Glittery Black with Pink Stripes

Hi all,

So I was a lucky girl and got some lovely presents from my mum from her holiday to America, including a nail polish!! It's a Wet n Wild Fergie Collection: Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night.  It's a clear base polish with small black glitter particles with bigger gold glitter particles.  I will do a proper review of the polish at a later date when I use it over a lighter colour... but I wanted to use it for my design this week.

If you read my blog regularly you might remember that I got some nail tapes for Christmas.  Well I hadn't actually used them, just admired them and their pretty colours, so I thought it was about time that I actually did give them a go!

I chose a black base for my nails, I used Revlon, and applied two coats.  I then painted half of my nails with a coat of the Tonight's Gonna Be A Good Night.  I have seen that other people who have reviewed this polish before have said that the brush is quite big.  It is a bit bigger than other brands that I have, but I didn't really find it a problem as I got quite a lot of glitter with just one coat, but I will see what I think when I use it again over a different colour when I review it on it's own.

After this had dried I then used my pink nail tape to create a stripe down the middle of each nail.  It was quite fiddly to get the tape in the middle of the nail, but I found that it was easiest to start at the nail bed, overlapping onto my finger slightly to get the positioning right before committing to sticking my stripe down.  At the end of each nail I left a little bit of tape over the edge which I then trimmed with nail scissors and trimmers.

All that was left after this was to seal everything in with top coat.  I normally only use one layer of top coat, but this week I used two to make sure that my tape didn't peel up at the edges.

On another note, last week you will have seen that I wrote a little about Essie Nourish Me base coat.  I am pleased to say that my nails seem a little more hydrated than before.  I will keep using it and see if I think it makes a bigger impact.

Hope you like this design x

Essie: Jamaica Me Crazy

Hello all,

I was very excited to spot Essie polishes in my local Boots yesterday so thought I'd give it a try.  I started with just one colour to see how I got on with it because at £7.99 I needed to be sure that I liked it.

My nails are very strong, but can be quite brittle and flaky and I have tried a few moisturising base coats before, so I thought that I'd try Essie's 'Norish Me' as well.  This says that it's an 'intense hydration base coat' and says that it can improve hydration of nails by about 50% in 5 days.  I have used this as a base, along with my normal base coat and I will let you know if I see an improvement in the moisture of my nails over the next few weeks from using this.  This was £8.99 in Boots.

Back to my pretty colour though...

 

 

I chose Jamaica Me Crazy which is a gorgeous deep pink colour.  In some lights it almost has a purple look to it as the colour is that deep.  The coverage after one coat is quite good, although I would suggest two for the best look.  I found that the polish dries fairly quickly, means wait time between coats is not too long.  There is a bit of sparkle in the colour itself which is lovely on its own, but I can't resist that extra bit of sparkle and I finished my nails off with a coat of my trusty Collection 2000 Glitter Top Coat.  I always use a clear top coat over that as well to add lots of extra shine.  I think it's safe to say that I might be taking a look at some more Essie colours from time to time when I am feeling like having a bit of a splurge.

 

 

I would recommend taking a look at Essie colours as there are lots of choices and it seems to be a great quality polish.  Hope this helps you if you have been thinking about this brand but you weren't sure before.  Let me know in the comments if you have use Essie colours, which ones and how you found them 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.



Liebster Award

Hello all,

I have been tagged to do a Liebster Award by Jenni My Style... So here goes!

The Liebster Blog Award is given to upcoming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. The Meaning; Liebster is German and means sweetest, kindest, nicest, dearest, beloved, lovely, kind, pleasant, valued, cute, endearing and welcome.

Here are the rules for receiving this award:

1. Each person must post 11 things about themselves

2. Answer the questions the tagger has set for you plus create 11 questions for the people you've tagged to answer.

3. Choose 11 people and link them in your post.

4. Go to their page and tell them.

5. Remember, no tag backs!

Love Bug Ladybird Nail Art for Valentine's Day

Hi all,

I have been inspired by one of my mini Me to You bears for this week's design.  I kept Valentine's Day in mind, but I didn't want to do a design with the traditional hearts.

These cute ladybird nails are really simple to do.  Simply paint your nails in a bright red and then when that is dry, use a black striper to create a line down the middle of your nails.  Do this on all nails other than your ring finger.  Here you will need to create a red circle on the tip of your nail and then add the black line to that as with the other fingers.

To add the rest of the details of the ladybird use a small brush or a tooth pick to add a crescent shape over the top of your red circle in black.  This will be the ladybird's head.  Using a black striper add two small lines for antenna, and at the end of these I have drawn very small hearts with a nail art pen.  Models Own nail art pens have both a striper and pen in one tool so are great for a design like this.  The striper gives a very fine line and the tip of the pen is very fine for small details.

To finish off the rest of the design, use a dotting tool dipped in black polish to finish the ladybird effect.  If you wanted, you could make these dots little hearts as well, but I decided just to add simple dots for my design.

I hope you like my love bug ladybird design and maybe try it out this Valentine's Day.