I'm Back!!! :D - Cherry Blossom Tree Spring Nail Art

Howdy folks!

I came over a little Spring-esque today and wanted to create some nail art featuring one of my favourite things about Spring... Cherry Blossom trees! I knew I wanted it to be a flowing-across-the-nails sorta thing, and absolutely love this gorgeously detailed Autumn styled design which fit what I wanted perfectly!

They've come out real pretty, though perhaps not as detailed as I'd originally planned for :)

I'm also working on my nail shape... again :D I had stiletto style when I last posted., while I was away I trimmed em all right down back to my natural shape. A couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted 'em stiletto again so now I am now training 'em back up, haha!


S x

Punky nails

Howdy!

Today I'm rocking some punk style nails.

There's not really an awful lot to them to be honest. I started by painting my thumbs and pinky fingers black (Barry M Nail Paint - Black), ring and middle fingers white (Barry M Nail Paint - White), and index fingers red (L'Oreal Colour Riche - Rouge Pin Up).

Once they were dry I took a little of the black and created a triangle shape at the base of the my index fingers and some (badly done, thanks striping tape...) black stripes on middle fingers.

I topped each nail with a liberal coat of Nails Inc Matte Topcoat and using the tip of an orangewood stick and some embellie gellie I attached some gold square studs in various ways as little accents.

The square studs were bought from a seller on Etsy, I got a set of 200 (gold & silver) for only a couple of quid.

Bit messy and not my neatest work but I still like em :)

That's all from me for now, catch ya all again soon!

S x

Leopard print naily art (meeeeeeeow!)

Howdy!

How are all you folks doing? Mid-week already, I'm sure I've lost a few days somewhere?!

Today I'm sporting some leopard print nails!! Animal print isn't something I usually go for myself, but I'm quite feeling it today. Here's what I did (all photos at the bottom):

Using a matte brown effect polish and a metallic gold polish I did half/half style straight down the middle of each nail, I used the same brown matte effect polish to create a plain accent nail on my ring fingers. Swapping the colours (gold on brown and brown on gold) I painted random blobs on top of each base colour using a medium sized dotting tool, then painted on random black detail lines with a small paint brush. I finished off by adding a line of tiny little gold caviar beads down the centre for a little extra detail and sparkle.

I recommend getting some Embellie Gellie for adding little beady/gemmy/small bits, makes things so much easier! It's a mildly tacky soft type glue that lasts for absolutely ages as you only need a little at a time. You can buy it via amazon and it's not too expensive :)

Also, how cute is my lil snakey ring I picked up for a couple of quid last week! Loving it!

'Til next time!

Stef x

Wonder Woman nails

Howdy!

I always wanna shove a 'partner' on the end whenever I say howdy :/

But I digress, today I have done myself some Wonder Woman nail art!




I used 3 nail paints; 'Femme Fatale' from the L'Oreal Colour Riche collection, 'Baker Street' by Nails Inc, and 'Gold Metallic Foil Effects' by Barry M. I also used a small amount of black acrylic paint.

I started by applying a full nail of red on my pinkies, a full nail of blue on rings, a half red/half blue on middles, a half red/half blue diagonally on indexes, and a full nail of gold on thumbs. Using the same gold, I applied a small shape in the style of WW's little tiara thing on pinky, the WW logo on middle, and a straight diagonal down the middle on index. I created the little detail lines with black acrylic using an extremely fine paint brush.

I added stars to the full blue nails, and to the half diagonal ones too. These stars are a little bit too bulky, but for some reason they are the only stars I seem to have at the moment. So... I am now on the look out for some cute little glitter type stars!
I gave all a good glug of top coat (Sally Hansen Insta-Dry, as is my usual).

I didn't really know what to put on top of the plain gold nails so I just left em that way.


However, I don't like that the Barry M Metallic Foil Gold polish dries to reveal such obvious brush marks. Generally BM products dry quite nicely, but for some reason this one just doesn't =/

Other than that little issue with the gold, I'm rather pleased with how this mani turned out :)

That's all from me for now, I'll likely be back on Friday some time as between now and then I have to come up with a nice mani to go with an outfit I'm wearing on Saturday night ;)

Byes for now!
Stef x

A little bit of everything...

Howdy!

Today my nails have a bit of a mixed range on 'em.

I've got a single coat of Essie Aruba Blue on thumbs, and 2 coats of Essie Aruba Blue on pinky, middle and index fingers. Over the Aruba Blue on thumbs I have a single coat of Glinting Lodestone by Femme Fatale, which is a gorgeous polish with various blue, green and purple glittery bits in it.

On my ring finger I have 2 coats of Lilypad Lacquer In the Milkyway which has a marshmallow white base with a holographic chewy centre. It's not as obviously holo as some other Lilypads (such as the Peacock shade I have previously posted about) but it's still got a lovely gently sparkle to it.

I've not bothered with a top coat as they are all pretty shiny. All applied as beautifully as usual too, though this was the first time I've ever used a Femme Fatale polish. 

I'm pretty pleased with the overall result. I think the colours all compliment each other, and as I didn't do anything special over the top of them, they all dried pretty fast too.

That's it from me today, 'til next time!

Stef x

Swatchy Switch - To Dance With a Peacock

Howdy and happy hump day!

Me again :D With another Lilypad Lacquer swatch, this time 'To Dance With a Peacock'

'To Dance With a Peacock' is another holo-colour-shift polish that has a very deep teal base. When light hits it the colours scatter like a rainbow, it's so gorgeous. You can also see why it's called what it is, the colours are just like a peacock!

This is another of those polishes where the colour changes every time you move and you can't help but stare at it. I've shown 2 coats plus top coat, but to be honest you don't really need the top coat because it dries to a wonderful shine all on its own, I merely add it because I have a tendency to chip my polish through day to day chores ;) It goes on easily and smoothly, pretty much perfect yet again!

You can buy Lilypad Lacquer products direct from creator on their Etsy store, or via what I call collab-stores (online stores that sell a whole bunch of brands together) such as Norway Nails.

Now then, back to work with me (if I can stop staring at my nails for long enough...). And a poorly child to take care of :(

Until next time!

Stef x

Switchy Swatch - Caribbean Crush

Howdy!

Today my Lilypad Lacquer order arrived! I got totally over excited when I saw the package in the mailbox (and my daughter was fascinated with the little froggy stickers on the envelope!). I am sooooo in love with them! The colours I ordered are all absolutely gorgeous, and I'm hoping to get some more in the future!

So, here is the first: Caribbean Crush

This is a very sparkly holographic colour shift polish. It seems to be primarily a teal colour, but when you move around in any source of light it shifts from teal to blue to purple (to a point where I can't stop staring at it...)

This is the teal colour that shows most of the time. It is super sparkly and such a gorgeous shade.

This pic shows the purple colour shift that occurs

And this one shows the blue shade that also appears

And finally, this one shows the full colour change (albeit a bit blurrily :P)
This was 3 coats colour plus top coat

I can't wait to try out the other colours I ordered , they are all so pretty! It was really easy to apply, very smooth, over all the perfect consistency. I definitely recommend Lilypad Lacquer! Hopefully we will get some sunshine here soon so I can take some pics in lovely outdoor lighting (in northern England we are pretty lucky to get more than 3 sunny days a year hehe :p)

(Looking at these pics, I defo need to stop being such hand sanitiser addict, my hands have gone so dry and my cuticles look so crap!)

Right then, I'm off to watch How To Train Your Dragon with my little monkey :D

Until next time!

Stef x

Waterfall

Howdy and happy Saturday!

Today I went with sparkle waterfall nails. I have never done waterfall nails before, they look pretty in general on other people but I don't think I've done 'em very well.

I went with Barry M 'Watermelon' as the base colour, with L'oreal 'Exotic Canaries' yellow on my accent nail. To create the waterfall on top of the 'Watermelon' colour I alternated lines of 'Mango', 'Grapefruit', 'Pomegranate' and 'Fushia', all by Barry M. I created an edge to hide their ends with metallic gold and added some clear gold glitter to the top to add a little sparkle. For the accent nail I used 'Kensington Park Road', 'Haymarket', 'Chelsea Physic Garden' and 'Baker Street', all by Nails Inc. I added metallic silver to hide the edges across the top and some clear glitter silver to add the sparkle on that nail.

The colours all look weird together as I just grabbed whatever I fancied out of the box and whacked it all together. Not particularly happy with them, but not so unhappy that I want to take it off and replace it straight away. I need to come up with some new ideas of stuff to try as the ones I've gone for lately I seem to have ended up doing a really bad job of it :S


Anyhoo... curry time!

Byes for now,

S x

Hallo Sailor!

Howdy!

Today I am rockin' some sailor/nautical themed nails:

 The blue on my thumb is Essie Aruba Blue with an Ombre Sparkle Silver chevron-style tip. My index, middle and pinky finger are all painted with a coat of Barry M White, and using striping tape I laid out the zones for Barry M Blue Grape (kinda wish I'd used the Aruba Blue though, as the Barry M dried to a much paler colour than I wanted). On my ring finger I used a L'oreal red called Femme Fatale and then a small paint brush and Barry M metallic gold to create the anchor. I finished it off with a single little blue gem on my middle finger.

It's a pretty quick and easy design that anyone should be able to do, though I recommend being patient and waiting for your polish to be fully dry before topcoating, otherwise you will get colour bleeding like I have :D



Just a quick one from me today, I'm off to have a Supernatural marathon ;) Happy weekend y'all!

S x

WIWT (or... what I wore today :D)

Howdy folks!

Sorry for the silence since my last post, I was hit with a nasty dose of tonsillitis and felt seriously yucky :( 
I'm back now though :D

Today I played around with Konad stamping, I quite enjoyed myself. It is relatively easy, though I need more practice to get my whole nail covered :S I'm glad I bought them to try out and can see myself using some of the designs a fair bit in future. 
I went with a base colour of Nails Inc 'Kensington Park Road' which is a lovely bright, vibrant blue. I used 3 coats of this as it is quite a translucent polish. I used Barry M metallic silver for the stamping colour and stamped the large and small flowery designs from Konad plate m60, here is the final result: 

At first I wasn't sure if was the right kind of polish to use with stamping but it seemed to do alright. The silver is very shiny and reflective so it was hard to take a picture that showed it properly in any kind of light. I think I'll try different colour combos next time, and try to stamp the whole design on my nail too xD

Eagle eyed people may also notice that I've reshaped my nails. I've never had the balls to attempt to reshape them past their natural style (sort of a rounded-edge-square) but I've started attempting to get them into a sort of almond style. I lost some of my length whilst filing them so they aren't the best almond shape in the world, but it should look decent if I keep helping to shape them properly while they grow. I'm reasonably surprised that my nails still feel incredibly strong!

I'm hoping that the Lilypad Lacquer polishes I ordered a few weeks back will arrive by the end of next week as they were mailed out on Monday. Is it weird to be super excited about some nail polish?! =/

Anyway, enough rambling!

Toodles 'til next time!

S x

Experimentation and shades of pink

Howdy folks!

Yesterday, at the end of my failed 'messy mani' post, I mentioned that I was considering trying out using acrylic paints for nail art as it was meant to be easier to handle. As I am an artist and therefore have a ton of acrylic paints in a box, I thought I would give that a try today. I went with a pretty simple design which can be seen below:

This 2 coats of Barry M Fuschia on my mains, and 2 coats of Barry M White on my accent nails.
I used the same white and a large dotting tool to create the dots on my index and pinky fingers, and added a pale pink and a silver gem to the upper centre of my middle finger.

I used a mixture of sap green, titanium white, lamp black and crimson red to freehand the roses with a very fine paint brush, and topped each nail with a liberal layer of topcoat.






I'm super proud by how well the roses came out, and I was quite happy to find that the acrylics were loads easier to use in comparison to nail polish. I will quite likely use acrylics a lot from now on!

That's all from me for now, catch ya again soon!

S x

Rush job...

Happy Friday folks,

Kinda disappointed in myself a little today. Had a view of how I wanted a nail design to be, and considering it's quite a simple design, I knew it was within easy reach. However, I was a bit lazy and in a rush last night so it's come off messier than I had hoped. I will quite likely take it back off today and put something new on instead!

But until then, here is my messy mani for last night/today:

This is Essie Aruba Blue as a base on all but my ring finger, which has Barry M White on it. I used the alternate colours for the stripes on each nail, the Aruba Blue to dot my ring finger and Barry M Foil Effects silver to do the dots on the others, plus a few little nail gems to finish it off. It looks as though I've got silver on the edge of my index nail but it's actually just the reflection from the window. They look quite crap so I have got my thinking cap on for something new to replace them.

In other news, I have ordered a couple of Konad plates and their double sided stamp. I'm going to try out stamping as it's something I've not done before, and may help to alleviate some of the free hand work I do. I'm also considering trying out using acrylics to create designs instead of nail polish as it's meant to be easier? I guess I shall see how I go!

Anyhoo, until later!

S x

31 Day Challenge - Day 1: Red

Happy hump day folks!

A couple of days ago I was doing my usual float around on other nail blogs checking out the recent posts, I'm quite curious (nosy...) you see, and I like the inspiration and tips that other nail bloggers give out. Anyway, a few people are doing the January nail art challenge that Californails have posted on their Instagram page. I thought about joining in but I'm already late starting that one so figure I'll just join the next one. Anyway, I got thinking about doing another challenge I've seen posted in the past, the 31 day challenge. I'm not too sure how long I'll stick with it as I tend to get distracted easily and I'm quite likely to post other things between themes, but we shall see how I do!

So, anyway... today is my first post for the challenge! The theme for day 1 is 'Red'. Here is what I did:

This is 2 coats of Barry M Raspberry nail paint as the base colour, it's a wonderful deep red colour and I've fallen very much in love with it. I used striping tape to set out a triangular shape on each nail and filled that with the Barry M gold foil effect polish. I added little red gems to each gold section (3 in a line for the middle finger) and topped it off with a coat of Sally Hansen Insta-dry top coat.

I had absolutely no clue what I was planning on doing for this, other than I wanted to use the Raspberry nail paint as a base as it is a recent buy and I hadn't tried it out yet. I just set out all of my stuff and it became a complete make-it-up-as-I-go-along kind of thing. I do quite like the overall effect, it reminds me a bit of Iron Man, perhaps I'll play around with these 2 colours again to create a specific Iron Man set sometime?

Right then, enough waffling from me!

Until next time,

S x

Peacock feather

Hai folks!

Yesterday I painted on a peacock feather design onto my nails. It's the second attempt I've had at doing peacock feathers. It still doesn't look how I want it, but it's better than my first attempt so there is at least some improvement going on! I think my paint brushes are all too thick so I'm not getting the thin detail lines I want, something to look into I guess.

Anyway, this is the final result:

It has the basic shape and colour of a peacock feather, but as I said, just doesn't look quite right. I shall attempt it again at some point in the future. 

Here are the colours I used to create this:

Base coat; Nails inc 'Kensington Park Road'; Golddigga 'Shimmer Gold';
Nails Inc 'Chelsea Physic Garden'; Essie 'Aruba Blue'; Barry M 'Black';
Barry M 'Silver Foil'; Nails Inc 'Haymarket'

I started, as ever, with a base coat, I then did 2 coats of 'Kensington Park Road'. Using a large dotting tool I created a long gold section with 'Shimmer Gold', once that was dry I used a medium sized dotting tool to add a circular dot in 'Chelsea Physic Garden' followed by a smaller dot of 'Aruba Blue'. Using a thin nail art brush I painted on small flicking lines in the Chelsea and Aruba blue colours, as well as the 'Silver foil', 'Haymarket' and used the black for detailing strokes. I finished it all off with a coat of fast drying top coat.

Overall I think it looks quite cluttered and messy, but perhaps I'm my own worst critic :D

Not too sure when I will be back on as my daughter goes back to school this week, I have appointments to go to, and at some point I need to transfer all of my files over from my PC to my laptop. I should post something new during the week though.

So, until next time,

S x

(P.S. Yey! Another new Sherlock ep is on tonight :D :D)

Happy New Year!!

Hi there folks!

As we heading towards the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, I thought I would do some firework nail art. I've kept these pretty simple and gone with 2 coats of plain black as a base, with blue and silver stripes painted on top in the fashion of fireworks. I added a gold glitter tail to each one and silver glitter around the 'explosion' for a bit of added sparkle. Some of them have a blue, silver or gold gem in the middle. I topped this all with a single coat of fast drying top coat.

For my thumb I did 2 coats of black again and added small and large gold glitter on top to give the effect of a cascade of sparks. I topped this again with a fast drying top coat.

I apologise for the shocking quality of the photo to the left. Every time I uploaded it, this website did something to it that reduced the black and made it look terribly noisy. You can still see the effect of the glitter well enough though.

That's all from me for today. I wish you all a "HAPPY NEW YEAR!" for when the bell tolls midnight, wherever you are.

S x

Dr Seuss

Hai folks!

Bit of silence from me over the weekend - it was my daughters birthday weekend so I was busy, busy, busy, and I took last weeks Christmas themed nail design off on Saturday and let my nails have a bit of a breather for a couple of days so haven't really had anything new to blog!

Today I had a lot of fun creating some Dr Seuss nails. It's something I've wanted to do for a while but hadn't been on the top of my list until today. I'm so pleased with them, I think they are the best I've ever done!
I won't bore anyone with the list of colours or the method used as you can recreate this quite easily just by eye. Mostly it was just a lot of patience and steady hand :)

"A person's a person, no matter how small." - Dr Seuss

Until next time! 

S x

Christmas Themed

Hai folks!

I decided I couldn't put up with my weird striped failure from yesterday so took it all off and put some christmas themed nails on. I've done some christmas themed nails before, with a mix of santas face, rudolf, christmas tree, lights, candy canes, snowflakes and snowmen. I didn't want to do the same thing for a third time in a month so had a look through some designs and came across one that The Lacquerologist did last year. I did a different thing on my thumb, but the fingers were all more or less the same.

For the 4 fingers I used:

Barry M basecoat, followed by a single coat of 'Navy'. I love this navy colour as its got a slight iridescent sparkle to it. I wasn't too concerned with getting the coverage perfect as I was planning on going over it later. I applied 'Bright Red' to my thumb, but will go over that further down.

Once the blue was fully dried I applied w7 'Bare' in a round shape across my index and middle fingers using a thin, flat, slanted edge nail brush. When the Bare was almost dry, but still slightly tacky I went over it with the same brush in Barry M 'Matt White'. When the white was almost dry I dabbed a few areas with 'Blueberry'. I then took a makeup sponge, using some of the 'Matt White' varnish, dabbed it across the blue on my middle, ring and pinky fingers:

Using Ombre 'Pure Black' and a very fine brush I started to apply the chosen design, starting with my index and working across.

For my thumb:

I used 'Bright Red' as the base colour, 'Spring Green' for the tree and Seventeen 'Moon Dust' for the tree trunk. I used a couple of strips of striping tape to mark out the shape of the tree. Dotted the tree with Barry M 'Mango' and 'Plum' and used the foil effects silver to fill in the stripes as tinsel and to dot the top of the tree. Using the Mango and Plum again I created little gifts for under the tree and dotted some tiny silver dots in the left over red back ground.

And this is the finished result :) Covered all with a quick coat of my usual Sally Hansen Mega Shine top coat to finish it off and protect them. It could have been a bit neater but I'm quite pleased with how well it came out.

Quite likely going to keep these on until the weekend, so happy rest of the week to you all!

S x

Sugar Spun Nails

Hai there!

I chipped my lovely purple water marbled nails at work so took it all off and decided to have a go at another technique I hadn't tried yet: Sugar Spun

For this I used my usual Barry M basecoat with w7 Neon Blue, Barry M Gelly Grapefruit and Sally Hansen quick drying Mega Shine top coat. I also needed a piece of foiled card and a toothpick.

I started with a coat of the basecoat, followed by 2 thin coats of the Neon Blue (oops, made a slight mess :p ):

After the blue was fully dried I set up the pot of Grapefruit, the foiled card and the toothpick. I blobbed some of the Grapefruit colour onto the card and let it air dry for a few minutes until it was tacky and I was able to pull strings from the polish using a toothpick. Still using the toothpick, I pulled the tacky, stringy varnish across over the blue until the nail was covered enough, thus creating the 'sugar spun' look. This was the final result on my left hand:

It's not a technique I particularly enjoyed to be honest, I probably won't be in a hurry to do it again soon but I love the vibrant mix of the blue and grapefruit, and it will do me just fine until Thursday :)

Later on I finished this off with a coat of the mega shine top coat but I kinda wish I hadn't. Even though the 'sugar spun' strandy bits were bone dry, they still sort of dissolved into the top coat so its been left as more of a tiger stripe than anything. I think they'd probably look better if they were left as above, without the top coat over it.

Friday at work is 'wear your christmas jumper' day in aid of the Save the Children charity so on Thursday I will likely be doing Christmas themed nails!

Laters all! 

S x

First official post: Marblised Nail Art!

Hai there!

Today I went out for a spot of light shopping to the local town and picked up some new nail polish. I got the Barry M 343 Plum Gelly, Barry M 341 Mocha Matte, and the Barry M Base coat/Top coat/Nail Hardener 3 in 1 (Can you tell I quite like the Barry M range??). 

I loooove trying out new designs and techniques so I decided to try a technique I liked the look of and had seen on some of the nail art blogs I browse through, but hadn't yet tried myself: water marbling. I chose 2 main colours, the Plum I bought today with Barry M 319 Prickly Pear.

First off I prepped my nails with a coat of the new base coat I had also bought today. Once that was dry I applied one coat of the Plum and again waited for that to completely dry (thank the Lord I recently bought a UV nail dryer!). 

Once it was all dried I taped up around my fingers to avoid too much excess waste ending up on my skin (a tip I picked up from Colette at the mysimplelittlepleasures nail art blog).

Next up was the fun bit! You use a cup or bowl (preferably one you no longer need as it's pretty much going to end up ruined) full of room temperature water, I used a plastic cup. I took each of my colours in turn and dripped a drop of it into the centre of the water and let it spread, dropping from about half an inch from the surface seemed to work the best for me. 

Once I was happy with the droppage I took a long hoof stick and used the pointy end to create lines and patterns into the surface - marbling the polish. Once I was happy with the marbling I readied my taped up finger above the surface and dipped really fast through the area I wanted to be applied to my nail.

I held my finger in the water while I used the hoof stick to clear up the excess polish from the surface of the water, then once that was all gone I pulled my finger back out from the water and was left with the pretty marbled effect on my nail.

I repeated the process for my other fingers (and thumbs!), removed the tape and had a little wipe up. After I'd had a go on a couple of fingers I managed to move on to dipping a couple of fingers at a time. This was the final product:

It looks quite blue in the picture because of the lighting, but its more purple. I topped it all with a coat of the quick-drying Sally Hansen Mega Shine Top Coat and that was that! (though I did take the above photo before I added the top coat and had cleared off the mess around the edges - oops :D ). 

Something I must remember to do on future attempts at this is to remove any air bubbles that are trapped on the surface of the water/polish mix before I use it, but I'm pretty pleased with how well they came out considering it was only my first attempt at the technique, it is definitely something I will try again! Passed my Sunday afternoon quite happily playing around with this effect and now have pretty nails for work tomorrow :D

Happy Sunday folks! 

S x