Manicure Swap with The Imperfect 10: Pink Butterfly Wings Nail Artwith Tutorial

Hello all,

I had such fun recreating my own design last week for the monthly Polish Party theme, that when Rachel from The Imperfect 10 asked if I'd like to do either twin nails with her, or a manicure swap I went for it.

After a bit of discussion we decided to go for a swap, so I picked a design from her blog and she picked one from mine.  Then all that was left was to paint.

So here is my take on Rachel's pink butterfly wings

I hadn't ever done butterfly wing nails before, so this was the perfect opportunity.  I have seen them about quite a bit on Pinterest and in the blogging world, so they seem to be a bit of a nail art staple, so really, it was about time!

I really liked that Rachel hadn't done the wings on all nails as I think the black details could quite easily overpower the nails otherwise.  Here are the designs side by side

My recreation on the left, Rachel's original on the right

As you can see Rachel went for a bright pink from Models Own, but I didn't have the same colour, so I chose to go for a pink gradient with two Barry M colours - Strawberry Ice Cream and Pink Flamingo.  I built up the colours in quite a few layers as I wasn't getting the coverage I wanted at first.  This meant that clean up was a nightmare though as the polish had dried on to my fingers in between.  Five cotton buds and a little nail brush later I was ready to add the details.

I used my black and white Barry M Nail Art Pens for the details as they are just so easy to work with.  For the non wing nails I added single dots of black and white down the edges as my double dots with black and white looked too messy.  Then it was on to the wings themselves.  I have put together this mini tutorial on how to create butterfly wings in 5 easy steps.  I hope you find it easy to work from - sorry it's shown on a nail wheel rather than my own nails.

1. Start with a curved line near the cuticles
2. Then add thee long lines down the nail towards the tip
3. Add tiny curved lines in between the long lines you just created
4. Fill in the tip of the nail with black
5. Once dry add tiny white dots to finish off the look

Don't forget to take a look at Rachel's recreation of my design as well, she went for my pastel rainbow ombré manicure.

Rachel's recreation on the left and my original on the right

How do you think we both did?

Thanks for stopping by
Aimée x

Christmas Tree Dotticure Nail Art

Hello all,

I have my last Christmas nail art of the season and more importantly it will be what I have on my nails on the big day!

This was a 'pinspired' design this week.  This year I have seen lots of Christmas trees done with striping tape, so I was looking for something different and came across this pin.  I loved it so much that I just had to have a go.  Clicking through and reading the blog post about this I found out that it was inspired by another blogger as well, so it's really going around now!

I started off with two coats of Snow White from Models Own.  This is a fab white polish.  A bit streaky of first coat, but perfect in two.  I then used Barry M Red Glitter, China Glaze Emerald Sparkle and Models Own Bora Bora to create my dots.  Using different the two different end of my dotting tool for the large and medium dots and then end of a cuticle stick for the tiny dots.  I repeated this pattern on all my nails, but left my ring finger free for my Christmas tree.  For the tree I started by dotting Emerald Sparkle in a single dot in the centre of my nail just below the cuticle.  Then two dots at the tip of my nail to create a triangle pattern.  I then filled in the rest of the tree with some extra green dots.  I then added three Red Glitter dots for baubles and three Bora Bora dots for tinsel.  The star had to be something a bit special so I added a yellow gem to sparkle away at the top of the tree.  Then came the tricky part... Top coating without causing drag on the dots over the white! And look... It worked!!!!!!! Yay!!

I love how festive this manicure is and what was even better was that it was so simple!  I also did some nail art for my mum and sister as well...

A fancy swirly tree for my mum and snowflake for my sister.

I hope you all like my Christmas tree dotticure and have a very Merry Christmas x

Character Designs

Hello all,

I am doing a guest post later on this week over on The Naily Mail and I will have a post from The Naily Mail here for you later on this week, so keep an eye out for those.

Today I thought I would share some older designs that I had done before I had my blog.  I have to apologise for the quality of the photographs as I took them on my phone.

First I have a cute little monkey that I saw over on I Have A Cupcake.  Her designs are so cute and I had to give this a go.  Hope on over and take a look at her videos.

Second I have Captain America and Iron Man.  I did these based on Google searches for Avengers nail art and painted them especially to go and see the film!

Third I have some cute piggy nails.  I saw these on Real Asian Beauty and seeing as pigs are my favourite animals I just had to do these!

Lastly I have Rudolph nails.  These were inspired by Cutepolish.  I'm sure most of you will have come across Cutepolish at some point.

What do you think of some of my earlier attempts and recreations of other's designs? I'd love to see some of your first attempts - why not leave me a link in the comments below?

See you again later on in the week for the post from my guest blogger x