Summer Sunset Nails

Summer sunset and flowers

Base (orange) - Rimmel - Oragasm

Base (yellow) - Barry M - Yellow

Stamping Plate - UberChic Plate 3-03

Watercolour Tie-Dye Nails

I decided to try out a new technique this week but it didn't work to plan, so I had to change my idea part way through painting.  Luckily I didn't have to start all over again and I am really pleased with the outcome.  I have ended up with a watercolour tie-dye effect.

I started off with a neutral base so I had something to work on, and I was originally going to add watercolour bubbles, but I'm not sure that I worked quick enough to soak up the excess polish to give the right effect, so thinking quickly I started adding my watered down polish in splodgy sections over the whole nail.  The colours started blending together really nicely.  I added a few layers to build up the colours and cover any bare patches.  To even out the sections I added a fine glitter top coat from Collection.  A adore this top coat as it transforms any polish into something extra special.

I used Tuscany from Graffiti Nails which has to be my favourite orange polish I have come across. The pink is Gumball from Models Own, so not only are my nails pretty, they smell yummy as this is a polish from the Sweet Shop Collection.  Lastly I have used Yellow from Barry M.  I think all these colours work together beautifully.  What do you think?

Even though this wasn't what I originally had in mind, I think the effect I am left with is fun and eye catching.  And it's a different way of creating this look, rather than water marbling or dragging the polish when on the nail.  What do you do when a design doesn't quite to plan when you have already started painting?

Thanks for stopping by

Aimée x

Models Own: Nail Art Kit Review*

Hello all,

I always wondered why Models Own didn't have a nail art kit because they seem to love nail art as much as we all do, and then the other week I came home from work to find this beauty waiting for me

A brand new Nail Art Kit from Models Own! Fancy that!  Of course I had to take a picture straight away, so this is from my phone, but I was pretty pleased with how it turned out anyway.  Then it was just a case of finding a bit of time to play with it all.

* Press sample - sent to me for review

Models Own: Speckled Eggs* - Swatches and Comparison

Hello all,

I have a been lucky enough to get three of the new Speckled Eggs collection from Models Own to review (and a tube of yummy Mini Eggs - they didn't last long!).  This is a new collection of pastel shades perfect for spring, but with added black matte glitter particles in different sizes to give the speckled effect.  Now I don't know about you, but when these were first announced I wondered how similar the colours would be compared to other pastel shades from Models Own in the collections like Ice Cream Sundae and Fruit Pastels, so along with the swatched I got a bit of a comparison with the others where I have the corresponding colour.  Lets take a look shall we?

Left to right I have Goose,  Duck and Magpie.  Out of the three I have to say that Magpie is my favourite, so I'll leave that one to the end!

* Press sample - sent to me for review

Polish Party: Disney - Mickey and Minnie Nail Art

Hello all,

It's the end of the month, and you know what that means? Polish Party time.  Out theme this month is Disney.  I have loved Disney since forever and Mickey and Minnie have to be my favourite so when our theme was picked I knew they were going to feature.  I couldn't decide how to do them first of all, but then settled on hints of both characters.

Then all I had to do was decide how to include them both on one hand... Or did I?

I went for Mickey on my left hand and Minnie of my right hand.  Both have nails that are the same, because these features match on both Mickey and Minnie, so on both little fingers I chose to use yellow to represent their shoes.  Then on both index fingers I have a white base with three simple black lines to represent their gloves.  For Mickey I have on my ring finger and thumb, his iconic red shorts with yellow buttons, and for Minnie I have her red dress with white polka dots.  For my Mickey hand I used a little dotting tool to create mini Mickey's (hee hee!!) over a white base, and then for my Minnie hand how could I not include her bow?

I had so much fun doing these and I love that I have a different character on each.  As I type it looks like Mickey and Minnie dancing across my key board.  They certainly brighten up my day when I look at them.

Don't forget to keep up with what of the rest of the Polish Party girls have done for their Disney themed nails.  Follow the links below to take a look

Gone Wild - Animal Print Nail Art

Hello all,

Well, it seems it's only too easy to change my mind.  Having done a first last week, leaving a manicure matte, there is no stopping me now.  I have only gone and done it again!  After a comment on Twitter on my nails last week I was inspired to create my design this week and I am so so SO pleased with how they turned out.

These are my gone wild animal print nails.  Aren't they fun?  These took me quite a long time to do, but only because I wanted them to be just right so I took plenty of time.

From my thumb round to my little finger I have done, zebra, leopard, tiger, giraffe and cheetah prints.  I had the first four in mind all week long before doing these but had to think a bit more to come up with cheetah.  Want to know how I did these?  Well here goes.

Zebra - I started off with two coats of Snow White from Models Own.  After this had dried I used my Barry M nail art pen in black to freehand the stripes.  I bought the nail art pen especially for this as I was quite worried about this print and trying to do it with a striper or brush.  I can tell you now that I am most definitely not a fan of zebra print.  On my other hand I ended up removing it three times before it was only ok.  I do not think I will be doing this print again.  Well not freehand anyway!

Pastel Rainbow Ombré

Hi everyone,

I keep seeing lots of different ombré nail designs around and they are just so pretty for summer.  Normally when I do ombré nails I tend to use variations of the same colour and sponge each one on individually as you can see here, but most people seem to paint their colours on the sponge directly in stripes and then dab on the nails.  I had previously tried this design using my normal technique and failed miserably! They just looked a complete and utter mess.  So I ended up taking it off and doing something different that week.

I still wanted to try this design because I have seen a few different variations of it such as here on Pinterest and here on YouTube.  So here it is...

 

 

I started off my pastel rainbow ombré, by painting all of my nails with a pearly white base.  I chose a pearly one because for some reason whenever I paint an entirely white base, I make such a mess and this time round I really didn't want anything to go wrong before I had even really started.

 

 

After my pearl base had dried I then got my Models Own Ice Cream Sundae collection and make up sponges ready.  I lined all my colours up with the tops already unscrewed so that I was realy to paint the stripes of colour directly on to my make up sponges.  I chose to use five sponges, one for each of the different ombré combinations on each of my nails.  I don't waste the sponges though as I cut off the end when I've finished and the polish is dry.  Then I can use it again afterwards.  I made sure the sponge was slightly wet before I painted on the polish so it didn't soak in too much before I had chance to dab it on to my nails.  This is what my work station looked like when I had finished all my nails.

 

 

 

I started with my thumbs and chose yellow and green.  Yellow at the base of my thumb and green at the tip of my nail.  I then moved to my index finger and chose to continue with the green, this time at the base of the nail and I combined that with orange.  I continued using the previous nail tip colour on the base of the next nail, orange into pink, pink into blue and blue into yellow.

 

If you read my blog a lot you will know that I like glitter.  So to blend my colours and add that extra sparkle I used a coat of Rimmel Disco Ball.

 

I am really pleased with this design and it just goes to show if at first you don't succeed, try try again x



Easter Chick Nail Art with Tutorial

Hello all,

You might have seen last week that I did the first of two Easter designs with my Strawberry Tart Bunnies.  This week I have Easter Chicks with a sparkly speckled egg effect.

 

I have used mainly Models Own nail polishes to create my design.  The base colour is Lemon Meringue and the orange for the chick's beak is Fuzzy Peach.  Both of these are from the Ice Cream Sundae collection.  For the sparkly speckled egg effect on my other nails I have used Disco Inferno from the Mirrorball Collection.

 

I have created a step by step picture guide to show you how I created this look, and hopefully it's easy for you to follow if you want to have a go yourself.

 

 



 

 Step one - After using a base coat to protect your nails, paint them with two coats of your base colour, in my case Lemon Meringue.

 

Step two - This is where you will start to create the shell for you little chick to sit in.  Using a dotting tool create a zig-zag line across your ring finger nail in white.  You do not need to wait for this to dry before moving on to step three.

 

Step three - Fill in the rest of the shell for your chick using your white polish (I have used Sally Hansen White On)

 

Step four - Add a small orange triangle above your shell and two black dots for your chick's eyes.

 

You could finish your design here if you wanted to, add more chicks on your other nails or like me, add on some glitter to the other nails.  I used Disco Inferno because of the colours in the glitter adding to the chick theme with gold, orange and green flecks.

 

I will be putting together a step by step of my Easter Bunny nails as well, so keep an eye out for that if you are interested x

'Bee Mine' Valentine's Day Nail Art

Hello all,

I have another alternative Valentine's Day nail art design for you this week.

I have been inspired again by a different mini Me to You bear.

 

 

I have some seen some other nail art where people have used fan brushes to create a fun random stripe effect rather than the more uniform stripes you get with a striper.

 

As always I started off with a base coat to protect my nails and then painted all my nails, other than my ring finger in yellow from Barry M.  I painted my ring fingers using Knockout from Revlon.  Then taking my fan brush I dipped it in some of my black polish.  Then to create the stripes all you have to to do is simply drag the brush over your nails.  You can repeat the process, creating more strips over the first ones made to give the random pattern that I have.

 

On my ring finger I created my little bumble bee using a dotting tool to make an oval shape.  First of all I used a white polish so that the yellow would really pop afterwards.  Once this was dry I did the same again, but used the yellow polish.  For the stripes of my bee I used a black striper and just dragged some small lines over the yellow oval.  Using a smaller dotting tool I added two white dots for the wings.

 

To finish off my design I added a coat of Collection 2000 top coat over my stripy nails for that extra bit of shine.

 

I hope you like my 'Bee Mine' nail design.  Have a great Valentine's Day.



Painted Flowers Nail Art

Hello all,

It's been pretty wintery and cold recently and I thought to cheer myself up that I would take some of my new colours that I got for Christmas for a spin and create a design inspired by spring.

 

 

 

I couldn't decide which of my pastel shades I wanted to try first, so in the end I used all three!  I painted three nails on each hand in Jade Stone and two in Fuzzy Peach.  The centres of my daisy like flowers are done using Lemon Meringue.  These three are all Models Own colours.  For the white of my flowers I used Sally Hansen White Out.

 

These are very simple flowers, more simple than they look.  After applying two coats of my base colours, which are gorgeous candy-like pastel shades, I used a small brush dipped in the white polish and just pushed the bristles away from the nail edge towards the centre of my nail.  I did this a few times to create my basic flower shape.  I didn't want a full flower of each nail as I think this could be too much.  I placed my flower a different points on each nail to mix up the design.  When my petals were dry I added a large yellow dot in the centre using a dotting tool.

 

I really like the outcome of this design and I hope you do too. Let me know if you have a go at a bright and colourful nail design to brighten your winter days.

Cut the Rope Nail Art

Hello all,

As many of us do I have games on my iPhone and one of my favourites is Cut The Rope.  My design this week has been inspired by Cut The Rope, and the Om Nom toy that I got for my birthday.  I hope you like it.

 

 

 

To create Om Nom and the Cut the Rope world was fairly simple.  I started with a base coat to protect my nails, and then painted them with an orange French tip manicure, other than my middle finger.  Once this had dried I created the stars that you have to try and collect before feeding Om Nom the candy in the game.  I used a yellow polish and a dotting tool to create five small dots close to once another and then dragged the nail polish into the centre to create the star.  I added one star on my little finger and two on my thumb. 

 

I then added a brown line on my index finger for the rope using a thin brush.

 

To create the candy I added a drop of orange polish and a drop of yellow polish to a scrap of paper and swirled them together slightly.  Using a cotton bud I dipped the end into the swirled polish and then dotted this on my ring finger nail.

 

I didn't have quite the right colour green to create Om Nom, so I mixed my green with some yellow to make it a lighter shade.  I then used a normal nail polish brush to create a green circle on my middle finger.  To create Om Nom's anteni, using my dotting tool, I added a small dot of the green above the circle and dragged the polish down to meet it.

 

Before adding Om Nom's eyes, smile and teeth, I waited for the green to dry.  For his eyes I used a cotton bud dipped into white polish and simply added two white dots close together.  Then I used a black striper for his smile and added smaller black dots in the middle of his eyes and smaller white dots for his teeth.

 

I hope you like my design and maybe have a go yourself.

 

I used the following polishes:

• Maybelline - Orange Couture
• Barry M - Yellow
• Barry M - Spring Green
• Barry M - Mushroom
• E.L.F - White
• Rimmel - French Rose
• Andrea Fulerton - Black Striper
   
 

Olympic Rings Inspired Manicure

Living in London I have to admit that I was less than enthusiastic about the Olympic Games because I just thought it was going to be so disruptive to everyday living, however, now that it is here and I have watched it (on the TV) I have been enjoying what I have seen.  On that note I decided to do an Olympic Rings inspired manicure.

It is a very simple yet effective design, so I haven't done a step by step guide, however I will talk through what I have done to get this look.

These are the polishes that I used for my design.

There are the colours for the Olympic Rings in blue (L.A. Colors, Color Craze in Wired), yellow (Barry M in Yellow), black (Revlon in Blackest Black), green (Barry M in Spring Green) and red (Barry M in Bright Red).  For the base of this design I used a Rimmel London French Manicure in French Rose and Collection 2000 Sparkle Top Coat.

I always start off with a base coat to protect my nails.  As a base I used my French manicure colour which is a really subtle, but pretty pink, after this had dried I then painted a coat of sparkle top coat to add the extra shine (to hopefully match that of medals!).  Then taking each of the colours of the Olympic rings I painted the tip of my nail, just as you would for a French manicure with each of the colours in the order of the rings.  I finished off with a clear top coat to protect the design.

I hope you agree that this is simple but effective.  Enjoy it if you have a go yourself.