Multicoloured French

Hey everyone! Sorry for the recent radio silence, I’ve had A LOT going on, I don’t want to tell you anything just yet because I don’t want to jinx it (it’s not blogging related so I’m not doing the whole “oh I can’t tell you yet because it’s a secret” thing don’t worry!) but once it’s finalised I will probably not shut up about it. So enjoy the silence while it lasts! 

Today’s nails were inspired by someone I think... which is probably the vaguest thing I’ve ever said on here but I won’t lie - I painted these almost a year ago and I have no recollection of what made me do them! This blogpost is full of vague and unhelpful statements I’m sorry! 

My Favourite Nail Polish Colour?

I'll give you three guesses what my favourite nail polish colour is. Hint: look at the picture! Whilst you might see a lot of pink now and again, light blue is definitely a firm favourite. I love it as a base for nail art, as the picture below demonstrates, but I also love to use it in nail art too. Calibre Furniture* recently wrote to me and asked me what my favourite colour was, and I knew without hesitation. Colour is so important in art, and light blue has always been my favourite right from the start. In fact, a couple of months ago I realised there hadn't been any blue nails on my blog for a couple of weeks, what was the next post once I realised? Blue nails of course, even my logo is blue! (Although I change it for individual pictures, it's originally blue). Calibre have also created a graphic all about the psychology of colour, I found it an interesting read so I've attached it after the jump (it also includes a quote from me). I don't know what light blue design I'll create next, but I'm sure there will be many! 

Multi Coloured Stripes for Barry M

Hey everyone! I'm starting to feel like I have nothing to post, as the past couple of Saturdays I've been busy and not really able to do my nails. I do have a few designs but I'm not sure whether I like them much, and I also have a few christmas designs but it's too early for them to be posted! Instead, I took to trawling folders and discovered a couple of tutorials I created for Barry M this summer but completely forgot to post. So that gives me something to post at least! These were just a design I created when I was wanting to experiment a bit and I wanted colour. You can do them with or without the black stripe it's up to you but I did it for consistency! 

Clock Nail Art for Avon

Hey everyone! It's a been a busy week for me, yesterday I spent the day at Nail Harmony UK's base (who run Gelish for those of you that dont know), and I had such a fantastic time, and met some lovely new bloggers who I hadn't met before, along with Lucy (Lucy's Stash) and Sammy (The Nailasaurus) who I know pretty well! I'll have a post coming for you in the next few days but for now I just quickly wanted to show you these clock nails that I created for Avon. I created these for when the clocks changed but I actually think they work quite well as a design in general, they're not time-specific (GETTIT?). For these I used a variety of Avon nail polish colours as the bases, and then acrylic paint for the clocks.

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

Alice

Nailvengers Assemble: Mardi Gras Madness

Hey everyone! It's the last day of the month and that means a new Nailvengers theme! If you're not sure about what Nailvengers is, read last month's post here. I was so happy to see some of you participating in last month's theme, and I hope to see you all doing the same this month. Don't forget you can like our Facebook page for updates, and to see all our designs, and you can post your Nailvengers there too. This month's theme is Mardi Gras, and I struggles to come up with an idea until the other day when I stumbled across this design and decided to recreate it. This is the first time I've painted a face on my nails, and I was quite unsure about how it would turn out. It doesn't look brilliant, and it looks more like a member of Kiss than a Mardi Gras face, but for a first attempt I don't think it's too bad. 

For the base I used China Glaze - All Wrapped Up, from the Holiglaze collection, then I used Deborah Lippmann - Walking on Sunshine, Barry M - Gold Foil and an unnamed green, the details on the face are all using acrylic paint and I topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite

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

Alice

An InLinkz Link-up

Tutorial Tuesday: Geometric Colour

Hey everyone! I'm back for another Tutorial Tuesday, although it's now technically Wednesday in the UK as it's 1am, it's still Tuesday in many other parts of the world, so hopefully it still counts! I'm so glad you all liked last week's tutorial so much, starting this off as a weekly thing seems to have been a good idea so far! Don't forget to check out my Tutorial tab to see all of my past tutorials and keep up to date. Anyway, today's tutorial is based on this design, which seemed to be a popular choice for tutorials. I've made the triangles a bit more centralised in this design, but the principle is the same and hopefully you will be able to translate it to look more like the original if you wish!

For these nails I used 3 coats of Shimmer Polish - Karen as a base, and then 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat. Unfortunately I can't seem to find Karen in the Shimmer Polish shop, but there are plenty of other fantastic glitters for you to have a nosy at!

Now for the tutorial! (Aka the reason you're all here)

You will need:

- A glitter base colour

- A small brush

- Top coat

- A multitude of different colours, I used:

·    Barry M – Blueberry

·    Barry M – Passion Fruit

·     Barry M – Mango

·    Barry M – Key Lime

·     Barry M – Prickly Pear
·     Barry M - Peach Melba

·    NYC - Lexington Yellow 

Step 1: Paint your nails with a glitter base colour. When that is dry use a topcoat to smoothen out the surface for the next steps

Step 2: Using a thin brush (see previous picture) draw the outline of where you want your shapes to be, it’s best to do this colour by colour

Step 3: Fill in the gaps from the previous step

Step 4: Repeat the previous steps with each individual colour; be careful to leave a gap in-between each triangle so that your glitter base is still visible.

Step 5: Finish off with fast drying top coat to smoothen your design and to speed up drying time, and then you’re done!

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

Alice

My first guest post!

Hey everyone, just a quick post to say that I did a guest post for basecoat-topcoat on tumblr, so click here to be taken to that post to see what products I used! Hope you like them, Alice

Then and Now: Week 5

Hey everyone! Today's post very nearly didn't happen but I set Saturday as the date as Saturday it shall stay, even if it means coming back to uni from home to do it! This time is another summery design, just to opt out of the christmas nails (which I promise will happen soon enough), I did go through my 'archives' for the then and now challenge to find something more christmassy but I only have one design so I shall do that nearer christmas, turns out I was a sucker for bright colours 2 years ago!

I actually remember doing this design, mainly because I did the bees so thick that after 4 hours they still hadnt dried and were instead smudged all over my dressing gown (which has since pretty much just turned into a paint palette and I've got a new one for when I'm not painting my nails). So this time, I obviously didn't want to repeat that, but I knew I wouldn't because I have learnt from my mistakes (or so I hope!). Anyway, aside from having to do the acrylic paint that was coming off on my thumb there were no mishaps this time, and I am typing this with the manicure still perfectly in tact! See the original picture after the jump!

Then and Now: Week 4

Hey everyone! Here is week 4 of my then and now 'challenge'. You'll find this completely different to any christmas manis you're going to be seeing on the 1st of December because this is completely and utterly summery. (oops!) As I mentioned last week I've decided to add certain things to these nails because some are a bit too simple, and as you'll see with these nails I've adapted the roses. More after the jump!

Then and Now: Week 2

Hey everyone! Today I have the second week of my Then and Now 'challenge' to show you. I wish I had left this one out to be honest, I don't know how I managed it before because it was incredibly difficult to put green over red and make it opaque, these nails were way way too thick and if it hadn't been for Seche Vite they'd have been off in seconds. Anyway, again this was done about a year or two ago, I can't be sure of exact dates but I really liked these when I did them first time around.

The first time I used all dotting tools but this time I used brushes and dotting rools, and I wish I'd stuck to my original method because it would have probably been a lot easier.

Take a look after the jump to see the original picture and polishes used!

Onesies?

Hi everyone, sorry for the delay in posting, no excuses I'm just struggling to keep up! Posts should hopefully be a bit more regular now but we shall see :)

So today's nails were originally meant to be cardigans, but once they were finished I couldn't get the idea of them being pajamas out of my head, and then I realised what they really reminded me of: onesies!

For those of you who dont know what a onesie is I've included a picture at the bottom of the post! Hope you like them :)

Alice