Icing on my index finger. Olaf is painted using acrylics.

The snowflakes were sent to me to review by Born Pretty Store. 

They arrived in a little plastic pot which was actually a lot bigger than I had expected.

They are very cute and sparkly. Because they bend easily they sat quite flat on the nail, meaning they stayed on around a day... which is longer than I manage to keep most 3D type things on my nails! I would say they are definitely worth the £2.33 they are on the website for!

Get 10% off these here or other items at the Born Pretty Store with voucher code: EHG10.

Check out the other entries to the challenge here:

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

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!

Magnetic Nails

Today I thought I'd try my new Sally Hansen magnetic polish in Cosmic Blue.

I've never used a magnetic polish before and when I was putting it on I was very disappointed to see that rather than 'Cosmic Blue', it was a boring grey colour. However, I carried on and when I put the magnet over my nails I was pleased to see they turned a lovely deep blue. All the grey moved into lines and they had quite a cool 3D effect. This was really hard to photograph well but here are a few that show the effect (Typically, the best photo to show the effect and colour is slightly blurred!).

I'm not sure about this look. It's really good considering how quick and easy it is to do, so perfect if you're in a rush but want something a bit more than just a plain colour. But I find it a bit boring compared to my usual nail art and am not sure how much use I will get from this. Maybe I just need to find a more interestingly patterned magnet!
Or it could look quite cool with some nail art over maybe. That might be something to try!

Bargain Haul!

So, for those who don't know, Poundland have had a whole load of branded nail polishes in recently. Get down there, quick! Who can resist Sally Hansen, Revlon, Rimmel and Maybelline for £1 each?!

So I made a trip to see what colours they had out today.
This is what I bought:

• Sally Hansen Sugar Coat in Sweetie, which is a textured polish. I've never used textured polishes before so am interested to use this. Not sure I'll like it, I love the feeling of nice smooth nails. Such a cute colour though!

• Sally Hansen Extreme Wear in Kiwi Bikini. I love the colour of this! I've also been looking for a nice shade of green to use as leaves when I paint flowers so this is perfect!

• Sally Hansen Magnetic in Cosmic Blue. Again, I haven't used a magnetic polish before so am excited to see what interesting patterns can be created.

• And last, I got a matte topcoat. I love the look of matte nails but have never tried them before, so when I saw this for £1 in Primark I had to buy it. And it doesn't matter if I hate it as it was only £1!

Such a bargain day! 4 new polishes for a grand total of £4!!

Oh and here are all the polishes I have got from Poundland in the past month!! Such a bargain I can't resist buying them! 5 Sally Hansen, 1 Maybelline and 1 Revlon! :)