A Floral Attempt at Layered Stamping

Hi everyone. hope you are staying well! This week I have managed to squeeze in some extra nail art besides the Holo Taco challenge entries I'm doing each week. I was pleased to do this as the pink base and grey/mauve are polishes I hadn't tried yet so was keen to give them a go (colours listed below the pictures). So for this look I used the Botanical 10 stamping plate from Mo You London. This was also an untried stamping plate, and features a lot of layering images which is something a little different for me.

I have used layered stamping before but it's not something I've done often, I usually use the advanced stamping technique and create decals. I found the leaf images really satisfying to do, the colours came out well and it was so easy to get am image that looks like it was more cleverly done! With the rose and buddleia flowers I was a little unsure where to start and which shades to use for which layer of the image. I think the buddleia flowers worked well, but the rose as you can see was very faint! I should have used darker colours obviously, and possibly layered them differently, so that I know for next time! Unfortunately you can no longer see plates that have sold out on MYL's website, which is a shame as I think they used to have something with this one that showed how to layer them. Still, practise makes perfect I suppose!

I finished with a shiny top coat over the accent nails, and a matte top coat over the plant nails to make the colours stand out. I've enjoyed these, they are delicate and Spring appropriate and work friendly too (not that it matters right now!). I'll be rocking these till probably Sunday when I hope to take part in the next Holo Taco challenge.
Colours used: Vintage Tee - Nails Inc, Bust A Mauve - Painted Polish, Key Lime - Barry M, Spring Green - Barry M, Cocoa - Barry M, Seymour Walk - Nails Inc, Wardour Street - Nails Inc, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Oasis - Barry M, Surfboard - Barry M, Acai Smoothie - Barry M

Day vs Night Nails

Hey everyone, back again with another entry to the Holo Taco nail art challenge. This weeks theme is Day vs Night. I was not expecting this one, they are getting quite creative with the themes, after the first few themes of Unicorn, Spring and Easter I was expecting something more generic like Mermaids (not dissing the mermaid theme though - I would enjoy that one too!). I decided to do one hand for the Day theme and the other for the Night, details below.

Day - For this I started with a blue base, medium blue on three of my nails (colours listed below the pictures) and a darker blue on my thumb and ring finger nails. Over the darker blue I used an untried polish, a beautiful flakie topper from Cuticula called Candy Crush. I really love the way it looks over navy! The navy polish also holds special memories for me as it was a gift from my boyfriend. On my other fingernails I tried to theme them around things we've seen on our daily walks, so we've got a cat, some bees, and a rainbow. The bees were added using the advanced stamping technique to create decals, for the cat face I used regular stamping, and the rainbow was freehand as you can probably tell!

Night - For the night time nails I used a similar lay out, with a purple metallic base and darker accent nails. You can't really tell very well in the pictures but the black actually has a green/purple/blue metallic shift to it under the silver glitter which I added over the top. I think this base gives the glitter some extra depth, and enjoyed the layering effect. It feels relevant to the theme too as I know Cristine from Simply Nailogical has gone for a layering effect with many of the Holo Taco polishes. I used advanced stamping for the stars and cat on the moon, and regular stamping for the cat face. The cat face showed up better than I expected over the purple, but the stars didn't come out very well, I think I went over the lines too much!
Colours used: Can't Find My Czechbook - OPI, My Car Has Navygation - OPI, No FOMO - Wikkid Polish, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Casablanca - Jessica Nail Polish, Diamond Glitter - Barry M, My Mate Illuminate - Wikkid Polish, Bikini Bombshell - Wikkid Polish, Joyful L'il Jellybean - Wikkid Polish, Candy Crush - Cuticula

Staying At Home And Painting My Nails

Hello everyone! Thank you for visiting my blog today. Since lock down I have got much better at keeping up with my blogging so today's look is one I am actually still wearing, and did yesterday morning. It was a very relaxing morning with the sun shining, windows wide open and the nail polish flowing! (fortunately not literally). This look is another one for the Holo Taco nail art challenge, with this weeks prompt being Stay At Home. As soon as I saw the theme I thought this is the perfect opportunity to use these cute little house images on my Mo You London Mother Nature 06 plate.

On my little finger, middle finger and thumb nails I used a blue background and the advanced stamping technique to create little house decals, you can see how here. I used quite a lot of colours for this, you can see them listed below the pictures. On my other finger nails I decided to put nail art tools to make my theme 'stay at home and paint your nails!'. To add some interest in the background I decided to create some more decals using some Dance Legend Spot It polish for a fluid nail art effect. Lot's of decals going on with this one! I finished with a matte top coat to make the colours pop.

Overall I like the way these turned out, I really like the little houses, especially the ones on my thumb nails. They remind me of some paintings we were considering buying for the house. There are a couple of bubbles on the house nails and some slightly rough edges on the nail tool nails as the fluid nail art decals can be hard to place, but they're not too obvious unless I look closely. Hope you are all doing well, and apologies to those who can't stay at home, and are reading their millionth stay at home message - thank you for all that you do!
Colours used: Laguna - Barry M, Surfboard - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Spot It White - Dance Legend, Floral Street - Nails Inc, Playing Koi - Essie, Red Hot Rio - OPI, Can't Find My Czechbook - OPI, Cappuccino - Barry M, Yellow - Barry M, Plum - Barry M

Food At The Fun Fair

Hi everyone! Back with another entry to the Holo Taco nail art competition, this weeks theme is 'sweet tooth'. I don't have a lot of sweet images in stamping plates but I noticed there are some on the Uber Chic Carnival & Fair Time plate which I bought when it came out, I believe it was around a year ago, and still hadn't got round to trying! It was only a matter of time before I tried this plate this spring/summer as my boyfriend and I seem to have got really into watching YouTube videos about roller coasters at the moment, which is kind of ridiculous as neither of us are particularly into actually going on them - oh the joys of lock down! I've also been reminiscing about playing Roller Coaster Tycoon as a child, I loved that game!

So for this look I got the Wikkid Polish Bring On Spring collection out again, it was only fair it had a go on my real nails! I love how vibrant it makes it all look, I think the pink works especially well for the ice cream and candy floss, and it amuses me just how neon the popcorn is! I stamped the images on my ring finger and thumb nails directly onto my nails, and for the rest I used the advanced stamping technique, you can see how here. I finished off with a matte top coat to make the colours pop even more!

Before I go I think it's worth mentioning the thumb nails. The pink one came out really well, I love the circus tent image and how it stands out against the background. The yellow one I was expecting to prefer as it is such a bright neon yellow, however because of this the white stamping polish I initially used didn't really stand out. I also had loads of trouble getting this particular image to pick up from the stamping plate. So I tried going over it in black, but still had trouble with it picking up, and then smudged it with the top coat. leading to the rather horror movie-esque look you see below! That nail definitely lets the look down, but at least it's only my thumb!
Colours used: Floral Street - Nails Inc, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Bikini Bombshell - Wikkid Polish, My Mate Illuminate - Wikkid Polish, Joyful Lil Jellybean - Wikkid Polish, Hello Sailor - Wikkid Polish, Peachy Beachy - Wikkid Polish, Down At The Deep - Wikkid, Cappuccino - Barry M

Easter Reptile Nail Art

Hi everyone! I'm super excited to bring you this blog post today as it is something quite different for me, and took me on a bit of a nail adventure! Last weekend I did some Easter nail art which I entered into the Holo Taco nail art competition, and I had another Easter design I wanted to do this year which I thought I may as well enter as well. However I didn't want to take off my current nail art so had a bit of a dilemma. Some time ago I was painting false nails and selling them on eBay, and I still had some spare ones lying around, so I thought I'd give it a go so I could do the new nail art but still keep mine.

For this look I decided to try the Bring On Spring pastel neon collection from Wikkid Polish, a brand I haven't tried before. The formula is great and they are perfect for stamping too as the colours are so strong. I look forward to trying them on my natural nails! I used the Festive 58 and Animal 10 plates from Mo You London for the stamping. For the crocodiles and snakes I used the advanced stamping technique with my Uber Mat, you can see how here. Below the initial pictures you can see the full set of falsies I painted. The third picture also shows the nails balanced on my hand in the order I'd intended this look to be in. A big plus of the false nails was that I could play around with which ones to wear, as I felt some had come out better than others, and really love the crocodile and snake ones!

I think it's worth explaining my inspiration for this look too, as it is a little random! One Easter when I was maybe about 8, instead of traditional Easter eggs, my parents got us each a beanie baby (90's yeah!) sat on a bowl of mini eggs. Mine was a snake called Hissy who I still have to this day, but I believe she is at my parents house so unfortunately I can't share a picture of her. I'm sure you'll believe me she's cute though!

So, before this blog post gets way too wordy, I'll move on to the pro's and cons. I did find stamping on the false nails quite tricky. The main reason for that is that they were still on the plastic stick in the middle, but  taking them off would have made other parts of the nail painting trickier, I need some sort of false hand for them! I also wasn't so keen on the big pink thumbnail, just not very me but it fits the design I suppose. On the plus side however I loved that I could play around with them and look at different design combinations. I also enjoyed them being wider than my natural nails, as mine are quite narrow which leaves less room for nail art! Surprisingly I also enjoyed the novelty of the square shape. I didn't think it would suit me but it does. Doing it this way was great fun as it was a bit different, but after all that effort to keep my current nail art I kind of wish I could do both - maybe next time I'll have one look on each hand!
Colours used: Floral Street - Nails Inc, Joyful Lil' Jellybean - Wikkid Polish, Bikini Bombshell - Wikkid Polish, Down At The Deep End - Wikkid Polish, Hello Sailor - Wikkid Polish, Peachy Beachy - Wikkid Polish

Easter Time Bugs and Bunnies (& a little chick)

Hi everyone, I hope you're having a lovely Easter break! My break is coming to an end but it has been really lovely. I have been productive with some things but have also taken plenty of time to relax. First Easter in a long time not seeing family or friends, but it has been really lovely to just take a break and have a chunk of time to appreciate the things we can do at home. So today's nails are my Easter nails for this year, though I'm hoping to squeeze in one more Easter look in the next week. I only did these yesterday as I loved my unicorn nails so much I kept them on for two weeks!

I started with a base of Robin on most nails, and Hatch on my ring finger nails, both shades are from Cirque Colors. They are my only two speckled polishes and felt very appropriate for the theme. I'm not ussually into speckled polishes but I think Cirque do them best, and these two are my favourites. For the chick, daffodil, bug and multiple bunny images I used the advanced stamping technique (you can see how here). For the little rabbits on my index finger nails I used layered stamping images from the Mo You London Festive 58 plate (used for all images in this design). My boyfriend said it looks like the rabbits are greeting each other when I put my hands next to each other! <3

Overall I am pleased with these, I think they definitely scream Easter and I like the colours. I particularly like the image with multiple bunnies as they are just so cute! There are a couple of things I'd do differently next time though. Firstly while the matte look makes the colours pop, it kind of hides the speckled effect of the polishes. I have to look quite closely to see them. The other thing is the bunnies on my index fingers look a bit washed out compared to my other nails, I think I'd have been better off using the advanced stamping technique for all nails.

I hope you like them and I hope you had a relaxing Easter. Happy Easter everyone!
Colours used: Robin - Cirque Colors, Hatch - Cirque Colors, White Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, Key Lime - Barry M, Red Hot Rio - OPI, Yellow - Barry M, Notting Hill Carnival - Nails Inc

Unicorns & Rainbows for Key Workers & Holo Taco Challenge!

Hello again - I'm back already! I need to get this blog post out in good time as I am entering it in the Holo Taco challenge this week, the first theme being Unicorns. I have a whole list of nail art ideas to do but I put it aside when this challenge prompt came up on my Instagram feed, and I'm so glad I did! I used the Bundle Monster X Nailedthepolish stamping plate for the unicorns, and the rainbows as you can probably tell are freehand. Here in the UK people have been putting rainbows in their windows as a sign of support for key workers during this challenging time. I think it's mostly a thing people have been getting their children to do but I fully intend to do one myself! Some of our neighbors have put a whole rainbow arch of balloons on the front of their caravan which is awesome! So I wanted to add my own little rainbow nails, though obviously no one is seeing them in person, so I need to get a move on with my window rainbow!

I started this look with a peel off base coat, due to the glitter, and then a thick layer of silver glitter, followed by a couple of coats of another glitter to add some depth (colours listed below the pictures). For the unicorns I used the advanced stamping technique (see how here) and my Uber Mat. I coloured them in with white polish, silver horns, and some of Cirque Colors Vice 2019 collection. For the rainbows I used a small nail art brush to paint each of the Cirque Colors Vice 2019 collection polishes over the glitter in a rainbow shape. It's a tad wobbly as freehand isn't my strength, but I think it came out reasonably well. Absolutely loving having the vice colours out again, they are so so bright!

So overall as you can probably tell I am really pleased with these! I'm also finally up to date with my blogging again, this look is actually still on my nails for once (did them on Sunday). I've generally been fine with not being able to show people my nail art in person, as I share it all online anyway, but I love these so much I would have quite enjoyed sharing them, they're pretty hard to miss too being so bright! Anyway, I hope you like them :) Stay well!
Colours used: Cosmic Girl - Danglefoot Polish, Diamond Glitter - Barry M, Black Stamping Polish - Rainbow Connection, A Mantis Shrimps Favourite Colour - Bees Knees, Silver Lining - Barry M, Game Over - Cirque Colors, Vitamin D - Cirque Colors, Electric Daisy - Cirque Colors, High Roller - Cirque Colors, Miami-Dade - Cirque Colors, Rehab - Cirque Colors