Glitter Me Monday: Autumn Glitters

Hello lovelies!

I've been a very lazy blogger and not posted anything all week, oops! I did do my nails but just couldn't find the motivation to sort the pictures out and get them uploaded =(

BUT I am back and will hopefully be getting them all sorted and up here over the next week to make up for it so YAY.

For today's GMM I used lots of autumnal polishes/glitters-I LOVE autumn and so this mani made me very happy! I did some gradients using the Barry M autumnal gellies in Mustard, Paprika, Chilli and Cocoa. On my accents I used a coat of China Glaze-White Cap and then added some autumnal leaf nail vinyls which were from Make It Stick Designs. On my other fingers I used a variety of Autum glitters-Tara's Talons-Chocolate Orange, Nelly Polishes-Prototype and Absolut Lacquer-Falling Leaves.

What do you reckon? I kinda love these if I'm honest, they remind me of scrunching through leaves and large mugs of warming drinks. I love these sorts of colours together and they went together really well in the gradients.

What's your favourite season?

~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~

Polish of the Week: A-England-Iseult

Hello loves! How's your weekend going?

I've got another POTW today in the form of A-England-Iseult. I have used this polish on the blog before but I don't mind an excuse to do so again-I am always surprised by how pretty it is. Iseult is a very pale pink polish with a silvery shimmer to it-very delicate and pretty. I used it as the base for my cloud mani today and used Freckles Polish holos over the top in Purple Planters Punch and Blue Hawaii.

Please excuse my poor ring finger-in the last week I've had really bad breaks on both my ring fingers so I've had to bring all my other nails down a bit to match-sigh!

Ohhh it looks so sad and nubbiny =(

I really like the way the light catches these-those holos are gorgeous colours and Iseult is the perfect base for them I reckon. I love the rainbows/shimmers you can see on my thumb nail pic! It's a really girly mani but actually I don't mind it, for once!

What do you reckon?

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget the Tara's Talons store re-opens at midnight tonight and you can get 50% off with the code BACK50!

Tara's Talons NEW COLLECTIONS swatches

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

Hello lovelies!
Today I have some exciting swatches from Tara's new collections. Tara's Talons is re-opening on Sunday at 1 minute past midnight and she has four new collections on offer for you. Today I have swatches of polishes from the Autumn and Return of the Randoms collections, and there's also a halloween collection based on the movie Scream and a topcoats collection featuring four different top coats to make your manis look even more fabulous.

First up is Back To School from the autumn collection. This is three coats. It's a grey crelly with what looks like at first just black mini glitters in it but when you get it on you notice that there are some blues and holoy glitters hidden in there too.

Application was smooth and easy although the finish was a little rough, but nothing that a layer of topcoat couldn't fix! This was in one of Tara's new mini bottles-still 5mls but now round so they match her larger ones-and with new shiny labels too! 

Next up is Blackberry-also from the Autumn collection. Again this is three coats, although I only needed two for opacity. It's a gorgeous purple with a fuchsia shimmer and plum coloured hexes.

This one went on really smoothly and has a really gorgeous shiny colour. It's really opaque-almost a one coater. The only "problem" (for want of a better word) I found was that as it was so opaque the hexes got lost in multiple layers and just added a strange bumpy texture to the nail instead (you can kind of see this at the top left of my middle nail-although it was more noticeable in person). I'd say thin coats or a single coat over undies would be the best way to wear this one if you didn't want that to happen. 

This next polish is Luxe from the Return of the Randomness collection. I really like this one! It's a bright aqua cream with gold microglitters throughout and the effect is so pretty! Three thin coats shown here:

This one has a slightly tricky formula in that it dried fairly quickly, so thin coats are needed and you have to work quite fast as you do so. It dries ever so slightly matte so needs a lick of shiny topcoat to bring out its full potential-but I think it's really lovely! I can see me wearing this one a lot.

Last but not least is Rainbows which is also from the Return of the Randomness collection. A gorgeous glitter bomb of every colour and size of glitter in a bottle. One coat over Back to School and two over Barry M-Crush.

Even from the mini bottle I had no trouble getting glitter onto my brush-it came out well loaded with the bigger shapes every time. I had to space them out a little given the tendency to clump together but that's how it is with all glitter bombs like this. Personally I think everyone should own at least one polish like this one because they're fun and bright and awesome. I'm loving them over autumnal colours right now too.

So that's my swatches, which one's your fave?

You can buy all these and many many moreTara's Talons from her Etsy store which will open at 0:01 on Sunday morning and she's having a 50% off sale to celebrate her re-opening! When you make an order enter the code BACK50 to get the discount, but the sale is only on for 24 hours! Don't worry though, if you miss it you can still use my blogger code to get 15% off any order after that. Just enter NailArtNovice at the checkout =)

Welcome back Tara!

~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~