NOTD : Deck the Halls

Hello everybody ! Long time no see, but I swear I have a perfectly reasonable explanation for that ! You see, as my work load at uni has gone up so much this year, I'm having to make a few sacrifices as far and nail art and blogging are concerned. I barely have any time to do my nails at all, and even less to blog about them so I'm afraid that blogging here will have to be reserved for the holidays from now on, and maybe the odd couple of times during term time if i find the time for it, I hope that's okay with everyone !

But anyway, it's Christmas and I'm home for the holidays ! That means nail time (albeit limited to the few polishes I was able to bring home with me), and today's design is inspired by one of The Illustrated Nail's Christmas 2013 designs !

So I guess that not doing my nails properly for over a month has taken its toll - these nails took me forever to do (although I was watching TV at the same time I suppose), although these are better than the nails I did a few days ago, a mix of a bad nail art pen and not having practised for a long time made for some very shaky snowflakes !

For this design I started with a base of OPI You're Such a Budapest, then for the holly I used OPI Jade is the New Black, Essie Toggle to the Top, and for the outlines I used American Apparel T-Shirt and a Models Own black nail art pen. I really like the way the white outlines highlight the holly and make it stand out even more from the background. It's a shame I didn't bring any rhinestones with me, otherwise I could have done red rhinestone berries like in the original design.

So that's all from me for today folks ! I hope you've all had a wonderful Christmas and have eaten far more than you should ! I know I certainly have ! See you next time !

Helen Dardik Week : Botanical Fantasy

Hey there guys ! So today has been a very eventful day - we caught the train to go to Vienna for the day (well it only ended up being about 6 hours, but it was still very very very fun) ! I thought it was very similar to Prague (except here I could actually understand the language), as a lot of the old architecture was still amazingly in tact, plus the fact that it pretty much every building had a unique characteristic about it ! I'd definitely go back again - there's so much to do there that we obviously weren't able to do due to time retraints, the only problem was that it was very very expensive there !

We're moving on to my final two designs in the Helen Dardik Week series, and I've got my two favourites left to show you still ! I'm not sure I could choose which one is my true favourite, so I've decided that they're both joint first place ! Today's design is inspired by Helen Dardik's "Botanical Fantasy" pattern, which is probably my favourite of all of them !

There are so many flowers on the original patterns that I could have chosen for this design, but I decided that all the bigger ones were quite similar to other flowers I chosen previously for this series' nail designs so in the end I went for one of the smaller, less noticeable flowers. You can actually spot them quite easily in all of the original patterns, but I think it's usually the bigger ones that initially catch your eye !

For this design I started with two coats of OPI My Vampire is Buff, then for the flowers I used OPI Planks A Lot, OPI Funky Dunkey, OPI You Don't Know Jacques, P2 Hug Me and P2 Summer to Go. The leaves were done with the usual OPI Mermaids Tears and OPI Jade is the New Black. I'm glad I chose to do this colour combination, with the two different purples, although I do like the alternative reddish/pink combination in one of the other pictures of the pattern !

All in all this is definitely right up there with some of my favourite designs ever - I really love the way each nail is different but still the same ! This is a type of floral design I would do again, the combination of the light and dark shades for the petals is really nice in my opinion ! What do you all think ?

Time for bed again now, we were up super early (although I spent most of our time on the train sleeping) and I'm really tired now ! Night night everyone, see you same time tomorrow for the final design in my Helen Dardik series ! Byeeeeeee !

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 !

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 : 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 !

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 !

First Attempt at Needle Dragging and 200th Blog Post !

Hello there everyone ! So I got back from Prague after an amazing 2.5 days holiday there and will be travelling back home to France tomorrow, it will have been a busy few days by the time I get back ! But anyway, I said in my last post that I would be able to post something on Sunday, so here it is before I go to bed (early morning again tomorrow !) !

I did this design a few days before I left for Berlin, and although it was my first ever attempt at needle dragging, I'm really pleased with the outcome ! Basically what you do is you apply your first coat of polish as normal and let it dry, and then you do a really thick coat and immediately blob on another coloured nail varnish on top and then using a needle, just drag the second colour out into the first... does that make sense ? All I did was look up a couple of tutorials online and I went from there, it's pretty simple to do !

For this needle dragging design, I started with a base of OPI My Vampire is Buff, and for the dark purple I used OPI I Vant to Bite Your Neck. I love these two polishes together, especially I Vant to Bite Your Neck, will definitely have to use it in my designs more often !

Also, almost forgot to mention... THIS IS MY 200th BLOG POST !!!!!! Wooohooooooo hip hip hooray for big milestones ! There have been plenty of milestones this month actually, first my first year blogaversary and now my 200th post, lots to celebrate !

Right, I'm off to bed now, got to get ready for another long day of travelling ahead of me, sigh.. but I'm really looking forward to being home again and seeing my family, oh, and of course, being able to sleep in my own bed : there's no better feeling after a long time away from home !

And don't forget to tune in here tomorrow evening at 7pm sharp (6pm GMT), I've got a post scheduled for you all that you won't want to miss ! See you all then !

Geometric Gradient and my Belated Blogaversary !

Helloooooooo everyone ! So I was meant to write a post yesterday as it was my official first blogaversary, but I ended up getting completely sidetracked and totally forgot until I'd turned my computer off and was laying in bed, but by that time it was gone midnight anyway and no longer my blogaversary.. oh well, I'm here today ! But anyway, I've got a great design that I'm in love with to share with you today !

So these nails were inspired by a design I saw by Chelsea at Get Nailed, which just happened to pop up on my Tumblr feed when I sat down to do my nails on the day before I left home to come to Berlin. I loved the colour combination and just the way it was so simple and minimalistic, yet really eye-catching at the same time !

For this design, the nail varnishes I used were OPI Funkey Dunkey, OPI Planks A Lot and OPI Steady as She Rose, and topped off each nail with a plain silver stud. I think I prefer the lighter purple base, as on my thumb, ring and little fingers to the darker purple, but I also love the way the colours and reversed designs all fit together ! I'll definitely be trying this with different colours soon !

So that's all for today everyone, I still can't believe it's already been a year since I first started posting here, and I'm so glad that I've been able to entertain you all and share my designs with the world for a whole year now ! Here's to another year everyone !

Bärlin

Hey there everybody ! So today's post is coming straight from Berlin, and I know I said I was going to post on Tuesday (today's post is in fact what was supposed to be posted on Tuesday) but I honestly got sooooo sidetracked with packing (which I didn't start until about 11pm, considering my train to Paris was at 6:15am Wednesday morning) and doing bits and pieces before I left I just didn't have any time to write the post ! And anyway, I've been really enjoying my time here in Berlin, I'm still here for a while but don't worry, I've got plenty to post, it'll just be a matter of finding the time to write it all ! So... on to the nails !

I saw this nail design a while ago in a post by Supa Nails who is actually based in Berlin, and I just loved the colour combination and the whole idea of the design, it was just a matter of waiting for the right moment to paint my nails and post these nails !

I didn't use the same nail polishes as in the original post, so instead I used P2 Jetset, Essie Splash of Grenadine and OPI My Back Pocket, for the details I used white acrylic paint. You may remember the tone gradient design I did a couple of weeks ago, well that was inspired by this colour combination, I just liked it too much !

So that's it for today guys, I should be back again soon to write another post hopefully, it just depends when I have time ! Hopefully I'll also be able to post some photos of my trip here in the next post, I just need to sync them to my computer first !

NOTD : Tone Gradient

Hey there everybody ! I told you it wouldn't be too long before I posted again so here I am ! I've been doing loads of nail designs these past couple of days in preparation for me going away for a month, so I'll still be able to post when I'm away, even though I'll still be doing my nails, I don't know what my lighting etc will be like so we'll just have to wait and see !

Today's design is really simple, going off a colour combination from a design that I will post when I go away to Berlin. I don't know where the idea came from, I was tired though and wanted something quick and easy to do, so a gradient it was !

The colours I used for this design were P2 Jetset, Essie Mint Candy Apple, Essie Splash of Grenadine, OPI My Very First Knockwurst, OPI My Back Pocket and Essie Meet Me at Sunset. I like the fact that they're just small gradients, as opposed to the usual half-nails I tend to do for my gradients.

Right so that'll be all for tonight, I really need to go to bed now, I've been writing this post for the last 2 hours ! See you all again soon 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 !

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 !

Purple Dots

Good afternoon everyone ! So today I have the last of my scheduled posts for you before I go back to the UK, hopefully I'll have something to post for you all on Wednesday but I obviously can't promise anything as I have exams starting next week so I obviously need to revise... oh priorities !

So this is a really simple design I did the other night, I wasn't feeling very inspired but I knew that I needed something to post for you all, so I just grabbed a nail polish that I hadn't used before and decided to pair it with one of my new Models Own pastel nail art pens !

The polishes I used for this design were an unamed Color Club polish (it's really sad that I can't find out the names, does anyone know what this one could be ?), and then I used my Models Own pastel nail art pen in purple. It was a really simple design to do, and I only used a tiny dotting tool to put an extra blob of the Color Club on top of all the nail art pen dots, I really like how it looks ! I'll probably be trying more of these combinations in the future !

Right so that'll be all for today folks, like I said earlier, I'll try to get something sorted for Wednesday, I'll probably be dying for a design by then as I'll still have my mani on from last week, oh the horror !

NOTD : Bright Harlequin

Hey there everyone ! So today's post is super early to make a change, that doesn't happen very often ! I'm going away today for a week and so I won't be around to post anything, but I'm scheduling a couple of posts that I've prepared (instead of revising, obviously) to tide you over until I get back !

So I did these nails yesterday, and it's a design I've been wanting to do for ages, but I've been trying to think up a good colour combination for it ! In the end I just grabbed a few bright colours and they seemed to go relatively well together so I just started painting ! The design took me a couple of hours to do, I started off with my left hand just in case I didn't like it so I didn't waste nail varnish on my right hand, but as I ended up really liking the design I did it on both of my hands !

For this design, the colours I used were P2 Crazy About Green for the base (this colour would have been absolutely awesome if it wasn't a shimmer), then I used OPI Dim Sum Plum, OPI My Back Pocket and Models Own Blooboo for the different triangles. I freehanded everything as I seem to have problems with the tape method (mainly because I'm too impatient to wait for everything to dry), and I think the lines still turned out pretty crisp ! Result !

Right so that's all for today folks, I've got a couple more posts to write for you all and then I've got to finish getting ready ! See ya next week !