31 Posts Challenge 2-Favourite Quotes

Today it's favourite quotes which is something that suits me down to the ground. I have a little book that I 'collect' quotes that strike a chord with me and make me smile. My favourites tend to change based on what I'm experiencing in my life at the time but these all mean a lot to me:

'All The World's A Stage'- William Shakespeare, As You Like It.

I love performing, I love to be in a spotlight, it's my favourite thing in the world. This is a well known quote from my favourite Shakespeare play, the one I'm determined to be in one day. I love this quote so much I've got it tattooed on my foot so it'll always be with me.

'To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape' - Terry Pratchett, The Hogfather

The perfect description of humanity.

 'Letting it get to you. You know what that's called? Being Alive. Best thing there is.'- The Doctor, The Doctor's Wife (written by Neil Gaiman!) 

I am a massive Doctor Who nerd, I love it. This episode is amazing, it's full of brilliant quotes that make me giggle, but this one always strikes a chord with me. The above picture is my desktop background at the mo, coz I like it so much.

'You can't start the next chapter of your life if you keep re-reading the next one.' - Anonymous, as far as I'm aware.

This was something I needed to hear a year or so ago. I kept it as the background of my phone for a while to remind me of it every time I looked at it. It took me a while to accept that my last chapter had closed but I'm finally onto the next one.

'I'll come out the other side a brand new me'- A Brand New Me, Bitter Ruin

Again this struck a chord when I was living it. Bitter Ruin are an awesome band that no-one will have heard of, but I love their stuff, this song in particular. Last time I saw them they did it unplugged, with only an acoustic guitar and no amplification at all and it was just absolutely beautiful. 

'Be the best you'- Gala Darling 

Gala Darling is a fabulous blogger who wants to inspire people to love themselves a little more. I love this quote of hers (can't find the original page though,sorry!) because it reminds me that I may not be as good as someone else at some things, but if I am trying to be the best I can be then I am not letting myself down.

I could choose more-hundreds more, but I won't, I'll stick with these 6 as my favourites. Oh, and this too.

Until next time then, 

~Nail Art Novice~

31 Day Challenge...but not the one you're thinking of...

I discovered a 31 Day Blogging challenge on AlyssiaRose's lovely lifestyle blog (she also has a nail one right here too!) and really wanted to take part. Originally from http://www.fabulousfindsbytiffany.com, it challenges you to post a blog a day for 31 days on yourself and your life. Except...I'm not going to do it properly. I don't want to post every day, so I intend to do one or two posts every weekend until I've done them all. This way I can fit them into my life and also my blogging schedule a little better than trying to do one each day for a month, so for me it's a 31 Posts blog challenge. If you want to join in and link up, then the original post from Tiffany is just here and there is a linkup at the bottom of each of her own 31 Day posts.

Here's the list of blog prompts:

Today is day number one-Self Portrait and 5 random facts about yourself

Photography by Michael Lau

It's weird, this is the first time you'll be seeing me on this blog! I've never put a picture of my face up, just my nails. Oh and I cannot draw, so you aren't getting a hand drawn masterpiece I'm afraid. I love this picture though, it was from a photo shoot me and Rara went on in December because we had a voucher for a cheap one. This photo was taken without me realising it when Rara had just made me laugh and I love it. It's so me-the random bright coloured ducks and the Doc Martens and the big grin on my face =)


5 Random Facts
1. I am having a love affair with Doc Martens-I currently have 5 pairs and I'm not ready to stop yet. I honestly think if I could have a pair of Docs and a pair of my comfiest heels in every colour, I'd never buy shoes again.
2. I've never seen Star Wars...or ET...or to be honest most films that you "have" to watch. When I come across those lists of '100 films to watch before you die' I've usually watched about 6 of them and they're cartoons or musicals. I'm just not massively into films, I'm much more of a book person.
3. I'm unemployed and it sucks. I hate it. I really wish someone, anyone would give me a job to give me back my freedom and life, and give me a reason to get out of my pyjamas every day.
4. I also can't drive. I've had 2 lots of lessons and never come close to passing my test. This is something I am determined to change in the next couple of months though.
5. My favourite band is Queen, and always will be. I'm as much as a fangirl as you can be when a band is no longer in existence (sadly, RIP Freddie!). I looooove them. I can't even pick a favourite song because I love that every album of theirs has a different sound to it and I reckon they're all awesome.


So there you have it. Who knew thinking of 5 random facts could be so hard to do? I'll be back tomorrow with day 2, probably.

~Nail Art Novice~

Star Spangled

I think I'm in love again, this mani is really really awesome. I knew as soon as I saw this post from The Daily Nail that I wanted to do it because I think the effect is really rather stunning, plus it's so simple to do. I was looking at my polishes the other day trying to decide what to use, and randomly picked out a blue and a gold and decided they'd look really cool as stars in the sky-then I knew I had to do this idea.

Polishes used were: London Girl Shade 31, a shiny goldy yellow colour, London Girl Shade 79 which is a clear polish crammed with tiny gold glitters and Maybelline Forever Strong Pro Dark Denim, a lovely midnight blue sort of colour.
I started with three coats of 31, followed by one of 79, and a top coat of Seche Vite.

It's really surprisingly sparkly for a cheap polish

Then I added the stickers and painted over with a thick coat of Dark Denim and peeled them off with tweezers (very fiddly if I stuck the whole sticker to my nail!) and ended up with this:

which I have to say I think is really rather pretty! I like the fact that they're not all the same based on where i put the sticker each time, although my ring finger is definitely my favourite.
I love them! And the best part is you could do this with any combination of colours and it would still look really amazing, but it's so simple. Win-win!


~Nail Art Novice~

Try Something Tuesdays-Saran Wrap Mani

Try Something Tuesday has rolled around again and I knew exactly what I wanted to do-Saran Wraps-but boy did I underestimate how annoying these would be to get right. I ended up redoing my left hand completely half way through which made me pretty grumpy and I almost wanted to give up on the whole thing. I'm glad I didn't though, I do actually really like the effect even if it was a pain in the bum to get right.
In the UK we don't seem to have access to this mythical Saran Wrap (I don't think) but I watched a couple of videos and it looks like a cross between cling film and cellophane (in that it stays rolled up in a ball if you scrunch it, but is definitely a bit crinklier and not as sticky-to-itself as cling film.). I went hunting around my kitchen for something that would work as effectively-cling film, kitchen foil and kitchen roll were my chosen subjects, and in the end I didn't use any of them! Cling film seems to be too smooth when it's scrunched up, it forms a ball that doesn't have enough rough edges to pick up the polish, foil is good but too sharp in that it punched all the way through my base colour as well, and kitchen roll is useless and fluffy.
I know I've read Saran Wrap tutorials where people used bits of old carrier bag, and was just about to go downstairs again (NB I do my nails in my attic bedroom, the kitchen is a long way away!) to liberate one when I saw something in my room that might work-bubble wrap! Now while it doesn't stay scrunched up in little balls like the rest, I ended up using this because it seemed to give the right effect as well as some slightly interesting patterns from the bubbles themselves, and it was a relief to find something that actually worked properly. I will probably try with carrier bags in the future though.

On to the mani. I knew I wanted a red base and wanted something that would work well with it rather than contrast against it for my top layers so I chose gold and silver metallic polishes. I used Number 7-Siren for my base, it's a very luxurious, proper red colour and applies very nicely. On top of that I used Loreal-Valiant and Colour Me-Pure Gold. These two look lovely together, as neither is a true gold or silver-Valiant is more of a metallic shimmery gun metal, and Pure Gold is a bit tarnished, less yellow than an actual gold colour.

Taken without flash to show that you can see the gold too

These were quite difficult to photograph, think the pattern is a little bit subtle for my camera, nevertheless I did my best. I was going to do the pattern the other way around on my thumb but decided in the end to freehand triangles onto them for ease (and because it was now 1am by this point and I couldn't be bothered any more!)

Overall then, I do like this technique, it gives interesting an fun patterns that are still delicate and subtle enough not to overwhelm, I'll definitely be doing it again only hopefully with less faff next time! At least now I know what works and what doesn't, I guess. I've seen some awesome ones with two layers of colours used on top which also look pretty cool, so I might have a go at that at some point too.

Edit 27/2
Actually the longer I wear this the more I like it, it's really quite pretty in bright light and every nail is different and in dull light you can tell there's a shiny pattern but it's not overwhelming. Ticks all the boxes, will definitely be doing this again!

~Nail Art Novice~

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~

Who Am I?

(Apologies for those of you who are now singing a Les Mis song. I am also singing it, if that helps.)

I thought I should probably tell you a bit about myself. I had originally wanted this blog to be completely anonymous because I have so many friends who would pour scorn on me for doing this/would get fed up of me constantly updating Facebook with pictures of my nails, hence why I'm universally known as 'Nail Art Novice'. However, now I've thought about it a bit, it's always nice to get to know the people behind the nails when reading blogs so I figured I could probably do the same here. 

My name's Jenni, and I live in the UK in little place called Nottingham (yes the Robin Hood town). I'm 22, and have an entirely un-used degree in Biomedical Science from the University of Sheffield. I first really got into doing my nails about 6-8 months ago (early 2012ish) and have rapidly got more obsessed with amazing nail art blogs ever since. Blues and Greens are my favourite colours, and I have far too many of each nestled into my polish collection. You probably won't see much pink appearing on my nails as it's a colour I've always detested, although I do have a few rosy hues for when the time calls for them. If could own any polish I think it'd have to be OPI's Black Spotted because I think it produces a really amazing effect on your nails.

In my personal life, I'm currently learning to play the bass guitar, which is why my nails will always be very short-basically if they're long enough to make a noise if I tap them on things then they're too long to play properly, and much as I love awesome manis, I love my guitar more. I'm a actor/performer whenever I get the chance to be because I love being on stage perhaps a little bit too much a lot and love nothing better than belting my heart out in a spotlight. If I can't do that, I'd happily sit the other side of the curtain too-I just really love everything about theatre. I also love to read and have piles of books haphazardly sitting around my bedroom, waiting for me to delve into them and fall inside one of their stories. I like to write-I've got countless notebooks full of half written, never finished stories because somewhere along the way the inspiration dries up.

I wear excellent socks and awesome T-shirts and definitely have a problematic obsession with Doc Martens (5 pairs and counting) but that's OK really. I love Red Dwarf and Doctor Who and comedies full of obscure British talent that are crammed full of puns that only Brits would get.

Also featuring on this blog is my best mate Rara. We've grown up together and we're almost sisters and have a million and one personal jokes between us that no-one else would get. She wears her nails longer than me because she doesn't play any awkward musical instruments that require short nails, hurrah. She's a terribly bad influence on me when it comes to spending my money on new nail varnishes, but I don't mind really. Every so often she comes around to my house, we watch silly films, drink hot chocolates and paint our nails together, which is always wonderful. In some ways we're very alike, but in others we wildly differ from each other, so hopefully between us you'll be able to see a lot of different things. 

If you are interested in knowing me better then you really should check out my other, non nail varnish related blog, My Every Day Adventure because then you'll find out more than you ever wanted to know about the way my mind works and hopefully have a giggle too. Alternatively, ask me anything by email (nailartnovice@gmail.com) or by Twitter (@NailArtNovice) and I'll do my best to answer you. Feel free to give me any advice on how to improve too-I know that I'm not amazing but I hope to keep on getting better!

Now slightly less obscure and mysterious,

~Nail Art Novice~