Steampunk Nails with a hint of danger!

Hi everyone, hope you are having or have had a lovely weekend! I had a yummy takeaway pizza for tea so am feeling pretty good about that... but have kept feeling a bit under the weather lately and can't seem to shake it. Must be a January thing. So the inspiration for this look was a lovely lady who comments on my blog posts (thank you! :) ) who said she'd love to see some steampunk nail art from me after I mentioned it in a previous blog post. So, here it is. I had good fun with this one!

So on three of my nails on each hand I painted my nails black, and then used the Steampunk 02 plate from Mo You London to apply the steampunk images in gold. On my thumb and ring finger nails I used Candlelight from ILNP, which I was drawn to after seeing one of their Instagram posts and I really like it! Good subtle shimmer and perfectly wintery.

So the next bit of this nail art is where it get's interesting... In my nail art box I have some little steampunk nail accessories which have been lurking around for some time after I bought them from She Sells Seashells. Unfortunately they are no longer trading but I do still have quite a lot of stuff from them. So on my ring finger and thumb nails I stuck the little trinkets down with clear polish, and it soon became clear they were pretty 3D and would need something stronger! So I did two separate layers of gel top coat to hold it all in place, and one layer on my other nails too so they had the same consistency.

So the overall verdict is I loved the way these looked! It's a good wintery colour scheme and something a bit fun and different. However I only kept them on for about 24 hours as despite all the gel there were a lot of rough or sharp edges, which besides catching on everything actually cut my finger at one point! (ridiculous I know! :D). I'm so glad I did these though, and sometimes it is fun to have short lived nail art as it gives me an excuse to do more!
Colours used: Lady In Black - OPI, Candlelight - ILNP, Foil Effect In Gold - Barry M, Steampunk Nail Accessories - She Sells Seashells

Froggy Prince Nail Art

Hey everyone! It's freehand nail art today, so of courser I've gone for something simple... I had this idea in my head for a while as I had some little gold crowns sitting in my nail art box. Unfortunately I did lose one of the crowns while out for a summery walk but I guess that was inevitable. I like to try and re-use these things though, I'm a bit of a hoarder!

Not too much to explain technique wise for these! I used the nail brush in the bottle for the frogs heads, and then the largest of my dotting tool, followed by a slightly smaller one for the eyes. I used a small nail art brush for the nose and mouth. I stuck the crowns on with top coat only, as I usually find it so hard to get these sorts of things off my nails, and using nail glue makes it virtually impossible!

Apologies for the blurry image bottom left, but I couldn't be inconsistent and just have three! These nails may be better suited to kids but I like them, and I enjoyed wearing something bright while the weather was hot! They remind me of my day off in the sun eating ice cream and going for a walk with my Mum :)
Colours used: Flip Flop Fantasy - China Glaze, Key Lime - Barry M, Lady In Black - OPI, Floral Street - Nails Inc