Mani Swap with Dahlia Nails

Hey everyone! It's been a while since my mani swap with Dahlia Nails (which you can see here), and we decided that it was probably time to do a new one. If you haven't of Dahlia Nails, it's run by two lovely ladies, Jo and Emma. They're both great at nail art and you can check out their blog here. I was actually having trouble picking a design to recreate because there's so many I like! In the end I chose to recreate their 'Spring Dotticure' design. They've recreated my Negative Space Florals and my Spotted Owl designs, and they've both done them brilliantly. I think it's a nice/funny coincidence that me and Emma chose such similar designs to recreate!

Nails at Fosse Park with Graffiti Nails

So a few weeks ago you might remember that I mentioned I was off to do nails at Fosse Park in Leicester with Graffiti Nails. Stupidly, I forgot to ever post pictures of the nails I did there, So I thought now would be a good time. I did a lot of nails that day, on big and small nails, and on a wide range of people. It was really fun to have some practice on people who weren't my friends for once. Don't forget, you can buy all these polishes on the Graffiti Nails website if you're in the UK, if not, you can buy my nail wraps here. I did the same designs quite a few times, so I've cut out a few pictures, the daisies design and the nude flowers design were both very popular so I've only included one of each instead of the 6 of each I did.

Tutorial Thursday: Halloween Black Cat Nails for Divine Caroline

Hey everyone! Today I have a design that I've been really excited to show you, cat nails! I wasn't sure that these were going to work out as I planned in my head so I was so proud of them when they did. I've left my halloween costume for tomorrow until the absolute last minute so I'm just going as a cat (how original) so I might re-do these nails to go with my costume, or maybe some other cat design. I've created a tutorial for these for Divine Caroline so you can see how simple these are to create yourselves, if you dont want to do the smaller cats you can always just do the larger ones. See the tutorial here. Also these only take two colours: Barry M - Lychee and Graffiti Nails - Jet Black. ALSO, Graffiti Nails currently has 50% off everything for halloween, use the code 'SPOOKY' at the checkout. Go on the website here.

Don't forget to check out the tutorial here. 

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

Alice

Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2014 - Pictures + nails!

Hey everyone! I'm definitely a bit late with this post, as the awards happened last tuesday, I have no excuse except being too busy with uni to comprehend writing this, but now I'm trying to put off writing an essay, so what better time to do it? Thanks to all your wonderful nominations, this year I went along to the awards with Lucy and Sammy, and I had high expectations from last year, which were completely shattered! It was an amazing night, and I may have had one (or two) too many cocktails, but that only made the evening even better. It was lovely to spend time with Lucy and Sammy again too, we don't get to see each other much so when we do it's great to have a catch up! Thankyou to Cosmo as well for hosting such an amazing night, and to you all once again for making it possible for me to be there!

I'm doing nails at New Look, Fosse Park, Leicester!

Hey everyone! I have some super exciting, slightly last minute news for you today. This Saturday I'm going to be doing nails with Graffiti Nails at New Look, Fosse Park in Leicester. It's going to be between 10-4, so pop along any time between then for your nails doing by me! You can have either nail wraps or a nail design done, there will be a choice of 4-5 designs available, which you'll be able to see on the day. I can't wait to meet you!

Hopefully I'll get to meet some of you there!

Alice

GIVEAWAY: Graffiti Nails Polish + Nail Wraps

Hey everyone! Today I have an exciting new giveaway to share with you. I'm sure by now you've all seen my announcement of the brand new Graffiti Nails wraps I designed, and to celebrate the launch of our brand new Stripe nail wraps we decided it would be a great idea to hold a giveaway for you all. and you'll hopefully have seen that they will be shipped internationally. Unfortunately, we still cannot ship nail polish internationally, so this giveaway will be split into two parts, as follows:

• 1 UK winner will receive: 3 Graffiti Nails nail polishes of their choice, and all 4 nail wraps
• 1 International winner will receive: all 4 nail wrap designs

I'm sorry for those of you who live elsewhere who want to try the polish, hopefully at some point in the near future we will be shipping internationally, and I'll definitely let you know when that's the case! If you can't wait for the giveaway to end, you can buy both polishes and nail wraps here.

There are some terms and conditions to the competition of course:

• Giveaway is open internationally/UK only as stated above, please do not enter unless you understand that you will only receive nail polish if you live within the UK.
• Please do not enter if you are a giveaway only account. I will be checking and your entry will not count.
• Giveaway will close exactly 2 weeks to the opening date, so on Monday 29th September at 12am GMT
• Winners will be chosen using random.org
• Prizes will be sent by Graffiti Nails and I will not be responsible for any losses or delays

Enter using the Rafflecopter widget below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck! 

Alice

Awesome News! Graffiti Nails Nail Wraps Available NOW

Hey everyone! I have some super exciting news to share with you today, I've been wanting to tell you this for months and I finally can: the wraps I designed for Graffiti Nails are available to buy NOW! They are £5.99 including postage, which includes international postage! The polishes are still not available internationally as it's proving to be more tricky than we first thought, but hopefully the fact that these wraps are international will suffice for now! If you buy a polish and a wrap together, those of you in the UK, postage is the same as it would be with the nail polish: £2.95 unless you buy 3 and then it's free. We currently have 3 nail wraps for sale, these are a limited edition run so once they're gone, they're gone. If you like the look of them, don't put off buying them, because they might not be there when you come back! These are all based around my designs, so they mean a lot to me, and hopefully they're exciting for you, as readers, because you can wear my designs now.

We also have an exciting deal on at the moment that if you buy 2 or more nail wraps you get an exciting free gift. Which may or may not be (it is) a VERY limited edition nail wrap that isn't available to buy.

ghd aura™ Professional Hairdryer - Review and Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today I have something a little different for you, combining beauty and nails and mixing things up a little bit. Recently ghd got in contact with me and asked if I wanted to review their new aura™* hairdryer, and I of course said yes. Whilst my monthly favourites do include some beauty products, I am still primarily a nail blog, and I wasn't exactly sure how to combine the two. But I decided to push myself out of my nail art comfort zone and create something a little different. On my thumb and ring finger I recreated the ghd aura™* logo, on my middle finger I drew the hairdryer itself, and on my pointer and baby finger I drew the outline of luscious blow-dried hair. Colours will be after the jump, as will my full review of the hairdryer itself.

Nude Negative Space

Hey everyone! This week has been crazy busy, I can't believe how fast it's gone. One week of summer is now over, but there are plenty more to come! I actually created these nails quite a while ago, we did negative space nails in our university nail art society, but they were a little rushed because we were pushed for time so I'm not overly proud of them. I know recently I just seem to be posting stuff I moan about, but I promise you that this week's tutorial tuesday I really like, so watch out for that. I'm creating a lot of stuff at the moment that I love but it wont be out for a couple of weeks or so.

Polka Dot Cats

Hey everyone! Last week I mentioned that I keep delaying posting because I really don't like a lot of the stuff I have prepared and I keep wanting to wait until I have something better to show you. Someone in the comments argued that this blog is supposed to be a documentation of designs, good or bad, so I'm stepping outside my comfort zone and posting these. These definitely looked better in my head, as tends to be the case whenever I try and do cats. I think if the cats had turned out more realistic then I would like this a lot more, the polka dots and the blue work well, but the cats just went terribly wrong! I don't want to just sound like I'm moaning, they're not THAT bad, and cats are always cute (even when they don't look like cats), but the perfectionist within me is unhappy with these, for whatever reason that may be!

Models Own - Polish For Tans Gradient

Hey everyone! I have an announcement, of sorts. Tomorrow I will be starting another 'review week' as once again I have tonnes of reviews to post, and posting every other day with nail art interspersed just means that they get delayed even longer, so I will be posting every day next week with reviews. I'll try and throw a bit of nail art your way too because I know that's the main reason you're here, but I'm sure you'll love the awesome stuff I have coming your way! 

The first review will be Models Own - Polish For Tans*, and to start you off I have some nail art using Beach Bag. I wore these nails for almost a week (and I did both hands!) and I was quite sad to take them off. They're simple but they were so bright and summery I just couldn't stop staring at them. Of course, because they're neon my camera didn't really show how awesome they are, it just looks like a bright peachy colour, but I promise you these are AMAZING in person.

The base for these was 2 coats of Models Own - Beach Bag*, and then I used Graffiti Nails - Ice White and a sponge to create a gradient, topped off with a coat of Seche Vite

What do you think? Let me know in the comments

Alice

Swapping Designs with Dahlia Nails

Hey everyone! Today's post is something a little different, a design swap with the lovely girls over at Dahlia Nails. They each recreated one of my designs, and I recreated one of theirs. They've recreated by Rob Ryan nails and my Pink Leopard nails so you can click HERE to go see that. For my recreation, I chose this gorgeous triangle design. I was trying to choose between a few designs that I really liked (and may still do), but something about this one just stood out to me.

OPI Muppets Most Wanted Spring 2014 Collection Swatches and Review

Hey everyone! Today I have a much overdue review, I've had these polishes for nearly a month now and I just havent had time to swatch them because of this horrible essay. But 5000 words and a lot of tears (only kidding) later, I am finally free to do some reviewing, until I start revising for exams at least! Today's review is the OPI Muppets Most Wanted Collection, which also doubles up as their 'soft' shades collection for this year. I'm reviewing four of the shades for you today, but there are eight overall in the collection. 

Graffiti Nails Triangles: Guest Post for Popping Nails

Hey everyone! Today I've done a guest post for Charlie over at Popping Nails so you'll have to head over there [click HERE] to see it. The nails were done using all Graffiti Nails polishes, if you havent checked out the website you can do so here. Don't forget if you buy 3, postage is free, so you could buy all 3 polishes used to create this look!

Don't forget to head over to Charlie's blog here for the full post

Alice

Nude Roses

Hey everyone! I'm back! I really needed a break from my blog whilst I got my head together, it wasn't a very good week for me and I wasn't really in the mood for blogging much so I'm really sorry about that. I'm hopefully going to be posting a few times this week so keep an eye out. Today's post is some nail art I created for my university nail art society, which you can read more about here. I was teaching everyone how to do a simple rose design but I ended up winging it a bit more whilst I was waiting for people to finish and I really liked how it turned out! I almost feel like it's cheating posting designs from nail art society on here, maybe because they weren't created specifically for the blog, but they're still designs I did and of course I still want to share them, so here you go! 

Because we're sponsored by Barry M, all the colours except the white are by them, so you can find them all on their website here. The white is Graffiti Nails which you can find here.

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

Alice

Graffiti Nails - Swatches Part 3

Hey everyone, sorry for not posting for a few days, I was working all weekend and now I'm having a few personal issues, and so I'm not going to promise that the schedule is going to get any better at the moment, but I'll do my best! I'm really sorry if not. This post alone has taken me more than 48 hours to pluck up the courage to write. But today I have the final part of my Graffiti Nails review, and I know you've all been looking forward to it so I couldn't put it off. The colours today are Jet, Ice White, Mellow, Deep Red and Morning Mist, and you can get them all on the Graffiti Nails website for £3.99 if you're in the UK, and if you buy 3 then postage is free!

Tutorial Thursday: Daisy Rhinestones for Divine Caroline

Hey everyone! I accidentally forgot to post Tutorial Tuesday this week, but I really wanted to show you these nails so I decided to do Tutorial Thursday instead. [And Blogger decided to not post it when I asked, so it's actually Friday now, sorry!] This week's post is another Divine Caroline feature, so you'll have to head over there [here] for the full design and all the steps! The base for these nails was Graffiti Nails - Very Nude and I love it, although these photos make it look a bit peachier than it really is, you can see my full review of the polish here.

Don't forget to check out the full tutorial with all the information here.

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

Alice

Nailvengers Assemble: Easter

Hey everyone! Today is the last day of the month, and that of course means a new Nailvengers Assemble post. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, you can see my original post here. Don't forget to keep up to date with what we're doing on our Facebook page. This month's theme is Easter, and whilst it's quite early, by the last day of April it will be too late so we decided it was better to do it now instead. Easter for me is all about cute little chicks and decorated easter eggs, so I decided to combine the two!

I used a base of Graffiti Nails - Ice White, with a coat of Graffiti Nails - Fairy Wing. Once that was dry I used a striping brush with W7 - Sheer Blue and Deborah Lippmann - Spring Buds on my ring and index finger. Then I used a nail art brush to draw a yellow circle using Graffiti Nails - Mellow, and to draw on the beak using Rimmel London - Oragasm, from the Rita Ora collection. Then I used a thinner brush to outline the bird using black acrylic paint, and to do the eye with white and black acrylic paint. Then I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite to seal everything in.

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

Alice

An InLinkz Link-up

Graffiti Nails - Swatches Part 2

Hey everyone! I'm back with Part 2 of my Graffiti Nails swatches, you can see Part 1 here if you missed it, and you can see my original announcement here if you're not sure what Graffiti Nails is (and you definitely should know!). Today I'm going to be showing you Butterfly Pink, Cherry Red, Topcoat, Basecoat and Festival Glitter. Don't forget to check out the website here, where products are now available to buy in the UK (we have plans to go international a bit further down the line dont worry) and our Facebook page here to keep up to date with news and competitions. I know there are a lot of links in the previous sentences, but I promise you that they all lead to great places!

Gelly Gradient Swirls

Hey everyone! It's been a few days since I posted anything because I had a really hectic weekend, but I have tonnes of great nail art (if I say so myself) and reviews coming for you in the next couple of weeks, so that should make up for it! Today is the one of promised designs from my Barry M Gelly Hi Shine review. I have no idea where this design came from, I didn't have any particular inspiration, I felt like doing a gradient, wasn't very proud of the gradient, so I added some swirls to blend it together a bit more and ended up loving how it turned out. I even kept it on for more than a day! Swirls are basically my go-to design when I want to just mess around a bit, most people tend to have leopard print as their go-to but I've just never really go in to it, and I think swirls are just as effective and simple.

The base for these nails was Barry M - Rose Hip, and I used Graffiti Nails - Butterfly Pink and Graffiti Nails - Pistachio for the gradient, then I added acrylic paint with a small nail art brush and topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite

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

Alice