Oops! I've managed to go ages without blogging again, somehow. I have been doing my nails though, honest! So here's a quick catch up of some of the nails I've had over the last couple of weeks.
I wore these for 4 days or so before Christmas. This is two coats of China Glaze Ruby Pumps (one of my favourite polishes ever) with an accent nail using China Glaze Mingle With Kringle and a stencil from What's Up Nails, and a stud for extra accent.
These nails were made with some polishes I got as a Christmas gift set - this is a base of Maybelline Watery Waste, a silver metallic polish. I then used tape and Maybelline Downtown Red on top, and Maybelline Black Magic on top of that. Black Magic is an interesting matte finish glitter, which I really liked. I added topcoat for shine.
These nails were something I wore for a couple of days around new year. I started with a base of Barry M Persian, a pretty purple-gold duochrome. I added rhinestones, and an accent nail using sparkly white glitter dust.
I love wearing rhinestones!
Finally, these are the nails I'm wearing now - I've had these on for a couple of days now. I started with a base of Barry M Butterscotch Sundae, and then used What's Up Nails vinyls and a variety of polishes for the pattern.
I sponged on a mix of Barry M Guava and Blood Orange, Illamasqua Prosperity, and Models Own Island Hop, Sarong Wrap and Beach Fire. I'm not totally happy with how these came out, as the colours got a bit murky in places - I really wanted a brighter, zingier blend. I'm still pretty happy with them though.
Tonight is the start of the baseball World Series, and the Cubs are there for the first time since 1945, and haven't won it since 1908. I'm not a huge follower of baseball these days, but I do really like it. I was forced to a game in New York in 2001, and absolutely LOVED it, and then got addicted to the old Channel 5 MLB shows back in the day. I went to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field in 2007, and loved it even more.
So today I've got Cubs nails. They're not perfect - they look much neater with my eyes than they do in photos! I wish the lines were cleaner.
I started with a base of Barry M Cotton and then used some stencils (which I won from Claire at Kerruticles in a giveaway) and Barry M Blood Orange to make the baseball nail. The pinstripe nails and the W (the Cubs 'fly the W' over Wrigley Field when they win) used tape and Barry M Blue Grape. The Cubs logo was rather wonkily freehanded using both colours and a thin brush.
I did do both hands, but just did the pinstripes and baseballs on my right.
I probably won't be watching the World Series this year, because it's not on telly here, and I can't be staying up til stupid o'clock to stream things. If it's on at the weekend and I'm not dead to the world, then I might... I would love to see the Cubs winning!
Today's nails are an autumnal waterfall design. I started with two coats of Barry M's new black gelly, Black Forest. I was SO excited to hear that Barry M are finally doing a black in the gelly range - they've got so many colours and a really good formula, but so far no pure black. Anyway, it's finally here, and it's really nice.
Over the black, I then used a thin striping brush and added stripes of China Glaze Riveting and Colours by Llarowe The Heart Bleeds and Golden Rule.
I love how this came out! It's sparkly without being too over the top, and the colours blend together really nicely into an autumnal look.
What do you think?
I recently bought 5 of the Bow Thermo Topcoats - the black, purple, blue, pink and red ones. I have used the red one for today's nails.
I started with a base of the red thermo topcoat (I know! It's all the wrong way round, but there we go...) and then stamped over it using Barry M Blood Orange and MoYou London Flower Power XL06.
The Bow Thermo Topcoats are slightly sparkly thermal polishes that go from an almost invisible translucent when warm to a bright colour when cold. This one is almost the same shade as Blood Orange, so when cold, the stamping hardly shows. When warm, the stamping is clearly visible.
I added Seche over the top for added shine.
I love combining stamping with thermal polishes! The thermal effect is really strong in these Bow polishes, and I really like the sparkly finish!
For the last couple of days I've been wearing this beautiful dark red Jacava polish, Black Forest Gateau. Today, I painted roses over it for a different look.
I used three Barry M Gellys for the roses - Pink Lemonade, Rose Hip and Acai Smoothie, and two MoYou London stamping polishes for the leaves - Spring Green and Key Lime.
I've topcoated over everything for smoothness and shine.
I don't think I'll ever get bored of doing floral nails!
I live near Sheffield, and there is currently a fantastic art installation and charity fundraiser going on across the city, called the Herd of Sheffield. You can read more about it here. To cut a long story short, Sheffield is full of elephants - the big ones have been created by various artists, and the small ones have been made by local primary schools. There is SO MUCH nail art inspiration amongst them all!
Today's nails were inspired by this theatrical baby elephant, Nelly Noodle, who is inside the Crucible (my very favourite Sheffield place!). I LOVE her toenails.
I did a simple skittle using Barry M Guava and Key Lime, Illamasqua Prosperity, Essence Flashy Pumpkin and Barry M Blood Orange. I then used topcoat to stick on my smallest rhinestones in a random colour order.
I realised afterwards that I'd got the purple and the orange the wrong way round, but never mind!
I love rhinestones! I haven't worn any for ages, but now I see these, I can't think why! Look how they're reflecting in the sunshine!
So sparkly!
People always ask whether rhinestones are really messy and impractical, but if you stick them down with topcoat and then topcoat over them, they pretty much stay in place through a normal day.
I will not be leaving it so long til I use rhinestones again! And I will definitely be doing more nails based on the Herd of Sheffield elephants!
I've posted before about how much I love the Crucible Theatre (see here for my previous nails) and I was there on Thursday night for Artistic Director Daniel Evans' leaving do, so I decided it was the perfect time to redo my Crucible nails.
I love the Crucible so much! It's my far my favourite theatre ever, and I go often (although not often enough for my liking!)
These are just a straightforward chevron skittle. I used nail vinyls from What's Up Nails to make these. The base colours are Barry M Blue Grape, Essence Flashy Pumpkin, Barry M Blood Orange, Illamasqua Prosperity and Barry M Key Lime. The black top colour is OPI 4 In the Morning.
I'm happy with how these came out. They're much tidier than my previous effort, and the colours are clearer.
I'm not very well at the moment, and haven't done my nails in a few days. In the meantime, here are some nails I wore last week.
The base is Mood Maker Pink, a cheap thermal polish that goes from dark pink when cold to a paler pink when warm.
I then used geometric stencils from What's Up Nails, and a holo stamping polish by Colors by Llarowe, This Heart Bleeds for the design on my thumb and ring finger.
I love how crisp and clean the lines are with this stencil and with the stamping holo. I'm sorry about the shadow on the sunshine photo, but it was the only one I got showing how sparkly the holo is in sunshine.
I recently had a splurge on exciting nail vinyls from a US store, Whats Up Nails, after seeing them in some gorgeous blogger photos on Instagram. I was SO excited when the package came!
I've been wearing these nails for three days, and have only taken them off now because I managed to chip one. The base is Barry M Cotton. I then used the droplet vinyl stencils, and splodged on three of the new Barry M Lolly Gloss polishes, the orange one (Orange Fizz), the pink one (Pink Candy) and the red one (Cherry Drop) in a gradient-ish design. You can't actually see the change from red to pink that clearly, but I still think this works.
The vinyls are fantastic - they stick down and lie flat, and then lift off easily without leaving any sticky residue, just beautiful crisp lines.
The Lolly Gloss polishes are lovely - translucent and super shiny, and they smell of boiled sweets!
You can see the range of stencils and vinyls at Whats Up Nails here. I bought these, and used a discount code from Vics Nails, who did the gorgeous nails where I first spotted these vinyls.
I've been feeling pretty disillusioned with blogging recently, but I have still been doing my nails (and apparently buying FAR too many Mo You London stamping plates!) So today, just a quick look at a couple of the designs I've been wearing.
These nails were more reverse stamping decals. I started with a base of Barry M Pearl, and used MoYou London Flower Power 04 to stamp using Konad Black, Barry M Dragon and Colors by Llarowe This Heart Bleeds.
I really like how these came out! There are a couple of smudgy bits in places, but I'm choosing to ignore them.
These blue nails are the ones I am wearing now - I've had these on for three days now.
I started by sponging on a splodgy, random base using lots of Barry M Gelly blues.
I then stamped using MoYou London Flower Power 08 and Konad White. I managed to get the design pointing in different directions on each nail, but oh well.
The MoYou London Flower Power plates are gorgeous! I had to buy six.
I've been a bit lacking in enthusiasm for blogging recently. No real reason, I just haven't felt like it.
Anyway, these are the nails I wore for a few days earlier in the week. Yes, I did both hands.
This is a base of Barry M Pearl, and the stripes were done using China Glaze Glow with the Flow and Jacava Crimson Crush and some striping tape.
I deliberately made the stripes uneven in size and pattern as I knew if I tried to make them the same I wouldn't manage it!
Today's nails were a quick job last night before I went to bed.
I started with a base of Barry M Black Cherry, the very dark red gelly colour. This is two coats.
I then stamped using Barry M Gold Foil and MoYou London Steampunk XL 07.
I only realised afterwards that the pattern on each nail goes alternate ways! That wasn't deliberate. On my right hand, they're all pointing the same way. Oh well.
Today I'm trying out some more full-nail water decals from Born Pretty Store. These are a tartan design (which BPS call "colourful grid pattern", lol!) in a red and black colour.
As you can see, you get one large sheet of water decal, which you can cut into any size or shape you want. The decals are available here for $2.18. My pattern is #14, which on the website looks pink and brown, but which is actually a much nicer red and black design.
I didn't think there would be enough decal to cover all ten nails, so I decided to do three nails on each hand and do something else on the other nails.
I started with a base of plain red on three nails, and painted the other two with Zoya Storm, a pretty sparkly black. I then put the decals over the red nails. This meant that the yellow/orange part of the design wasn't actually visible over the red, but I think I prefer the plain red and black that I ended up with.
Application is really easy - just cut to an approximate size, drop into a bowl of water, slide off the card and apply to the nail. Then dab dry with some paper towel, and add topcoat. The topcoat melts off any of the decal overhanging the nail, and adds a super shiny finish to the nail.
I do wish the sheet had been a bit bigger, as I would have liked to have done all ten nails. As it was, I did six easily, and possibly have enough for two small nails to use later. It would not have been possible to do all ten of my nails though. But at that price, it's no hardship to buy two packs!
If you want to try these decals, or similar ones from Born Pretty Store, you can get 10% off using my discount code.
These decals were provided for my honest review. See my Disclaimer section for more information.
