Helen Dardik Week : Swan Song

Evening all ! The weather has been pretty miserable today here in Salzburg, so we stayed in for a few hours this afternoon, but still went out in to town this morning ! There was an amazing farmers' market we had no idea about, which was selling all sort of amazing food - mainly cheese and meat, but there were loads of vegetable stores and pretty autumnal floral wreaths on stands - it was just so colourful ! We fought the rain for a while and did a bit of shopping in the old town and then we went for a coffee (a hot chocolate in my case !), where my mum had a very nice looking slice of Black Forest gateau !

Today is the last day of my Helen Dardik Week series, and it's going out with a bang ! It seems appropriate that the title of this pattern is "Swan Song", since this is the final design in the series ! This is the design that is on a par in first place with the design I posted yesterday, although my mum has admitted that this is her favourite !

When I chose to replicate this pattern I was originally set on painting the swans, the flowers, however, ended up really catching my eye and, knowing me, I of course went down the floral route ! The two different beige nail polishes I've used for this design aren't as contrasted as they are in the original pattern, but I do like the subtlety of it ! I added the tiny flowers on at the end because I thought the design needed something more than just the big flowers, and I really think the orangey centres bring this design to life !

I started with two coats of OPI My Vampire is Buff for this design and then painted the big black stamens with American Apparel Hassid. The petals were done using OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh, with little accents of American Apparel T-Shirt on the ends and in the black parts. The little flowers were done using American Apparel Hassid and Essie Meet Me at Sunset.

So what do you all think then ? Which design has been your favourite from this week ? I'm glad I was able to wear this design for a couple of days before having to change it, as it was the last design I painted for this series when I was preparing it all back at the beginning/middle of the month ! I'm still torn as to which design is my favourite between this one and yesterday's design !

I need to go and get ready for bed now, but I'll be back again tomorrow, this time with a new tutorial for you all ! See you 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 : D for Dogs

Good evening everyone ! I've been busy doing my nails three times (!!!) this afternoon, as I'm not going to have time to do my nails tomorrow or on Saturday as my days are fully booked, so I'll only have time to write the posts ! I'm really happy with what I've come up with for these next couple of days, but you'll have to wait for them all ! It's a shame I can't do my nails every day like I had planned, but then again, I can't just spend every day doing nails ! There's money to be earned and errands to be done, nails come in second unfortunately ! Anyway, onto today's masterpiece !

So as it's day four of the Alphabet Nail Art Challenge, it's "D for Dogs" ! Now I came to a complete stand-still when I had to think up something to do for this dogs theme, I've always avoided doing any sort of dog pattern as I find that they're really hard to draw, even as a caricature ! I was thinking of doing bones and paw prints and stuff like that, but then I remembered my David and Goliath "You so pugly" pyjamas and decided that I needed to do a pug instead !

For the pug nail, I started with a base of OPI My Vampire is Buff, I drew the outlines and shapes with black acrylic paint, and then did the coloured details using OPI You Don't Know Jacques, OPI Strawberry Margerita, OPI Sparrow Me the Drama and American Apparel T-Shirt. For the polka-dot nails I used OPI My Very First Knockwurst, OPI Strawberry Margerita and OPI Sparrow Me the Drama. You may have noticed that the idea for the polka-dot nails came from the pug's bow tie, as I couldn't face drawing more than one pug !

So what do you all think of my little pug ? I was very sad to have to see him go, as I think he turned out really great, albeit a bit "pugly" ! I think his eyes going in different directions really sets off the look ! This is one of the things I'm really enjoying about doing this nail art challenge : having to step out of what would be my "nail art comfort zone" and trying new things and designs I wouldn't have done otherwise ! Definitely something I'll be doing again in the very near future !

And that'll be all tonight everyone, I won't be scheduling a post so I'll write it up tomorrow, it'll be a late afternoon/early evening post, so don't miss it ! See you all then !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : C for Camo

Good evening everybody ! This is going to be a really quick post because I have some friends coming over in 10 minutes and so I really need to write this quickly ! I did these nails last night just before writing the post for "B for Bows", and so the lighting conditions weren't great (I prefer having the natural light as well as a lamp to light my lightbox) but the photos still look alright to me ! So, here are the nails !

I didn't think I had done camo nails before, but then I seemed to remember doing them some time last year, and it turns out I had indeed already done camouflage ! Looking back on it now, I much prefer my latest attempt at camo ! I think the different colours show up far better (you couldn't see the beige in last year's one) and the general look of the blobs is nicer ! What do you think ?

So for this design, I started off with OPI Stranger Tides, after umm-ing and ahh-ing for ages trying to decide when to do a darker mossy green sort of colour I finally decided that Stranger Tides would be fine ! I then blobbed on OPI You Don't Know Jacques, OPI My Vampire is Buff and OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine! in that order on top of eachother.

I had contemplated putting some gold studs on top of each nail but ended up abandoning that idea as I was already quite pleased with the camo and didn't want to risk ruining it ! Perhaps I'll try adding studs if I do camo again, perhaps some square ones down the centre of a nail as an accent would look nice !

So that's it for today, I'm off to go greet people and enjoy my evening, so I hope you enjoy yours too !

NOTD : Acrylic Floral

Hey there everyone ! So I'm finally back in France again now (for a few weeks at least), and I've finally managed to find some time to sit down whilst watching The Apprentice to sort through photos and write a post for you all !

So I did these nails about 10 days ago, and they lasted with just a bit of the usual tip-wear up until I took them off earlier this afternoon, so needless to say I was very impressed ! I just had a minor chip on my little finger when I took them off, and I didn't get bored of the design which is a first !

For the base colour for this design I used OPI My Vampire is Buff, and then I used acrylic paints to do the flowers. It was my first time ever using paint on my nails, but I really like how simple it was to use and the amount of time the blob on my paper took to dry was really good as well !

So anyway, that's all for today, it won't be too long until my next post so stay tuned for that, I've got something very special coming up, you won't want to miss it ! Goodnight everyone !

Inspired By : Kenzo Resort 2013

Good evening everyone ! I am SO tired for some reason, probably because it's almost time for me to go to bed (and I probably will do just that once I've finished this post), but seeing as it got too late for me to post anything last night, I thought I'd better not leave you without a post for yet another evening !

So I was just looking through the internet for nail inspiration the other day, when I came across this design by Kenzo for the Resort 2013 season. I knew it would translate well into a nail design, so off I went to start with the painting ! Unfortunately I didn't wear this design for very long as I dented my thumb pretty soon after taking the photos, so I went on to do something else !

For this design, the nail varnishes I used were OPI My Vampire is Buff for the base, and then I used Catrice Salmon and Garfunkel for the spots which I then outlined with my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black. I really liked the way this looked, and it's a shame that I had to take it off so quickly, but there's an endless amount of colour combinations you can do with this design !

And that'll be all for today everybody ! I'm going to go to bed whilst watching some Harry Potter, always a great way to get to sleep ! See you all again soon everyone !

NOTD : Ikea Floral

Hey there everyone ! I finally had a decent amount of time today to do my nails (Mondays and Tuesdays are pretty busy for me with my new timetable for this semester), and seeing as I got nail mail the other day with several polishes I have been lusting after for a looooong time, I've at last been able to do a design that I've had waiting for a while !

Before I came back to the UK in January, I went on a trip to Ikea with my Mum to buy a Helmer for my growing nail varnish collection, and, of course, we had to stop by the fabric section (my mother LOVES fabric and sewing and all sorts of crafty bits and pieces, so we always spend a long time there). When I was looking through all the bigs sheets of fabric, I came across this rather nice looking floral one, but, naturally, I didn't want to do ot on my nails until I had my off-white polish !

For this design, the nail varnishes I used were OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the base colour, and then for all the different flowers I used OPI Big Apple Red, OPI Skyfall, OPI Live and Let Die, OPI OPI Eurso Euro, OPI Can't Find my Czechbook, OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh ? and H&M Hunt Me Down. To paint the flowers, I just used a large thick paint brush and just dabbled flowers on randomly, it was really quite easy to do ! A lot less precise than most of the florals I usually do, which was a relief !

I really really like this manicure (although I have taken it off now, as I felt like doing my nails again with yet another new nail varnish), and I think it's really Spring-y, just need the weather here to go with it, we had SNOW earlier on yet again, although I think it's supposed to be warming up tomorrow, hallelujah !

Anyway, I'm going to watch a bit of TV now before I go to bed.. early start in the morning, plus the fact that I went on a huge walk earlier this afternoon and I'm completely knackered from that ! Goodnight everyone, and I'll be back with another post tomorrow !

NOTD : Leopard Print Hearts

Hey there everyone ! I actually finally managed to do my nails again, and am doing a rather late post tonight as I don't know when I'll even have time to sit down and blog ! I really ought to start doing some revision as I have exams at the end of January, but so far I've been spending my time with family and just enjoying their company (plus my dogs, really enjoying having them around) !

So today's design is based on a jumper I got for Christmas, and I'm obsessed with the pattern ! It isn't exactly as I've done on my nails, but I'll maybe have to try doing it properly on my nails some time soon ! I've never painted large hearts on my nails in a design before, and when I've tried they always turned out wonky in some way, so I'm really glad with the way these ones turned out !

The polishes I used for this design were my standard go-to leopard print colours : OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons, OPI You Don't Know Jacques and then my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black... great combination ! I think the brown polish I use is a little too dark for the heart design I did on my two accent nails, but oh well ! I think there'll be some heart designs coming along in future posts on this blog, perhaps even with some polishes from the Skyfall collection (which I somehow managed to avoid using in today's design ?!) !

I also have some more bonus pictures for you all this evening, all still very leopard print related, so they absolutely deserve a place on this post, just you wait and see !

Here are my mum's nails which I did with her favourite design - leopard print, of course ! She's got acrylics on at the moment which is the perfect excuse for me to do her nails ! She wanted to use one of the Skyfall collection polishes, so I used OPI The World is Not Enough as well as the usual Don't Pretzel My Buttons and my nail art pen !

And here's my top model puppy dog called Puppy, who today got a dog-icure ! I was surprised she actually stayed still long enough for me to do her nails, and I love the leopard print one on the left ! Needless to say they're covered in mud now and chipping away like crazy, but it was a great photo opportunity ! Do you ever paint your pets' nails ?

So that'll be all for today you guys ! I'm going to bed now as it's waaaaaay past my bed time and I'm really quite tired ! I hope you all like my nails today, I definitely do, and I'm loving the hearts ! I'll see you all again soon everyone, and I'll try and get something up for New Year (even though I'm not doing anything apart from a nice meal at home for it) !

NOTD : Camouflage

Hey there everyone ! So there's no hope in hell of me getting any work done for my actual university degree this evening as a tonne of innebriated students are currently "living it up" in the kitchen of my flat (which I unfortunately have to share with party-lovers seeing as the choice was completely random for my first year in halls). Instead, I'm blogging, which I'd be doing anyway, but I'd hoped that I'd actually have got some work done by now ! Anyway, enough ranting, on to the nails !

So these nails are, as you've probably guessed, camouflage print ! The base is a light khaki colour and there's also some beige I painted on top, but the darker polishes on top have washed away the lighter ones so it makes it hard to differenciate ! Perhaps I should have chosen a darker green base colour so that everything could have shown up... oh well !

For the camouflage design, the colours I used were OPI Stranger Tides for the base, then for the pattern on top I used OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh, OPI You Don't Know Jacques and American Apparel Hassid. I just randomly painted on the strips of colour, no real method to it at all !

Right and that's it for today ! The drunks are still here but nevertheless I'm going to have to work at some point, I'll try my best ! I already know what I'm going to do for tomorrow's nails, so there'll be no need for me to concentrate on that, phew !

Wish me luck everyone ! And have a nice day tomorrow !

NOTD : Leopard and Studs

Well hello there guys ! I've got a super-cool NOTD for you all today which I'm so proud of for some reason, even though they're pretty simple ! As you may know, I mentioned yesterday that I broke a nail whilst swimming (on my right hand, thank god), and so I've chopped down all my nails really quite short (not short short, but shorter than I'm used to). So here goes with my short nails !

So having to deal with the fact that I've now got rather short nails, I went with some trustworthy leopard print, which, in my experience, never fails to look good on tiny nails ! I also decided I haven't used studs in a rather long time, and fancied trying out some square studs for the very first time ! Verdict ? I love them ! I'm thinking I may have to do nails with just studs on in strips on all 10 nails !

For this design I used (once again) polishes from the OPI Germany collection : OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons, OPI Berlin There Done That, OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! OK Fine!, and for the detailing on the leopard print I used my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black. I decided to do the detailing slightly thicker this time, just to see what it would look like, and I really like how it turned out !

And that's it from me for tonight everyone ! I've got a couple of swatch posts for you for tomorrow and Saturday, as I'm going to visit my Grandma this weekend and obviously won't have time to do my nails, let alone blog !

Tune in tomorrow guys, and I'll see you again on Sunday evening !

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 : Printed Dogs

Hey there everybody ! Oh damn, it's late again ! Seriously, where does the time even go ? I suppose I got used to the Summer when I first started my blog and having the opportunity practically every day at some point to do my nails, usually around midday so I could get a post up in the afternoon, but recently it seems I'm lucky if I get one up before 10 o'clock ! But then it's just something I'll have to get used to, I've coped so far so we'll see how things go ! Anyway, I have a really cute mani today which I hope you'll all like !

So this pattern/print is inspired by a top I got from Primark earlier this Summer. It's got wire haired fox terriers on it which is absolutely amazing because I have four wire fox terriers (and one jack russell) at home, and I'm really missing them now I'm at university ! Seriously looking forward to seeing them all again (and my family of course !) when I go back to France for the Christmas holidays !

For this design, the polishes I used were OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons for the base, then for the little dogs I used OPI Alpine Snow, OPI Berlin There Done That and then I used my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pen in black for the little eyes and nose on each dog ! It was getting late when I did these nails (as you can probably tell from the time at which I'm posting them), so I ended up just doing some polka dots with Berlin There Done That on my right hand, I wasn't prepared to sit and do all the dogs with my non-dominant hand for age, both designs do go well together though ! I love the colours !

So that's it for tonight, I'm off to bed as soon as this is posted, I need my beauty sleep before I have to go to lectures tomorrow, thank god it's the weekend though ! I may have loads less hours than my timetable from last year, but these university lectures and seminars are so much more tiring ! Hopefully I'll be able to do my nails at some point tomorrow afternoon as opposed to the evening seeing as I finish somewhat early ! We'll have to see how it goes !

Oh, and I almost forgot ! Here's a photo of the top that inspired these nails !

See you all tomorrow everyone, have a great day tomorrow !

NOTD : Germany Floral

Whooooooops I've left this a little later than I should have done, but don't you worry, I have a post and brand new nails ready for you all tonight ! I contemplated doing chocolate roulade nails today, to match up with what I baked this afternoon for my flatmates, but decided it had been too long since I had done a floral mani ! So here you go, my go-to floral pattern !

So like I mentioned in yesterday's post (I think), my very generous mother bought me all 12 polishes from the OPI Germany collection that was released for Autumn 2012, and I have to say, I ADORE all the colours in this collection ! So many colours I never realised I actually needed in my rather excessive nail polish collection until now, and I especially love all these brown/taupe/nude colours that came out in this collection.

So for this design I used polishes only from the Germany collection, which were OPI Don't Pretzel My Buttons, OPI Schnapps Out of It !, OPI Berlin There Done That and then OPI Nein ! Nein ! Nein ! OK Fine ! for all the little flowers. I also used my Models Own Wah Nails nail art pens in black and white for the accents on each flower to make them all stand out a bit more !

Overall I'm really pleased with how this design turned out, considering I just grabbed a few random polishes out of my drawers that just so happened to go together quite well ! It looks really autumn-y and actually quite muted, even though the colours aren't necessarily the dullest of all polish colours !

So anyway, I hope you liked this design as much as I do, I really do need to try doing some different kinds of floral manis, as opposed to what I now consider to be my "signature floral" designs !

15 Day Nail Challenge (Day 9) : Red Nails

So here we go once again for Makeup Savvy's 15 day nail challenge and today we've got red nails ! I've never really been in to plain red nails, or red nails full stop, I never could understand all these girls who would jsut wear plain red because it looked "sophisticated". I usually only use red for nail art, but nonetheless, I've included two whole red nails in today's manicure !

I saw this colour combination in a manicure by Hey Nice Nails and instantly fell in love (it's been saved on my iPad in my inspiration folder for months now) ! I fancied something quick and not too time consuming for today's red nails and so dots was the way to go ! I really like how this design turned out, and I love the accent nails, simple and subtle but they still stand out.

For this design I used OPI Big Apple Red and OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh ? and then just a dotting tool for the dots ! I love how versatile dotting tools can be, not just for making dots and spots on your design, but I also used my pack of 5 dotting tools instead of a nail art brush for ages !

So there we are for today's post ! The theme for tomorrow is "gradient" and I know exactly what I'm going to be doing ! Stay tuned and come back tomorrow for more nail art ! Enjoy your day !