Sparkly Zig Zags

As I said in my last post, I am starting a new job tomorrow (aah!) and I don't yet know what the rules will be regarding nails so for the first couple of weeks I'm going to go with toned down nails which will be weird! Because of this I decided that I would do one last ridiculously colourful/sparkly mani before I go for something much more work appropriate later this evening.

I started with a base of Dark Metal Lacquer-Flashy Sparklies which is an amazing gold holo glitter polish that just looks fabulous. I used some zigzag vinyls from VyNails and then added bright colours on top using Barry M-Satsuma, Blue Grape, Kiwi, Passionfruit, Key Lime, Sinful Colors-Amethyst, Dream On and Sally Hansen-Brisk Blue, Sonic Bloom, Man-go Team! 

Bright and cheerful! I figured I'm probably not going to be able to wear most of these colours at work so I'd give them a final showing before they go into semi retirement for the time being. Also that base polish is just gorgeous, I love the way that it sparkles!

Wish me luck for tomorrow lovelies!

~Nail Art Novice~

A-Z Challenge-Copy Cat

Hello lovelies!

I apologise for my absence this past week, life got  a bit hectic and I just didn't find the time to post! I also have big news, but I'll tell you more later on that subject.

This week's A2Z challenge prompt is 'Copy Cat' and I chose to copy the pattern from my graduation dress because it's a bit different and interesting:

I used the blobbicure method, and I have to give some credit to Starfish Nails for reminding me of this techniques existence with her bold mani last week. I started with a base of W7-Black which is currently the consistency of glue and is a pain to work with. I need a new black! Whilst my second coat was still wet, I blobbed on Barry M-Spring Green and Maybelline-Bare It All and then added black dots in the centres of some of the blobs with the W7.

These were really fun to do-watching the polish spread out over the nails was fun. I think I matched my dress pretty well too, which is what I wanted! As ever make sure you check out the hub page/inlinkz for all the other awesome designs.

OK so my big news is that I got my very first full time job, starting on Monday!!! I'm excited and terrified all at once, and I don't quite know what this means for my nails. Hopefully, as I won't be interacting with any customers face to face it won't be too restrictive, but for the next few weeks I might keep it low key just in case. *Sadly puts holo polishes away*. I will certainly try to keep up with the challenge, especially as the next two prompts are easy to make work appropriate, but I shall have to see how it goes. Wish me luck though!

~Nail Art Novice~

A-Z Challenge-Bold

Hello lovelies!

Back with the A2Z challenge again this week and the prompt is bold. I love how these non-specific prompts are really open to interpretation so that everyone comes up with something different. Two things sprang to my mind for the word 'Bold'-black and white manis and really bright colours. As I did some pretty bright colours for last week's prompt I decided to go down the black and white route, but add a hint of bright colour to make it fun.

I started with a base of Barry M-Matt White and then triple-stamped on top of it using MoYou London-Back to the 80s 03 changing up the angle that I put the stamp on and generally playing around with them. For my stamping colours I used Sally Hansen-Brisk Blue and Lightening and Barry M-Satsuma.
This is how they looked at this stage (pre clean up) and I think it's a kinda cool effect!

I'm definitely going to have to do this again someday cos I like how it looks a bit mad and random.

Over the top of that I did some vertical stripes with striping tape and W7-Black.

What do you reckon? I think they're pretty bold and I love the flashes of colour underneath the stripes, plus they were really fun to do-not having to think about where you're placing your stamps is liberating!

That's all from me as I have to head out five minutes ago, but make sure you check out all the other Bold manis in the inlinkz and on the A2Z hubpage here.

~Nail Art Novice~

Glitter Me Monday-Firey Chevrons

Hello loves, happy Monday!

It's nearly bonfire night in the UK (one of my favourite nights of the year!) and I decided it was the perfect time for me to use these polishes together-the names and colours are really appropriate!

On the left is Tara's Talons-Bonfire and on the right is Dollish Polish-I Volunteer As Tribute (although personally I think this one should be called Girl On Fire, because it's just exactly how I imagine Katniss' dress in the second book. I realise if you've never read The Hunger Games that will mean nothing to you...). Both of these are full of firey glitters and I thought they really needed to be paired up.

I've done a chevron mani over a base of Barry M-Coconut (I really need to get a back up bottle of that bad boy!) using some guides I got from ebay ages ago.

What do you think? I think they're perfect for bonfire night and I'm looking forward to seeing all the fireworks on Wednesday!

~Nail Art Novice~

You can get Dollish Pollish here and Tara's Talons polishes here and you can currently get 30% off Tara's with the code 'Halloween' at the checkout!

Happy Halloweeeeeen!

Hello lovelies and a Happy Halloween to you all!

This is my Polish Party mani for this month because the theme couldn't be anything other than Halloween, could it! I couldn't pick a single theme for this one so just did a skittle-it was lots of fun.

Base colours: W7-Black, Moyra-#63, China Glaze-But Of Corpse and Stop That Train! (both from my Coloristiq box) and Barry M-Matt White.
Glow In The Dark toppers/colours: Violet Rose Polishes-Es Paradis and Amnesia, Dark Metal Lacquer-Beings Of Light and BK Polishes-#5, #6 and #10.

I used vinyls from She Sells Seashells for the pumpkins/bats and freehanded the rest!

I kinda love my little ghostie's reflection ^_^

So there we go! Hope you all had a good Halloween and didn't get too many tricks ;)

Check out the other spooky manis in the Inlinkz!

~Nail Art Novice~

A-Z Challenge-Angles

Hello lovelies!

I've started a new challenge this week-joining lots of other awesome bloggers and instagrammers in an A-Z challenge with a difference. Unlike the one I did before (so long ago now!) this one has prompts for each letter instead of just being any nail art beginning with it. This weeks is Angles and I have done a look inspired by this tutorial on the Nailside blog.

I used Sally Hansen-Lightening (I hope they mean making lighter in colour and not the stuff that comes with thunder) which I picked up in the pound shop the other day because I can't resist a yellow cream. I made my squares with striping tape and Barry M-Damson and Kiwi. Finally I added sheer pinky purple triangles with BK-#10 which is a jelly GITD polish.

I love how bright these are! They're not exactly subtle but quite fun I think.

Make sure you check out the inlinkz for all the other 'Angles' manis or vist the challenge's hub page for all of them across all of the weeks. I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone comes up with for the prompts, and I like the social aspect of doing a challenge with other people again-it keeps me on track much better!

~Nail Art Novice~

Brighten Up A Lonely Day

Hello lovelies!

Today's mani was born out of me just pulling out random colours from my untried pile that I thought looked quite good together. I started with a base of the very gorgeous Dark Metal Lacquer-Lonely Day which is a grey polish with a subtle linear holo running through it that I think looks really pretty. To add a little colour I pulled out two bright matte polishes-Barry M-Cancun and Sinful Colors-Dream On. I did a skittle mani with various different vinyls and tapes to make different shapes on the nail.

I actually really like the contrast between the matte and the holo and I think the colours are fab too! HOw about you?

Happy weekend!

~Nail Art Novice ~

Mani Swap With The Imperfect 10

Hello loves! A couple of weeks ago Rachel from The Imperfect 10 blog tweeted me to ask if I wanted to a mani swap and of course I said yes! I really like doing things like this, it's always really interesting to see how people recreate something of yours and it's fun to do yourself as well.

After looking through her blog, I finally (after a lot of deliberation) chose this Black Magic mani from last year to be the one I would recreate:

I thought it looked really glamorous and smart and really liked the look of it. In my recreation I used gold instead of silver which still looks fab against the black. I used Maybelline-Winner Takes It All and Barry M-Black Multiglitter for some sparkle.

I also just noticed that I swapped the accent colours over, I hadn't realised I'd done that until now, haha! Still, I think it looks cool. Black and gold is a classic combo and I really like the line/dot combo-I hadn't thought to combine them before but it looks good I think.

Here they are side by side

and here's all four manis together!

Make sure you go and check out her post here and leave Rachel some love too-her blog is fab!

This was fun! I'd love to do more of these so if you're interested in doing a mani swap then send me a message or a tweet, or leave me a comment and I'll get back to you =)

~Nail Art Novice~

31ish Week Nail Art Challenge 18-Half Moons

Hello lovelies!
Being a bad blogger again recently and also had interference from work shifts so haven't got anything on my blog for a while even though I've had these done since Friday...forgive me?!

These aren't your typical half moons but there are half moons on my thumbs so they totally count, right? I've wanted to redo my owl nails for a while just because they're cute and this was the perfect opportunity!

I used lots of polishes for this one! I started with a couple of coats of Sinful Colors-Social Ladder to give my natural nails a bit of a shimmer. I used Smitten Polishes-Bifrost on my thumb and did the moon in Dark Metal Lacquer-Lonely Day which is a grey holo which I really need to use on its own because it's really pretty! For my owls I used Barry M-Chilli and Damson, Sinful Colors-Exotic Green and Collection-Twilight. I did the eyes with Collection-Look At Me!, the beaks with Barry M-Mango, and the tummy patches with Barry M-Lychee.

They didn't end up being the neatest things ever but I like em-they're fun and bright!

I don't really have much else to say for once!
Hope you all had a good weekend =)

~Nail Art Novice~

Happy Birthday Polish Party!

At the end of September the Polish Party group turned 1 and so the theme for the month's nail art challenge was party/celebrations related. I actually did these at the right time but have been a very lazy blogger and haven't actually got them up until today!
I chose to go with the true British party decorations-bunting! I used Barry M-Elderberry as my base and then drew the bunting using my black Barry M nail art pen. The pennants were done using Cirque-Baptista my POTW for that week), Avon-Midnight Green and Rimmel-Red Carpet.

Not the neatest nail art I've ever done but you get the idea I'm sure! They were sparkly and fun anyway.

Make sure you check out all the other birthday nails in the inlinkz too, there's some fab ones!

~Nail Art Novice~

31(ish!) Week Nail Art Challenge 17-Glitter

Hello lovelies!

I'm back with another 31WNAC prompt today, although I hardly feel it's right for me to call it that any more, it's taken me SO much longer than 31 weeks, haha!

Today is glitter which surprisingly I'm not sick of yet, even with all my Glitter Me Monday posts! I've got another fun microglitter from Mentality today. This one is Antisocial-teeny tiny black and white glitters in a clear base. I used a layer of my trusty Barry M-Coconut for undies and then added about three coats of the glitter on top.

After a layer of Seche Vite I added some striping tape in horizontal lines and then added a rainbow of colours on top: Revlon-Fire, Sally Hansen-Man-go Team!, Sinful Colors-Pistache, Barry M-Damson and Sinful Colors-Amethyst.

I still really enjoy doing simple nail art over these busy bases-and it occurs to me looking at those photos that this glitter would look really quite cool underneath some jelly polishes, might just log that one away in my mind for future reference!


I'm going home for the weekend tomorrow to go to the fair (Yay!), and I hope you have as much fun with whatever you're doing as I'm going to!

~Nail Art Novice~

Glitter Me Monday: Autumn Glitters

Hello lovelies!

I've been a very lazy blogger and not posted anything all week, oops! I did do my nails but just couldn't find the motivation to sort the pictures out and get them uploaded =(

BUT I am back and will hopefully be getting them all sorted and up here over the next week to make up for it so YAY.

For today's GMM I used lots of autumnal polishes/glitters-I LOVE autumn and so this mani made me very happy! I did some gradients using the Barry M autumnal gellies in Mustard, Paprika, Chilli and Cocoa. On my accents I used a coat of China Glaze-White Cap and then added some autumnal leaf nail vinyls which were from Make It Stick Designs. On my other fingers I used a variety of Autum glitters-Tara's Talons-Chocolate Orange, Nelly Polishes-Prototype and Absolut Lacquer-Falling Leaves.

What do you reckon? I kinda love these if I'm honest, they remind me of scrunching through leaves and large mugs of warming drinks. I love these sorts of colours together and they went together really well in the gradients.

What's your favourite season?

~Nail Art Novice~

Glitter Me Monday: Freckles Polish-Easter Bonnet Competition

Hello loves, happy Monday!

Now it's finally Autumn (my favourite season!) I think it's about time for me to get around to wearing some of my spring polishes-I'm so contrary haha. The polish I've chosen today is one of the original Freckles Polishes from the spring collection and I loved it as soon as I saw it! It's so bright and colourful and I hadn't seen one similar before so I snapped it up.

Shown here is two coats over a yellow base (which was over a white base because it's not the greatest of pale yellows, haha!)

When I was doing these nails I had a whole day to myself because my boyfriend was out at work and I had just come from two days of naked nails whilst I was working, so I was in the mood to do something a little OTT. Simply because I haven't done one in a while, I decided on a double tape mani, because they look so awesome when they're done. I used Barry M-Teal and Rimmel-Purple Addict because they matched the glitters and would contrast nicely with the bright yellow. About a hundred pieces of striping tape later, here's what I ended up with:

It took a while but it was really relaxing to do so I didn't mind too much-anyone else find painting their nails really calming? I worked out this ended up being 8 layers of polish in the end (including base coat/top coat) but I reckon it's worth it!

What do you think?

~Nail Art Novice~

31 Week Nail Art Challenge 16-Tribal Print

Hello lovelies!

I'm kind of really proud of these nails, I have only ever done tribal nails once before and they didn't come out too well so I really like the way these ended up. I didn't really have a design in mind, just had a look at some designs on google and also asked some of the ladies in the Inspire Me Nails facebook group for a little inspiration (thank you!)

I used all Barry M polishes-Lychee, Mustard and Paprika as well as the black nail art pen, and then I added a layer of Rimmel's matte top coat to finish them off. Big thanks to my boyfriend as well, who did all the outlining on my right hand because straight lines are hard!

I really like these! The earthy colours are really autumnal, and as it's my favourite season I really like them! Also I love the matte look, normally I am a shiny girl but I think these were crying out to be matted. I also think they would look cool with bright colours instead, and I might have to try that soon!

What do you reckon?

Here's a list of the rest of the prompts for this challenge...reckon I'll get it done by Xmas?

~Nail Art Novice~

31 Week Nail Art Challenge 15-Delicate

Hey loves =)

Originally the only thing I could think of for this challenge was stamping as I have some fairly "delicate" looking flowery stamps on my MoYou London Pro plates but then I remebered the saran wrap (cling film!) technique and was really glad I did. Delicate to me implies girly, pale colours so that's what I used! My base was Barry M-Vanilla, which is one of their matte range from last autumn, and a pinky-nude sort of colour. On top of that I did a saran wrap mani using Barry M-Prickly Pear, Tara's Talons-Christmas Fairy and Revlon-Silver Screen. I then topped it all off with some China Glaze-Fairy Dust for a little added sparkle!

Now this is really really girly and subtle which means it's not like any of my normal manis at all but I really like it! There's something about the shiny shimmeryness of it that really catches the eye and I think all the layers of colour have added up to be a really nice colour. I reckon this would definitely be work appropriate but with that little bit of sparkle it's quite glam too!

What do you reckon? Do you like Saran wrap manis or loathe em?

~Nail Art Novice~

Glitter Me Monday: Maybelline Color Show Street Art

Hey lovelies! I've got some more awesome treats from America on my nails today, in the way of the Maybelline Color Show Street Art glitters. We did get these over here in the UK but the colours were really wishy washy and nowhere near as bright as these, and I just kind of fell in love with that red!

L-R: Blue Beats, Wild at Heart, Nighttime Noise

As before, these were presents from my lovely friend at A Mani Maniac-these were what I had originally asked her to get because they're just so cool! I'm wearing them over similar bases-Barry M-Guava, Cobalt Blue and Passion Fruit plus Coconut on my accents, where I have layered all three on top of each other which I think looks really fun!

What do you think? I love them, they're so awesome! I really like the different sizes and shapes of glitters with the splash of colour, and still really love that red, it's definitely my favourite. How about you?

~Nail Art Novice~

31 Week Nail Art Challenge 14-Flowers

Hello lovelies! Hope you are all enjoying your weeks so far!

This is another one of my 31 Week Nail Art Challenges (that are taking much longer than 31 weeks) and today it's flowers. I've been wanted to do this design for a while, inspired by a particularly wonderful pair of shoes of mine that I love:

They're so bright and colourful and I knew I'd have to stick them on my nails someday!

Polishes I used: Barry M-Coconut, Mango, Cobalt Blue, Spring Green, Revlon-Electric and Rimmel-Red Obsession (all of which I realised I took with me to Oz, coincidentally!)

They aren't the neatest flowers in the world because I did them in a bit of a rush but I still think they look  kinda cool! Especially side by side with their inspiration:

Hehe! So fun =D Whaddya reckon?

Short and sweet post for me today, that's all folks!

~Nail Art Novice~

Guest Post-The Secretary's Nail Art

This post comes with an apology to Dina-she sent me this to put up as a guest post while I was in Australia and I somehow managed to lose it amongst my emails and therefore never posted it-apologies! Putting that right now, so enjoy her lovely nails! ~NAN~

Hello gorgeous, I am Dina from Secretary's Nail Art, you can find my blog over at http://secretarysnailart.blogspot.co.uk/

 When Jenni  asked for Guest bloggers I just had to jump to her rescue. Both being based in UK, I felt the sisterhood feeling rise in me. Sisters gotta stay together. I have been following this blog for a long time now, and it is so cool to be starring on it. I hope Jenni is having great break, from running the blog, and focusing about chilling out and enjoying some time off. Since Jenni often promotes UK indies and such,  I wanted to keep this manicure at bit, shall we say, British. I used MoYou-London Mother Nature plates, Barry M, and W7 polishes.

First off I started out with Barry M - 302 - Fuchsia (when ever I look at that word I just can't believe it's suppose to be spelled like that). After two coats I was still seeing some VNL, but since I was going to stamp over it, I didn't bother about a third coat.

It's a very bright and glossy colour, and I didn't want anything that would compete too much with the base, so I opted for Barry M - Ltd.- 148 - Lilac Foil and W7 - 58 - Pink Chrome for the stamping. I used MoYou-London Mother Nature Collection - 05 for the tips with Barry M - Lilac Foil, and  MoYou-London Mother Nature Collection -  07 with W7 - Pink Chrome as an accent on my middle finger.

I am very pleased with this look, and is actually the first look I have created using these two plates. Sorry about the bonus cat hair, seems like he want's to be a part of my pictures whenever I do my nails. As soon as the camera gets out, he is there.

I hope you all liked the look I created for you today, and if you did, feel free to jump on over to my blog and have a look for more. Have a great day!

Dina from The Secretary's Nail Art