Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog...

I seem to have accidentally got into the spirit of all these halloween manis that I've seen floating around the web with my latest creation. I wanted to use green polishes because I hadn't done a green mani for some time and picked out a couple I thought went well together-Sally Hansen-Grass Slipper and Barry M-Watermelon. I had originally wanted to stamp one on top of the other but utterly failed at stamping-I don't know if it's my technique, my stampers or my new Cheeky plates but I just can't seem to get the polish to lift off the plate and onto the stamper at all which is incredibly frustrating. Having given up on that idea I wanted something simple and grabbed my dotting tools and did a double dot mani. Looking at them-I think they look a bit like eyes, hence the title!

Oh and let me apologise for the ridiculous length of my left ring finger-I don't know what I do but I somehow always manage to break/tear this nail and it's always right down to the quick. I'm going to have to file the rest of my nails down too so it looks less silly, sigh.

Anyway, pictures!

Nothing amazing but still I think it looks pretty cool!

Hope you all had awesome weekends

~Nail Art Novice~



Title taken from Shakespeare's Macbeth

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~

OMD! Challenge Day 28-Inspired by a TV Show

Now I know that technically I'm posting this a day early as today's only the 27th but I wanted to do this one more than jewellery. Sadly this will probably be my last OMD! Challenge Mani as I am off to visit a friend next week who doesn't have internet yet so I wanted to end on a good one.
This mani is inspired by my absolute favourite TV show of all time-Red Dwarf. It's probably not something that many people have heard of because even in the UK it's considered pretty cult but I think it's very funny.
I started with a base of Barry M-Black Multiglitter on all my fingers as a background to all my designs. Other polishes I used were: Barry M-Matt White, Navy and Blue Moon, Revlon-Fire, Electric and Blue Lagoon, Rimmel-Azure, Sally Hansen-Going Green and Grass Slipper, plus the Barry M nail art pens in White, Black and Silver.

If you've never seen the show then you probably won't recognise these nails, I'm afraid. I've got some galaxy nails because it takes places entirely in deepest, darkest space, the penguin on my index fingers is a minor character called Mr. Flibble, who is a very evil puppet with hex vision. On my left hand I've got the show's logo, as well as the word 'Smeg Head' which is used throughout the show to replace swearing and on my right I have a 'H' to represent Arnold Rimmer (who is a hologram with a 'H' on his forehead) and on my thumb I've attempted to recreate one of their spaceships-Starbug. Apologies if all of that means nothing to you!

On to the nails:

I really love these-even if they are a little nerdy, haha!
Kinda sad I'm going to miss the end of the OMD! Challenge but I've really enjoyed myself doing it! The new Mish Mash Mani challenge starts next week though (Yay!) so keep an eye out for that instead.

~Nail Art Novice~

OMD! Challenge Day 25-Inspired by a Movie

I actually did these nails right back at the start of July when me and the Mr. went to see Despicable Me 2 but they are inspired by the (awesome) first film. Of course I did some minions, but I didn't want to do a full hand of them, so I also did the 3 little kittens [Adorable GIF alert!] from the book featured in the film which everyone knows represent Agnes, Edith and Margo-Gru's adopted daughters.

Polishes used: Revlon-Electric, Barry M-Blue Denim, Matt White, Lychee, Nail Art Pens, L'Oreal-Valiant, Sally Hansen-Himalayan Blue, Fairy Teal, Rimmel-Rose Libertine, Marshmallow Heaven.

 After sitting and watching me do my nails for an hour or so, my boyfriend asked me if I would do some minions for him too, which was awesome because I was expecting him to hate how long it took! Of course I obliged and he loved having them on his thumbs for a few days! It also looked really adorable when we held hands ^_^

~Nail Art Novice~

OMD! Challenge Day 21-Stamping

Hello lovelies! I'm back with today's OMD! Challenge Mani and we're into the final third of the challenge already-how time flies! Today's prompt is 'stamping' which I have done over a rainbow gradient because I missed gradient day and I love doing them. Also rainbows are awesome so why not? I used LOADS of polishes for it too, here goes *takes big breath*: (This is going red-purple or little finger-thumb on my left hand) Rimmel-Red Obsession, Barry M-Satsuma, Mango, Rimmel-Sunshine, Revlon-Sunshine Sparkle, Barry M-Key Lime, OPI-Don't Mess With OPI, Sally Hansen-Himalayan Blue, Maybelline-Dark Denim, Barry M-Prickly Pear, Plum. I stamped with Revlon-Silver Screen and a random flower stamp from my starter kit from Ebay (the plates are un-named!).

I'm always amazed how little time it can take to do a full stamped mani-I might look into getting some more plates so I can do it more often now I think I've got the hang of it-mostly! I think my best one this time is my right thumb-I love the double stamp on it and they've both turned out pretty well! I'm really loving the bright colours and summery themes in this mani-perfect for the weather-ey?

~Nail Art Novice~

Doc Martens Nail Art!

-Pic Heavy Post-

Hello lovelies!
Today I have a confession: I have another love outside of nail polish/nail art and that's my Doc Martens. I've got 5 pairs (at the moment) and keep adding more every year. My mum always rolls her eyes whenever I get a new pair and says "You can only wear one at a time!" so I thought I'd try and prove her wrong with some nail art. I had a quick search and couldn't find any previous examples out there so I came up with this design all by myself! I've been waiting to do it for months and months, because I needed the perfect blue and finally I have it (thankyou Barry M!).

Firstly, let me introduce you to my lovelies:

 I got the bright green ones in 2007 and have basically been obsessed with them ever since! I really love wearing them with miniskirts and opaque tights-it's sort of become my signature look really and it always makes me feel amazing.

Anyway, on to the mani! I wanted to recreate the colours of my Docs as closely as I could so I used many many polishes! Red-Revlon-Fire, Teal-Sally Hansen-Fairy Teal, Blue-Barry M-Blue Grape, Patterned White-Barry M-Matt White, sponged with Topshop-Cloud and  Rimmel-Tangy Tangerine and for the bright green Barry M 2013 Superdrug Limited Edition (such a catchy title)-Neon Green. I used two coats of them all, and put two coats of Matt White underneath the neon green too. For the iconic brown soles I used OPI-Suzi Loves Cowboys (over some curved French tip  guide stickers) and for the instantly recognisable orange stitching I used a Stargazer polish-number 103 (UV-glow Orange). The black lacing details were done with the black Barry M nail art pen. Phew! I also used my H&M Matte top coat on my index/ring fingers to simulate the leather effect, as opposed to the patent shiny shiny ones. I'm not sure how well you can tell in these pics though! (I have to admit I had a lot of fun taking them!)

What do you reckon? Are they too cool for school or what? I could do a tutorial for these if people wanted, although I reckon they're pretty easy to figure out! If you do your own version, let me know =)

They make me super happy! =D

~Nail Art Novice~

In a total piece of blogging serendipity, I didn't even realise that one of the nail art groups I'm part of has the theme of 'Shoes' for this week! So here's some more footwear inspired manis:

ABC Challenge: U is for Upcycled Umbrellas

I decided at the end of the weekend that I wanted to do something more fun with my grey gradients so I decided to incorporate them into this challenge and 'up-cycle' them. They were the perfect colours for a rainy theme, so I went with umbrellas and raindrops.

Polishes used:
Backgrounds: (as before) - Revlon-Hazy (Lightest grey), Topshop-Cloud (mid grey), Rimmel-Stormy Skies (darkest grey) and OPI-I Juggle...Men
Umbrellas: Barry M nail art pen in Black, George-Under The Sea (to get another 'U' in there), Revlon-Blue Lagoon, Rimmel-Pear Drop
Cloud (ring finger): A mix of Revlon-Hazy and Topshop-Cloud 
Puddle/Raindrops: A mix of Revlon-Blue Lagoon, Sally Hansen-Himalayan Blue, Rimmel-Aqua Cool and Barry M-Neptune Sea

Posing with my umbrella, as you do

I enjoyed doing these, they were all just sort of freehanded on. To make the water I just put a small amount of each colour on a paintbrush and painted to see what came out of it. I quite like the fact that there's a real mix of colours in there, and each raindrop is slightly different to its neighbours. Unfortunately this mani didn't last long, because my grey-dients were already in a state when I put this on, so I probably took it all off about 12 hours later. It was fun while it lasted though!

~Nail Art Novice~

Check out the other awesome 'U' manicures:

Try Something Tuesday-Fan Brush Effect

I've been seeing these manis around a lot recently and really liked the look of them but had no idea how to do one! I went on Youtube and searched for 'fan brush manis' and found a couple of tutorial videos and it turns out it's a lot easier than I was expecting it to be! (The best one I found was this one by DearNatural62) As I'd got some fan brushes in the last set I bought from t'Ebay I thought I'd give it a shot!

My base colour is 3 coats of Revlon-Blue Lagoon which is a gorgeous baby blue shot through with silver shimmer. The colours I used over the top were Sally Hansen-Fairy Teal and Rimmel-Sunshine. I knew that these wouldn't blend together to create new colours in the same way that some do (see this mani by My Nail Graffiti for an excellent example) but still thought that they looked really cool together against the pale blue base.

I really like this! It was so quick and easy to do, even on all 10 nails! Definitely the quickest mani I've managed on myself for some time (less than half an hour from base coat to top coat!) which is good. I really love doing nail art but it doesn't half take up some time usually! It got pretty messy but I've cleaned up as best I can and I also have ordered some acetone from Amazon so that  I should be able to clean up even better in future.

I'm really happy with this, I love that each nail is different and it looks so cool! This may have just become my go-to mani when I need something quick and easy.

I also realised that I'd inadvertently matched my nails to my bedding, haha!

That's all for now, see you soon!

~Nail Art Novice~

ABC Challenge: R is for Rainbows!

A few days after I received my first ever holo polish (and immediately fell in love) I got my second one in the post after purchasing it from the Nail Newbie's blog sale. (I ordered it in April before my polish ban, just so you know!) It was GOSH-Holographic Hero which is a limited edition silver holo polish. It shines with all the colours of the rainbow, so it was my immediate thought when it came to doing rainbows this week:

3 Coats-could have used two but smudged it!

But that was much too boring so I decided to add some nail art on top. On my fingers I've got a dotted rainbow ombre/gradient and then stripes on my thumbs because I loved them so much last time. I didn't want to cover up too much of the lovely holo, so I used striping tape between the colours. This way I've got rainbows on top of rainbows =)

Polishes used: Red-No 7-Siren, Orange-Barry M-Satsuma, Yellow-Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish-Sunshine (I finally caved a few weeks ago and bought a decent yellow polish because the London Girl one was an amazing colour with an AWFUL formula!), Light Green-Cairuo-Green Tea 22, Dark Green-Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish-Block Your Green, Light Blue-Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure-Himalayan Blue, Dark Blue-Maybelline Forever Strong Pro-Dark Denim, Purple-Maybelline Forever Strong Pro-Mellow Mauve. And Holographic Hero of course! The bottle says it's only good for 24 hours of wear, but I have topcoated the life out of it in the hope to prove them wrong-we'll see!

This is another mani I love, it's so colourful and cheerful and when the holo particles (if that's the right word!) catch the light it's amazingly sparkly too! I'm really hoping it at least lasts the weekend. Fingers crossed ey?

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget to check out the other ladies' 'R' entries:

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~

Some Flowers, Pretty Daisies, Might Relieve The Gloom

So the snow is just about melting away now, and I actually saw blue sky today, for the first time in ages. I'm daring to hope that Spring is actually waking up *fingers crossed* so I have painted my nails accordingly.

I recently treated myself to a couple of Spring colours from the Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure (SHCSM) collection which I knew would be perfect for this type of mani. These are polishes which, in theory, you can wear without basecoat and topcoat but knowing how long I like to keep my manis on for I didn't want to risk stains and chips so I used them as normal. (In case you're interested that's Sally Hansen Insta-Grip and Seche Vite.)

I started with my base colours of SHCSM-Grass Slipper and SHCSM-Fairy Teal reversing my accents as usual. They're both almost one coaters in terms of opacity, although I ended up doing three of each to even out visible brush strokes as they didn't apply especially well. I really love the colours though, they're pretty stunning and definitely right for spring time. I have a bit of a crush on Fairy Teal too, tealy-greeny-blues being my favourite colours!

Apologise for the blur, it didn't look blurry on my camera!
This is Grass Slipper with an accent of Fairy Teal

And this, of course, is the opposite.
The blue staining you can see isn't polish-it's printer ink and
 WILL NOT come off!

Then I took my dotting tools and my white Colour Me polish to add daisies to each nail, basically just placing them randomly. I find it kind of interesting that even though I was using the same tool size on each hand my flowers are much smaller on my right hand (done with non-dominant) than my left-and I think I actually prefer the smaller ones-except where they went a bit wonky! The flower middles are Revlon-Sunshine Sparkle and Rimmel-Tangy Tangerine which was a bit of a last minute addition because I hadn't anticipated how yellow the Grass Slipper would turn my white (and it was still out from my last mani.) I kind of like the effect though, it doesn't look out of place with the rest of the mani:

Overall I reckon this is a mani fit for Springtime, just need the weather to catch up and it'll be fab.

Just to let you know I'll be away next week, so apart from my 31 Blog Challenge post going up tomorrow, this is the last you'll hear from me for a week or so. Instead of me, next week you'll get posts from Rara instead, she's got some awesome Easter designs to share with you all. I'll still have internet access and be checking in though, so keep commenting and saying hello =)

~Nail Art Novice~

Title of post taken from Wait-The Sweeney Todd Soundtrack

Wishful Thinking

Spring is taking a long time to appear in Britain at the moment and it's really cold. This coupled with the fact that I've got a horrible head cold and am generally feeling a little worse for wear at the moment meant that I wanted something fun to put on my nails that might make me feel a little better. Rara came over the other night and we both decided to do some spring-inspired nail art. We were originally going to do the same thing but had different ideas in the end and did two completely different, but both awesome manis.

Firstly, polishes used:
Rara: Sally Hansen Insta Dry; Brisk Blue, Colour Me; Colour Me White, Barry M; Lemon Ice Cream and L.A. Colours Art Deco; Black
Me: China Glaze; For Audrey, London Girl; Shade 148, Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish; Tangy Tangerine, Colour Me; Colour Me White, OPI; Suzi Loves Cowboys, Barry M; Mushroom and OPI; Don't Mess With OPI.

Although we didn't copy them exactly, we both took inspiration and techniques from this sky/clouds tutorial by Nailed It NZ and this cut out sunshine one from Gnarly Gnails.

The Manis
I started with For Audrey on all my fingers except for my thumb, which I painted with the yellow London Girl polish. Because I wanted this to be my sun, I sponged some orange on top to change the colour slightly. Next I did the clouds with a dotting tool, then the trees and flowers using nail art brushes and the ones in the polishes. I added a little bit of the lighter brown Mushroom over my Suzi Loves Cowboys to give the trees some texture and stop them being quite so dark before doing the suns as in the tutorial above.

Rara started with a base of Brisk Blue then added the clouds and birds as in the tutorial on all but her accent nails. She painted her suns on using Barry M Lemon Ice Cream which is a paler yellow than the one I used, then added the details again using nail art brushes.

We were a bit bored and messing around and decided that you definitely needed to see some pictures of them both together too (I promise I'm not just crushing her hand in the last one!) and you can see the differences in our nail shapes here, Rara's are much longer and thinner whilst mine are broader but shorter. Both lend themselves well to different styles of art though!

I loved Rara's little birds that looked like they were flying across her nails and the cutout suns impressed me too. I think they look pretty spectacular, both of them, although I'm really sorry to say mine have all but come off now, which is sad. I enjoyed having spring themed nails, even if it was still snowing!

Let us know which one you prefer in the comments!

~Nail Art Novice + Rara ~

Try Something Tuesdays-Striping Tape

It's time for another Try Something Tuesday post, hasn't time flown since the last one?
This week I'm trying out another really easy technique-using striping tape to create patterns on my nails.
I started with a base of Sally Hansen Insta Dry Brisk Blue which is a frankly AMAZING bright bright blue colour on its own. I had originally planned to team it with Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear Going Green (from this post) but once I saw it on my nails I realised that the two together would be a bit too clashing and wouldn't really work very well, so I stuck to the one colour in the end.

This is two coats.

It's such a fantastically bright colour-dazzingly blue, it's amazing! The brush was really wide too-I managed to cover most of my nails with one swipe up the middle which doesn't happen very often. Dried pretty quickly too, as its name would suggest. Then I added my striping tape one nail at a time and covered it with a layer of Topshop's Cloud, a creamy grey polish. The first nail I did lifted off all the blue as well, so I went back and topped them all with a coat of Seche Vite and allowed it to dry before trying again. This was much more successful, although I still ended up getting better with practice-hence why you're getting pictures of my right hand today, it's a little neater than my left. It also has slightly longer nails due to cheese slicer related incidents.

Above two pictures taken with flash

Natural Light

I did a different pattern on each of my nails just to try them all out and see which ones I liked.I think I prefer the abstract one on my ring finger and the vertical lines on my little finger the most. It's weird just how much the grey has dulled the amazingness of the blue underneath, it almost looks more turquoise than bright blue now. They're not perfect, but I do think they look quite cool in bright light, in duller lighting they just look kinda tealy/grey and you can't really see the patterns. I almost decided to change my top colour for my right hand, but thought this would probably look even more peculiar so I stuck with the grey and overall it's turned out OK. I wish I had a paler grey though, it might have looked a little better.
Still the technique is pretty easy and not too time consuming for an effect which looks quite striking-I'll definitely be doing this again with different colours.

~Nail Art Novice~

Unconnected Dots

I want to start this post with a little story, if you don't mind of course. A while ago I saw on a nail art/fashion blog I was browsing (which I'm sad to say has since been closed down) Lyndarella's Connect the Dots and I don't think I've ever wanted a polish as much as I wanted that one. I just loved the way it gave was was an otherwise plain coloured manicure a whole different dimension-it looks awesome and you can wear it with literally any colour/pattern and it still looks great. I set about scouring the internet for it, but (as I'm sure many of you will know) it's almost impossible to find, especially for UK based bloggers. So instead I went to Etsy and typed in 'black and white glitter polish' to see what I could come up with-there were hundreds.Of course I bought one, from an Australian Etsy shop called EmilydeMolly and then sat and waited impatiently for it to arrive, and finally, finally, it did.

As I said, this was all months ago, but it still remains one of my favourite glitter toppers because even the simplest of colours is transformed when you wear it.
On then, to the mani:

Every so often my best mate comes over and we watch silly films, drink hot chocolate, do face masks and paint our nails together, and it's delightfully silly and wonderful. Last night was such a night, and while she was busy doing some impressive looking but deceptively simple nail art on her fingers (post to come) I stuck with a simple manicure because I knew exactly what I wanted.
I used Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Going Green, topped off with a coat of the gorgeous A Black and White Love Affair by EmilydeMolly. 
Going Green is a really lushiously bright grass green, with a very slight shimmer. A Black and White Love Affair is a B+W glitter topper with bar glitters, hexagonal and square glitters and is a twin for the Lyndarella polish I lusted after-thumbs up!

The pictures really don't do this colour justice, it's SO green. Think of your lawn on a really bright sunny day- it's that kind of colour, with a very subtle shimmer to it. And of course it looks even more amazing with the black and white blobs on top. This is another mani that makes me really happy, I just like to enjoy my slightly zany looking fingers, and it feels like spring is just around the corner wearing this colour.

Marvellous.

~Nail Art Novice~