Gold Lilac Roses

Happy Sunday everyone! Although there's only an hour of Sunday left. I've had a busy but chilled weekend, and I managed to find time to do a few nail designs today. One of them was this floral design inspired by Follow That Way.  I wasn't sure whether I'd ever be able to recreate one of her amazing florals, the detail she puts into them is astonishing, but I decided to give it a go, and I'm really really happy with how these came out. 

One thing I couldn't decide on was my accent nails, I originally did them with some of the nail negative space and with gold foil down the side but I wasn't 100% on them and the pictures didn't come out very well, so I did these, and then I did gold glitter accents. Of the three, these came out best in photos and I think the fact that they're quite muted means that the flowers stand out a bit more. 

Flickanail Inspired Water Flowers

Hey everyone! I hope you've all had a lovely weekend, I can't believe once again that Monday has crept upon us. Two days is never enough, but luckily next weekend is a bank holiday so we get 3 whole days, and then 2 weeks later I'm going on holiday for a week I can't wait. I've done lots of gel designs this weekend, both on myself and on other people, but the nail art I'm showing you today is purely trusty old nail polish. 

For a long time I've been in awe of a number of Japanese nail artists. My twinsie nails with Very Emily were a homage to this, as we both have great respect for Japanese nail art, but I wanted to try my hand at something further. I was inspired by this design by Flickanail, but once again my need for everything to be neat meant that the design didn't turn out as I hoped, despite my best efforts to just go with the flow. When looking at the design alone I really love it, but in comparison it looks nothing alike. I think that I didn't add enough flowers because I was wary of going overboard.

However, I'm not going to give up, there are tonnes of Japanese designs that I want to try my hand at, and I have a feeling that for a lot of them I might be better off working in gel. I'm also tempted to sign up for Neiru tutorials. Have any of you tried these? Are they worth paying for? I really want to improve my skill and learn something new too, so let me know if they are worth doing.

First Day of Spring, Negative Space Florals

It was the officially the first day of spring on sunday, and it's probably the first time it's been sunny and vaguely warm too, despite the fact that the first day of spring is normally always rainy and cold! So in celebration I decide to show you some spring nails, these aren't my first spring nails this year because I will put spring nail art on even when I'm eye deep in snow, but they can at least be my first official start of spring nails. For today's design I created a load of designs on a nail wheel, and I was playing around with negative space florals for this and I really liked the outcome, so I ended up recreating it on my nails. These were actually my moving day nails, and I wore them for almost two weeks (I was dying to change them by the end!) but they held up really well. 

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. 

Review Week, Day 2: Deborah Lippmann Spring Reveries 2014 Collection Swatches

Hey everyone! I'm back to day 2 of review week, this time with some Deborah Lippmann polishes. You may have seen my previous reviews here, and here, which included some of the Spring Reveries collection, and now I'm back to show you the rest of the collection. I have loved the polishes I've tried so far, and these are no different. We all know my love of pastels so this collection is just perfect for me!

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

Deborah Lippmann 'Spring Buds' Review and Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today I have another Deborah Lippmann review for you (you can see my previous ones here and here), this time it's Spring Buds* from the recent 2014 Spring Reveries collection, and I decided to create a bit of simple nail art to go alongside it. I didn't have much time to do these, or take pictures, but I still really like how they came out. I'll post more information and pictures after the jump

Deborah Lippmann Swatches - Part 2

Hey everyone! Today I'm back with another few Deborah Lippmann polishes to show you. Again, like with my last review, these are a mix of polishes from different collections but hopefully you'll still enjoy them! However, unlike last time, these are more a collection of jelly-like polishes rather than cremes, but I think it's nice to try a contrast of polishes from their range, especially as I hadn't experienced their polishes before my last review, and I'm still super impressed by their quality and wear.

Kitty Kats

Hey everyone! I’m away in Brighton at the moment and I’m writing this from my hotel room, but apparently I only have half an hour worth of internet so I best be quick. Today’s post is some cute little cats very loosely based on this design by At Your Fingertips. I did intend to copy it directly, but as always happens with me, I overcomplicated it a bit, although I’m glad I did because I really like how they turned out!

The base for these nails was Deborah Lippmann – On The Beach*, which I’ll be doing a review for along with a few other polishes later in the week, and then I used acrylic paint for the details, topped off with a coat of Seche Vite

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

Alice

Review Week, Day Four: Deborah Lippmann Polishes

Hey everyone! I'm so excited for today's post, because this is the first time you've seen Deborah Lippmann polishes on my blog, and these are gorgeous polishes to start off with. I have two polishes from the Spring 2014 collection to show you and a couple of polishes from upcoming collections!