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:

Try Something Tuesdays: Colour Blocking

Hi lovelies!

I'm back from Brighton after a fantastic weekend away and have finally had chance to paint my nails again. After 4 days of plain black nails I wanted something colourful and so opted to try out colour blocking, inspired by this design by motelrocks.co.uk which was just something I randomly found whilst searching for ideas. I didn't want to stick to only 5 colours though, so I chose 10 and applied them randomly across all my nails for a ridiculously colourful effect =)

Here's my polishes:

L-R they are: No 7-Siren, Rimmel-Sunrise, Collection-Look At Me! (Apparently they're no longer Collection 2000, I'd not even noticed!), Essie-Mojito Madness, Barry M-Greenberry, Collection-Electric Dreams, Barry M-Navy, Barry M-Plum, Revlon-Hazy and Barry M-Gold Foil. I also used my black Barry M nail art pen for the lines.

Because I knew I wouldn't be able to get them very neat otherwise, I drew the lines on first, filled in the boxes with colour and then went over the lines again which took ages but I didn't have anything to do so it was fine. There's a couple of holes on my right hand but otherwise it worked quite well! Here's the result:

I think my favourite of all is my left index finger, I just really like the combination of colours. I love the look, it's so bright and cheerful, especially after a weekend of dreary plain black nails (I missed my nail art!). Colourful nails are so much more fun =)

In other news, I'm thinking of cutting down these Try Something Tuesday posts, I want to try more nail art and they limit what I can do really, especially if sometimes I just can't be bothered to do something complicated and want to go with something more simple/that I know I can do. I won't stop them completely because there's still things I haven't tried (gradients, marbling, etc etc) but I won't be doing them every week from now on, so I've got a bit more freedom to post!

Hope you all had wonderful weekends enjoying the beautiful weather!

~Nail Art Novice~

If you want to know more about what I got up to in Brighton, I've got a post on my other blog about it.

31BPC 9-What's On Your Life/Bucket List?

If any of you follow my other, non-nail blog then you'll realise I have totally cheated with this and copied it over from one of my posts over there, but why write something out twice when you can just do it once, ey? (Also as I am away this weekend I am scheduling this well in advance so it makes sense to me!)

I don't really have much of a 'bucket list'-I don't have mental lists of things I want to do before I'm x years old or before I die, or places I want to travel to or anything like that. In fact I would go so far as to say the things I want to achieve are fairly boring and un-original, what most people would hope for in their lives, but they're dreams none the less.

-In the short term I want to get a job (at the moment, anything) that will pay me enough to move out of my parents house and hopefully back to Sheffield, where my heart is.

-I want to fall in love again, because I miss having a someone.

-I want to end up in a career that makes me happy every time I get up to go to it, that fulfils me and that I love. (I just need to work out what this might be first)

-I want to own my very own house, that I can decorate and make completely mine. I don't necessarily want to share this with another person, or at least I never imagine it that way. I am a bit terrified at learning to live with someone else again, so for now I just want somewhere that's mine and maybe the rest will come later.

-I do want to get married, but NOT YET. The very thought strikes fear into my heart, really. I'm not ready to commit to something for life yet (apart from my tattoo, and even that I thought about for 4 years before getting!) and I wouldn't want to get married for the sake of being married, I want to be married because it's right. Almost certainly in white Doc Martens =p

-I never want to stop going on stage, because it's the biggest feeling ever, and it's totally addictive. I don't (really) drink, I don't smoke and I don't take drugs but I have a massive craving for that spotlight. Call me a diva if you like, it's probably true, but being in shows as often as I can is really important for me, it makes me happy, it makes me fly. I never want to stop feeling that feeling.

-I would like to accomplish something-but I don't know what yet. I've always wanted to have a book published and still do, although I recognise the difficulties with this dream now. But I want someone, even if it's just one person, to know my name because I've done something that they found inspiring.


So that's my life plans, what about you?

~Nail Art Novice~

Find the other 31BPC posts here:
One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight

Guest Blog from Pocket Money Polishes

Right now I am in Brighton, doing my final rehearsal bits before my first performance of Titus later, woo!
So last Saturday I was chatting on FB with Charlie from Pocket Money Polishes and really cheekily asked her if she would be willing to do a guest post for me whilst I was away-completely expecting her to say no. To my surprise she readily accepted so I'm sending out a MASSIVE thanks to her. With no further ado, I'll let her get on with it!

~

Hello Nail Art Novice Lovelies!
My name is Charlotte and I have a blog called Pocket Money Polishes. I'm delighted to say that I've been asked to do a guest post for you this weekend-apologise for the intrusion. I'm having a crazy busy week between deadlines, blogging and other projects so I have put together a simple look today using some of my favourite trends and techniques.

First I created a block ombre across my nails (going from light on my thumb to dark on my pinky), I excluded my ring finger as that is my finger of preference for an accent-this I painted white. I used a total of 5 varnishes for this look: Fast Track from China Glaze is a beautiful neutral gold that glistens and has a great textured appearance but is smooth to the touch, it does take a little building up and this photo shows 3 thin coats. Barry M's Mushroom is a grey leaning brown and one of my favourite polishes for the days when I need to have serious nails.Cackle is from George (Asda) and is a fairly standard brown with a good formula for easy consistent coverage. Finally, the darkest brown on my little finger is Roasted Chestnut by W7, which is one of my most beloved polishes with its deep chocolate brown colour and coppery shimmer. To these colour block fingers I added a slightly curved column of white dots to one side of my nail, as always my white is from the Natural Collection at Boots. Dots are a nail art staple and such a quick way to spice up a simple mani.

I painted my accent finger first to ensure that it had plenty of drying time as I was using thin striping tape, and if you don't give your base enough time to dry it will just be ripped up when you remove the tape. I used three pieces of tape, two horizontally across the nail and one vertically down the middle. The next step was to randomly add a square of each colour to my nail, and then while this polish was wet remove the tape. I then added some top coat to smooth the edges and voila-all finished! I am describing this manicure as 'coffee squares' in my head as it has all my favourites-latte, cappuccino and vanilla colours.

Thanks for having me today, please feel free to pop over to my blog and see what I am up to-I am usually up to something!! Wishing Novice luck with her polish buying ban and hope she's having a good weekend away.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
 <3 Pocket Money Polishes

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Yay! Look at those pretty nails =) I love this look, I'm definitely going to try it out myself soon! BIG THANKS to Charlotte for doing this so last minute for me, I'm so impressed that she managed to fit it in her busybusy life! Please do go check out her blog, I'm sure she'll be glad to have you!

I'm back on Monday so normal posting should resume on Tuesday!
I'll see you then

~Nail Art Novice~

One Hot Mother

Guys, why did no-one tell me that holo polishes were SO FREAKING PRETTY? Honestly, I have not stopped staring at my nails in the 24hours I've been wearing this polish. I'm definitely in love. The rainbows and the sparkles and the prettiness! Within about 5 minutes of applying it this happened:

*applies 1st holo polish, looks down at nails* "OMG I need more of these!" THEY'RE SO PRETTY!
— Nail Art Novice (@NailArtNovice) April 30, 2013

So...yeah. I've just banned myself from buying polishes and now I want ALL the holos-sad times.

This is (of course) Above The Curve-Mother Earth and she's beautiful. For starters she's a lovely-but-hard-to-describe nude/tan/bronzey/coppery/gold colour in different lights. Then there's the holo effect which I am constantly in awe of. I really wish I'd thought to get some pictures of this baby in the sunshine, because she lit up like the sun. I know that a lot of people probably think I'm going a bit OTT but I've never worn a holo polish before-don't you remember how magical your first time was? Cut a girl some slack, ey? =p
This is 3-4 coats, and there's still a hint of nail line in some of the pics. I guess she might need an under layer in future (does that work?).

Anyway. PICTURES.

Can I get an Ooft?
I really want to keep her on forever and ever, it makes me rather sad to know she has to come off tomorrow so I can paint my nails for my show. SIGH.

I think I've definitely found my new love!!

~Nail Art Novice~