Spotty Halves

Just a quick post today to show you these nails. These were super easy to create and were originally inspired by a tea light holder that can be seen on my Instagram. 

Giant Polka Dots

Hey everyone! Did you have a lovely Valentine's/Galentine's day? I went out for a curry and watched a rom com while eating chocolates, pretty damn great! I'm so glad you all loved my floral nails from my last post, I'll definitely have to recreate them with different colours because I love them as much as you all seemed to! 

Today's nails are super simple, especially compared to the florals, but as I so rarely do simple nails it was nice to do something that only took a few minutes. These were inspired by i_heart_nailart on Instagram, and I just loved the look so much I had to recreate them. 

Christmas Polka Dots

Hey everyone! As I mentioned yesterday in my Secret Santa nails post, I actually created two designs inspired by Peachy Polish, but I was a bit more unsure of these nails and I didn't think they turned out as well as yesterday's design. However, I still wanted to post them because this is after all meant to be a documentation of designs I've done, good or bad. Valesha's original design is much much better than mine but if I wasn't comparing mine against any others I think I'd probably like them. 

Tutorial Tuesday: Polka Dot Owls for Divine Caroline

Hey everyone! I have a brand new tutorial for you over at Divine Caroline today which you can see HERE. My obsession with owls and polka dots continues as you can see, but this time it's a little different because I haven't got a nude background, which I usually seem to have when owls are involved. I really love how these turned out and I hope you like trying them out yourselves!

Don't forget to check out the steps HERE. 

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

Alice

A Bit Dotty

Hey everyone! I have yet another design I created for our university's nail art society today (if you don't know what I'm talking about, read this). I seem to have been stockpiling them a bit. I'm not really sure where this design went, we were doing polka dot hearts, I think, and I just kind of went off on a tangent a bit. I think they're a little bit busy, but they still look okay

Barry M Gradient Dots

Hey everyone! Just a quick post from me today cos I'm so so stressed about coursework and I really need to get back to it. Just one more month and it will all be over for this year thankfully! Today's nails are more from my university nail art society, which you can read more about here. I'll post a picture at the end of the group's nails, I love how we all chose completely different colours and they all work so well together, although the picture is a bit blurry!

The base of these is Barry M - Huckleberry, then I used a sponge with Barry M - Prickly Pear, and once that was dry I used Barry M - White for the dots, done using a dotting tool. Then I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite

Everyone's nails!

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

Alice

Indian inspired?

Hey everyone! Today I have a design which came from nothing. My original idea for this design was to use my new striping tape* from Born Pretty Store to create a half and half design. I really like this striping tape as it's easy to use and doesn't tear like other tape I've used, you can get it here for $1.90 with free shipping, and if you use my code KHL91 you can get 10% off! I also wanted to use my Gold Nail Art Pen* from Models Own, which I knew would be great for an intricate design as it has a thin line and is opaque, so I decided to combine the two by adding a paisley design (albeit done badly) and a line design. When that was done I decided it needed a little extra so I added some white dots using acrylic paint and a small detailing brush. But looking at it now I feel it has kind of an indian feel about it, what do you think?

The base for this design was Viva La Nails, Lovely Colour in 'Tutti Frutti'*, which is a brilliantly opaque pink polish. I have a lot of pinks in my collection (waay too many) and this extra one is definitely a great addition! The other base colours were Essence 'That's What I Mint' and Essence 'L.O.L'

What do you think of this design? Let me know in the comments

Dont forget to use my code KHL91 for 10% off at Born Pretty Store

Alice

*some products in this post were sent to me for review. My views are never influenced by anything other than the truth

Then and Now: Week 16

Hey everyone! Recently there's been a new 'tag' on instagram called 'themanithatstarteditall' and I was 'tagged' to do it. So I decided to incorporate it into this week's Then and Now post. So today's design were the first nails I ever took a picture of, and I remember that I was super proud of them. I have created a tutorial for this design so please let me know if you want to see it! As always, the 'Then' post will be after the jump! 

Barry M Nail Art Pens Review

Hey everyone! Today I have a post which I'm super excited to show you, using the 4 new Barry M nail art pens. They were released in Superdrug and online today (10th April) and will be released in Boots on the 17th April. As you will see, I highly recommend getting at least one of these pens because they're awesome and completely unlike any other nail art pens I've tried before. More after the jump!

Then and Now: Week 15

Hey everyone! It's been a while since my last 'Then and Now' post. I think until the end of may (when my exams finish) I probably wont be doing it every week, but I shall try my best! This week's post I wasn't actually going to do, because I really hated the original nails and I remember taking them off after about 10 minutes, but I decided it would be a good test of how far my skills have come if I could make the same design look good, and I think it worked because I really like how they came out, I think they ended up looking a lot like buttons actually. As always the 'then' post will be after the jump 

Spotty bow 'rhinestones' review

Hey everyone, today I've got some really lovely bows to show you. I know I promised a really exciting post yesterday but I didn't have time to edit them so these shall have to do. I received these from KKcentreHK to review and I absolutely love them. However, I was really struggling to think of any ideas for what to do with them, even though I've wanted bows for ages, so I just decided to do a simple design with a dotting tool, but I actually really like how this turned out. I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty more designs with these bows as they're definitely reusable. 

There's not really much to say about these as they're pretty self explanatory. I started with a base of Collection 2000 - Angel Wings, and then used China Glaze - Liquid Leather for the black dots, which I did with a dotting tool. Then I put a coat of Seche Vite on, and then a coat of Essie - Matte about You. Then I used nail glue to add the bows.

You can get these bows here for $4, and you get 2 in a pack. At first I did think that was a little bit pricey, but considering the amount of times you will be able to reuse them I think it's definitely worth it. You can also use my code 'ONTRTA' for 10% off :)

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

Alice

Then and Now: Week 12

Hey everyone, today's then and now post is a little different from previous posts as I actually have two examples of what these looked like 'then'. There's probably a years difference between all the posts so you can see how much I've improved each time (I also apparently was incapable of keeping my nails a similar length previously). As usual, the 'then' posts will be after the jump

Then and Now: Week 11

Hey everyone! Another 'Then and Now' post today. I dont know what I'm going to do when I run out of old designs because reading through the comments of the giveaway you all seem to love these posts, I was thinking about perhaps going through some old designs that I have on my Tumblr which I'm not really happy with or the photographing isn't great, is that something you would be interested in? I still have about 10 or 11 posts left before we get to that but I thought I'd ask you all.

Today's post makes a nice change from all the valentines posts I've been spamming you with (and there are a few more to come yet) as it's just dots. I quite like this idea and I've been meaning to redo it for a while, even before I started the Then and Now posts because as you'll see from the 'then' picture I didn't even manage to keep the whole hand complete. As always the 'then' post will be 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!

Then And Now: Week 1

Hey everyone! Today I have the first installment of 'then and now'. I can't remember exactly when I did these nails but I'd say it was around 2 years ago, and I'm hoping my skills have improved in that time! If any of you have any old photos lying around and want to have a go at the 'challenge', please do :D

Apparently I also didn't know how to colour coordinate then either, because these flowers are crazy, but I enjoyed doing such a bright and colourful design. I find that I struggle for inspiration more than I did then, I didn't need much to give me a design and I wish I could still have that, even if the designs were a little mad! The original design was created doing a dotting tool, I only remember that because that's all I ever used then, a set of dotting tools was one of the first things I bought and I used nothing else until about 6 months ago when I decided to try using brushes in this post. As I've mentioned before, I'm still not very confident with brushes, so sometimes I will turn back to my trusty dotting tools, but not this time, I know now that it's a lot quicker to use the brush from the nail varnish to create big flowers like this, so that's what I did. I then used a dotting tool for the dots and specks within the flowers. Original picture after the jump!

Flowers and beads

Hey everyone, sorry (again) for the delay in posting, I do try to post every other day and at most every 3 days and that's really all it's been cos I've not been to sleep yet so in my head it is still Saturday and not 2am Sunday, though it's still Saturday in America so that's okay, haha.

Anyway, on to the nails! I was inspired to create these nails after seeing them (uncredited) on tumblr, but later found out that they were done by itsallnails, the original picture is at the bottom of the post :)

I used Models Own - Utopia, Barry M - Matte White, beads from Born Pretty Store (use my code KHL91 for 10% off!) and an unnamed Dark Blue by W7

Hope you like them!
Alice