Essie Mauve Roses

Hey everyone! Happy hump day. We've had a gorgeous summer day today in England, which is a bit of a rarity, so I decided today was a good day for some floral nails. Although you know me, I'll find any excuse to post florals, rain or shine. These were done using the gorgeous new Essie - Wild Nudes collection*, which is a permanent addition to their range. Good job too, because it's a completely stunning collection, and as you can see below they work really well together. 

Detailed Pink Roses

Hey everyone! Do you ever do a design and whilst you're painting it you just know you're gonna love it? That was how I felt about these nails. I pushed myself slightly out of my comfort zone painting the roses and I was so proud of how they turned out. They were inspired by these fabrics I found on Pinterest, and I decided to combine two of the designs to go hand in hand, but I kind of wish I'd just done the roses on all fingers.  I wore these for a week and I couldn't stop staring at my nails the whole time. I was especially pleased with them because I have so little time to paint my nails these days and I sometimes worry that I'm losing the skill, so it was nice to see that I haven't. It's definitely given me the bug to try out some more designs that are slightly out of my usual style once I'm back from travelling so watch this space. 

Crazy Flowers

Sometimes a design looks much better in practice than it does in reality, and this is definitely one of those designs. I was inspired by this design I found on Pinterest but I tried to make it my own and just ended up with a design I wasn't really that pleased with. I decided to post them anyway because they're not the worst nails I've ever done, even if they're not the best either. I think if they were more cohesive they would work a lot better, I should have probably just stuck with the original design, but you live and learn I suppose! 

I used Bourjois - Bleu Mysterieux, and Barry M - Cotton as the base colours, then I used Sally Hansen - Redgy*, Sally Hansen - Pink Cadillacquer*, Orly - Light As A Feather*, and Deborah Lippmann - Walking on Sunshine for the flowers. The studs are from Born Pretty Store. Finished with a coat of Seche Vite. 

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

Alice

NinaNailedIt x Scratch Monthly Mani Kit Nail Art

Hey everyone! I've had another busy week, I've just got back from a lovely weekend in Scarborough and it's nice to sit down and relax while I write this blog post. A few months ago just before the start of my slight blogging hiatus I was sent some samples of the NinaNailedIt Scratch Monthly Mani Kit* to try out. Unfortunately then I had to take a break from blogging and the kit took a backseat whilst I moved house. I recently found the kit whilst I was sorting out my desk and knew I had to try it out, so I combined it with the gorgeous Shall Be My Queen* from the recent A-England Tennyson's Romance collection*. 

I've followed Nina's blog for years and I've always been in awe of the beautiful nails she creates, so it was nice to have one of her gorgeous designs on my own nails for once, as I'm sure if I attempted to recreate them they wouldn't look anything like this! These are from the October Monthly Mani Kit, but Nina creates a gorgeous new box each month and this month's is another beautiful floral set + some nail art goodies (the October kit included these cute little studs). 

Gelish Green Daisies

Hey everyone! I'm super excited today because I've just got the new iPhone 7. I've never had the up-to-date model, I've always been at least one model behind and I decided to treat myself this time around. I'm definitely an iPhone lover, no one could ever persuade me to change to another brand, and all my other products are Apple too, even if that does make me a sheep! And on the subject of nature (see that smooth movement of topics) today I have some floral nails using Gelish for you. I seem to create a lot of nail art with gels at the moment, but it's because it makes it so much easier to go wrong as you can just wipe off any mistakes! These were super simple to create and were more a result of me messing around that anything else. 

Barry M Lilac Roses Tutorial

Hey everyone! I'm so excited because today I managed to get my hands on tickets to go see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child! I was in the 'queue' for 5 hours and when I finally got to the end I panicked and ended up booking for ages away (next October) so that I could get hold of the tickets I wanted, but it will be worth the wait. I read the script in one day at the weekend and I loved it. I know there's been some negative opinion surrounding it but I really liked it. Have you read it yet? Let me know your thoughts on it! 

So today I have a tutorial of these rose nails for you. I actually created these ages and ages ago, but I completely forgot that I'd done them somehow! I loved this design when I did them and I'm glad I'm finally sharing them with you. The full tutorial will be after the jump. 

Negative Space Florals for Divine Caroline

Hey everyone! Just a quick post on these negative space florals I created for Divine Caroline. You can read all about them here and see the tutorial on how to create them. You all know how much I love negative space designs, but I've always done smaller florals and I really wanted to try something a bit different (ish). I just wish I'd made them matte, because I feel it brings out the design a bit more.

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

Alice

Simple Summer Florals

Hey everyone! I'm back from the best holiday I've ever been on. We had perfect weather for the whole week, and it was so nice to be able to relax and not think about anything after months of dissertation work and exams. I managed to read for the first time in over a year, in fact I read 4 books in the week, I'm clearly not very good at lying on a sunbed doing nothing! I'm still pale as anything, despite my best efforts, and I'm very jealous of my boyfriend's tan. I'll be doing a 'my nails on holiday' blogpost in the next few days once I've got the photos off my boyfriend's phone. But today I have for you some simple floral nails I created a long time ago. These are probably from last November time, they were hiding away on my computer and I'd completely forgotten about them but I thought it was time to show you all. 

Outlined Roses for Avon

Hey everyone! Today I have another post I created for Avon to show you, this time I have some outlined roses. I stepped outside my OCD comfort zone a bit with these nails as I didn't try and do them neatly, I just drew the black on quickly and randomly, and I'm so glad I did because I really like how these have turned out. I think the messiness really adds to the design. I think I need to start working along similar lines to The Nailasaurus' new mantra that 'done is better than perfect', because perfectionist tendencies take up a lot of time!