Daffodil Days

Hey space turtles! Back to blog catch up as we've been away again this weekend. This nail art was done for April's Glam Nails Challenge on Instagram - this time the theme is daffodils. I really love this daffodil image from Mo You London's Flower Power 26 stamping plate so it was the perfect candidate for this look. 

I started with a base of cream on my two middle nails and electric blue on the others (colours listed below the pictures). For the daffodil nails I created decals using my Uber Mat. I chose some reflective glitters for the daffodils and am really pleased with how they came out, even if you can't really see the sparkle that much in the pictures. I finished the look with a glossy top coat.

Colours used: Blueprint - ILNP, Cream Soda - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Shell We Dance - Painted Polish, Catch Sun Rays - Painted Polish

Falalallama

Hey space turtles! I have had a wonderful wintery day! After many busy weekends I've really enjoyed this one being a bit quieter. I've got things done (Christmas cards etc) and been for wintery walks (we're having a cold snap here in the UK at the moment) where everything was so frosty and beautiful. I also went for a very frosty lake swim which was an invigorating and sociable way to start the day. Yesterday I enjoyed taking the time to do some more Christmas nail art, the first of which I'm sharing today.

I have a cute Christmas puns stamping plate from Mo You London called Noel 10 which has lots of  cute animal images. One of the ones I haven't used yet is the llama one so I decided to base a look on that this year, accompanied with Christmas jumper prints which feels appropriate given llama's are a bit woolly. The jumper prints are from another MYL plate, Festive 04. I created a decal on my Uber Mat for the llama - it gives me Christmas party vibes! While this dried I painted by base layers of polish (ILNP's Christmas Cookie is the perfect Christmas nail art base in my opinion). I also added the wording, and the jumper prints which I stamped directly onto my nails. I then applied the llama decal and added a quick dry top coat - voila!

I love how these came out with the exception of the thumbnail which is a bit messy and the colours don't stand out very well. I'm enjoying the silliness of this look and the festive colours!

Colours used: Christmas Cookie - ILNP, Emerald Green - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Red Velvet - Mark (Avon), Foil Effect in Silver - Barry M

Inside the haunted house

Hey space turtles! More Halloween Glam Nails Challenge nail art to share today, this time the theme is Haunted House. I decided to go for something a little different and do a look inspired by the inside of a haunted house rather than the outside. All images are from Mo You London's Halloween 12 stamping plate.

I started with a base of sheer polish on my thumb nail and two layers of colour on all other nails (colours listed below pictures). I then added a selection of images in gold and black to look like wallpaper and other items found in a haunted house. On the thumb nail I added spider webs as no haunted house would be complete without those! I used a small nail art brush to add an outline in black. I really like how the shimmer in my base coat shows subtly through. These were pretty simple to do and I like how they came out.

Colours used: Coal - Fancy Gloss, Misery - ILNP, Eclipse - ILNP, Bright Lights - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend

Cosy At Home :)

Hello world! Today I'm sharing some snuggly nail art and a new ILNP polish from my untried collection. The ILNP shade is Aspen and it's from one of their latest winter collections. I love the muted yet sparkly effect and it's a bit different to other colours I go for at this time of year. I feel like there's lots I could do with it.

While my base colour was drying I made decals on my Uber Mat, you can see how here. All images used are from Uber Chic's Cosy At Home stamping plate. It's an unusual theme for a plate I think and I love it! I decided to go for a sort of greyscale look but did add an orange flame. I'm really pleased with the way the colours worked together.

To conclude, I love this look! I like the colour combination, the relaxed feel and the images being different to anything else I've done on my nails before. We're doing some ongoing DIY at the moment so it feels quite fitting to have interior themed nails!

Colours used: Aspen - ILNP, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Cream Soda - Barry M, White Horse Street - Nails Inc, Beach Hut - Models Own, Grey - Barry M

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas

I want a hippopotamus for Christmas, only a hippopotamus will do! A Christmas song I came across for the first time a few years ago when my sister fell in love with it after hearing it at work! I love the sillyness of it and it gets in my head so I decided I wanted to honour it with some nail art. It's meant to represent a hippo being found among the Christmas presents and toys. I was in a bit of a rush when I did these but they came out much better than expected!

I started with a few layers of ILNP's Fired Up for some warm sparkle, and then created some decals on my Uber Mat, you can see how here. The toy and present images I used are from Uber Chic's Happy Christmas stamping plate and I kept the colours consistent and Christmassy across all nails. I also used Mo You London's Noel 03 plate to make a little bird decal to sit on one of the hippo's. I've seen hippo nails before but I'd like to think that I'm the first to paint a hippo with a bird wearing deely boppers on it's head on my nails! While the decals were drying I painted some sort of semi-circle shapes on my thumb and ring fingernails in blue. I followed this up with a line of blue to define the hippo's nose, and then added ears using a small nail art brush, and eyes and nostrils using a dotting tool.

In conclusion I'm super happy with these. I'm planning to do my nails again tomorrow but I'm not sure I want to take these off! Will also depend if I have time.

Colours used: Fired Up - ILNP, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Blueberry - Barry M, Cobalt - Barry M, Pink Lemonade - Barry M, Jolly My Roger - Painted Polish, Red Velvet - Mark, Emerald Green - Barry M, Cappuccino - Barry M, Yellow - Barry M

Underneath the mistletoad!

Hello again! More Christmas nail art today of course! This look is one I didn't get round to trying last Christmas so am glad to do it this time! The Mo You London Noel 10 stamping plate features this strange and cute little Christmas toad image which is a definite winner for anyone who enjoys a pun! I used a few of the other images on this plate last year but ran out of time for this one.

I started with a base of dark green on three nails and ILNP's Christmas Cookie on the other two. Christmas Cookie is such a perfect base for Christmas nail art! I then used some metallic polishes and Mo You London's Holy Shapes 19 plate to create the plaid effect on the green nails. I went for a simplistic look but still managed to mess them up a bit with wonky lines! For the toad image I created a decal on my Uber Mat. It was a little fiddly but came out rather well I think! I'm enjoying this shimmering shade for the toad.

Overall I'm quite pleased with these. The tartan nails certainly could have been better and I think I should have used a slightly lighter green, but I really like the toad ones in the middle!

Colours used: Christmas Cookie - ILNP, Prince I've Been Gone - Cuccio, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Bright Lights - Barry M, Rain On Me - Barry M, Jolly My Roger - Painted Polish, Red Hot Rio - OPI, Emerald Green - Barry M, Cream Soda - Barry M

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

Mystic Witchy Halloween Party Nails!

Hey everyone! Happy Halloween! Today's nail art is my last Halloween look of the year and was done for my early Birthday/ Halloween party yesterday. I decided as it was for an occasion I'd actually do the same look across both hands again - something I've rarely done since before the pandemic! I enjoyed getting this super spooky ILNP shade out again (colours listed below the pictures) and having my nails so long and pointy!

I started with a base of sheer black on some nails and multi-chrome on the others, alternating and doing a few coats of multi-chrome but only one coat of black. I then created decals on my Uber mat for the crystal ball, moon and ram skull, see how here, While these dried I added the spider web and lace patterns on a couple of sheer nails. I placed the decals on the remainder of the sheer nails and then carefully added an outline to all the sheer nails with black nail polish and a thin brush. All images used are from Mo You London's Halloween 12 stamping plate.

I enjoyed the final look of these, it's the kind of mystic witchy look I was going for! I think it really works on my long nails too. I dressed up as a witch for the party so these were just right!

Colours used: Eclipse - ILNP, Coal - Fancy Gloss, Lady In Black - OPI, Bronze Bae - Barry M, Good Vibes - Nails Inc, Ruby - Barry M

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

Tropical Animals in the Autumn

Well hello there! Slight nail fail to share today but it was a weekend of experimental nail art! I purchased three of ILNP's new autumn collection and thought Park Ave and Uptown would be good backgrounds for some tropical animal nail art, and that tropical animal nail art would be good for a baby shower I went to for my lovely friend Charlotte. I did intend to do gradients on each hand, also featuring the other shade I bought - Skyline. However this didn't work at all - not sure if the colours are too strong or it's the sponges I was using but it didn't work for me at all. You can see some extra silver on the thumbnails which I where I started my attempt. The sponges soaked up the colour pretty much just leaving silver glitter!

So, I proceeded with just a plain base of green and amber, they're good jungle colours as well as being good autumn colours I think. I then used gold and black stamping polish to add images from Mo You London's Enchanted 08 stamping plate. To add further difficulty my gold stamping polish ran out part way through so I was testing out alternative options! I think the black images came out a lot better. So I think these were a bit of a flop really, the gold didn't come out that well, the gradient didn't happen and I smudged one of the images too! They're OK though, I definitely prefer the amber hand, the images came out better and I'm enjoying the colour being a bit different to my usual shades.

Colours used: Park Ave - ILNP, Uptown - ILNP, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend

It's Wine O'Clock!

Hey everyone, I hope you're enjoying your weekend! Today's Glam Nails Challenge prompt is grapes. I decided to use some images from Uber Chic's Bottoms Up plate, so it made sense to add a wine theme. It was a bit of a make it up as I go kind of look, and I was pleased to see the Bottoms Up plate has more wine themed images that I remembered (it has a variety of of different drinks).

I started with a base of off white and while this dried I created decals on my Uber Mat, you can see how here. I'm pleased with how well the images fit my nails and am enjoying the sparkle in the leaves and grapes. It took some deciding whether to do something more purple or red as I needed it to work for both the grapes and the wine bottle/glasses.

I'm really pleased with how these came out, with the exception of the smudging on the multiple wine glasses nail. Unfortunately I had a moment of madness where I totally forgot I needed to gently float the top coat over the image when making the decals! It's only noticeable close up though.

Colours used: Cream Soda - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Ambrosia - Cirque Colors, Someday - ILNP, Bronze Bae - Barry M

Snazzy Sea Creatures!

Today's nail art was inspired by some I saw by Hanninator on Instagram. She used the newest UberChic mermaid stamping plate to add some cute sea creatures to her nails over their new blue nail polish. The look made me feel nostalgic as it reminded me of some of those inflatable armbands we used to have as kids! I decided I had to have a go at creating something similar with my UberChic Just Beachy plate as it has some great layered sea creature images too (layered stamping I mean - not layered sea creatures! :D)

I started with a blue base of High Tide from ILNP as this was my most similar nail polish to the shade Hanninator used. It was lovely to try it out again, it's so rare these days that I put the same colour on all nails! Next I used some well pigmented nail polish colours (all listed below the pictures) to add the sea creature colours, and then black stamping polish to add the outlines. After doing the jellyfish I realised (should have know really!) that the colours wouldn't stand out well enough on their own over the blue so I stamped the image underneath in white first for the others.

Overall I'm really pleased with these! They're cute and fun and were great to wear for a trip to Brighton, felt very appropriate when I was swimming in the sea!

Colours used: High Tide - ILNP, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Pink Lemonade - Barry M, Red Hot Rio - OPI, Papaya - Barry M, Key Lime - Barry M, Watermelon - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend