Stamping Sundays: A Pirate's Life For Me

Hey space turtles! I formulated todays nail art in my mind a good few days before I did it which is unusual for me at the moment, I've got out of the habit. It's for the final Glam Nails Challenge theme for July 2022 which is Pirates. I dug out an old pale grey polish I love for the base but didn't notice till I added the pictures how bubbly it's gone! I was particularly excited to try the ship and wave on my thumbnail.

I started with two coats of pale grey on all nails, and while they dried I created decals on my Uber Mat using Uber Chic's Mermaid Life 02 stamping plate. I then used my new Kads 011 stamping plate to layer up some wave designs on my thumb and ring finger nails. The base blue I used didn't stand out that well against the grey but I still like the look. I added the decals over the top and then used a nail art brush to carefully add a gold outline. Pirates do love gold so I hear!

I'm pleased with how these came out. The thumb nail doesn't look quite as spectacular as I'd envisioned but it still looks pretty good I reckon and I can always try again. They do look like they're in a spot of peril!

Colours used: Little Bo Peep - Rimmel, Laguna - Barry M, Cyan - Barry M, White Stamping Polish 0 Rainbow Connection, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Oyster - Barry M, Cappuccino - Barry M, Ruby - Barry M, Emerald Green - Barry M, Gold Digger - Barry M, Cream Soda - Barry M, Dead Heat - Barry M 

Olympic Nails

Good evening everyone! I'm currently watching the Olympic cycling, so very appropriate for today's blog post! My boyfriend has been suggesting I try Olympic nails for a while, and I thought I'd get on with it before it's too late! They're not particularly Rio themed (apart from the red polish being called Red Hot Rio!) but these are my first Olympic nails so I wanted to keep it fairly simple! I was also keen to have my first proper go with the Barry M Molten Metals which I have finally got hold of (swatches to follow at a later date).

I started off with a white base, and used a large dotting tool to paint on the medals, starting small and adding more and more. For the medal straps I used a nail art brush and nail polish (all colours listed below the pictures). I then used a small nail art brush to paint on the 2016 and Olympic rings. The rings are pretty wobbly, they were a surprisingly difficult shape to paint! I think in the future I would do the rings with acrylic paints as they would potentially be a bit easier to tidy up.

I'm glad to be doing a bit of freehand again, I think I need more practise but it's so easy to get hooked in by stamping. I do love a bit of advanced stamping! I hope you enjoy the rest of the Olympics! TTFN

Colours used: Alpine Snow - OPI, Gold Digger - Barry M, Silver Lining - Barry M, Bronze Bae - Barry M, Lady In Black - OPI, Cobalt - Barry M, Red Hot Rio - OPI, Yellow - Barry M, Spring Green - Barry M

Stamping Sunday: Subtle Nails For Wedding

Hello! Least imaginative blog title ever this evening! I really couldn't think what to call it so just went with a description. Tonight's design I did for a wedding I went to a few weeks ago. It was a beautiful day :) I wanted something subtle but still with something interesting on it, I can never seem to stick to plain nails at the moment!

This design worked well but was more subtle than I intended! In the pictures below you can see the two layers but in most light it just looked like it had a sort of mottled effect, the stamping didn't really show up. I started by stamping on  the leaf pattern (Born Pretty plate 19) in Barry M's Coconut, wish stamps surprisingly well. I've included a picture below, pre clean-up. I then used ILNP's Flower Girl for another layer of the same pattern to give it some shimmery ooph! Unfortunately it was at this point that it seemed to just merge into one and became too subtle! It was a nice design though and worked well for the wedding and a client meeting the next week.

Colours used: Little Bo Peep - Rimmel, Coconut - Barry M, Flower Girl - ILNP

HBP Presents: An Arctic 'Grey-dient'

So the time has come for another Hobby Polish Bloggers link up. The HBP Facebook group is a great place for sharing and learning tips and tricks on anything nail art/nail blog related. This months theme is gradients. I usually associate gradients more with spring/summer but have fancied trying a grey one for a while now so this was my chance. I used three grey shades (detailed at the bottom of this post) to create the gradient with some nail art sponges from Ebay, and then used a Mo You stamping plate (Enchanted Plate collection 05) for the design.

I had so many nail fails doing this! All went well to start with but I tried a peel of barrier for the first time, and on a couple of my nails where these touched the nail varnish, it peeled part of it off when I tried to remove it, you can see the effect of this on my thumbnail below. I also had a couple of Cellotape miss-haps (I was using it to clean my stamper) where it became stuck to and peeled off little bits of polish, so I had to try and patch them up. Mostly hidden by the stamping but it was obvious to me, so this mani didn't last long! I'm thinking these things happened because the polish wasn't quire dry enough so at least there is a lesson learnt.

Overall I like the gradient, the stamping images and the colours, but thing this may have worked slightly better with a wintery pattern (from the same plate) rather than the animals, as in some lights they weren't very clear. Also less nail fails would be good! I liked the super shinyness of the silver against the darker grey.


Colours Used: Little Bo Peep - Rimmel, Grey - Barry M, Dragster - Barry M, Dazzle - Orly

Check out all the other lovely designs below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping Sundays: Advanced Stamping Take One

Today's stamping post is my first attempt at advanced stamping with large images. I did it experimentally so only tried it on an accent nail, and I'm pretty pleased with how it went. The only downside it that the base colour is quite dark, so the pattern didn't show up as well as it could have done. For this design I used Born Pretty stamping plate 04 which I purchased on ebay.

For those of you who are not familiar with advanced stamping, it is an ingenious technique which looks so tricky but is actually satisfyingly simple! The design is picked up with a stamper and the gaps are filled in with a tiny brush or dotting tool (as the picture will be flipped before being applied to the nail this allows for some painting over the lines!). I used dotting tools as I felt they gave me more precision. Once all is filled in and dry a generous layer of top coat is applied and left to dry, there is quite a lot of drying time required!


Once dry, the design can be peeled of the stamper. This is the bit I thought would be really difficult but it was surprisingly sturdy, and as my stamper is squishy I could just press the sides down so it peeled off easily. Next I carefully applied the design to my nail. this is easier with a small design like the turtles I posted a few weeks back. With a large image I found there was some bubbling which was hard to get rid of, a little like sticky back plastic. The beauty of a decal made of nail varnish is that clean up is a dream!

I've really enjoyed advanced stamping, and due to the arrival of some new stamping plates for my birthday there will be a lot more to come!

Colours used: Anne Teak - Freckles Polish, Black Knight - Mo You, Baker Street - Nails Inc, Red Hot Rio - OPI, Block Your Green - Rimmel

Creepy Kitties

Fittingly with my blog name I've created some spooky cat nails for halloween. These were surprisingly easy to do and were based on some designs I've seen around on the internet. There was one picture I followed in particular but I can't seem to find where to credit it too as its just on lots of sharing sites.

The cat heads and ears were done freehand with the polish bottle brush and a small nail art brush for the ears. I used a darker colour than the picture that inspired me as I wanted it to look darker and more halloweeny! I then used the small brush to paint the yellows of the eyes and the thin pupils that gives them that stare! To finish I used a matte top coat the make the design stand out better.

More halloween nails to come!

Colours Used: Slip Stream - Barry M, Lady In Black OPI, Canary Yellow - Barry M, Pro Matte Finish - Rimmel

Tropical tuesday: Double pineapple!

Today I have something bright to compensate for all this rain! I'm very fond of fruit, and think that pineapples are a excellent subject for nail art as they are so interesting to look at. Therefore for this design I am practicing freehand pineapples. The fruit were painted with a small nail art brush (from ebay!). I like the look it's created, but would like to be able to achieve those beautifully neat designs I've seen on Instagram, they may or may not be stencils, but I think I will need much finer brushes and a bit more practice!

Below I've included a picture of them with my awesome pineapple t-shirt (still available from H&M), because lets face it, who needs double denim when you can have DOUBLE PINEAPPLE!!

Colours Used: Sunny Days - Rimmel, Alpine snow - OPI, Cappuccino - Barry M, Key Lime - Barry M