HAUL!

Hey guys,

So, with my exchange we took the train down to Cambridge for the day. She took a long time in Boots looking at make-up, and guess whats right next to the make-up.. Nail Varnish. Cue spending on things I didn't really need. Oopsie.

But anyway, I had a few other things i've picked up that I wanted to show you anyway, hopefully posts trying them out soon!

Firstly, the polishes...

From left to right these are:

• Rimmel Cocktail colour - 140 Hawaiian Punch
• Barry M - 349 Rose Quartz Glitter
• Barry M - 273 Raspberry
• Seventeen - Off the wall graffiti nail effects - Bluetone

Now for some nail decoration things. I actually got these from Poundland but have since seen some of these butterflies in smaller more expensive packs in Topshop such as this. It contains exactly the same purple butterflies and is just the brand and shop that makes it different, definitely a bargain! Just gotta try them out now!

They each seem to come in 3 slightly different sizes as you can see here, I also put them next to a ruler just incase you wanted to see exactly how big they are.

Now, the next thing may come to regular followers of the blog as very different, but these were on offer in Paperchase of all places. But anyway I wanted to try something else other than cocktail sticks.

 Yes, its a little set of two Nail Art pens!
A pink and a silver, no I don't think I have enough pink obviously...
As you can see in the second picture, the pen is split into 3 sections, one with jewels in, one like a normal polish with a polish brush, and finally the pen piece on the top.
As you can also see in the second picture a little bit, I have actually tried out the pen - it was too tempting! The post about that will hopefully be comming soon!








So I hope you liked me updating you on my shopping! I certainly can't wait to show you what I get up to with these. 

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY NAILS!

Hey guys,

So, in case you hadn't realised by the title, I went to see Monster's University this week - it is amazing by the way, even if the short movie at the start called 'The Blue Umbrella' is a little odd. But seriously - go see it! You may not believe me, but the movie is just as great as the first and the story is written so well!

  I apologise already for not cleaning these up very well.. again. In my defense, I did do these in the morning of the day I went to see the movie and didn't have much time for it, but yeah, sorry!

 

The left-right hand comparison! 

I actually think they're quite similar today, practice definitely makes perfect when you're using the wrong hand. Unfortunately I still spend a lot longer on the right than the left, but when they look this identical, I think it's definitely worth it!

Once again, sorry that I didn't have time to clean these up. 

I think if I had to pick a favourite finger, it would be the little one, but only because I tried out something and wasn't sure if it would work, and it did! Basically, i'm not sure if you can see it, but it is actually textured. I actually own only 1 textured polish, and its pink not blue. 

So, my idea? To try and paint a thin layer of blue over the pink then put purple dots over. I wasn't sure if I could get the polish over thin enough so that you could still see the texture, but you can!
Just in case you were wondering, the first finger is meant to be a Sully head. I took inspiration for all of these nails from the internet, I just combined a number of different designs I like and this one I really did not do justice, the only nail I don't really like!

Finally the polishes used:

White: Sally Hansen - Natural White 1

Blue (on thumb): Collection 2000 - 23 Show Off

Black: Rimmel I ❤ lasting finish - 080 Black Cab

Blue (everywhere else): Barry M - 306 Blueberry

Purple: Barry M - 308 Berry

Pink texture under: Barry M - TNP 3 Kingsland Road

Green (main finger): Manhattan Rock Topia - Rock the Green

Green (eyeball): Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure - 450 Fairy Teal

Blue details on Sully Face: Acrylic Paint

Let me know what you think and i've you've seen the movie!

Dotty with a pattern

Hey Guys,

Wasn't really sure what to call this because I wasn't really that impressed with it to be honest. I did it in a rush and managed to smudge it after - quite annoying!

The colours used were:

• Barry M Gelly Nail Paint - Papaya
• Ruby polishes - Red
• Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure - Ion
• Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure - Gilded Lily

I also am not sure what is wrong with my skin on my first finger - one day it just went really really dry and started to crack! After a lot of moisturising its back to normal now though.

Hopefully i'll have more inspiration next week! I think everyone has an off-week and I think this has just been mine.

Giveaway!

I'm sure you would have heard of Lacquerheads of Oz, but if you haven't go check it out here. It is a massive community group blog and it has several very cool things posted.

At the moment however, they have a giveaway running which I wanted to share with you guys, it consists of  6 Arcane Lacquers, including one exclusive, unreleased shade. Just incase you were wondering - the giveaway is international too!

So now you have no reason not to enter, you can find the giveaway post here! Don't forget to let me know if you do enter! 

England Nails!

Hey guys,

So, today these hands you may notice are not mine, this is because I had an exchange student staying with me this week and she knows I like nails so wanted me to paint hers. This was the result:

In case you're wondering why the first nails may seem a little similar its because I based it on a design done by 10 Blank Canvases which can be found here.
Once again it was all done with cocktail sticks, but I feel these are a lot easier to use on myself due to the fact that I know when i'm going to move so don't get paint accidentally in places I didn't want it because I move. I think it will be a while before I paint someone else's nails again, its harder than it looks!

The colours used in this were:

- Purple base: Rimmel I ❤ lasting finish - 193 Black Cherries

- Gold paint on first hand: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure - 310 Gilty Pleasure

- Gold Glitter used for gradient on second hand: Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure - Gilded Lily

So, I hope you like them, I know she did!

Formal Floral Nails

Hey guys, 

Today I have my favourite piece of Nail Art I have ever done! I called this 'formal floral nails' as I believe the design is a little more formal and almost more grown-up than you see sometimes, let me know if you think the name fits! Before I say any more I think I shall just show it to you!  

 Like it? I certainly do, for a step by step guide to what I did, see after the break...

Things that didn't go to plan..

Hi Guys,

As this post suggests, this post is about a couple of things i've tried recently that didn't work. Maybe i'm just trying to go too advanced as I am still a Nail Art Newbie as the title suggests. However, if you think you know where i'm going wrong, please comment and let me know, it would be a great help!

First failure, a form of water marbling but slightly different. You can see the tutorial I tried to follow here

As you can see, it did not go well, I tried several different temperatures of water but nothing seemed to work and my polish nearly always sunk to the bottom and stayed there. I tried different polishes, nothing worked. When I finally got the polish to go right once, my spray didn't work properly and as you can see I just ended up with a gunky mess. All that effort for nothing!
It annoyed me quite a bit, and safe to say, I think i'm going to be sticking away from water marbling and things like that for a while to come!

Next, stamping.
If you saw my last blog post, you would have seen that I recently picked up a Stamping Set from Poundland as I wanted to have a go with a stamper to see if I liked it, in which case I might buy some more expensive ones such as a proper stamper and Bundle Monster plates. However, I struggled at the first hurdle, I could not get the polish to scrape right, I tried everything I could; different angles, different polish, harder or softer pull. But nothing I seemed to try worked, you can see my best attempt in the photo, but whenever I got even a bit of polish into the stamp it just left lines of polish on the side, completely useless. Does anyone have any tips for me on what was going wrong here, because I literally have no idea. I've watched demos on Youtube and seen pictures with descriptions explaining and I still can't see what I was doing wrong. Maybe its just Poundland's dodgy stock, i'm not sure I have no idea what i'm looking at.

So, sorry there wasn't really any nail action here, you can't say I didn't try!

Gold and Green

Hey guys,

You may have seen recently that I managed to pick up a Gold Sally Hansen polish in Poundland, well naturally I wanted to try it out and that's where these nails come in!

I found a really cool idea of using a bit of Cling Foil or a scrunched up sandwich bag to make a cool effect with polish, and naturally it was already with Gold Polish, you can find the tutorial here. I had never seen this before, but since I found this post I've kept an eye on the tutorials section and they actually do some really cool nails, I would definitely recommend checking it out.

So, now onto the pictures...

The two polishes I used for this were:

- Barry M - 304 Mint Green

- Sally Hansen - 310 Gilty Pleasure

I really like the effect the cling film I used produced, and the gold definitely adds something to the Bright Green for Summer in my opinion! I also (shock horror) managed to clean up my nails properly for once!

Let me know what you think of the Nails, do the green and gold go together and do you also like the effect or not? I would also love to know if you try the cling film effect!

Sharing the news

Hi Guys,

I'm not sure if you've seen any posts about it, but some British nail bloggers have come together to create an International Giveaway, there are 3 different prizes available:

- 1st prize $100 gift certificate

-  3 x 2nd prize of $50 gift certificate

The best thing about this giveaway is you can choose where you want your gift voucher to be redeemable at.

Feeling intrigued and want to enter? The post is on many different blogs but this is the one I saw, so just follow this link

Its open until Friday 28th June, so Good Luck!

Haul

Hi guys,

So it was half term last week and I did a little bit of shopping, although I mainly bought clothes I thought I would share the Nail things I bought.

So here most of them are. These were just the things I bought from Poundland. I was really impressed to find some of the Sally Hansen polishes in there, I've heard that some other bloggers have found some but i'd never seen any in my local poundland until now.

I'll go into more detail into these after the break...