A England - To Emily Bronte Collection Swatches + Review

 Hey everyone! I feel so frustrated with myself, I had intended to post every day this week to catch up on reviews but I've come down with an infection and I just feel awful. It's also making me really emotional for some reason, like I've cried at my own nails at least twice, so I decided to have a few days break. I'm still not feeling great but I can't deal with the not-posting guilt so I wanted to post this gorgeous A-England collection.

A England is a brand that I've wanted to try for a very very long time, their polishes are always awe-inspiring and unique, and the collections always intrigue me. I was lucky enough to be approached by Adina to review for A-England recently, and I absolutely jumped at the chance. I was sent this collection, (the To Emily Bronte Collection*), and a duo that I'll be showing you in the next few days. All of the polishes are gorgeous, but I feel a special affinity to this collection because they're all inspired by Wuthering Heights which is such a brilliant book. I used to be such a bookworm before uni and work took over my life and Wuthering Heights was definitely one of my favourites. 

I felt a lot of pressure to get my review of these perfect, not just because I want to impress Adina and my readers, but also because I want to do these beautiful polishes justice. I decided to use my new camera for my 'other' shots and my usual lightbox camera for my five finger shots. Unfortunately I wasn't very happy with the five finger shots, I didn't think they did the polishes justice, but I don't have it in me to break tradition and not have five finger shots. And anyway, it gives a perception of what the polishes look like inside and outside, but it also definitely highlights how much I need to get a lightbox set up for my new camera because the quality is 100x better!

Gingham Man at the Helm Book Inspired Nail Art + Review

Hey everyone! I've been meaning to do gingham nails for ages, they've been at the top of my to-do list for over a year, but I just haven't plucked up the guts to do them. Anything involving line work puts me off, I don't feel confident doing lines, and they often go awfully as a result, and as gingham is just lines, I've always been a bit wary of doing it incase I mess it up. So when Penguin got in contact a couple of weeks ago and asked me to do some gingham nails inspired by the cover of their new release, Man at the Helm* by Nina Stibbe, it was the push I needed to finally do the design. 

I'm a huge fan of books, up until uni (which destroyed my free time) I never really had my head out of a book, now I only tend to read on trains, and ever since I got my car that's become a lot less regular as well. However, this summer I've really rediscovered my love of books. I've always been a staunch hater of e-readers but I got one a few months ago to save me lugging books around betwen uni and home, or on holiday, and I took it on holiday with me and read 4 books in a week, so they're pretty handy in a way, but I'm still a staunch supporter of having a book in hand. Especially when the cover is as lovely as Man at the Helm's. Which of course you wouldn't get to see if you were just reading it on Kindle. I've also done a few designs based from the cover of books before, and I've done a design of Penguin's own book covers, so it was an honour to be contacted by them. 

Digital Dozen Does Books - Day 5 Penguin Books

Hey everyone! I'm sorry this post is (2 days) late, things have been super busy for the past 2 days and I barely had time to do these nails, let alone post them. I managed to find a few hours free yesterday to do them, and I intended to post them straight after, but these took much longer than I ever anticipated. Anyway, for day 5 of digital dozen book week I chose to do a selection of penguin books. I absolutely love the look of these books, and I've been meaning to do these nails for ages, so this week was the perfect opportunity. 

The books I used were chosen at random, and I based it more around whether they'd fit on my nail rather than whether I'd read the book, although I'm sure you'll still recognise most of the titles. These nails are the most frustrating nails I've ever done, they took so much longer than I thought they would and they kept going wrong. I also couldn't fit on the author's name or 'penguin books' in full, because my nails aren't big enough, but overall I'm pretty happy with how these turned out.

To do these I started with 2 coats of Jacava - Mont Blanc* and once that was dry (sped up using my Beauty Narcotix Mini Ultimate Fix Quick Dry Spray*) I used striping tape and Essie - Fear & Desire for the orange, I didn't really want to wait for that to dry as well so I sprayed my mini Ultimate Fix once again, then I used acrylic paint and a cut down brush for the details. 

Ultimate Fix Spray

A bonus bottle shot of my Mini Ultimate Fix*. Perfect for your handbag

What do you think? Let me know in the comments! 

Alice

*Some of the products in this post were provided to me for review, my opinions are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way

Digital Dozen Does Books - Day 4 'Alice in Wonderland'

Hey everyone! I'm back for another day of digital dozen book week, and today I'm doing Alice in Wonderland. I couldn't go a whole week without at least ONE reference to my name after all. I chose a mix of other peoples ideas and making things up as inspiration for these nails, as you shall see, rather than using a book cover as with all the other designs. 

On the thumb I did a the cheshire cat using OPI - Chic from Ears to Tail, and then I used striping tape and an unnamed purple polish from a set for the stripes, the mouth was done using acrylic paint. The checkers board remains from yesterday on a base of Jacava - Mont Blanc* which is a gorgeous white which only takes 2 coats for opacity, I used this on my ring finger too. My middle finger is Essie - Borrowed and Blue and acrylic paint. The outline on the ring finger is Essie - Beyond Cozy and the numerals are acrylic paint. My little finger is China Glaze - Kinetic Candy with MASH - Black Nail Varnish* over it using striping tape. The tag is done using acrylic paint. And they're all topped off with a coat of Seche Vite.

The ring finger is inspired by this design, the thumb is inspired by this design (I know the link isnt to the artist but I cant seem to find who did it, if you know please let me know and I'll credit correctly) and the middle finger is inspired by this design

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

*some of the products in this post were provided for review, my opinions are entirely my own and were not influenced in any way

Digital Dozen Does Books - Day 3 'Noughts and Crosses'/'Checkmate'

Hey everyone! We're now on day 3 of Digital Dozen book week and today I've based my nails on 2 books rather than one, both from the same 'Noughts and Crosses' series by Malorie Blackman. The two books I used were 'Noughts and Crosses' and 'Checkmate'. I wanted something simple to do today and these were perfect.

The two books:

As you can see I added a bit more detail to these than was on the covers originally, but I thought they'd be a bit boring if not.

To do these I used a base of Jacava - 'Mont Blanc'* which is a gorgeous white which only 2 coats for opacity, and then I added black and white acrylic paint using a small brush, topped off with a coat of Seche Vite.

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

*some of the products in this post were provided to me for review but my opinions were not influenced in any way

Digital Dozen Does Books - Day 2 'Ruby Red'

Hello everyone! As I mentioned yesterday, I was really struggling to come up with ideas for this week's digital dozen theme, so I had to resort to rifling through my bookcase for inspiration. Luckily I didn't have to search for very long as I came across Ruby Red by Linzi Glass and I knew instantly that I wanted to use it. 

The book:

To do these I started with a base of OPI - My Vampire is Buff, (which I FINALLY HAVE!) and then I used a tiny brush and white acrylic paint for the background flowers. I then added a coat of Seche Vite and decided to take a picture of them alone in case the next step went wrong (see below). I then used red acrylic paint and the same tiny brush for the flowers and writing, I just added different amounts of white and black paint for the different shades of red.

I actually really like the design on its own like that, and I was afraid I wouldnt like it with the flowers but I equally love both of them. Which do you prefer?

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

Digital Dozen Does Books - Day 1 'Phosphorescence'

Hey everyone! I am now a member of the digital dozen, I have actually been a member for a few months but I've not had the time to complete the challenges. If you dont know what the digital dozen is, it's a group of nail bloggers who post 5 days a week once a month, based around a theme. This month's theme is books. As a massive book lover I'm surprised how hard I found it to come up with ideas for this week. I haven't even got 5 ideas yet! (Any suggestions are welcome in the comments). 

Today's post was quite easy to think of though, as this book is right at the front of my bookshelf (I have so many books that I have to put some behind) and I've been meaning to make it into a nail design for ages. The book I chose is 'Phosphorescence' by Raffaella Barker, which my younger teenage self read a LOT. You'll probably find that the majority of my posts this week are books for children or teenagers, as their covers seem to a thousand times more inspiring, and this of course is no different. This will be quite a picture heavy post so I'll put the rest on a read more after the first picture. 

Books and bookshelves

Hello everyone, today's post was inspired by something I love: reading! I've been meaning to do bookshelf nails for ages but when it came to it I decided I wanted to do open books as well. I was originally only going to do one big giant open book as an accent nail but that didn't really happen and I dont really know why haha. Anyway, I like how they turned out despite that and I hope you do too!

Alice