Nailed It

Red Silver Stamping (and Seche Vite review)

2012-09-16T15:30:00.001+01:00

Again I have gone off track with the 31 Day Nail Challenge! I just haven't found the right time to wear yellow nails! Here are some red and silver nails for today! I promise I will get back on track with the nail challenge soon!

I used:

Barry M - Raspberry

Barry M - Silver Foil

Seche Vite

BM213

This is also the first time I have used Seche Vite before so here is a quick review. I have seen a lot of the other nail art bloggers I follow use this for finishing off their designs so I thought I would give it a go after seeing all their good reviews about it. It applies really easily and nicely without streaking the polish, I used it on the last coat of my plain red nails and the shine that it gave off is AMAZING! I love the shine of it! I find Barry M polishes chip and have tip wear extremely easily (within a few hours sometimes) but with the Seche Vite topcoat I have none so far (after dishes, ironing, showering, exercising in a day). I am a huge fan of this :) recommended for extremely shiny hardwearing nails :)

I plan on posting here once a week from now on because now with my new job I am super busy all during the week :)

Hope you like this design!

Purple Flowers

2012-09-10T20:46:00.001+01:00

W7 - Purple Paradise

Barry M - Silver Foil

George - Matt Topcoat

BM224

Sorry for the lack of posts recently! I have managed to finally get a new job! :) I am now a New Business Administrator! I did these nails for my first day of work last week, and I have only got around to posting them just now! I plan on posting at least once a week from now on, more often if I have the time! I am only JUST now getting round to doing my nails again now.

Hope you like this design :) I love this purple polish! I wasn't expecting this polish to be as great as it actually is for the price! Under £2 for this bottle! Recommended!

Day 2: Orange

2012-08-29T15:01:00.000+01:00

Here is my Day 2 of the 31 Day Nail Challenge: Orange! Again I didn't want a plain nail so I did an alternative french manicure style design. I used Nails Inc Westferry Circus for the main colour and Nails Inc Electric Avenue for the Glitter. For the tips I used 17 Lasting Fix Orange Soda. I love the end design! So summery and fun!

Let me know what you think!

Day 1: Red Nails

2012-08-28T16:18:00.005+01:00

So finally I have started my attempt to complete the 31 Day Nail Challenge! I don't know who made this up but I have seen lots of nail bloggers out there complete this challenge, I just never got around to doing it! I might not do them every single day up till day 31 but I will be posting them as soon as I have the time to do them :).

Here is Day 1: Red Nails. I used Barry M Raspberry, and because I didn't want just a plain red I stamped a half moon design (BM219) onto my nails in Barry M Gold Foil to spice up my nails a bit! I love the final design, I think it looks really simple and classic with a twist.

I am so looking forward to doing the other days :)! If anyone wants to do this challenge with me feel free to join in!

Glitterfest

2012-08-28T13:06:00.002+01:00

I got this Barry M aqua Glitter and W7 Black polish las week and thought I would try them out together! They look fab together! These pictures don't do the glitter justice! I couldn't capture the glitter very well on my camera at all!

Excuse the mess of my nails I forgot to clean up a few smudgies before I took the picture! :O

This is the first time I used Barry M's Aqua Glitter and I LOVE it! It goes on so easily and I recon it would give full coverage in a few coats with the amount of glitter in it! There are tiny pieces of micro glitter and small hexagonal glitter pieces.

This is also the first time I used W7's Black on my nails as a base colour. It is a great stamping polish but this is an excellent one coater black! I have never come across a one coater black before :) and at under £2 it's a bargain!

Alice in Wonderland

2012-08-27T15:59:00.000+01:00

So I bought a new Barry M nail polish in boots last week called 'Blue Moon'. It's a gorgeous pale blue colour. I used 5 coats to get this opacity because it is a very very sheer streaky nail polish, but it is worth it! I love this colour and it reminded me instantly of Alice in Wonderland (don't you think?). So what better to do than Alice in Wonderland nails!

Barry M - Blue Moon

Barry M - Silver Foil

China Glaze - White on White

W7 - Black

Small Paintbrush

Dotting Tools

Have a nice day!

Gradient Tiger

2012-08-24T12:03:00.001+01:00

Here is my gradient tiger print! I did this firstly on a plain blue nail which looked great but I smudged the tiger print on a few nails while stamping and it wasn't picture worthy! So I restarted and did a gradient of yellow and green and green and purple using Essie Nice is Nice, Models Own Jade Stone and Models Own Lemon Meringue. I used Bundle Monster plate BM223 with W7 Black polish (which is a great stamping polish!)

I think these look nice and summery like a cocktail gradient :) and I think the tiger print just tops it off!

Let me know what you think!

Subtle Summer Sundae

2012-08-22T16:56:00.000+01:00

I fancied having some summer nails today after I bought two shades of the Models Own Ice Cream Sundae Collection. I bought Jade Stone (which is a lovely minty pastel green) and Lemon Meringue (which is a gorgeous creamy pastel yellow) and a few Barry M colours which I have yet to try out! Anyway I thought the green and yellow pastels went really well together and looked perfectly summery! I used Bundle Monster Plate BM210 with China Glaze White on White to give the subtle white stamp on the green and Barry M Gold Foil for the stamp on the yellows :).

I have never used Models Own Nail Polishes before and I love them now! These went on very easily and gave full coverage in two coats which can sometimes be a bother for pastels!

Let me know what you think :) I really love this design! Excuse the nails being a bit ragged and different lengths, I have had a few nail breakage and slit problems the last week and are still in the process of growing to one length again!

Mix and Match Flowers

2012-08-20T16:50:00.004+01:00

I bought Bundle Monster Plates from Amazon with my birthday money. I have wanted these for ages but having no job at the moment stopped that. I took a little while figuring out how to use them and ended up with a fair few splodges and a fair few designs being scraped away before they even got on the stamp haha!

After figuring out the scraping pressure and working quickly I managed to get a few good designs. I decided to do a mix and match flower stamps today along with a gradient. I used Barry M Silver Foil for the stamping polish and Nails Inc Holland Park Road as my base coat. For the silver glitter tips as part of the gradient I used Barry M Silver Foil and Nails Inc Electric Avenue. For the Pink Glitter for the middles of the flowers I used Nails Inc Chelsea Square and used a dotting tool (it was so much easier to dot glitter than I expected). Below is a full list of what I used:

Nails Inc - Holland Park Road
Nails Inc - Chelsea Square
Nails Inc - Electric Avenue
Barry M - Silver Foil
Attitude Base Coat
Attitude Quick Dry Top Coat
Nail Dotting Tools
Makeup Sponge
BM205
BM224
BM210

I also changed my background for Autumn :) I know it is far too early but I love autumn and I can't wait for it to come around!

Nails Inc - Sweets Way Swatch

2012-08-19T17:08:00.000+01:00

Nails Inc recently released a Sprinkles collection of Nail Polish. I saw a swatch of this somewhere and I knew I had to have it! I love it! It is a milky white nail polish with blue, white and pink glitter throughout it. The swatches above are 3 coats and went on very easily. No need to fish for glitter like some glitter varnishes :) ! You can buy it on the nails inc website here. This is one of my new favourite polishes! I didn't want to take it off but I have so many new nail polishes (and stamps!) for my birthday to try out so I just had to put it on my toe nails!

The only thing I HATE with glitter is taking it off! I have so much trouble with it but I found a great tutorial here with step by step instructions which worked perfectly and removed this so easily! I even use acetone free nail polish remover and it worked brilliantly :)

I hope you like this swatch!

Candle Tin Design

2012-08-19T16:12:00.000+01:00

OPI - Kiss me in my Tulips

China Glaze - White on White

Black Nail Art Pen

Blue Unknown Polish

George - Pale Pink

Tape

Dotting Tools

I have been lacking inspiration recently for nail designs but I with my birthday money and presents I managed to get my hands on some new nail polishes and tools to get back into nail art again. I got this Pintail Candle for my Birthday from Chris because he got me it last year but it ran out and it has the most amazing smell ever :). I also got 2 more from Chris in different smells and one from my sister as well. So if you like candles check these ones out!

I used striping tape and regular tape to mark off the stripes and painted them in the colours to match the tin and I used my new dotting tools my sister got me for the different sized dots. I finished with a topcoat :).

Hope you like these nails!

Polka Dots

2012-08-06T15:36:00.000+01:00

I found the inspiration for these on Pintrest here. It looks like the original place it came from has been lost and I can't find it :( but I wanted to show where my inspiration is from!

I used Essie Nice is Nice and China Glaze White on White :). I used a hair pin for the dots.

Hope you like this design!

Aztec Nails

2012-07-22T18:02:00.000+01:00

First off I found the inspiration for these nails here. I haven't been very inspired recently for nail art but I have always wanted to try aztec nails. I loved the colour combination of the link above and recreated it. I hope you like them!

To do this I painted my nails all over orange and used tape to paint in the lines of pink and yellow. Next I used a nail art pen to draw on the designs, which I mostly copied from the design above. :) I will have my own go at attempting my own design at this in the near future.

Golden Stripes (Competition Entry)

2012-07-16T15:19:00.000+01:00

This is my second entry for My Awesome Beauty's Competition. Clicking the link will take you to the competition page.

I used

OPI - Thanks A Windmillion

Primark - Gold

Max Factor - Onyx

I really like this combination. I did a different take on the design and added stripes to one half.

Pastel Chevrons (Competition Entry)

2012-07-16T15:06:00.000+01:00

This is my entry for My Awesome Beauty's Competition. If you click the link it will take you to the competition page.

I used

Essie - Nice is Nice

George - Smarty Pants

China Glaze - White on White

I think they remind me of a clown outfit :) I really like them and I hope I win!

Stripes

2012-06-26T16:28:00.000+01:00

OPI - Pedal Faster Suzi

OPI - I have a Herring Problem

I used two of the polishes in the mini dutch treats here. Using tape to seperate the colours. Two nails were painted the pink and three were painted the grey, then the pink was painted in a diagonal line over the grey (turning it into a nice purple!) and the grey was painted over the pink.

Cute Spots

2012-06-26T16:20:00.001+01:00

Essie - Nice is Nice

OPI - Kiss me in my Tulips

I did these by painting three nails with Kiss me in my Tulips and two with Nice is Nice and left to dry. Then used a hair pin to dot white polish onto the lilac :)

I love these nails haha they are really quirky!

Striped Gradient

2012-06-23T16:19:00.002+01:00

Here are my nails from last week. I got bored of the gradient the next day so I decided to do it up by using striping tape and black nail polish. I really like the end result :). Only did a few nails so some of the gradient is still on show :) What do you think?

V Gap Nails

2012-06-23T16:11:00.000+01:00

These were done using striping tape and two different nail polishes! Not much else to say today :)

Gradient

2012-06-19T11:31:00.002+01:00

Essie - Nice is Nice

George - Smarty Pants

Makeup Sponge

Here is my second attempt at gradient nails! I think they came out much better that the sunset ones! The colours in this one seemed to blend together so much better and easier. I painted a coat of Essie Nice is Nice first before sponging on the two colours together.

I used again the same technique as The Nailasaurus to start but because nice is nice is so thin I wasn't getting enough on the sponge so I ended up finishing it off by painting the polish straight onto the sponge. I love how this turned out!

Cherry Blossom Nails

2012-06-16T16:58:00.003+01:00

I got bored of my plain painted nails and my sister had just given me some flower nail stickers and a black nail art pen! I am not sure where she got either of them exactly other than ebay.

The stickers were not so good for nail art as the came off really really easily but it was fun just for the pictures! :)

What do you think of these?

OPI Thanks a Windmillion Swatch

2012-06-12T18:39:00.000+01:00

OPI "Thanks a Windmillion"

Here is a swatch of the Holland collection called Thanks a Windmillion. It is a gorgeous creamy dirty green colour. I think it is VERY similar to Mermaid Tears. Full coverage in two coats and I love the colour :)

Red lights ahead...where? Swatch

2012-06-12T16:27:00.000+01:00

"Red lights ahead...where?"

This was the next colour of the OPI Dutch Treats mini's from the Holland Collection. It is a bright red (with hints of orange but still quite red!). Great coverage even after one coat and a lovely smooth formula. I don't have a bright red in my collection and finally I do now!

This completes my OPI mini Dutch Treats swatches! Overall I loved this little box collection. Great to try out a selection of different colours :)

Kiss Me in my Tulips Swatch

2012-06-12T16:18:00.000+01:00

''Kiss me in my Tulips"

This is the next OPI Dutch Treats mini's I did a swatch of. It's called Kiss me in my Tulips and is a bright pink. I only used one coat in the swatches above and it was pretty much opaque but two would give perfect coverage. Very easy to apply and a nice formula. I really love this colour, it's so girly!

What do you think of this collection?

OPI Dutch Treats Swatches

2012-06-12T15:25:00.000+01:00

I bought the OPI Dutch Treats mini collection from the Holland Collection. Here are the first two swatches I have reviewed.

"Pedal Faster Suzi!" and "I Have a Herring Problem" were the colours used in this swatch! I got impatient and didn't want to wait to do two separate swatches! But these pictures show the true colours perfectly. They are both gorgeous glittery polishes and both gave full coverage after three coats (Pedal Faster Suzi! was still a little sheer after three coats, I could still see the whites of my nails very slightly but I loved it). Both very easy too apply also.

I will upload the other two colours from this mini collection soon!