Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : W for Watermarble

Okay... I'll just go ahead and take back anything nice I have previously said about watermarbling. I can't believe I actually started to look forward to trying this technique out again, as after today's attempt(s) I don't think I'll even be remotely interested in doing a watermarble design for a long long long long time ! I'm relatively happy with the final outcome, but all the fuss and time it took to actually do it is soooo not worth it !

I initially wanted to combine two different purples, one creme and one shimmer, but that didn't work. So I then moved on to the idea idea but with blue polishes and guess what, that didn't work either. I then trolled through all of my collection to try to find polishes that would work, as only the Essie ones I had seemed to be working but of course my last watermarble was done using all Essie, and I wanted something different ! Ugh the choices we have to make !

So I started with a base of American Apparel T-Shirt, to make sure all the colour on top would show up properly, as is recommended by all the good watermarblers out there ! The two colours I used for the actual watermarbling were Catrice Aretha's R.E.S.P.I.N.K and Essie Mint Candy Apple. You can't actually tell that I used Mint Candy Apple as it just looks white on the design, I suppose because it must have been too sheer but oh well I don't mind, I'm just glad it worked ! I suppose it's just as well that the pink was nice and opaque otherwise we wouldn't hae had any design at all !

So that's it for today... it's alright I suppose, I'm just annoyed about how long it took and how much nail polish I must have wasted on all the unsuccessful attempts ! Maybe I'll get better at it one day, but for the moment I'm going steer well clear of it !

I'll see you all tomorrow for the "X for XOXO" theme, perhaps I'll do something nice and simple, although I have had an idea for it since the beginning !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : V for Vintage

Good evening everyone ! We'll start here tonight by confirming that vintage is anything older than roughly 50 years old ? Okay ? So that makes 3 years of the 1960's vintage, right ? Perfect ! Glad we got that all out of the way, so now we can move on to the design ! I spent ages researching the differences between the words "antique", "vintage" and "retro" and after understanding the apparently much-debated subtleties, was able to decide on what I wanted to do on my nails !

I looked through a load of vintage patterns and wallpapers/backgrounds etc and didn't find much I liked other than a few floral designs, and I really wanted to do something other than flowers seeing as I already did the "F for Floral" theme in this challenge ! I then decided to google some 60's wallpaper patterns (we've already agreed that 3 years of that are vintage so I'm allowed !) and eventually found this design on Pinterest that I absolutely had to do !

I started with a base of OPI You Don't Know Jacques on my index, middle and little fingers, and P2 Hug Me on my thumb and ring fingers. For the circular design I used P2 Hug Me, OPI My Back Pocket, Essie Meet Me at Sunset and OPI You Don't Know Jacques. I did the stripes on the accent nails using those same colours, although I think it would have looked better with a different colour to the brown, there's just something about it !

So do you like this design as much as I do ? I love the circular gradient design, I really think it looks like real 60's kitchen wallpaper with the gross colours, there were loads of different wallpaper patterns I saw but this one really inspired me, and I'm so glad I steered clear of the floral designs for today's theme !

Tomorrow I've got to do watermarbling for the "W" theme of the challenge, and I remember saying in my post last time when I wrote about my first successful attempt at it that I was excited about trying it again, but I'm not so sure now ! I'm feeling nervous about it ! Wish me lots and lots of luck !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : U for Universe

Hello everybody ! So what do you all think of the new layout then ? I'm really excited about it and really proud of what I've come up with, it's definitely a change for the better ! Anyway, I'm writing this post rather late tonight as we've had someone over for dinner, and while I managed to fit in painting my nails this evening, I didn't manage to get my photos or post sorted, so that's why it's late tonight ! Enough rambing, on to the nails !

I was excited about doing galaxy nails for the "U for Universe" theme, but as I've already done normal galaxy nails twice before (here and here, jeez those ones from last year seem like such a long time ago, I've definitely improved !) I decided that I wanted to do something different to the usual. I've been seeing plenty of pastel galaxy nail designs floating around the web recently, notably from The Nailasaurus, but I tried looking for plain pink galaxy nails and couldn't find anything so I knew that was my calling !

I started with a base of Essie Splash of Grenadine on my fingers, and then sponged on a cocktail of different pink shades, including OPI My Very First Knockwurst, OPI Suzi's Hungary Again, OPI Dim Sum Plum, OPI Sparrow Me the Drama, OPI Steady As She Rose, as well as OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I topped that with a coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust and then painted on some stars and representative spots in American Apparel T-Shirt using my nail art brush.

It's exactly the same method as I've used before for my previous galaxy nail designs, just with a different colour scheme !

So what do you all think of my pink galaxy nails ? You could do this in loads of different colours schemes, obviously, but since pink is one of my favourite colours (it's the one I have the most nail varnish shades of in any case) I think it's very fitting ! I just love galaxy nails in general really, they're so easy to do and not time consuming if you're not aiming to be particularly precise ! I do think that the Fairy Dust is a must-have though, it just adds so much depth to the whole thing !

Tomorrow's theme is vintage, and I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do for that, so any suggestions are hugely welcomed ! Ta ta for now everyone !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : T for Triangles

Hey there guys ! I've been busy trying to sort out my new blog layout all afternoon/evening today, and I think I'll be finishing it all up tonight hopefully, so keep an eye out for that ! I'll be sorting the major stuff out now and then doing the small tweaks in the next couple of days ! One of the major changes for the blog is that I'm contemplating changing the commenting system to Disqus, as I feel it'll be a big step towards being able to communicate properly with my followers in the comments, so let me know what you all think and your experiences with Disqus !

Anyway, I did manage to fit in some nail art today, of course, so here's today's installment in the alphabet nail art challenge !

The final result of today's design is completely different to what I had in mind last night ! I fancied doing something along the lines of this design by Very Emily, doing a pattern underneath and a geometrical triangle design on top in white. In the end I rather liked my thumb and ring finger accent nails with just a chevron so I just decided to add a white chevron on each of the other nails ! Do you think the geometric pattern on top would have looked better ?

For this design I used a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls on my thumb and ring finger, and OPI Steady as She Rose on the others. The squiggly stripes were done using OPI Dim Sum Plum, OPI Can't Find my Czechbook and P2 Who Cares, as well as Steady as She Rose. I feehanded all the chevrons as really didn't feel patient enough (I barely ever do) to use tape and while I really love the chevrons on my thumb, middle and ring fingers, I feel the ones on my index and little fingers could look better !

That's all for today, it's scary to think that this challenge is nearing to an end as it's gone so quickly ! Tomorrow is "U for Universe"...yay galaxy nails ! I'll see you all then, but in the meantime, apologies for any (if any) inconvenience the change of layouts may cause ! Hopefully it'll all going swimmingly !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : S for Sharks

Evening all ! So I'm writing this post positively early in comparison to the past few days of posts, but I won't complain ! The Great British Bake Off is on now so I'd better get a move on writing this so I'm not torn between the TV and my laptop !

Here's another theme that I wasn't particularly excited about...sharks... There's not really all that much room for creativity but hey, I did what I could ! I looked through google at posters for Jaws and just plain shark images, and I came across this stock image which I decided would be best for what I wanted to do !

I started with two coats of Essie Lapiz of Luxury on all my nails, for the shark I used black acrylic paint to get a good outline, and for the various details I used P2 Flirt With Me, OPI Skulls and Glossbones and P2 Glory. For the water splashes I used China Glaze Man Hunt, P2 Up in the Air, Models Own Blooboo and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls. My favourite part about this design is probably the splashes, I think it'd look great just by itself as a mani !

So what do you all think ? What would you have done for the shark theme ? It's a shame I only started this challenge when I did as I might have been able to tie the shark theme in with Shark Week, but hey ho, they're only a couple of weeks late !

I'll see you all tomorrow with the "T for Triangles" theme, I've already got an idea of what I'm going to do !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : R for Rasta

Hey there everyone ! I'm trying out a new way of watermarking and presenting my photos today, ready to go with my new layout which'll be up pretty soon too ! Let me know what you all think of it ! Anyway, I wasn't particularly excited about today's theme - "R for Rasta", but here's what I came up with !

I've never really been in to the whole rasta/jamaican sort of trend, a lot of people who were at school with me were though ! I'm really happy with the way it looks though, especially as I used a design I've been wanting to try for ages : half moon + tips in different colours ! I added the marijuana leaf as it just happens to be what the red, green and yellow together makes me think of, although the one on my ring finger looks a bit more like a palm tree than a leaf !

I started with the yellow for the base using Maybelline Electric Yellow as it's the lightest colour, I then painted the green half moons with Collection 2000 Ninja and the tips with OPI Big Apple Red. I used black acrylic paint and a standard google image to paint the marijuana leaf silhouette ! So what do think of the one on my ring minger ? Palm tree or leaf ?

I don't think I'm completely won over with the whole rasta thing, but I do like the way it's turned out ! I think someone who's in to it would appreciate these nails far more than I do, so I think I'll just stick to the florals !

It's really late now, I've spent so long procrastinating since I first started writing this post about an hour ago, so I need to go to bed now ! See you all again tomorrow !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : Q for Quilt

Hey there everybody ! So I have to admit, I was feeling completely unenthusiastic about today's theme both last night and this morning, even when I'd decided what I wanted to do on my nails and sat down to do them I ended up procrastinating for another hour or so and totally delayed having to do them ! I got them done in the end though so that's all that matters, and I'm actually rather pleased with them !

I looked up "quilts" on wikipedia which came up with all sorts of different types, even "crazy quilts" which I considered, but decided that was too complicated ! In the end I searched for quilts on Pinterest and found this one which inspired me ! I didn't use the colours that were in the pinterest quilt image, and instead I chose to pick some random colours from my collection !

I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the base colour, and the coloured triangles were done using OPI Funky Dunkey, OPI Planks A Lot, OPI Sparrow Me the Drama, OPI My Very First Knockwurst, OPI Can't Find my Czechbook, OPI Big Apple Red, OPI My Back Pocket, China Glaze Man Hunt and Essie Meet Me at Sunset. Wow.. that's a lot of nail varnish !

This design took ages for me to do, far longer than I had expected ! As you can see I started with a lot of detail and small triangles on the thumb but then as soon as I'd finished that nail, I knew the others had to have a larger pattern on them ! Just imagine the time it would have taken me otherwise !!!

I'm going to watch some more TV now before I go to bed, so I'll see you tomorrow !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : P for Paisley

Good evening everyone ! So it's the 15th day of the alphabet nail art challenge and I have yet another design I've never tried before to show you all today ! The theme today is "P for Paisley" and I'm sure you've seen loads of different paisley nail art designs before, pretty much everywhere on the internet in fact, so I hope you all like my interpretation !

I was inspired by Chelsea from Get Nailed for the actual paisley droplet things (doest anyone know what they're called ?), and the rest I just sort of doodled to add details to the empty spaces ! It took quite a while to paint it all, I found it quite fiddly but I'm really pleased about how it looks !

I used OPI I Vant to Bite Your Neck for the base, although I think a brighter colour may have been slightly better for the look, maybe red for a bandana sort of look, but then the deep purple really shows up the white ! I used white acrylic paint for the paisley print, although I think I'm going to need to get a different white as the one I've got is "mixing white" as opposed to proper white acrylic paint so it's not as opaque as I would like it to be !

So that's it for today ! What are your experiences with white acrylic paint ? Is a normal white quite opaque or is it still temperamental  like mine ? I'd love to know ! Now it's time to me to go and brainstorm for a while about what I'm going to do on my nails tomorrow.. the theme is "quilt" and I don't have any idea what I'm going to do !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : O for Owls

Evening all ! I've just spent the last 30 mins deleting a load of photos from my phone as I have no storage space left ! Oh dear ! Mind you.. 7GB of photos is rather a lot to be fair ! So anyway, I seem to be procrastinating and not getting very much of this post written, so here are the nails !

 So today was the first day during this challenge that I've had to stop what I was doing and get rid of everything on my nails ! I wanted to try using o-rings to create half moon designs on each nail to form the ears of the owls, but it just didn't look right after I'd applied the base colour and so just took everything off ! I'm glad I did though because I'm really happy with the end design now !

My base colour in this design is OPI You Don't Know Jacques and for the details on the owls I used Barry M Gold Foil, OPI My Back Pocket, American Apparel T-Shirt and American Apparel Hassid. I put a little white dash in each eye on the owls, I think it really brings the whole look together !

I've been busy sorting out a new layout for my blog today, so I'm going to go and do some more of that before I go to bed ! That and deleting photos ! I'm working all day tomorrow but I should hopefully have enough time before the sun sets to paint my nails and take some reasonable photos, so I'll see you then !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : N for Nautical

It's time for another theme in the Alphabet Nail Art Challenge everyone, and today is (as per the title) "N for Nautical" ! I think that nautical designs such as anchors and navy stripes are pretty popular in the nail art world, as well as just in general with stuff such as jewellery and tattos often being inspired by nautical symbols, so I had a lot of idea for what to do on my nails today ! Here's what I came up with :

I didn't have a very good time trying to take photos of this design with my camera so I've had to resort to using my iPhone for taking today's pictures ! Who'd have thought a mobile phone would get better photos than a normal camera ? ..something's not right there ! Have any of you ever had this problem with certain nail designs ?

I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls which I applied about 3.5 hours before I started doing my nails. I was doing crochet all day so I had the patience to wait for it to dry for a bit ! I dented my thumb though with the white polish so I took that off when I got back and applied China Glaze Man Hunt instead. For the stripes I used CG Man Hunt and OPI The Spy Who Loved Me, I used Barry M Silver Foil for the anchor on my thumb and then placed a stud on each striped nail.

So what do you think of my nautical nails ? I think they're quite minimalist but in a good way, and I really love the anchor on my thumb nail ! The decision to add studs to the striped nails was a last minute one as I just thought it was lacking something ! I suppose I could have done something more complex, but I'm quite happy with what I've done !

I'm off now, so I'll see you all again tomorrow !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : M for Mosaic

Hello everyone ! It feels like the day has gone seriously quickly today, perhaps because I didn't wake up until 11am this morning, I ended up not doing very much all day except for a bit of fiddling on my computer and doing my nails late this afternoon ! I'm really pleased with what I've come up with for today's mosaic theme in the nail art challenge, I hope you all like it !

I was thinking of maybe using some striping tape to make squares and just paint them all different colours but I didn't fancy the idea of waiting around for my base colours to dry before I could use the striping tape, so that idea went out the window ! Instead I settled on another freehand nail art design in a mosaic pattern, which I think looks far better than anything I could have done with striping tape !

For today's design I started by alternating base colours with OPI My Very First Knockwurst and OPI Dim Sum Plum. As well as those colours, I used OPI Sparrow Me the Drama, OPI Strawberry Margerita and OPI Planks A Lot for the mosaic pieces. I think I prefer the nails which have Dim Sum Plum for the base (index and ring) because the mosaic triangles on top look more pronounced in comparison to the other three nails, what do you reckon ?

So I may have managed to avoid using striping tape today but I don't think I'll be able to avoid it for tomorrow's nautical theme, not for what I have planned in any case ! You'll have to wait until tomorrow for that though, so I'll see you all then !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : L for Lettering

Hello everyone ! I'm seriously tired as I was up early this morning to help my mum take one of our dogs to the vets for his booster injections (he doesn't travel well in the car), and so I don't want to go to bed too late tonight (even though I'm posting this rather late), so I'm going to try and write this post up quickly ! In any case, today's theme for the nail art challenge is "L for Lettering" !

I had spent a while, in fact since the beginning of this Alphabet Nail Art Challenge, trying to decide what to do for a lettering design. I had been contemplating painting "TMH" for Try My Hand, but when I was talking to my Grandma on Facebook earlier today she came up with the excellent idea for me to do scrabble nails ! My Grandma loves scrabble, so I'm hoping she'll really like these nails !

I started with a base of OPI My Vampire is Buff for this design and then I used black acrylic paint to do the letters and small score numbers. I chose high-scoring letter tiles seeing as they're the most fun, but I ended up omitting the letter "Q" because it looked really weird when I painted it ! The straight-lined letters are far easier to draw than curvy ones, although the "J" wasn't too bad !

So what do you think of my scrabble-tile-lettering nails ? I know people have done scrabble nails before and it's something I've always wanted to do on my nails, but had obviously pushed to the back of my mind ! Have any of you tried scrabble nails before ?

I'll see you all again tomorrow with some mosaic nails for the letter "m" ! GOodnight !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : K for Kittens

Good evening all, I'm back again with another installment in the alphabet nail art challenge and as I mentioned yesterday, today's theme is kittens ! I did cat nails about this time last year and haven't done them since so I suppose this was a good opportunity to try doing them again !

The method I used for doing the cats today was the same as last year, I painted the black rounded face and then added the ears and facial features with a nail art brush - it's really easy to do ! I prefer the way the cats look today to what they did last year, I definitely think I've made progress as far as my nail art skills are concerned !

I started with two coats of Champneys Nude just to make the nail look nice, then I used American Apparel Hassid, Americal Apparel T-Shirt and OPI Sparrow Me the Drama for the little kitties. I like the cartoony look for the cats, it's much more my style than the (sort of) realistic-looking cats !

So what do you all think of my kitties ? I really really like them, and I think if I ever decide to do cats again in the future I'll paint them like this ! They're just too cute !

See you all again tomorrow everyone !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : J for Japanese

Hello again everyone ! I'm back from my trip away with family in Brittany, worked all day yesterday and I finally got a chance to do my nails again today (I was dying to do them as I hadn't since the last challenge I posted, they'd started peeling) ! Today's theme is Japanese and this is what I came up with :

I started thinking about what I would do for today's theme last week. The "Japanese" theme seemed a bit ambiguous to me, so I did a lot of research and after trolling through pictures of all sorts of writing/kimonos/cherry blossom, and even considering mega-jewelled japanese nail art trends, I eventually settled with the Rising Sun flag !

For this design I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and then using OPI Big Apple Red I made a small dot in the centre of each nail as a reference to draw a bigger circle. From that circle I then painted the lines coming out of it, simple really !

As much as I like the way this nail art design looks, I'm dreading having to remove it tomorrow because of the red nail varnish ! I usually avoid it like the plague for that very reason, I'll just have to put up with it ! I think it would look good with different colours as well - another thing to add to my long list of things to try out !

I'm off to bed now, so I'll see you all again tomorrow with... kittens !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : I for Ikat

Good evening everyone ! I'm only going to write a quick post tonight as there are bits I need to get done before I go to bed ! I mentioned yesterday that I was dreading doing ikat nails today as I've had disasters every time I've attempted it, but I'm glad to say that that has now been remedied !

I looked up a load of photos of ikat prints on google because I knew that I really didn't want to do the typical ikat nail designs that you see everywhere online ! I saw a few zigzag ikat patterns and decided that that would be best for me !

I started with two coats of OPI My Vampire is Buff, and then did the stripey zigzags with OPI Can't Find my Czechbook and China Glaze Man Hunt. I've been using My Vampire is Buff in loads of designs during this challenge, it's just such a great neutral base colour and is so much more subtle than plain white (or even off-white for that matter) !

So all in all I'm really pleased with this design and I think it'd look great in loads of different colour combinations ! What are your experiences with ikat designs on your nails ? Have you struggled as much as I have ?

Also, I'm going away to Brittany tomorrow and I'll be there until Friday ! I haven't had any time to prepare posts for while I'm away so I won't be able to post until Saturday at the earliest I wouldn't say, which is a shame ! I'll hopefully get that floral tutorial finished so I can post that this weekend, Saturday maybe, and then I can resume normal posting for this alphabet nail art challenge ! So I'll see you all again soon !