If You Want These Kind Of Dreams

The titles of my last post and this one are taken from the Red Hot Chili Peppers Song-Californication in case anyone was still wondering. I love the Chilis, their music reminds me of being young and carefree!

I've now had my introduction (which was for a bar staff role) which will hopefully lead to me getting the job (fingers crossed) and some much needed income, so I decided to jazz up my silver nails from yesterday with two of my favourite Barry M polishes-simply called Navy and Teal.

I just LOVE these colours, they're both so beautiful and I had to have them as soon as I saw them and they both look really good with the silver too!
I did a simple diagonal line tape mani with them to add a little bit of colour on top of my shiny silver and I think the final effect is gorgeous!

Ignore the pink blob on my thumb-I was trying out lip stains earlier today.

I can't stop admiring my nails because they look so pretty. Interesting fact though, holding my hand in that pose is really painful after I've been practising my bass because my fingers (particularly my ring finger) protest at all the stretching they have to do. Oh well, she's worth it! (Yes, my bass is a girl. And she's beautiful too.)

Speaking of which, I'd better get practising again now as I have a lesson later!
Until next time,

~Nail Art Novice~

Dream Of Silver Screen Quotations

Bonus points to anyone who works out where the quote is from without using Google.

A fairly plain mani (for now) as I have a job...thing* tomorrow and don't want to be too informal. Also because I don't know what I'm wearing I'm going with simple silver as it goes with most things-I hope! I'll probably jazz this mani up afterwards though.

This is Revlon's Silver Screen which is a very lovely silver. I'm still not a fan of the tiny thin brushes Revlon use but the colour is really nice and it went on well-opaque in two coats (although I'm wearing 3 to cover up a smudge!). Very shiny and dried fairly speedily too.

And looks pretty to top it all off.

Keep your beautifully polished fingers crossed for me tomorrow, folks!

~Nail Art Novice~

*I don't know if it's an interview or just an introduction or what it actually is, but I thought I'd hedge my bets and dress formally.

No Place Like Home

Disclaimer: I have to apologise for my messy pictures this time, I was painting my nails at a friend's house and didn't want to get polish on any of her surfaces so was using my leg/a book to lean on and it got a bit messy. Also had nothing to clean up with hence the rough edges. SORRY. 

I will admit to you now that this is honestly one of my favourite manis to do, and it frequently features on my fingertips, although this time was to match a specific outfit. When I first saw this Barry M polish, simply called 'Red Glitter' in the shop I just had to buy it-it reminded me of Dorothy's Shoes in the Wizard of Oz and was sparkly and gorgeous. I've worn it on its own before and it takes a few coats to become opaque and doesn't have much sticking power so chips easily-nowadays I use it as a top layer over another polish. Luckily, I already had the perfect colour to match it with in my collection- Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish in Double Decker Red. This was a polish that I got free with a Rimmel order back in summer that I had rarely worn until I discovered this perfect match for it. It's a very bright red, red like British post boxes, or the Buckingham Palace guard's uniform or London buses and is actually rather lovely.
This is two coats (although I'd probably do one or even two more if I was wearing this polish on its own):

and this is with one layer of Barry M's Red Glitter over the top, plus a top coat of Seche Vite.

This photo doesn't do justice to just how sparkly and lovely it looks.

Honestly? I love this combo, it's stunning and joyful and makes me feel happy whenever I catch sight of my nails. And sometimes we all need a little bit of glitter to make us smile, right?

~Nail Art Novice~

Rather Regal

Since I received my new polishes the other day I've been dying to try this gorgeous purple Revlon one out. I've also always loved purple and gold together-they always remind me of royal colours (hence the title), so I decided to team it with my gold Barry M crackle polish as accent nails.
The colour (Plum Night) is really lovely, a really deep purple like the colour you get staining your fingers when you've been picking blackberries.

You get my right hand today coz the nails on my left are rather broken at the mo,
apologies for the splodges around the edges

The picture above shows three coats, although I could have definitely got away with only two. The only thing I didn't like was the fact the brush was a little thin, which meant it took a lot of brush strokes to cover one nail, but otherwise I was very satisfied with the colour and application, and it dried fairly quickly too.

Here's the final product. I know that crackle polishes are controversial amongst nail bloggers but I love them because of how unique every manicure becomes when you use them. Also I think they add a little bit of fun detail to what would otherwise be a plain mani, and it wouldn't do for everyone to be the same now would it?

I love this colour and will definitely be using it again soon!

~Nail Art Novice~

Geometric Greens

I wanted to match my nails to a top I'm going to wear out tomorrow, which is black and white with green square patterns on it, so I decided to do a tape chequered flag manicure-my first ever as it happens.
I started with a white base (over my normal base coat), using Colour Me polish in Colour Me White. I never seem to have much luck with white polishes, they all seem  to be too runny or too gloopy or take forever to dry.
This one I seemed to be a little better than previous ones I've had, but still took a lot of coats to reach opacity.

Three coats and if you look at my ring finger it's still a bit streaky. 

However it did dry very quickly and went on fairly easily so definitely wasn't all bad. I think I might just have to suck it up and splurge on an OPI white next time I need one though.
Next layer (following 2 coats of Seche Vite and a good hour's wait), was green squares. I didn't take any photos of the process as it was a little fiddly with tape on all my nails but this was basically how I did it. The green I chose was a Stargazer polish but I've no idea what the name is as I've had it for years since my slightly gothy days. It's a slightly shimmery green which perfectly matches the green in my shirt.

This was the result, not perfect but not bad for a first attempt on my tiny nails!

I did um and ahh for ages about leaving them like this but decided I wanted a black line on them in the end, if nothing else to cover up unsightly edges where the tape lifted slightly, so this was the final result:

Obviously I need a bit more practice with the L.A. Colors thin line striper as some of my lines are a little too thick and a bit uneven but I'm overall happy with the results, particularly on my left thumb, which is pretty much perfect (although the photography isn't):

 Although it's been somewhat of a laborious process, I really like the end results and think I'll do this again when I've got the time to spare.

~Nail Art Novice~

Polishy Goodness

I got a load of new polishes in the post (yay!) and I'm looking forward to trying them all out.

The best part is the most I paid for any of them was £1.99- they only cost me £16.50 in total, which for 11 polishes isn't half bad I don't think. I got most of them at http://www.fragrancedirect.co.uk/ which seems to be an awesome site for buying branded polishes for cheapy cheap (all £0.99-£1.50) and then got three of them at my local chemist.
They are:
Top Row L-R: Revlon in Plum Night, Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Going Green, Sally Hansen Insta Grip  base coat (because my old one went gloopy), Colour Me in Pure Gold, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Slick Slate
Bottom Row L-R: Sally Hansen Maximum Growth in Real Royal, Sally Hansen Insta-Dry in Brisk Blue, L.A. Colours Art Deco in Black (it's a thin line brush for detailing), Revlon Top Speed in Cloud (which you can't really see the colour of in the photo, it's a gorgeous lavendery grey), Colour Me in Colour Me White, Revlon in Silver Screen

I have to confess I'm a fan of bright colours, so I'm really excited about the Going Green and Brisk Blue, but also think the Cloud is a gorgeous colour too. I'm wearing the Pure Gold on my toes right now and to say it was a cheap polish it went on really nicely and dried really quickly and looks lovely too!
I'm sure you'll see some of them appearing in posts soon.

Until then, then,

~ Nail Art Novice ~

Help Needed!

I hadn't meant to post again so soon but I wanted to tap your imaginations for advice:

This happens to me ALL THE TIME and I wondered if any of you knew why it might be? (Please ignore the chip on my middle finger, I know exactly how that happened.). My index fingers on both hands often lose the whole nail of polish from seemingly harmless things like putting my hand through a sleeve. It's happened many many times with many different polishes (all with a base coat on underneath/top coat on top) and I wanted to know if it happens to anyone else and if there's anything I can do about it or if I just have to resign myself to that fact that I have extraordinarily slippery nails on just my index fingers?

Has this ever happened to you? Please give me some advice!

Thanks,

~N.A.N~

My First Mani...Snowy Days

Today it has been snowing heavily in Britain, and I wanted to do a snow inspired manicure because of this. I have the perfect polish in my collection for this, so all I needed was some base colours, which were fairly easy to choose.

I started with my normal base coat- Sally Hansen Double Duty which I noticed was sadly getting a little sticky and gloopy-time to order some more I guess!
The colours I chose were Barry M-Denim and a London Girl polish which doesn't have a name but is a pearly white colour.

I have a large collection of Barry M polishes, and I think for what they cost they're very good quality and fit perfectly into my budget! Denim is a surprisingly dark blue colour-like the colour of dark jeans- with small silver shimmers in and it went on very easily. I only needed two coats for full coverage and I could have easily got away with one. It's quite matte when it dries though, which I'm not a fan of, but it looks beautiful with some shiny top coat on.
The London Girl polish is a bit of an odd one. I got an online offer for 24 bottles of nail varnish for £20 which I didn't really think I could pass up. Although the colours are fantastic, the quality of polish isn't great and they take a long time to dry completely. I do like this pearly white colour, it's very shiny and pretty, but takes about 4-5 coats to reach opacity. Unfortunately I didn't take a picture at this stage, sorry! I've got the blue one my left hand, with a white accent nail and vice versa on my right.

Finally, I topped them off with my snowy glitter polish- Snow Daze by Absolut Lacquer, which is my favourite favourite Indie polish maker on Etsy. She's got great prices and really awesome polishes, and is kind to her international fans and doesn't charge extortionate shipping rates-plus she's really lovely and goes out of her way to give great customer service. I cannot recommend her enough!
Snow Daze is a blue glitter topper with lots of white glitters in-small squares, large/small hexagons and bars which look like snow in a pot! (Hence the reason I chose it!). It goes on really nicely, although I moved some of the big glitters around to get them more evenly spread out. I used one coat on each nail, and then a top coat of my trusty Seche Vite Quick Dry.

Here's the finished result:

Apologies for the messy edges, I tidied up as best I could!

I think it's a really pretty manicure. I just hope the snow lasts as long as the nail varnish will!

What do you think? Have you got any snow inspired manis to share? Let me know =)

~Nail Art Novice~

Novice Says Hello!

Hello! Welcome to my new blog, Nail Art Novice. As my name suggest, I'm a newbie to the world of nail art, but I love having pretty patterns and colours on my finger tips and thought I'd start a blog to share some of my better designs. I won't pretend I'm an expert at this, I basically do things because I think they'd look pretty and haven't yet attempted many complicated designs or techniques (although I promise I'll share the results if I ever do!) and won't be posting tutorials or anything like that. I also don't have much disposable income, so I never spend a fortune on a nail varnish- I think the most expensive one I've ever bought was about £7. I'm based in the UK too, so I don't have easy access to a lot of the more popular nail varnish brands that I see on other blogs (China Glaze, OPI etc) so maybe this blog might be a little different to the ones you're used to. Hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as I do.

Nail Art Confessions:
-I love glitters, especially indie polish ones. I wish there were more UK based sellers though, because shipping them from the States always bumps up the cost a hell of a lot. Despite this, they are my favourite things to wear because they make every manicure unique- you'll never get the same pattern of glitter ever again. So I confess you might see a lot of glitter as top coats on this site I'm afraid.

-I also have to confess that I like the Crackle effect nail varnishes. I know that a lot of nail art bloggers don't like them, but I think you can do some wonderful things with them, and they're quite fun to look at. Crazy paving nails!

-I'm not the neatest painter in the world, and often can't be bothered cleaning up the edges of my nails until I get in a shower and just let the hot water wash the excess off. Sorry if this means you end up with less than aesthetically pleasing pictures. 

This is my collection at the moment-not the biggest in the world but still growing steadily.

Finally, if anyone has any hints or tips to offer me then I am more than willing to listen to them! As I said, I'm new to all this, it's still a big scary world for me!

Thanks!

~Nail Art Novice~