Saturday 31 December 2011

Happy New Year! :)

I'm not a huge fan of New Years tbh, hence the non-glittery/firework-y NYE mani everyone's doing atm :p


I found this teal W7 polish for £1.50 in New Look and the white polish is by Ultra Pro which I found in Sally's Beauty Supplies.

Don't know what "inspired" me to do the black stones, it just kind of popped into my head really. It's kind of abstract-ish I suppose...

Anyways, hope everyone had a safe and good new years, all the best for 2012! :)

Sunday 25 December 2011

The Holidays Are Coming...

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all have a lovely and safe day and get stuffed with ots of food...

I had to take off my previous mani due to lots and lots of cleaning destroying and chipping my polish, so I'm wearing a gold polish with a purple shimmer and Barry M's purple crackle on top :)



Have a lovely day guys! :)

Sunday 18 December 2011

Bah Humbug!

Exams are done! Christmas shopping (and wrapping) has also been done! Which means I now have time to do my nails :D And of course 'tis the season for Christmas nails!

I have to admit, I ain't one for Christmas...being Asian (I was born in the UK but my parentals are from Hong Kong ^_^ ) I'm not one for cold weather...I also hate being in crowded places and sometimes I don't like overly cheery people either, so you can see why I'm not a huge fan of winter and Christmas. Think cos my parents have never been overly traditional or Christmassy, so I've never had it installed into me :p But I'm heading to Mr Vimto's this Christmas with his huge (and traditional) family, so I'll see how I survive that :p

Anyways, back to the point, I did my nails in a Christmas mix and match theme as I figured it'd be about as Christmassy as I'd get :p


Thumb - Rudolph
Pointer - Holly
Middle - Christmas tree
Ring - Santa
Pinky - Snowman 


Thumb - Snowflakes
Pointer - Present
Middle - Christmas pudding
Ring - Lights
Pinky - Wreath

Sorry for the complete lack of any proper cleaning up and lack of moisturised cuticles, I was pretty knackered from present shopping and wrapping and tidying up for Mr Vimto's landlord tomorrow... -__-


Saturday 3 December 2011

Exams Suck!

Bleh. It's now 11.28am and I really should be studying in the library right now. However I'm actually still in my Mr Vimto's flat (he's still asleep, I've been up since 9.30am fyi...) and I'm nursing mild burns I got from a molten cheese, pickle and tomato toastie...who knew tomatoes and cheese could get so hot D: I also managed to ooze some cheese onto Mr Vimto's laptop but I cleaned it up and hopefully he won't notice... However, Friends on comedy central is making me feel better :)

But yes, exams  = life ruiner.

I was supposed to go to my friend's 21st in newcastle on the 10th of Dec,  but I have an exam on the 13th, sucks.

And I haven't had time to just sit and do my nails. which upsets me cos I miss doing them and there's so many christmas ideas :( Even though I hate Christmas, but still, reindeers are cute... Although having just plain polish on me nails (bare nails = evil! Plus my nails are heavily stained from the Haloween design...) has made me notice the the Models Own beetlejuice collection is rather hardwearing...been wearing aquaviolet for round about a week or so and I only have minor tip wear...and the grow out too obviously. Pretty sturdy for a drugstore brand, although Models Own and Barry Mare my favourite drugstore brands, SO many colours and great pigmentation (varies with Barry M I must admit...yes, I did just contradict myself...) so they're great brands I'd recommend.

But yes, been doing the asian thing of staying in the library for 9+ hours...not healthy I know, but I really dont fancy failing again XD plus, Pharmacology/Antomy degrees are hard to get into by the sounds of things. I dont make things easy for myself apparently, psychology was uber difficult as well :p It;s got to the point where I recognise some folk, like Mr I Hate My Laptop (smashes his return and space key as if there's no tomorrow) and the Smoochy Couple...you can guess form the title as to why they're called that...PDA's are nce and all, but there's no need for sound effects. Bleugh.

Gadz, it's December...Christmas...bah humbug. Also means present buying time -__- I've promised Mr V I'd get him Skyrim... *sighs* boys and their games...he has a backlog of 60 games to play XD

Anyways must go to study, sorry for no new polish related posts :( Hopefully get started back up after the 13th!

Keep safe! :) x

Tuesday 15 November 2011

Pastel Humbugs (And my new camera!)

Hello people! Sorry for the absence lately, I've been studying for a test and didn't have time (nor creativity) for nail stuff...which leads me onto how it's now test/exam time for me, so things might be a bit quiet for the next month...which saddens me cos I like doing nail stuff, even if it end up like crap half the time :p But i might fit in a few simple designs (like this one) so hopefully I'll still get to do some things :(

Also, new camera finally! :D I found a Samsung ST550 on ebay, with 3 memory cards, a case and an exra battery on ebay for just £60...bargaiiiiin! :D I didn't actually have money at the time, but Mr Vimto bought it for me as an early Christmas present, so he says...I say that cos I don't like him buying things for me and he's disguising this as a present :p

Anyways, back to the point... I hate winter and was clinging on to summer by staring longingly at my summery shades...and somehow matte pastels with glossy stripes popped into my head :)

Pinky: Models Own, Lilac Dream.
Ring: Revlon, Sunshine Sparkle (over Revlon, White On White)
Middle: Barry M, Blue Moon (over Revlon, White On White)
Index: Barry M, Peach Melba
Thumb (unseen): Models Own, Jade Stone
Matte topcoat: GOSH
White Stripes: Revlon, White On White

This reminds me if colourful humbugs and ice cream....I miss summer... *sigh*

Well, as I head off for exactly 4 weeks of energy drinks, 12 hour library shifts and lots and lots of writing...have a safe month and hopefully see you soon! :)

Saturday 5 November 2011

Twit Ta-Woo!

Apologies for the lighting...hopefully you can still get the gist of the design :( Mr Vimto's bringing his camera from back home in Edinburgh this weekend so hopefully the pics will get better (not sure what the make of the camera is, but anything's better than my current camera, right? hehe)

So, as thrilling as Forensic Bioscience is (I do it as an extra module, not a degree sadly), writing a lab report for it isn't quite as thrilling, so I decided to do my nails for a bit of a break :3

Now, I am obsessed with owls, dunno why, but I think they're rather awesome and I'm slowly building up a collection of owl themed goodies :D I've been planning to do owl nails for a while, but wasn't sure how to go about it...full owls, heads, on branches or whatnot. I was planning on doing a scenic type thing, with owls sitting on a tree branch and a moon in the background, but it didn't work out quite well due to spacing issues on my short nails :(

I decided to settle on using negative spacing (when you can see bare nail) cos I liked the look of seeing the wee owl ears :3 I used some french manicure stickers to get the curve (relatively straight)

I thought it might look a bit boring just having all owls so thought I'd do polka dots on the ring and thumb in the colours of the owls...they're a tad wonky cos I wasn't quite paying attention hehe.
Although, I did forget to add french manicure base before I started the coloured owls, so my bare nail looks TOO bare :(

Green: Models Own, Jade Green.
Lilac: Models Own, Lilac Dream.
Grey: Collection 2000, Angel Wings.
Orange: Ebay unbranded striper.
Yellow: Ebay unbranded.
Black: Ebay unbranded.
Top coat: Nail life, speed demon.

Friday 4 November 2011

Facets Of Fuchsia and Beetlejuice Collection


I had quite a little polish haul this week :) I've slowed down on my polish buying these days because I'm a jobless student :( However, I had enough Boots points to grab the coveted Facets Of Fuchsia by Revlon (£6.49), and Mr Vimto was lovely enough to buy me the newly launched duo chrome Beetlejuice collection (£20) from Models Own :3

(no topcoat)
£6.49 from Boots

I'd seen Facets of Fuchsia in Boots before I'd seen it around on Blogger, but I was a bit hesitant because I wasn't quite sure as to how it'd be on the nail. But after seeing it swatched on someone's blog (can't remember who, it was a while ago!), I wanted to get it before it sold out or discontinued since it's part of a limited collection.

FOF is a black jelly base with some hex glitters and smaller square glitters. What's interesting about this is that you can see the glitter from the previous coat through the newer coat so it has a sort of...faded but solid look of something stuck in amber. If that makes sense...I just realised how retarded that sounded lol! I went to see Jurassic Park in the cinema when it came out so maybe that's where my analogy came from :o


Anyways, now to Models Own...I have swatched these, and I am looking at them right now, but my sucky camera (and lack of natural daylight) means I can't take a photo of the true lovely duo chrome-ness of the Beetlejuice collction, but here's a photo of the polishes in the bottle!
L-R: Golden Green, Pinky Brown,  Purple Blue, Aqua Violet, Emerald Black
£5 each

I'm not entirely sure if these are limited edition or not, but I have heard from their Facebook page tha even though the pinky brown (2nd from left) has sold out, they'll be getting more stock at the end of November (just in time for Christmas ;) )

As you can see from the photo, these polishes are shimmery duo chromes shifting between 2 colours in natural daylight.  I wanted the majority of these since I heard about the launch on the Models Own Facebook page, (golden green doesn't tickle my fancy too much) but Mr Vimto was nice enough to get me the boxset (all 5 with a 3-in-1 clear polish for £20) as an early Christmas present :) However, I dont like him spending money on me so I'm hoping to pay him back when I can :o

These seem a little thinner than a normal Models Own polish, but not too sure as It's been a while since I bought a fresh polish. But they're opaque in 2 thin-ish coats so they're probably not as thin as I seem to think they are.

So that concludes my ramble on my polishes this week!

Thursday 3 November 2011

Glitter Stripes

I have to say, I love this blue glitter from Barry M. It's so dense so it only takes 3 coats for it to be opaque...

But I didn't want the in yo' face glittery-ness that it has on it's own so I decided to lay some striping tape on the blue, and paint over with black, so there'd be lines of blue glitter left amongst the black :)



Also, this post means I am FINALLY up to date with my designs and I shall be able to give you better posts about each design such as inspiration and colours of the polishes :) but nothing can be said for the quality of the photos...sorry :( I wish I had a proper camera :/

Can You Feel The Boom Boom Bass? (super-fail)

After the somewhat success of the Sweet Like Chocolate song inspired nails, I attempted to do some nails inspired by Nicki Minaj's Super Bass. And how I failed -__-

My right hand has better designs than the left, so maybe if I did the same designs on the other hand, it'd have looked better :/



Thumb: pink and yellow eyliner
Index: half blonde, half pink hair
Middle: pink hair
Ring: pink lipstick
Pinky: green hair


Thumb: green scaley swimsuit with pink goo
Index: glow in the dark nautical stripes
Middle: polka dots in the colours of the dancers' underwear
Ring: pink feather
Pinky: pink giraffe print

I really didn't like how the nails turned out, I took them off after a day...Oh well, back to the sketchbook...

Halloween 2011

I must admit, I'm not a fan of Haloween, y'know dressing up etc. But I do like how much effort people go to for it. So I decided to do a Halloween design :)



Thumb: eyeball
Index: Bat against sunset
Middle: Blood drip
Ring: Pumpkin
Pinky: Mummy


Thumb: Frankenstein
Index: Dracula
Middle: Zombie drip
Ring: Ghost
Pinky: Fangs
It took longer than I expected to do these...maybe cos I wasn't in the mood to do my nails, but my hatred of having bare nails made me do them :P However, I did forget to use my Fantasy Makers glow in the dark polish I bought specifically for them :'(

Sweet Like Chocolate, Boy...

Nothing like a bit of cheesy 90's pop to inspire your nail art ;)


I added a little cherry type rhinestone on an accent finger to make it look more dessert-ish :)

Real Feather Nails

Real feather nails were quite the trend around the time I done this, so I decided to get some off ebay. I wasn't sure whether to get like 500 for cheap, or 50 for a tad more money, as I wasn't sure it'd be a trend I'd like to do more than once, and what the hell was I going to do with 500 feathers?! XD


The steps are easy...base coat, dry. Top coat, place feather on, trim if necessary, wait to dry. Slather on more top caot. The last step is rather important, as it helps hold down any stray feathery bits and make it smoother, you can see the texture of the feather on my thumb.

Brown: Barry M, Mushroom

Pastel Stripeys

I realised that even though I have like 4 proper striping brushes...I hadn't actually done many stripe involved designs :O

These are a lot simpler to do than I thought...the process is also rather theraputic :)


I used Collection 2000, Angel Wings as a base and used peach, blue and green polish for layering.

It's a really nice and simple look, and colourful without being too in your face :)

Angry Birds!

In all honesty, I hate iPhones. And iPads... But I love the games like Plants vs Zombies and...Angry Birds! :D

There's nothing like destroying a green pigs fort ;) So this is my attempt at angry birds nails...a few folk on youtube have done the full nails with their faces, but I thought it'd be better to see the whole shape of the head so I did them...erm...not sure of a short way of saying I only partially painted my nails hehe.



The hardest bird out of them was the big white one, was hard trying to get the angle on his sorrowful eyes :p
I was planning on doing Plants vs Zombies nails on my other hand, but they turned out SO stupid and ridiculous, so I just did co-ordinating colurs with some GOSH flakey glittery polish over the top :)



Danger, Danger, High Voltage!!

Hehe, loved that song... ;)

Anyways...I got some french manicure type sticker things that are in certain shapes (as well as the frech manicure shape) like lightening bolts and squiggly lines etc, so I decided to try them out.

However, I didn't realise until I attempted to peel them off that they're rather overly sticky and pulled off bits of the grey I was using as a base -__-

I tried filling it back in, but did it rather haphazardly, so they're kinda messy :/ 


I used two different shades of blue on either side of the bolt to make it a bit different...

I haven't used the stickers so much after this since they're so sticky...I tried loosening the glue a bit by putting them on my skin a few times, but then it takes too much glue off and they don't stick to my nails -_-

*sighs* I'll figure out how to use them someday!

Floral Gems

I'm not sure how I got round to doing this design. I kept meaning to do this sort of arrangement to make flowers from round and tear dropped gems I have, and I adore this pinkish colour I have (not that the camera shows it well...)


Hmm, no sure what else to say about this...suppose if you have any questions then leave a wee comment :)

Pink: Collection 2000, Fruit Salad

I Moustache You A Question!

Moustaches. They're awesome! I dunno where I got the idea of moustaches from, it kinda popped into my head :)

I knew if I did moustaches on both hands, my left hand would be all screwy (cos I'm awesome and left handed ;) lol!) so I decided to do the pun on the other hand...It took a while for everyone to read it though since I had to write it in text speak more or less.



I decided to use a skin tone type polish so my nails would look like wee faces and to draw differet kinds of taches to mix it up a bit :)




Beige: Revlon, Gray Suede
Black: Ebay unbranded striper/pen polish

Pastel half moons

Sorry about the really crap lighting, as I've said, I only have my Blackberry camera, and I usually do my nails at night, so my photos are usually horrid...I'll invest in a camera one day :P

Anyways, this is my 2nd attempt at half moons with a bit of microbead detailing. Not too sure if I said in my firs post about half moons, but I did this by using hole reinforcement stickers at a guide so I dont have to worry about being careful hehe, And I added a little detail by adding microbeads to the line on one finger. I liked the idea of using a little something or other to hide the join, cos it neatens it up a bit better and hides any squinty bits hehe.


Grey: Collection 2000, Angel Wings
Lilac: Models Own, Lilac Dream
(I'm planning on labelling the polishes used for every post once I get caught up, but I can't remember them all for backdating T_T )

Saturday 29 October 2011

Glitter overload

I'd heard about the glorious density of the Barry M glitters, so decided to get a lovely blue one when I bought a tonne (suppose you could call it a haul....) a week or so ago. And it did not disappoint....it was more or less opaque in just 2 coats, but added a third to make sure there was no bare spots. I was amazed at how dense it was, and completely fell in love with it. However I did take a step back and realise it wasn't going to be so fantastic when I had uni late on in the day, so decided to tone it down a tad with some matte topcoat. Still loved it nonetheless ;)


Oh, I apologise for not cleaning up properly. I was too excited XD

Autumn tree flower things...

I love a bit of Barry M. They're affordable, and come in a tonne of colours and glitters. Although their names don't tend to be properly descriptive of the colour in the bottle, they're great nonetheless. the majority of Barry M's I own have a great formula, with only one or 2 being annoyingly too sheer.

So, my friend had text me a 20% off discount code for their website and I took full advantage to say the least. Once they arrive, I wanted to do a new nail design incorporating a few of them (I got a wide range, from citrus colours, to glitters and autumn colours so I couldn't really use them all for the one design lol).

I had seen a youtube tutorial for cheery blossom trees so decided to try my hand at the same design. however I went a bit crazy on the dotting, so they weren't quite as bare and empty as cherry blossoms usully are, but it was still a nice design in the end :)


Out of rubbish comes a gem!

I remember doing my nails quite late one night and I had a 9am start the next day. It had been a rather poopy day, and already had a headache before the nail polish/acetone fumes even reached me so I wasn't in the best of moods to do my nails. But my previous nails had been chipping, and I have a habit of peeling my nail polish once it chips...it's already destroyed, so I see no harm in making it worse :p And I've gotten to the point where I cannot stand my bare nails. And they're now pretty stained ¬_¬

So looking at my stash of gems and polish I ended up doing this...flower?...ish thing. I hadn't had a previous idea of what to do, so I was basically winging this idea. And I did not like it. I liked the base colour (Collecion 2000, Parma Violets, if I believe so) Dunno, it didn't seem interesting enough...a bit plain. Maybe I've been brainwashed by my previous designs...but I wasn't in any particular mood for a plain and simple design, ironic considering my mood :P


So i was sitting pondering what design looks rather fancy yet simple, and the infamous drips came into mind, and form there came layering and matte effect! I grabbed a light and dark colour and a white and began my design, and here's what came out of it...


Once I finished I realised there wasn't an accent nail, so I grabbed a blue and silver glitter polish and attacked my ring finger. I love a bit of matte polish, and I ended up really liking these nails :)

Peacock feathers

I'd been thinking about doing real feather nails, but I hadn't got round to buying feathers at this point (a post I'll be saving for later ;) ) so I decided to do some peacock nails. It's a pretty easy look to do, and you could probably get away without having any proper nail art brushes, it's basically some stripes with some blobs of varying colours hehe.


HOLOOOOOO!

I fell sorry for Mr Fizzy Vimto nails. I watch many nail art videos and read mayn blogs, and get super excited when I saw awesome swatches...I assume he never listens....

Until my birthday came along, and I opened the wonder that was GOSH holo! :D It's sold out in the UK so I have NO diea how much he paid for it on ebay, but it was such a lovely surprise as it was the last thing I'd expected him to get me :D

If you haven't read any reviews on the GOSH holo, then it's bascially a one night polish, made for a night out to make your nails wonderous and magical, so it chips and peels really easily. Putting a top coat on dampens the holo, so that's not recommended. However, it is pretty easy to paint over any chips or peels as the new polish blends in really easily with the old polish, and it's really hard to see the join.


It's pretty hard to get a decent shot of a holo (especially with my Blackberry camera -__- ) as you need a video of it shimmering in the sun, but this photo shows the rainbow pretty well :)

I've not tried any other holos as only the more expensive brands tend to do them (and in different colours also), but a holo seems to be something to have at least one of in your collection!

Basket Weave

I'd seen basket weave nails around on tumblr and blogger so I thought I'd give it a go. The final look ended up a big wobbly cos I used a nail art pen rather than a brush, but I think it's a nice alternative to stripes :)

My nails are a taaaad too long here, look talon-ish :/


Either, or...

One thing I like about playing about with nail polish and the like, is the fact you dont have to do each nail or hand exactly the same :)

I'm not a typically girly girl, I don't like the colour pink (I only have one, maybe 2, pink nail polishes) and I tend to have guy logic on most life problems :p

But the one pink nail polish I like in my collection is Fruit Salad by Collection 2000. It's not too girly a pink, sort of on the red, salmon-ish side of the colour scale... Yes, I am a n00b at this describing lark, I'll try and get better at it :) But I quite like the formula as well, it's opaque in 2 coats at the most and it's pretty quick drying, which we all want from a nail polish don't we? 

So yes, back to the nails, I was torn between doing girly, floral nails with 3D nail decos and glitter (or as I like to describe, "girl vomit" XD ) or go gothic-ish with some black stones.

I decided to keep both colours the same to keep them more together, and I thought the black stones would be a nice contrast against the pink base. 



I wanted to do something a little different from the usual polka dots, and I thought some black rhinestones would add a nice 3D tough. Kind of studded-ish.


And here's my girl vomit hand :p You could say this was Japanese inspired as a lot of Japanese nail art tends to have 3D decos and rhinestones and glitter and...well, you get the idea. This was my first time using the floral decos, and I was worried about them popping off straight away (I use clear nail polish instead of nail glue for decos since it's easier to take off and I'm worried nail glue would damage my nails) But I found some glooped up quick drying top coat so I used that as a glue, and to dab around the base of the flowers, and they lasted a good few days with showers and uni to deal with!


Tuesday 25 October 2011

When polish block hits....

I apologise profusely for these nails...I hated them once I finished them :( I was in Edinbrugh at my Mr's mum and dad's so I had a limited collection of polish with me, and I also had a bit of polish block.




This did not turn out the way I wanted it to...AT ALL. I wanted to make a nice, swirly design, but the brush I used was too thick, so it's jus ended up a bit blocky and clumsy, rather than delicate and floral-esque :(


Monday 24 October 2011

Did a disco ball throw up on you?

I was perusing in the nail polish collection of my local Boots one day when I saw this lovely glitter nail polish. It had little bits of blue, silver, green, yellow...AND it was called Disco Ball! How could I not buy this!? :D

I didn't expect it to be as pigmented as some other glitter nail polishes, such as Barry M or OPI, so I knew i could only really use Disco Ball as a top coat. But I didn't want anything just that simple, so I decided to attempt a glitter gradient. Which half worked...I got impatient with the layering (this was quite late at night if I remember correctly) so I did that thing of waiting for each layer to half dry, and then just slopping on another layer...and then going to sleep...which is never a good idea, wrinkle central!



Pick 'n' Mix

I often get in moods where I can't choose what design to do, my mind just seems to randomly get filled with all these crazy ideas, but I feel like I don't have enough time (or nail polish remover) to do them all (which reminds me, I need to get a little notebook to jot down my ideas and not use my uni notebook...)

So, I decided to do each and every finger a different design. Why not? there's no rules as to say that you have to do both hands\each finger the same...some rules are meant to be broken ;)

Right Hand
Thumb: cloudy sky with birdies
Forefinger: hexagonal glitter (kiiiiind of tried to make it look like fish scaled. But failed :p Also, the purple ink ran off as soon as I put top coat on D: )
Middle finger: pastel strawberry
Ring finger: iconic smiley face
Pinky: cow print




Left Hand
Thumb: lilac with purple crackle
Forefinger: polka dots with fruit fimos (the nail polish is called Fruit Salad!)
Middle: midnight blue with blue glitter
Ring finger: rhinestone mentalness! :D
Pinky: Minnie Mouse inspired with rhinestone bow


I had quite a bit of fun with this "manicure" (i dont feel right calling it a proper manicure, as I've yet to get into the habit of doing my cuticles and such hehe). It was a bit hectic as I hadn't planned beforehand what to do, so i was to-ing and fro-ing from my bed to my nail polish box.

But I did get a lot of ooohs and aaahs from my friends :3

Friday 21 October 2011

In a galaxy far, far away...


I'd been dying to try galaxy nails for a while, and finally got round to it :) 

It's a lot more easier than it looks, and the effect is fantastic once you've done it!

It's more or less just sponging techniques, so ll you need is some sponge (I used some old make up sponge, but eye applicator sponges, washing up sponge, any sponge would do), black, white, pink, yellow and glitter nail polishes. The glitter is optional but I think glitter polishes are good for blending out sponge marks.


"You can't look at a cupcake without smiling"

I'd seen the legendary drip effect nails on various tumblrs and youtubes, so I decided to try my hand at it. I wanted to do some sort of pastel colour but not sure which one to choose, so decided to choose all of them and do some cupcake-ish ones :3 I decided to make them look a bit more cupcake-y, so decided to use some colour coordinated strand glitter and micro breads at sprinkles. I got them off ebay, so they were very cheap, sad thing was that the ink ran off the beads one i put some top coat on :( as you can  see, I added some matte topcoat onto the coloured part to give it a bit of exra dimension.


Creepy nails...

I decided to do some nice, simple nails for a job interview I had coming up, and had picked up Revlon's Gray Suede. I'm pretty much brainwashed into always doing something nail art-y whenever I do my nails and decided to put on some rhinestones to jazz it up a bit.

However, I didn't like the final results :/ Due to my rather sallow skin tone, the beige made y nails more or less blend in with my fingers, and it just looked rather strange with my long nails. And the rhinestones were rather too large :(


Itsy Bitsy Polka Dot Bikini

It's been a while since I've updated this, this post has been in my drafts whenever my last post was, but I've been kinda busy with uni and Mr Fizzy Vimto Nails and his friends decided to do a 24 hour gaming session for charidee so my blog has been kinda neglected for a little while :(

Anyways, I bought 2 reduced China Glazes when I passed by Sally's Beauty supply. I hadn't actually got round to do something simple like polka dots so I thought this would've been a good opportunity to try some. As always, I like to add an accent nail and to make the design a bit more interesting, so I used gems and the opposite colour on my ring finger :)

Looking back, I should've done the spots a bit smaller, and made a neater pattern.



Monday 10 October 2011

Metallic Faded-ness

I'd seen a tutorial on youtube on how to do tie dye/acid wash denim effect nails, and I really liked the idea of them. However, I was at my boyfriend's house at the time I needed to do my nails, and I was stuck with this metallic colour and a shimmery purple. 

I wasn't sure if the colours would've complemented each other but the final effect turned out quite well :)

What you do i apply 2 coats of a base colour, and then 2 coats of another colour on top. Once all the layer have dried, take a cotton bud dipped in nail varnish remover, and gently rub onto your nails to take off patches of your top colour. Continue rubbing until you see your desired effect :)


Sunday 9 October 2011

Matte neon half moon manicure

Must admit that I'm a bit of a stalker in my local Sally's. I mainly buy drugstore brands like Model's Own, Barry M, Collection 200 etc, so Sally's is my haven with OPI and Chine Glaze, polishes I deemd too expensive. Until one day when I'd just got paid and decided to buy some. It was buy one get one half price on OPI, and I also found some decent reduced OPIs as well. And because I'd got some OPI's, I felt obliged to get some China Glaze too :p

I'd seen people doing half moon manicures so I thought I'd dabble in a bit myself, as I liked the simple idea of contrasting 2 colours with a simple design.


I done this design by using hole reinforcers from WHS Smith and placing them at the bottom of my nail (on top of my base colour) to achieve the half moon affect, and paining another colour on top.

The 2 colours I'd used were actually already matte, so I decided to not use a topcoat to keep the effect.

Polish block

I must admit, once in a while I get polish block and I can't think of anything interesting to do...hence how this design was born. I felt like doing something with rhinestones but wasn't sure what to do :/ i was also torn between using a dark midnight blue or a purple (my favourite colour). So....I ended up with this...I decided to alternate between the colours of stones to try and make it a bit different.


P.s I apologise profusely for the complete lack of clean up...

Tonari No Totoro...

If you have never seen My Neighbour Totoro or any of the Studio Ghibli films, I strongly suggest you do! I grew up watching Totoro and Laputa: Castle in the Sky, and I thought I'd do Totoro nails :3

I drew the main monster characters on my "accent" nails, and just did a simple design with pearls, star sequins and rhinestones.




I must admit, very few people knew who or what Totoro was, but those that did appreciated my efforts :)

Purple Swirl

This was my 2nd attempt at non-water marbling, but this time I used a fan brush I got with my nail brush set. I never really understood what it was for, so I thought I'd put it to good use :P

I used the same mehod as before, used a base, and blobbed on the colours, and then swirled them together with a brush. The final effect was a bit more defined than when I did it with a dotting tool. 

I thought I'd define some of the swirls with some rhinestones, but I don't think it looked quite right in the end.


TITP

You can pretty much guess why I done these nails. They're horrifically messy, but I wasn't too fussed about whether they would've been neat or not since they would've got ruined when I was there :P




TITP was pretty awesome though, saw Beyonce (where I nearly died thanks to over eager fans) and a few other awesome folk I wouldn't have seen otherwise :P

My proudest creation!

Words cannot explain how proud I was to not only create my own design with no help from youtube, but for it to be as awesome as something like Pokemon!

I remember the Snorlax being the hardest because the green was one of the cheap ebay striper polishes and they take FOREVER to dry, and I also couldnt get his face right.


I must admit I had to google the pokeballs, I haven't watched past the original first season, so I was only aware of the original red and white pokeball.

I decided to do the pokeballs on my left hand as they're the easier design and because I'm left handed hehe.


Safe to say my boyfriend and his geeky friends enjoyed this also!