Mish Mash Challenge Week 14-Pink

Now you might think that this isn't a pink-themed mani at all, but that it's actually a blue one with pink highlights and...well...you'd be entirely correct. See, the thing is, is that I am not a pink person at all-aside from socks (which don't count) I can't think of any one item of clothing I own that has pink on it. I just don't like the colour and never have-from the time I started defyingly dressing myself aged about four I've avoided it wherever I can. It's a miracle that I actually own any pink polishes at all! Actually, thinking about it, I didn't pay for either of the two I used in this mani-one came as a free gift with some polishes I bought and I won one in a giveaway. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is I don't like pink, so I didn't want to do an all pink mani, because I'd HATE it and take it off straight away. This, I feel is a happy compromise, hopefully nobody minds my bending of the rules too much!

Polishes used: Looney Lacquer-Love A Lot, Rimmel-Rose Libertine and Barry M-Guava. I did something that I've never seen done before (although I am by no means claiming to have "invented" it!) -a double laser taping mani. I started with a layer of Love A Lot, which is a very limited edition polish-I own one of the only 5 bottles in existence! It's a white creamy base filled to bursting with pink and red glitters of all sizes and colours, and there's some little hearts in there too. I actually like this a lot more than I ever thought I would-it's a really pretty polish! It's not very 'me' but it's definitely something I would wear, perhaps around Valentine's Day or something.

This is two coats:

I added a topcoat of trusty Seche Vite and once it was all dried I stuck striping tape randomly over each nail and added a coat of Rose Libertine:

Another layer of Seche Vite, another layer of tape and a layer of Guava finished it off:

So that's what I ended up with, my not-pink pink mani! I like it a lot more than I would if it were all pink, and I think the bright blue works really well with the subtler colours underneath it. I'll definitely be trying this technique again too, it's a bit time consuming but the effect at the end is really cool!

Don't forget to check out what the other lovely challenge ladies have done for their pink week manis (I imagine there's will be much pinker than mine, haha!)

~Nail Art Novice~

Mish Mash Challenge Week 13-Rainbows

I always knew I would love this week because I'm a massive rainbow fan-they're so bright and colourful and never fail to make me smile-whether in the sky or on my nails! This design was inspired by a couple of things-firstly by my boyfriend's idea in 'tape week', because his gradients looked really awesome, and secondly by an awesome glitter that I bought in a blog sale a couple of weeks ago. To combine them together I used the glitter over black and then did rainbow accents.

Polishes used: W7-Black, Barry M-Passion Fruit, Mango, Spring Green, Blue Grape, Revlon-Electric, Sinful Colors-Amethyst, Seventeen-Monochrome Graffiti Effects and Krafty Gurl-It's A Fiesta.
Here's what I ended up with:

Can you believe that this is only one coat of that Krafty Gurl glitter? SO MUCH PRETTY. I love love LOVE this mani, it's awesome and amazing and I don't want to take it off ever ever ever. It's making me happy =D

Don't forget to check out all the other rainbow coloured brilliance in the inlinkz below!

~Nail Art Novice~

Mish Mash Challenge Week 12-Flowers

I decided to stray a little out of my comfort zone this week and have another go at some freehand roses, which I've only done a couple of times before. I stuck to traditional rose colours and did them in red on nude.
Polishes used: Rimmel-Red Obsession, Barry M-Lychee, Collection 2000-Damson Jam and OPI-Don't Mess With OPI with a smidgeon of black mixed in to make the darker parts of the leaves.

They're not perfect but they're really not too bad I think! The camera is a bit harsh on them, they look much better IRL I think. This design feels a bit Cath Kidstony to me-I love it!

Don't forget to check out all the other Flowers manis in the inlinkz below =)

~Nail Art Novice~

Mish Mash Challenge Week 11-Book

I was brainstorming this idea last week with Rara and my boyfriend because I didn't really know what I was going to do for it and Rara came up with the excellent suggestion of The Hitch-hiker's Guide To The Galaxy series of books, which I love because they're wonderful. I worked out what I wanted to do and gathered alllll the polishes I needed (there were a lot) and got to work. The base for these was Barry M-Black Multi Glitter which I think is the perfect background for a space themed mani as it has so many pretty sparkles in but without overwhelming the nail art on top. On my poor, sad nubbin I used Rimmel-Serene as Marvin, the clinically depressed robot's face-and actually the nubbin was the perfect size! Happy endings ey?

Right so, nails. On my left hand I've got some space nails, Marvin, Don't Panic (as written in 'large, friendly letters' on the back of the Guide), and a bowl of petunias on the thumb. Left hand has more space nails, 42 (the meaning of 'life, the universe and everything'), a white mouse (because they're running the Earth, secretly, trying to find the ultimate question) and a whale tail because I couldn't fit a whole whale on!

I'll stop blabbering on now and just show you the pics so you can see for yourselves!

I genuinely really love these-it seems that the nails I'm most proud of/love the most are all nerdy but I'm OK with that haha! I think anyone who is a fan of the series (whether that be the books/TV Show/Radio show/Film) will recognise these as H2G2 nails so I'm really happy with them! They make me smile and sometimes that's all you want your nail art to do!

Don't forget to check out the other awesome 'Book' nails in the inlinkz below, and I'll be back soon, hopefully!

~Nail Art Novice~

Mish Mash Challenge Week 10-Triangles

How is it OCTOBER already?? I honestly have no idea where this year is going.
Today I've got another Mish Mash challenge for you, and for the first time in weeks not only is this one going up on time but I'm actually scheduling it in advance! Not quite sure where my efficiency came from this week but I'm not complaining.
This week's theme is triangles and I've done a tape mani in a style I've wanted to try for a while because I think they look awesome. What I didn't anticipate was quite how long it would take to apply 9 pieces of tape to each nail, paint over them and remove them, but oh well, the results are worth it!

I started with a gradient (yes, another one, I love them!) of Revlon-Fire, Barry M-Satsuma and Mango and Revlon-Electric because I wanted to get away from the blues that I have been using a lot of recently for one reason or another. Can't get much further away from blue than bright red/orange, right? After I'd done the gradients (and totally forgotten to take a picture of them, much as I intended to) and they'd dried sufficiently, I applied the tape. Normally with tape manis I tape up the nails on one hand and then paint over them and remove, but as there were so many strips per nail with this one I had to do one at a time, which took AGES. I painted over the top with Barry M-Black Multi Glitter.

Here's what I ended up with:

I have to say I love it-it took me so long to do that I was actually fed up of it, but it was worth it in the end. Some of my triangles are slightly wibbly but I still love them. I like the firey colours vs the black overlay too-and not a hint of blue in sight!

Check out the other ladies' fabulous triangle manis in the inlinkz below, and I'll see you soon!

~Nail Art Novice~

Mish Mash Challenge Week 9-Blue

Hello again!
Time for another Mish Mash challenge and I was rather looking forward to this one as I have a LOT of blue polishes-almost 30! I was originally going to try and use them all in today's mani but decided that would take forever so I randomly chose 10 instead. (By randomly I mean I stuck my hand in the box and pulled them out without looking, haha).
Polishes used: Barry M-Matt White, Guava, Denim, Rimmel-Midnight Blue, Aqua Cool, Royal Blue (Metal Rush), Maybelline-Dark Denim, China Glaze-For Audrey, Avon-On Point Blue, Sally Hansen-Himalayan Blue and Revlon-Royal.

 I decided to do a mosaic/colour blocked mani to show them off to their best potential so started with a white base and some striping tape, then added each colour semi-randomly to my nails.

(Kindly ignore my higgeldy-piggeldy nail lengths and shapes!)
I really like this, it's very me and really quite simple to do-the longest part was getting all the tape on, man that took forever! Some of the colours have bleached slightly in these photos, they look even better in real life with the contrasts between the colours. One day when I have time to spare I'm going to do one of these using ALL my blues, I reckon it'd look amazing!

Don't forget to check out the other fantastic 'blue' entries in the inlinkz below, and I hope you're having a marvellous Thursday!

~Nail Art Novice~

Mish Mash Challenge Week 8-Cold

Sooooo...I missed a week of the Mish Mash challenge and feel really bad about it. I keep going up to visit my boyface in Sheffield and then ending up staying longer than I anticipated and missing lots of posts-oops! So today's mani is the new Mish Mash challenge prompt which is cold (co-incidentally ended up very close to 'Hot' in the list!). I wanted something relatively simple so I picked out some 'cold' colours (Pale blue, white and silver) and went at it.
Polishes used: Revlon-Blue Lagoon, Rimmel-Serene and H&M-Silver Frost. I added some wintery tree decals from YRNails to contribute to the effect too.

I actually really like this, it's definitely 'cold' in colour but it's pretty and delicate too. Now I've got the hang of them I really like using these decals, they're such a simple way of sprucing up an other wise boring mani, I think.

I'm off camping this weekend with my fella (Lovely weather for it, ey!) so I might be a bit absent again, but will try and get some appropriately themed nails done before we leave!

See you soon, have a good weekend all!

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget to check out the other ladies fab efforts this week:

Mish Mash Challenge Week 6-Hot

Sneaking this one in just before the deadline-phew! I've been staying with my boyfriend (without an internet connection!) for the past week or so, so I haven't been polishing/posting much-apologies! I spent the week being introduced to an excellent TV show which actually inspired me for this challenge!

That TV show was Avatar-The Last Airbender which I can whole heartedly recommend if you ever get the chance to watch it. There are four nations within the series and I chose to represent two on my nails-the Fire Nation and the Water Tribe. I've got the insignia of each on my ring fingers and the element symbol on my thumbs-links are here to see what they look like if you're interested: Fire Nation insignia, Fire symbol, Water Tribe insignia, Water symbol.

Polishes used were the rather appropriately named Revlon-Fire and OPI-I Have A Herring Problem. I topped all but the accents with a coat of MaxFactor-Fantasy Fire and I really love the way that it looks completely different colours over each base. The details were done with the Barry M nail art pens. Now these aren't the best nail art I've ever done, as I was doing them at about 11pm at night so don't hold that against me, K?

So there you go! I will try and post more often again now but I already know next week's mish mash will be late too-oops!

Don't forget to check the inlinkz for other awesome 'Hot' manis from my lovely co-participants!

~Nail Art Novice~

Mish Mash Challenge Week 5-Music

Hello lovelies! I am back from my many adventures and finally posting a Mish Mash challenge mani on the right day for once-hurrah! I had to think about this one, as I like a lot of very strange music and wasn't exaactly sure how I would ever manage to represent any of this on my nails but then I had a much better idea!

One of the reasons I keep my nails short is because I play the bass guitar and find that long nails get caught on the strings and make it really difficult to play. I really love my bass-she's not the most expensive or well made of instruments but she's mine and I think she's really gorgeous (and yes, for reference, she does have a name as well). So I decided to do black and green gradients in tribute to her-plus accents designed to look like the neck of the guitar. Polishes used were: Barry M-Spring Green, W7-Black, OPI-Suzi Loves Cowboys plus the silver Barry M nail art pen. I matted the accents with Rimmel Lycra Pro-Matte Finish.

It's not quite the right shade of green but I love this colour combination and how bright it is, plus the accents which match my bass perfectly.
So there we go! I'm off to jam out for a bit now, laters!

~Nail Art Novice~

If you want to read about my Edinburgh adventures then check out my other blog: http://www.ordinaryextraordinarylife.com/

Don't forget to check out the other awesome participants in the inlinkz:

Mish Mash Week 4-New Nail Art Technique-Take Two!

OK, so I really didn't like what I'd ended up with in my first attempt at this week's challenge, and definitely didn't want to keep it on my hands for long. As I started removing it (shortly after I'd finished the post, if I'm honest), I started looking through some of the other wonderful manis done for this week and I came across this wonderful post by A Polished Prance showing the 'drag marbling' technique which looks really fabulous. I decided to try it out on my thumb to see if I could do it and it looked really cool! I then decided this was going to be my second 'try something new' mani, in the hope it would come out a little better. Thankfully, it did!

Polishes used are the same as before with the addition of Barry M-Matt White and China Glaze-Fairy Dust because I fancied adding a little sparkle. I just followed the same video tutorial that Chantelle linked to in her post and it was really quite simple and easy =)

I did struggle a little using my non-dominant hand, simply because holding the needle was a little fiddly but I still really like the end result MUCH more than I did with the acid wash-it's really bright and fun and funky. This one definitely won't be getting taken off straight away! Thanks to A Polished Prance for the idea!

Again, don't forget to check out the inlinkz,  it just goes to show you never know what you might find as inspiration =)

Until next time!

~Nail Art Novice~

Mish Mash Challenge Week 4-New Nail Art Technique

I had originally planned to try out the dreaded water marble for this week, but that would have meant being awake enough to get dressed and go and buy supplies for it and I just couldn't be bothered in the end =p

Instead, I attempted the acid wash technique which is something I'd been wanting to try for a while. Polishes used were all Barry M-Passion Fruit, Mango, Key Lime, Guava, Blue Grape, Prickly Pear and Plum. I followed this pictorial by The Crumpet (because for some reason Youtube doesn't want to work on this computer today) although I can't really claim it as a successful endeavour!

I think the nails with orange in look pretty cool but all the others are a bit dark and gloomy and haven't really worked as well. I think I needed to make my original 'slices' a bit wider so you got the full effect of the different layers of colours, also maybe use only two layers under my top colour rather than three. I dunno, I just don't really love them and won't be keeping them on for long. But hey, at least I've tried them now! I will do them again someday, hopefully with a little more success. Hopefully the other awesome challengers will have had more luck, check out the inlinkz to see!

~Nail Art Novice~

Also congratulations to Raquel who won my giveaway!

Mish Mash Challenge Week 3-Metallic

I thought I'd keep it simple for this week's mish mash challenge and did a design loosely inspired by Kimber's awesome tape mani from last week. I started with a base of Revlon-Silver Screen (two coats) on all my nails and then applied some Seche Vite to help it dry. Once this was done I added some scotch tape to my nails leaving a triangle free in the middle-which I filled in with Barry M-Cosmic Glow which is a gorgeous magnetic green polish. It's full of multi coloured glittered flecks and I think it's really pretty. I used the diagonal line magnet with them too.

I really like these, simple and relatively easy to do. They look a bit like Christmas trees I think, so I might pull this one out again at Xmas time.

Don't forget to check out some of the other awesome Metallic manis in the inlinkz below!

~Nail Art Novice~

There's only 4 days left to enter my giveaway so make sure you've got your entries in here!

Mish Mash Challenge Week 2-Taping

I have to apologise for my lack of posting over the last week, I was hanging out with my other half and didn't remember to blog-hopefully you can forgive me!

Time (already!) for the second mani of the Mish Mash challenge and this week it's taping. I was bandying some ideas around with the Mr. and we came up with the idea of doing bright colours and black together. He wanted to choose the colours so I let him pick five that looked good together-Barry M-Passion Fruit, Mango, Spring Green, Blue Grape and Rimmel-Sunshine, plus Barry M-Black over the top. I decided to mix it up a little and did one hand with the colours underneath and one with them on top.

(Apologies for the crappy clean up on these, it was really late!)

They did end up a little messy and on any other day I would have probably taken a couple of them off and redone them, but I was tired and just couldn't be bothered, oops! My bf also wanted to get in on the taping action (because he's basically awesome) so I did gradients on his nails and taped over the top...and they actually turned out so much more awesome than my nails! I was a bit jealous because they looked fab!

I'm definitely stealing his idea at some point in the future, haha.

Anyway, I'm going to try and get back to blogging properly again now, starting with checking out all the other awesome tape manis in the inlinkz below.

~Nail Art Novice~


Don't forget to enter my giveaway here!

Mish Mash Challenge Week 1-Purple

Hurrah, it's finally time for the Mish Mash challenge to begin! I've been looking forward to this for a while, and I reckon it's going to be pretty fun! For more details, go here.

This week's prompt is 'purple' and although I've only just done some minion nails for the OMD! Challenge, I couldn't resist rocking them again when my friend invited me to see Despicable Me 2 for the 2nd time (I just love those movies!)-only this time, of course, I did the purple 'evil' minions to fit with the theme.

Polishes used: Barry M-Prickly Pear, Matt White, Topshop-Cloud, Revlon-Electric, Maybelline-Dark Denim, L'Oreal-Valiant plus my Barry M Nail Art pens in black and white.

These were super fun to wear for a few days and I got a few compliments on them which is always good! And the film was brill too, of course!

Don't forget to check out all the other purple entries in the inlinkz below. So excited to be back, woo!

~Nail Art Novice~

An InLinkz Link-up