Busy Girls Nails Challenge: Week 2 White

Hey Guys,

I may not have stuck to the complete theme here but I really wanted to do something Sherlock related and in my defense it does include quite a lot of white, just a few other colours as well!
I used a number of inspiration photos for this, the smiley face nail I cannot sadly give an inspiration image for as it has simply been done so many times, some I also cannot find the original link for however I will give you the link of where I found them; sherlock face and building jump, stag night, and footprints

 

Sorry for them not being completely cleaned up in this photo, I managed to catch the 'Stag Night' nail later that night so that it then read 'stag nigh' so I decided not to take anymore.
Due to my trouble locating original sherlock nail designs I decided to make sure my images were clearly labelled with my blog name!

So, do you think these fit the theme enough? Seriously though, if you haven't seen Sherlock you should really start watching it - its an amazing show.

Busy Girls Nails Challenge: Week 1 Teal

Hey guys,

So, my first post of my first ever challenge! This weeks theme was 'Teal', so I painted my nails with the only teal polish I own - Sally Hansen Fairy Teal - but then could not decide what to paint on them.
Finally I decided on something I liked, a cute little blossom tree, yes I know its still technically winter but I thought they looked really nice against the teal.

So what do you think? I can't wait to show you next week, with the 'white' theme, I have something planned already, I just hope it goes well as the current ideas are rather complicated.

Wish me luck and let me know if you think my nails fit the theme!

Christmas Nail Related Gifts

Hey guys,

I have been far too good lately, I didn't buy myself any new nail related things for Christmas. I really don't know how.. well, other than I banned myself from going into Boots/Superdrug when going shopping...

But, thankfully my friends and family bought me a few things to make it up to me!

The first item I am going into just made me laugh so much when I got it. Incase you can't tell, its a nail dryer - it blows out air from between its hands when you press down the button with your wet nail.
We had a few troubles getting it to work, but realised that all it needed was a bit of tin foil next to the battery and hey presto the fan worked again! I haven't actually used it to dry my nails yet though, but its cute if nothing else.

From the same person I got a couple of polish sets, which I believe are both from primark, this one here and another which I will show you later.

This set contains one gold polish and a little bottle of gold glitter. Incase you cannot read what the back of the box says, it seems the general idea is to paint your nail with the gold polish, and then tip the glitter into the 'dish' - basically a dip in the plastic packaging that the two bottles are held in in the bottle - and then dip your nail into the glitter where it will stick and coat the nail.
Its a cool idea I guess, I will have to see if it actually works out, and if I manage to do it without getting the glitter everywhere, which is the reason I have always avoided actual loose glitter before on my nails.

The other set from the same friend I received was an 'Ombre' set, inside the box was also 2 make-up sponges cut into triangles and a couple of wooden sticks. If you look at the polishes inside the box, I thought they were in the wrong order as I pulled them out so for the next photo I put them in the order I thought they should go in. As I was editing the photos I realised that the illustration on the box actually shows them in this order too, so it appears I was right. No idea why they were in the wrong order in the box though, I hope no-one has opened them before or something. 

I don't think i've ever tried an Ombre manicure before either so I am really excited to try this out. The purple on the end is also really really pretty, it has little bits of glitter inside and looks a really nice colour. Shame its in such a small bottle so will probably have a not very good or easy to use brush with it.

Next I have a nail related item that I will call 'Designer' as it is by Ted Baker. When I unwrapped this present to reveal this metal tin I had no idea what could be inside. The present gifter said afterwards that there had been a piece of cardboard round the tin saying what was inside, but she took it off so that it would be a surprise.

And a surprise it was when I took off the lid to reveal these cute polishes. I haven't had a chance to try them out yet but the glitter ones look very cute, and a black is always useful. 

I love the tin though, its so cute and I'm sure i'll find a use for it elsewhere to put something in. I really hope the polishes are a good quality too and don't chip really easily. 

So that's it, I said there wasn't very much. Sorry for no Nail Art this week but there will definitely be some next week due to starting the Nail Art Challenge! I have no ideas for the first week 'Teal' yet, but i'm sure i'll have something by tommorrow! 

New Year Nails and Busy Girl Nails Challenge!

Hey guys,

So I have two things to mention today. The first is to obviously show you the nails I had on for New Year.

Here they are! Very sorry for the absolutely hideous phone photo, but you may notice that they are on top of lined paper.. this is because I have mock exams starting tomorrow. Sadly this means i've been revising hard so didn't have time to take a proper photo before I took these off. Sorrry!

You can't really see it very well, but I was going for a glitter gradient against the gold on 4 nails with the accent a black polish with red hexagonal glitter placed over. I haven't tried doing an accent glitter nail with these large glitters before so thought I would give it a go. Sadly the only colour we had in the house was red and i'm not sure it goes particularly well with the rest, but I thought it was a cool effect.

So, now on to more exciting news. I follow A LOT of blogs, and when I get round to sorting through the posts I haven't read I often find some interesting nails that I might like to attempt, or other interesting pieces. Well today when I was sorting through I came across a post here containing a challenge that seems perfect for me the 'Busy Girls Nails Winter Nail Art Challenge' - long title eh!

Showing you the challenge photo may make more sense so here it is:

It is starting on the 13th January and I can't wait to get started! This is the first challenge i've done and so it poses two problems; actually remembering that I am doing a challenge and don't just post something else unrelated, and two actually getting Instagram to work and remembering your password.. doh. 

I'm hoping you will see some pretty nails and hopefully some Nail Art too, wish me good luck!

Christmas Day Nails!

Hey guys,

I mentioned I was under the weather last post, and I thought I would let you know that thankfully i'm feeling much much better now! :D

I decided to do a 3 colour gradient with festive colours; gold, green and red. However the green looks a little more blue in these photos, not sure why. The red and green blended together really well but the gold and green didn't really blend so much as lay over one another, it overall looked nice though :)

Just in case you were interested, this is what the gradient looked like without the glitter coat over the top, and before I cleaned it up.












Let me know what you think! :)

Messy Minions

Hey guys,

This week I felt like doing a design more cartoony and kiddish, and after looking around I stumbled upon a minion elf design - I couldn't resist. However sadly I was ill most of the week and so only actually got round to doing these last night, and even then I didn't really want to face the smell of nail polish - yes I must be very ill, can't believe I just said that - and so the nails are a little messy as I tried to get them over and done with quickly.

I suppose at least you can hopefully tell they're minions. I might just take them off tonight anyway though and hope that I feel better for something in time for Christmas.

I wish all my readers a good holiday!

Mixed Christmas Nails

Hey guys,

My nails are arguably a little more complicated than usual this week. The only downside to this is that it took much longer to do. I based them on this design I found on Tumblr, sadly I could not find the original link as the photo is not watermarked, so to whoever made this first - I love it.

However - look how pretty they are! (Even if it is bad late night photography - sorry!)

Sadly, I never seem to use my red polish, so did not realise just how bad it is. Not only had it chipped a lot off within just a day, but it also smudged into the reindeer when I tried to apply a topcoat. I don't think i'll use my red again for a while. At least not until I get a better one as this was just annoying and is the reason the photos are so terrible, by the time I actually had time to take some proper photos of them, the red had 3/4 chipped off and I didn't want to waste time painting them again just for it to happen again.

Let me know what you think!

Penguin Nails!

Hey guys,

Much like last week I have had a christmas or winter themed look on my nails this week. But this time I decided to go with a cute animal! Although the original design was super cute, I don't think mine went so well. However i'm still quite happy with it - just please try to ignore the slight smudges!

Hopefully next week I will be back on Nail Art form as this I have to admit is definitely not my best ever. Not sure what was up, I even had to redo these once which is why I just left them smudged this time.
Anyway, i'm out looking for inspiration for next weeks nails at the moment!

Christmas Sweater Nails

Hey guys,

Okay.. it may not even be quite December yet, but when I saw this design I couldn't resist trying to recreate it for myself. Incase you hadn't realised from the photo, the design is actually a stamp, a stamp which I don't have. So, the difficult bit was trying to work out how to draw this with a cocktail stick. However, despite having to redo my first nail - it went really well!

Okay.. these photos I didn't clean round my nails very well, but there's a reason I haven't posted nails since I have. I originally put gold with the red glitter, however I didn't really like the colour combination and so decided to change it. However, the only silver I have is really really old, its actually taken out of my mums stash and is so old its even made in the UK! It was a bit seperated but once I shook it around it looked fine, it also applied fine.. the polish just would not dry though! In the end I had to go to bed with still slightly not so dry nails, and when I woke up they had smudged a little bit and just looked really really messy. 

This is what it looked like with the gold. It looks alright here but in real life, the gold just looked odd.

I'm not sure why on my right hand the silver looks really gold, i'm guessing my camera flash just caught it in an odd way.
But anyway, i'm so happy with how these turned out! Considering the original I based the design on was a stamp, I think I managed to replicate it pretty well! Even if I did have to miss out the zig-zag line on my right hand due to the flower being bigger and less neat.

Do you think its too early for christmas nails or are you just too in love with this design (like me) to care?
Let me know what you think and see you next week! :)

Cath Kidston Floral Nails

Hey guys,

Something a lot more girly this week! I was going to add dots to totally follow this tutorial but sadly I ran out of time. However i'm still really proud of my little flowers and many of my friends recognized it as Cath Kidston without being prompted so as far as i'm concerned - aim achieved!

A quick summary against the bottle. Look how cute they are! I'm not sure if they would have looked too crowded with the dots anyway. 

Let me know what you think! Would it have looked better with the dots or does it look fine as it is?