Wavy Lines

Hello lovelies. How are we all? I have two more days at work to go then I have two weeks off, to say I am excited would be an understatement! I am on holiday for a week of that but I will try and schedule some posts for while I am away.

Today I have some nails to show you that I based on this dress. I really liked the pattern, so I decided I needed it on my nails. These are by no means perfect, but I was still quite proud of them. Free-handing squiggly lines isn't the easiest of tasks.

I started with a base of Sally Hansen - Without A Stitch.

I then free-handed all the lines on with a detail brush. I used Barry M - Dragonfruit, Sally Hansen - Fairy Teal and OPI - A Taupe The Space Needle.

I added a top coat and I was finished.

It sounds simple but it was actually very fiddly and took a long time. A lot of the lines don't match up, but I sort of like it like that :P.

What do you guys think?

Thanks for looking!

Pink Textured Nail Art

Hi everyone. Its the weekend! I have finished my six day week and I am looking forward to having a day off tomorrow :).

Today I have a very girly design to show you. I picked up a textured polish by Seventeen whilst in Boots a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to see how it compared to other brands like OPI as this one is so much cheaper. But I couldn't simply just swatch it, I wanted to do some nail art. So this is what I came up with...

I used a base of OPI - I Theodora You on all my nails apart from my pinky which is Seventeen Rock Hard Couture Nail Effects in Bijoux Baby. Despite that all being a bit of a mouthful, I did really like this polish. The formula was easy to work with and I only needed two coats. I loved the colour, baby pink with gold shimmer running through it.

I top-coated the nails with I Theodora you on and then added Bijoux Baby over the top of that. 

For my thumb and ring finger I did an abstract rose design which was inspired by this post by Work Play Polish. Mine are no where near as good as hers but I still liked them.

On my index finger I added a couple of dots with a dotting tool.

I stuck on the studs on my middle finger using my topcoat. 

I really enjoyed wearing these and I would totally recommend the Seventeen textured polish. I am interested to see if the rest of their polishes are as good.

Have any of you tried anything else from this range? Would you recommend them?

Thanks for looking.

Floral Splatter Nail Art.

Hello everyone. How are we all? I am feeling pretty ill and I am working a six day week this week :( boo! I was hoping to have this posted last night but I needed my bed.

Today I have some nails to show you that I based on a make up palette that I have... but I completely forgot to take photos of it, oops. I have a brain like a sieve. 

For these nails I started with a black base (I used W7 - Black).

I splattered on the 4 pink colours. To do this I dipped one end of a straw in the polish and blew through the other end, super hygienic and very messy! Lol. The colours I used were Revlon - Violet, Leighton Denny - Plush Pink, Essie - Angora Cardi and Essie - Like To Be Bad.

I added a coat of Seche Vite to smooth the surface out and then used my Barry M nail art pen in white for the flowers. I really like my black one of these, but I found the white to be a bit runny and watery. Has anyone else had this problem?

At first I added another coat of Seche Vite and I was going to leave it shiny, but it looked a bit much so I matted it with my Rimmel Matte Top Coat.

I did quite enjoy wearing these nails, although they took quite a while to do and I made a huge mess! 

What do you guys think?

Thanks for looking.

Watercolour Nails

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well.

Today I have some watercolour nails to show you. I saw a tutorial by Spektor's Nails recently and I decided I needed to try it out myself. I was very pleased with the outcome and it was so easy! I was having lighting issues with my photos so they are a bit yellowy and dark :( so apologies for that. But you can still get the idea of what they looked like.

For these I painted my nails with a white base.

Once the base was dry I blobbed on a thick layer of white leaving a few gaps. In the gaps I added blobs of Sally Hansen - Fairy Teal.

To get the water colour effect I pressed a square of sandwich bag on top of the wet polish which mixed all the colours together (if that makes any sense).

To finish I cleaned up around the edges and added a top coat. If my explanation made no sense check out Spektor's Nails' post as she has a video on there (link at the top of the post).

I tried it on the other hand with pink! (Barry M - Dragonfruit). This photo was taken on my phone, for some reason the lighting looked a lot better.

I really did love these, they were so much easier than I expected.

Have any of you tried this technique? How did you find it?

Thanks for stopping by!

Bright Floral Nails

Hello everyone. How are we all? I am having a nice lazy day off today since I am working the weekend.

Today I have a manicure to show you that @hannvjk did on instagram. I believe the design was initially by @mrcandiipants but I loved the colour scheme that hannvjk used. Here is a link to the actual post. Isn't it soo pretty?! I just had to recreate it.

I must admit I wasn't very pleased with how these came out, I think my lines were kind of messy. But I thought I would share my attempt anyway, even if they were a big fat fail haha!

I started with a base of Models Own - Pink Sorbet on all my nails except my ring finger which is Barry M - Key Lime.

I then freehanded the shapes with a white creme and a nail art brush.

I added the colours to the middle of the flowers, using the opposite colour that I had for the base colour. Once this was dry I added the white dots on top.

Finally I freehanded the black details, added a topcoat and I was done.

Like I said before, I wasn't very pleased with these. I was trying out a new brush for this, but I think I will stick to my old one, it is much easier to work with. But it is all good practice I guess!

Have you had any nail fails lately?

Thanks for looking!

Angled French Manicure.

Hello lovelies. I hope we all had nice weekends, I'm not loving the fact that it is Monday again!

Today I have a nice simple design to show you. I felt like wearing something simple but couldn't face being completely normal! Lol.

For these nails I started with a base of OPI - I Theodora You. 

I then added the silver stripe at different angles on each nail, using the brush from the polish. I used an unnamed W7 silver.

I then added the colours to the tips, again using the brushes from the bottle. The green is Essie - Naughty Nautical and the purple is MAC - Heroine.

I added a topcoat and I was done.

I got a lot of compliments whilst wearing this. Plus it was nice to do a design only using the polish brushes, less tidying up for me!

How do you do your nails when you are feeling something simple?

Thanks for looking.

Simple Pink Holo Nail Art

Hello everyone, I hope all your weekends are going well.

Today I have some nails to show you that I did a few months ago and then forgot to post (hence why my nails are much shorter). But I found the pictures saved on my computer a few days ago and I really love them, so I thought I would share them.

For these I started with a base of NYC - MoMa on all my nails.

Once they were dry I painted Orly - Miss Conduct onto half of each nail using a fine nail art brush. I love this colour, sooo pretty! Unfortunately I couldn't capture it perfectly on my camera, the holo sparkle freaked it out a bit. But at least the sun came out when I was taking the pictures :).

I then added my little gems on by sticking them on with a blob of top coat and then top coating over them to secure it all. If I remember correctly these gems would not budge and I kept this mani on for about a week (which is an eternity for me).

And that's all there was to it. Super easy and really rather pretty (even if I do say so myself).

Thanks for stopping by.

Random Swatch: Ciate - Strawberry Milkshake

Good evening, I hope everyone has had a good day. Mine was okay, I had work but I have a day off tomorrow which I am looking forward to.

Tonight I have another swatch to show you which is Ciate - Strawberry Milkshake. This is a super girly, light pink creme and its a very pretty colour. I got this in one of Ciate's Caviar Manicure sets which I was not really a fan of - I tried it once when I was going out for a meal and most of the beads had fallen off by the time I went out! Then I think I ended up eating a few of them that fell in my dinner and the rest ended up on the floor of my boyfriend's car (he wasn't best pleased haha). But I thought the polish was quite pretty so I kept it to use on its own.

For the photo I used 3 coats as I found the formula a little streaky, but it evened out quite nicely after the third coat. I didn't use a topcoat for this photo.

 I felt like barbie wearing this polish, which is totally not my usual style, but I actually really liked it. The bottle is also really cute, although I had to rip the bow off because I kept dragging it through my wet polish when painting my nails which was very annoying. I don't know if I am the only one who has done this?

I do rather like this polish, despite a slight issue with the formula. It is the only Ciate polish I own but I would definitely try more of their products in the future.

Spots and Stripes.

Today I have some more nail art to show you. I'm not really sure what inspired me for this mani. I guess I like stripes and I like spots so thought I would combine the two. I really liked how this design turned out, however I was having serious lighting issues when trying to take the photos, so I shall apologise in advance for those. I am still trying to figure out the best way to take photos of my nails, so bear with me! But I am sure I will get the knack eventually. If anyone reading this has any tips they can give me that would be greatly appreciated.

Anyway onto the pictures...

Splatter Nails.

Today I have some splatter nails to show you. I have seen this technique done quite a lot but I have never tried it before myself, so I was quite pleased with how they turned out. It also gave me a chance to use my new China Glaze polishes that I purchased a few weeks ago :).

Hello and welcome!

Hello and welcome to my blog.

I think I may be talking into a black hole at the moment, but I figured I may as well introduce myself anyway :).

My name is Vicky and I am a 19 year old girl from Essex, UK and I am obsessed with nails and nail art! I currently work in a call centre but one day hope to do nails for a living. I first got into nail art about 6 months ago when I came across a few blogs on the internet. Since then I have spent countless hours trying different designs on my nails, so I thought I would start a blog to share some of my creations.

Anyway.. onto the nails! 

I thought I would start out with something simple, a nice dotting mani. I often find that simple turns out the best.

For this mani I used a white pearly base from W7 (I have no idea what this polished is called, there is no name on the bottle, sorry!) and I used Barry M Gelly - Dragonfruit and Greenberry for the dots. For the dots I used a few different sized dotting tools and just scattered them in a diagonal pattern across my nail. All topped off with Seche Vite. 

Thanks for looking.