Best of British Weekly Roundup 16/09/12

It's that time for the Weekly Roundup! Let's see what everyone's been up to!

Helly at the Nail Newbie shows her nubs some love with Dollish Polish Expecto Patronum

Wendy over at Wendy's Delights has won a Giveaway from The Hungry Asian and her prize Twenty Ten has been swatched here, also go check out The Hungry Asian's blog and polishes available at Etsy. Going from one extreme to the other see Wendy's Summery Manicure using tape to create a simple & easy square design!

Claire at nuthin' but a nail thing has been continuing on with the 30 Day Challenge with Rainbow Gradient Striped Manicure

Emma at Emma's Little Corner has a little success after a frustrating week of failures PVA experiment Blue and Black gradient mani

Ruth has some more fun with gradients this week, refusing to accept summer is over!

Lou once again is on a bit of a Chanel kick with one of the Fashion's Night Out Limited Editions

Charlotte at Charlottes-nails has been busy with apples and glitter this week for the Fall into Autumn Challenge.

Its the end of the favourite things challenge for Steph, here's Steph's Day 10 Favourite Mani. Steph can't wait for the next challenge, will you be joining in the fun?

Lyndsay from Pie's Eyes drops in from her holiday in Spain to show off some NEW Holographic Polish from Kiko!

Putting her nubbins to good use this week, imPRESS - Press on Manicure false nails were put through there paces over on Enigmatic Rambles' blog.

PrettyKittyClaws put her Nails Inc Sprinkles to good use with a pretty Cupcake Mani.

Sam at Polished Art unleashed her inner geek with this physics-based rainbow manicure as part of the 31 Day Challenge.

Jo at Northern Nails has reached the half way point in the 30 day challenge this week was all about the nail art!

Nada has got her hands on her first set of Models Own nail polish and has swatched them! check it out!

Laura at She Who Does Nails has been continuing the 30 Day Challenge and did a cool rainbow nails design using a dotting tool!

Polished Criminails sticks to the British theme this week by showing us 4 of the new BarryM Gelly Nail Paints in the shades Prickly Pear, Grapefruit, Satsuma & Pomegranate

Kerry at JustTalkNails shows off the new Barry M Burgundy Croc effect teamed up with A Englands Iseult

Vic has been on a major polishing spree this week (13 manis and counting) but she just can't decide whether she wants to show you delicate print or holo bling.

And that's all folks!

Gradients!

I just love gradients! They're pretty easy to do and I find them fun to create.

I started with Barry M all-in-one, then painted a layer of No7 Snowflake (a white polish) so that the colours show up a little easier and that my own nail colour won't show through. I still had to apply the sponge twice so that the colours were strong enough. The colours used (in order) are MUA Shade 16, No7 Lucky Lilac, Fearne Cotton Lime Green, Fearne Cotton Mint Green and Fearne Cotton Turquoise towards the tips.

I painted a layer of 17 Nail Xtras Glitter to add that little bit of sparkle. It's actually a bottle I've had for a REALLY long time and I wasn't sure if they still made it, but I went to Boots to check, and it is the same, with the same kind of glitter. I'm not sure if there's a specific name for that kind of glitter, but it sort of reflects the colour it is on which works really well on gradients because it's like you have different glitters on your nail. Anyway, I digress.

I put some fimo on the thumb and ring fingers, topped with Seche Vite and voila!

Best of British Weekly Roundup 09/09/12

It's that time of the week again for the Best of British Weekly Roundup! Check out the other British nail bloggers!

Lou is back from her holiday and is showing off her new Chanel Nail Polish in a rare glimpse of the British Sunshine

Emma accidentally signed up to two nail challenges this month, so there will be lots of posts up on Imagination In Colour, including herAntique Nail Art post, amongst others!

Sam at Polished Art produced a special Teal Tuesdays manicure for Ovarian Cancer Awareness.

Lyndsay from Pie's Eyes went under cover this week with her Camouflage Manicure and liked it so much it stayed on most of the week with the addition of a matte topcoat.

Claire from nuthin' but a nail thing is all over the 30 Day Challenge and kicked off Day One with a Ladybird Manicure to cover off "RED".

Ruth relives school and tries to 'do the math' with her Blackboard-inspired nails this week!

It's been a busy week over at Polished Criminails, so let's take a look back at the last 7 days of the 30 Day Challenge!

Jo decided to take on the 30 Day Challenge this Month and is having tons of fun painting her nails a different colour every day!

September is Polycystic Overy Syndrome (PCOS) awareness month what better way to raise awareness than a manicure! And that is just one of the manicures on Enigmatic Rambles' blog this week!

Wendy from Wendy's Delights has made her own Water Decals for the September Polish Day themed Geometry

Charlotte from Charlottes-nails tried out some crayon nail art for the start of the Fall Into autumn Challenge.

Lucie from Lucy's Stash is experimenting with the 'ikat' pattern featuring Zoya Designer polishes! Check it out here!

Steph from Never Mind Suzie may be far away on her holidays so here's her holiday nails hope you're having a great holiday Steph

PrettyKittyClaws has had a blog makeover and did a Tape mani with the new KiKo holographics!

This week Nada turned 19 and to celebrate she did birthday nails!!! Enjoy this wonderfully simple manicure!

Laura at She Who Does Nails has been working on the 30 Day Challenge and particularly liked her piano nails!

The 31 Day Challenge started on The Crumpet this week, as did another awesome Giveaway featuring indie polishes

Kerrie's 300 follower giveaway over at PishPosh and Polish is still running and while you are there you should check out her Geometric Nail Art

Kerry does fimo for back to school with China Glaze Ruby Pumps!!

Sarah Louise creates some cheeky Bactiera Monsters , don't forget to enter her 2000 follower giveaway =D - Good Luck xox

Vic has done her first leopard print mani but it's orange, blue and gold. Leopard print nails are her new favourite but she's on a mission to never use the 'normal' colours.

And that's all for this week! :)

Blackboard Nails

 Don't worry! No-one's scratching their nails against a blackboard in this house! Eugh, I get shudders just thinking about the sound that makes...

No, this is an idea that popped into my head last week when I got my Rimmel Matte nail polish and I have to say, I'm quite impressed with how it turned out! It actually felt kinda like a blackboard/chalk (not that I've spent many a day rubbing blackboards or anything).

I started off with my usual Barry M basecoat, then applied 1 coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out which was more than sufficient. I then used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On to draw the equations and stuff on (using a small, thin brush for nail art) and then did a coat of Rimmel Matte top coat to give the effect of a blackboard.

I tried to capture the velvet effect more than anything, haha. I took this off a while after taking the pictures -- I'm not sure I'd go out with this but it's still fun and easy to do!

:)

Essie Russian Roulette Nail Polish

 Last week I decided to buy an Essie nail polish - it's not a brand that I generally buy to be honest, but that's down to the price of it really.

I spent about 15 minutes trying to decide on what colour to buy (to the point where an old man walking by actually stopped and said 'You look like you're deep in thought!' to me. I finally went for Russian Roulette. Some colours are so close to one another it's hard to differentiate them.

This polish is a kind of jelly creme in my opinion. Reason being that even with 2 coats it wasn't completely opaque, and I got that kind of jelly... vibe! Really love this colour and think it looks awesome. It's quite a striking red on the nails. You can just about see in the bottle in the first picture that it appears to have a pinky undertone - although I can't really see any hint of that when applied.

I didn't apply a topcoat for this so the shininess you see is just the nail polish. Super glossy (but I had to make sure not to do anything for a while as it took a bit to dry)

:)