[SPECIAL] ONE YEAR BLOGIVERSARY EXTRAVAGANZA!

That's right! This is the one year anniversary of The Nail Noodle's creation, and boy, do I have a bumper post for you today!

I cannot believe I have been doing this blog for a year now! I have been working on this post all week because I had so many ideas for today to celebrate such an occasion (should be a national holiday too, I reckon! *wink*) and one of them is this cake I made from scratch. So time consuming, but worth it! Hope you like my fondant icing skills, hahaha!

Stay tuned to the rest of this post which includes nail art, my top 5 posts of the year and more! But for now, adding to the joy is the one and only, Sir Cliff!


Well, that was just lovely. Now onto the next part of my post! What kind of nail blogiversary would it be without some celebration themed nails?!

I went mad with the nail art gems this time! (It's a bit more obvious when you click on the picture too!)
I have to say, my favourite nail is the ring finger because I used Barry M confetti to look like sprinkles, ooh!

Celebrity Inspired Nails

I decided to do something that I actually hadn't done before; copy a look worn by a celebrity. I still don't think I succeeded based on the fact mine isn't exactly the same (I don't have all the nail art supplies in the world) so I'm going with the idea that it's 'inspired' by celebrity nail art. *wink wink*

Today's celebrity is *drumroll* Rita Ora!
She is known to wear nail art quite a lot and I thought I would go for something somewhat 'easy' (PAH! I wish!)
First, let's have a look at the original:

Retrieved from here.

I liked the half moon look with white and gold so I thought this would be a nice fun one to do!

However, I couldn't quite get the base colour right when I was doing some swatches, bare in mind my nails are real. In the end, I decided to make the base a little more metallic and overall, I was quite happy with it!







And here is my take on it! I wanted to do a light grey colour as the base, but couldn't find any (*gasp!*) so I resorted to layering nail polishes that are rather thin. I started off with No7 Stay Perfect 'Stonewash', a dark grey colour, and then painted No7 Stay Perfect 'Snowflake' on top. I then painted Avon Speed Dry 'Prompt and Pearly' which is a pearl shimmer but as you can see in the second picture, it has a kind of gold undertone to it which I thought would compliment the gold nail stickers.

So, that's how I got the main colour of the nail, in case you were wondering!
For the half moons, I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear 'White On' (which I love because it's so pigmented) and luckily I had bought some 'chains' nail art stickers from Poundland a while back which were similar to the original, and as I didn't have gold jewels that matched, I just stuck more chains down the nails, and a silver jem on each. That's it!

My Top 5 Posts from the Last 12 Months

Here I have compiled a list of my favourite nail art posts from the last year. I numbered them, but it took me ages to decide which I like more so the order is just a rough one! (So indecisive!) Truthfully, I never think 'Oh, I'm amazing at nail art!', because if I did, I'd be deluded. However, there are those brief moments when I really like how some particular idea in my brain has transfered onto my nails, and that is what I am sharing with you here.

5) Pastel Zebra Nail Stamping

So this one is in my top 5 because it was the first time I did nail stamping and actually liked it. I had just started the whole nail stamping thing and so I was still getting used to it at the time and that's what made me kind of proud of it!

This post can be found here.

4) Blackboard Nails

I like this one because with the matte top coat, it really did resemble a blackboard, I feel. The white 'chalk' writing was a bit messy but in a way, so is chalk, so it worked out okay in the end.

It's also one of my most popular posts, based on view counts, so that's nice!

You can view this post here.

3) Halloween Nails

I'm not really a Halloween fan, but I remember I really enjoyed doing the gradients, and the drawing using inspiration.

It is part of a whole 'Halloween Bumper Pack' I had made at the time, which can be found here.

2) Wimbledon Nails

This is obviously fairly recent, but I was really proud of how this one came out. It took me a long, long, long time to do! I felt my eyes squinting towards the end of it!

I really loved watching Wimbledon this year, especially seeing as Andy Murray won. COME ON, ANDY!!

You can view this post here!

1) Christmas Nails

I think this deserves to be the number 1, even if it is just for the sheer amount of time it took me to actually do this!

This was one of the designs that I actually had to draw out before I did it, just to make sure it would look okay on my nails.

It was so much work, with glittery layers you may not even fully see in the photo, complete with nail jewels, but I was really proud of it in the end!

The worst thing was, as a right handed person, trying to do my right hand, but they turned out well in the end! You can see the result here!


Well, I think that's it! So glad I'm still blogging here after a whole year! Granted, I do not post as often as I would like, but I am happy that I do still enjoy being creative with nail polish enough to keep this blog going for so long. (That's a first for me!)

Thank you to everyone who has visited this blog and made it a worthwhile project for me, and to those who inspired me to create my own blog, especially those at the British Nail Bloggers group (link in Menu) who helped me out a lot when I was new to the nail blogging scene.

THANK YOU ALL! x

Fun Dotty Tips!

 Fun, fun... FUN!

This design kind of reminds me of clowns or something actually, not that I particularly love clowns or anything!

The nails (bar the ring finger) were first painted with Essie 'Lovie Dovie' ...although I bought this from TK Maxx and when I googled it, the swatches were completely different, meaning the bottles were labelled wrong and so I have no solid idea of what is the actual colour name. Another blogger found the same thing here, so I'm glad I'm not the only one! If I was guessing though, I would say it is Essie 'Status Symbol' based on swatches from google images.

The ring finger, (and the tips of all the other nails) were painted with 2 coats of Avon 'Prompt and Pearly'. I then used the pink Essie polish and Barry M Blueberry to create some dots on the pearly parts, putting pink spots on some of the blue spots, but not all. I then added a sparkly edging along the tips with Nails Inc. 'Hatton Garden', and also used this to create some more dots on the ring finger which looks great when it catches the light, really brings it to life I feel!

Also, I'm excited because tomorrow is my 1 year blogiversary so I have some plans in store!

Angle Tip Nails

Well, there are only so many times I can call a post 'colourful' so 'angle tip' is all I have!

Just a nice quick post today, showing something I hadn't really done before.

I started by painting the base colours, and then painted a diagonal line of Nails Inc. 'Hatton Garden' from one side, and then painting an opposing line using the base colour from the next nail. So for example on the middle finger, I put purple as that was the base colour of the ring finger next to it.

The base colours (from thumb to pinky) are: Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Blueberry, Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Pomegranate, Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Mango, GOSH 571 Wild Lilac & Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Key Lime. (Don't ask, I just like highlighting these days!)

That's all for now!

Bright Summer Water Marbled Nails

 I think this is possibly the first time I'm actually posting my water marbling attempt.

Granted, I haven't even tried it since last year so that's one of the reasons I haven't shared it! The two main reasons I don't do this often are a) It's messy and b) it wastes a lot of nail polish. I did, however, deal with the latter by doing two nails at a time (which was sometimes successful and sometimes a complete fail). For those of you who may be reading this and have no idea what I am talking about, search 'nail water marbling' or something similar on YouTube and you'll catch the drift!

The colours used in this design are:
Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Key Lime
Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Blueberry
Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine Mango
Rimmel Lycra PRO 297 Show Off
and a touch of GOSH 571 Wild Lilac which is not seen in the images very much because their lines are so fine.

I then used a dotting tool to paint some dots along the curves (usually in threes, each one increasing slightly in size). I then painted over them all with 17 (now branded 'Seventeen') Nail Xtras Glitter Topcoat. I love this topcoat because it's fairly subtle and reflects the colours underneath, so it kind of makes your nails look shiny as the light catches them.

After that, I found some nail stickers I bought from Poundland which I put on my ring fingers, and silver dots on my thumbs, which coincidentally matched the dots I had drawn on earlier! Finished with a topcoat. :)

Well, I think that's all I can say about these nails! They weren't as nice as I would have liked, and were rather annoying to do, but overall they could have been worse!

Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat vs. Barry M Confetti

This post is not going to be a comparison of the two in terms of quality and such, as I only have Barry M (and I don't have money to buy, in my eyes, identical polishes).

Instead, I just wanted to share with you something I realized in Boots the other day. I have had the Barry M Confetti Nail Effects since not long after they were released, and in general, they are okay, but they're not exactly my favourite polishes on the planet so I'm never going to be crazy about them or any similar type of polish.

What stood out at me was when I was having a look at Sally Hansen's polishes where these 4 were on top display - as far as I could make out, they are fairly new to the UK, but instantly I thought 'Barry M Confetti!' and upon closer inspection I feel even more strongly that these are virtually identical.

Now I'm a big fan of Sally Hansen, I use them a lot, and I'm sure these Fuzzy Coat polishes match the quality of the rest of their range which would justify their price. However, Barry M are, in my opinion, also great quality and if I was standing in Boots looking at these, I would rather pay Barry M's £3.99 than Sally Hansen's £6.99, but then again, I'm a student so it's unlikely that I am going to fork out a lot of money on one polish without some store offer or deal.

The main point here is that these are 2 different brands which I realized have the same range of polishes, so if you were looking to buy one, perhaps have a look at the others on the market.

Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat 'All Yarned Up', 'Fuzz-sea', 'Wool Knot' and 'Tweedy'

Barry M Confetti Nail Effects 'Dolly Mixture', 'Sour Apple', 'Bubblegum' and 'Liquorice'

I also want to note that Sally Hansen has a pink 'Wool Lite' shade which matches Barry M's 'Marshmallow'.