3D rose bush nail art

Hey lovelies, me again! :)

Today, as promised is some nail art, which you may remember reading, I said I was enamoured with and that is still true...I was totally inspired by the roses that I received in my diy nails lucky dip bag and so I decided to paint some roses and then contrast those with the 3D roses.
This is one of those rare occasions where the finished product looks how you imagined it or maybe even better than you thought! I was so happy with these once I had finished them :p.
I went with Gosh Highschool Flirt (swatches here) as a nice neutral base which could handle the colours of the various flowers.

I painted the flowers on and then I stuck the roses down with nail glue and then I did the leaves to make sure they looked right alongside the roses. I must admit that after my other rose nail art I felt pretty confident that I'd be able to just whack these out but I had to redo the first few that I did until I got back into the swing of it :p infact my left hand took about 2 hours whilst my right only took 55 minutes! And that's with mixing the colours and dropping the glued flowers onto my legs and fingers...bahahaha.

Hey this time I actually had real biscuits at hand ;)

I used a lot of polish for this mani, Flossgloss perf, kiko featured heavily for the green and darker purple, models own Lilac Dream, China Glaze ...Lifeguard for the leaves and then black and white by Barry m for mixing and highlights. I went over everything with seche Vite and nothing wanted to come off until I wanted them to, a few flowers refused to be removed so I was forced to piggle them off!
I loved wearing these, so pretty and cute too, received a few compliments on these, I do enjoy peoples faces when I tell them that I paint them myself hehehehe but who doesn't enjoy that :p.
That's what I like about doing roses; if you get them right then they look impressive, more impressive than they actually are (but shussssh don't tell the muggles that!) ;)

I hope you're all having a good week! See you soon

Ice cream nail art! Summer's here (on my nails at least)!

Hi!
I have been actual planning my posts! So I am sorted for the next three weeks! So expect a post every 2/3 days from now on :), it's taken me a while to get to this point in my blogging life where I am organised enough to post on a regular basis, so hopefully no more sporadic posting :p!

Today's nails are something I'd been thinking about recently due to the fact that it is now summer and I have pointed nails...which made me think of ice cream cones! They were so cute in my head but it took me a few goes to get them right on my nails, you wouldn't think that they took so long and so much thought but they did...hahaha they just didn't look quite right, at first I the cone lines were too similar colour to the cone base and the ice cream wasn't drippy enough! But I worked on them and now I am happy with them :) although it's times like these that I wish I could use acrylic to do 3D nail art!

They're still not 100% perfect though, I think they are still missing something but they still look cute??
It sucks that I didn't have an actual ice cream to hold...so I went with the next best sweet thing, a homemade cupcake (made by my sis). I hope you know what I was going for :p.

These three are my favourites and the index of my right hand :)

 

I used a fair few colours for this as you can imagine, a lot were nails inc mixed with either a black or white polish. The base is Hampstead Gardens, which I have previously swatched, I still love that colour, it's a little bit poo, a little bit rust but a lot right ;).

 

This morning I caved and ordered a couple of summer polishes...can anyone guess which ones ;) they should be here this week, when they arrive I'll put you out of your misery and show you them :D.

 

Hope everyone has a good week! 







Leopard print points

Good evening!

 

I am coming to you from my new (well overdue) laptop/tablet hybrid weeeheeee, I love it so much, it's so fast, although anything would be faster than my old notebook hahaha. I love how you can switch between stuff and just touch the screen instead of the mouse lol I've got the HP Envy x2 which has a keyboard and the screen detaches as a tablet, it's bigger than the ipad but it's not heavy ;).

 

Anyway enough about my new toy, lets talk about what cha came here fo'.

I got this polish in a set for Christmas, so they don't have names...annoying Techinc annoying. After my disappointment with Chanel Frenzy :( boohoo I was left with a taste for the greyed out lilac or a lilac tinged grey so I turned to the unnameable polish.

It's nice but a bit blah on its own needed jazzing (ew) up so I went with the old trusted Wahnails pen and knocked out some leopard tips.

 

 

 

These two are my favourite nails, they turned out the best.

Here's the bottle in question.

Like I said these were just something that I did really quickly one day last week, just a bit of fun, simple but effective ;).

This week I ordered from Diy Nails, which for those of you who don't know of the company, they are a british online company that sells studs, bows and hand painted false nails so they are an independent shop, with affordable prices. They posted a picture of what they called Lucky Dips  which are made up of bits of nail art goodies that they have left over and now are sellingfor£2.50 a bag! I had to get one of course; too much of a good offer to turn down!
My bag arrived yesterday and here's what I got:

My favourites are definitely the roses, Louis Vuitton stickers and the 4 glittery bows, oh and the adorable kitty fimo :D. Worth £2.50 I think so! I can't wait to use those roses, gah I love them!! 
(The background is a cute notebook I got from Paperchase recently....my other weakness is notebooks! Paha)   

Hope you all have a good weekend, I'm up at the crack of dawn tomorrow for our carboot sale!

Flossgloss Perf with barfing Unicorns

Holla,
For the past couple of days I've been wearing Flossgloss Perf which is a baby pink crème, I like many others thought it would be a pink tinged with lavender but alas nay it is just a straight up pink, which made me sad...I wanted lavender pink :(. Although I didn't like this colour, I just don't get along with pink, no matter how hard I try, everyone at uni and even the boyf liked this colour.

 

 The nail art came as a response to this colour, I felt it was too girly so I thought "hmmmm

what's totally girly? Unicorns! Duh." I didn't want to do girly unicorns though, these are more ironic? Unicorn butt, multi-coloured poo, neighing a rainbow.

Can you see those lips sticking out on my pinky? They join up to my ring ;) to make the face paha, on my right hand the middle finger is the face that horses do when they lift their lips above their teeth :P hahahahaha it's a bit grotesque which is why I like it ;) the speech bubble says Barf, not bad handwriting to say I did it left handed, all that practicing must have paid off haha.

 

 

It's a shame I didn't get on with Perf as I'm sure to most people it would be just that; perf...perfection ;). I'm not sure what I'm doing next on my nails. I am thinking of making business cards though, everytime I go out I get people asking about my nails so I thought I could give them a card with my blog on it ;) hehehe



China Glaze - Turned Up Turquoise swatches and Hex Nail Jewelry

Hi, I'm back haha forever now :)

Whilst I'm waiting for my Flossgloss order to arrive (c'mon c'mooooooooon) I continued my neon phase with Turned up Turquoise, I wasn't sure initially whether it was a neon or not as it didn't say it was but it looked pretty bright so I googled it ;) turns out it is but I couldn't be bothered to put white on so I just went straight into the turquoise goodness.

If you follow me on instagram you'd have seen that I got my order from Hex nail jewelry a couple of weeks ago, they make super cute, re-useable, gold plated nail charms for $1.75 each which is good value seeing as you can keep reusing them until the gold wears off. I'll be placing another order with them again soon! You'll be seeing more charms in the next couple of posts :). I added their large bow charms to my middle fingers.

I had to colour adjust the photos as the colour was hard to capture, it's a lot brighter and more blue then these photos show, but the lovely velvety texture and glow is the same. I used four coats but only to fill my ridges but it didn't work :P.

Gorgeous colour, right? Love the charms too, so cute and sturdy lol!

I'm getting back into reading other people's blogs slowly but surely! I'm looking for new beauty blogs esp. British and nail art blogs to follow so if you know of any hit me up :)

Seeyou in a couple :)

Hattie Stewart inspired nails

I'm back! Hopefully :P I have been super busy and weighed down with uni work; making a website, printing portfolio, doing a boring blog (not this one heheheh) a research review and two photographic projects! Gah so I hope you'll still have me! ;). I have so little time that I literally painted my nails once since my last post!! I still haven't filed my nails since :0 and I still have this nail art on bearing in mind I did it 8 days ago! Wow I have been busy! Yeah next week is my last week of second year :( can't believe it's come round so fast! Okay so many exclamation marks, need to slow down bahahahaha.

Onto the nails...I recently discovered, via Company magazine, an amazing British illustrator Hattie Stewart, you need to check out her website www.hattiestewart.com :) I like to think of some of her work as slightly feminist which is NOT a bad thing!! Her illustrations are cute and creepy and just cooooool. So I took a look at most of her work and chose some bits to copy onto my nails but in neon, I'm on a total neon kick at the moment! Hah.
They took a couple of hours to do, I spread them out over two nights as I had other stuff to do, so I was rocking one hand done and the other was just white :P.

You can see the neon in the second photo, the middle and ring fingers are based off a drawing she posted on instagram @hattiestewart :) it's an orange hahahaa. I was happy to find that I could still use my left hand to draw/paint reasonably well.  
The orange - China Glaze Orange Knockout
The Green - China Glaze I'm with the Lifeguard (Thanks Lizzy! Still loving it as much as when you sent it me <3)
The Pink - Sparitual Dreamsicle

I got two more China Glaze's the other day from Sally Salon Services when I went home to shoot last weekend, Flying Dragon and Turned up Turquoise hehehehhehehe also I am trying very hard to resist the new Chanel's and Dior's Birds of Paradise! Argh

You know the other day I said I wanted some flossgloss? Weeeeeell I might have caved and bought 3 despite the $25 shipping! They're worth it (I hope) I can't wait for them to get here, I'll leave you in suspense as to which colours I got...

Seeyou soooooon

These nails got a mind of their own...

Hey,
Two weeks since my last post??! I don't even know what I've been doing....I only just did my nails, I've been going naked for a couple of days :O. I've been in a rut I guess, too much inspiration but I can't decide what I want to do on my nails so I end up doing nothing. I'm turning into the worst blogger ever but I just like to wear my nailart out and about :P. I have big respect for other bloggers who can post everyday!
I'm surprised I haven't lost any followers yet so thank you for sticking with me :).

On to todays nails, I tried some saran wrap nails but I didn't have any saran wrap...don't even know what that is...and I didn't have any clingfilm either so I used a plastic bag that you put your veg in at the supermarket...I used Essie Navigate her then a purple Kiko and then Models Own Lilac Dream but all you can see is a purple colour :P.
I wanted to use these silver gems that shine different colours(?) but I always thought that a topcoat would dull them but I was brave and used them and top-coated and they weren't dulled yay! So then I just kind of went from there and went a little bit cray...okay a lot cray. I knew I wanted a hanging chain but it had to be practical, as practical as it could be ;) so I got some other studs and pearls out and got sticking.

 

 

 

 

Err so there you go ;). People just keep asking me how do I wash my hair etc...I say same as usual lol! The chain doesn't get in the way that much and I like it, it's a little bit trashy but a lot fun like a holographic bag.....which I really want! Hahahahah but yeah I'm not sure how long I'll keep these as seche vite is doing that thing again where it turns white at the edges and asks me to piggle it off. It's really addictive when you get to peel chains off too heheh.

 

I feel my nails are gonna get even more impractical as time goes on ;).

 

I bought Chanel Frenzy yesterday so I imagine I'll wear that next, a sophisticated break from all chains and studs. Talking of Chanel I cannot wait for their summer polishes to be released...have you seen that blue?? Love!

 

Hope to see you soon!

 

 

Matte White with neon rose nail art



Hey,

I've been super busy with uni work (what's new?) so not a lot of time for nails as usual :( although I did manage to swatch Gosh Holographic Hero but the pictures don't do it any justice so I didn't post it, I might post it later if I can.

I painted my nails white as I think they can look really chic as long as it's a good application, I was watching QVC this morning like you do and Nails Inc was on and the lady said something like ugh nobody wants white nails, they're so 80s! Lol! Not to me ;). I mattified one hand to originally show you but I ended up mattifying all my nails :)

I new I wanted to add some nail art and that it was going to be neon as the white base was screaming for it ;) this was my first time doing roses since Feb 2012!! LOL I was obviously scarred by my only attempt. I never could get my head around how to do roses for some reason....but I do now :)

 

I wanted to hold a typically british biscuit like a custard cream but we had eaten them all so I settled for a breakfast biscuit :P. Biscuits were needed for 2 reasons; 1. they're yuuuummy and 2. I thought my nails look like a floral teacup....yeah. 

 

I just mixed I'm With the Lifeguard with a black polish to make the darker green and the neon pink is SpaRitual Dreamsicle. I didn't add a topcoat as I liked how everything is matte :)

It must be a while since I have done real nail art as I tried to do my right hand and even with such a simple design I failed D: first time in a long time I've only got one hand done! tutututut need to get back into doing more nail art...any requests??

 

Hope you like it! 

 

90s Grunge...neon gradient

Hey guys!
Hope you've all had a good week, mine's been stresssssful! Anywho this mani came about as I was feeling lazy and inspired by Spring's beauty trend of grunge, lazy and inspired?! I wanted to use my new Sparituals neon as it's so lovely for spring/summer/anytime. I used 3 coats of Barry M Nude and then I did one thin coat of Dreamsicle to just above half way, then whilst it was still wet I dipped a small brush into Nude and used it to both smudge the polish and make it paler. Then I went over dreamsicle up to where the smudge begins. Simple!
I got bored one night and drew on my middle finger and it didn't come off ha. Then I got the nail glue out and started sticking foil to my tips cos I thought it would look coooool but the glue just blobbed everywhere so it didn't work out and now it looks stupid but you can't really see it in the picture but I just thought I'd let you know ;).

Wearin' my new dress from Century 21 (best shoppppp) I like these nails but I'm ready to change them hahaha! Don't know what to do yet but I'll think of something I'm sure....I hope the nail glue comes off easily though, don't know why I used it.....

I'm suffering for the first time in years with really dry hands and I've peeled all my fingers, it didn't hurt until I reached the creases....I know it's bad but I couldn't stop myself :( now my fingers look gross and are kind of sore. Sorry for that, a bit creepy but relevant yes?

New yooooooork

New york, new york newwww yoooooork (singing that...) So I am off at 3am :D I cannot wait! My nails for the occasion are a little underwhelming to be honest....just accents of flags and then plain colour (I chose Nails Inc Baker Street after this photo was taken)

 

 

WARNIN' Nekked nails ahead, you've been warned!

 



The base is OPI Swimsuit Nailed it of course ;) my lines are a bit wonky on the American flag but hey I was using my left hand ;) ahhh I just didn't know what else to put on the other fingers so I just went plain. I actually went out with my nails like this! Hahaha. The American flag was inspired by The Illustrated Nail, my fav.

 

You know when I get back I'll show ya'll my purchases (just polish or beauty etc too?) and pictures. Weeeeheeeee.

 

 

See you when I'm back!!

Donut nail art and a croissant?!

Helllooooo. I'm happy because I got a good grade for my first project of year 2 woohoo I thought I was going to do pretty bad but I got pretttty good :). Also I finally got my mits on 3 Rimmel Apocalips and I see what all the fuss is about :D and finally people were very complimentry and shocked at my donuts ;). You know that feeling you get when they say "did you do that yourself......nooooo! It's so good" Hahahahahahah best feeling ever!

 

Yeah I have been trying to do some nail art but all I could think about were donuts, I don't like donuts to eat but I like them on nails so I had to get them out of my system so I could get on with my nail art life :P. There's not much else to say....the base is Illamasqua Caress of course :).

 



 

In my defense this croissant is rather round and it has a hole ;) hehe. I think I like these lol! My right hand donuts aren't outlined because life's too short for that, ain' nobody got time for that! (please tell me someone gets that reference!!) plus my nail art pen is dying, the polish has started getting gloopy and stringy so it would have been too much effort :P no one seemed to notice anyway so it don't mattttter.

As most of you probably know I'm going to NEW YORK!!! Next week man! So I was wondering if anyone knows the best make up shops, cheap eateries, bakeries esp for macaroons (need my macaroon hit!) thrift shops etc etc We are going to Sephora cos how could I not!!! We are staying in Chelsea for reference. Weeeeee so excited! Any good galleries also, we are going to MoMA and Whitney.

Simple Heart nail art with tutorial

 

Hey, this is a little later than I'd like to be posting but my boyf is suffering from glandular fever, jaundice and now a horrible rash so I've been looking after him/been at the hospital and doctors so I've finally had a chance to do my nails as he is starting to recover....we hope :)

Anywho Illamasqua Kink was such a pain to remove, it stained my cuticles as I was removing it boo for nasty cuticles! I put this pink Nails Inc on for something simple to cover up my stains but it ended up needing 4 coats!! It was very streaky :( I don't like the colour, it's too barbie pink :P.

As the Vday is round the corner (so it New York!!) I decided I could do a really simple mani before I take this colour off. I saw this nail art in this months Company magazine and it was created by the nail genius The Illustrated nail. Of course the models nails were a lot shorter than mine so I have adapted it to look good on my nails but it looks great on short nails!

 

 

1. You only need one base colour and either a red striper or a striping brush and red polish (you could use a nail art pen if you have one, I prefer the clean edges that a striper gives) Hope I'm spelling striper right.... ;)

2. Paint your base colour and let dry fully.

3. Using your striper (or whatever you're using) make a line from the tip in the centre to the edges of your nail, depending on how pointed you want the hearts tip to be (mine are quite sharp) will determine how far up your nail the lines go.

4. Above the two lines, on shorter nails (read normal non talon length) this should be just under the base of your nail, draw an upside down v.

5. Join your v to the two exisiting lines with a curved line on either side. Try to keep the inner side clean, it doesn't matter if the outer edge is a bit wobbly as you'll be covering it up.

6. Neaten the outer edge, making them the same thickness as the bottom lines or colour all the way to the base of your nail. You should now have really cute heart outline nails! Yay :)

 



 

 

I did two versions, the one on my ring finger is just a thicker version of the above. It looks great on short nails as it covers the whole nail rather than 3/4s, it's super cute for vday and it's quick and simple too :).

Sorry about my horrid ridges! Not even 4 coats of polish can tame them :(.

I've started to think of my NY nails.....eeeee

 

Let me know if you're going to give it a go! I'll pop these onto my tutorials page :) 

Nails Inc Fenchurch Street with a floral bouquet

Hey! Hope everyone's well :)
Today's post is another requested one, people wanted more swatches and more floral nail art so I have to obligue :).
I got Fenchurch Street in a three pack from TK Maxx a couple of weeks ago, I was drawn to it as it's such an unusual creamy colour. As per Nails Inc the formula was perfect, it was a one coater! But cos my canyons ain't goin' nowhere I did two coats. It dries real quick too, not matte/glitter quick but quicker than most cremes.
I've gone back to the old style of photos for this as I only had enough time to do the nail art on one hand! Sorrrry!

As you can see it's a gorgeous caramel colour, maybe a tad orangier than the photo shows, it's a tan colour like leather, either way it's yummy and very autumnal. Lavely.

The nail art was inspired by my pen lol! It looks like a bouquet to me, hence the title :P

 

I do like this but not enough to replicate it on my right hand, I think I need a new nail art pen as mine is very hard to get any polish out now :/. I don't think I should have done the big leaves in the darker green (China Glaze Westside Warrior) as it makes them look like acorn leaves :( boo.

 

OMG you guys!!! I caved and ordered from the AMAZING Illamasqua sale and got 6 polishes for under £40! Also one of them is actual Raindrops! They've re released it with the Broken Hearts collection! So excited to get it :D I won't tell you what else I get but you know I'll post pictures as soon as they arrive :D and you can tell me which you want to see :) weeehee.

It's my first crit of the year tomorrow, bit nervous, critques are always a bit scary hahah hopefully I get some good feedback :)

 

Until I see you again!

Foil nail art with tutorial

Hey everyone, I've read all your comments about what you'd like to see more of and I've listened! I'll be doing a stash post tomorrow for those who asked :) and today is some nail art with a tutorial. See I can be a good blogger :P. I'll try and get some more swatches in soon too!

So I got some nail art foils from ebay but I didn't quite know what I wanted to do with them so I've left them until now. The illustrated nail posted a picture on instagram last night and I was inspired so I have done my interpretation.
 Here is the finished look....

I like it, it's a bit of edge and a bit of understated bling ;)

Here's the tutorial in two parts, partly because I didn't like the layout available for the 7 pictures but also because I thought the foil one was kind of handy on its own if you wanted to know how to distress it :)

1. Colours used here are Barry M Black, Max Factor Intense Plum, Seche Vite and the foil.
2. In order to get a distressed look I took a scalpel, but you could use scissors or a sharp knife, although not if you use the knife for cooking as when you scrape away the surface bits of glitter get everywhere! Turn the foil over and gently scrape away the back.
3. This is what it should look like, don't worry if it looks like you've scraped away too much as when you put it over your nail the look isn't as visible.
4. Finally cut out your chosen shape, again I used my scalpel but scissors would do equally.

1. Paint your nail in the chosen colour.
2. Whilst the second coat it still wet, blob on your second colour using the polish's brush and swirl it around to slightly mix the two together. It's a kind of alternative to a smooth gradient, I like it ;).
3. You can either use topcoat or the base polish to stick the foil to your nail. Finish with a topcoat but be sure to blob it over the foil as to not smudge the colour.

Hope you like this nail look, it's something a bit different but still cool and more importantly it was quick and easy!! The quick thing is a rareity with my nail art nowadays but trust me it took hailf an hour to do all 10 fingers! Woohoo

Let me know if you try this :)

A selection of nail arts...

Hey, I hope everyone had a good christmas :)
I obviously did thats why I had no time to post hahaha. I did some christmas nails but I also have a couple others that don't need their own post so I thought I bung them all together in one ;).
First is my mixed christmas nails; pretzels, starbucks coffee, icicles and autumn leaves. The base colour is Barry M Blackberry?? from the Gelly collection, it's gorgeous!

Next is something a bit abstract, I was going for a night sky but it kind of just looked like colour blocking :P

Finally these are the nails I am STILL wearing since christmas eve, hence why they are so scruffy!!

I am doing my new years mani tomorrow so I'll try to post it before midnight ;). Also I'll be holding a giveaway soon :)
I seriously need to file my nails sooooon, they're freaking everybody out hahahah
Anyway see you soon!

Christmas nails no.3 snowflakes

Hey! I've been looking at some lovely snowflake nailart so I have done some ;). I wanted white over a dark colour, I chose my oldest nail polish: Barry M Vivid Purple. I've said this before but it's the purple twin of Barry M Navy and y'all know how much I luuurve Navy ;). Vivid purple is a gorgeous shimmery silky cadbury purple vampy, that despite its age it's still applies perfectly!
I added my new favourite Barry M Silver Diamonds over the top, only a thin coat though....ugh it's just so nice!

Soooo pretty! After the glitter was dried I took out my ol' wah nail art pen in white and drew the snowflakes on, I tried using the striper but it's pretty awful for small work so I just pen'd it ;).

 

 

 Then I added pearls and my new multicoloured black studs (which have turned totally black as I didn't put a topcoat on so I guess the colours have rubbed off :() to finish off the look. I love the pearls they make it feel super christmassy! I tried to think of different snowflakes for each nail, to give a bit of variety ;). They were all easy to do, just a cross with two diagonal lines for the base then add smaller lines to make the shapes :) or circles in the case of my index and middle fingernails.

 

My next post should be about nail art embellishments and where to buy them as I know that it can be quite frustrating to find them if you don't know where to look or what to search for!



Camo on camo et Tipsyzine!!

Hey, I know I keep saying this everytime but thank you for sticking with me! And woohoo to 150 followers! I cant promise that my posting will get more even as deadlines are coming up :( so I have less and less time to do my nails never mind blog! I feel so bad though cos I should have posted this agessss ago...I've been up to Lincoln since thursday to visit an old friend and only got back yesterday, it was fun but the journey back was soooo long. Anyway I didn't have time to post before I went, I've only just removed this nail art, that means I've had it on for an entire week!!

I noticed that a couple of people had been looking for camo nail art so I thought I shall re do them as my skills have improved ;). The thing about camo nails is that they are redonkulously easy. I didn't even use a base colour, just did it straight onto mty base coat...how cheeky of me ;). I used Barry M Gold Foil and Black, Models Own Purple Poppy and China glaze Westside Warrior and a dotting tool.

 

Some of you may know of Astrowifey (my love for her is eternal) and her new project of making a magazine dedicated to nail art well I sent off some false nails in summer which unfortunately didn't make the cut however when I opened it I saw my nails as one of the 7 instagram nail people to follow!!! OMG I was so shocked as I was not told of this, it was such a nice surprise though!

 

Look it's my nails!!! @abbienail is my instagram btw ;)
So cooooooool, I posted a picture of this onto my facebook and got 40 likes on it!!
Tipsyzine is pretty awesome, I even got a poster that is proudly hung on my noticeboard featuring nails by Haus of Lacquer :). I think Tipsy is still available to buy from tipsyzine.com so if you are interested in nail art then defintely check it out!