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!

March Tri Polish Tuesday The Second

Here we are again with another Tri-Polish mani. This month's colours are Blue, Green and Purple and for this mani I have used Barry M-Greenberry, Rimmel-Marshmallow Heaven and Aqua Cool which are a really fun trio, I reckon. I also added a coat of my Iconic Effect-Extreme Holo Topcoat to my base colours before I added the nail art on top and they all look pretty awesome as holos XD
I decided to do dot-flowers and my boyfriend asked if he could do my off-hand because he likes playing around with dotting tools-who am I to pass up an opportunity like that? Haha!

These really didn't wear very well, I only had them on for about a day before they started chipping, which is why they look a little worse for wear in the photos I'm afraid. Still pretty though! First photo is my hand and the second is the one my boyfriend did-although I did the base coats. Not bad for a newbie, are they?

I love these, they're happy nails-bright and sparkly and fun, it's just a shame about the chips already-boo!

Don't forget to check out the other tri polish manis in the inlinkz!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 12-Freestyle Christmas

Well we've finally reached almost the end of December and the end of this little challenge! I'm quite sad to see it go, I've had a fantastic time doing these and shared the experience with some really lovely ladies. Originally my plan was to choose some of their manis to do on my nails today but there have been so many lovely ones that I couldn't just choose 10, and I also would not be able to do them credit at all. So instead I want to dedicate this mani to lovely ladies who have taken part alongside me-there's been over 150 fabulous designs created for the various prompts and I, for one, have really enjoyed myself. I want to say thankyou to everyone who took part with me, whether it was just once or every mani-I never thought when I had this idea in November it would have become something this great! You've all been really awesome company, and I've loved seeing so many different designs. I can't wait to see what you've all come up with for today!

My 'freestyle' mani is made up of various things I've done along the way, and I used about 30 polishes in total for it! I won't list them, most of them have been used in the other Xmas posts anyway, but if there's one you want to know for definite just ask =) Also I used this tutorial from The Little Canvas to do the reindeer.

Here we are then, my final Christmas mani of 2013:

And just because it's Christmas, and I haven't yet, here's some pics using decorations too:

I can't believe it's over! Look out for my round up coming soon, but other than that I would just like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas (if you celebrate it), and I will be back after the festivities have quietened down a little!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 8-Holly

Hey lovelies, I'm back with day 8 of my Xmas challenge-can't quite believe how quickly these have sped by. There's only 4 left! I'm also reunited with my beloved fast dry topcoat, so there are a lot less dings in these nails than the last-phew!
So today's prompt is 'Holly' and I decided that I'd just do accent nails because I really wanted to use some of my festive glitters! The base for these is Revlon-Silver Screen and the glitter is Iconic Effect-Red, Green + Gold which is fabulously festive and basically does what it says on the tin. I sort of dabbled on two coats-could have used one as it looked quite pretty but this is Christmas time so I wanted ALL THE GLITTER =D
 The holly leaves are Rimmel-Camouflage and Revlon-Emerald and the berries are Rimmel-Red Obsession topped with Barry M-Red Glitter.

It's weird, in real life the stripes down the middle of the leaves look much darker than the leaves themselves but there you go-must be the different finishes playing with my camera. Look at that glitter-isn't it fab?

Rara
Polishes used: Avon-Noir Emerald, Nails Inc-Uptown Glamour, Tara's Talons-Bauble, Barry M-Diamond Glitter, holly berries are Barry M-Red Glitter and leaves are Avon-Garden Green or green nail art pen. I was a little under inspired for these nails-I'm not the greatest at drawing holly leaves and lacked the imagination to make them exciting. However I am pleased with the final results!

~Rara~

I really like them! She's talking nonsense about not being able to draw the leaves I reckon. Also I loooove that glitter on her index finger-we have a joint Tara's Talon's advent calendar and she got that in it-bit jealous!

So there's our holly berries. As ever, don't forget to check out the other awesome ladies in their holly-day manicures (haha!) in the inlinkz.

Here's a reminder of the remaining prompts too, only four more to go!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 6-Decorations

-PIC HEAVY POST-

Do you ever have those moments where you do some really awesome nail art that you're really proud of one one hand and just know you're not going to be able to recreate it well on the other? Yeah, this was one of those! I took inspiration for these from Chalkboard Nails' Functional Christmas Lights and for this decided to stray away from the Christmas colours I've been sticking to at the mo! I did a base of Revlon-Minted and then topped it with my Iconic Effect-Extreme Holo Topcoat...because I couldn't resist using it again haha! I did the "string" with my black Barry M nail art pen and drew "bulbs" with the white to provide a good base for my slightly jelly like glow in the dark polishes. I used BK Polishes in 05, 06 and 10 to colour them in. On my thumb I did a sort of Christmas tree with the lights which I really like. Then it came to my right hand. My Barry M pens started playing up and the bulbs all came out different sizes and shapes. I did attempt the tree to match but it just wasn't playing so I gave up in the end, haha! Ah well, can't have it all ey?
I feel I should warn you that my camera was a little dazzled by the holoyness of these, poor thing, so these are a little blurry around the edges.

While one hand is definitely better than the other, I do really like these! And look, they really glow:

GITD nail varnish makes me so happy, which is good because I had crappy news today so I needed a pick me up!
Anyway, let's see Rara's decorations too!

Rara
I had absolutely no idea how to do decorations...so I kind of cheated. I decided to use a new polish from a TarasTalons goodie bag called Paper Chains. I layered it over the top of Avon-Forget-Me-Not Blue. Paper Chain is a beautiful many coloured glitter and makes me happy! To try to match it I painted my other nails with Layla-Mermaid Spell (Holographic effect) and attempted paper chains with my nail pens from Paperchase. Not sure you could tell what they are unless I had already told you though!

Bring on Christmas Animals!!!!

~Rara~

I actually really like those paperchains, they're so colourful, and that glitter is loooovely! There you go, lots of holoy goodness and pretty decorations. Here's a reminder of the rest of the prompts, can't believe we're half way through already!

Don't forget to check out the inlinkz for some more fabulous 'decorations' manis!

~Nail Art Novice~

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 5-Bells

Hello lovelies!
I'm back with another Xmas mani today-I can't believe how quickly these are going past. Today's is Bells and I've freehanded some slightly wibbly ones! I started with a base of Rimmel-Purple Addict and on all but my accent fingers topped it with a coat of Iconic Effect-Extreme Holo Topcoat which is basically my new favourite thing ever. A way to make any polish not only holoy but extremely so? I had to have it! I get the feeling I'm going to be using it a lot, haha. For my bells I used Maybelline-Winner Takes It All and added a little detail with Rimmel-Red Carpet/Camouflage.

Please ignore my stubby nubbin of a middle finger =(

I love the bells but I'm more impressed with that holo topcoat-look at those gorgeous rainbows! You can get it on the Iconic Effect Etsy site and it comes in three intensities depending on how much holo you want! Because I am a true "holo ho" (to quote a lovely lady in one of my nail groups on FB) I had to have the extreme one, but I'm sorely tempted to pick up the others with some of my Xmas money too!

OK, so there's my bells, now let's have a look at Rara's:

Rara
Today I used Avon-Garden Green which is quite a nice shimmery green. The bells were done using Nails Inc-Uptown Glamour which I got out of a magazine for £1.40! And the bow detailing I used Barry M-Bright Red. The lettering was done by my trusty Andrea Fulerton...think I might love that woman! I wasn't too sure how to draw bells so they could quite possibly have looked nothing like they needed to. But in the end I think you can tell what they are! Jingle all the way to the next challenge...decorations, where I'm completely stumped......

~Rara~

I love Rara's little bells, I think they're fabulous! I think it's interesting how we both have our own favourite nail art pens-she loves the Andrea Fulerton ones but I'm much more of a Barry M fan! Each to their own ey?

Don't forget to check out the rest of the manis in the inlinkz!

~Nail Art Novice~