IMPORTANT CHANGES TO THIS BLOG

Hey guys,

So I just wanted to warn you about some major changes that will be happening soon to this blog.

The first one is that probably in a few days this blog will no longer be called 'Nail Art Newbie' and will instead be known as 'Sparkle Lane'.
I will also be changing the domain name of this blog to sparklelane.blogspot.com so please follow that, as this may not exist anymore once I change the name!

The main reason I am undergoing such a drastic change is because I would like to blog about more things than just nails, and feel that my current name doesn't allow me the flexibility to do this.

I hope you will choose to stay with me and enjoy the new content!

Oops..

Hey guys,

It seems like I am completely unable to stick to having nothing on my nails, last week I had just a simple colour on... and ended up doodling over that in biro and a sharpie

This week I tried completely bare nails, but once again couldn't stick with it.. i'm terrible.

I really can't wait for these exams to be over so I can properly paint them again... only a few more days to go!!

Fragrance Direct Haul!

Hey guys,

So today I have a few polishes to share with you! I haven't actually discovered them all myself yet.. but more on that later! They came in an absolutely huge box though!

This is the overall of all the polishes I have seen so far! As you can see I have 2 normal polishes, 1 magnetic and 2 glitters. The two main colours are 1 layer, all the rest are 2.

I mean look at this huge thing! Admittedly it was mostly bubble wrap, but it made it much more exciting having such a huge box to open!

So this is the main reason for the large package is this, and its also the reason I haven't seen all of the polishes yet. The idea is to open it like its meant to be opened - one per day. Its also hopefully something to look forward to during the rest of my exam period. The first polish is very cute though, I hope the rest of this is the same. I believe this is called 'Nordstorm Mini Mani Month'.

So here are the first two, my first ever Essie polishes! I have heard a lot about them and their really nice brushes. From trying them quickly just now they do seem really good!

I also don't have either a magnetic nail polish, or an orange nail polish - so clearly I needed to fill this gap in my collection!

These two are called Essie 'Fear and Desire' (Orange) and 'Snake Skin Repstyle - Lil Boa Peep'

Next, I bought this for the same reason as the ones before, I didn't have a silver nail polish in my collection so wanted to fill the gap.
This was the nicest one I could find on the website without spending more than I wanted to.

Its called 'Manhattan Lotus Effect Nail Polish - 01'.

Next, this one I didn't really need so much, but again I didn't have a copper coloured glitter! As you can see on the lid this is Sally Hansen 'Copper Penny'. Its so pretty! Just sadly not anywhere near as dense as a gold Sally Hansen glitter I bought before.

And finally, two clear polishes, because the only top coat I have left at the moment is a really cheap polish my mum bought, and its really annoying as it doesn't dry very quickly at all, and it also loosens the other layers underneath it meaning if you knock it before its dry, you end up upsetting the whole nail.

I have had some Rimmel ones before and I really like the brushes on these ones as they are really wide.





So that's my haul for now! I'm sure there will be an update on the rest of the Ciate polishes, I know its a bit out of date now, and i'm sure there are the full set online already - but as its still available to buy I might as well do my own review!

See you after exams!

Bridesmaids Nails

Hey guys,

So today I have some very special nails to share with you, these are the ones I wore for my cousin's wedding the other day.

Here is the design on both hands, I actually feel I was able to replicate the design on my non-dominant hand really well! 

For this I used Barry M 'Blueberry' for the main blue, Sinful Colours 'Snow Me White' for the white detailing, and a Ted Baker for the silver glitter - you can't see it very well here, but the silver is holographic and shines several different colours in the light. I also used a polish called 'Final Touch - lilac glow' over the blue which gave it a really pretty purply sheen under sunlight, sadly this also didn't come through on the photos. 

Here are the two accent nails, I actually really love my ring nail accent! However I was also actually really impressed with how long the gem stayed on on my thumb considering I only stuck it on with a bit of top coat! I literally had to stick my other nail underneath the gem to get it off, and even then the gem came off its silver backing! 

I'm not sure when my next post will be as I am still in the middle of my exams, however they will be over soon, finally! 

Tortoise Nails

Hey guys,

Just a quick post today, as i've mentioned before, but I have exams comming up at the moment so i'm revising hard!
This weeks have a kinda tortoise theme, but I also felt like putting actual glitter on my nails, so this is the result! A bit of glitter had fallen off at this point however as I kept picking at it all week because I could feel it was so thick on my nails!

Hope you like them! See you soon!

Bunting Nails

Hey guys,

I felt like doing sometime a little spring like today, and really fancied trying out my new white Barry M nail art pen and also felt like putting some cute bunting on my nails. I based it on a stamp that I got for Easter which has such a cute little bunting pattern on - I have taken some photos with it as I really like it. You can find it on Amazon here.

 The front of the stamp and my left hand

Very sorry for the badly chipped nails here - this is my right hand and so my writing hand, so it gets used a lot more! Saying that, I think I was still able to draw the bunting pattern on here with my non-dominant hand.

This is the back side, the actual stamp, its so cute! Apologies its kinda pink, I think I used a pink stamp pad on it last!

I hope you like them! See you next week!

P.S. Have you seen the new 3D Make-up printer which has been announced? It hasn't been released yet, but the idea seems so cool - I found an article here!

Snake-like / tribal nails

Hey guys,

Sorry I didn't post last week, I completely forgot! I believe I mentioned it recently, but I have some very important exams comming up so i've been working quite hard recently. Therefore i'm sorry for the late night photography of these nails - especially as I was actually quite proud of them!
Also last week, I went to see McBusted at the 02 with a couple of friends - you can see a post my friend wrote on the subject here (http://zoeandkarina.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/london-mcbusted.html) with a shock-horror actual image of my face! Please check it out, as her and her friend have recently started up a blog and i'm sure they would love feedback!

On to the nails, they were based on a design here. I got some Barry M nail art pens in White and Black for Easter so wanted to try them out! In this one I only used the black, but i'm hoping to use the white soon!

Like I said, I actually really like these nails!
The pink on these was actually more of a red colour, so once again apologies for the bad photos!

You may find the next month or so of posts are a bit off schedule, but i'll try and post at least once a week, but for the meantime - please forgive me!

Mini Egg Nails

Hey guys,

So perhaps not the most original nails this week, but I wanted something with pastel colours and yet an easter theme, that also wasn't too complex... the nails that fitted the bill were these Mini Egg Nails!

And now for the obligatory pictures with actual mini eggs...

I think I probably got the dots a little too big, but i'm still pretty happy with how they turned out.

The polishes I used were:
- Barry M - Berry I/C (Purple)
- Rimmel - 280 Sunshine (Yellow)
- Ted Baker Pink (This had to have at least 10 coats before it was completely opaque, shocking. I loved the colour once it was finally opaque though, even if it did take several hours to dry.)
- Sinful Colours - Snow Me White (White)
- Manhattan Rock Topia - Rock the Grass (Green)
- Sally Hansen - 340 Black Platinum (Black)

So the only thing to say now is; HAPPY EASTER! See you next week!

Multicoloured Easter Egg Nails

Hey guys,

Its nearing Easter time and to celebrate/show this I thought I would do a kind of Eastery theme on my nails this week - multicoloured/pastel coloured easter eggs.

Here they are! On here I have Orange, Yellow, Green and Blue - although the orange at the top looks a kind of pinky red next to the lighter orange on top of the yellow which makes it look like I used more colours in my opinion.

A very simple design, but I think it still fits the theme - I hope you like them!

Checked Tribal Nails

Hey guys,

I felt like doing something more complicated this week and stumbled across this. This is my recreation of the nails, nowhere near as nice in my opinion though. I think I did the sections too thick, and also didn't notice until after i'd taken the photos that one of my nails was chipped.. stupid me, its not even a small chip..

I think my ring finger is my favourite, I think it looks much much nicer with less of a pattern on it strangely. Let me know what you think!