Cosy by the fire Christmas nails!

Hello all, I'm listening to some jazzy Christmas music which seems pretty appropriate for the nail art I'm sharing today! This nail art has a 'chestnuts roasting by an open fire' vibe and came about because I wanted to do a fiery design with my new orange polish from Femme Fatale Cosmetics. If you read this blog regularly you'll notice that these pictures have a different backdrop! I am having trouble getting good pictures at the moment in the darker weather so took some on the train when it was brighter!

On my index finger, little finger and thumb nails I used Sands Of Time by Femme Fatale Cosmetics. It's not the sort of colour I usually go for but I just love how vibrant it is! In a weird way it reminds me of marmalade, really vibrant marmalade! On my other nails I used cream polish for a base (colours listed below pictures) and created decals on my Uber Mat for the stocking and fireplace images, both are from the UberChic Happy Christmas stamping plate. Alongside some metallic gold I used a couple of shades from the Cirque Colors Facets collection. You can see it well enough in these pictures but it was hard to see the detail of the fireplace very well in some lights so I think I should have used a slightly lighter red, but I do love the sparkle!

Overall I'm pretty happy with these. The orange was warm and Christmassy without being a traditional colour while the fireplace and stocking added a more traditional touch. December is flying by as always!
Colours used: Sands of Time - Femme Fatale Cosmetics, Cream Soda - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Emerald - Cirque Colors, Garnet - Cirque Colors, Foil Effect in Gold - Barry M

Stamping Sunday: Cosy Christmas Polar Bears

Hey everyone, I'm behind with my nail blogging agaain!! This is from last weekend and I only had it on for a few days as I wasn't sure it suited me that well. I wanted to try something pale pink with a snuggly polar bear image from one of my new stamping plates, so thought it would be the perfect opportunity to try out Pink Lemonade from Cirque Colors. It's a really pretty colour but I'm not sure it really suits me unfortunately. Something about the peachy gold aspect of the flakies just didn't quite work with my skin tone.

On my middle fingers I stamped some Christmas jumper images from the Mo You London Festive 06 plate in black and gold, they came out a bit wonky which didn't really improve the look! I used the new Mo You London Noel 03 plate for the cute little polar bear images and the festive stars. I created decals on my Uber Mat so I could colour them in, and dressed the cuddly polar bear in a wintery grey, the polar bears are my favourite but I do like how the stars came out too.

So overall I wasn't totally thrilled with these, but I do like the little polar bears. From here till the end of the year it will be full on Christmas nails!
Colours used: Pink Lemonade - Cirque Colors, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Foil Effect in Gold - Barry M, Little Bo Peep - Rimmel

Stamping Sunday: Snowflake Time!

Hey everyone and happy 1st of December! Today I bring to you my first Christmassy nails of the year (or wintery if you're not ready yet!). I went for something that was more wintery than Christmassy as I did do them a few days ago, but Christmas stamping plates were used!

The two main colours I used were from Barry M's new(ish) Crystal rock collection, and I was super impressed with them! The white is so perfect for snowmen and snowflakes, and the blue is gorgeously sparkly! I used a shiny top coat for this look but the polishes look amazing with their textured finish too. For the snowflake nails I painted them white and then added a top coat to make them a bit smoother for stamping. I used a black stamping polish to add a reverse snowflake image over the top. For the snowmen I used the reverse stamping technique and my Uber Mat, and finished off with another layer of top coat once done! Both images are from the UberChic Christmas 01 stamping plate.

So are you all set up with your tree  and Christmas nails now or do you prefer to wait a bit longer? We're doing our tree next weekend but the nail art is in full swing and I think I shall get the Christmas socks out too! I'm really pleased with how these turned out and thing it's a good start to this years Christmas nail art!
Colours used: Flourite - Barry M, White Moonstone - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection

Nails Inc Blame It On The Rainbow

Hello world! Just a quick blog post today in the form of a review of one of the Nails Inc duo's. I'd been considering this for a while but I'm not much of a pink person, but then I found it in TK Maxx so it was clearly meant to be! I normally wear nail art and decided to try this during the week between a couple of other designs, and ended up keeping it on longer than expected as it was so lovely.

What's Poppin' is a lovely bright yet warm pink with a hint of lilac. I don't usually go for pink but I was so pleased with how this looked. The shade is flattering and so glossy. I was also really please with the consistency and the brush was a great shape making it easy to use. I used two coats as I could just about see some nail line when I held my nails up to the light with one coat, but this could definitely work as a one coater.

Rainbow Sprinkles is exactly what it says on the tin! A mixture of different coloured glitter particles in a clear base. It's super sparkly and fun! The glitter is fairly densely packed so I built this up with a few coats rather than sponging it on. I did use a sheer pink base as I knew my nail would show a little underneath, however I think the glitter distracted my eyes away from that anyway!

So as you can see - a clear winner! I would definitely recommend this duo.
Colours used: What's Poppin - Nails Inc, Rainbow Sprinkles - Nails Inc, Bashful - Barry M

Glittering Wave Nail Art - Inspired by Rye and Hastings

Hey everyone! Getting a bit behind on my nail blogging again... no surprises there! These ones were inspired by a weekend away we had a few weeks ago for my birthday. To be honest they didn't come out as well as I'd hoped, but there are elements of them I like. I still feel like I need SO much work on my nail photo taking skills too!

So the places we visited on the weekend away were Rye and Hastings. We also went to a steam museum on the way to Rye, which is making me think maybe I should try some steampunk nail art! We stayed in  a lovely little Airbnb cabin on a farm, it was delightful! The anchor and the images on my little fingernails were stamped directly, and for the waves and sailing boat I used the advanced stamping technique to colour them in, or add glitter in the case of the waves. On my index finger I sponged on some glitter, and then used a reverse stamping image from the UberChic Lovely Leaves 01 plate with the blue polish. It didn't show up as well as I'd hoped so I stamped it again, but that didn't work too well, particularly on my right hand.

So all in all I think these are OK. I like the colours and the theme, but it came out a bit messier than I'd anticipated, and didn't really wow me!
Colours used: Laguna - Barry M, Cream Soda - Barry M, Little Bo Peep - Rimmel, Grey - Barry M, Northern Lights (H) - Fun Lacquer, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Cosmic Girl - Danglefoot Polish

Foxy Autumn Nails

Hey everyone, I'm back again already with some more autumn nail art! I enjoyed doing these on Sunday afternoon at my grandparents house, I've been wanting to try these fox images from the Uber Chic Woodland Chic stamping plate for quite some time. I used a cream base for most nails, and on the accent nail, black with a gold flakie topper. It's an old Nails Inc one I picked up in TK Maxx a few years ago.

I stamped the images onto the cream nail polish and then added a layer of quick dry top coat to protect them from the nail polish remover in the next step. Once dry I mixed some sharpie ink and nail polish remover on a piece of tin foil, and used a small nail art brush to colour in the images. I had to mix it up quite a few times as it dries pretty fast!

There wasn't much more to this one really! It took a while as there were a few layers of polish to dry but it was a pretty simple process. I used sharpie ink as I don't really have any fox coloured nail polish! They did come out a bit more of a bright orange than I was going for but I suppose they are cartoon foxes so it kind of works!
Colours used: Cream Soda - Barry M, Lady In Black - OPI, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Orange Sharpie, The Donmar - Nails Inc

Purple Magic - Post Halloween Nail Art

Hello world! It feels like I haven't blogged for ages! I've just had two lovely weekends away, the first for my birthday (went to the seaside!) and the second visiting my grandparents. For my birthday I wore a beautiful deep purple with multi coloured flakies which you can see on my Instagram. I followed that up with this magic themed look which I had been planning to wear for Halloween, but I loved my sugar skull ones so much I kept them on instead!

For this look I started with a base of Ava from ILNP, a polish I'd been meaning to try for ages, but somehow kept forgetting! For the images on my nails, excluding the snake, I used the advanced stamping technique to create decals on my Uber Mat. You can see how here. I used a gold outline and filled them in with some of the Barry M Under the Sea polishes. With hindsight I think I should have used a black outline for most of them. I thought that wouldn't stand out well enough against the purple, but the gold doesn't stand out too well against the iridescent polishes.

I used images from the Mo You London Crystal 01, Minimal 07 and Animal 15 plates, and the Uber Chic Woodland Chic and Wild Luxury: Cold Blooded plates. Some of the crystal images have little stars around them which I added to the mushroom images as well. Overall I'm pretty pleased with these though I will tweak them a little if I do them again.
Colours used: Ava - ILNP,  Foil Effects in Gold - Barry M, Peridot - Cirque Colors, Butterflyfish - Barry M, Jellyfish - Barry M, Moonfish - Barry M