Rara Does Alice In Wonderland Nails

Welcome back Jenni!!!!!
I have missed your face (and your nails!) Hoping to see some more beautiful creations soon!

So my news this week is that I have left the (horrible) job I have been stuck in for two years and started a new one at Boots! I am really looking forward to the new challenges and meet new people. Also can't wait for the discount on nail varnish haha!
So after my first week, I feel saturated with new information and decided to take a break this weekend and do some nail art. I decided to do Alice In Wonderland nails because my week feels slightly mad and disorientating!! Please ignore my slightly fat Alice, she has had too much tea and cake!

A lot of polishes used again so if you want to know any in particular please comment below and I will be happy to tell you.

Looking forward to my new adventures,
Rara in Wonderland

31WNAC 5-Blue

Hello lovelies! Hope you're all having an awesome Friday bank hol and have been enjoying the sun-I am a little pink around the cheeks from it, oops!
It's Blue week in the 31 Week Nail Art Challenge and this colour/glitter combo is something I've been wanting to do for a while. I've used Rimmel-Out Of The Blue and paired it with the very lovely Pocket Money Polishes-Alien Like You which is one of the very last ones I got before Charlie closed her doors in January (sob!). To go with the Alien theme I've done some accents in Maybelline-Ceramic Blue, Collection-Look At Me!, Revlon-Silver Screen and Rimmel-Double Decker Red.

The flash on my camera seems to sort of 'flatten' the glitter a little, so I took one in more natural light (complete with my kitchen worktop in the background!) to show it off to its full, lovely, potential:

These nails are so much fun, I've had a couple of comments on them and I just LOVE flashing that glitter around in the sun too =D

Here's a reminder of the 31WNAC prompts, come back next week for 'Purple'.

Enjoy the rest of your Easter Weekend!

~Nail Art Novice~

I'm Moving, Moving, Moving, Moving House!

You may remember way back at the start of January I had a lovely guest post done for me because I was supposed to be moving house that week but it had all fallen through. Well now I really am moving! I've got a lovely little flat in Sheffield with my boyfriend and I get the keys tomorrow! Both scared and excited in equal measure. Because of this, I won't be blogging for at least the next week, but never fear! I have a week of guest posts lined up for you, from lots of lovely ladies so be sure to keep reading to see all of their awesome posts.


Today I've also got some fab Disney nails from Rara that she did last time she came to visit me at my house. She used far too many polishes for me to remember what they were but if you want to know something specific just ask and I will try to find out. The base was Barry M-Matt White.

She did these simply because she'd never done Disney nails and just wanted to! On her right hand she's got Flounder (The Little Mermaid), Mufasa (or Simba, can't remember) (The Lion King), Mickey Mouse, Tigger (Winnie the Pooh) and Chip (Beauty and the Beast) and on her left there's Dumbo, a green alien (Toy Story), Dopey (Snow White), Jasmine (Aladdin) and The Cheshire Cat (Alice in Wonderland)...although she does admit he looks more like a monster from Monsters Inc! I think she just googled pictures of the random characters she wanted to do and then recreated them on her nails, cos she's clever like that!

Don'tcha think these are really fun? Gotta love Disney! I think my favourite would have to be Tigger, he's fab!

That's all from me for the next week or so, but keep an eye out for all my lovely guest posters!

~Nail Art Novice~

In case you were wondering, the title is from this song =D

It's Behind You!

On Saturday my family and Rara's family went to see the last night of our local pantomime-something that's become a bit of a tradition in recent years. I know they're not for every one but I love a panto-they're just wonderfully silly and I think they have something in for everyone! This year's was 'Jack and the Beanstalk' so I did some appropriate nails.

Polishes used: Gradients- Rimmel-Mermaid Green, Camouflage and Jaded Glamour with a topping of China Glaze-White Cap for added shimmer. The beanstalks were done with the same polishes on a base of Revlon Chroma Chameleon-Gold. I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with these duochromey polishes-they look like they have so many colours in the bottles but I've not found they translate onto the nail at all! Boo!

Anyways, pics!

I loved these-they were SO GREEN =D Made me very happy, although they didn't last very well, and the panto was huge amounts of fun, oh yes it was!

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't already!

My Fifteen Favourites From 2013

2013 was the year I started my blog and I like to think I have improved my nail art over the 12 months it's now been running. I've tried lots of new techniques and had a lot of fun, with only a few minor disasters along the way.

Here's a round up of my favourite of my manis from this past year:

1-Feb '13-Star Spangled

2-Mar '13-My First Fishtail

3-Apr '13-ABC Challenge Owls

4-Jun '13-ABC Challenge Doctor Who Nail Art

5-Jun '13-Doc Martens Nail Art

6-Jul '13-OMD! Flowers

7-Jul '13-Monsters Uni Nail Art

8-Jul '13-OMD! Red Dwarf Nails

9-Aug '13-Mish Mash Minions

10-Aug '13-Mish Mash Music

11-Oct '13-Mish Mash Rainbows

12-Nov '13-Mish Mash/TPC Grey

14-Dec '13-Festive Colours

15-Dec '13-Christmas Freestyle

I think I've had a pretty decent year one way or another! You can see the improvement across the months I think, and I hope to keep improving in the months to come! If I had to pick one favourite mani from them all, it would either have to be my Doc Martens nails or my fab rainbows-I love them both!

Hope you're looking forward to 2014 as much as I am!

~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~

Double Challenge Thursday!

Yes, today I've doubled up on my challenges-this mani represents Mish Mash Week 17-Grey AND November Tri-Polish mani number 2-see this post for more explanation about that! This was the mani that inspired me to do the Tri-Polish challenge-I'd already planned to do this in my head even before I saw the colour prompts. For this mani I've used my purple (Barry M-Prickly Pear) and my grey (L'Oreal Color Riche-Metropolitan)...and some other colours too. I know this means I'm completely breaking the rules of the Tri-Polish challenge but hopefully no-one will mind too much. Everyone has to break the rules now and again, right? Haha! Other polishes used were Revlon-Electric, Barry M-Mango and Rimmel-Rose Libertine plus the Barry M nail art pens.

I'd wanted to do this mani since I first got this grey polish since it's the perfect colour but couldn't figure out quite how. Thankfully Rara did a similar mani in summer which gave me all the inspiration I needed!

I also did a very silly photo when I was cooking dinner last night, but I couldn't resist-teehee

Haha, I love my little micies! Hopefully you guys do too =)

~Nail Art Novice~

Halloween Nail Art

Better late than never, ey!

I had intended to get these up yesterday but I ended up getting stranded in Sheffield at my boyfriend's house sans laptop so I've got them a day late. I used waaay to many polishes to list them all but my accents were Barry M-Satsuma with the Black Croc Effect on top and Rimmel-Trend Spotting topped off with the fab Pocket Money Polishes-I Put A Spell On You, which I just had to use because it's perfect for Halloween. I also couldn't have done these nails without my trusty Barry M nail art pen-they're seriously brilliant! For some of them I took ideas from this tutorial by cutepolish, and the rest I just made up as I went along.

And yes, that is a terrible pun name on my gravestone, I was quite proud of that, haha!

Hope you all had a fun Halloween and got more treats than tricks!

~Nail Art Novice~

Paisley Patterns

Hello lovelies! Rara here again!

I wanted to try something fairly difficult on my nails this week so I decided upon some paisley prints. I only used two polishes-which for me is absolutely nothing-I normally have at least 4 on the go at once!  I used Sinful Colors-Easy Going (which is a really nice pale pink) and then my Andrea Fulerton Dot and Flick-in case no-one has noticed this is my favourite nail art accessory, it is SO easy to use when drawing on nails and the formula is really nice. They've just stopped selling it in Superdrug =( so I've had to go to Amazon to stock up with another four!
All I did for this mani was to freehand the design on. I was quite impressed with the overall effect.

As you can tell my left hand is much better than my right (bottom picture) but I'm blaming my broken wrist as I still don't have the same amount of 'squeeze' in my hand as I did before I fractured it and it often shake more now when doing dainty/detailed things.
I hope you all like it-lots of people have asked me if they're transfers so I suppose that's good as they obviously look quite neat!

Next weekend I will be doing a nail varnish party for 7 girls and I am really excited about it-hopefully I will do a blog about that too =)

Until then, 

~Rara~

Mish Mash Challenge Week 6-Hot

Sneaking this one in just before the deadline-phew! I've been staying with my boyfriend (without an internet connection!) for the past week or so, so I haven't been polishing/posting much-apologies! I spent the week being introduced to an excellent TV show which actually inspired me for this challenge!

That TV show was Avatar-The Last Airbender which I can whole heartedly recommend if you ever get the chance to watch it. There are four nations within the series and I chose to represent two on my nails-the Fire Nation and the Water Tribe. I've got the insignia of each on my ring fingers and the element symbol on my thumbs-links are here to see what they look like if you're interested: Fire Nation insignia, Fire symbol, Water Tribe insignia, Water symbol.

Polishes used were the rather appropriately named Revlon-Fire and OPI-I Have A Herring Problem. I topped all but the accents with a coat of MaxFactor-Fantasy Fire and I really love the way that it looks completely different colours over each base. The details were done with the Barry M nail art pens. Now these aren't the best nail art I've ever done, as I was doing them at about 11pm at night so don't hold that against me, K?

So there you go! I will try and post more often again now but I already know next week's mish mash will be late too-oops!

Don't forget to check the inlinkz for other awesome 'Hot' manis from my lovely co-participants!

~Nail Art Novice~

Rawr!

Hello lovelies! Rara here again, because Novice is off visiting another friend in Devon at the moment-nice for some ey?

Today I wanted to do something fun and settled on the idea of monsters! I wanted each one to have different expressions and personalities. Polishes used were: Revlon-Fire, Barry M-Blue Grape, Spring Green, Mango, Rimmel-Sunshine as well as the black and white Barry M nail art pens. 

I love the orange one with her eyelashes, the red one reminds me of a spider and the green one of a dragon. I'm well impressed with these! So happy!!!!

Novice will be back in time for the Mish Mash challenge next week,

Until next time!

~Rara~

Quack Quack!

Hello Lovelies! Rara here again. I've got some fun rubber duck nails for you all today.

Polishes used were Avon-Grey Flash (a beautiful grey colour with shinies in, and it only needs one coat!), Avon-Inspire, Barry M-Atlantic Road (one of their textured polishes), Barry M-Mango (from their Gelly line) and Barry M-Sequinned White plus my Andrea Fulerton Dot and Flick in black.

I fancied something cute today so I decided on rubber ducks-a firm favourite theme between myself and Novice.

I used a dotting tool to create the ducks and then a small brush for their tiny wings. And who can say no to a few sparkles? So I added the bubbles above the ducks with a sequin in each one. 
I love these already and they've only been on my nails for about 10 minutes-I can tell I'll be staring at them all day at work tomorrow!

Until next time, 

~Rara~


Don't forget to enter Novice's Giveaway here! 

Sethir's Shinies Review

~Pic Heavy Post~

A good friend of mine has started making and selling some gorgeous nail art on false nails on Etsy and I promised him that I would share them on my blog. He (yes, he's that elusive thing-a man who enjoys nail art!) started off doing nail art on his girlfriend's nails and has since produced some really gorgeous stuff.

Photograph courtesy of Sethir's Shinies

Photograph courtesy of Sethir's Shinies

Photograph courtesy of Sethir's Shinies

His nail art is really fab and he is more than prepared to make custom orders for people if you don't see what you fancy in his shop. There are more examples of the stuff he's done over at http://pixieledmakeup.wordpress.com/category/nails/

The nails I received were these peacock ones, only I asked if they could be done on a lighter base so you could see the colours better. A few days later they arrived and they're really gorgeous! They were beautifully packaged and wrapped up well too, so they arrived intact, and got here only a couple of days after they were posted-Fab!

My camera refuses to pick up the gold shimmer in each feather 'eye' but
it's definitely visible in real life!

You get 12 nails in each set and they're all slightly different sizes so that you can match them to your own nail beds. Because of this each set comes with two thumb nail accents to ensure that you can find one to fit you. I haven't actually worn mine yet because I'm saving them for a special occasion, but I've sized them to my nails and found that there's easily one to fit each of them. A friend of mine with (to quote her) "very busy hands" ordered some of these and hers lasted 4 days, so I imagine you could get them to last a week if you weren't doing too much hard work (perfect for holidays!) They come with a tube of nail glue which you will need some sort of solvent (like acetone) to remove, which might damage the nails. Alternatively if you wanted to wear them on more than one occasion without damaging them (though not for as long) then you could use sticky pads to attach them. Either way you'll be getting some really great nail art to treasure.

~Nail Art Novice~

Monsters University Nail Art

The other day my boyfriend and I went to see the (AWESOME) new Monsters University film and I had promised him these nails for it. He also asked for his very own Mike and Sully nails too, and of course, I obliged!
Polishes used: Barry M-Key Lime (Mike), Guava (Sully) and Cobalt Blue (University colours). Also starring Matt White  for the eyes, and a smidgeon of black mixed with Guava to make Sully's nose. Sully's purple blotches are Maybelline-Mellow Mauve and his eye colour is Avon-On Point Blue. Details were, of course, done with the Barry M nail art pens.

 And now for the first time on my blog, but probably not the last, I introduce my boyfriend's thumbs-he even painted the base colours himself!

He was so happy with these, it was kind of adorable. Actually, so was I, they've been making me really happy over the last couple of days. Sadly though, time to bid them farewell as they're all chipped now but they've been awesome while they lasted, and the film was FAB.

~Nail Art Novice~