Halloween Nails : Skull Print

Well hello there everyone ! Fancy seeing you here on Halloween Night, what a coincidence ! Who'd have thought I'd do Halloween nails to suit the occasion ? Turns out LOADS of people have, would you believe it ?! So anyway, this is the final installment in my Halloween nails series I've been doing over the last few days, and I hope you all like them !

So just in case you can't tell, I've done lots of little mini skulls (pretty abstract ones to say the least) to make a skull print design ! It turned out exactly as I had planned, but I almost wish I had used a dark grey (OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine! maybe) instead of a plain black polish. I suppose the black does go with a lot of the whole Halloween business though !

For this design I used my trusty black polish, American Apparel Hassid (seriously amazing polish if you ask me), and then for the skulls I used American Apparel T-Shirt and my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in white. The skulls were really easy to do : all you have to do is make a big white dot with the large end of a dotting tool, and then either using a nail art pen or a small dotting tool just dot on three white spots underneath each large one. I then went over the big ones with a medium dotting tool and black polish to paint the eyes... see ? easy !

And that's it for my Halloween nails guys ! I'll be back tomorrow with a Movember moustache on my nails (hopefully), I'm planning the design out in my head already ! I've actually really enjoyed doing all these Halloween-themed nails these past few days, my favourite were probably the pumpkins though ! What are your favourite Halloween nails of all time ?

See you all tomorrow everyone !

Halloween Nails : Ripped Flesh

Hey there everybody ! So today I have some nails that I did a couple of days ago in preparation for today's post, as I knew I wouldn't have time to do them this evening (busy day of lectures, and then the compulsory pub quiz comittment) ! Unfortunately I can't be credited for this amazing design, but it is so unique and perfect for Halloween, I had to recreate it !

So I did these nails using the tutorial by Melissa over at The Daily Nail ! She is seriously such an inspiration to me, as her blog was really the first nail blog I discovered when I started to get in to nail art, and she still does such amazing designs ! This was the first design in her "HalloWEDNESDAY" series, all of which I've really enjoyed looking at !

For this design I used OPI Big Apple Red, OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons, American Apparel Hassid and P2 Elegant. Basically all you do is paint a base coat of red, go over the top with your skin colour polish, cover with top coat (I use Seche Vite), wait for it to dry slightly and then pull it towards the tip of your nail. I think the overall look is really effective, and looks seriously gory !

So I'm kind of gutted that I didn't get to keep this design on for longer, but I'm really quite happy about the fact that I get to keep yesterday's pumpkin nails on for slightly longer ! Only one more day of Halloween nails before Movember starts, damn right I'm going to be sporting moustache nails, not just for the cause, but also because moustaches are so fly !

See you all tomorrow guys !

Halloween Nails : Pumpkins

Hellooooooo everyone ! So as another installment in my "Halloween Series" (shall we say ?) I have yet more Halloween-themed nails for you all ! I have to admit, these weren't my original plan for today's nails, as I was going to do Happy Tree Friends nails, seeing as they're all disgusting (yet cute) and kill everything and everyone all the time, but gave up on that idea as I'm rather tired and wasn't ready for any skittles nails today ! They take far too long to do !

So yes, today I went for the oh-so-traditional pumpkin nails. I honestly love pumpkins (I'd rather eat squash, but that's another matter), and pumpkin soup is sooooo tasty ! Unfortunately pumpkins are too big for me to eat by myself, and I have way too much soup I've made in my freezer at the moment, so I'm afraid the pumpkins will have to wait ! For some reason I didn't fancy doing proper Halloween jack-o-lanterns, so I just went for the plain old pumpkin !

For this design, the polishes I used were OPI Don't Talk Bach to Me for the base, then for the pumpkin and detailing I used OPI My Back Pocket, OPI Stranger Tides, OPI Berlin There Done That, Collection 2000 Ninja, and my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black for the outlining.

I seriously love how these nails turned out ! I was a bit dubious at first and I was wondering whether it'd actually look any good, but I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome ! I love the way it spreads out onto each nail andhow it all joins up to make one big illustration !

Okay so that was a pretty quick post ! AND it's not even 9pm yet ! Woah, I'm seriously on a roll here, hopefully I can keep this up for the rest of the week, and I might even get stuff done ! Woohoo ! See you all tomorrow everyone !

Halloween Nails : Blood Drips

Helloooooo everybody ! So I'm posting at a relatively reasonable time today, for once ! I did my nails earlier on this afternoon so I've had plenty of time to do everything I needed to, happy times ! But this early post is needed as I'm going to have to get up early tomorrow morning for my lectures, good news is I have reading week soon, a whole week full of procrastination (oh god I hope not) !

So I've decided that I'm going to be doing Halloween-themed nails all the way through until actual Halloween Night on Wednesday ! I got in the mood for it last night whilst doing my Halloween Skittles nails, and figured I may as well go for a full five days of spooky nails ! I suppose Halloween can be a pretty creative season for when it comes to nail art, so hopefully I can try to do something more original than the traditional Halloween themes !

For this design I only used two different polishes : P2 Elegant for the nude base colour and then OPI Big Apple Red for the blood. For the actual design, all I did was use a dotting tool to place where each drip was going to be on my nails, and then I used a small nail art brush to join them all together for the full drip effect.

Okay, so not to sound disgusting or anything, I really love these nails ! I'm totally in to the drip effect nails at the moment (maybe some drippy framed nails... hmm ideas ideas) so I hope to do plenty more ! I already have a vague idea of what I'm going to do tomorrow for my nails, so we'll just have to wait and see how that one pans out !

See you all tomorrow everyone ! Have a great day !

Halloween Nails : Halloween Skittles

Okay, WOAH ! When did it get to be almost midnight ? There I was, sitting here at my desk doing my nails whilst watching the Hunger Games, and then suddenly it's gone 11 o'clock ! Seriously, I just don't know what happens when I do my nails, time just flies by without me even noticing ! Plus side is the clocks go back tonight, so I can get extra sleep even though I'll still be going to bed at a relatively normal time ! Hooray for daylight saving time ! But in other news, I've got some rather topical nail art for you today, brace yourselves !

I felt I really needed to do some Halloween nails, seeing as it's next week and everyone in the nail art world (and the real-life outside world, wait, does anything exist outside nail art ?) is getting rather hyped up about it and have been doing Halloween nail designs since the beginning of October, some even started in September, now that's just a bit early... and let's not even start to think about Christmas nail art, oh god, there's going to be weeks of it, and I'd better get my thinking cap on trying to think up some designs !

Right, so I used quite a few different nail polishes for this design, so get ready ! They were P2 Elegant, OPi Big Apple Red, OPI Skull and Glossbones, American Apparel Hassid, American Apparel T-Shirt, China Glaze Man Hunt, OPI Don't Talk Bach to Me, OPI My Back Pocket, and my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black. I love skittles, but they really are just so time consuming ! I always have to plan everything out in advance for skittles, and I always write down what's going to be on each nail... it just takes forever to do everything !

My favourite nails on this design are probably first of all the blood drips on my thumb (I feel a whole blood drip mani coming on), and then the dracula vampire on my index finger, I just maybe wish he had a bit more colour, maybe I could have painted on some blood around his teeth ? They're all pretty traditional Halloween designs, and I've never really done my nails for Halloween, so there's a first time for everything and I'm particularly happy with how my first set turned out ! How about you, what are your favourite designs for Halloween ?

And that's it for today guys ! Perhaps I'll be back tomorrow with another Halloween design, we'll have to see, but I will in case have a design for you all ! Have a great day tomorrow !

Union Jack Pastel

Hi there everybody ! Today I've got an old mani to show you all (running low on stuff to show you when I can't do my nails daily) because I really like yesterday's nails and I'm not ready to take them off yet (plus the fact it's pretty late and I can't be bothered to start nails now) ! I don't have very many decent photos of my nails from before I started blogging left (pretty much none now I've done this post), so I'm going to have to sort out what to do when I can't do my nails !

I did these nails back in May, around the Queen's Diamond Jubilee as I was feeling patriotic ! I can only imagine all the jubilee nails I could have done for you all had I been motivated by a daily blog ! I didn't want to go for the traditional red and blue colours, so instead opted for a pastel Union Jack look, which I think worked quite well !

The colours I used for these nails were OPI Alpine Snow, OPI Planks A Lot and OPI Sparrow Me the Drama. When I did this design, I did it the hard way by painting my nails with a white base colour, and then painting on all the triangles myself. I've realised that the easier way to do these nails is by starting off with the triangle colour as the base colour, then just striping on the white and selected middle stripe colours !

And I'm afraid I onl have 2 photos for you today ! I'll be back tomorrow with a new NOTD, hopefully something original as well, we'll see what I can come up with (or what inspiration my mother gives me) !

Have a great day everyone !

NOTD : Cartoon Nails

Well hello there everyone ! So it's a bit of a late post this evening which is a bummer, but I promised you all a great new NOTD today and I'm not one to break promises ! So I was trolling through my "inspiration" folder on my laptop, searching for ideas for today's nail art, and I came across something I've been meaning to do for a while now, and I absolutely love how it's turned out !

So this design is inspired by Nancy Mc, a totally amazing nail artist I'm sure any nail art fanatic has heard of on Tumblr ! I love all her designs, they're all so precise and always look great ! The nails I've done today are inspired by her cartoon Mickey Mouse nail designs she did a few weeks ago, and I seriously can't believe I've left it this long to recreate this design !

For this nail art, the polishes I used were American Apparel Hassid, OPI Danke-Shiny Red, and American Apparel T-Shirt. This was the first time I've done "nail framing", and I did the technique for doing a ruffian manicure, then painted the black over the tips of each nail. It was surprisingly easier than I thought, and I really love the way it looked, even without the white cartoon effect shines ! Many new ideas for future nail art ! Hooray !

So I hope you all like my recreation of Nancy Mc's design, I certainly do and I'll be sad when I have to take it off... oh well, I'm sure I'll get over it when I come up with another design, I always do ! Do any of you have inspiration folders full of nail art you turn to when you're low on ideas ?

Have a great day tomorrow everyone !

NOTD : Fluid Floral

Hi guys ! So this is just a quick post as I'm going to be off to bed very soon, but as promised, I have some nail art for you all ! I'm very proud of myself for actually managing so far to fit in all the work I need to produce, as well as being able to do my nails almost daily, here's hoping I'll be able to carry on this way !

So I wanted something quick and easy to do for today's nails, after having eaten and discovering that it was far too late to do anything intricate on my nails, I settled for a quick floral. I've already done this type of design beforehand on here, and so I decided to go with large clusters of flowers that sweep through all of my nails, hence the term "fluid floral".

For this simple design, the only things I used were OPI My Very First Knockwurst, and then my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in white. I'm seriously considering purchasing the new gold and silver nail art pens from Models Own, but I'll have to do some research beforehand to decide whether I really need them (which is silly really, of course I'll need them) !

So that's it for today ! There'll be some fresh NOTD tomorrow again, hopefully something more intricate than this, but we'll have to see when it comes to it ! I'm off to scour the internet for swatches of the new nail art pens, haven't found any so far, but hopefully I will !

See you all tomorrow everybody ! Have a great evening and I hope you enjoy your day tomorrow !

Swatch : Dior - Blazing Pink (677)

Hellooooooo everybody ! I've got a swatch for you all today that I've sorted our prior to me actually posting this, as Tuesday is a really busy day for me and I just don't have the time to do my nails ! It's a sad life, but I've got so much work on at the moment that I'm needing to sort out nails when I do have the time, and that may not necessarily happen on the day it actually needs posting !

So this is another one of my new Dior polishes, this particular one being Blazing Pink (677). It's a creme finish, with a very slight hint of shimmer in there, like with all the Dior creme polishes I've noticed. The shimmer is incredibly subtle, and I'm tempted to say it actually disappears after a while (I can't see any shimmer on my nails after the drying time).

The colour is more red than it is pink, but it's still a very deep pink tinted red colour... if you get what I mean ! It's like a really deep hot pink, very in the middle of hot pink and red. It's hard to describe really, not sure if an actual word exists for this colour, so we'll stick with blazing pink !

Aaaaand that's it for today guys ! I'll be back tomorrow with some proper nail art for you all, I already have an idea of what I'm going to do ! If it all works out it should be awesome !

So I'll see you then everyone, have a great day !

NOTD : Dior Hearts

Helloooooo everybody ! Just a quick post from me today as I've got some work to do before tomorrow and I've got an early wake-up for lectures in the morning so I can't be too late to bed ! I've done another quick manicure today using another of my Dior polishes I got at the weekend.. I have to say, they really are all such stunning colours, and the application is divine !

So I needed a quick and simple design to do on my nails this evening, and my Mum (who always has the best ideas) told me to do hearts ! I originally pictured just one plain heart on each nail to make for a very uniform design, but ended up going with the three smaller hearts on three nails, and just sticking to a large heart accent nail. This was mainly because I didn't trust myself to paint on four plain simple and exactly the same size hearts.. oh well !

This design was done using Dior Red Ebony (813) and Barry M Gold Foil. The Dior polish dries A LOT darker than the bottle colour, which I wasn't expecting at all ! In the bottle it looks a very bright maroon-y colour, nothing ebony about it, but as soon as you get a couple of coats on your nails you really can see where the "ebony" name comes from. It's an almost-black red polish, just waiting to find out if it stains !

Aaaaaaaand that's it for today everyone ! I'm off to go and do some Russian before I go to bed, hopefully won't be too long ! I hope you enjoyed this manicure, despite the short post about it ! I'll make up for it tomorrow, I swear !

See you all then guys, have an awesome day !

NOTD : Dior Gradient

Hello there again everyone ! So I'm back from my weekend away in Oxford, and I hope you enjoyed the two posts I prepared for you all to keep you busy whilst I was gone ! BUT, I'm back, and this is my 100th POST ! Can you believe it ?! I can't believe it's already been 100 days since I first started posting on here, and 100 consecutive posts of my nails ! So to celebrate, I've got a great mani for you all, which is very special as it's doen using some of my brand new Dior nail polishes !

As soon as I saw these three polishes together I knew exactly what I was going to do with them, and a gradient was necessary ! All three have shimmer going through them, like most of the Dior nail varnishes, but these were larger than the usualy superfine shimmer you get in the cremes. I'm tempted to say that these polishes had quite a jelly finish, almost a creme/jelly hybrid !

For this gradient design the three polishes I used were Dior Pink Porcelain (189), Dior Flapper Pink (453) and Dior Indie Orange (447, also known as Mandarin Orange). I think these three colours all go really well together, and make for a nice gradient. The brush in the bottles is amazing as well, once you work out how much nail varnish to actually hae on the brush it all works perfectly !

And that's it today for my 100th post ! Here's to another 100 ! My god, that will be at the end of January next year, not long now at all, and that'll be roughly the 6-month mark for this blog as well ! Exciting stuff !

See you all tomorrow for another nail art post (probably Dior again !), have a great day everyone !

Swatch : GOSH - Holographic Hero

Good evening everybody ! So as promised, in today's final scheduled post (I'm back at uni tomorrow, so that means normal posting) I have an awesome swatch for you all ! I've never really understood the hype about holographic polishes, I mean I saw swatches of different holos on the internet and everything and I thought the rainbow effect you could see was just an efect from the light during the photographing, and that it would just look like a normal shimmer polish all the rest of the time, but I hereby stand corrected !

I never really contemplated really searching for GOSH Holographic, as like I said, holos had never really intrigued me, but when I went into Superdrug when I first arrived here for coming to uni to go and pick up a bottle of MaxFactor Fantasy Fire, I spotted the holo polish and decided I really ought to give it a try.

Honestly I have to admit that I'm rather impressed with this polish ! I totally understand the hype around it, as they discontinued it for a while due to complaints about the bad formula and it got pretty expensive for buying off the internet from the few lucky people who had already picked up a bottle. Luckily for us, they've brought it back out with a notice saying that it really is just for "one night", so as to have an excuse for early wear !

I did these swatches without base coat or top coat, as I heard it can ruin the holo effect ! I did putting some Seche Vite over a nail after I'd done the photos for my post, just to compare the effects on the different nails, and honestly I really couldn't see any different in the holo-ness, it still looked just as pretty, dragged a bit on the polish underneath maybe, but nothing noticeable !

And that's it for the scheduled posts this weekend everyone ! Make sure you come along tomorrow, as I'll be celebrating my 100th POST ! Woah ! How did that even happen ? That means it's been 100 days since I first launched this blog, which is amazing ! Just goes to show how quickly time flies when you're having fun blogging !

See you all tomorrow guys, have a great day !

Cushion Dots

Hey there guys ! So this is a scheduled post, like I told you all yesterday, because I'm up in Oxford visiting friends for the weekend (and obtaining even more polish, but shh, you can't never have enough polish) ! So I did this design earlier in the week, hoping for a NOTD, but then ended up deciding that I wasn't completely happy with it and therefore didn't really want to keep it on, so I did another design instead, but nonetheless, I will share my personal "fail art" with you all !

I have to admit, the design doesn't look that bad, but it wasn't at all what I'd imagined, partly because of the colours I ended up choosing for the design. The design was actually inspired by part of the fabric on a cushion I bought for my room here at uni, and one that I've been admiring for a while. It's a very light beige with slightly darker spots on, then with alternating coloured spots on top. Unfortunately the two beiges I chose weren't different enough, and ended up just moulding together into an undistinguishable blur !

So for this design I used OPI Don't Pretzel my Buttons for the base, OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh for the darker beige dots (that you probably can't even see !), then I used OPI Don't Talk Bach to Me, Barry M Bright Purple and Barry M Cyan Blue for the coloured dots. See what I mean about the two beige colours being too similar ? You just can't see the design without having to look really reaaaaally close up !

And that's it for today everyone ! I hope you like it, even though I didn't really ! I think it would have been better with just the coloured dots and one single beige polish, but I was really annoyed that this didn't turn out the way I wanted it to !

Have a great day everyone ! Tune in tomorrow for a really awesome swatch !

NOTD : Spotty Gradient

Hellooooo everybody ! So just a quick post from me this evening as it's already quite late, and I've got loads to do still ! I'm going away up to Oxfordshire this weekend to visit some family friends (super excited !) and so I've organised some scheduled posts for you all ! But I've still got plenty of packing to do before I go to bed tonight, there's not enough time in the day !

So I was originally going to just to a plain and simple gradient for my manicure today, but of course it had to be something I would be happy to keep on my nails until Sunday as I'm not planning on doing my nails again until then ! I contemplated doing a floral design, then it was going to be a gradient, but I just didn't feel happy with something as boring as just a plain gradient. In the end I remembered a tutorial for a "dot gradient" that Sarah from Chalkboard Nails posted the other day, and I knew exactly what colours I wanted to use !

The polishes I used for this design were OPI Schnapps Out of It for the base, a really lovely terracotta colour that just looks amazing on, like all of the polishes from the Germany collection as a matter of fact, as I've said ever since I got them ! The spots were done with OPI Don't Pretzel my Buttons and then OPI German-icure by OPI.

All in all I'm really happy to have this design on my nails for the next couple of days, a relatively long time in my book, considering I usually change my nails every day, at the moment anyway ! Another reason for me to look forward to this weekend is because I'm going to be acquiring some Dior nail polish, exciting stuff ! I'm sure I'll be showing them to all of you at some point next week, so you've all got that to look forward to ! Happy times !

So I'm going to wish you all a great weekend, and I'll see you all on Sunday ! Stay tuned for the scheduled posts tomorrow and Saturday, I have a super amazing swatch and a nail art design for you !

NOTD : Who Lives in a Pineapple Under the Sea ?

Well hello there everyone ! Do I have any Spongebob Squarepants fans out there reading this ? Because if I do, I'm sure you'll all be pleasantly surprised ! I HAVE SPONGEBOB NAILS ! I've been watching Spongebob for such a long time now, I don't even know when exactly the love affair started, but Spongebob will never grow old for me !

Isn't that just the cutest thing ever ? I wasn't at all sure about how painting Spongebob was going to turn out, but luckily for me it turned out really well, and I'm really really really happy with the end result ! And as you have probably seen, I did Patrick Star as well, who I think turned out okay, but then again he doesn't have the most complicated of faces, just eyes and a mouth !

So the polishes I used for this design were, first of all for the flowers that represent the "sky" in Bikini Bottom, Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream, China Glaze Man Hunt and my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in yellow. Then for Patrick and Spongebob I used OPI Sparrow Me the Drama, Barry M Lemon Ice Cream, American Apparel T-Shirt, American Apparel Hassid, OPI Dim Sum Plum, OPI Don't Talk Back to Me and then my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black (plus a little dot of Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream for Spongebob's eyes).

I'm especially pleased with the way the black outlining turned out in this design, I've never been fond of outlining my nail art designs as it usually turns out quite sloppy and shaky when I do it, but using the black nail art pen in this design really helped !

So for tomorrow I'm thinking of doing a FULL Spongebob mani, what you all reckon ? Loads of different Spongebob faces would just be the pinnacle of nail art for me ! Exciting stuff !

Have a great day everyone !

NOTD : Leafy Drops

Good evening everyone ! So this is a pretty late post tonight seeing as I only had enough time to do my nails and eat between coming out of my last lecture and going to the SU pub quiz (which I didn't win, sad times) ! Lucky for me, I don't have an early start tomorrow so I can afford to give you all a late post on this occasion ! I was going to do a full manicure today, but I didn't have much time so I had to stick with just an accent nail, but I think it still turned out quite well !

So this design was another idea of my mother's, well she suggested I do leaves and I thought that was a great autumnal idea, but as I was painting my nail I felt I didn't need to add anything to the sort of "teary shapes" that I'd painted to look like leaves, so I left it as it was ! I'm loving all these autumnal designs I'm doing at the moment, they're all so seasonal, which isn't at all like me ! I'm not usually the kind of person who will paint their nails accordingly to the season, but since aquiring the OPI Germany collection, it's all I seem to be doing !

For this design, the polishes I used were Barry M Gold Foil, Accessorize Gold Dust (for extra glitz), then for the "leafy drops" I used OPI Deutsch You Want Me Baby, OPI Danke Shiny Red and OPI German-icure by OPI. I love the way all the colours in the Germany collection go so well together, and make such great autumnal colour themes ! So perfect !

So that's it for tonight everyone ! Contemplating whether to watch more Dexter or The Great British Bake Off (please, don't tell me who wins, it needs to stay a secret), seeing as I can allow myself a lie-in tomorrow morning ! Hallelujiah !

So I'll see you all tomorrow guys ! Have an amazing day !

NOTD : Animal Accent

Hey there everyone ! I've got a really cool mani for you all today, somewhat simple but super fun ! It's Animal from the Muppets ! The source of inspiration for today's design was, you guessed it, my Mum ! Seriously, she has the best ideas for nail art, and they always turn out pretty well, if I do say so myself !

I have loved the Muppets for ages now, not always the actual films (to be fair though, I still have yet to see the Muppets' Movie that came out last year), but I have always loved the shows ! Animal isn't necessarily my favourite character, that award goes to Beaker, but he is around the top of my leaderboard, along with Fozzie Bear and the Swedish Chef !

For this design, the base colour I used was OPI Danke Shiny Red, I suppose I should have used OPI Meep Meep to fit in with the Muppets theme, but completely forgot ! For the Animal accent nail, I used OPI Dim Sum Plum, OPI Big Apple Red, OPI My Back Pocket, OPI Alpine Snow and American Apparel Hassid, all different polishes mixed together for different shades !

So that's it for today guys ! I've got to go and check through the rest of a German to English translation, and maybe fit in an episode of Dexter (my new obsession) if I can ! Wish me luck, I've got a super busy day tomorrow !

Enjoy your day everyone !