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~

31 Week Nail Art Challenge 9-Rainbows

Hello lovelies!

I love a good rainbow, so I've been excited about this post for weeks =) They're just so bright and colourful and awesome. I started with a base of Barry M-Coconut (from their new summer Gellies line) so that my gradient would be more opaque. Then I created a rainbow gradient with Revon-Fire, Sally Hansen-Man-go Team!, Sinful Colors-Pistache, Barry M-Damson and Maybelline-Mellow Mauve (although you can only see it on my thumb!).

On top of the gradient I used some more of my Make It Stick Designs nail vinyls, and on all but my accents another coat of Coconut. It was a bit of a messy job getting the stickers off again but I have to say I really love the effect!

What dya reckon? I love them-they're so bright and fun! I think if I had to choose nail art to sum me up perfectly then something like this would definitely be my choice! I'm really sad I have to take them off tonight for something more neutral and work appropriate, booo!

~Nail Art Novice~

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!

New Year's Triple Whammy!

Hello lovelies! I'm going away for a couple of days to celebrate New Year's with lots of light entertainery types and I'm really looking forward to lots of giggles! Of course I did nails especially for the occasion, combining a couple of my favourite manis of the year. To add to that I also did my boyfriend's thumbs AND (for the first time ever!) my mum's nails too! So there will be lots of pictures and I'll try not to waffle too much!

Nail Art Novice
Polishes used: Barry M-Passion Fruit, Mango, Spring Green, Blue Grape, Black Multi Glitter, Revlon-Electric, Sinful Colors-Amethyst.

Bonus shot-my (messy) pre-tape rainbows!

Mr. Novice (teehee!)
These were meant to be fireworks but turned out a little flowery...still, he's happy!
Polishes used: Smitten Polish-Bifrost, Rimmel-Movie Star, Barry M-Mango, Revlon-Electric, Silver Screen.

Mummy Novice
Mum wanted something to match her NYE outfit and I decided to jazz them up a bit with some silver stamping too! (Please note, my Mum does have more than 3 nails, I just didn't get a decent photo!)
Polishes used: Rimmel-Movie Star, Calvin Klein-Silver, MoYou London-Pro 8

All that's left for me to say is have a very Happy New Year, whatever you're doing!
I'll see you all in 2014!!!

~Nail Art Novice~

Light Up The Dark

Hi lovelies! Quick post for you today-I've got another fabulous polish from Tara's Talons to show you. This gorgeous glitter-fest is Light Up The Dark from her recent Fireworks collection. It's a grey jelly base jam packed full of multicoloured glitters of different shapes and sizes and I fell for it as soon as I saw it on her site. I'm wearing it over a layer of L'Oreal-Valiant because I wanted it to be opaque, and I put three coats on because I wanted massive amounts of sparkles. I definitely could have only used one though...but where's the fun in that? Haha. You could probably build the colour up quite nicely on its own but I decided to shortcut it this time with undies. It's super pretty and rainbowy, but I actually reckon you could almost get away with this for work because the colour is fairly dark and the sparkles aren't too in your face. I love it, basically.

So so pretty =D

Happy weekend!

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget if you want to take part in a Christmas nail art link up, visit my Facebook group here =)

Mish Mash Challenge Week 13-Rainbows

I always knew I would love this week because I'm a massive rainbow fan-they're so bright and colourful and never fail to make me smile-whether in the sky or on my nails! This design was inspired by a couple of things-firstly by my boyfriend's idea in 'tape week', because his gradients looked really awesome, and secondly by an awesome glitter that I bought in a blog sale a couple of weeks ago. To combine them together I used the glitter over black and then did rainbow accents.

Polishes used: W7-Black, Barry M-Passion Fruit, Mango, Spring Green, Blue Grape, Revlon-Electric, Sinful Colors-Amethyst, Seventeen-Monochrome Graffiti Effects and Krafty Gurl-It's A Fiesta.
Here's what I ended up with:

Can you believe that this is only one coat of that Krafty Gurl glitter? SO MUCH PRETTY. I love love LOVE this mani, it's awesome and amazing and I don't want to take it off ever ever ever. It's making me happy =D

Don't forget to check out all the other rainbow coloured brilliance in the inlinkz below!

~Nail Art Novice~

OMD! Challenge Day 21-Stamping

Hello lovelies! I'm back with today's OMD! Challenge Mani and we're into the final third of the challenge already-how time flies! Today's prompt is 'stamping' which I have done over a rainbow gradient because I missed gradient day and I love doing them. Also rainbows are awesome so why not? I used LOADS of polishes for it too, here goes *takes big breath*: (This is going red-purple or little finger-thumb on my left hand) Rimmel-Red Obsession, Barry M-Satsuma, Mango, Rimmel-Sunshine, Revlon-Sunshine Sparkle, Barry M-Key Lime, OPI-Don't Mess With OPI, Sally Hansen-Himalayan Blue, Maybelline-Dark Denim, Barry M-Prickly Pear, Plum. I stamped with Revlon-Silver Screen and a random flower stamp from my starter kit from Ebay (the plates are un-named!).

I'm always amazed how little time it can take to do a full stamped mani-I might look into getting some more plates so I can do it more often now I think I've got the hang of it-mostly! I think my best one this time is my right thumb-I love the double stamp on it and they've both turned out pretty well! I'm really loving the bright colours and summery themes in this mani-perfect for the weather-ey?

~Nail Art Novice~

ABC Challenge: R is for Rainbows!

A few days after I received my first ever holo polish (and immediately fell in love) I got my second one in the post after purchasing it from the Nail Newbie's blog sale. (I ordered it in April before my polish ban, just so you know!) It was GOSH-Holographic Hero which is a limited edition silver holo polish. It shines with all the colours of the rainbow, so it was my immediate thought when it came to doing rainbows this week:

3 Coats-could have used two but smudged it!

But that was much too boring so I decided to add some nail art on top. On my fingers I've got a dotted rainbow ombre/gradient and then stripes on my thumbs because I loved them so much last time. I didn't want to cover up too much of the lovely holo, so I used striping tape between the colours. This way I've got rainbows on top of rainbows =)

Polishes used: Red-No 7-Siren, Orange-Barry M-Satsuma, Yellow-Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish-Sunshine (I finally caved a few weeks ago and bought a decent yellow polish because the London Girl one was an amazing colour with an AWFUL formula!), Light Green-Cairuo-Green Tea 22, Dark Green-Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish-Block Your Green, Light Blue-Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure-Himalayan Blue, Dark Blue-Maybelline Forever Strong Pro-Dark Denim, Purple-Maybelline Forever Strong Pro-Mellow Mauve. And Holographic Hero of course! The bottle says it's only good for 24 hours of wear, but I have topcoated the life out of it in the hope to prove them wrong-we'll see!

This is another mani I love, it's so colourful and cheerful and when the holo particles (if that's the right word!) catch the light it's amazingly sparkly too! I'm really hoping it at least lasts the weekend. Fingers crossed ey?

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget to check out the other ladies' 'R' entries:

LGBT History Month Inspired Mani

In the UK, the month of February is recognised as LGBT History Month-celebrating the achievements and lives of LGBT people throughout history and today, which I think is a pretty important thing. Possibly even more important is that this is part of a larger scheme of charities and support groups working to help LGBT people, charities like Schools Out, working to eradicate homophobia and transphobia in schools and aiming to make them more inclusive.
In this month of saccharine sweet candy hearts, fluffy teddy bears and enormous bunches of roses, it's also worth remembering that around the world people are still fighting for the basic human right to love whoever they want to without fear of any repercussions, to be the person they've always felt like inside with the support of their governments, to marry the person they want to spend their lives with without people telling them it's wrong and immoral.
Though I myself am not LGBorT, the fight for equality and respect for all is one I fully stand behind because at the end of the day it doesn't matter if the person you love is the same or opposite gender to you, if you feel like you were born in the wrong body or the right one-we're all people. We should all be able to live and love as we choose to, and all be recognised for the awesome human beings that we are.

In celebration of LGBT history month and the fact that the UK is now one step closer to allowing gay marriage (hurrah!), I've done a mani based on their rainbow logo.
I started by painting my little, middle and index fingers with 2 coats of Barry M's Black Multi Glitter, followed by a top coat of Seche Vite as normal. Then I started my rainbow accents in a myriad of polishes:

Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish in Double Decker Red, 
Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish in Tangy Tangerine, 
London Girl in Shade 148, OPI in Don't Mess With OPI
Barry M in Cobalt Blue, Rimmel 60 seconds in Blue My Mind, 
Topcoat of  Rimmel I Heart Lasting Finish in Disco Ball

I'm sure there must have been an easier method than the one I used, which was ridiculous really-I taped off a small section of my nails and painted 2 coats of starting colour and waited for them to dry, then moved the tape up a little and started on the next colour. It took FOREVER and left me with a lumpy finish in stripes across my nail.

As you can see here...

After waiting an age for all the layers to dry naturally (as I didn't want to smudge them with top coat!) I added a layer of the glittery Disco Ball polish to add a little bit of extra sparkle and shine to my rainbows, followed by 2 coats of Seche Vite to take me to a (mostly) smooth finish. 

To be honest I really love how this turned out, even if it did take me hours. I've always loved rainbows and think they look really awesome on my nails-I'm just glad I only did accents as I was originally planning a full set!

The final effect!

Only including this one to show how lovely the black Barry M is too,
it's very sparkly and multicoloured.

I did each hand in opposite colours so that they're slightly different-here's a comparison shot of my thumbs so you get what I mean:

I like the fact they're not exactly the same =)

I'm not sure I could love this mani any more if I tried-it's amazing. By far the most complicated thing I've ever attempted but with the best results!

Hope you like it as much as I do!

~Nail Art Novice~

NB: I am entering this mani in The Crumpet's Amateur Nail Art contest this month. The theme is Love & Heartbreak, and I realise this doesn't really fit but it was inspired by a movement all about love so I'm going to enter anyway. Beautifully manicured fingers crossed!