Breast Cancer Awareness Month : Moons and Tips

Hey there everybody ! So I apologise for the long gap between writing posts, but I've been busy getting back into the uni routine this week ! I managed to find some time to do my nails but I just completely ran out of time in the evenings ! Luckily I only had one lecture today so I've had plenty of time to do everything I wanted to and now have time to write this post for you !

So as you may already be aware, October is the official Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM), a time during which people are encouraged to wear pink to show their support. I'm going to do my best to do as many pink nail art designs this month as possible, so we'll see where that takes us ! In any case I've got my first pink design for you today !

This design is kind of similar to the technique I used for my "R for Rasta" nails I did during the Alphabet Nail Art Challenge, except I've only used two different nail polishes as opposed to three ! Obviously the centre part is much thicker than in the Rasta design which makes the tips smaller, but I really like how it looks !

So these nails were done using two nail varnishes from the OPI Couture de Minnie collection which I received for my birthday : OPI Chic From Ears to Tail and OPI A Definite Moust-Have. I really love pink nail varnishes as it's one of my favourite colours (I have a huge amount of pink shades in my stash), so I'm really pleased to be able to add these to my collection ! What colours do you have most of ?

So that's it for tonight, I need to do some work before I go to bed so I'll have to love you and leave you ! I hope you enjoyed my first design for BCAM, I really loved wearing these nails, although I re-did them this morning with another pink design I'll be showing you soon ! Ta ta for now everyone !

Helen Dardik Week : Joyous Bloom

Hey there everyone ! Today in Salzburg we went on the Sound of Music tour ! It's probably my mum's favourite film of all time, so retracing the locations where different scenes were filmed was an obvious must-do for this holiday ! We already saw the gardens and steps/fountains where they sand "Do Re Mi" (for those who have seen the film), but today's tour took us to see the pavilion where they sing "16 Going on 17", the lake where they fell out of the boat and the church where they get married, very eventful ! We also saw some absolutely stunning views from driving up through all the mountains and in to the lake district !

Today I've got another installment in the Helen Dardik designs, this one is probably up there with my favourites, maybe third place behind two of which I've still got to show you ! This particular design is inspired by the "Joyous Bloom" pattern, but I've reverted to only doing one of the flowers from the huge amount there is to choose from !

The background colour I chose from the final picture of the patterns in the link to Helen Dardik's blog, I thought it made a change from the usual light off-white/beigey colour I've used for almost every pattern this week ! I improvised with the leaves a bit, not wanting to do anything fancy but then not wanting to leave it plain - I chose instead to add some simple leaves and stems to each flower for that extra bit of colour it gives !

So for this floral nail design I started with a base of OPI Skull and Glossbones, then the flowers were done using OPI Funky Dunkey, OPI Sparrow Me the Drama, OPI Big Apple Red and OPI My Vampire is Buff (I think, for the little stamen dots), then for the leaves and stems I used OPI Don't Talk Bach to Me. I was surprised to see how well the green leaves came though, and I thought it might be alright just to do leaves on a couple of nails, but I'm glad I did something to each nail !

I think the bright colourful folowers really stand out against the dull grey background, and I especially love the huge purple stamens - it reminds me of the red floral nails I did witht the huge centres, I think they look awesome !

Time for me to get ready for bed again ! Time flies when you're having fun ! Stayed tuned for tomorrow's nails ! See ya then !

Helen Dardik Week : The Smell of Summer

Good evening everyone ! So I'm currently sitting in bed in a Premier Inn near to Gatwick airport where I'm staying the night with my mum before we head off (incredibly early) tomorrow morning to catch our flight to Salzburg ! I had literally no time left before we left France on Tuesday to schedule more than 2 posts for you, so the laptop is coming with me Austria so that I am able to keep you up-to-date every day with all the nail designs I've prepared !

I've decided to do a "Helen Dardik Week", inspired by an awesome illustrator who has done loaaaaaads of different patterns and prints on her blog. You may remember the Helen Dardik Red Flowers design I did last week, and it was those nails that inspired me to carry on with these amazing patterns ! I've got a whole seven days of these designs to show you over the next week, some of which I really really fell in love with, and I'll be showing you the first of those today !

Today's flowers are inspired by a pattern called "The Smell of Summer", which looks quite similar to the pattern I drew inspiration from for my red floral last week. These nails took quite a while to do, mainly because I was procrastinating at the time, but even if I hadn't have been procrastinating it still would have taken a long time !

So I started with a base of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, then for the petals I used OPI Strawberry Margerita, OPI Sparrow Me the Drama and OPI Big Apple Red, with American Apparel Hassid for the little stamens. For the stems I used American Apparel Hunter, and it could have done with some extra shading really but I'd lost interest by that point and couldn't be bothered to add anything more to it !

And that's it ! I do like these nails and I was sad to take them off, especially as they'd taken me such a long time to do them. At least it's a new type of flower I've never painted before which was a challenge ! Definitely not my usual floral shapes ! What do you all think ?

I need to dry my hair now and then go to bed, need an early night before my alarm goes off at an incredibly antisocial time in the morning ! Night night, see you all again tomorrow !

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 : 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 : 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 : G for Graffiti

Good evening everyone ! It seems yesterday's floral design was particularly popular, and I received a request for a tutorial so that will be up and coming some time this week I should expect ! Other than that I'm moving on again with the Alphabet Nail Art Challenge and today is "G for Graffiti" !

I've never really been in to graffiti as it's never really appealed to me, so I really struggled to come up with something for this challenge. I didn't want to do graffiti lettering or anything and although I did consider replicating a Banksy design, I came up with the idea to do a brick wall in the background and just do a spray paint pattern on top !

I started with two coats of OPI Skyfall and after that had dried a bit I used the saran wrap method the dabble on some OPI Die Another Day and OPI My Vampire is Buff to draw the lines to make the bricks. I then painted on spray paint shapes using OPI Jade is the New Black, OPI Planks A Lot and OPI Dim Sum Plum. The colour choices were completely random for the spray paint, I just grabbed a couple of nail varnishes that were near me, still there from when I did my floral nails !

Right, it's bed-time now, going out two nights in a row is really tiring ! I'll be back again tomorrow though so don't you worry, tomorrow's theme is houndstooth, very exciting !

Alphabet Nail Art Challenge : F for Floral

Another day, another nail challenge ! Today's "F for Floral", and although florals are one of my favourite designs to do on my nails, I still had a really hard time choosing what to do ! I did these nails on Thursday when I did my "mega-nail-athon" when I did three designs in one afternoon, and I have to be honest and say that I'm glad I did this floral design last as I'm happy to have been able to keep it on my nails for a couple of days !

I got the urge to do something relatively realistic and not cartoony/caricature flowers, so it was then that I got the idea to incorporate roses into the nail art design. I always find that you can add so much depth to roses by using different shades of one colour, and it's a quick and easy type of floral as you don't have to be particularly precise, just blob on some colour !

So I started with a base if OPI My Vampire is Buff, and then contemplated maybe doing either some white stripes or dots, but in the end I decided against it. The roses are made up of OPI Strawberry Margerita, OPI Dim Sum Plum, OPI My Very First Knockwurst and OPI Sparrow Me the Drama. Finally, for the leaves I used OPI Don't Talk Bach to Me, OPI Jade is the New Black and OPI Live and Let Die.

I did exactly the same design, just mirrored, on my right hand and I think it looks really great ! I think because this designs just requires mainly blobbing with the colours it's quite easy to replicate it with your non-dominant hand ! What do you think ? Do you always try to do the same thing on both hands, or do you try and simplify it for your non-dominant hand ?

Right, I'm off out again this evening, so I'll see you all again tomorrow with a new post ! Tomorrow's theme is Graffiti, so we'll see where that leads me ! See ya !

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 !

NOTD : Pink, Purple and Blue Splatter

Hey there everybody ! I've got a new design for you all today, I meant to write this post earlier in the week but time just ended up escaping me and it somehow got delayed until today ! I hope you enjoyed my piCture pOlish blog fest post on Monday, as I really enjoyed taking part ! Anyway, I'm thankfully back at home again now with all my nail varnishes and a light box, so normal nail art can resume again !

I did this design the other day, but when it came to sitting down to do my nails, I didn't know what I wanted to do (as usual) so I asked my genius mother and she said splats. I figured I hadn't done a splatter mani for a while so it was about time I tried it again ! It's still just as annoying to do, the nail polish gets everywhere and you have to make sure you have a decent amount of nail varnish actually inside the straw before you blow, but I got there in the end !

I started with a base of American Apparel T-Shirt, and then using a straw, I "splatted" the design using American Apparel Hassid, P2 Break the Rules, OPI Can't Find My Czechbook and OPI Suzi's Hungary Again. I really like the combination of these colours together, they're bright but not in your face at the same time, a plus in my book !

 So that's it for tonight (it's getting a bit late, time for bed !), I'll be back with a post again soon as I've got plenty of backlog to post ! See you again soon everyone !

Strawberries

Good evening everyone, it's getting late but I thought I had better post something before I go to bed ! I've been busy doing "stuff" here in Berlin, "stuff" generally meaning shopping etc which is always good fun ! The weather here has become really really seriously hot all of a sudden which, although nice, is a bit too much and doesn't really make me want to do anything in particular !

I did these nails before I came over to Berlin, around the same time as when I did my watermelon nails, I just got the urge to paint some more fruit, and I'm so glad I did ! You can see the design on my little finger looks a little bit odd, and that's because I initially wanted to use tiny micro bullion studs for the yellow seeds, but decided that I didn't like it and would instead do dots, but then I didn't like the colour I chose so I went over all the dots I had already painted in yet another colour... and then I couldn't be bothered to start from zero on that nail but oh well !

For the base on this design I used an un-named Color Club pink polish, then I used Essie Mint Candy Apple for the green bits, and for the leaf accents and yellow seeds I used my Models Own pastel nail art pens in green and yellow. I really like the way that the strawberries look with the light pink colour. I would have wanted to do them red, but I have an aversion to red polishes at the moment for base colours as they are such a pain when it comes to taking it off ! Do any of you get that problem ? Red polish cuticle stains are the worst !

Right, that's it everyone, I'm off to bed ! I'll probably sit and play Candy Crush Saga for a while, are any of you addicted to it as well ? Night night everyone !

NOTD : Nude Floral

Hello there everyone ! So I know it's been a week since I last posted anything, we've had friends over from England visiting us here this week and so I haven't had much of a chance until now to write anything for you ! I did however get an opportunity to do my nails on Wednesday evening, and I'm really happy with how they turned out !

I got the idea for these nails from Kelly over at Base Coat Top Coat and using this tutorial, I had originally planned to do the nails exactly the same, but I ran out of time before we had to eat so I just stopped at step 10 ! As much as I'd have liked to have finished the whole design properly, I really like the way it looks without the dark background.

For this design, the nail varnishes I used were Champneys Nude, OPI Funkey Dunkey, OPI My Very First Knockwurst, OPI Planks A Lot, Butter London Royal Navy and my Models Own pastel yellow nail art pen. I've never done flowers like this before and I love how simple they are to do, and the details on them really gives the design a lot of depth !

So that's all for tonight everyone, I'm planning on doing my nails again tomorrow or on Monday, so it shouldn't be too long before I post something again ! I need to start writing some posts before I go to Berlin for a month, but don't worry, I'll still be able to post when I'm over there !

Swatch : L'Oréal - Confetti

Good evening everyone ! I know it's been a while since I posted anything, I've been doing my nails but haven't had time to write any posts really, so that's why it's been a whole since my last post ! My exams went really well, and I managed to do all the work I had in time, now I've just got two exams left and I'll be back in France on Friday (with all of my nails varnish, of course) ! So today I've got a really cool swatch for you which I'm really excited about !

So this is L'Oréal Confetti over OPI Suzi's Hungary Again !, my first ever black and white glitter nail varnish ! It's the first time anything like this has really been available over here in the UK, so naturally, I was really excited when I saw it in Boots and I had to buy it ! I also found ANOTHER black and white glitter polish on another stand, but that'll be for another time !

For this swatch I used just one coat of Confetti, the formula was alright, nothing special and it tended to clog up so I had to shake it in between doing every few nails. There are three sizes of glitter in both colours, plus it's got a subtle blue shimmer running through it which you can only really see over dark colours.

So all in all I'm pretty pleased with this nail varnish, despite the fact that the formula wasn't that great, it's still a novelty for me at the moment and I think I might be incorporating it into more of my designs if I'm doing skittles or accent nails !

I'm off to bed now everyone, I'm really tired at the moment for some reason so I'm going to try to get an early night so that I can do plenty of revision tomorrow without getting too distracted ! See you all again soon, hopefully it'll be less than a week this time !

NOTD : Stripes and Roses

Good evening everyone, I'm just about to go to bed but I suppose I'll manage to squeeze in a quick post for you all ! I'm really excited about this design as I've decided to try to reshape my nails as I was getting bored of the plain squoval nails, and decided to go for something for interesting ! They aren't the exact shape I'd like them to be at the moment, but I'm getting there slowly !

I did these nails on Saturday while I was supposed to be revising... surprise surprise ! I really love the way the colours work together, and I REALLY love the design on my index and middle fingers, probably something I will do again but on all of my nails !

For this design the nail varnishes I used were OPI Skyfall for the plain coloured nails and the roses, then I used OPI My Vampire is Buff, OPI My Very First Knockwurst, OPI Live and Let Die and my Models Own nail art pen in black for my accent nails. I just love this design, and I'm rediscovering my love for OPI Skyfall, it's such a pretty colour !

So anyway I'm off to bed now, let me know what you think of my new nail shape, I'll be working on perfecting it over the next few weeks I imagine but I'm already in love ! See you all again soon !

NOTD : Tie Dye

Hey there everyone ! It's really late and I've had loads of stuff on my hands recently with revision and all that (I have my first exam on Monday, not long now), but obviously I still managed to make time to do my nails, I just haven't got round to writing the post until now ! It won't be long as I'm really tired, but I felt I couldn't leave you without anything for another day !

So I did this design yesterday morning, when I was supposed to be revising... I've been wanting to tie dye a shirt for a few weeks now and I figured I'd paint some tie dye on my nails while I wait for the actual thing ! I looked up some images on google and it came up with this photo :

I really like that it's more purpley than the usual tie dye you see around, in my opinion anyway !

For this design, the colours I used were OPI My Vampire is Buff for the base, then I used OPI Dim Sum Plum, Essie Meet Me at Sunset, P2 Hug Me, Collection 2000 Ninja and Models Own Blooboo. I almost left out the yellow accents when I was painting these, but I'm glad I didn't as I think it really brings all the colours together !

So that's all for today, I've got to go and get ready for bed as I need a good night's sleep before MORE revision tomorrow, oh happy days ! Night night everyone ! See you all soon !