Rara's Super Quick Summer Nails

Hello lovelies! Rara here again! I'm posting today because Novice is away visiting her friend and doesn't have any internet so you get me instead! I've got a couple of summery designs I did that were pretty quick and easy.

First up-Gradients and stars.
I wanted to try some gradients on my own this time [Novice-last time I did some for her-here]. Me and Novice went to the park in the sunshine and I took my polishes. I used Avon-Forget-Me-Not Blue, Plum Seduction and Make My Day with a Rimmel glittery top coat. 
It was quite difficult to start with as I couldn't get the colours to blend properly, and I'm not sure I managed to get it right on all of my nails. I decided I wanted the colours to alternate so I went from blue to red then red to blue. After that I added some nail stickers that are also from Avon. I was quite pleased with the results and got a few compliments from them too, which is always good!

Next up-a summery dotticure.

Polishes used were both Essie-Mojito Madness and Off The Shoulder. This was just a quick and simple mani-I needed to paint my nails but was just going to bed. I painted each layer in between reading chapters of my book. Super quick, very easy and quite effective!

That's all from me for today but I'm sure I'll see you again soon!

~Rara~

Cherry Pop

Guess who's back? It's Rara, YAY! (For those of you who don't know Rara is my best friend and occasional partner in blogging, and she broke her wrist about a month ago and so has been out of action for a while.) This is her first blog post in a couple of months and I'm really glad she's back! (If only so I get a break, haha-just kidding!)
Over to Rara then:

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Having had pretty boring nails for three/four weeks while my hand was in a cast I've been craving beautiful nails again, if only to stop me looking at the scar all the way along my wrist =(  Luckily Novice has been on hand to do them for me!
I'm far enough along in my recovery now that I can straighten and bend my fingers and turn my wrist to enough of an angle to paint my own nails again-yaaaay! And a good thing about not being able to use my hand is how long and strong my nails have gotten. Although I cannot do the 'traditional' pose for the pictures (as I still can't bend my thumb) I have tried my best.
Because of the lovely weather I wanted something summery so I decided on cherries.

[Novice] I know it's not the traditionally done thing but I
LOVED the backdrop she was using against those cherries =)

I used Barry M-Matt White with a glittery top coat by Rimmel called Disco Gold, Barry M-Matt White and Essie-Mojito Madness and topped everything off with a Barry M Topcoat.

This was an easy and simple mani that I was even able to do on my right hand!
I really like this one, it's so bright and summery...it makes me and my stupid broken hand/wrist happy!!!

~Rara~

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Aww, I love this super fun mani! I'm also really glad that Rara's almost back to full fitness too. I'm sure you'll be seeing her around here more often again now!

~Nail Art Novice~

Try Something Tuesdays: Colour Blocking

Hi lovelies!

I'm back from Brighton after a fantastic weekend away and have finally had chance to paint my nails again. After 4 days of plain black nails I wanted something colourful and so opted to try out colour blocking, inspired by this design by motelrocks.co.uk which was just something I randomly found whilst searching for ideas. I didn't want to stick to only 5 colours though, so I chose 10 and applied them randomly across all my nails for a ridiculously colourful effect =)

Here's my polishes:

L-R they are: No 7-Siren, Rimmel-Sunrise, Collection-Look At Me! (Apparently they're no longer Collection 2000, I'd not even noticed!), Essie-Mojito Madness, Barry M-Greenberry, Collection-Electric Dreams, Barry M-Navy, Barry M-Plum, Revlon-Hazy and Barry M-Gold Foil. I also used my black Barry M nail art pen for the lines.

Because I knew I wouldn't be able to get them very neat otherwise, I drew the lines on first, filled in the boxes with colour and then went over the lines again which took ages but I didn't have anything to do so it was fine. There's a couple of holes on my right hand but otherwise it worked quite well! Here's the result:

I think my favourite of all is my left index finger, I just really like the combination of colours. I love the look, it's so bright and cheerful, especially after a weekend of dreary plain black nails (I missed my nail art!). Colourful nails are so much more fun =)

In other news, I'm thinking of cutting down these Try Something Tuesday posts, I want to try more nail art and they limit what I can do really, especially if sometimes I just can't be bothered to do something complicated and want to go with something more simple/that I know I can do. I won't stop them completely because there's still things I haven't tried (gradients, marbling, etc etc) but I won't be doing them every week from now on, so I've got a bit more freedom to post!

Hope you all had wonderful weekends enjoying the beautiful weather!

~Nail Art Novice~

If you want to know more about what I got up to in Brighton, I've got a post on my other blog about it.

ABC Challenge: O is for Owls

Following Tuesday's total disasticure I am pleased to say that this mani is probably my favourite piece of nail art that I've ever done-I'm totally in love with it and don't want to take it off ever! Sorry if it sounds like I'm bragging but I'm just really proud of myself that I've done something that looks so good, I was so surprised how well it turned out!

So this week is 'O' in the ABC Challenge and I knew what I wanted to do straight away-something I saw a while ago and knew I would recreate. Before I even started my own blog I found these amazing owl nails by The Little Canvas and loved them. I finally got around to doing them myself!

Polishes used: Essie-Mojito Madness, Barry M-Lychee (finally I own this beauty!), Collection 2000-Look At Me! and Rimmel-Tangy Tangerine. Details were added with my new Barry M Nail Art Pen (I LOVE being able to spend my hard earned Boots points on awesome things!) which worked like a dream. 

Without further ado then (I took lots of pictures because I love them so much!):

Sadly this guy suffered a surprise zip attack shortly after he was
finished, hence the dint

This one really makes
me giggle!

So there we have it! I think next time I do these (there will be a next time!!!) I'll put a neutral base on over my nails first, just because the green makes my natural nail colour look a bit weird and purple (see my thumb on the first pic). I really love them though! They're making me really happy =)

Hope you like them as much as I do!

~Nail Art Novice~

Check out the other 'O' posts by these lovelies:

Try Something Tuesday-Splatter Mani

Hello lovelies, I'm back! I had a lovely time in Sheffield (so much so I didn't want to come home!) but my nails have suffered badly for it. Hoping to get back into the swing of blogging this week though, just with stubby nubbins!
So with no further ado, here's today's Try Something Tuesday splatter mani! This was, without doubt, the messiest thing I've ever tried to do with nail polish, but it was also quite fun and the end result has turned out pretty cool! I started with a base of Revlon-Sunshine Sparkle-a gorgeous pale yellow with silver sparkles shimmering through it, that I've wanted to wear ever since I found it in the pound shop a month or so ago. Sadly, it took me 4 coats to get it anything approaching opaque, so I'll probably layer it over a white next time I use it!

Then I splattered over the top (by blowing polish through a drinking straw) with Essie-Mojito Madness (my new absolute favourite green polish!) and Sally Hansen Complete Manicure-Himalayan Blue which have combined to make a messy splattery spring themed mani:

I think I prefer my right hand to my left because the splatter is a bit more sparse as opposed to large blobs of colour. I almost removed my left middle finger to do it again but couldn't be bothered to faff with the yellow base again. I think my left little finger and right thumb are my favourites-they both have a good even distribution of both the colours.

Overall-I really like this. It's a really messy technique and takes ages to clean up, but the effect is so random and crazy that it's worth it. Plus there are limitless combinations of colours you could use, and some of them would look AMAZING. I'll definitely be doing this again in the future!

It's good to be back =)

~Nail Art Novice~