Feb Resolutions Check In

So you may remember that last time around when I did this, I had had a really good month and had kept up with my resolutions really well. This month has not been so successful...oops!

Resolution #1-Lemony Flutter
So I have...not used my LF all month. I really should have been but I just haven't. I think the fact that I've moved up to Sheffield and that my boyfriend has been in hospital so much has really just thrown me off. My cuticles look really bad on it though, so I am going to try and use it every night before bed in March if I can!

Resolution #2-Spend no more than £20 on polish things a month and/or buy no more than 4 polishes a month
Ah...this one I have done really terribly at this month. In total I have acquired SIXTEEN new polishes, which is 4 times more than I should have done! I did only pay for half of them though, as I have been very lucky this month and got a lot of freebies from various places. Lets have a look at my collection then:

...oops

Top Row: Pocket Money Polishes-She's Like The Wind and Alien Like You, Black Cat Lacquer-Evergreen (all bought by me), Rara Avis-Cast Iron Cannon (made and given to me by Rara!!)

2nd Row: Sally Hansen-Cherry Drop, Revlon-Haunted Heart, Rimmel-Out Of The Blue, Sinful Colors-Ciao Bella, Sally Hansen-Razzleberry (all bought by me)

3rd Row: Nails Inc Shine On Collection-Elm Park Road, Raphael Street, Cadogan Gate, Lyall Street (bought for me for Valentine's by my boyfriend)

Bottom Row: Chubby Owl Polishes-Roses Are Red, Midnight Owls, Violets Are Blue (I bought Midnight Owls and Jenna included the minis as a lovely surprise in my parcel!)

Here's a pic of the glitters swatched so you can enjoy them!

L-R: Alien Like You (over Out Of The Blue), She's Like The Wind (over Cast Iron Cannon), Midnight Owls, Roses Are Red, Violets are Blue

So my total spend this month was...£35.79-eep! I am officially on a no-buy for the forseeable future now, sigh. I'm going to have to avoid Poundland like the plague and it's going to take all my resolve! Hopefully this month's pretties will keep me occupied for a while!

Total spent: £35.79
Under/Over budget: Over, way, way over!
Number of new polishes acquired: Sixteen!
Fewer/More than four? SO MANY MORE.

I guess that's a double fail for me this month, oops! :-/ Will try harder next time!

See you next month,

~Nail Art Novice~

Purple Nails For B-EAT; Eating Disorders Awareness Week

This week is Eating Disorders Awareness Week and in one of my nail groups on Facebook lots of ladies are doing nail art to help raise awareness. B-EAT is a charity that helps support people with eating disorders and the charity ribbon they use is lilacy/purple, so the theme for these nails was purple.

I used three UK Indie polishes-Tara's Talons-Comet (gorgeous purple with reddy shimmer and holo glitter) and Mistletoe (dark purpley/grey packed full of holo sparkles) (both from my TT advent calendar) and Pocket Money Polishes-She's Like The Wind to add EVEN more sparkle. Simple but pretty, I reckon!

Not only pretty, but with a good reason behind it too!

To find out more about B-EAT, go here or about Eating Disorders Awareness Week, here.
To donate to B-EAT, go here.
If you are struggling with anything related to any eating disorder, here is the link to their helpline/message boards info.

I'll be back soon!

~Nail Art Novice~

An InLinkz Link-up

My OH Paints My Nails

PIC HEAVY POST

The British Nail Bloggers are having another fun group post this week that I thought I'd join in with: My Other Half Paints My Nails. As the name suggests this is asking nail art newbies (not necessarily just partners) to paint your nails for you. I asked my Australian if he'd be up for doing that and he was surprisingly excited! He decided to do a skittle mani across all my nails, incorporating many techniques. He even opted to do a fishtail nail which I thought was pretty impressive! So these are all his nail art, he chose the colours and did them all and I think they look really fab. I'll hand over to him now:

So Ah... Hi!
Having spent so much time with Jenni over the last 7 or 8 months it is unsurprising really that I was asked to do her nails at some point. I have done several "He picks my polish" things, and Jenni has done several designs on my thumb nails, so I guess this was the next logical step. So without further ado here they are:

Left Hand

Right Hand

So I know this isn't how Jenni usually does her posts but I am going to do a nail by nail breakdown with the polishes I used for each nail and the technique used, also possibly some other bits and pieces. (See more after the break)

Textured Dots

That's probably the most boring title I've ever written for a post! But it describes things pretty accurately to be fair. I fancied something bright and cheery and so I pulled out a new textured polish I picked up from Poundland the other day-Sally Hansen-Cherry Drop. This is a super bright polish so fitted the bill perfectly-I used two coats. Of course I couldn't just leave it plain so I added in some dots using Barry M-Matt White and I kinda like the way they look a bit worn on some of the nails, it's quite fun!

What's your opinion on the textured trend?

~Nail Art Novice~

And Make It Evergreen

Hey loves! How's things? Feels weird being back on my blog again after ignoring it for a couple of weeks, but back I am, and with a gorgeous polish too! Before I get onto that though, I just want to apologise for the state of my cuticles/hands in general. I've been visiting my boyfriend (who is still in hospital!) every day and the combination of the crappy weather plus LOTS of antibac hand gel on the ward is ruining my skin-so please try to ignore the bleedy/cracked/dryness of them as much as you can!

Now onto nicer things-the polish! This is Black Cat Lacquer-Evergreen. I saw this in one of the nail-related FB groups I'm in and it was green, had scattered holo sparkles and smelt of cinnamon-all things I totally love, so I knew I had to have it! As a bonus, it's also a thermal (my first) which was kinda fun to play with too!

Warm state

Cold state

Best transition photo I could get cos my hands warm up too quickly!

Seriously, this is just stunning! It's so green and sparkly, and although the warm colour is a little sheer it's still absolutely lovely! And the smell is AMAZING-it really makes me hungry for cinnamon buns and biscuits and stuff. It has faded a little over the three days I've been wearing it but it's still there, nom nom nom.

What do you reckon to this one-love it as much as me?

~Nail Art Novice~

Slowly Growing Stars

Hey lovelies! This is a post I've got scheduled well ahead because I haven't been painting my nails much recently what with everything going on. This is actually what I was wearing when I moved in on the third! It's really kinda fun though.

Polishes used: Gloss n Sparkle-Slowly Growing Deaf (which I won in a giveaway ages ago!) and Sinful Colors-Amethyst. I recently bought myself some fun shaped cutters to use in nail art and that's what I wanted to do here. For most of my nails I cut stars out of Scotch tape and applied that to my nail and painted the purple over it, and for the accent I took the cut out stars and put them on where I wanted them-hence the reversey effect.

I think it's really fun and I love the contrast between the busy glitter and the plain cream on top, how about you?

Here's a pic of SGD on its gorgeous little ownsome too:

These were such fun to wear! I'm hoping to get back with some more nail art some time soon! And a Happy Love Day to you all too ;)

~Nail Art Novice~

Guest Post-Finger Food

Hi lovelies! Today I've got another guest post for you because my boyfriend having an operation today, and Sam graciously let me push her post back a few days to cover me for it!

Hello everyone! First of all I would like to thank Jenni for the opportunity of this guest post! I immediately thought of doing some skittles as I haven't got round to doing any this year yet and that's a record for me! I then decided to go with a "skittlette" as that is a little more challenging (well it is for me anyway!), and with a recent haul of new polish to inspire me, here's what I put together :)

I started with a base of Color Club Silver Lake, a pure and simple light grey. Once dry, I added a coat of Pretty's Scatter Top Coat to my pinkie and thumb. I found this in Poundland and loved the simple round black glitter in the grey jelly-like base. Little did I know that the glitter seems to "scatter" (I get the name now!) into little patterns as it dries, no matter how evenly you apply it. For my ring and middle fingers, I painted three hearts on each using Color Club East Austin (a lovely creamy coral) and Wicker Park (a deep but subtle lavender) and LA Colors Moody Red. I oulined them carefully with a striping brush using LA Colors Black Velvet and added stems and leaves. Inspiration for the final finger was a challenge and I wanted to show off the palette I'd used, so I used tape to create a colour chart effect featuring all the colours I'd used and then finished with Seche Vite.

This is very different from my usual style but I'm glad I stepped out of my comfort zone! Plus once I got over the hit to my OCD from the Scatter top coat, I decided I liked it (although it didn't like the Seche Vite much as there was almost immediate shrinkage)!

If you would like to see more of my designs, you'll find me in all the usual places. Thank you for your time and another big thank you to Jenni for the guest spot!

Sam xx

Thank you so much to Sam for doing this post for me-I'm really loving those girly but without being overly pink hearts =)
You can find more of her gorgeous nails here on http://fingerfoodnails.blogspot.co.uk/ and she's also got a fab nail art challenge group going on at the moment-you can join in here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/516355601814233/

I will be back as soon as I can, although I can't make promises as to when exactly that will be, hopefully some time next week!

Until then,

~Nail Art Novice~

A Thankyou and A Half!

So I should be back to a normal blogging schedule sometime in the next couple of days but for today I just wanted to say a GREAT BIG THANKYOU to all of my guest posters for the last week. Please do go check out their blogs because they're all wonderful ladies with some lovely nails-so go say hello and give them a follow!

Boom Shaka Lacquer

http://boomshakalacquer.com/

http://facebook.com/boomshakalacquer

Vicky Loves Nails

http://vickylovesnails.blogspot.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/vickylovesnails

Penguins Left Green Polish

http://www.penguinsleftgreenpolish.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/Penguinsleftgreenpolish

Monkey Nail Art

http://monkeynailart.wordpress.com/

https://twitter.com/monkeynailart

Katie's Lost and Found

http://www.katieslostandfound.blogspot.co.uk/

Pocket Money Polishes

http://pocketmoneypolishes.wordpress.com/

https://www.facebook.com/PocketMoneyPolishes

Bitten and Polished

http://bittenandpolished.blogspot.co.uk/

There we go, seven beautiful sets of nails all as different as the people who created them-and aren't they all lovely? I am so grateful to these ladies for stepping in this week while I've been busy moving house and being without internet, they've kept my blog beautiful, don't you think?

I'll be back soon, I hope!

~Nail Art Novice~

Guest Post Week! Bitten And Polished

Hi Everyone,

It's Ruth from bittenandpolished :) I have been invited to guest blog to keep you all entertained whilst Nailartnovice takes a well deserved break to move house. First of all, congrats! It's a big deal to move and takes a lot of energy, but there is no better feeling than that of having moved and sitting on the couch feeling at home for the first time.

Anyway, I thought what I could tell you all about and there could really only be one thing for me at the moment: OPI's Gwen Stefani collaboration. You have to know, I have been a Gwen fan since her early early No Doubt days, pink hair and bindhi's and all that, and have never stopped adoring her style, voice, and energy. When I heard that OPI have been working on a nail polish line with her, I actually said "OMG, no way!" out loud and made my other half wonder if I had lost the last of my marbles.

Here's one of the official pics OPI released with Gwen:

Since I am going through a, hopefully not very long, phase of unemployment, I couldn't splurge on the entire collection like I would have wanted to, but I could not resist buying the mini set on TNBL.com. This set includes the shades "Hey Baby", "I Sing in Color", "Love.Angel.Music.Baby" and "4 in the Morning".

To do Gwen justice, I wanted to do more than "just" swatches, I wanted to pimp my nails in a more rock'n'roll sort of fashion. So I decided to go all out - Chevrons, Stamping and, of course, Studs!

Here's step one, to show you what the colours dry like (only because 4 in the Morning and Love.Angel.Music.Baby dry in a fabulous matte finish).

And finally, what I did with studs (neons from ebay, silver including star from http://www.she-sells-seashells.co.uk/), stamping (using Konad plate M73 and 4 in the morning to stamp) and chevrons (ebay).

So, that's what I did with my mini set. What will you do with yours??

I really hope you liked my guest post, if you did, come follow bittenandpolished.blogspot.com to read about my adventure into nail art and polish making and - as the name says - my journey from having bitten my nails for 30 years and stopping with a a little help from... well, nail polish :)

Thanks for reading. Lots of love.

x<3
Ruth

Guest Post Week! Pocket Money Polishes!

And it’s all purple! Hello all, Charlie here today from Pocket Money Polishes– anyone familiar with my blogs knows that I am only just learning to like purple so to see an all purple combo from me is a very new phenomenon. Deep breaths. It’s ok. I LOVE BOTH OF THESE POLISHES.

OPI Vesper comes from the Bond Girls collection which was one of the earlier incarnations of the texture polish trend from OPI. I used two coats for full sugary effect and this polish does take a long time to fully develop its finish (about 45 minutes) but this doesn’t mean it is prone to damage for the same amount of time – it’s pretty solid after about ten minutes.

As you can see from the photos this really ends up barely thicker on the nail than normal polish and for full effect you shouldn't top coat. I found that this had absolutely no impact on the wear time of the polish vs regular nail polish. In my pictures it may look black but it is blackcurrent purple and reminds me of fruit pastles – all sugary and deep. I did find that compared to other OPI polishes the brush seemed to be thickly loaded but it wasn’t hard to work with – just whack it on and wait for the magic. Removal of the Liquid Sand is similar to a glitter and does require some patience but it is a very hard wearing polish and just so gosh darn pretty. I found the finish on this polish to be less rough than What Wizardry Is This?

For my accents (which also applied to my thumbs) I have Zoya Daul which I have only worn once HERE and is insanely pretty. I love it so much on this second time round – the shimmer/sparkle/magic in it is just breath taking and the entire polish changes look depending on the light.

 I used two medium coats and topcoat in the pictures and I did actually find the dry time a little slow although I was painting quite late at night so perhaps that’s why. Application on this polish is super smooth and easy – I needed a little tidy up around the edges as it was slightly thinner than the OPI I was pasting on but there were no issues with flooding.

 The way both of these polishes sparkle in the light is just beautiful. So much so that this is the first mani that I have worn until it has chipped and worn away in a very long time. I honestly couldn’t stop waving my hand around in varying lights. Have you ever had a mani like that?

 I’ve just been spending the evening admiring the swatching for the upcoming OPI Brazil collection and they’re looking prettier and prettier, I can’t believe that the bright liquid sands will only be available in mini form though, check out the yellow swatch HERE. You might need sunglasses! My favourite places to buy OPI include The Nail and Beauty Link and Nail Polish Direct at the moment and I am watching with baited breath to see when these pretties arrive. I passed on the Gwen collection so need to scratch my new OPI itch some how. If you’re looking for bargain OPI then keep an eye on Fragrance Direct!

On the Zoya front I have ended up buying more since my haul including Tamsen and Elke – I am just waiting for the postman to deliver them to me and I will be reviewing them on the blog. Thanks for letting me share a post with you today, I hope you’ve enjoyed it and will come and see what I am up to soon!

Guest Post Week! Katie's Lost And Found

A Green skittle

Actually I really dislike Green skittles :p

Yea hi. I'll admit I had no idea where to start with this post. So I came and wandered around here looking for inspiration and eventually decided to use the lovely color theme here as a starting point. Seemed like a fun idea cos I never use green... until it occurred to me that, well, I never use Green and have no idea what to do with it!

 Anyway, after many changes of mind along the way we have this.

Polishes are Nails Inc-Battersea on ring. Nails Inc-Green Park for the darker green and Sinful Colors-Mint Apple for the paler Green. The bonus being I'd not yet got round to playing with any of these before, and I like them a lot.

Hope it turned out ok.

Katie, http://www.katieslostandfound.blogspot.co.uk

Guest Post Week! Monkey Nail Art

Hi all! I'm Rachel from Monkey Nail Art and I'm chuffed to bits to be doing a guest post for Nail Art Novice. Sometimes it's nice to get out and about, you know? Jenni is a fabulous artist and looking through her designs I knew I'd have to do something extra special. Two things struck me about Jenni's blog - rainbow colours and striping tape. So I got out my brightest polishes and came up with this:

This is a reverse gradient of sorts - that is, I started with a plain base colour, applied my striping tape and then sponged the gradient over the top. I love how the gold really pops out!

My base gold colour is from Claire's Accessories (unnamed.) Following that I used:
Nails Inc Big Apple Red
Rimmel Tangerine Queen
Collection 2000 Sherbet Lemons
Barry M Emerald Green
Essie Sweet Talker
Essie Butler Please

It's all finished off with Seche Vite for that extra gorgeous glossy finish.

Thanks so much to Nail Art Novice for having me on your blog and inspiring me to create such bright, bold nails!

Guest Post Week! Penguins Left Green Polish

Hey Girls!

Yaaay! Guest post for one of my favourite bloggers <3 :) I'm loving that I am in a group with amazing nail bloggers! I always jump at the chance to be able to do a guest post!

Today's guest post is for Jenni over at Nail Art Novice! I absolutely love her blog, Her pictures are lovely and a pleasure to look at! Love how she doesn't give a toss about messy nails and that is inspiring!

Over at my blog, I'm on a recent crazy with a glitter topper by NYC called Lights, Camera, Glitter! I've been layering this beauty on everything!! I've layered it over a minty green HERE and over a greeny gradient HERE ...And while I'm writing this post I just realised I've layered the glitter over greens!! :D 

Here is the beautiful glitter layered over Essie's - Going Incognito...this time a dark green!! I've included a swatch of the green because I love how beautiful it is! Two layers of greeny goodness!!

With the Glitter topper!

Love it :D But i'm a bit biased! Lol, what do you guys think?!

Thank you Jenni for having me on your blog :D 

You can keep up with me through:

www.Penguinsleftgreenpolish.blogspot.com

Bloglovin' - PenguinsLeftGreenPolish 

Facebook - PenguinsLeftGreenPolish