Snakeskin nail art

Hi,
If you've read this blog for a while you'll know that 1) I loooove Macaroons and 2) I've wanted to do snakeskin print for aaaages. Tonight's post has both of these things yay!

So all I've done here is 4 coats of Barry M Nude then I simply drew lots of little diamonds in random patterns to look like scales using a nail art pen, my fingers hurt after this one :P. I think it looks pretty cool ;).

 

My sad naked index finger :( that I had to file down, the tear is slowly moving towards the tip of the nail as it's growing but it's still so short compared to the rest! :( grow faster!

 



 

 MMMMM Pistachio and Coffee macaroons....I have included these as I can't get hold of them in Ipswich but my boyf went to London for uni and he suprised me with these went he got home!! How sweet, I wasn't expecting it at all...he's the best :) ^^

 

I have a post planned for monday/sunday so look out for that!

Have a good weekend everyone, tomorrow I'm off to the zooooo woohooooo

Blue galaxies nail art

Hey, I've been good this week (in terms of posting) haven't I? Here I am again as promised haha so I've caved and created a galaxy manicure, how could I not, they're so cooool looking. I didn't want to use a sponging method though as I wanted a more wispy, swirly look rather than a patchy effect. And I only wanted blue rather than lots of colours, I know I'm quite picky ;). I'll explain how I acheived this look after the many photos!

 Right hand

 My index is my favourite! It looks so coooooooool, if I say so myself ;)

After my black/dark maroon had dried I added the darker blue which is nails inc Baker Street using a small brush then whilst it was still wet I used some topcoat on the small brush to smudge the blue to give it that wispy effect. I just repeated that with the light blue, Barry M Blueberry Icecream and with the white. Then I dotted big white circles and smaller ones, I added some purple which you can't see as it's purple :P.
I'm happy with them, they look pretty cool and I've gotten many compliments on them today which is always nice.
I bought some new wah pens which means I am SOOOOO doing houndstooth as my next mani :D I can't wait wooooo

If anyone wishes I will happily do a tutorial on the smudgey method :)

My Urban Outfitters style aztec nails

Finallllly. I've been trying to write this post since 3pm but blogger was being soooo bad and not letting me type :(. I'm excited about this post as I really like the photos I took, and I really like this nail art. My boyfriend has this tee shirt from Urban Outfitters with this aztec-y style print, I'd been staring at it for ages thinking hmmmm that would make good nail art, like you do ;) here's the shirt

The colours are too garish for autumn nails so I chose three deeper colours; Max Factor Intense Plum, Kiko 332 and Kiko 346 Olive Drab. I loooove Intense Plum, it's a real sexy colour, especially after I'd just filed my nails into lovely points ;) I couldn't take a picture as it was nighttime as I was doing these nails. I simply painted on a triangle of each using a small nail art brush then using a nail art pen I drew the rest on. Simpleeee! I changed the design slightly so that it would work as nail art. I hope you all like thee pictures, they are very different from my usual ones.....

Right hand, not quite as neat as my left but passable ;) 

Left hand - I really like this look, it's a bit different from the usual aztec nail and more colourful too :).

I'm being a bit self indulgent with this last photo, I took it as a tester and I loved it! Lol it's as close to a self portrait as you'll ever get from me, my hair looks alright at this level hahaha I like the way my nails look too, again gives you a better impression of how they look in real life :)

What do you think to the photos, like or dislike? Would you like to see more like this in future......? 

African print inspired nail art

I know that I am the worst blogger at the moment, and I'm going to blame that on my boyfriend, we only have one broadband cable in the flat and he's on it all day playing online games :( also my iphone is refusing to charge up so it's kind of dead :(.
But I'm here now! I might do a few swatches today so I have stuff to post whilst I'm wearing nail art. Which is what I have to show you today, I should have posted the other day but I wasn't happy with the photos I took, I'm still not but hey ho.

I was inspired by african prints on clothing and fabric as they are such gorgeous patterns and make perfect nail art. I started with a base of Sinful Colors Unicorn which is a soft yellow which took FOREVER to dry and made my nail art life hell :P. Then with a black striper I made crossing lines then I made semi circles with two kikos using a small nail art brush. once it had all dried I did the black detailing with a nail art pen.

 Right hand - index and ring are my favourites

Left hand- I'm not sure about any of these

Woah look at that thumb nail! Lethal lol. I like the original pattern waaaay better than my interpretation of it, I did the crossing lines too close so the semi circles were too close and look like snakes or something instead of the fan like shapes that they are meant to look like. I guess they're okay no one else knows what they're meant to look like :P. I wanted to try making a different shape other than square with the brush, it went okay I think. Everyone at uni liked them so I guess that's good but I just can't like them, saying that I've had them since tuesday maybe! Wow that's a long time :O.

 

I don't know what to change them to........any ideas? Something cool obvs ;)

Gingham nail art and tutorial

I was meant to get this out last night but I was just too tired so here it is now!
Like I said it's very unseasonal (for us in the UK at least) but it's super cute and looks really cool :). I'll show you the finished look then I'll give the tutorial.

I figured posing with a gingham bow would work ;) my sister made that bow btw....anyway here we go...

All you need is, one white polish, two of the same colour, one lighter and one darker, I used Models Own Lilac Dream and Models Own Purple Poppy. Also you will need one nail art brush either a striper or just a medium length square edged brush and some acetone/remover to keep cleaning the brush with.           
                                                                                                                                                                                 

Step One

Paint all your nails white, two coats should do it, they don't have to be perfect as most will be covered. Then use a fast drying topcoat to ensure a smooth and dry finish.

 

Step Two

Once all nails are dry, starting at either edge of your nail with a tiny bit of nail polish on the nail art brush/striper, slowly bring the brush to the tip of your nail, go over it again if it's to thin or wobbly, you need a nice edge. Repeat across the nail, depending on the width of your nail you should be able to fit three thin stripes or two medium sized stripes. Again you'll need two coats on the stripes.

 

Step Three

Once the vertical stripes are dry, you can start to do the horizontal lines, try to make them the same width as the vertical lines and space them out so that when the lines cross they make white squares, it doesn't look as good if you have rectangles :P.

 

Step Four

Once the horizontal lines are dry, take your darker shade and dap a tiny bit onto the nail art brush/striper and where both lines meet create a square out of the darker colour, this is quite easy as the lines you've already created help keep the darker colour in a sqaure shape. I've shown you here just on the one side to show you what I mean.

 

 

Step Five

Continue making the squares on all cross points on all nails. I only did one coat as I didn't think it needed a further coat as it's a darker colour. As you see my lines and squares are not perfect but it doesn't matter.

 

Step Six

Once everything is dry seal with a very glossy topcoat and you're done. The topcoat really helps to disguise any blips and uneven polish.

 

So I hope you found this tutorial helpful, I'm sure there are other ways to do this but this is the way I did it and it was pretty easy the only difficulty was creating straight lines without a proper striping brush, the only thing is that it is very time consuming and you might get a sore back :P. My right hand turned out pretty good too, the pattern is bigger on my right hand but it still looks good :)

 

 

 Let me know if you try this! I'd love to see your results, I think it'd look so cute with a different colour on each finger :)



Pixel nails

So the moment has come, my three days of bending over 5 false nails has finally beared the fruits ;). I was contacted by the amazing Ashley Crowe aka Astrowifey wondering if I would like to contribute to the new magazine that she is starting up this fall. She has contacted loads of talented nail artists to send in painted nails to be featured in the magazine. I couldn't believe that she asked me!! The calibre of nail artists that are going to be featured makes me a bit nervous that my nails won't be good enough, but even if they aren't printed just opportunity was so good and I had a lot of fun!

There were four themes: Geometric/colourblock, black and white, leather and length. So I was going to do one design for leather and one for geometric but the ones I did took so long that I only managed one. I decided to do something I've wanted to for a while and that is pixelated nails. I had a lot of fun coming up with the design and painting them so be kind to me ;).

They took me hours and an awful lot of polish! I painted them with a nail art brush, I could have just painted the background white but then it wouldn't be like pixels so I painstakingly painted each square haha. I hope they get published! That's if they get to America in time.... :O the magazine is called Tipsy Zine so look out for it! They have a tumblr if you want to check it out, it's going to be about nail art and nail art and nail art so it's going to be awesome, I'm hoping I can buy a copy over here!

Illamasqua Nomad with nail art x2!

I'm back again and I won't be dissapearing again for a while :) I haven't had the chance to read all the blogs I missed yet but I will!

So to make up for my bad blogging I have two manis to show you woohoo. The first is a very lazy mani, basically I had Stance on both hands and I wanted to try Nomad out so I simply painted it over the top of Stance! I know it's very naughty and lazy but I didn't have time to do a whole paint job ;). I only did this on my left hand though as I really like the colours together. I painted both ring fingers white over the top of stance too, in order to do a quick nail art accent :P.

Here is a weird hand pose as I wanted to show both hands without being boring and whilst on self timer....it's seriously hard!
Nomad is a two coater with lovely formula and is a gorgeous colour, quite accurate in my photos I'd say.
Before I went on holiday I took this off and then repainted all my nails with Nomad again because I really love this colour!

 The index finger is inspired by the amazing nail art by Deco nails for the Insa x nailporn competition, her nails were incredible!! My attempt has gone wrong again :P it's okay I guess but a bit crap in comparison :P. The ring finger was a spine and ribs with a heart but the topcoat killed it :( it smudged all my little bone details :(.

The thumb is by far my favourite :D as you all should know I am obsessed with the crazy talent that is Astrowifey so I decided to pay tribute to her by putting her slogany thing on my thumb 'Go hard in the nail paint' as it should be all of our mottos ;) She actually saw this on instagram and commented on it!! How cool :D.
Everything was done with nail art pens and brushes (which are super hard to use with nail polish! Argh I'm hoping I'll get better with practise)

Bonus picture is of my boyfriend's dog Molly who is kind of my dog too as they got her a couple of months after we got together and we are kind of in love! She's a pedigree and she is the most beautiful doggie ever! But she's super naughty hahahah

 Those eyes! She gets me every time :) and the best part is that I don't have to poop scoop as my nails are too long ;) hahahaha.

Have a good day! I'm off to buy the most amazing studded boots you'll ever see :D and maybe a certain Nails Inc shade.....

Hello Kitty nail art

Hi, whilst I still have my lightning nail art on I figured I would show you my sister's nails that she requested, Hello Kitty accents. I was a bit apprehensive but I'm really pleased with how they turned out :). I used my black nail art pen, Barry M matte White, yellow nail art pen and a random no 17 polish of my sister's.  

This one is definitely my favourite, despite the yellow on her face :P. She was actually quite easy to draw as there's not a lot to the design. Btw she painted the pink nails, not me...haha. 

Yesterday we went to london for the day which was really fun but even better were the comments I got on my nails. We went to Illamasqua to get my birthday present :D :D and the lady on the till saw my nails and asked 'are they stick ons?' I explained that I did them and she was shocked and then she said.....'that's better than Wah nails!!!' I was just like :0 thank youuuuuuu then she said I should paint nails as a living. What a compliment! Also the lady in Harrods said basically the same things! It made me very happy :). 

I bought one bottle of polish myself from Illamasqua which I'm sure I will be wearing after I remove the lightning. :)  and mum bought me two for my bday which you'll be able to see in 5 days wooo! The suspense ;). 

Also I've just bought some nail art brushes (finally!) off ebay three stripers and three slim pointed brushes, I can't wait for them to arrive! I have an idea of what I want to do with them and my two bday illamasqua polishes :D. 

Thank you for all the lovely comments on my nail art, I've loved reading every single one and I shall be replying to them now, you lot make it worth while honestly, I'm touched by the kind words that everyone has!! 
*EDIT: I tried to reply to comments but blogger is having a freak out and has deleted my comment box? I can click reply but then a box with my blog comes in its place......sigh......as soon as it's fixed I will reply I promise*

Lightning Storm nail art

Hi again, 

Sorry I haven't posted since friday? I was going to post an update of my mani, show you how well it held up (which was really well!) but I just didn't have the energy or the will to take photos of my nails, you know how it is sometimes. Then I had this great idea for some nail art buuuut it went wrong so that was another day without anything to blog about. Then I sorted out my polishes and I now only have 103! Woo progress. Which meant I had about 30 good polishes to sell so I've made a blog sale page but I can't find it lolol when I do though I'll post it. 

I knew I had to make it up to all my old and new readers :) so I chose to do lightning nail art, inspired by the famous tutorial on pinterest, I'm sure you all know the one ;). So I used Nails Inc Chelsea for the base, I wore this on it's own for a couple of hours as we went out just after I'd painted my nails in Chelsea and I really liked it actually :P. My mum saw one of her work friends when we were out and she told them that I was obsessed with nail polish :( I prefer addicted ;). 

Anyway I sponged on Revlon Blue Lagoon, followed by Revlon Plum night, then Models Own Purple Poppy and finally Barry M Matte White. Then I simply drew my wiggly lines on with my white nail art pen and if I felt it needed more purple etc then I simply sponged on some more and then went back over the white. 

I'm going to be honest...I absolutely LOVE these! And they were so easy to do, I tried not to get carried away with the sponging or the extra bolts coming off the main body (?) but I'm so glad I did the little ones as I feel they really make the nails come to life :D. 

I had a really good time down in cornwall thank you everyone who asked :) we went rockpooling like everyday, swimming in a massive lido, watching seals in the harbour, trying amazing ice cream and exploring lands end :) as a special treat I'll show you a picture that I took, I think you'll like it :) 

Hehehe two little seals chilling on the rocks :). 

I'll see you soon hopefully :)

Guest post! My lovely friend Lizzy :)

Hello again! Surprise! Haha I realised I'd have no posts for this week so I called on someone who I knew I could rely on and who deserves more readers! Lizzy is a lovely lady from Texas and she fast became my online friend :) her blog has loads of personality and humour and y'all should head over to her blog after reading this obviously ;). So here you go, enjoy! 


A hearty "Hello" dear readers of AbbieNail! I'm Lizzy, the blogstress behind Lizzy's Place. OMG
 How excited was I when Abbie asked me to guest post while she's away?!  I hope I don't disappoint. I agonized for almost half an hour over what I should do. Should I blast her readers with some fabulous crackle? Naw. Display the last of the polishes she swapped to me? Good idea, but naw. OH! I know! One of my absolute favorite designs of Abbie's is her insanely cute Banana Mani! Now, I'm no Abbie and trying to attempt anything even close to this (with, say, mangos) would result in certain defeat and shame. So I decided to go another way with some banana-inspired monkeys!

What do you think? Cute? Maybe?! Yeah, I need some practice.  Still, if you like the idea or colors I'll share how I did it. Starting with a base of Ulta: Chocolate Kiss 

Now that looks just like how chocolate should taste. So yummy. I used my largest balled dotting tool to kind of spread on the mouth part with essence: Nude It!

Then I used a medium sized dotter to dot-and-drag on some eyeballs with Sinful Colors: Snow Me White

 I think that was my favorite stage. Then I used a nail polish pen to draw on the eyes, mouth and outline the head. I think my index finger turned out the best.

I finished up with a generous layer of topcoat to bring it all together and then topped that with the matte topcoat. For those of you thinking "Those look like brown frogs. You should have added noses."... My husband said the same thing. LOL Actually he said they look like monkeys, I said they look like frogs, he said I should have given them noses.  Oops. Hope you enjoyed it anyway. Thanks for humoring me and thank you, Abbie, for allowing me to ramble all over your blog. Hope you're having a fantastic time in Cornwall!! Also hope the rest of you are having a fabulous week as well. 


How cuuute! Maybe a little frog ish ;) just kidding, you did good Lizzy! Matte is your all time favourite and it looks good here! I hope everyone enjoyed this guest post as much as I did and now go check out Lizzy's blog :D 

Girly camo nail art

Hi! 
Firstly how amazing was our opening ceremony ;)? I couldn't stay up to watch all the athletes entering the stadium (I went to bed before Team GB!) but I really loved every second of it :D I can't wait for gymnastics and swimming as Rebecca Adlington comes from my home town!! Woo :D. 
Anyway I wanted to do camo nails so bad ever since I saw Madeline Poole's nails that she did a while ago, they just look fun in my opinion. I know though that this won't be everyone's cup of tea and that's fine as I like them hehehe. 
They are really easy to do but like I discovered they can look really stupid if you do it wrong lol I know that's a kind of contradiction but when I first tried on paper I had no idea what I was doing, so I gave it a few practise runs then dived in and they look like camouflage so that's all good. 

 I don't know why my index nail looks so bulbous :( it's not really like that, it's slim I swear!

Sorry about the shadows! It's just too sunny here ;)

I started with OPI Stranger Tides as it's a nearly khaki shade :P plus it's nice and light and so can take other colours easily. I used the smallest and pointy dotting tools and just dipped and dragged ;) and dotted the shapes on, starting with the lime green which is Gosh Early Green, then the pink which is an unamed Barry M and finally the brown which is Essie Little Brown Dress. I had to take photos in amongst the trees as that was where the sun was annnnd it's camo y'know ;). This design looks better in real life, it's fun! 


I'm posting this early as I have my first ever paid photography job later! I'm really nervous even though it's a family friend as I'm more used to shooting fashion/fine art not weddingy stuff. I'm photographing the bride getting ready and I'm stressing about the lighting, hopefully she'll be by a big window that would be ideal otherwise the indoor lighting will just cast a horrid yellow cast on her :(. Gah stop freaking maaaan lol. Then I'm off to her wedding reception which should be fun :). 


Have a great weekend everyone!

Floral print on the worst franken EVER

I just need to mention the removal of Zuza was baaad, I didn't use a basecoat for some unknown reason and so after I took it off I had zombie nails, not fun. Anyway for the design I had in mind I wanted a different nude than I had i my stash so I decided to mix my own. Bear in mind I only actually own two nudes both of which I've shown on here so I mixed both of those together with lots of white and I ended up with basically a slightly lighter version of Essie Sand Tropez with a touch of pink. For some reason I added some clear ? and oh man it became the worst thing to apply, I know how Frankenstein must have felt when he created his monster. I'm not sure if it was the extreme heat that made the formula so crap or just the clear but ugh it was like painting with glue! Hence the bad photo

 It bubbled and lumped and was stringy and gloopy but I kind of like the colour but only for this design :P. The design is my interpretation of this tee shirt I have, I got it donkeys years ago from Topshop but I still love it. I thought it would make for pretty cool nails and I think I was right ;)

 The little finger nail went wrong but I couldn't be bothered to re do it especially with that awful formula haha. By the middle finger I was really into the swing of the design. So that's why the better fingers are from the middle onwards, it always happens that way! I used my nail supreme pens in red, blue and pink, the black was done with my wah pen and the green is Barry M Spring Green applied with a dotting tool. 

This design looks a lot better in real life, it's not quite translating onto pictures as well as I'd like, it looks okay in this one though ;) it's so hard to take photographs of your right hand using a camera that's made to be used with your right hand :P. The good thing about this design like so many that I do, it doesn't matter if you mess up a bit like I did as it's easy to cover and making the flowers was easy as it's block colour so you can expand the shape. I think I captured the spirit of the design ;) well without showing my bf the tee shirt that it was based of he said 'that looks like your tee shirt!' Not bad for a boy eh? ;) I wish I had a bit more order to the black lines but I guess that would defeat the point of the design, hahaha. 

You might have noticed that my right thumb has a chunk of polish missing and that is because when I was cutting some cheese I slipped with the knife and sliced into my nail! I'm so lucky that my nails are really thick and that the knife only took the top few layers of my nail of otherwise it would have gone right through my thumb! I don't have much luck when it comes to sharp knives and cheese lol I sliced my finger open when trying to open a packet of cheese on my first day at uni, it was horrible lol sorry for that gory story :P.