Try Something Tuesday: Tribal Nail Art With Barry M

Hello lovelies =)

Today I popped into Superdrug on the off chance that they might have the new Barry M Gellys ahead of their launch tomorrow and I got lucky! They had all of them except Passionfruit (the red one) so I snapped them up! They were also on 3 for 2 so I also got Pricky Pear from the original Gelly collection and one of the new Superdrug Limited Edition (SLE) Neons as well. When I got home I decided to throw on some new nail art and my eye was caught by the funky tribal pattern on the SLE bottle so I decided to use it as my inspiration for today's mani.

Polishes used: Barry M-Superdrug Limited Edition 2013 (Green), Barry M-Matt White (I decided it was finally time to upgrade to a decent white polish!) and Barry M-Black plus the black and white Barry M Nail Art Pens. The SLE polish is a super bright neon-the colour of highlighters! I layered 3-4 coats (some were thicker than others) over a white base, painting my accents white. I used striping tape to block off/fill in the various sections for the tribal accents and then went to work with my nail art pens and this is what I ended up with:

My cuticles are a little bit yellowy but I think that's due to dodgy cleaning up more than anything else. I'm quite proud of those tribal designs, it goes to show how awesome the Barry M pens are! I love the super bright green but I felt like it needed just a little something more so I added a couple of coats of Seventeen's Graffiti Effects in Monochrome to add a bit of pizzazz.

Here's the final mani:

Apologies for the slightly fluffy fingers,
I think they're strands from my jumper!

I just love that glitter! I can only apologise in advance 'cos I have a feeling you're going to be seeing that one a lot, as well as a lot of nail art with my Gellys.

What do you reckon to the Limited Edition Neons? (There's also a pink). Will you be investing?

Until next time!

~Nail Art Novice~

31BPC 12-Something That You Miss

What I really, really miss is living in Sheffield. I went to uni there and lived there for three short years of my life, but during that time I completely fell in love with the city. It's a really beautiful place and it feels safe and happy-and has recently been announced as the happiest city in the UK-and I can understand why! The city centre is full of fountains and greenery and is gorgeous, it's full of beautiful old red brick buildings covered in ivy and the whole place just has this really lovely vibe to it. I also have lots of friends who are based there permanently and I want to be back there so I can spend time just chilling at the pub with them, or hanging out in their living rooms just chatting about life. It's my favourite place and I always feel like I'm coming home when I visit it. It does make me kinda sad sometimes that I don't live in the place where I want to be, because I miss it terribly.

I'm determined to get back, someday, and hopefully someday soon!

~Nail Art Novice~

Read the other 31BPC posts here: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Eleven

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~

Me, Myself and I-The Ultimate Skittle

Hello!
I found out the other day that one of my favourite nail art blogs-Nailed It NZ- is having a nail art contest (and giveaway!) to celebrate her first year of blogging and I decided I really want to enter (despite the fact that I have little chance of winning looking at some of the amazing entries so far!)
The theme is 'Me Myself and I' and Jessie also says 'Make sure your manicure tells me something about you - I'm interested!.. Whatever you like - I like reading, so feel free to tell me a story about how your nails relate to you!' which I think is a really fun addition to it!

I sat down and had a think about what I wanted to do-you can submit up to three entries so it was a tricky decision! I decided this is what I wanted to do first though.

First-the back story! I am known in the blogosphere as Nail Art Novice because that's really what I am! This time last year, the only remotely interesting thing I did to my manicures was to add Crackle top coat. I started this blog in January and have since then learned a lot more cool tricks-whether that's by following other people's tutorials, getting advice and tips from some of the awesome ladies I've met through the nail blog networks on Facebook or just by playing around by myself to see what I can come up with. I still consider myself to be a Novice though, there's so many things I've never attempted yet, and I think I'll always be one because I'm hoping to keep improving my skills.

For this mani then, to represent me, to represent my blog and to represent my new found passion for nail art I decided to do the Ultimate Skittle incorporating all the different techniques that I've tried since starting my blog. I was originally going to do it in a rainbow of colours, because I really love rainbows, but thought that might start to look a bit too random and mismatched. Instead, I've decided to go with some of my favourite colours-blues and greens, with some silver and gold in there to add some contrast and detail. Quite co-incidentally I've also used polishes from the 3 brands I own the most of-Rimmel, Barry M and Revlon, although that was purely by chance!

Polishes used: Barry M-Navy, Barry M-Teal, Rimmel-Camouflage, Rimmel-Jaded Glamour, Barry M-Gold Foil and Revlon-Silver Screen. The glitter top coat is China Glaze-Fairy Dust and there's also a small amount of MaxFactor-Fantasy Fire and Barry M's silver nail art pen on my left thumb.

Techniques used:
Left hand, little finger to thumb: Dotticure, Striping Tape, Stamping, Gradient, Freehand scarab nail art (inspired by this tutorial by Holy Grail Nails)
Right hand, little finger to thumb: Splatter mani, Fishtail, Fan brush, Saran Wrap, Freehand rose nail art

This was the mess of my work station half way through!

and this was the state my fingers were in!

But it all turned out good in the end!

I really love these colours together in all the various combinations and would definitely wear all of these as full manis. I'm a bit unimpressed with my fan brush this time around, but I think that's more because all of the colours have blended together to make 'generic green' than anything else. The nail I spent by FAR the longest on was actually the stamp-what you can see is my 5th or 6th attempt and my 4th stamp choice and if this one hadn't have worked I was going to do something else! It made me so mad! Luckily it came out well on my last attempt, phew!

OK, I hadn't realised how long this post had got (sorry) so I'll leave you now!

~Nail Art Novice~

May Favourites

I really cannot believe that it's JUNE already, I have no idea where this year is disappearing to-it's nearly half way done already, that's completely bonkers!
Here's my May Faves:

-As I mentioned, I'm cutting down the number of Try Something Tuesdays that I do because I want to increase the amount of stuff I can do. Of the two I did this month, this one was my fave:

Fan Brush Mani

-I really loved my pretty pretty rainbow nails, I kept them on for a weekend and kept playing with the light on the holos, they were really rather fun:

R is for Rainbows

-I really loved the colour combination of my grey-dients and how well they turned out for a first attempt (just a shame about the Seche shrinkage at the edges!)

Grey-dients

-The wonderful Pocket Money Polishes helped me out with a gorgeous guest post at the start of the month, great big thanks to her:

Pocket Money Polishes' Guest Post

-But my star of the month has to be the absolutely stunning 'Mother Earth' from Above the Curve, I fell in love with her when I put her on and still think she's gorgeous now:

So there's my May Faves, hope you liked them too! Feel free to share your favourite manis in the comments!

~Nail Art Novice~