A-Z Challenge-Bold

Hello lovelies!

Back with the A2Z challenge again this week and the prompt is bold. I love how these non-specific prompts are really open to interpretation so that everyone comes up with something different. Two things sprang to my mind for the word 'Bold'-black and white manis and really bright colours. As I did some pretty bright colours for last week's prompt I decided to go down the black and white route, but add a hint of bright colour to make it fun.

I started with a base of Barry M-Matt White and then triple-stamped on top of it using MoYou London-Back to the 80s 03 changing up the angle that I put the stamp on and generally playing around with them. For my stamping colours I used Sally Hansen-Brisk Blue and Lightening and Barry M-Satsuma.
This is how they looked at this stage (pre clean up) and I think it's a kinda cool effect!

I'm definitely going to have to do this again someday cos I like how it looks a bit mad and random.

Over the top of that I did some vertical stripes with striping tape and W7-Black.

What do you reckon? I think they're pretty bold and I love the flashes of colour underneath the stripes, plus they were really fun to do-not having to think about where you're placing your stamps is liberating!

That's all from me as I have to head out five minutes ago, but make sure you check out all the other Bold manis in the inlinkz and on the A2Z hubpage here.

~Nail Art Novice~

Fingerfood's Theme Buffet: Science and Technology

Hello loves!

It's been a while since I joined in with the Fingerfood challenge but when I saw this week's theme was science and technology (two of my favourite things!) I just had to do this one. I treated myself to some Messy Mansion stamping plates a good while ago and haven't had opportunity to use them yet. The one I used today is my fave of the three I got-MM25-a science themed plate that I just love! I couldn't decide which full nail design I liked best so I just used all of them, plus some of the smaller designs on my thumb.

Base colour is Sinful Colors-Shine Annie which was sent to me from America in an awesome parcel of goodies from the wonderful Liz who is the creative genius behind A Mani Maniac and really made my day! Shine Annie is a gorgeous bright red, slightly jelly like and full of a shimmer that my camera refused to see. I used three coats to get rid of VNL although probably could have only gone with two.

 I stamped on top of it using Color Club-Over The Moon for both the contrasting colour and the sort of shiny shimmery technology sort of feel to it (I might be talking nonsense here =p)

First pic without flash to actually show the stamping and second pic with flash to show the pretties =D I'm loving the rainbows and those designs! I think my favourite is the DNA strands though.

Don't forget to check out the other nerdy nails in the inlinkz

~Nail Art Novice~

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-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

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~

Stamp, Stamp, Baby!

Hello loves!

Apologies for being a little sporadic with my posting lately, I keep doing manis and never managing to get pics of them before they start chipping off =(
I've got some stamping today and this is going to be a thing I'm going to be doing fairly regularly (once a fortnight hopefully) because I've got a fair few stamping plates that just never get used and I am inheriting some more from a lovely polishy friend as her nails have outgrown them. I do love stamping (when it works), it's such an easy and quick way to get nails that are more interesting than a plain colour so I reckon I should really do more!

Today's base is a first for me-my very first Mentality polish that I won in the lovely Emma's giveaway recently. Cobbler is a really pale blue matte polish crammed with blue shimmery bits and is really pretty on its own:

but then I stamped over it with Revlon-Emerald City and MoYou London-Pro Collection 09.

And while that did look really cool, I am a shiny girl at heart, so I added a layer of Seche Vite to seal it all in and add some shine:

It really brings out the sparkle in both the polishes, and I think it's pretty!

Happy St George's Day!

~Nail Art Novice~

March Tri Polish Tuesday The First

Hey lovelies! Happy Pancake Day! (Nom!)

Today I'm joining in with the Tri Polish challenge, although it's undergone a little revolution since last year. Basically the rules are now that there is a set of given colours for each month (details of which can be found here) and you do four manis with polishes matching those colour prompts BUT you no longer have to use the same polishes throughout. You still have free use of black/white/silver/gold and glitter toppers. This month's colours are green, blue and purple-all my faves and the polishes I have the most of, so I had to join in.

For today's mani, these are the (rather gorgeous) polishes I've used-all from the Shine On Collection by Nails Inc
L-R: Lyall Street, Elm Park Road, Raphael Street

Aren't they lovely? They're so much more sparkly in real life too! I also used Revlon-Silver Screen to break up the colours a bit. I've done a 'mermaid scale' mani on my accents and then stamped waves from the MoYou London-Sailor 3 plate on the rest.

Yeah I don't know what happened to my index finger either...

I love love love these! They're so shiny and sparky! I really really like the Shine On collection, I think they're all pretty beautiful and together like this they look fab too! The mermaid scales took ages but I like the random look of them.

Don't forget to check out the other gorgeous tri-polish manis in the inlinkz and enjoy all your scrummy pancakes!!

~Nail Art Novice~

My OH Paints My Nails

PIC HEAVY POST

The British Nail Bloggers are having another fun group post this week that I thought I'd join in with: My Other Half Paints My Nails. As the name suggests this is asking nail art newbies (not necessarily just partners) to paint your nails for you. I asked my Australian if he'd be up for doing that and he was surprisingly excited! He decided to do a skittle mani across all my nails, incorporating many techniques. He even opted to do a fishtail nail which I thought was pretty impressive! So these are all his nail art, he chose the colours and did them all and I think they look really fab. I'll hand over to him now:

So Ah... Hi!
Having spent so much time with Jenni over the last 7 or 8 months it is unsurprising really that I was asked to do her nails at some point. I have done several "He picks my polish" things, and Jenni has done several designs on my thumb nails, so I guess this was the next logical step. So without further ado here they are:

Left Hand

Right Hand

So I know this isn't how Jenni usually does her posts but I am going to do a nail by nail breakdown with the polishes I used for each nail and the technique used, also possibly some other bits and pieces. (See more after the break)

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! Boom Shaka Lacquer

Hello all you lovely people! I was delighted when Nail Art Novice said that she was looking for some guest posters! She graciously has allowed me to guest post on her blog.  I always love exposing myself to new readers.  Yes I know how that sounds.  I decided to go with it anyway - I’m kooky like that!

Since this IS a nail art blog I will be following up my review with a cool new to me nail art technique!  First I’m going to show you an absolutely gorgeous polish by Royal Lacquer!  It is called Blue Confusion:

 Blue Confusion is a deep royal blue, I mean purple, I mean teal...wait I don’t know what color it is!  Hence the name!  Depending on the angle this polish is royal blue, royal purple or a beautiful teal green jelly packed with tiny holographic sparklies, don’t you love my technical terms?!

 The formula on this lusciously squishy jelly polish is just divine!  It was actually opaque in two coats.  No need to layer this baby it’s going to work for you on its own!  I had no problems with application.  I will say that my cuticles are a wee bit dry so while I was removing it the blue did want to hang around my dry skin - didn’t take too much hassle to remove it completely however!

The minute I saw the sheerness of the first coat I KNEW I wanted to try the “stampwich” technique!  I first saw it on the Ellagee website and realized that creativity with jelly polishes goes way outside the regular jelly sandwich!

I started with two coats of Blue Confusion and then I stamped a series of images from the MoYou - Sailor 04 plate with Sally Hansen - White On.  Once it dried a bit I then went back and put another thin layer of Blue Confusion over that!  A super easy but really fantastic looking effect! You can find Royal Lacquer (and their vinyl nail decals, Vynails) in their Etsy Store.  You can also keep up to date with all the goings on at their Facebook page!  Go on by and say hi, the maker is super nice and I have been pleased with everything I have gotten from them so far!

Thank you for letting me ramble on and if you’d like to come over and see me, you can find me over at the Boom Shaka Lacquer blog, and I’m also on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest.  I promise that I don’t bite...much!

Space Dust And Stamping

I've got a sparkly sparkly mani for you today! Before Xmas I picked up one of the new Rimmel Space Dust polishes-Total Eclipse. It's a gorgeous black polish with duochromey flakes in-they shift from fuchsia to green in the bottle and it's just a lovely effect. The Space Dust polishes are technically textured ones, but I found that there wasn't really much texture to this one once it was applied. More than a creme, yes, but less than some of the other textured polishes I have tried.

This is three coats of Total Eclipse on it's own, isn't it pretty!

I decided that, pretty as it was, I was going to add some stamping to it. I used Color Club-Over The Moon and MoYou London-Back To The 80s 2 for a cool space age/time travelly sort of effect. My camera really didn't like this combo, it was a bit dazzled! I also added a layer of topcoat to smooth everything out.

Sorry this is a bit pic heavy, I was trying to get good ones:

As I said, my camera was pretty dazzled but I think you can still see how cool this looked...right? I've been playing with the holo sparkles in the light a lot =D

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget to enter my giveaway!! Closes in three days!

Guest Post by Lisa of Geordie Nails!

Hey lovelies! I've got a guest post for you this week, and I guess I should explain; this week I was supposed to be moving back to my beloved city of Sheffield, and so I had planned to take the entire week off blogging, hence the guest post. In actuality, the room I thought was mine got given to someone else (heart breakingly!) and so I'm not moving...yet! I'm still determined to get back there! The lovely Lisa sent me this post before I knew the room had fallen through, so I thought it would be rude not to use it since she's been so kind!

~

Hello! I'm Lisa from the blog Geordie Nails, and Jenni of Nail Art Novice has very kindly let me write a guest post while she's busy moving house. I decided to go with a well-wishing new home manicure!

 For the design I used two stamping plates: Cheeky's Home Sweet Home and Bundle Monster BM315. To start with I painted a base colour of Model's Own's Blueberry Muffin, a very pale (and pleasantly scented) blue-purple. On my thumbs and ring fingers I painted Nails Inc.'s Maida Vale glitter as accent nails. And then onto the stamping! The Cheeky plate has a lovely full-nail "home sweet home" image; I used a cotton bud to remove the parts of the design I didn't need from the stamper before putting the houses and lettering onto my nails. I finished the design with a silver bird flying to its new home. 

Here it is:

The best of wishes to Nail Art Novice for your move and I hope you're very happy in your new home! 
Hugs,
Lisa, Geordie Nails xx

~

How lovely is that? The colours/glitter look awesome together and the stamping is perfect! Thank you to Lisa for doing this, even if I'm not moving at the moment, the sentiment is still very much appreciated. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I get there soon folks!

~Nail Art Novice~