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

Guest Post-Manis and Makeovers

Dear readers, I'm so happy to be guest blogging here! Me and Nail Art Novice did a mani swap for the occasion, because she also guest blogged on my page! I decided to recreate her super cute tri polish challenge flower mani:

I used Essence "Absolutely Blue", Bourjois "Green Fizz" and Rimmel "Ultra Violet". My trusty dotting tool did the rest. I finished it off with some holo top coat :)

This was very fun, I love floral dotticures like this, so when I came upon it when choosing one of Nail Art Novice's manis to recreate, I immediately knew this was the one!

Here's a collage of both of our swapped manis! You can check Jenni's out on my blog ;)

Guest Post-Fixin to Faff

Hey y'all!

I'm so excited to be guest posting for Jenni, whose whimsical style I adore.  I'm Ali from Fixin To Faff, a Texas transplant to the UK.  Today I have a colorful summer look using two of my favorite colors this year: coral and purple.  I think these colors are so opposite one another that they actually play really well in the sandbox.

Guest Post-The Fancy Side

Hello All, 

My name is Amy and I blog over at The Fancy Side (www.fancysidenails.com). Jenni and I belong to the same FB group for polish bloggers and she recently asked for Guest Posters so of course I volunteered. It's a fun way to make new friends, so here I am. YAY!

For my guest post I wanted to do something that is very me, and if you visit my blog, you can tell stamping is my thing. I started off with a base of Zoya Binx* which is a lovely berry pink jelly based polish filled with iridescent glitters. This is from their recent Bubbly collection and let me tell you, I'm in love. 

 
Once Binx was dry I stamped over it using China Glaze Passion, my go to for gold stamping. I used the new Pueen Buffet plates, which really are a buffet of images to chose from. These images can be found on Pueen 59. 

I hope you enjoyed this look! Thanks for having me on your corner of the internet Jenni! Be sure to come visit me at The Fancy Side sometime, I'd love to have you. 

Enjoy & until next time, Amy Lee

Guest Post-Lovely in Lacquer

Hello Jenni's lovely readers!

My name is Abby and I'm from Lovely In Lacquer, and I'm so happy to be guest posting on Jenni's little piece of internet today.

I wanted to create something fun and summery for her readers so what's brighter than neons? I created a distressed manicure using China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy as a base, followed by dry brush strokes of China Glaze Shocking Pink, Zoya Trixie, and Wet N' Wild Black. Everything is finished off with a coat of top coat for maximum glossiness.

I hope you enjoyed my little guest spot and are excited for Jenni to come back.

Thanks so much for reading!

Guest Post-Belle Glamour

Hi there my lovelies! I am Catriona and I normally post over on my blog at BGPolish (www.bgpolish.com) and today I am doing a guest post here whilst Jenni is on holiday!

 I did this look out of a whim! And I didn't actually know what I was going to do with it until it was finished, but I thought I would keep it simple in order for everyone to be able to try it if they liked. I started off by doing my normal nail routine and using my Nail Envy. After this I used LA COLORS - Hottie (2 coats) to completely cover my nails in the bright coral nail polish. I then used my large dotting tool to do dots in Crabtree+Evelyn Tomato, Laval Ultra Yellow and Laval Silver Grey.

I like this look because it is so simple, and it was fast to achieve the look as well! I finished the look off with a good coat of Seche Vite.

Thank you for reading!

Guest Post-Vicky Loves Nails

Hello everyone! My name is Vicky, I run a blog called Vicky Loves Nails and I am very happy to be
guest posting for Jenni today whilst she is off travelling in Australia. I am incredibly jealous, I want to
come too!

But since I can’t crash Jenni’s travels, I decided to use it as some inspiration for nail art (the next best
thing right?!). I spent a while trying to decide what to do for these, in the end I decided to go for
something incredibly stereotypical, but it is always the first thing I think of when I think of Australia...
Kangaroos!

I started with a gradient using Nicole by OPI – Hit The Lights and Essie – Fear or Desire. I freehanded
my kangaroo silhouette using W7 – Black. I decided to add the plant type thing on my thumb as I
thought the design needed something a little extra, for this I used W7 – Black and Sinful Colors –
Snow Me White.

I was pretty pleased with how this came out. I was unsure if I was going to be able to paint a
realistic kangaroo, but I think I did a pretty good job (well I can tell what it is at least lol). I hope you
all like it.

Thanks so much Jenni for letting me guest post on your blog, I hope you have an amazing time in
Australia!

Guest Post-ProcrastiNails

Hello hello! Katherine here from ProcrastiNails! I'm super excited to be here today doing my very first guest post for the lovely Jenni @ Nail Art Novice. I have a fun, bright and simple look to share with you today. I think it's perfect for the season, and it made me feel happy all day just to know it was on my fingers. :)

This look used a bunch of the polishes I got in my April Julep Maven Box: Julep Maren, Julep Flora and Julep Bailey. From the minute I saw them I knew I wanted to pull them together into a cheery summer look. I went with the cloud technique because I think it's a fun and simple way to see how different colours look together. I also varied the heights of the clouds to add a bit of visual interest. 

I really like how much the blue pops off of the more subtle purple and pink in this look, and I like how the pink is so subtle it almost looks like a nude in the right light. All together they make a striking combination! Definitely pleased with how this turned out. :) Let me know what you think! Thanks for reading, and thank you Jenni for letting me share my post with you! xx

Guest Post-Pocket Money Polishes

Hello Nail Art Notice Readers!

Big thank you to Jenni for having me back and I hope she’s having a great time on her travels! My mani today was inspired by tropical summer sunshine (sorry for the slightly dry fingers, I had a bit of a frustrating painting session before this mani which involved a lot of removing and starting again).

 I used Leighton Denny-Pure White which as whites goes is not too bad for application although needs three coats for completely even coverage. While these coats were drying I applied Dollish Polish-Auld Lang Syne which was gifted to me by a lovely polishy friend who wasn’t keen on the gold colour… I LOVE IT! This is the perfect soft holo-y gold, reminds me of hot sand glistening. Really lovely formula, I used two coats for full opacity. I think this was a special edition polish for one of the Llarowe indie boxes but these things do pop up on nail sale from time to time. You could probably get a similar finish using Ciate Sand Dune and a holo topcoat. On my second accent nail (you lucky devils getting two!) I used two coats of OPI-Kiss Me I’m Brazilian from the spring/summer Brazil collection – I find this needs two normal coats and a good three stroke technique for the best even application but is a lovely pigmented bright pink.

 I went back to my white nails and added a coat of Iconic Effect-Subtle Holo Topcoat to add a bit of fizz and slightly soften the all white finish. It is a really lovely soft linear holo which is perfect for me although I am sure it would look equally amazing with a stronger holo although slightly more silvered when not in direct light.

 I added an abstract flower design to my pink nail – inspired by the tropical flower designs on girly surf wear. I am not 100% happy with how the flower came out, I wish I had used acrylic paint rather than nail polish as it is a lot easier to work with. I finished everything up with a coat of HK Girl Topcoat which for me has been a massive game changer in my love hate relationship with topcoats – I am feeling ALL the love with it right now. I bought mine from Rainbow Connection which stocks a few different sizes from a regular 15ml all the way up to salon size bottles (WANT!).

 Hope you’re all having a lovely day wherever you are and will come and check out what I am up to over on Pocket Money Polishes soon! What do you think of mix and match manis? What are your go to sunshine mani colours? I definitely love a good holo and a soft gold in the summer, just making a refreshing change from neon brights sometimes. Let me know your thoughts with a comment below!

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~

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!