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~

Glitter Me Mondays: Dark Metal Lacquer-U-Fig

Hello lovelies, happy (?) Monday to you!

For this week's GMM I just really fancied doing something silly again as I haven't done any daft nail art in a while. The glitter I'm using as my base is Dark Metal Lacquer-U-Fig which is from a new (to me!) British indie and I won it and a couple of  others in her end of summer giveaway. It's an almost khaki green full of tiny black microglitters that reminds me of kiwi fruits. I used three coats because the first looked a bit patchy but it filled in really nicely with a second (and the third was just to get a couple of bits I'd missed). Once it was on my nails I realised it was just crying out to be turned into silly monsters! For the eyes I used Sally Hansen-Man-go Team!, Collection-Look At Me! and Maybelline-Ceramic Blue plus Rimmel-Rose Libertine for the tongues. The black and white details were (of course) done using my Barry M nail art pens, and I added a layer of Rimmel's matte topcoat to finish.

Hehe! What do you think? I love fun nail art like this sometimes. I really like the glitter too, I think it's one that wouldn't be for everyone but it's definitely for me!

Here's a shot before I matted it so you can see the glitter in all its glory (this is with a coat of Seche Vite, it's actually a bit matte itself without topcoat)-it's really different to anything I've seen before but I like it!

See you soon!

~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~

Polish Of The Week: Rimmel-Serene

Hello lovelies!
Here's the start of a new feature on my blog that I'm hoping to do every week if I get chance. I, like many other nail polish addicts, have an ever growing collection of polishes and some of them don't get much chance to see the light of day all that often. For Polish of the Week (POTW) I'm going to choose a polish with a random number generator and my swatch book numbers and then use it in some nail art. This was an idea that I first came across on the lovely Vicky Loves Nails' blog where she calls it Pick A Polish and I thought it was a really clever idea to make sure you use some of those long forgotten beauties in your stash. I hope she doesn't mind me borrowing her idea here!

So my first POTW was Rimmel-Serene, a lovely white shimmery polish. It is unfortunately rather sheer so for this (pre-clean up!) photo I used two coats over a layer of white undies.

For my nail art I did a quick striping tape mani, using Sinful Colors-Let's Talk over the top. For some reason my camera just couldn't see this colour properly and has made it much more blue than it actually was

This one (normal lighting) is more colour accurate but still doesn't really show how bright this shimmery purple is-I'd suggest googling some swatches if you want to see it in all it's brightness!

I also had a friend visiting at the time and she wanted me to do her nails too so of course I obliged! She had a lovely maxi dress with chevrons on it and asked if I could match her nails to it. I used Serene and Smitten Polish-Bifrost plus some chevron vinyls and really like how they turned out!

I think I actually like hers more than mine, plus that holo polish looked amazing in the sunshine at the beach we visited.

So that's my first POTW done, hope you enjoyed it!

~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-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 ;)

Straya Baby!

So this is it! This is my last 24 hours in this country until the end of July which is both exceedingly exciting and also nerve racking!  One of the reasons I'm going to Australia is to meet my boyfriend's parents so I reckon I'm allowed a jitter or two! I know it's going to be a truly amazing trip but I will miss home a lot, I love Britain!

In honour of the occasion I have done Australian themed nails using Aussie flags, their national colours and a couple of adorable marsupials! Polishes used were: Barry M-Navy, Spring Green,  Rimmel-Red Obsession and Revlon-Electric, plus my Barry M white nail art pen. The decals were from YRNails.

I know the Union Jacks aren't quite right but since I only have dotting tools to work with I thought it'd be too fiddly to fill the blue in again, and I still really like em! I'm hoping they last a good few days as I have no idea when I'll next get to do my nails (which feels really weird!). I honestly don't know how much time I will have to post any manis I do do, but never fear, I have lots of guest posts from lots of fabulous nail artists to keep you interested! Also I am going to try and update my manis to instagram even if I cannot blog them, so if you want to keep in touch with me on my travels make sure you follow me over there. Also also, make sure you stick around for when I'm back cos I have a giveaway or two planned, so you don't want to miss that!

Right, that's me for now! I will leave you in the very capable hands of all my guest posters and I will see you soon! Have a good summer my lovelies!

~Nail Art Novice~

Rimmel Space Dust-Moon Walking

AKA that time I wore a polish on its own with no fancy bits =P

So yeah...this is the lovely Moon Walking by Rimmel. It's from their Space Dust line-textured glittery polishes and it's just so pretty! I had originally planned to do something over the top but once I got it on I didn't want to-it's too lovely. And to think when I started blogging I was adamant that I would never wear textured polishes-ha!

This went on really easily and was almost a one coater, but I used two to make sure I got full coverage. I know a lot of people dislike the flat Rimmel brushes but they work really well for me-they cover my nail well and mean I need to do less clean up (always a bonus!).

It's so sparkly and in addition to the texture has some tiny microglitters in, although my camera seems to not want to find them in the photos. I love the way the light plays across this, it's super pretty! It's not too textured either-it definitely feels rough but it isn't spiky or uneven like some textured polishes I've used previously.

Isn't it lovely! It's very rare that I put a polish on and don't feel like it needs something on top to make it more fun, but this was definitely one! I just really like it...and it's not even green! I think I need a lie down ;)

What do you reckon to textured polishes?

~Nail Art Novice~

Stellar Polishes-Sungodown (Thermal)

Hello lovely readers =) Today I've got a lovely polish to share with you from a new to me British Indie brand-Stellar Polish. Sungodown is a gorgeous orange-yellow thermal with tiny pearly white glitters sprinkled through it. I layered it over one layer of Barry M-Coconut to make it opaque more easily as it's very sheer. I then used 3 coats of Sungodown over the top-it's really weird painting your nails with a brush that's one colour and nails that are different, really messed with my head haha!

This is a bit picture heavy I'm afraid, and I apologise for my wet fingers-the only way I could get the cold colour to come out was to stick my hand in ice water (ouch!) for a couple of minutes. The things I do for you lovelies ey ;)

Sungodown-Warm

Sungodown-Cold

Transition

Transition

It's so pretty and bright, I'm a bit gutted that the sun has disappeared so I can't enjoy it properly. I thought it looked a bit plain on its own though (on my warm hands it's just yellow!) so I added some stamping with Rimmel-Azure and MoYou London-Back to the 80s 2:

What do you reckon about thermals? Yay or nay? I love this one, I just wish my nails were longer so I could appreciate it more. It's also one from my untried pile ticked off ;)

~Nail Art Novice~

31 Week Nail Art Challenge 6-Purple

I called this a 31 Week nail art challenge but I have to confess that I'm not really sticking to posting one every week very well, this should really have gone up by Sunday but oh well!

For my purple challenge I used a new polish and a new technique-the cloud mani. I've always thought these looked quite fun and I don't know why I've never tried it before! The base colour is the beautiful Cirque-Baptisia which is another polish I won in Emma's giveaway at the start of the month. It's a really deep purple packed with bluey shimmers, and it smells of lavender too, mmm! On top of that I added the "cloud" shapes in Loki's Lacquer-Buddy and Revlon-Purple Addict, both favourite purples of mine.

I'm totally in love with this, the colours together are just stunning! I have to say though, I'd not really thought about doing this one with my off hand-and it's really hard! Keeping the lines at the right height while at the same time trying to keep the lovely blobby shapes at the top was really difficult, and you can see some of the ones on my right hand are less than perfect. I still like it though!

Here's what I've got coming up next week, or at least at some point in the indeterminate future haha!

~Nail Art Novice~

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~

Twinsie Nails-Peacock Print

Hello lovelies! Today I've got another 'twin nails' post, where you and another person create the same/similar manis. I'm in a FB group for this (which you can join here) and for this months theme I was paired with the lovely Jessica from Be Happy, Buy Polish. The theme this month was 'animal print' and we got randomly given Peacock print. Jessica had loads of ideas and inspiration for this (which is great cos I had none!), but this is what we eventually took for our inspiration:

Source: Cake Wrecks

After messages flying back and forth we eventually decided to concentrate on the green/blue circles and the crest on the top to make a sort of de-constructed peacock print. We also added a peacock feather as an accent on the thumb, using this fab tutorial by the Nail Nerd.
Polishes I used: Barry M-Blue Grape, Guava, Key Lime, Rimmel-Serene, M&S-Blue

My dots are a little all over the place but I kinda like them anyway, they're funky!
Here's a collage of our nails together, and make sure you go and check out Jessica's post over here too!

This was really fun to do actually, I love seeing how two people can recreate the same idea slightly differently. I'll definitely be joining in in future!

~Nail Art Novice~

31WNAC 1-Red

Meant to get these up few days ago-oops! This was an idea that came about because I was stuck for inspiration and was looking through the nails I have saved in my 'inspiration' folder and found these gorgeous hippo ones by The Little Canvas. I wanted to recreate them but didn't want to use the same colours and was sat deliberating in front of my Helmer when my boyfriend suggested Hungry Hungry Hippos! He's handy to keep around, that one =p

So here's my red mani, using: Barry M-Passionfruit, Lemon Icecream, Matt White, Rimmel-Rose Libertine, Pear Drop, Tangy Tangerine, W7-Black. This is one of the rarer occasions where I only show you one of my hands, cos I'm afraid to say my off hand hippos looked more like demented rabbits! Haha!

So there's the four hippos themselves and the spots on my thumb are to represent the balls which they just go mad for. This was a very silly mani but I rather enjoyed it!

Have a good weekend

~Nail Art Novice~

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~

Tara's Talons Swatches-Swim With Dolphins and Chocolate Orange

~PIC HEAVY POST~

~Items in this post were sent to me for my honest review~

Regular readers of this blog may have heard of Tara's Talons before-it's the longest running UK Indie Polish brand and often featured on my blog because I love her polishes. A few weeks ago, Tara said she was looking for some swatchers for March so I filled in her blogger application form even though I didn't think I had a chance. To my surprise and delight, she emailed me to ask me to help out this month and I almost fell out of my chair! I started squeeing out loud so hard my boyfriend asked me what was wrong, haha!

So today I've got two gorgeous Tara's Talons polishes for you, yaaay! 

With flash

First up is the very lovely 'Swim With Dolphins' which is a pale blue with a silver shimmer running through it. This is three coats, I could have used two really, but I thought I could still see a hint of nail line through it so I stuck another on just to make sure. The polish went on really nicely-there was a small amount of lifting if you went over the same patch more than once but nothing that caused a problem, and it all evened out beautifully by the second coat. It did dry with some brush strokes in but I think that's more because of the shimmery/pearly finish than a problem with the polish. A lick of topcoat and you can't even notice them. 

With flash

Normal indoor lighting

I really like this one! It's such a nice colour-I can't help but think of it as the natural brother of 'Dasher' from my advent calendar-he's green with a gold shimmer running through and SWD is a blue with silver, I think they'd make a lovely pair! 

The other polish I was sent was called Chocolate Orange and there is so much going on in it! At first glance I just thought it was yellow glitters in a browny base but no! There's actually matte yellow, shiny silver and translucent orange hexes, bright orange stars, bronze mini hexes and goldy-bronze mini squares AND brown microglitter-it's crammed full of glitters! I wanted to show this one off to its full potential, so I've swatched it over several colours -and it's so pretty!

With flash

With flash

This is one coat over Swim With Dolphins. It does dry with a slightly gritty texture (because of all those glitters!) but again this is fixed with a layer of topcoat. I didn't have to fish for any of the glitters, even the stars, and there was a great payoff of glitter per brush load. I did use the dabble technique to move some of the hexes around a bit, because they tended to want to clump, but other than that this was one easy coat. I decided to try it over a complimentary colour and also some completely contrasting colours to see how it would look!

With flash

 One coat over Maybelline-Winner Takes It All. My ring finger is 4 coats of Chocolate Orange on its own, to show that if you wanted to you could definitely wear this polish without any undies, as the coverage is fairly dense. Personally, I prefer it as a topper though, I love seeing all the different glitters spread out! This combo is so Autumnal, it's lovely.

One coat over Rimmel-Marshmallow Heaven and Barry M-Greenberry (ring finger as before). These were totally random colour choices-I was just trying to find some colours that would contrast really well. I actually love the mix-I can't help but feel that it's a really Spring-y combo over Greenberry-so this really is a glitter for all seasons!

Overall, I can't recommend Tara's Talons polishes enough-there's so many different ones out there that there's definitely something for everyone. Most of her polishes are limited editions or one off though, so if you see something you like, be sure to snap it up quickly! Plus Tara is lovely, and always goes out of her way to help out her customers. You can find Tara's Talons polishes on her Etsy shop here or through her website here. She's also just expanded to form 'The Tara Emporium' and is now selling all sorts of beauty goodies/jewellery/home items too, as well as lots of other exciting things so make sure to go to her website and check all of that awesomeness out! 

That's all from me today, big thank you to Tara!

~Nail Art Novice~