Cosy at Home

Hey space turtles! So my last post was cosy in chrome and this one is cosy at home... I wanted to do something that captured my enjoyment of home in the colder weather and use the lovely Cosy At Home plate from Uber Chic Beauty.

I started with two layers of frosty blue polish which is actually a thermal although the thermal colour change effect isn't very strong now. I made decals for four of my nails on my Uber Mat and while these tried I added the welcome winter wording and a couple of hearts. I then added the decals to my nails and finished with a glossy top coat. I'm pleased with how they came out and am looking forward to getting into my Christmas nail art looks :)

Colours used: Glacier Blue - Cirque Colors, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Red Hot Rio - OPI, White Moonstone - Barry M, Taupe Temptation - Painted Polish, Yellow - Barry M

Apothecary Stamping

Heyy space turtles! Not sure I'm going to manage as much nail art this month as I have so many things going on, but will enjoy fitting it in where I can. I have the apothecary themed Halloween 18 stamping plate and have visions of fabulous designs I can do but can't quite seem to put it together. Hopefully the ideas will come to me! For now I decided I'd just add the images in silver and lilac metallic over a dark green flakie polish for a bit of magic.

I started with a peel of base coat and then added two coats of deep green flakie polish. I then added the snake, jar, mushroom and moth images in lilac and some stars in silver. Once dry I added a glossy top coat. Although I wanted to be more extravagant when using this stamping plate I do still like this look and think it is a good way to wind down from the Halloween nail art, It felt like fitting early November nail art.

Colours used: Nightshade - Quixotic Polish, Foil Effects in Lilac - Barry M, Foil Effect in Silver - Barry M

Pumpkins Preparing

Hey space turtles! The next Glam Nails Challenge prompt for October is 'scary pumpkins'. Similarly to the cat nail art from my last post I didn't want to go too crazy with the Halloween themes yet so kept it a bit more subtle and autumnal. My idea was to include a pumpkin patch where the pumpkins were just starting to get their Halloween faces on. You'll see below some are further on than others!

I started with base coat and a couple of coats or green. Once dry I added leaf outlines in white from Mo You London's Fall In Love 05 stamping plate. I followed up with other colours over the top and then the detailing in black. While I was doing this some decals I had prepared on my Uber Mat earlier were drying. The pumpkins without faces are from the same stamping plate, and the other two are from Mo You London's Halloween 09 and 13 stamping plates. I finished the look with a glossy topcoat.

Super pleased with these although I think my pictures could have been better. I'm enjoying the colours, the glitter, the autumn feel and the smiling pumpkin!

Colours used: Watermelon - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Yellow - Barry M, Red Hot Rio - OPI, Cappuccino - Barry M, Zyler the Cat - Holo Taco

Sweater Weather

Hello again! I'm back so soon with another Glam Nails Challenge prompt. This one is for yesterday and the theme was 'sweater weather'. I knew I had to get Mo You London's Fall In Love 08 involved for this one, it has a whole bunch of gorgeous cosy images including some jumpers and jumper prints.

I started with base colours of pale grey, off-white and navy blue. I then created decals on my Uber Mat for the thumb and ring fingernails. The multi-jumper image was a a bit big for my newly filed nails but I did manage to get enough of the image on that you can tell what they are! For the leaves I added them all together from separate images into one decal, so had to guess a little bit how the placement would work on my nails - it came out pretty well I think! You can see how to make decals here. For the other nails I used white stamping polish to add jumper patterns.

I'm pleased with how these came out, I'd been meaning to do something like this in blue and grey for some time so I'm glad to have finally got round to it! I think it's very fitting for autumn and blue/grey and jumpers are very me!

Colours used: Cream Soda - Barry M, The Serpentine - Nails Inc, White Horse Street - Nails Inc, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Key Lime - Barry M, Playing Koi - Essie, Living Your Best Life - Nails Inc

Leafy Autumnal Nailies

Hey everyone! Doing things the other way round and have shared this look on my Instagram already, however I've now realised the picture I chose was a little blurry and not as good as these ones, sooo annoying! Can't delete it now as people have already reacted to it! SO - This look is one I had in a mind for a little while as an autumn look, I was really keen to use ILNP Bloodline again as it's so pretty, and it tied in with one of the Glam Nails Challenge themes for this month too (autumn leaves).

I started with a base of Bloodline on three of my nails and off white on the other two (colours listed below the pictures. Then used a variety of polishes and Mo You London's Fall In Love 05 stamping plate to layer up some leaf images. I started with the paler colours first and built up to black stamping polish for the detail. I was really impressed with how well the orangey polish stamped!

I'm really pleased with this look :) I've gone back and forth a bit on whether I think the leafy nails look weird next to Bloodline, but I've included that I like it and it's a fun autumn look! Would definitely wear again.

Colours used: Bloodline - ILNP, Cream Soda - Barry M, Yellow - Barry M, Spring Green - Barry M, Playing Koi - Essie, Watermelon - Barry M, Cappuccino - Barry M, Cocoa  - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection

Camping into the Autumn Nails

Hey everyone! More advanced stamping nail art to share today - surprise surprise! I'm also wearing the third of the autumn ILNP shades I bought recently - Skyline. I've decided not to do all of the Halloween Glam Nails Challenge prompts this year as I wanted to squeeze  in a couple of autumn designs first, this being the first one. 

I started off with a base of Skyline on my thumbnail and two of my finger nails, and cream on my other two fingernails. I them used my Uber Mat to make details for the two cream nails and thumbnails, you can see how here. For the thumbnail I used Uber Chic's Who Gives A Hoot stamping plate and for the other two nails I used images from Mo You London's Fall In Love 10 stamping plate. I thought the little woodland camping images would be quite fiddly but they were easier than I thought!

In conclusion I really like these, they're good summer into autumn images and I'm enjoying the sparkle! I've included images with and without flash below but unfortunately none of them bring out how sparkly the sunflowers are in real life!

Colours used: Skyline - ILNP, Cream Soda - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Taupe Temptation - Painted Polish, Tickled Taupe - Painted Polish, Yo-Ho Holo - Painted Polish, Princes Lolly - Cupcake Polish

Back British Farming (the nail art edition)

Today is Back British Farming Day! Introduced by the National Farmers Union as a day to celebrate British farming and it's importance to the UK economy. You can find out more here. I decided to honour this day with some nail art! I saw it all going on last year and thought a simple look with some wheat (the symbol for it last year) would look good. I've gone for something a bit different on the thumb which doesn't entirely go but I'll go into the details below.

I started with a base of green on three of my fingernails, cream on the other and yellow on my thumb. On my ring fingernail I created a decal on my Uber Mat using the Fall In Love 05 stamping Plate from Mo You London. I didn't really have a wheat colour so decided to go for gold instead and give it a bit more of a party vibe! I was quite keen to try out my Uber Chic Farm Fresh stamping plate as well for this so gave it a go on my thumb nail. I saw this design on their website (not sure who by) and thought it would be perfect, I started with green polish, then orange and finally the black tractor. It was surprisingly easy to layer up and place the tracker too.

In conclusion I'm enjoying these and I think they're a good nod towards autumn too! I do think the green (although I was pleased to use this shade again) was perhaps a little dark for the look, and I'm not sure how well the thumb goes with the golden wheat. However I really like the different elements of the look so I have no regrets!

Colours used: Racing Green - Butter London, Cream Soda - Barry M, Yellow - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Gold Digger - Barry M, Watermelon - Barry M, Not From Concentrate - Nails Inc

A leafy look!

Hi everyone and happy weekend! I've had a lovely day today relaxing and going for a leafy walk. We are in lockdown again here in the UK but still allowed to go out for a walk. We did some cleaning and things in the morning so felt good relaxing in the afternoon and feeling justified in doing so! I've also been enjoying some of my birthday chocolates :)

Anyway, onto the nail art! This look was created for the Nail Addicts collab which takes place once a month. The theme was autumnail and involved picking a favourite autumn colour and creating a look around it. I don't have one favourite autumn colour but I've been really drawn to oranges this year, so brought out this lovely bright orange jelly with gold glitter chunks - Sands of Time from Femme Fatale Cosmetics. The bottom two pictures were taken on a very leafy walk I did one morning before work. It was a pretty simple look to create, just used black stamping polish and some leafy images from my go to autumn stamping plate, Lovely Leaves 01 from Uber Chic. That's all for now!

Colours used: Sands of Time - Femme Fatale Cosmetics, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection

Halloween Nails - Werecat-person-thing!

Hey everyone! I'm going to say Happy Halloween to you now as this is my last Halloween nail art to share with you this year - October has flown by! I squeezed this last look in so I could enter it into the Holo Taco Holoween nail art competition, and wanted to do something using their products. I've also wanted to try the Solar Unicorn Skin topper over dark red for some time, and I have to say I am so pleased with how it came out, it's incredibly autumnal! I also added the Gold Flakie Taco which gave it an extra sparkle.

The theme I was going for was a sort of werewolf type thing, but with a cat instead of a wolf! I also did the cat becoming a person at full moon instead of the other way round, as I wanted to use the cat sitting on the moon image again, I love it! On my index finger I used advanced stamping to fill in the crescent moon and cat, and I did the same with the middle finger where the cat is walking off my nail. I had to cut that image down a bit and did add to the tail to make it bushier. For the full moon I used layering images from the Uber Chic Basic Shapes 01 stamping plate, and for the little figures I used an old Mo You London plate which is actually themed around The Beatles. The figures are a bit small but I didn't trust myself to paint people freehand! The images are from the famous image of them walking across the road. but they're a bit small to figure out who the cat is turning into! I left the thumb nail art free to appreciate the lovely sparkly top coats!

I'm fairly pleased with how these came out though the people could certainly have been done better! I just adore the sparkly base colour which is what really makes this look for me!

Colours used: Red Black - Barry M, Solar Unicorn Skin - Holo Taco, Gold Flakie Taco - Holo Taco, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Gold Digger - Barry M

Halloween Nails - There Are Ghosts In My Tea!

Hello all and happy Sunday! Sun is very much shining here today which is lovely, but definitely feeling very autumnal still. I am fully embracing it now! Today I'm back with another prompt for the Glam Nails Challenge October on Instagram. Today the theme is ghosts, and I was keen to use my new Cuticula nail polish as a base. This gave me the idea of making them tea themed as well, as it's from a tea themed Cuticula collection. I also recently purchased some autumn stamping plates with tea images, as well as some Halloween ones, so it seemed like a perfect combination.

As above I started with a base of Honeydew Tea from Cuticula. I then used the advanced stamping technique to make decals for the tea and book images, as well as the teapot, all images from the new Mo You London Fall In Love 08 stamping plate. On my ring finger I just used the top half of the pile of books image as I had less nail space. I then used white stamping polish and the Halloween 13 plate, also Mo You London, for the ghosts. I couldn't quite fit it on my thumb so it looks a bit more like steam than a ghost, but I still like it! I finished the look with a matte top coat as it makes the colours pop and I thought it worked well with the book images too.

In conclusion I really like these! The shade of green is unlike other polishes I have, and I love the images from the stamping plates. I had fun combining two different themes and I really like the way it looks. I also enjoy the Cuticula tea themed polishes too, I love a concept collection! There are six pictures today instead of my usual four, as I wanted to get a couple with my little ghost in a bottle, Boo-vier!

Colours used: Honeydew Tea - Cuticula, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Laguna - Barry M, Cobalt Blue - Barry M, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Basil Street - Nails Inc

Midnight Leafy Nails

Hi everyone, hope you're having a good start to the week! The nail art I'm sharing today was inspired by Urban Nail Art on Instagram and YouTube. I saw this beautiful design on her Instagram and just had to try it! Didn't come out quite right for me but I think it can with some practise! 

I started with a base of white polish (colours listed below the pictures). Next I used a gradient sponge and using white, pink, purple and blue I made circles on the sponge, with white filling the middle. I dabbed some of this pattern onto each nail to create a gradient. Next up was some stamping. I used the Uber Chic Lovely Leaves 01 plate and some sheer black stamping polish for the leafy pattern. This didn't show up that well on all nails but it worked on some! I then used black stamping polish and the same image over the top but not directly over the other leaf print, to create a sort of shadowy effect. All of this was done using the tutorial on the Urban Nail Art YouTube channel.

I have mixed feelings about how this one came out! I do think it's pretty, but the gradient didn't come out well on all nails, and the sheer black I used was possibly a bit too sheer too! I think the thumb nail and middle finger nail came out best. Still, I do love the colours and the pattern is pretty too so it's not all bad!

Colours used: Floral Street - Nails Inc, Love & Liberty - Painted Polish, Acai Smoothie - Barry M, Lexington Gardens - Nails Inc, Coal - Fancy Gloss, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection

Fancy Little Fox Nails

Hi all! Got some kind of autumnal nail art to share with you today. I've used three nail polishes I got for Christmas and really like the way it came out. Definitely making use of these again in the autumn but hopefully before then too! The only polishes I already had in this look are the cream and white polishes, and the black stamping polish. Colours are listed below the pictures, and there are a couple of bonus pictures this time, including one of a leaf decal I made as I love the way it looked shimmering away on my Uber Mat!

So I started with a base of cream on my middle two fingernails on each hand on my thumb nails. On my index and little finger nails I used my new flakie polishes which I alternated on each hand, as I did with the leaf and fox images. For the leaf and fox designs I used my Uber Mat to create decals as I always do! You can see how here. For the leaves I used the UberChic Lovely Leaves 01 plate, and for the foxes I used the Woodland Chic plate. They're so cute and I'm so glad I finally have a fox appropriate shade to colour them in with!

So as I mentioned before I really like these! It was the first time I'd tried Polished For Days (Christmas presents from my parents) and I'm really happy with the formula and overall look. I particularly like Birch, the silvery one, and love the way they both look on the leaves. The fox shade is from Essie and was a Christmas present from my boyfriend as he knew I'd been looking for something like that, previous designs where I've used the fox images have come out way too orange! One final thing to say in this blog post is sorry about my thumb cuticles, they are pretty dry at the moment and I had a paper cut under one of them so they look a bit gross in the close up pictures!
Colours used: Birch - Polished For Days, Meadow - Polished For Days, Cream Soda - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Playing Koi - Essie, Floral Street - Nails Inc