Halloween Nail Art

Better late than never, ey!

I had intended to get these up yesterday but I ended up getting stranded in Sheffield at my boyfriend's house sans laptop so I've got them a day late. I used waaay to many polishes to list them all but my accents were Barry M-Satsuma with the Black Croc Effect on top and Rimmel-Trend Spotting topped off with the fab Pocket Money Polishes-I Put A Spell On You, which I just had to use because it's perfect for Halloween. I also couldn't have done these nails without my trusty Barry M nail art pen-they're seriously brilliant! For some of them I took ideas from this tutorial by cutepolish, and the rest I just made up as I went along.

And yes, that is a terrible pun name on my gravestone, I was quite proud of that, haha!

Hope you all had a fun Halloween and got more treats than tricks!

~Nail Art Novice~

British Nail Bloggers Halloween Challenge

The British Nail Bloggers are having a mini, no pressure, Halloween Nail Art Challenge, and I thought I'd get in on today's prompt which is 'What's lurking in the dark?' with some simple nail art inspired by My Little Canvas. I used two coats of W7-Black for the base and then added white eyes with Barry M-Matt White. On top of the white I added a coat of Astral Lights glow in the dark polish (it's about 10 years old!) and then 'irises' in Barry M-Mango, Key Lime, Rimmel-Rose Libertine and Revlon-Electric. Once these were dry I added pupils with my black Barry M nail art pen.

Haha, these are utterly ridiculous but I'm really enjoying them! Check out the other cool designs in the inlinkz too!

~Nail Art Novice~

Introducing Nelly Polishes!

I have genuinely no idea how I stumbled across Nelly Polishes but when I did I was immediately intrigued because they are billed as 'the world's first dried nail polish!'-I mean wouldn't you want to know what it was all about?! The scientist in me just had to know more-so I read some reviews and I read all about them on their site, and then I went on their Etsy page and helped myself to five bottles-oops! 

You can buy Nelly polish (from their Etsy shop) in three ways-in a sachet form (which you add to 10mls of any clear polish of your choice), dried in the bottle (which you add the clear polish to) or pre-made in the bottles (UK only). I went for the dried in the bottle version-although slightly more expensive than the sachets it would mean I wouldn't have to find bottles to put them in, plus I loved the logo on the side!

This is how they arrived:

L-R: Gumpas, Jonah's Green, Teal Holo, Bodmin, Autumn Teal

Autumn Teal

As you can see they're sort of pigmented powders at this stage, of the same sort of consistency of loose eyeshadow powders. Next came the fun part-adding the clear polish to them. I used L.A Colors clear polish, for the simple reason that it was cheap (£1/bottle) and easily available to me in the pharmacy around the corner. And it was not a tidy process-there was a LOT of mess. L.A Colors come in 13ml bottles so I had to use a syringe to get the right amount into the Nelly bottles and there was clear polish and little bits of coloured powder and glitter everywhere by the time I was done. My polishes have all ended up with different fill levels because of it, but I like knowing that I got to mix them myself-it was kinda fun! It also gave me a new kind of respect for indie makers-shaking them all by hand until they were mixed properly was a bit of a work out, phew!

This was what they looked like once I'd added the clear polish to them all:

L-R: Gumpas, Jonah's Green, Teal Holo, Bodmin, Autumn Teal

and as you can see, the colour of the original powders is no real indication of the colour they will be once they're finished.

The polishes come out like jellys-sheer but build up opacity fairly well in most cases, although I personally would wear them over a base colour because I'm not a fan of VNL. They dry to a semi-matte finish which is perfectly wearable on its own, but they really come alive with a layer of glossy topcoat, I think. I had some trouble with a couple of mine being quite thick at first, which I think is probably due to them getting less clear polish than they should have done, but once I added a couple of drops of polish thinner this smoothed out just fine. I also noticed some undissolved powder with the first couple of uses but I just popped the lid back on and gave it another good shake and this seems to have resolved the problem!
The awesome thing about these polishes is that they can be shipped anywhere in the world legally-because the dried versions are totally safe to transport (It's the solvents in nail varnishes that mean that they're "dangerous" to move around!). They're also really different-I've not seen colour combinations like this before.

You can buy Nelly Polishes from their Etsy store here-the dried sachets of mix are £3, the mixes in the bottles are £4.50 and the pre-made polishes are £5.50 (only available in the UK). There's also a 20% off sale running for the rest of October-so get them while they're hot! I've got swatches of my five coming up over the next couple of days, so keep an eye out for them!

Wishing you a good weekend!

~Nail Art Novice~

Quack Quack!

Hello Lovelies! Rara here again. I've got some fun rubber duck nails for you all today.

Polishes used were Avon-Grey Flash (a beautiful grey colour with shinies in, and it only needs one coat!), Avon-Inspire, Barry M-Atlantic Road (one of their textured polishes), Barry M-Mango (from their Gelly line) and Barry M-Sequinned White plus my Andrea Fulerton Dot and Flick in black.

I fancied something cute today so I decided on rubber ducks-a firm favourite theme between myself and Novice.

I used a dotting tool to create the ducks and then a small brush for their tiny wings. And who can say no to a few sparkles? So I added the bubbles above the ducks with a sequin in each one. 
I love these already and they've only been on my nails for about 10 minutes-I can tell I'll be staring at them all day at work tomorrow!

Until next time, 

~Rara~


Don't forget to enter Novice's Giveaway here! 

Rara's Goin' On A Summer Holiday...

Right now Rara is off sunning herself (hopefully) in Cornwall on her summer hols (lucky thing!) and she came over the other day and did some beach themed holiday nails for her trip. She took inspiration from these nails by The Crafty Ninja and these which she found on Google+ but are un-watermarked. (If anyone knows who did them originally, please let me know so I can credit them).
She used a myriad of polishes and I can't find the list where I wrote them all down so I'm just going to tell you the ones I remember for now. If anyone has a burning desire to know the colours specifically, just ask and I will try and be helpful! I know the sky is Revlon-Blue Lagoon and the 'beach' colour is Barry M-Lychee. The white of the beach ball was Barry M-Matt White and all the black and white details were done with nail art pens-both Barry M and Andrea Fulerton. She started by painting all her nails blue then sponging on the Lychee when that was dry. Then she just freehanded on the rest of the details using a dotting tool and a paintbrush.
Enough chatter, on to the pictures!

From thumb to little finger she's got a beach ball, some palm trees and hammock (possibly not in Cornwall!), a beach hut, a sandcastle and a starfish. Aren't they fab? I think my favourite is the sandcastle.

I hope she's having a lovely time away and I'm definitely not jealous at all! Haha. Are you going anywhere nice this summer?

~Rara & Nail Art Novice~

Ridiculousness for Red Nose Day

Today is Red Nose Day in Britain where people across the country "do something funny for money"-trying to raise as much as we can as a nation to help vulnerable people both in the UK and third world countries. It's one of the things that makes me proud to be British-every year we have two massive fundraisers, one in March (Comic/Sports Relief) and one in November (Children in Need) and no matter how much of a recession we're in we always raise millions to help those who aren't as lucky as we are. I haven't done anything interesting this year but I will be donating some money, even if I can't afford much.

Every year they sell red noses to help raise money too, which are always a bit silly and fun-this year's are dinosaurs! This inspired me to do some Red Nose Day nail art complete with some ridiculous extra features which I've always wanted to try out-this gives me the perfect excuse!

Polishes used: Rimmel Wear Maxx-Serene (gorgeous shimmery shiny white), Rimmel Wear Maxx-Celebrity Bash (a beautiful dark blood red-I'm a sucker for these! Both these polishes cost me just £1 each from Poundworld-bargain!), Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish-Double Decker Red, Colour Me-Colour Me White and details with my L.A Colors Art Deco striper.

This is 3 coats of Serene, it's very sheer but also very very pretty-almost pearly.

Next I added spots using Celebrity Bash and painted my accents with Double Decker Red. I'm still not great at getting my dots perfectly spread out and sized equally but I guess it comes with practice. I added white eyes to my accents and black pupils and smiles. Then I added my ridiculous features to my thumbs and voila! This is what I was left with:

GOOGLY EYES!! =D

My red noses with one of this year's Di-NOSE-saurs

I'm not expecting the googly eyes to stay on very long as they're not secured with anything other than a blob of topcoat underneath/round the edges but I love the fact that they look completely absurd and wonderful. I can't help but love this silly mani, it's just awesome. 

Are you guys doing anything for Red Nose Day?

~Nail Art Novice~