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~

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~

Rara's Nautical Nails

Helloooo again!

For this mani I used Nails Inc-Big Red Apple, Tara's Talons-Supersoaker and a base of Barry M-Matt White. Also I used the anchor decals from The Vinyl Boutique. As you can see I recently bought some vinyl decals and I have been playing! I have never used them before so I was really pleased with how easy and simple they were to use especially to a complete beginner like me!

I used striping tape to do the lines on the accent nails but as I am very impatient and don't have a fast dry topcoat I always end up pulling the base coat off when I remove the tape and have to fill in the holes I have left behind!

I decided to only use my accent nails for the decals and I am glad I did because I think it makes the design look more striking!

This was a really quick and easy mani to do and I love all things nautical so it made me very happy!

*note to self* buy a fastdry topcoat!

~Rara~

31WNAC 12-Stripes

Hello loves!
This is my last 31(ish)WNAC before I jet off to Australia on THURSDAY, eek! So I will pick up the challenge with 'Animal Print' when I get back. But back to this week's 'Stripes'! I used another one of my Mentality microglitters-this one is Intense which is black, white and yellow. As a base coat/on my accents I used my all time favourite yellow-Revlon-Electric. The stripes were with W7-Black and some more of my Nail Stickrs nail vinyls-this time the thicker stripes. I drew the bees with my Barry M nail art pen and added their iridescent wings with Picture Polish-Mirage, which I really need to use properly at some point, it's gorgeous!

What do you reckon? I think they're kinda cute! Plus you know I love doing nail art with these micro glitter polishes...although not cleaning them up! It's a real pain!

As I said, I am heading to Australia on Thursday, but hoping to get another mani up before then if I possibly can! I've also got lots of lovely guest posts and manis from Rara to come whilst I'm away, and I will try to post when I can too! If not, have a brilliant summer!

~Nail Art Novice~

Twinsie Nails-Roses

It's Twinsie time once again here on my blog and this month I have two twinnies because there was an odd number of participants taking part. I was paired with the lovely Lothwen from Manis and Makeovers and the fabulous Hannah from The Dalai Lama's Nails and we were given the prompt Roses (this month's theme is flowers). We were discussing our ideas and decided we didn't want to do the traditional vintage style roses and that we'd try something a bit funkier-and eventually came up with the idea of doing our roses in black, white and a splash of colour, but do our own thing within those parameters. I'm looking forward to seeing what the other ladies came up with!

I used Barry M-Matt White, W7-Black, Topshop-Cloud and Barry M-SLE2013 B for my splash of colour (such a catchy name that one!) and did vintage style roses in a very different colour scheme!

I really like em! OK they don't look hugely like roses in the pictures but they do in real life, and I love the colour scheme-feels almost classy somehow, but with that bright green to liven it up. I'm really intrigued to see what my twins have come up with too-once their posts are up I will link to them here-make sure you go and see theirs too!

The Dalai Lama's Roses

Manis and Makeovers' Roses

You can get involved with the Twin Nails group on Facebook here but get in quick if you want to join in for June (the theme is Candy) as the pairings will be chosen soon. It's a really good way to meet more nail bloggers and it's pretty fun! I will sadly be missing the next couple as I will be in Australia (eee!) so get in there and take my place aspiring nail artists ;)

Don't forget to check out all the other twin posts in the inlinkz below =)

~Nail Art Novice~

31 Week Nail Art Challenge 7-Black and White

I really feel like I should change the title of these the the '31-ish Week Nail Art Challenge' cos I just do them as and when I feel like it, haha!

Today's prompt is Black and White and I wanted to do something simple and classy. Inspired by my latest Polish Party mani (which was inspired by someone else!) I chose to do stripes in a mixture of sizes-although this time I kept the stripes the same way around on each nail, cos I thought it would look better.

Polishes used (nice and easy today!): Barry M-Matt White and W7-Black.

So there we go! My lines aren't all perfectly crisp but I still kinda like it! It does feel quite a grown up mani, I think it's the lack of in your face colours. Still it's nice to have a palette cleanser every once in a while, ey!

What do you reckon, do you like black and white manis or are you a neon and glitter gal at heart?

~Nail Art Novice~

Polish Party-Inspired by Kerruticles

Hello lovelies! It's the last week of the month again which means it's Polish Party time and this month the theme was 'Inspired by another Polish Party member'. I chose the lovely Claire from Kerruticles because I have been following her for almost as long as I have been blogging and she has some really fabulous nails. Claire is the Queen of clean, crisp lines in her striping tape manis and often comes up with some really elegant but deceptively simple manis. I had a quick scout through her blog for some inspiration and came up with these three manis: (33 Day Challenge taping, Holiday stripes, GOT Challenge Chevrons)

All photos from http://www.kerruticles.com and used with permission

I decided to incorporate elements from all of them into my nails for today, but wanted to stay away from the blues/purples because I've been doing a fair few blue manis lately! The colours I chose were: A England-Iseult, Barry M-Mango and Passion Fruit.

My lines are nowhere near as crisp and clean as Claire's (and my clean up is frankly atrocious!) but I like these nonetheless, they're really bright! Obviously as my nails are shorter I have fewer stripes than her as well, but I hope these are still a good homage to those fabulous manis!

Also, here's a picture of Iseult on its pretty little onesome-I am always surprised by how much I like this polish. I won it in a giveaway ages ago and thought I'd never wear it (what with it being a PINK and all =p) but that subtle silver shimmer running through it lifts it into something really lovely!

That's me for today then, don't forget to check out the other PP lovelies in the inlinkz!

~Nail Art Novice~

And All That Jazz!

On Thursday I took my boyfriend to see Chicago at the theatre as part of his birthday present and decided that I needed appropriate nails to match-of course I went with red and black and sparklies!

Polishes used: Rimmel-Movie Star, Barry M-Red Glitter, Revlon-Silver Screen, Barry M-Fairy Lights, Revlon-Black Star. 

Pre-clean up shots to show off the sparklies:

 And here's what I ended up with:

The show was AMAZING-we had front row tickets and therefore had excellent views of many many sexy legs! Also the singing was fantastic and the whole evening was just wonderful! My boyfriend had a really good evening too, so it was all a success!

Happy weekend!

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget to enter my blog birthday giveaway!

12 Days Of Xmas Nail Art 3-Food

I was intrigued to see this prompt get as many votes as it did when we were picking themes for the challenge-it wouldn't have been one I would have chosen myself but that's the beauty of getting people to vote I guess!
I had a plan in my mind for these, but unfortunately my MoYou festive plate hasn't shown up yet (Boo!) so I had to think of something else and the only things I could really think of were candy canes or Christmas pud! As I don't eat Xmas puds I decided to go for candy canes! Polishes used were Rimmel-Serene/Red Carpet and Tara's Talons-Dasher from my advent calendar which I just adore! Sadly (for you guys) this polish isn't available in her shop because all the calendar polishes are one offs (with the same names) so my 'Dasher' won't be the same as anyone else's, which makes me love it even more!

Anyway, pictures!

I have to say I'm not the biggest fan of this mani, I like the stripes but all the candy canes on my accents are different sizes and a bit wibbly and I just don't love them. However, to redeem myself, let me show you a picture of 'Dasher' before I stuck nail art on top of it-it's gooooorgeous!

Rara
Pigs in blankets!!!! My favourite Christmas food of all time. I could eat my body weight in these every year! I used Avon-Gray Flash for the base, Essie-Cascade Cool for the pigs and the blankets were done with pens from Paperchase. I outlined the pigs with Andrea Fulerton black. And because I didn't think they looked very Christmassy I added little santa hats with Barry M-Bright Red.

Oh my gosh I love these so much...not sure I want to take them off to do my next mani!!

~Rara~

Awwh! I love them too, so cute! I also love the fact (because I'm a big sciencey nerd) that the blanket on her little finger looks like a Christmas amoeba! That might just be me though haha. Don't forget to check out the other awesome 'food' manis in the inlinkz below and happy Thursday!

~Nail Art Novice~

OMD! Challenge Day 11-Stripes

Hello lovelies,
I'm back with another one of the OMD! Challenges today!

Today it's stripes so I busted out the striping tape for a simple horizontal-striped mani. I used one of my new birthday polishes from Rara-Avon's On Point Blue which is a gorgeous cornflower blue-this is three coats.

on top of that I added my tape and then Barry M-Gold Foil and Revlon-Silver Screen, alternating the colours on my fingers.

Simple, but effective I reckon! Love these colours together =)

~Nail Art Novice~

Featured on Imperfectly Painted

Today I have a mani featured on Imperfectly Painted in her 'Share With You Sunday' post

Here's a sneak peek:

but you'll have to go to Imperfectly Painted to see how it was done and find out what polishes I used [LINK]. Why not submit one of yours while you're there too?

~Nail Art Novice~

L'Oreal Color Riche Collection-604 Metropolitan

I had completely forgotten I hadn't uploaded my final two swatches of my Color Riche polishes, so apologies! These last two are definitely my favourites of the ones I got from Fragrance Direct.

Today's swatch is number 604-Metropolitan which is a lovely grey creme.
This is three coats with no top coat-you can see that it's really lovely and glossy. I could have easily only used two coats for the same effect. The thumb and ring finger show stripes done with all four colours that I purchased-607-Rue Montmartre, 608-Luxembourg Garden, 604-Metropolitan and 502-Purple Disturbia. I think the bubbles on these were caused by my application technique as opposed to the polishes themselves.

Natural Light in this photograph

Unlike the other two polishes I've swatched thus far, there is no ambiguity about colour with Metropolitan-it's a lovely shade of grey-not too dark or too pale. Application was lovely because it has the same long, flat brushes that the other Color Riche polishes have (see this post for a picture) which allow you to cover the nail in two strokes. I didn't need to do any clean up following applying this polish for these pictures, which I was particularly impressed at as I hate cleaning up!

I got these from Fragrance Direct priced £1.20 (they have about 15 shades currently) but they are also available (in limited shades) at Boots and Superdrug for £4.99. Bearing in mind they only have 5mls of polish in I think that's a little pricey! A word of warning though, if you do order some from FD then search for swatches first because the colours on their website are very misleading!

I've got one more swatch to come, and keep an eye out, it's a gorgeous colour-my favourite of the bunch!

~Nail Art Novice~

Ask A British Blogger III + Nail Art!

This fortnight's British Blogger question is 'What is the oldest polish in your collection?' and to answer it instead of just taking a couple of pictures of what is frankly a rather boring bottle, I thought I'd do some nail art with it.
Introducing Avon's Fabulous which is about 10 years old I would guess. I can't find any information on it on the internet but I did get a lot of Avon stuff when I was 13/14 so I guess it's from then. It's actually the only Avon one I've got left as it survived the years much better than any of the others which turned into watery messes or hardened to the point where they were un-usable. It's quite a pretty colour though, so I am glad that I've still got it in my stash!

Check out how dated the bottle looks!

I couldn't decide what I wanted to do so I opted for a skittle using various techniques, and using Collection-Electric Dreams which looks awesome against the bronze. This is two coats of Fabulous and it was very nearly a one coater, which I was surprised at! It didn't have a horribly strong smell, but definitely more than newer polishes which I guess means it's not 3-free.

It's also a pain to try and hold comfortably too

The two colours together reminded me of Egyptian artifacts so on my thumb I did an Eygptian-inspired design (the Eye of Horus-Egyptian symbol of protection and good health) with my Barry M nail art pen in black.

I really like my thumbs and also my double dotted little fingers-I think they look quite nice without being too overwhelming. I love the colours together too.
So that's my oldest polish! What's yours?

~Nail Art Novice~

Check out everyone else's posts here:

L'Oreal Color Riche Collection-608 Luxembourg Garden

Here's my second post of swatches from my (random assortment of the) L'Oreal Color Riche collection and today's is number 608-Luxembourg Garden. This is another difficult one to describe-it's sort of dark greeny grey with lots of green shimmer running through it, so it sort of comes out as a metallicy green. I realise that doesn't make sense, but it's a bit of a chameleon, it seems to change colour depending on what you put it next to!

For instance, on my green swatch wheel, it looks distinctly out of place and very dark, hardly green at all:

Luxembourg Garden is number 1
(If you want to know any others, just ask!)

(Incidentally it makes me really happy that I've not found any colours the same as each other during my swatching, means that all my polishes were totally justifiable!)

But on my fingers it definitely looks quite green:

Natural light shot

This is again 3 coats without topcoat. This one definitely needed the three, unlike Rue Montmartre, which could have escaped with two-this is a lot more sheer. It's not as shiny either, it's definitely more on the metallic side of the spectrum. Application was easy and dry time was pretty fast! I really like these long flat brushes, it makes the polish really easy to control-again this required no clean up (except on the accent nails, but that's because I was being naughty and polishing horizontally across the nails!).
I even remembered to take a picture of the brush this time:

As you can see it's super long and very wide, it splays out quite a lot when you apply pressure and covers your nails easily in two strokes (one for little finger) but without getting polish all over your cuticles which get a massive thumbs up from me, coz I hate cleaning up!

I got my Color Riches from Fragrance Direct for £1.20 each but they're also available in Boots and Superdrug (although they don't seem to have all the colours anywhere!) for about £4.99! You only get 5mls in each bottle, so you have to really want one for that price!

Thanks for reading!

~Nail Art Novice~

Check out the lovely British Nail Bloggers magnificent work this week:

ABC Challenge: N is for Nautical

Ahoy Sailor is the alternative title for this post ;)

In case you didn't spot my mini announcement at the end of my last post, I've joined a nail art challenge group and am participating in an ABC challenge hosted by the lovely Kimberly at Kimber's Lacquer Korner. The idea is to post a mani that features a polish/brand/technique/nail art design etc in each letter of the alphabet and this week is N (because I joined half way through! But I intend to start at 'A' after completing 'Z' if all goes well.)
I didn't really have any good polishes for 'N' so I thought I'd go with a nail art design in Nautical style.

Polishes used were: Colour Me-Colour Me White, Maybelline-Dark Denim, No 7-Siren and Colour Me-Pure Gold. I used striping tape over a white base to create the stripy sailor-eqsue look and then freehanded the details using a dotting tool.

I really like this mani, it's cheerful and fun without being overwhelming and was really easy to do-bonus! I'm loving how vibrant that red looks over a white base too.

(Ladies who are visiting me for the first time from the link up [Hello!], please let me apologise for my less than perfect pictures. I hate cleaning up and I'm also really bad at it-no matter how long I seem to spend scrubbing away at my cuticles I never seem to get crisp neat edges like so many other people and I've yet to fathom how to do this apart from learning to paint neater. I've tried really hard before to clean up and just ended up removing the sides of my manicure instead, so now I tend to leave it looking a bit rough and ready-hope this isn't too offensive on the eye!)

Right, I'm off to swash some buckles and swab some decks (check me, I have the lingo and everything...), but do check out the other awesome ladies taking part in this challenge in the link-up below.

~Nail Art Novice~