Mountainous and Blue

Hey space turtles! Today's nail art is one I'd wanted to try for ages - some landscape nails using Mo You London's Noel 18 stamping plate. I saw a look on their website and deiced to try and re-create that as best as I could with the polishes I have available. I started with two coats of blue nail polish and created decals on my Uber Mat for the mountains - it was refreshingly easy to do these as it was all one colour and easy to colour in! Once the decals where dry I placed them around the middle of my nails and then added some trees in front in blue. I also added some clouds on the thumb nail and a blue bird of prey on my ring fingernail. I finished the look with a matte top coat.

The trees would have probably been better if they came out a bit darker and more opaque but I do like them. On my thumb nail I tried lighter trees in front but they didn't really come out that well so that's why it looks a bit blurry. I did also end up with a few bubbles from the decals. Overall though I like these - they're not perfect but they're blue and landscapey so that's fun!

Colours used: Laguna - Barry M, Essential White - Uber Chic, Cappuccino - Barry M, Indigo - Barry M, Cyan - 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

Winter Spices & Christmas Vices

Hey everyone! Bit of  break from the Glam Nails Challenge posts as there are some more designs I want to try out and time always flies so fast at Christmas I never have time to do all the designs I think of! So this look is using a stamping plate I bought just after Christmas last year so haven't really got to use it yet, although it is wintery not just Christmassy so could probably have been used a little earlier. The plate is Mo You London's Noel 07.

I started with a base of off-white on three of my nails, dark green on one and gold on the other. I then stamped the wintery images onto the white nails in black and added some layers of gold glitter to the gold nail. Once the stamping was dry I added a top coat to protect it and smooth it out for the next step. I wasn't sure if I'd need to water the sharpie ink down but it turned out to be fine as it was, so I used the pens to colour in the images on my nails. Could have done with two shades of orange really but orange and yellow did the job I think! Once all was dry I finished off with a glossy top coat.

Once this look was complete I went straight out to a Christmas market and didn't take pictures till later. While I was putting wrapping paper away - disaster struck! Nail disaster that is... I caught my ring finger nail on the cupboard door and it snapped. Such a shame - right before Christmas too! It could be a lot worse, but it's a shame I didn't get some nice pictures before it happened, I had to patch up the nail polish at the end which it why it looks a bit lumpy. Otherwise I was pretty pleased with this look!

Colours used: Cream Soda - Barry M, TBC - Cuccio, Gold Digger - Barry M, Gold Glitter - Barry M, Chelsea Embankment - Nails Inc, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Various Sharpies

A puffin in the snow

Hey everyone! Multi-chrome winter vibes today with a lovely nail polish I got in my Christmas stocking, Pixie Parade from Tonic Polish. I actually did these before my Valentines nail art but wanted to share those first so they were appropriately timed. This base polish is gorgeous and so opaque, I'm super impressed with it! I was keen to try out my Noel 08 stamping plate from Mo You London too as it has gorgeous wintery images so decided to pair them together.

After starting with a base of two coats of Pixie Parade, I created decals on my Uber mat for the puffin and branch images (why does puffin and branch sound like a pub name to me?!) - you can see how here. While they were drying I added some other cute images from the plate to my thumb, index and little fingernails in silver. I also used Uber Chic's Basic Shapes 01 plate to add a couple of circles to my middle two nails. I did this as I thought the other images might not stand out well enough against the background, which in hindsight they did, but I'm still glad I added the silver circles as I think they give the look some more depth.

I really like these. The base colour is lovely and I love the Noel 08 stamping plate, it has so many cute wintery images, I particularly like the animal ones. Looking forward to seeing what else I can create with it!

Colours used: Pixie Parade - Tonic Polish, Foil Effect in Silver - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Evergreen - Picture Polish, Red Hot Rio - OPI, Not From Concentrate - Nails Inc

Atmospheric Night Nails

Hey everyone, hope your week has started well! Today I'm sharing some nail art which I really rather liked! I actually had it on before the love bugs of my last post (which I'm still wearing), but wanted to share the bugs on the appropriate day! For this look I used the Noel 06 stamping plate from Mo You London. It was part of their Christmas collection this year but it's really wintery rather than Christmassy and it has so many lovely images for wintery outdoor scenes.

I started with a base of blue on some nails and pale purple on others, topping off my ring finger nails with some super sparkly silver bar glitter (colours listed below the pictures). I then used black, gold and silver stamping polish and images from the Noel 06 plate, and some shades of blue for the layered mountain images. I used the same shades for a gradient on my index fingernails too. I really like these but I wasn't too sure about the purple nail with the blue mountain, so added a wolf the next day. I also mattified them. I kind of regretted it at the time but I do quite like the pictures!
Below is the nail art with a matte top coat and additional wolf. Which ones do you like best - matte or shiny? I really like the way the layered mountains one came out!
Colours used: Laguna-  Barry M, Wardour Street - Nails Inc, Cobalt Blue - Barry M, Indigo - Barry M, Foil Effect in Gold - Barry M, Foil Effect in Silver - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Summer Sparkler - Painted Polish by Lexi

Winter Stars

Heyyyy everyone! More star themed nail art to share with you this evening. One of my Christmas stamping plates (Noel 03 from Mo You London) had this cute candle in a jar image I was keen to try, and I think it works in non-Christmassy looks. One of my colleagues did say they look Christmassy though so maybe not! I tried a couple of recent-ish untried ILNP shades with this look and enjoyed trying them out, I think they are good wintery colours (colour names listed below the pictures).

I started with a cream coloured base on my middle fingernails, and the new ILNP's on my other nails, I alternated the colours on each hand as I quite like each hand being a little different. For the images I used the advanced stamping technique (as per), with images from Mo You London's Sci-Fi 10 and Noel 03 plates. I coloured the images in with the same two ILNP shades to keep it consistent, and of course shimmery! I finished the look with a glossy top coat (bit a a challenge as I'm nearing the end of the bottle!).

I like how this look turned out. They're not my usual sort of colours so it was fun wearing something a bit different, and it's quite seasonal too.
Colours used: Legacy - ILNP, Candlelight - ILNP, Cream Soda - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection