10 Blank Canvases

International Space Station Nails

2013-05-14T01:39:00.002+01:00

I have been pretty uninspired with my nails recently but I have finally found a great theme that I really love for some more detailed nail art. The theme is the International Space Station, the end of Expedition 35 and the return to earth of 3 of the crew. I have been following the ISS missions since Chris Hadfield (@cmdr_hadfield) the former Commander of the ISS began tweeting pictures and videos from space. If you haven't seen them go and check out his twitter and facebook page to see some really amazing photos and great videos of experiments in zero gravity.

So here are the nails I did on my left hand: (thumb to pinky) the Expedition 35 insignia, the ISS, earth viewed from the space station, Chris Hadfield's Crest and finally earth's natural satellite - the moon.

On my right hand I painted the logos of the 3 space agencies with astronauts on Expedition 35: Canadian Space Agency, NASA, and the Russian Space Agency. On my index finger I painted another view of earth and on my little finger a view of earth by night (as seen in some of Hadfields images).

I hope you go and check out his twitter, all the videos on youtube of inside the ISS. I love these nails so much and I hope you guys do too!

Finally here is a video of Chris Hadfield singing David Bowie's Space Oddity...while floating in space. Amazing

Rose Tutorial

2013-05-12T21:45:00.002+01:00

Evening all, I hope you had nice weekends! I posted some nails last week that had gold roses and lots of people asked for a tutorial on how I did the roses. I listened and todays post is a Rose Tutorial. My middle name is Rose, so they definitely are my favourite flower (followed by daisies!). I decided to go for a orange, pink and yellow roses using my favourite neon bright colours.

Here are the finished product:

And heres how I did it:

Step 1: Start with a white base. I used 2 layers of Essie Blanc and sprayed with The Ultimate Fix quick dry spray to help with speedy drying.

Step 2: I added some yellow blobs using Pop Beauty (fluro funky yellow)

Step 3: I then added some pink blobs (Color Club) and orange blobs (Duri Cosmetics Bedeviled)

Step 4: Finally I added some green leaves using a small striping brush and Models Own Toxic Apple

Step 5: Using a fine striping brush and black paint I then added the rose detail over each blob. I started in the middle of the blob with two short curved lines and then built up petal shapes around the centre with the petals getting lager on the outside of the rose. Then I added the detail around the edges of the leaves.

Step 6: Complete all the other roses and finish with a layer of Seche Vite top coat (and some more quick dry spray if you are in a hurry) and you are finished!

The bigger the blobs the more detail you can get in the roses. You can do the flowers in any colour to go with any season, but I am in love with neons at the moment so there was no question what colours to use. I hope you find the tutorial simple to follow and try them at home. Let me know any other requests, I have a list of tutorials that I will slowly make my way through.

Hope you love the nails as much as I do!

Nails for Alan Carr

2013-05-06T18:06:00.000+01:00

Last week Little Mix were going on the Alan Carr Chatty Man to promote their latest single 'How Ya Doin'. To say thank you for having them the girls asked me to create a special set of nails they could give to Alan. I made a special set with Alan and their faces on as well as some other elements from the show.

Here are the final nails. For those who don't know the show the globe and stamp are props from the set. You can watch the episode on YouTube - it's a great show! The girls gave him the nails before the show but watch for their performance of How Ya Doin, I had it stuck in my head the next few days!

The nails were framed and signed then given to Alan:

You can see Perrie with her nail wraps in the photo above mixed up with some shiny blue nails! I have been wearing the Little Mix nails and will be posting all about them soon.

maroon and gold roses

2013-04-28T22:57:00.000+01:00

Hey all! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, been a little busy but I have some new nails to show you. I did these nails a while back but they never made it onto the blog for some reason. I really liked them so happy to share them with you today. The polish is Essie Recessionista with Barry M Gold roses and a rhinestone studded accent nail.

I hope you like these nails as much as I do, I love the effect of a coloured accent nail. I have some new summery nail designs coming up soon and other exciting things. Let me know if you have any requests, always happy for input!

Art Deco Nail Art

2013-04-18T23:34:00.003+01:00

Back in October I was contacted by someone starting up a new magazine with a concept that each issue is inspired by a different era in history. She asked me to put together some nail art for the issus, which was to be a 20s Jazz Age/Art Deco issue. I was happy to put something together as it would be fun to be part of, but for whatever reason the magazine was never completed. I was waiting to post the nails to include details of the magazine but as that won't happen I will share them with you today. I am pretty pleased with how the nails look and I even have a simple tutorial on how to create your own Deco nails.

I looked up art deco style and fashion and was inspired by the colours and bold angular shapes used in fabrics and architecture at the time.

The second set of nails was inspired by 1920s jewellery, including pearls and sapphire colours (unfortunately my pearl studs seem to absorb the black paint).

Finally I put together a quick tutorial for doing some easy art deco nail art. Heres what you need:

Barry M Black, OPI Monsooner or Later, Nails Inc Basil Street, Seche Vite top coat and thin striping brush.

Step 1: Paint your nails a beige/ nude colour

Step 2: On the middle of your cuticle paint a long thin upside-down triangle using the striping brush

Step 3: On either side of the middle triangle paint smaller triangle shapes, then fill in.

Step 4: Repeat step 3, making smaller triangles either side of the central design.

Step 5: Fill in all the triangles and then outline all the triangles drawn in the previous steps.

Repeat the pattern on your other fingers (or you can just use it as a design on an accent nail) the finish with a layer of top coat.

So there we are! I hope you like the nails, I was disappointed the magazine was never published but am very pleased with how my nails looked. I hope you try out the tutorial and even try out the full deco set which I did in a very similar way to the tutorial.

Litte Mix Nail Launch

2013-04-13T23:51:00.000+01:00

It has been such a busy few days for me with the launch of Little Mix and Elegant Touch's nails. The nails are now available from New Look stores nationwide and the Elegant Touch website. They are available in the UK for now and will be available internationally some time soon. Both the nails and the wraps are £6.

On Thursday I headed off to the press launch of the nails where I would be answering questions about designing the nails with Little Mix and also Alexis Knox, the girls personal stylist, was on hand to answer questions about their individual style. Alexis had picked out some clothes from New Look's current range to show off the girls style and these were displayed by each girls nail sets and highlighted how personalised the nails were to each member.

On the day I talked through the the design process and I have a litte of it to share with you. The first part of the designs was meeting with Little Mix and chatting to them about what styles they liked, what colours they would want on their nails and any other ideas they had for their nails. I put together a little mood board for each girl to help me put together a set of preliminary ideas.

From the preliminary designs the girls narrowed it down to two themes each: one wrap and one press on nail set. The wheels below show the final ideas for each girls sets from which only a few more changes were made to get to the final sets.

Here are a close up of each girls nail sets:

Jade (can you tell she loves bows?)

Black and gold - perfect for the evening, and can you see the cute little 3D bows

pastel glittery mix - really cute for a full set or just an accent nail

Leigh-Anne

Caribbean cool - fun bright mix great for festivals

Fun denim mix with a studded accent nail

Perrie

Cosmic cool nails, glittery galaxy nails with plain glitter nails to match

Rocker chick nails with studs and red glitter

Jesy

chains/ studs and spikes

Cartoon graffiti

I finally ended my week by joining Little Mix at their launch event at New Look in Westfield.

This was a special golden ticket event for the first 200 people to buy the nails when they went on sale on Wednesday (props to the girl who came all the way from Japan to meet the girls).

The girls looked great at the event and were of course all wearing their nails.

I have had such a great time being a part of the whole process and it is really amazing being able to do something that I love and see it get such a great reception. I also want to say thank you to all the lovely people I met at the press day on Thursday who are reading this and have written about the nails. I hope everyone gets a chance to try out the nails, I definitely think there is something for everyone in the range.

Little Mix Nails

2013-04-11T23:30:00.000+01:00

I have had such an exciting day today and I just wanted to share a quick post with you this evening before I do a longer post tomorrow.

My exciting news is that over the past 6 months I have been working with Elegant Touch to help Little Mix bring out a unique nail range selling in New Look stores nationwide. This has been such an amazing experience to work with the girls to get their ideas and fashions sense translated into two nail packs for each girl (one wrap and one press on nail set)

These are the nails and I love how well they turned out. Everyone at the press launch today seemed to love the look of the nails and I hope you guys do too! I will do a longer write up tomorrow including a little more about the process and more images of the nails, but I am pretty tired from a long day today!

Let me know if you have any questions about the nails I can answer in my post tomorrow.

Neon nails for Cosmopolitan

2013-04-08T21:00:00.003+01:00

I have something exciting to share with you today - I was asked as part of Cosmopolitan's Beauty Fest to do a nail art how-to video. I went over to their offices and did two special neon designs on the lovely Penny, who happened to be wearing a necklace that matched the design rather well!

I did two designs: neon marbled nails and matte neon half moons (link to original article)

Matte neon half moon nails Gloss neon marbled nails

Penny and her amazing necklace to match her nails

And here are some I did earlier...

I put together a photographic tutorial of each step in the design progress. This design is quite abstract and comes out different every time and that is the great thing about this pattern: there is not much you can do to get it wrong. But do watch out for using too much water as then the paint will not stick to your nails and collect round the egde.

Step 1: Paint the slightly watered down first colour over a white nail base.

Step 2: While still wet, add the second colour in the gaps and allow the colours to blend naturally.

Step 3: Use the brush to blend as required and add more of either colour where you wish.

Step 4: When dry finish with a layer of top coat of a smooth shine.

Here are some close-ups of my nails with the marble effect on them

I hope you enjoy the video, it was my first on camera experience so I hope I was nice and clear! This marble effect is a really simple yet effective way to decorate your nails with a unique look. Also the neon half moon is a quick way to brighten a plain white nail and looks great with a gloss or matte finish.

Give them both a try and let me know how you get on!

Be creative with nail wraps

2013-04-07T21:15:00.001+01:00

Today I am going to deviate from my usual nail art to show you how you can be creative with nail wraps and make unique designs in a fraction of the time. With this method you can use the wraps to create your own nail stickers and the options are endless.

In this post I am using Elegant Touch's latest nail wrap range that you can find online on their new website. The wraps below are: Silver Simmers, Pink Leopard and Acid Graffiti.

To show you how you can create your own easy custom nail art I am using the Silver Simmers nail wraps:

Size up your nails against the nail wraps. To get the right fit you want the curve of the wrap to fit along your nails natural curve at the base.

The designs I have chosen to do is an inverted V - so I drew on the back of the plastic sheet with permanent marker, adjusting the sketch until I was pleased it was in the right position.

I cut the design using small sewing scissors and stuck it on my nail starting at the base and smoothing towards the tip.

I then repeated this with all my other nails and topped the design with a top coat layer to ensure the wraps stuck firmly.

The great thing about this design is that I found when taking off the wraps that they came off in ome piece still quite sticky, so I could stick them back on the plastic and use them again if I wanted.

Here are some other design ideas I put together using the other wrap ranges:

Acid Graffiti accent nail:

Pink Leopard half moons with a heart accent nail:

I hope you like this method and put together some fun designs of your own. The Pink Leopard was definitely my favourite design and so easy to do!

Keep an eye on Elegant Touch for lots more exciting nail wraps coming out soon which I am very excited to tell you all about.

Galaxy Peel off Nails

2013-04-03T00:52:00.000+01:00

I have a couple of things to show off in todays post. I will start with the special new polish from Topshop that you just peel off to remove instead of using nail polish remover. The polish is quite thin and I used 3 layers to get it like the picture below. The colour is called 'Back Flip' and is supposed to be navy blue, but it looked like black on my nails.

The polish seemed to last well and peeled of perfectly as promised, which you can see below. I think it did chip more that a normal polish, but I only wore it for a few days before I changed my nails so I can't say how long the polish will last, although the reviews on the website are mainly positive.

I decided to top the black/blue base with an old favourite of mine: galaxy. I sponged over the polish with blue and purple acrylic paint, added the stars and topped with a layer of Seche Vite. I previously did a tutorial on how to create these nails here, but looking at it I think it needs a bit of an update!

After a few days, when it was time to change my nails, the polish peeled off very nicely (I almost didn't want to put them in the bin!). If they did this polish in white I would probably use it all the time as a base for my nail art (hint hint if you are reading this Topshop!!).

And now the reason for doing galaxy on my nails - to match my newly upgraded shoes. I had some Nike High Tops in a colour that I didn't really like and so had been relegated to the back of my cupboard. So I gave them a bright new lease of life by painting a galaxy design on them.

To make these I used special leather acrylic paints. The paint has peeled a little where the shoe has bent, but they look so much better than they did before!

Unfortunately I didn't photograph my progress painting the shoes so I can't give an illustrated step by step, but if you are interested I can do a post on how to customise your shoes.

I hope you like all the content in todays post and definitely give the Topshop polishes a try, they also have lots of other normal polishes on offer on their website.

10 Plagues nails

2013-03-30T02:32:00.000Z

First of all I want to open with my competition results. Thank you to everyone who entered and all you who joined in my Easter Bunny hunt! I am sorry it was over so soon, unfortunately Rafflecopter have decided to charge you if you want to extend the length of your giveaway, so next time I have to find another way to moderate it (any recommendations welcome!). So congratulations to Helmi Anttila the winner of the main prize. And congratulations to Alina Dzekunova, Anne Funk and Rachel Steinberg who were the three winners of my Easter bunny hunt. I am sure I will put together another giveaway soon with lots more prizes!

This weeks nails are the nails I wore on Passover this year. I showed you my matzah nails I wore last year and this years theme was the 10 Plagues. On each nail I have painted a representation of the plague, along with the hebrew name.

To those unfamiliar the ten plagues are remembered at Passover each year as the punishments G-d sent down to the ancient Egyptians as the ancient Jews escaped from their slavery. They were (1) water turned to blood (2) frogs everywhere (3) lice (4) flies (5) death of livestock (6) boils (7) hail (8) locusts (9) darkness (10) death of the first born. I think that enough of a lesson about Passover (if you want to know more read on here) now on to the nails:

The first 5 plagues

Thumb representing blood

The last 5 plagues

Thumb representing the doorposts painted with blood so that the angel of death would pass over the house

This was quite a difficult subject for nails (especially the last plague) but I think they tured out ok. I do prefer my Matzah nails from last year but it was fun to have something on your nails that tells a story.

Double Easter Giveaway

2013-03-22T22:57:00.000Z

I have two exciting giveaway running from today. The first is sponsored by the Born Pretty Store and contains lots of nail polish goodies. The second is a fun Easter hunt I have decided to do with three naily/chocolatey goody bags to win!

Giveaway #1

These prizes have been sponsored in part by the Born Pretty Store. I have chosen products that I love to use and the prize includes:

A box of acrylic paints

2x Paint palettes

A box of 12 coloured rhinestones

1x Gold and 1x Silver Square Metallic Studs

1x Gold and 1x Silver Round Metallic Studs

12 colours of Hexagon Glitter

6x Nail Art Paint Brushes

*All available at the Born Pretty Store with 10% off if you use my discount code JPL91*

To enter this competition all you have to do is follow me or the Born Pretty Store and enter your details into the RaffleCopter box below. The competition is open to anyone. The competition begins on Friday 22nd March midnight (GMT) and ends Thursday 28th March midnight (GMT). I will email the winner on Friday and announce the winner once a confirmation email has been received.

**This competition is now over. Congratulations to Helmi A for winning**

Giveaway #2

I have decided to do something a little different for this part of the giveaway. Seeing as its Easter I have put together an ' Easter blog hunt' with 3 goody bags filled with mini nail polishes and Easter chocolates for the winners.

The game is simple. I have hidden a picture of a rabbit in one of my previous blog posts (not including this post), very much like the one in the picture above. The bunny has obviously been added over one of my nail images (and even has the details of how to submit your entry in the caption to avoid doubt). It is not featured on my Tumblr, Twitter, Pinterest or Instagram pages, you have to search the posts here to find it.

Once you find the image, email your name and the link of the blog post to:

**this competition is now over. Congratulations to the winners**

I will enter your name into the prize draw and randomly choose 3 winners at the end of the competition. The competition starts on Friday 22nd March at midnight (GMT) and ends on Thursday 29th March midnight (GMT) and any emails received after this time will not be included. I will email the winners once chosen and will announce all winners once a confirmation email has been received from the winners.

If you have any questions about either giveaways please comment below or email me at 10blankcanvases@gmail.com and I will get back to you.

Good luck!!

Easter Egg Nails

2013-03-21T20:58:00.000Z

I have done a special Easter egg nail design based on Cadbury Mini Eggs. These nails were featured in an article on MSN Glo about Easter nails. I was pretty pleased with the way the nails turned out as they looked so much like mini eggs and I have put together a tutorial on how you can do them.

Msn Glo Easter Egg Article

Here is how you can do them yourself:

Step 1:

Step 2:

Step 3:

Step 4:

After a I cleaned up the edges, here are the nails with some mini eggs for comparison. Yummy!

Matzah Nails Tutorial

2013-03-20T22:48:00.000Z

Its almost Passover and I wanted to repost the nails I created this time last year as I got lots of comments saying they wish they had seen it before the holiday!

So here they are, my matzah nails, which got featured on a BuzzFeed page recently which was cool! Here you can find the full post from last year.

BuzzFeed: Matzoh inspired crafts

Here is the step by step tutorial on how you can make the nails yourself.

I used acrylic paint for these nails, but the effect would be the same if you have the right colours of nail polish. All the painting is done with a fine brush like the ones in this post.

1. First protect your nails with a base coat.
2. Paint your nails with an ivory cream colour.
3. Outline roughly with some dark brown.
4. Add black dots in a grid.
5. Add orangey/brown blobs all over.
6. On some of the blobs, add some darker brown.
7. Add black to a few of the dark brown parts (you can also add some black round the edge of the nail).
8. Add blobs of the colour used in (2) on some of the black/brown blobs (but not on all of them).
9. Add a layer of top coat to give it a smoothed shiny look.

Simple! I hope you have a go and do these nails for Passover next week. I also have an Easter Egg tutorial coming in the next few days.

Nails Inc Leather Polish

2013-03-18T23:21:00.000Z

Hi all, I have been a little busy lately, but I am back in blogging action mode!

Before I show my latest nails I want to mention the impending end of Google Friend Connect with the shutting down of Google Reader. I love using their reader to look at all the blogs I follow and am annoyed to see they are getting rid of it. I will most likely use Bloglovin' now to read my subscriptions, but do let me know any other sites which are good. I just wanted to make sure those following me only on Google Friend Connect keep following me with another feed reader or on any of the social networks I am present on:

Now on to nails! I recently got sent some Nails Inc Leather & Skulls 'Bling it On' Kit to try out. Leather and concrete effect nails (aka nail polish with gritty bits in it) are the latest trend to hit the nail scene. As always Nails Inc were one of the first to bring out the special effect polishes.

The kit comes with the Leather Effect polish in black, four rhinestone skulls, some glue and an orange stick for application.

The polish looks great after two layers and dries fairly quickly. The polish has a slightly rough feel and looks quite leathery.

Along with the skull on my middle finger I stuck on some chains and studs to go for a rocker look with a white union jack in acrylic paint on my index finger. I wore these for a night out and the skull fell off during the evening, which was disappointing, but not un-expected.

I like the way the nail set turned out and the leather nail effect adds the extra edge to the design. You can buy the set here >> Nails Inc Leather Look Kit

Black and White

2013-03-06T00:16:00.000Z

I have gone a bit monochrome crazy on my nails lately and have done black and white nails twice recently. I love these nails as the options for the designs are endless and the results usually look simple but great (even on my right hand).

First set - Monochrome Gloss:

Second set - Monochrome Matte:

The difference in the two sets are varied designs used on some of my nails and that I used a matte top coat to finish the second set. Im not sure which set I like more, but the houndstooth is definitely my favourite design and was the inspiration for the whole set.

Nail it! Magazine

2013-03-03T20:58:00.004Z

There is a rather exciting new nail magazine coming out in the US called Nail It! magazine. It is made by the creators of Nail Pro magazine and is designed for the novice nail artists instead of the professionals. I am still waiting for my copy to come in the mail (sad times) but am pleased to say that I have been asked to do an interview and tutorial for their website.

Interview:

You can read the full interview here with some images of my favourite nails and a rather large picture of me!

Full Interview

Tutorial:

You can see the full tutorial on how to create my purple and blue tribal nails here. I will post the steps on my blog with a little more detail soon.

Tribal nail tutorial

Now all I have to do is wait for my copy of the magazine to arrive in the mail and if you want to get a copy you can pick it up in Barnes & Noble, CVS, Kmart, Target, Walmart, Walgreens, Sally Beauty Supply or Hudson News. Be sure to let me know if you like it!

Fashion Week with Glamour.com

2013-02-19T22:41:00.001Z

It's fashion week again! Last week saw the designers showing off their AW13 collections on the New York catwalks. To correspond with this I did 3 special nail designs for Glamour.com with tutorials inspired by the looks seen on the catwalks. I will post the full tutorials later but first here are the designs I created.

Jason Wu

Tracy Reese

Oscar De La Renta

Valentines Day Nails

2013-02-13T23:51:00.001Z

Todays post are some cute patchwork Valentines nails. I used a base of Essie 'We're in it together' and added the rest of the details with acrylic paint. I finished with a matte top coat to give it a more smooth fabric look. I think they are cute and are a perfect look for valentines day,

The nails were featured as part of Glo's Valentines nail article along with lots of other lovely nail artists.

'Heart of the Mani'

♥

Girl Meets Dress

2013-02-06T23:03:00.001Z

Today I have two sets of fashion inspired nail designs. I have been introduced to the dress rental website Girl Meets Dress and asked to do some special nails inspired by their dresses. The idea behind the website is that you can rent designer clothes for a few days, say for a special occasion, at a fraction of the price you would pay for the dress. They have a lovely range to choose from and I have chosen a few for inspiration.

Anna Sui - Klimt Sequin Dress

The first dress I chose was this Anna Sui sequinned purple dress. To create the look I started with a base of OPI Planks A Lot then added a layer of OPI DS Temptation. This polish is such a sparkly polish that the photo doesn't really do it justice! I then added some magenta hexagon sequins in a half moon pattern to complete the look.

Mia Jafari - Watercolour Explode

I love the pattern on this Mia Jafari dress and thought it would make a great nail art design. To create the look I stated with a white nail base then added some blue polish in a gradient to the tips. I then used a fine brush and 3 colours of blue paint to add the lines and flower patterns.

There are loads of lovely dresses to choose from for all occasions. I chose three that I liked as an example:

Marc Jacobs - Rainbow Paillette Dress , Dina Bar-El - Zoe Red, Alice by Temeperly - Embellished Silk Dress

I hope you like the nails, I always love to match my nails up to my outfit for any occasion.

Interflora rose nails

2013-02-05T23:33:00.002Z

I got sent a rather special treat this week which has inspired my latest nail art design. I got approached by the online flower delivery site Interflora who sent me the beautiful roses below.

They have a special range of outstanding valentines flowers that are ready made bouquets you can order to send for valentines.

Interflora Fragrant Flowers

The flowers were so beautiful and colourful I was inspired to paint some nails to match. I used red, pink and white acrylic paint to recreate the three coloured roses over a black base on my nails.

I hope you like the nails, they are a great valentines look! If you would also like to order some flowers do check out Interflora.co.uk for more details.

Quick dry spray

2013-02-05T01:26:00.001Z

I have a great product to show you today. It is a new quick dry spray that is different to any other sprays on the market at the moment called the Ultimate Fix by Beauty Narcotix.

The Ultimare Fix

You use this spray between each layer of nail polish and this process really speeds up drying time. You can even use it without using a top coat as it does leave the nails nice and shiny.

The Ultimate Fix in action!

I really recommend this product, I found that my nail polish stayed on longer after using this spray between layers. I also found that my nails have been much stronger recently.

You can buy the spray from the website for £17 a can. It may sound like a lot, but you will get plenty of use out of spray - I have been using it for a over a month and still have a very full can. It's also cheaper than a botte of OPI nail envy!

It is definitely a great new product to try out! Let me know what you think if you try it!

Block Colour Tribal

2013-01-29T23:31:00.001Z

Todays nails are a blue and purple block coloured tribal mix. I had a request for some more tutorials so I put together these nails which incorporate lots of tribal and geometric patterns and are fairly easy to recreate. I will be posting the tutorial for this design in the next couple of days.

I love the way they turned out especially with the matte finish.

As always my left hand nails look better than my right hand nails, but still very pleased with how they look.

I will be back soon with a tutorial for these nails. I hope you like them as much as I do!

Black and White Spiked nails

2013-01-24T20:29:00.000Z

I have finally found some great spike studs which are the perfect size for some crazy nail art! My inspiration for the nails came from these amazing shoes from Kurt Geiger.

Kurt Geiger Shoes

First off I will show you the spikes I will be using:

After my original attempt to create spiked nails, in which I made the spikes from clay (!) I got contacted by an ebay seller who stocked exactly the type of spike I was looking for. You can get them here from the seller 'innovationstore' or they also stock some slightly bigger ones depending on the size you are looking for.

In order to match the shoes I decided to create a black half moon look, topped with a matte top coat to imitate the leather of the shoes. I then added spikes, stuck on with Elegant Touch brush on nail glue, along the half moon to finish the design.

I think these spikes are a little too large and sharp for prolonged use but they are great for a one off design. I would still love to find even smaller spikes for my nail art (if theres is anyone reading who knows where I can find these drop me an email!!).

Galaxy Nails II

2013-01-20T21:24:00.000Z

This is my latest take on the galaxy nail. I have used a different method to my first attempt (which you can see here) which is much quicker to do. The colours of the nails didn't photograph too well and they are much more purple and blue and glittery up close.

To create these nails I started with a black base over which I sponged a mix of blue and purple acrylic paint. I then added a layer of Color Club Starry Temptress before adding the final star details in white acrylic paint. I will put together a full tutorial for these nails soon.

I also finished these nails with a layer of UV topcoat. Under a UV light the galaxies glow blue which is a fun addition if you are going on a night out!