Red Accent Tribal

Hey everyone! I don't want to make any excuses for why I haven't posted in a while, but I also don't want to leave you with no explanation. The basic rundown: I went travelling, some crappy thing happened, and then I've been super busy and demotivated. Luckily, I seem to have got my motivation back, and I've done 4 nail designs this week, all of which I'm pretty pleased with. It's nice to have my motivation and my inspiration back, and I want to throw myself back into blogging. I've got a new office which I love working in, so that's definitely helping. The shortened version: I'm sorry it's been a while but I'm back now and feeling inspired! 

Anyway, I tried my hand at some tribal nails because it felt like ages since I did a proper tribal design. They take me forever to do (is it just me?) but I always love how they turned out. However, rather than torture myself I just decided to do it as an accent nail. I don't know if it's just because I'm a little rusty, or because I was distracted by New Girl, but these took me two hours and that was just with two fingers, I couldn't face another 3 hours. 

It's Floral Time

Hey everyone! I'm currently burning myself on a sunbed so today's nails are some florals that I created ages ago, December last year to be precise. You will have actually seen a version of these as I went over them with Barry M - Nail Art Pens after this stage. Looking back I think I actually prefer them like this, but I chose to promote those and then I felt like I couldn't post these straight after, and they ended up forgotten in a folder. We might be approaching autumn but I'm still in Summer mode (what with being on a sunny holiday and all), so these are still in season in my head at least. Plus, you can't go wrong with some good old florals, and sometimes simple is best. 

Gelish A Very Nauti-cal Girl Collection Review + Swatches

Hey everyone! Happy hump day, only 2 more days until the weekend. I'm really looking forward to this weekend because I'm off to see Finding Dory, I have waited far too long for this film and I'm glad it's finally been released in the UK. I'm not sure why the gap between US and UK release dates was so huge. I also went to see the BFG last weekend (I seem to be spending a lot of time at the cinema recently!) and I would recommend it 100%, such a lovely version of a childhood classic. Now I just need them to do a new version of The Witches, the book (and the film) were always my favourite growing up and I loved to see a modern version. What's your favourite Roald Dahl book?

Anyway, today I have a review of the gorgeous Gelish - A Very Nauti-cal Girl Collection*. I was really excited when I saw sneak peaks of this collection because these kind of shades are right up my street. I've already used a couple of them for nail art, either on me or on others, and they're firm favourites in my collection. Gelish consistently impress me with their shades and colours, and I have friends coming back to me again and again to have their nails done with Gelish products. It's great to be able to use my friends as guinea pigs as I often can't wear polish for more than a few days (although my toes also get to be testers too!). There's been loads of amazing releases this year, and many more coming up, which I hope to be able to share with you too! You can see all my previous Gelish posts here.

White Poppies Inspired by @ane_li #sharingtheloveforaneli

Hey everyone! I recently heard the awful news that @ane_li passed away earlier this month. I was very shocked to hear that she is no longer with us, she was so talented and very much respected in the community. We all wanted to pay our respects to Ane Li, and a few nail artists have come together to recreate her designs today, the day of her funeral. I hope Ane Li's family take some small comfort in knowing that we all respected her very much and are sad to see her gone.

Nail Art Threesome, Brit Nails

Hey everyone! Myself, Allie of Brit Nails, and Hannah of Polly Polish have been talking on WhatsApp for what feels like my whole blogging life, but has really been around 2 years. I can't imagine blogging without them to be honest, and they've helped me through a lot, not just nails. So we decided that it was finally time to pay homage to each other by creating each others designs. This will consist of two different posts, one with Allie's design and one with Hannah's. 

Today I'm recreating one of Allie's designs. I chose this vibrant Valentine's design because it fits well with the time of year, and also because I owned the Picture Polish shade she used (baring it mind I only own 4). You can see her original post here, and you can see a picture below of her design to compare. Her nails are of course a lot longer than mine so it was never going to look as elegant, nor do I own any square studs apparently. I also don't own any stencils so I had to completely freehand the design. This meant that I didn't create the gradient with a sponge, but instead with a brush for the first time, and it isn't as fluid as it would be with a sponge. However, I was pretty happy with the final result, and I think it's very bright and fun, and I hope you can still see the similarities between the two designs! 

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! 

Stone Marble Nail Art for Avon

It's no secret that I hate watermarbling. Every time I've tried it over the years it's just made me angry and never come out successfully. So I was well aware during the stone marble nails trend a year or so ago that they would make me angry and incapable just as much, and so I never attempted them. So when Avon asked to create some for them this month, I went into a bit of panic, but I decided to give them a go nonetheless. These took 2 and a half hours to get anything vaguely resembling stone marble, and I'm still not entirely convinced. BUT they're not that bad considering how they could have looked if I'd just kept each fail rather than repainting my nails time and time again, so I guess they're not too bad. I added studs as I felt it made them a bit more interesting, and if I hadn't need to paint other things I would have probably worn these for a few days in the end!

Sugar Skulls Nail Art for Avon

Hey everyone! I know it's a couple of days past Halloween/Day of the Dead (yes, I know they're not the same thing) but I wanted to share these sugar skull nails with you nevertheless. If people are still sharing what they dressed as for Halloween I dont see why I can't still showcase these nails I created for Avon

Lilac Stamping

Hey everyone! I have another try from when I decided maybe I could stamp after all to show you today, and then I tried again and realised I couldn't and knocked my confidence once again. These were from the middle point in between the two. I'm sure it will be another two years before I give it a go again (I hope not though), unless a magical stamping fairy comes along and helps me out. Today's nails are just a really simple design that I wanted to try whilst I still had the confidence. Whilst they didn't turn out perfect, I was still pretty happy with them and I wore these for a whole week - so they can't have been that bad!

Navy Paisley for Avon

Hey everyone! It's been ages since I created any paisley nails, but I think this is the first time I've ever actually used nail polish for a full paisley design. Previously I used gel pens for precision. I also did this design using nail polish, but I did smaller and more straightforward print. And I also did these using nail art pens. However, when Avon asked me to create these I fancied a challenge. Paisley is definitely a lot more fiddly to create without a pen, but I really like how they turned out for a first try!

Gradient All The Nails!

Hey everyone! Myself and a number of very talented bloggers are part of a small Facebook group called 'Paint All The Nails'. Each month we will be doing a themed link-up (although I may not do it every month) and this month's theme is gradients. I must admit that I just went basic with my design, it completely bypassed my to do anything extra to it, which is very unlike me! But I love a gradient on it's own anyway so why not. Also, my memory card broke and decided to delete the other half of my photos so I'm afraid I've only got one photo for you today. I've bought a new memory card now so fingers crossed it wont happen again.

I used OPI - A Great Opera-tunity* (from the Venice collection), and Barry M - Cotton for the gradient, topped off with Seche Vite

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

Alice

P.S Don't forget to check out the other lady's designs in the inlinks widget below!

An InLinkz Link-up

Edinburgh Fringe Drama Masks for Avon

Hey everyone! Today I have some slightly creepy nail art to show you. I expected this design to be quite straightforward, but as always watching TV meant that it took a number of hours longer than it should have! I created these nails for Avon to go with the current Edinburgh Fringe Festival. I've never been but its on my list of things to go see and Edinburgh is top of my places to go visit. I just have to wait until I've managed to move out before I can start thinking of going away anywhere again just yet.

Lilac Barry M Gradient

Hey everyone! It's been hectic around here for a few days. I did my last shift at my old job on Saturday and I've spent the past few days sorting out my stuff for my new job. I also spent the day at Ikea yesterday (on the hottest day of the year and my last day of freedom before starting full time work!) buying stuff so that I can live at my boyfriends without living out of a rucksack constantly. So it's been a busy few days. But today I have some nails for you that I created quite a while ago for nail art society at university, which shows how old these are considering we've not done nail art society for over 4 months and they were done well before that. These are just a simple gradient using Barry M products, they're not the best gradient I've ever done, but they're not worth hiding away forever either.

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. 

Navy Daisies for Avon

Hey everyone! We all know I love my florals so I was bound to schedule some for when I was away. I know my daisy nails last year were very popular and I wanted to recreate something similar for Avon using a navy base instead. I made the daisies a bit bigger than my previous design and I really loved how they turned out. 

Barry M Spring 2015 Gellies Swatches and Review

Hey everyone! Sorry for the delay in posting, I've been revising and working a lot recently and I just haven't had a chance to edit pictures, so I decided to set the time aside tonight and get posting. I also spent the day in London on Friday filming something very exciting for Leighton Denny, which you'll see soon hopefully. Are you all excited about the new Royal Baby?  I was really hoping to share a name with the new princess (I even placed a bet), but I was wrong, which only proved to me why I don't bet on things!

Anyway, today's post is a (well overdue) review of the Barry M Spring 2015 Gellies*. This spring they released three new shades, and a little birdie (aka the Barry M catalogue) tells me that there will be one more released this summer. The three released for this spring are not entirely dissimilar from last year, as they are again pastels, but what else can we expect from spring? And I'm definitely not one for complaining about new pastels!

Christmas Holly Negative Space Nail Art for Divine Caroline

Hey everyone! I've finally finished uni for Christmas, and now I feel like I can properly get into the Christmas spirit (not that I haven't been already), especially now I've got all my Christmas shopping out of the way. Today I another tutorial for you, as a wonderful christmas gift to you all, haha! I know you all do like tutorials though so I don't really know why I keep acting like it's such a hardship that they're all I post at the moment. Today's tutorial is for these negative space holly nails. It was one of those designs where an idea just popped into my head, and it was either going to be a disaster or look great, and somehow it ended up looking pretty good. Hopefully you all like it too, and like recreating it! You can find all the steps on Divine Caroline here.

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

Don't forget to check out the steps here

Alice

Hugs for Emily - Clouds and Stars

Hey everyone! Today's post is a little different, as it's dedicated to my wonderful friend Emily of Very Emily, who's been going through a tough time recently and we, her blogging friends, were invited by Sarah (Chalkboard Nails) to take part in 'Hugs for Emily', where we recreate one of Emily's designs. I've raved about how fantastic I think Emily is before, but she really has done so much for me, in blogging and in life, I'm proud to call her my friend and I wish there was more I could do than paint my nails to help relieve her problems. 

I decided to recreate this clouds and stars design of Emily's. I really loved the combination of bright and dark colours, and the addition of glitter. It's cute and simple, but also looks fab. Emily's original design was done using cut out nail vinyls, but as I don't own them I had to freehand them and they don't look quite as perfect obviously!

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!

New Video Tutorial: Boston Terrier Dog Nails

Hey everyone! Today I have a brand new youtube tutorial for you all, it's been more than 3 months since my last one so it was definitely time! When I posted my Boston Terrier nails I got a few requests for a tutorial, and although I originally intended to a picture tutorial, I thought it would perhaps be easier to understand if I did a video tutorial. I didn't have long to do these nails at all, which is why they look very rushed, but I'm sure if you're taking time you can do a better job than me!

If you're wondering what I have on my nails, my post for those nails is here. I have an unfortunate habit of picking polish off, which is why they're chipped, I promise you the wraps stay for ages!

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Alice