Shy Mermaid

Hey space turtles :) More ocean vibes on my nails today with a shy mermaid. This was for yesterdays Glam Nails Challenge prompt of mermaids and I had quite a few stamping plates to choose from! I settled on this rather shy looking mermaid peeking out of the water. I decided to use some Femme Fatale thermals again although sadly the pinky/lilac one seems to have lost it's thermal effect.

For the mermaids face I created a decal on my Uber Mat and for her tail there were layered images on the stamping plate I used (Uber Chic's Mermaid Life 02) so I could stamp it directly onto my nails. I added the images roughly where my nail line is so that the thermal effect would make it look like they were coming out of the ocean which I think worked pretty well. I added this gorgeous shell design over the other nails in silver.

I think these are a little scruffy in places (e.g. some smudges on the mermaids face) but love the theme and enjoying the polishes too. I do wish they were both still thermal!

Colours used: Hook - Femme Fatale Cosmetics, Bluebeard - Femme Fatale Cosmetics, Foil Effects in Purple - Barry M, Charlotte Street - Nails Inc, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Foil Effects in Silver - Barry M

Beach Please

Hello space turtles! More Glam Nail Challenge catch up today. This time the theme is beach. I was looking for a fairly simple design for this and came up with the idea of a couple of my nails looking like beach towels and the others like the ocean. I also tried out a thermal polish I've had for a few years and was pleased to see it still works! Colours are listed below the pictures.

I started with two coats of blue/green on my ring finger, little finger and thumb nails and white polish on my index and middle fingernails. Once dry I used white stamping polish to add the ripple image from Bundle Monsters Twi Star stamping plate onto the blue/green nails, I then used a variety of neon polishes to create a gradient with images from Mo You London's Tropical 34 stamping plate. The patterns reminded me of the sort of thing you might see on a beach towel. I'd buy one!

I struggled to get good pictures of these so most of the below are outside in natural light. Good job it;s summer!I am enjoying the fun summery vibes though and still quite like my beach towel idea.

Colours used: A Mantis Shrimps Favourite Colour - Bees Knees Lacquer, Blue Beard - Femme Fatale Cosmetics, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Beachy Beachy, My Mate Illuminate, Joyful L'il Jellybean & Bikini So Teeny - All Wikkid Polish

Ghosties!

HelloOOooOo! Spooky ghosts today for the latest Glam Nails Challenge prompt. I was keen to try out Black Rainbow by Fancy Gloss again and decided this would work pretty well for some pretty ghost nails. I've seen a few lovely ghost themed nail looks on Instagram with other things around the ghosts and a clear base, so I decided to try something similar but where the base will change from pale to dark.

I started with a peel off base coat and a couple of layers of Black Rainbow, before using various images from Mo You London's Halloween 09 stamping plate and some metallic polish to dot them around my nails. I also added some bats from their Halloween 13 plate. I then made some ghost, candle and potion bottle decals using the same two stamping plates, you can see how here. I stuck these over the top and then added a top coat. I had liked the way it looked pre top coat so added a matte top coat over the top to complete the look which I think was the right decision.

I really like these, they came out well and it's just the sort of look I was going for. Only bit that didn't work so well was the ghost on my thumbnail. Unfortunately I must have smudged the image when adding the white polish as when I peeled up the decal I saw it was smudged, sadly I did not have the time or patience to make another one!

Colours used: Black Rainbow - Fancy Gloss, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, Floral Street - Nails Inc, Foil Effects in Gold, Silver & Lilac - Barry M, If You've Got It Haunt It - UberChic

A Haunting in the Nailyard

Hey everyone! It's that time of year again,.. Halloween nail art is back! Some people have started way earlier than me so I've had plenty of inspiration! My next few nail art looks (including this one) will correspond with Glam Nails challenge prompts and then I'm hoping to squeeze in a couple of other Halloween looks right at the end of the month. I thought of this look while on holiday and was super excited to try it out!

I started with a base of white nail polish (colours listed below the pictures) on most nails, and three coats of dark orange glitter on my little fingernail. I then added one thick coat of black thermal top coat to the white nails and waited a while for it to dry. Once dry I used black stamping polish and the Halloween 13 stamping plate from Mo You London to add the grave, cat and mushroom images. It was a little hard to see where I was placing them! I then used white stamping polish to add some ghost images from the stamping plate, again a little tricky to place but it went well! 

I've included pictures of the nails in different temperature states. I think it looks best in black but the colour changing aspect with the graveyard scene is a great fun addition! I kind of hoped the ghosts would disappear against the white background but the thermal top coat does have a tint to it so you can see them, but I can't complain - I am rather pleased with this look! Also really love the orange glitter :)

Colours used: Floral Street - Nails Inc, Black Thermal Polish - Fancy Gloss, Winifred - Enchanted Polish, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection

Abstract Florals with a Surprise Twist!

Hello everyone! I've been seeing abstract nail art designs everywhere for some time now, and decided to give it a go myself with some pretty purple and blues. I tried something similar when doing some One Nail To Rule Them All tutorials in the autumn but this time I stamped the images rather than drawing them myself which definitely makes them neater!

I started with a white base and then added a swipe of blue followed by purple (colours listed below images). I then used a dotting tool to add some black dots on each nail. To be honest I think this step maybe makes it a bit too busy - when I did it I'd forgotten I was also adding the stamping! Once I remembered what I was doing I used Mo You London's Fall In Love 10 plate to add the leaf prints in black. Finally, I used tweezers and gold leaf to apply little shiny bits of gold in empty white spaces on my nail before finishing with a glossy top coat.

The surprise - So the purple I used was a new one which was a gift from my lovely boyfriend. Once the nail art was all dry and I was in the shower I noticed that the purple I'd chosen had turned green! I momentarily forgot thermal polishes are a thing and was quite shocked! I had wondered why he chose a colour I already had but now I know! I think it really works well for this look, and shows up well in the pictures below. A great present!

Overall I'm pretty pleased with these - especially the colour changing element!

Colours used: Cream Soda - Barry  M, Mermaid Tail - Starrily, Laguna - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection

A birthday nail fail!

So I'm behind with blogging again! Not too far behind to be fair but I haven't been behind for a while and I'm doing a lot of nail art at the moment! Todays nail art is a bit of a nail fail but I wanted to share it anyway as it was still kind of fun, and I enjoyed trying out something I hadn't tried before. It was my 30th birthday on Tuesday and I had the day off and wanted to spend the entire morning doing some nail art, using techniques I hadn't used or had rarely used. On my left hand I wanted to create a firework look as they're something I associate with my birthday for obvious reasons!

I started with a base of Black Rainbow, which is a gorgeous flakie thermal polish which is black in cooler temperatures and cream when warmer. On all but my ring fingernail I stamped firework images from the Mo You London Festive 05 stamping plate, using my 'sticky stamping' nail polish, which is designed to stay sticky so you can apply things like chrome powder for longer before it dries. On my ring finger I added the number 30 with the Mo You London Typography 04 plate in black, so that it would be hidden when cold and appear when warm.

On the firework nails I used a few different chrome powders which I rubbed over the designs, and dusted away the excess as much as possible. Some of these worked better than others, but I found it kind of stuck to the whole nail in some cases. I did use a quick dry top coat underneath with plenty of time to dry, so hoped it wouldn't be too sticky but I guess it was! The thumb came out best I think.

As it didn't come out that well you'll see I haven't even cleaned up in one of my pictures below, but I don't mind too much as I enjoyed doing them, and some recent Halloween nail art Id been planning for ages went well - you can't win them all!

Colours used: Black Rainbow - Fancy Gloss, Sticky Stamping - Dance Legend, Chrome Powders, various - eBay

Halloween Nails - Bats in the Dark

Hi everyone, I'm feeling super autumnal today, it's very leafy and wet outside which is fitting for todays nail art! Todays Glam Nails Challenge October prompt is bats, I have a few bat nail art options but decided to use one of my newest Mo You London stamping plates, Halloween 13. I was inspired by some bat nails I saw on Instagram to do a sheer white base but I'm not sure that was particularly visible in the end. It did give them a bit off a jelly look.

I started of with a few coats of sheer white, and then added some shimmer using five of the Under the Sea shimmery polishes from Barry M (colours listed below the pictures). Once dry I used black stamping polish to add the bats. I used the same image on each nail but placed it differently for some variety. I then applied a quick dry top coat to seal in the design without smudging the bats. The next part felt a bit weird, especially as I haven't used this black thermal polish before, I painted one coat of it over the top of all my nails. It was really strange putting black over my nail art! The polish is quite thick so one coat was perfect. I finished the look with a glossy top coat.

Once my nails were dry I went downstairs to try out the colour change effect, my nails had remained black until that point as I was a bit cold, so it was SUPER satisfying to see the bats reappear under the hot tap! It honestly made me so happy :D My boyfriend was quite taken with it too! I'll be sharing a colour change video of it on Instagram, but you can see it in it's varieties in the pictures below too. The plain back one is bats in the dark nail art!

Colours used: Allure - Essie, Angelfish - Barry M, Jellyfish - Barry M, Moonfish - Barry M, Butterflyfish - Barry M, Pinktail - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Black Thermal Topcoat - Fancy Gloss

Taking the weather with you nail art!

Everywhere you goOo, always take the weather with you! Or the weather forecast anyway! I was super excited to get my hands on the Uber Chic Forecasting Glam stamping plate recently, and this is the first thing I did with it, a full set of accurate (at the time) weather forecast nails!

I started with a base of Cirque Colors' Luna, which is gorgeously summery but also changes colour so seemed appropriate for weather nails. For the nail art for once I actually didn't use the advanced stamping technique! The stamping plate has an image for the cloud colour as well as the outline of the clouds and the days of the week, so I was able just to stamp these directly onto my nails bit by bit. For the sunshine I coloured in with yellow nail polish and a dotting tool once the images were already on my nails. The pictures below show the full set with some of the colour variation, they were mostly blue as the weather has been warm!

Scroll all the way to the bottom for the thumb nails and something extra!
Colours used: Luna - Cirque Colors, Midnight Mischief - Painted Polish, White Stamping Polish - Emily de Molly, Yellow - Barry M

Below are some additional images from the stamping plate which I used on the thumb nails. I was really pleased with how they turned out and think the base colour was perfect! As I neared the end of the week the forecast changed a little, to predict storms for the Saturday. This was not ideal as I was off to see some outdoor theatre, however I was keen to try out the storms symbol on my nails! I did therefore re-do the Saturday nail towards the end of the week.

As you've probably gathered I am really pleased with how these turned out! Some of my most complimented nail art so far - they were a great novelty!

Nails In Rothko Red

Hello nail world! Something basic on my nails tonight. To me thermal polishes never get old! Some time ago I got my hands on Patina and Rothko Red from Cirque Colors Maison collection (on separate occasions) and since then have been meaning to try them together.

So for this I started with a base of Rothko Red on most nails and Patina on my ring finger. I used some small images from Mo You London's Minimal 10 plate as I didn't want to draw too much attention away from the colour changing effect but like to have more than just a base colour. Patina didn't stamp quite as well as I'd hoped unfortunately, but still had a nice shimmery effect.

In the pictures below you can see how my nails looked most of the time, red with the very deep red at the top. Please excuse the blurryness in the top right picture. I really liked the colour fade with mostly dark and a little lighter red at the bottom so decided to keep it in! So in conclusion these certainly aren't my most extravagant nails but I love watching the colours change and it was fun having two different thermal polishes on at once!
Colours used: Rothko Red - Cirque Colors, Patina - Cirque Colors

Holiday Nails: Dolphins & Cocktails In Tenerife

Hey everyone! On this somewhat cloudy day I'm bringing to you my holiday nails for our trip to Tenerife. I got back a week yesterday and am still adjusting to the colder weather and being back at work. I used a few new or long untouched things for this nail art. A thermal blue polish I bought on Facebook, the Uberchic Bottoms Up stamping plate, and Rainbow Reef, one of the 'dolphin glitter' polishes I bought from Ellagee when I was first discovering indie polishes.

On my index and ring fingers I am wearing Crepuscular Awakening, the thermal blue, topped with Rainbow Reef. On my middle finger I used the Tropical 07 plate from Mo You London for a citrussy gradient, and on my thumb nails I used a cocktail image from the bottoms up plate to create a summery gradient there too. On my little finger I used a few of the smaller cocktail images in a variety of colours. I think I probably should have filled them in with a bit more colour but got carried away and stamped the outer images of the layering ones first for some of them!

So all in all these aren't my favourite holiday nails, but I do rather like them, they capture the essence of the holiday I think - plus we saw dolphins! They also give me fond memories. I hadn't been to Tenerife before but would definitely recommend it for a relaxing holiday.
Colours used: Floral Street - Nails Inc, Crepuscular Awakening - Femme Fatale Cosmetics, Yellow - Barry M, Greenberry - Barry M, Papaya - Barry M, Rainbow Reef - Ellagee