Disco Animal Print

Hey space turtles! Today's nail art is for the Glam Nails Challenge theme Animal. I had so many possible options for this but decided to do an animal print as I thought it would go well with a watercolour look and wanted to try that with my new Holo Taco topper. 

I started with a white base and then top coat, and added sharpie inc over the top, drawing directly onto my nails. I then used a wide brush and nail polish remover to blend the colours together and get the watercolour effect. I added a coat of Holo Taco's Reflective Taco and then stamped the animal print over the top from Uber Chic's Warm Blooded stamping plate.

I am pleased with how these came out however I'm not sure this is the best way to use the Reflective Taco. That or I have a dud. I really struggled to get the sparkle to show even in bright lights and not just on camera. I really like that it's a topper rather then dense glitter but perhaps for this reason it gets drowned out by the watercolour pattern underneath. I will try it over a darker colour and hopefully get better results.

Colours used: White Out - Nails Inc, Various Sharpies, Reflective Holo Taco - Holo Taco, Black Stamping Polish - Dance Legend

Where The Crawdad's Sing: A Nail Art Tribute

Hey everyone! Today I'm sharing something a little different (well not that different, it's still nail art!). This nail art was inspired by the cover of a book called Where The Crawdad's Sing, which I read earlier this year. It is a truly wonderful book. I found it incredibly moving and beautifully written, and it really stayed with me. I was really rooting for the main character! I'd highly recommend it. I won't try and describe it here as I'll end up either spoiling it or just re-writing the blurb, so go Google it if you're interested!

I started this look with a base of cream nail polish (colours listed below the pictures), and followed that with a matte top coat to make the painting easier. Once dry I mixed some of the blue, purple and pink/coral nail polish with nail polish remover on some foil, to water it down, and then dabbed it onto my nails with a wide (ish) nail art brush. I did these one at a time as it tends to dry quite quickly on the tin foil. I had been hoping to achieve a better gradient with this but I think it came out OK. I applied another matte top coat for the final nail art, and then used black nail polish and a small nail art brush to add the tree detail and the silhouette of the person in the boat. The trees came out a bit better than I expected actually, it was kind of accidental but I found a technique! For the branches I used a small nail art brush, and a dotting tool for the leaves, before topping it off with a final matte top coat.

Overall I do like these, I like the colours and I think they came out reasonably well. I'm sure there are nail artists out there who could do an incredible job re-creating this book cover, but this will do for me! Hope you like them and give the book a try!
Colour used: Cream Soda - Barry M, Cyan - Barry M, Wardour Street - Nails Inc, Sloane Avenue - Nails Inc, Cocoa - Barry M, Key Lime - Barry M, Lady In Black - OPI

A Selection of Nail Art Techniques for Nail Addicts Collab

Hi everyone, hope you've had or are having a lovely day! I have some very bright nail art to share with you today. A few years ago I was part of the Nail Addicts Collab on Instagram, whose first challenge was 'nail art' themed. I did some pastel nails with images of nail art brushes and stamping tools, I believe I bought the plate especially. This year the collab is back, and starting with the same theme, so I thought I'd try something a bit different rather than going back to the same plate, tempted as I was!

On each nail I tried out a different nail art technique, all using the Bring On Spring collection from Wikkid Polish. I enjoyed getting these super bright neons out again! I finished off with a matte top coat to enhance the colour of the neon polishes. I've listed the effects I used below:

Index Finger - Watercolour (nail polish mixed with polish remover on foil & applied with a brush)
Middle Finger - Three colour gradient.
Ring Finger - Stamping (I'd forgotten white doesn't show up well over neon yellow!)
Little Finger - Dry brushing
Thumb - Smoosh (polish blobbed onto a stamper and then roughly pressed on the nail)

The smoosh nail is definitely my favourite and I'm glad to be back doing this challenge again!
Colours used: Cream Soda - Barry M, Bikini Bombshell - Wikkid Polish, Hello Sailor - Wkkid Polish, Joyful L'il Jellybean - Wikkid Polish, Peachy Beachy - Wikkid Polish, My Mate Illuminate - Wikkid Polish, Down At The Deep End - Wikkid Polish, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection

A Galaxy Far Away...

Evening all, hope your weekend has been good and not to strange! (Looking back that will probably seem like a really strange way to start this blog post haha!) So this nail look was inspired by someone on Instagram and unfortunately I have gone and forgotten who it was! Will come back to update this if I remember. They did black nails instead of blue I think but the colours in the middle are similar as is the image.

So I started with a white base on my middle two fingernails on each hand, and ILNP's Night Drive on all other nails. This was an untried nail polish for me and I love the way it sparkles! It has quite an intense holo flare under bright light. Over the white polish I used three different shades of polish which I'd mixed with a little nail polish remover on some foil, before dabbing onto my nails with a nail art brush. I do like the way it came out in the end but I'm not sure it worked as well as it has done for me previously. I possibly didn't use enough nail polish remover.

Finally, I used black stamping polish and an image from my Mo You London Sc-Fi 10 plate over the colourful nails, followed by a matte top coat. On my other nails I used a regular shiny top coat. I really enjoyed wearing these and kept them on for the whole week. Thank you to the unnamed Instagram inspiration!
Colours used: Night Drive - ILNP, Floral Street - Nails Inc, Cobalt Blue - Barry M, Cyan Blue - Barry M, Holland Park - Nails Inc

Watercolour Sea Creatures

Hi everyone! Tonight I am showing off some colourful holiday nails, which double up as my first ever Sharpie manicure. I wore this nail art while on a week away with my boyfriend and his family, so I associate it with fond memories!

This was my first manicure using sharpies, so I decided to experiment a bit. On one hand (top two pictures) I coloured relatively neatly within the lines, and on the other I went for a bit more of a splashed watercolour look.

I started with an off white base (colours listed below the pictures), and then stamped some images onto my nails from my Mo You London Animal 01 plate, and once dry applied a quick dry top coat. For the colours I scribbled a bit of each sharpie colour onto some foil, and mixed it with a little polish remover on a small nail art brush. I then dabbed it onto my nails within the images. I had to work quite fast as the sharpie ink dries quickly, even once mixed with polish remover. Once it was all dry I applied a matte top coat.

I think I like the neat hand best, but the messy one has a certain charm too, what do you think?
Colours used: Midnight Mischief - Painted Polish, Colour Burst Sharpies

Watercolour Succulents

Last (or maybe second to last) summery design for the year! I'm a little behind with my blog posts due to the amount of time I've been away from home lately. This design was created with my Uber Chic succulents stamping plate, which I absolutely adore. This isn't an original, I saw the design on the Nail Polish Society and loved it so had to give it a go myself. It's a little different as I used a watercolour effect rather than water marbling and slightly darker colours.

I started with two coats of white polish, and while it dried prepared my stamping tools. For each of the three watercolours, I mixed a blob of polish with some nail polish remover on a piece of foil. I then used a wide nail art brush to splodge/spread the nail polish on to my nail. Anywhere I thought the colour was too opaque I just dipped the brush in some polish remover and used it to water down the colour. Finally, once dry, I used black stamping polish and a negative space image from the Uber Chic succulents stamping plate over the top, ta-da!

I really liked how this design turned out and it was very easy to do. Thank you Nail Polish Society for the inspiration! I used the image on the left of the stamping plate which is perfect for pretty much any nail length, as it goes the whole way up the plate. This is perfect for me as my nail length varies often and sometimes it is too long for the images on smaller plates.
Colours used: Alpine Snow - OPI, Greenberry - Barry M, Cyan - Barry M, Bright Purple - Barry M, Black Knight - Mo You London

Watercolour Nails: Inspired By Hannah Rox It (Fan Nails!)

Today I have my attempt at Hannah Rox It's watercolour nails to show you. She posted a tutorial a short while back on these and I think they look stunning, plus pretty easy to do! To see her original blog post and tutorial please click here. I just used tin foil instead of glass for the mixing as it's cheap! Below is the design before I put on the purply colour, I was almost tempted just to keep it with blues and greens but am glad I went the whole way in the end. I think there are a lot of bright lovely colours that would work well with it.

For me the right hand looked better than the left hand (for once!), as I'd figured out the technique a bit better at this stage. With the left hand I was swiping the polish across the nail, rather than sort of splodging it on. The splodging had a better effect! The beauty of this design is that if it does go a bit wrong you can just splash on a bit of nail polish remover and move it around.

The top two pictures are my right hand and the bottom two are the left. (oops for not cleaning the right hand up properly!)

Colours Used: White - Barry M, Guava - Barry M, Greenberry - Barry M, Holland Park - Nails Inc, Pro Matte Finish - Rimmel