Roses Really Smell Like...

Hello lovelies!
You may recall my partner-in-blogging Rara broke her arm about a month ago? Well she came round to visit me this week while my parents were away and I did her nails for her. She's no longer in a plaster cast  but she still has a lot of trouble moving her left arm/hand so it was kinda interesting and meant I had to move myself around her rather than the other way around, but we made it work. This is also why there's such a discrepancy in nail lengths between her two hands-she's not been using her left hand for anything so the nails have grown really well!

Rara wanted me to do a gradient on her, and I asked her if I could try out some roses because I'd never done them before (and my nails were freshly painted!) and she agreed. She chose all the colours, I just did the painting and it got MESSY, but we both had lots of fun =)

Polishes used:
Gradient: Red- Rimmel-Red Obsession, Mid-Pink- Rimmel-Rose Libertine, Pale Pink- Nails Inc-Elizabeth Street, Glitter- OPI-I Juggle...Men
Roses: Red and Pink as before, Middles- A-England-Iseult, Leaves- OPI-Thanks a Windmillion

As you may appreciate, it's quite difficult to take pictures of someone who can't move their hand, but we tried our best for you:

I know my roses aren't perfect but they look pretty good from a distance and it was only my first attempt at them! I'm pretty happy with the gradient too, although it did get smudged a little by the glitter, but not too badly, it's not really noticeable in person.

I'm happy, Rara's happy, we hope you're happy too!

~Nail Art Novice & Rara~

ABC Challenge: U is for Upcycled Umbrellas

I decided at the end of the weekend that I wanted to do something more fun with my grey gradients so I decided to incorporate them into this challenge and 'up-cycle' them. They were the perfect colours for a rainy theme, so I went with umbrellas and raindrops.

Polishes used:
Backgrounds: (as before) - Revlon-Hazy (Lightest grey), Topshop-Cloud (mid grey), Rimmel-Stormy Skies (darkest grey) and OPI-I Juggle...Men
Umbrellas: Barry M nail art pen in Black, George-Under The Sea (to get another 'U' in there), Revlon-Blue Lagoon, Rimmel-Pear Drop
Cloud (ring finger): A mix of Revlon-Hazy and Topshop-Cloud 
Puddle/Raindrops: A mix of Revlon-Blue Lagoon, Sally Hansen-Himalayan Blue, Rimmel-Aqua Cool and Barry M-Neptune Sea

Posing with my umbrella, as you do

I enjoyed doing these, they were all just sort of freehanded on. To make the water I just put a small amount of each colour on a paintbrush and painted to see what came out of it. I quite like the fact that there's a real mix of colours in there, and each raindrop is slightly different to its neighbours. Unfortunately this mani didn't last long, because my grey-dients were already in a state when I put this on, so I probably took it all off about 12 hours later. It was fun while it lasted though!

~Nail Art Novice~

Check out the other awesome 'U' manicures:

ABC Challenge: T is for Tulips

Hello lovely readers! Sorry I've been absent recently, as I said on Thursday I had some work over the weekend which was really good, but as I was leaving the house at 6:30am and not getting back til after 8pm I really couldn't be bothered to do much in the evenings but curl up and sleep! I'm back now though and have lots of plans for some fun nail art things, yay.

I knew exactly which polish I wanted to use for this challenge, even though it's not strictly a 'T' name-Above the Curve's beautiful Field of Tulips that I bought for myself in their sale about a month ago. It's a pale green polish full of hundreds of different coloured glitter pieces and it's super pretty! I also added some tulip nail art to my accent nails.

Other polishes used: OPI-Thanks A Windmillion as a background colour/base for my glitter, No7-Siren, Collection 2000-Damson Jam, Rimmel-Sunshine and OPI-Don't Mess With OPI for the leaves.

Here's what I came up with:

As you can see, the little tulips on my right hand aren't quite as good as the ones on my left but I'm  gstill overall pretty happy with the way this turned out. I love that glitter and it's really nice to have colourful nails again after a weekend of plainish grey ones.

Hope you're all enjoying this glorious bank holiday/Memorial Day weather!

~Nail Art Novice~

P.S Please would you take a moment to go and vote for me and Rara (Jenni and Sarah) in this competition? We really would like to win but we're lagging behind somewhat. Get your mum to vote get your dad to vote, get your sisters, brothers, nan, dog, everyone you know to vote, pleeeease. All I can offer in return is my undying gratitude and love (and some Irish-themed nail art, of course!), but I would be so grateful! It'd be so awesome if we won.

Don't forget to go and check out all the other amazing 'T' creations:

31BPC 11-The Last Book You Read

The last book I actually read wasn't really much of anything so I'm going to tell you about the one I'm currently reading-Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.*
A couple of weeks ago I was persuaded (by way of a free ticket) to go and see the film when it was on at my Student Union's cinema. I had never really heard about it before so I had no idea what to expect but I really enjoyed it as it was very cleverly done. It tells six different stories set over six different time periods-from the distant past to the distant future-although they are all connected and linked to each other across the generations and are repeated groupings of the same souls or spirits throughout and across time. In the film this is cleverly represented by using the same 10ish actors across each time line in the sameish roles-this infographic explains it much better than I can, although is by no means comprehensive and misses out some of the roles/actors.
In the book, it's different-the stories are not presented  to you intertwining together but rather one at a time. But here's the wonderful yet annoying thing: they all stop midway through when the character has reached a critical moment-some even stop mid sentence! It's infuriating (but brilliant) because you just start really getting into the story, getting to that stage where it's wrapping itself around you and you need to know what happens next, and then bluntly and without warning, it just stops. It's a genius way of writing because I've had five cliffhangers in a row, each more dramatic than the last, and now I have got to finish the book to find out the endings of each one. Not that I wouldn't have finished it anyway-I'm really enjoying it-and as one of the characters writes in a letter "A half-read book is a half-finished love affair".
I'm really, truly captivated. I feel like I'm reading five different books all at the same time (I have yet to begin the sixth story) and every time I turn the page over in excited anticipation of what happens next to find another title page I feel both annoyed and desperate to find out more. That's why I haven't started story six yet-I'm still riding the emotions left from story five and don't want to confuse them with new characters, new actions, new voices.
And of course, I know what happens because I've seen the film but there's something about discovering it for yourself in the pages of a book that makes it more magical for me. I'm torn-I really want to get to the end to get closure on the five unfinished stories swirling around my brain but at the same time I don't want to because no-one ever wants to finish a good book. I'm really looking forward to realising how the stories all pull together as it's not yet obvious-they're 6 loose strands waited to be plaited and woven together and it's going to be interesting and beautiful and probably a little bit heartbreaking.

For a book that never seems to finish a story, this is the perfect place for me to review it because then you'll never find out the ending(s), or not from me at least.
In short, I love it, it's very very wonderful.

~Nail Art Novice~

*NB I am writing this post in advance so I will no doubt have actually finished it by the time this post goes up. In a way then, it is the last book I read.

A Grey-dient and a Plea

Hello lovelies!
I was going to do some awesome 'T' themed nail art for this week's ABC challenge but then I realised I needed work appropriate nails for this weekend as I'm working for my friend's company (Yay for the work, boo for the nails!)
I had no intention of doing gradients originally but Rara wanted me to do some on her when she came to visit (with her broken arm) so I decided to practice on myself first and I'm actually really glad I did!

Polishes used: Revlon-Hazy (Lightest grey), Topshop-Cloud (mid grey) and Rimmel-Stormy Skies (darkest grey). To make them slightly more interesting without making them inappropriate for work I added the subtlest of sparkles with OPI-I Juggle...Men which flashes blue and purple in the light but is otherwise fairly un-noticeable.

I really like the way this has turned out. I don't know why I've not attempted a gradient before but I shall be trying them again because they're actually really pretty in a subtle, less in your face way than most nail art. I didn't actually end up doing them on Rara, but there's always next week for that!

I will hopefully still get my 'T' nails done on Monday too-keep an eye out!

I said in the title of this post that it contained a plea so here it is:

Me and Rara have entered a competition to win a holiday to Dublin and we've made it to the final 5! Now it's all down to Facebook votes and we really need your help! If you could take a couple of seconds to go to this link and vote for 'Jenni and Sarah' I would be so so grateful! And of course, if we won, we'd both sport appropriate Irish-themed nails!
Thank you so much!

~Nail Art Novice~

L'Oreal Color Riche Collection-604 Metropolitan

I had completely forgotten I hadn't uploaded my final two swatches of my Color Riche polishes, so apologies! These last two are definitely my favourites of the ones I got from Fragrance Direct.

Today's swatch is number 604-Metropolitan which is a lovely grey creme.
This is three coats with no top coat-you can see that it's really lovely and glossy. I could have easily only used two coats for the same effect. The thumb and ring finger show stripes done with all four colours that I purchased-607-Rue Montmartre, 608-Luxembourg Garden, 604-Metropolitan and 502-Purple Disturbia. I think the bubbles on these were caused by my application technique as opposed to the polishes themselves.

Natural Light in this photograph

Unlike the other two polishes I've swatched thus far, there is no ambiguity about colour with Metropolitan-it's a lovely shade of grey-not too dark or too pale. Application was lovely because it has the same long, flat brushes that the other Color Riche polishes have (see this post for a picture) which allow you to cover the nail in two strokes. I didn't need to do any clean up following applying this polish for these pictures, which I was particularly impressed at as I hate cleaning up!

I got these from Fragrance Direct priced £1.20 (they have about 15 shades currently) but they are also available (in limited shades) at Boots and Superdrug for £4.99. Bearing in mind they only have 5mls of polish in I think that's a little pricey! A word of warning though, if you do order some from FD then search for swatches first because the colours on their website are very misleading!

I've got one more swatch to come, and keep an eye out, it's a gorgeous colour-my favourite of the bunch!

~Nail Art Novice~

Try Something Tuesday-Fan Brush Effect

I've been seeing these manis around a lot recently and really liked the look of them but had no idea how to do one! I went on Youtube and searched for 'fan brush manis' and found a couple of tutorial videos and it turns out it's a lot easier than I was expecting it to be! (The best one I found was this one by DearNatural62) As I'd got some fan brushes in the last set I bought from t'Ebay I thought I'd give it a shot!

My base colour is 3 coats of Revlon-Blue Lagoon which is a gorgeous baby blue shot through with silver shimmer. The colours I used over the top were Sally Hansen-Fairy Teal and Rimmel-Sunshine. I knew that these wouldn't blend together to create new colours in the same way that some do (see this mani by My Nail Graffiti for an excellent example) but still thought that they looked really cool together against the pale blue base.

I really like this! It was so quick and easy to do, even on all 10 nails! Definitely the quickest mani I've managed on myself for some time (less than half an hour from base coat to top coat!) which is good. I really love doing nail art but it doesn't half take up some time usually! It got pretty messy but I've cleaned up as best I can and I also have ordered some acetone from Amazon so that  I should be able to clean up even better in future.

I'm really happy with this, I love that each nail is different and it looks so cool! This may have just become my go-to mani when I need something quick and easy.

I also realised that I'd inadvertently matched my nails to my bedding, haha!

That's all for now, see you soon!

~Nail Art Novice~

31BPC 10-Your Daily Routine

Ugh, I really haven't been looking forward to this post. It's going to be a short one.
My daily routine? Well I usually get up late ish, bum around on the computer reading some blogs, uploading a blog or two, playing some games, looking for jobs/applying for jobs. I talk to some people on Facebook, I text some people. I eat, watch some tele, practice my bass (sometimes) and go to bed lateish. That's really my life. Half the time I don't even get dressed. Writing it down makes it seem so depressing but I usually find ways to enjoy myself. If nothing else, reading all the blogs that I follow and posting on two several times a week fills time nicely. Also, of course, doing my nails takes up some of the time.
SIGH.
Honestly I swear I'm a more interesting person than this post makes me seem! I just don't really have the money to do much until I get a job...

Back to more interesting posts soon, promise!

~Nail Art Novice~

Find the other 31BPC posts here:
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine

Randomised Mani-Double Dots

Ever since I saw the first Tri Polish post (run by The Crumpet's Nail Tarts) I've been a bit intrigued with the idea of doing a mani with no control over the colours used in it. I haven't yet decided if I'll join in with the challenge, but it's something I'm considering for when the ABC challenge ends (Sob!)
I have a habit of using the same colours over and over again for my manis because they're the ones my eye is naturally drawn to so I decided to set myself a similar challenge-I'm calling it the Randomised Mani. Basically, using a random number generator, I select the number of polishes for the challenge (between 2 and 10) and then the actual ones I'm going to use. I have my swatch wheels all catalogued in a book (because I'm a nerd!) and so just kept selecting random numbers which represented a polish. I'm not explaining this very well but basically I didn't pick them by choice but by chance! I also gave myself the option to veto one polish from the lot if it didn't fit very well.

So for my first Randomised Mani these were the polishes that got chosen:

 Colour Me-Pure Gold, 17-Nightshade, Rimmel-Sunrise and Kleancolor-Jewelry Red (It really pains me to have to spell jewellery wrong because it's the polish name!)
I decided that the orange didn't really fit with the opulence of the other colours so I got rid, leaving me with three polishes. I really liked the double dot effect on my little finger in my Fabulous mani the other day so I recreated that here.

I used two coats of Pure Gold and three of Jewelry Red as bases and was suddenly struck with the thought that they really look like the colours used for Tony Stark's Iron Man suit! (Yes, I'm a big nerd. But Iron Man 3!! *fangirls*) Had I not already decided what to do I might have attempted an Iron Man mani but alas (earwax) it was not to be, today.

I added dots in the opposite colour down the sides of my nails, then black ones on top. My camera really didn't like photographing this at all so I've done the best I can!

 What do you think? I reckon it's not too bad! I think the red dots look like poppies, which is quite cool. I'll be doing this random challenge every so often-at least once a month, perhaps more if I get stuck for inspiration.

Hope you enjoyed this mani!

Edit 19/5: I can't believe I never realised how pretty this gold was before-it's actually full of tiny green and orange shimmery bits and is such a lovely colour! Hard to believe it cost £1.99 and is a cheap brand I've never seen anywhere else!

~Nail Art Novice~

Ask A British Blogger III + Nail Art!

This fortnight's British Blogger question is 'What is the oldest polish in your collection?' and to answer it instead of just taking a couple of pictures of what is frankly a rather boring bottle, I thought I'd do some nail art with it.
Introducing Avon's Fabulous which is about 10 years old I would guess. I can't find any information on it on the internet but I did get a lot of Avon stuff when I was 13/14 so I guess it's from then. It's actually the only Avon one I've got left as it survived the years much better than any of the others which turned into watery messes or hardened to the point where they were un-usable. It's quite a pretty colour though, so I am glad that I've still got it in my stash!

Check out how dated the bottle looks!

I couldn't decide what I wanted to do so I opted for a skittle using various techniques, and using Collection-Electric Dreams which looks awesome against the bronze. This is two coats of Fabulous and it was very nearly a one coater, which I was surprised at! It didn't have a horribly strong smell, but definitely more than newer polishes which I guess means it's not 3-free.

It's also a pain to try and hold comfortably too

The two colours together reminded me of Egyptian artifacts so on my thumb I did an Eygptian-inspired design (the Eye of Horus-Egyptian symbol of protection and good health) with my Barry M nail art pen in black.

I really like my thumbs and also my double dotted little fingers-I think they look quite nice without being too overwhelming. I love the colours together too.
So that's my oldest polish! What's yours?

~Nail Art Novice~

Check out everyone else's posts here:

ABC Challenge: S is for Stamping & Sea Creatures

Hello lovelies!
I've got some underwater nail art for you today for 'S' week, yay! This is only my second time stamping but I think I've already improved from the first time, with thanks to this video tutorial by soguesswhat11 on Youtube.

I started this mani with about 4 coats of H&M's Blue Glitter Nail Polish which has holographic bar glitter laced through it and is pretty unique as far as I can tell. I think it really looks like water. In real life the nail lines are much less visible than in the pics, but I think next time I'll wear it with a similar colour underneath to eliminate the need for all those layers!

I completely forgot to even try and clean up this week,
my apologies!

Then I took my stamping kit out of its drawer and hunted for some appropriate 'sea creature' images. In the end I chose the turtle and the seahorse to keep things simple. (I don't know what brand of plate these are, they were in a random set I got on Ebay!)

I stamped with Barry M-Gold Foil because I know lots of people use this for stamping and it seems to work pretty well for them, and thankfully it did for me too!

Overall I'm pretty happy-apart from some slightly off centre placements I've managed to get a good stamp image on pretty much all of my nails. I love the colour combination and the way the light hits those holo glitter strands is really cool! Sadly it doesn't seem to have much sticking power and I've got some tip wear and a couple of chips already-which to me is another reason to use a base colour under the glitter. It's very pretty and twinkly though =)

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget to check out all the other wonderful 'S' manicures:

Best Blog Award II

A little while ago Chantelle from A Polished Prance nominated me for a 'Best Blog Award' only it was really soon after the last post I'd done so I left it for a while. I really liked her take on it though-all polish related questions-so I decided to keep it in mind to come back to at a later date. Now is that date (mainly because I don't really like the next 31BPC post so thought this would be more fun!)
I'm not going to nominate anyone (as usual), but feel free to answer them yourself-they're simple questions but I think rather interesting!





1. Matte or Gloss? 
GLOSS. I appreciate that a lot of people can do a lot of awesome things with matte top coats, but I am not one of them. I like my nails to be as shiny as possible! I've only worn a matte mani once and didn't have the patience (or time) to sit still for long enough for it to dry properly, and just ended up with a hundred dints and rucks and smudges in my nails and it just drove me mad!

2. Blue or Pink?
BLUE! I've never really liked pink-not since I was about 8 years old and was allowed to choose what colours I dressed myself in. I'm not the girliest of girls and I much prefer blues and greens!

3. Glitter or Flakey?
Erm...this is a tough one. I think I'd have to say glitter, simply because there are so many beautiful ones out there in a million colour combinations, and flakeys often depend on what base you put them over and can look positively dull if you pick the wrong ones.

4. OPI or China Glaze?
I think I would have to say China Glaze overall. They're a bit cheaper and there's more CG colours I'm lusting after than OPIs I reckon.

5. Creme or Shimmer?
Another tough one-I love both! I'm gonna go with...shimmer, simply because they add a bit of magic to an otherwise plain polish, even if they're really subtle.

6. Rhinestones or Studs?
I've never worn either! If I was going to wear any (which is unlikely, because I know I'd get bored and pick them off!) it'd probably be those small square studs, I think they look really rather stylish if done well.

7. Free Hand Art or Stamping?
Free hand! I mean stamping can produce some amazing results if you're good at it (which I'm not) but I get a really big sense of satisfaction from creating something myself.

8. Red or Green?
Green! I have more greens than any other colour polish and it's my favourite colour! I am a sucker for a deep, blood red though.

9. Helmer or Other Storage?
For now, other storage. I don't have enough space to put a Helmer or enough polishes to fill one. Maybe when I get my own place I'll invest.

10. Indies or Commercial Brands?
Erm. Erm...oooh this one's mean! I love all my indies because they're very pretty and very unique, but I think overall commercial brands because they're cheaper and more readily available to me. I'd buy lots of indies if I had the funds, but I can already buy lots of commercial brands if I want. (Thank you Fragrance Direct!)

11. Favourite polish of all time?
Right now, it's Mother Earth by Above the Curve polishes. She's my first holo and I put her on and just stared and stared at my fingers because she's super pretty! I honestly never wanted to take her off. This love affair won't last forever, I'm sure, but right now it's going strong.

So there you go!
As I said, feel free to do these yourself if you fancy it, it doesn't take long and it's always nice to know about a blogger's preferences, I think. Thanks Chantelle for nominating me!

~Nail Art Novice~

ABC Challenge: R is for Rainbows!

A few days after I received my first ever holo polish (and immediately fell in love) I got my second one in the post after purchasing it from the Nail Newbie's blog sale. (I ordered it in April before my polish ban, just so you know!) It was GOSH-Holographic Hero which is a limited edition silver holo polish. It shines with all the colours of the rainbow, so it was my immediate thought when it came to doing rainbows this week:

3 Coats-could have used two but smudged it!

But that was much too boring so I decided to add some nail art on top. On my fingers I've got a dotted rainbow ombre/gradient and then stripes on my thumbs because I loved them so much last time. I didn't want to cover up too much of the lovely holo, so I used striping tape between the colours. This way I've got rainbows on top of rainbows =)

Polishes used: Red-No 7-Siren, Orange-Barry M-Satsuma, Yellow-Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish-Sunshine (I finally caved a few weeks ago and bought a decent yellow polish because the London Girl one was an amazing colour with an AWFUL formula!), Light Green-Cairuo-Green Tea 22, Dark Green-Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish-Block Your Green, Light Blue-Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure-Himalayan Blue, Dark Blue-Maybelline Forever Strong Pro-Dark Denim, Purple-Maybelline Forever Strong Pro-Mellow Mauve. And Holographic Hero of course! The bottle says it's only good for 24 hours of wear, but I have topcoated the life out of it in the hope to prove them wrong-we'll see!

This is another mani I love, it's so colourful and cheerful and when the holo particles (if that's the right word!) catch the light it's amazingly sparkly too! I'm really hoping it at least lasts the weekend. Fingers crossed ey?

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget to check out the other ladies' 'R' entries:

Try Something Tuesdays: Colour Blocking

Hi lovelies!

I'm back from Brighton after a fantastic weekend away and have finally had chance to paint my nails again. After 4 days of plain black nails I wanted something colourful and so opted to try out colour blocking, inspired by this design by motelrocks.co.uk which was just something I randomly found whilst searching for ideas. I didn't want to stick to only 5 colours though, so I chose 10 and applied them randomly across all my nails for a ridiculously colourful effect =)

Here's my polishes:

L-R they are: No 7-Siren, Rimmel-Sunrise, Collection-Look At Me! (Apparently they're no longer Collection 2000, I'd not even noticed!), Essie-Mojito Madness, Barry M-Greenberry, Collection-Electric Dreams, Barry M-Navy, Barry M-Plum, Revlon-Hazy and Barry M-Gold Foil. I also used my black Barry M nail art pen for the lines.

Because I knew I wouldn't be able to get them very neat otherwise, I drew the lines on first, filled in the boxes with colour and then went over the lines again which took ages but I didn't have anything to do so it was fine. There's a couple of holes on my right hand but otherwise it worked quite well! Here's the result:

I think my favourite of all is my left index finger, I just really like the combination of colours. I love the look, it's so bright and cheerful, especially after a weekend of dreary plain black nails (I missed my nail art!). Colourful nails are so much more fun =)

In other news, I'm thinking of cutting down these Try Something Tuesday posts, I want to try more nail art and they limit what I can do really, especially if sometimes I just can't be bothered to do something complicated and want to go with something more simple/that I know I can do. I won't stop them completely because there's still things I haven't tried (gradients, marbling, etc etc) but I won't be doing them every week from now on, so I've got a bit more freedom to post!

Hope you all had wonderful weekends enjoying the beautiful weather!

~Nail Art Novice~

If you want to know more about what I got up to in Brighton, I've got a post on my other blog about it.

31BPC 9-What's On Your Life/Bucket List?

If any of you follow my other, non-nail blog then you'll realise I have totally cheated with this and copied it over from one of my posts over there, but why write something out twice when you can just do it once, ey? (Also as I am away this weekend I am scheduling this well in advance so it makes sense to me!)

I don't really have much of a 'bucket list'-I don't have mental lists of things I want to do before I'm x years old or before I die, or places I want to travel to or anything like that. In fact I would go so far as to say the things I want to achieve are fairly boring and un-original, what most people would hope for in their lives, but they're dreams none the less.

-In the short term I want to get a job (at the moment, anything) that will pay me enough to move out of my parents house and hopefully back to Sheffield, where my heart is.

-I want to fall in love again, because I miss having a someone.

-I want to end up in a career that makes me happy every time I get up to go to it, that fulfils me and that I love. (I just need to work out what this might be first)

-I want to own my very own house, that I can decorate and make completely mine. I don't necessarily want to share this with another person, or at least I never imagine it that way. I am a bit terrified at learning to live with someone else again, so for now I just want somewhere that's mine and maybe the rest will come later.

-I do want to get married, but NOT YET. The very thought strikes fear into my heart, really. I'm not ready to commit to something for life yet (apart from my tattoo, and even that I thought about for 4 years before getting!) and I wouldn't want to get married for the sake of being married, I want to be married because it's right. Almost certainly in white Doc Martens =p

-I never want to stop going on stage, because it's the biggest feeling ever, and it's totally addictive. I don't (really) drink, I don't smoke and I don't take drugs but I have a massive craving for that spotlight. Call me a diva if you like, it's probably true, but being in shows as often as I can is really important for me, it makes me happy, it makes me fly. I never want to stop feeling that feeling.

-I would like to accomplish something-but I don't know what yet. I've always wanted to have a book published and still do, although I recognise the difficulties with this dream now. But I want someone, even if it's just one person, to know my name because I've done something that they found inspiring.


So that's my life plans, what about you?

~Nail Art Novice~

Find the other 31BPC posts here:
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight

Guest Blog from Pocket Money Polishes

Right now I am in Brighton, doing my final rehearsal bits before my first performance of Titus later, woo!
So last Saturday I was chatting on FB with Charlie from Pocket Money Polishes and really cheekily asked her if she would be willing to do a guest post for me whilst I was away-completely expecting her to say no. To my surprise she readily accepted so I'm sending out a MASSIVE thanks to her. With no further ado, I'll let her get on with it!

~

Hello Nail Art Novice Lovelies!
My name is Charlotte and I have a blog called Pocket Money Polishes. I'm delighted to say that I've been asked to do a guest post for you this weekend-apologise for the intrusion. I'm having a crazy busy week between deadlines, blogging and other projects so I have put together a simple look today using some of my favourite trends and techniques.

First I created a block ombre across my nails (going from light on my thumb to dark on my pinky), I excluded my ring finger as that is my finger of preference for an accent-this I painted white. I used a total of 5 varnishes for this look: Fast Track from China Glaze is a beautiful neutral gold that glistens and has a great textured appearance but is smooth to the touch, it does take a little building up and this photo shows 3 thin coats. Barry M's Mushroom is a grey leaning brown and one of my favourite polishes for the days when I need to have serious nails.Cackle is from George (Asda) and is a fairly standard brown with a good formula for easy consistent coverage. Finally, the darkest brown on my little finger is Roasted Chestnut by W7, which is one of my most beloved polishes with its deep chocolate brown colour and coppery shimmer. To these colour block fingers I added a slightly curved column of white dots to one side of my nail, as always my white is from the Natural Collection at Boots. Dots are a nail art staple and such a quick way to spice up a simple mani.

I painted my accent finger first to ensure that it had plenty of drying time as I was using thin striping tape, and if you don't give your base enough time to dry it will just be ripped up when you remove the tape. I used three pieces of tape, two horizontally across the nail and one vertically down the middle. The next step was to randomly add a square of each colour to my nail, and then while this polish was wet remove the tape. I then added some top coat to smooth the edges and voila-all finished! I am describing this manicure as 'coffee squares' in my head as it has all my favourites-latte, cappuccino and vanilla colours.

Thanks for having me today, please feel free to pop over to my blog and see what I am up to-I am usually up to something!! Wishing Novice luck with her polish buying ban and hope she's having a good weekend away.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
 <3 Pocket Money Polishes

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Yay! Look at those pretty nails =) I love this look, I'm definitely going to try it out myself soon! BIG THANKS to Charlotte for doing this so last minute for me, I'm so impressed that she managed to fit it in her busybusy life! Please do go check out her blog, I'm sure she'll be glad to have you!

I'm back on Monday so normal posting should resume on Tuesday!
I'll see you then

~Nail Art Novice~

One Hot Mother

Guys, why did no-one tell me that holo polishes were SO FREAKING PRETTY? Honestly, I have not stopped staring at my nails in the 24hours I've been wearing this polish. I'm definitely in love. The rainbows and the sparkles and the prettiness! Within about 5 minutes of applying it this happened:

*applies 1st holo polish, looks down at nails* "OMG I need more of these!" THEY'RE SO PRETTY!
— Nail Art Novice (@NailArtNovice) April 30, 2013

So...yeah. I've just banned myself from buying polishes and now I want ALL the holos-sad times.

This is (of course) Above The Curve-Mother Earth and she's beautiful. For starters she's a lovely-but-hard-to-describe nude/tan/bronzey/coppery/gold colour in different lights. Then there's the holo effect which I am constantly in awe of. I really wish I'd thought to get some pictures of this baby in the sunshine, because she lit up like the sun. I know that a lot of people probably think I'm going a bit OTT but I've never worn a holo polish before-don't you remember how magical your first time was? Cut a girl some slack, ey? =p
This is 3-4 coats, and there's still a hint of nail line in some of the pics. I guess she might need an under layer in future (does that work?).

Anyway. PICTURES.

Can I get an Ooft?
I really want to keep her on forever and ever, it makes me rather sad to know she has to come off tomorrow so I can paint my nails for my show. SIGH.

I think I've definitely found my new love!!

~Nail Art Novice~