[SPECIAL] Four Year Blogiversary!

Hello! Even though I haven't posted on here in quite a while *cough* 6 months *cough*, I couldn't forget my blogiversary, and I had to follow my tradition of posting a poorly constructed cake and some pictures of nails, which I think is the theme of this blog? ;)

Yes, marvel at the cake you see here. As I'm writing this I was going to reference the upcoming series of Great British Bake Off (excited!) and I felt a sense of déjà vu so I decided to look at last year's post and apparently I was thinking the same thing then, so at least I'm consistent!

In terms of actual nail art, I still have been doing nail art all the time, and trying out new techniques I see online - some with success, some without!
Instead of making themed blogiversary nails, I decided to just post some of the pictures of nail art I've done while not blogging but as I did them quite a while back, I can't remember the polishes I used, only the method. This geometric one to the right was done by painting my nails white, placing striping tape at different angles, filling in the sections with different colours and then removing the tape. Finished with a subtle glitter topcoat.

 This next one was done in admittedly a really awkward way. I painted my nails white and on a silicone nail mat, I used a sponge to create a long strip of glitter gradient of pink-purple-blue-green and then cut it up into triangles. These polishes are more of a gelly type so I had to do quite a lot of layers when making the gradient strip so it ended up quite thick which meant that when I stuck them to my nails, there were ledges along the sides which were fairly annoying. Putting tape on my nails in a v-shape would have been easier, but with the polishes being rather transparent, I would have had to have done a lot of layers anyway to really see a gradient.

This last picture was just me trying out something a bit more simple, but I liked it and thought I'd add it in here. Also, I love the polish on the middle finger - HOLO there! (SimplyNailogical anyone?)

Well, thanks if you're here and still reading. I'm away to watch more of the Olympics - one of the few times I have any interest in sport!

Bye for now!

Colourful Herringbone Inspired Nails

Lately, I have really been loving anything with chevron or herringbone patterns (as you can see from the tealight holder in the background, haha) so I decided to make some chevron nails last week. Well, that didn't go too well and just looked so wrong and I took them off immediately.

A couple of days ago, however, I was scrolling through chevron wallpapers (and I mean actual sticks-to-your-wall wallpaper) on Pinterest and felt inspired to try again on my nails, but I figured out this is easier to do (just painted stripes down the nail and then painted the diagonal lines). Before I could draw the white lines though, I made a colourful base by painting lots of different dots (not with a dotting tool, just their own brushes). Here are the steps and colours I used:

1) Painted nude-coloured base coat (Sally Hansen - Bandage)
2) Painted dots using: Fearne Cotton - Lime Green, Revlon Top Speed - Electric, Sally Hansen Insta-dri - Man-go Team!, Maybelline Color Show - Electric Pink, Technic - Bora Bora Beach, Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine - Blueberry.
3) Then applied glittery topcoat (Seventeen Nail Xtras - Glitter Top-Coat)
4) Painted all lines on with The New Black Striper Brush - White.
5) Applied Seche Vite Top-Coat to seal in design, and DONE!

I really like this (more than I thought I would, actually) and I think if you have a white nail art pen or thin nail art brush, this isn't too difficult once you start. The lines are not all perfect but I don't see why they have to be!

Thanks for reading!

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!

Maybelline Color Show Polka Dots 'Chalk Dust'

A very quick post from me today!

I felt like trying out 'Chalk Dust' over different shades.

The colours, I think, because I did this 2 weeks ago are (from thumb to pinky) Essence 'Maybe I'm Amazed', Maybelline Color Show 'Electric Pink', Maybelline Color Show 'Orange Fix', Barry M 'Guava' and Barry M 'Key Lime'. All shades are over a white base coat (mainly because the Maybelline ones are Neons which work better over white).

Colourful Heart Nails... that match my phone!

 Posting something today which I have wanted to post for over a week!

A couple of months ago I bought a few cases for my phone from eBay, and I liked the pattern so much I decided to copy it onto my nails. I actually quite like it, but I tell you, it's hard work!

I got rather bored after doing my left hand, but I persevered and managed to do the right hand which looked pretty good considering (although I never photographed it, oops!).

I have to say that I did buy the case myself, and although I painted my nails myself, the pattern was obviously not my own design so I feel it's only right to credit the design to Head Case which is a registered trading name of Ecell Global.

Perhaps I might do this again sometime, actually. Even though it's quite a bit of work, it does look nice, especially as the colours are rather summery!

Aztec Nails

Ooh, I've really missed blogging, and I feel sort of bad that I haven't posted since January... oops! I have been doing my nails, although I must admit that I haven't been taking photos of them lately. I've had too much stuff to do, what with essays and general uni work.

This is the last week of the semester (woohoo!) and I still have exams to do (booo) so I doubt I will be very active on here over the next couple of months either - which is why I thought I'd make an effort to actually post something on here today. First, I have to say I'm quite proud of myself for actually clearing up the pile of junk I had on this computer desk - I haven't been bothered to sit at the desktop computer because I was too cold, so I've been seeking refuge under a heated blanket and laptop for about 5 months.

ANYWAY, because I felt like spending an hour doing nail art, and because I'm just so fashion conscious *cough*, I thought I'd do some Aztec inspired nails, which seem to be coming back into style, again. I basically picked a few colours I liked and though 'Yeah, that'll do'.
I started off by using a base coat, then Sally Hansen 'White On' for a blank canvas. I then put on different colours (which, in honesty, I don't feel like going to dig out just to find the names at this minute) in different shapes and used a fine brush to draw on the lines, zig-zags, dots, etc.




Sorry for the short post, hope to be back soon with many more posts!