Adventures with Nail Art gems!

So if you have followed my nail polish escapades, you may know that I purchased 1800 nail gems for the princely sum of 99c (including postage!).

There are literally zillions in there in all different colours, two different blues, pinks, reds, silvers- you name it! Unfortunately on the evening that I played around with them a few gems got stuck in the twisting cover so I could only get a couple of colours out, that's why the colours are pretty basic.

This is what I came up with...

I like the nail on the far left, I think that would look nice with a plain manicure, as an accent nail. The middle one is supposed to be a lopsided heart shape and the right nail is a flower obvs. I didn't bother doing a close up of my baby finger as it didn't amount to much really, actually I am pretty sure I got bored by that stage.

Now for my piece de resistance (oh what larks!) on my thumb nail. Its a pretty flower with a stem and everything. Not going to lie, it took me bloody ages to do! 

For this I just wanted a plain base, so I used Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manucure in Pink Slipper.

Application-wise I just stuck the gems into the wet polish, they lasted for 2 days before I got bored with my one hand of tacky fabulous 'art' and pulled them all off.

What do you think of my experimentation with nail gems?

xxxx

The Princess Manicure

Just a little bit of nail art (if you can even call it that) that I created last night! I was inspired by this post on Natalie's Nails, and this is my take on it!

Basically I did a couple of coats of OPI's 'Pink-ing of you' with OPI 'Teenage Dream' on the tips! Pretty, right? :o)

Sorry it's just a quick post! I am off out tonight and I can't wait!

Giveaway update: My NARS giveaway has finished and the results will be up asap! Also, I haven't got responses from some people who won my Aussie giveaway. If I don't hear from you by tomorrow evening I will be choosing other people.

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

xxxx

The Cheats Guide To Nail Art, Part Deux: Ombre Nails

Yay! It's another blog post for the clumsy and wobbly handed people who just can't 'do' nail art- expecially not x10! You can find my first post about this here. Anyway, I saw this nail effect on LLYMLRS blog ages ago, and the other day I thought I'd give it a go myself!

Basically the idea is that you pick 5 polishes of the same colour, from light to dark to give that gradient effect. Yet again it is relatively simple and doesn't require a whole load of effort!

The only colour fields that I had enough block colours to do this with is pink and blue, here is what I came up with...

Pink!

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure 'Pink Slipper' / OPI 'Pinking of You' / MUA #16 / Barry M 'Bright Pink' / Barry M 'Shocking Pink'

I really like the effect of this one, but when applied I thought the index finger and middle finger colours looked a little too alike- during the day I kept arguing with myself as I thought I had mixed them up. 

Blue!

Barry M 'Indigo' / OPI 'Blue My Mind' / Barry M 'Cyan Blue' / China Glaze 'Sea Spray' /Models Own 'Beths Blue' 

I had some difficulty finding the right colours for this one as I definitely don't own 5 block blues, for this reason I was quite skeptical in using CG 'Sea Spray' (2nd from left) as it isn't a completely flat colour. Also, as you can tell from the name, Barry M indigo which is on my thumb is a deep purple. I think it works though - kind of. Anyway I won't be losing sleep over it!

Have you tried ombre nails? Link me to your posts, I would love to see them :o)

xxxx

A Cheats Guide to Nail Art!

To put things simply, I am a complete klutz. I trip over stuff, spill drinks down myself on an almost daily basis (white tops are a no-no) and still still, after years of trying cannot draw a straight liquid eyeliner-line. So I have had a little sad face when seeing all of the fantastic nail art around the bbloggersphere (Gem Fatale's leopard print nails, I am talking to you!). Even water marbling was a bit of a disaster...

So, how did I create this, you may ask...

srsly, who am I to lecture on nail art?! I can't even paint my nails correctly!

The answer? Stickers!

I got these from ebay a few weeks ago with the literal pennies I had left in my paypal. I believe they were about 80c each (50p?!) including postage from Hong Kong or somewhere. 

Basically I painted my nails (MUA #16, if you were wondering), peeled off the stickers, placed them and then went over it all with my regular topcoat.

Not bad for a first attempt! *smug look*

Also, I was more than a bit touched by the little note and gift enclosed from the ebay seller...

little packet of blotting papers, 'a special gift' awww :o)

If that didn't make me so touched by that, the little note enclosed sure did:

Check the last line, the lovely chap went to the trouble of Google translating "Go raibh maith agat" which is Irish for 'Thank you' (so I am told) which was just so cute. Let's remind ourselves of the fact that I paid under a euro for this, including postage!

I hope you enjoyed my cheats guide to nail art, I plan to do many more stickery designs without the stress!

Click here for the ebay sellers shop, he has a Gandhi quote as his picture- I now like him even more.

xxxx

Marble Manicure

If you follow me on twitter you will be bored by know about my fun yesterday marbling my nails! I'm not gonna tell you how to do it because it can't be explained any better than Andrea's Choice 's video, so check that out.

Here are my marbelised creations...

OPI 'Koala Bear-y' & 'Lincoln Park After Dark' 

MUA Shade 16 & 4

OPI 'Blue My Mind' & 'Green-witch Village'

OPI 'Pink-ing of you' & 'Koala Bear-y'

Models Own 'Gold Rush' & 'Pink Fever'

So, what do you think? :o)

I also thought I would add some lessons I learnt about marbeling, from my own experience:

For God's sake, use tape!

Every tutorial will tell you to use tape around your finger to prevent a hot mess that looks like this:

yeah yeah, it looks nice. But it's a bitch to remove from the skin. So don't!

Prepare to make a mess!

This is the mess I made in my kitchen. Prepare to dig out every polish you own, destroy tupperware, go through a zillion cotton wool pads and stain your mums tea towels!

Not all nail polishes will work...

OPI's were my overall winners with this, however there was a noted exception ('You Don't Know Jacques', I am looking at you!).

Barry M was a total fail, they do not work! Such a shame as I have zillions of Barry M polishes :o(

Models Own were hit and miss, the last nail (above) is models own, however the glitter mostly ran. Instead I tried 'Beths Blue' and 'Cement Mixer', but they just sat on top of the water and wouldn't do anything! (see little floater below! Also, you can see a little failblob on the bottom, courtesy of Barry M!) 

You will be left with pretty cotton wool pads!

When you go to 'grab' the remaining polishes, you will be left with these! I love them :o) They are now in the bin, though.

I am going to do a full marble nail today! Any ideas of what colour combo I should go with?

xxxx