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.
Recently Lauren from The Naily Mail has been having a polish sale, and I took the chance to snap up some more Jacava polishes. I LOVE Jacava, and they seem to have gone out of business, so I was really happy to get these.
I used three of these for this look, all purples. I started with a base using Purple Promise (the dark creme) and Blueberry Muffin (the lilac creme) and then used Marrakesh Nights (the dark purple shimmery one) and some tape for the triangles.
Marrakesh Nights is a bit too dark to really show over Purple Promise in these photos, but in real life it's a bit more visible.
Both the cremes are the usual excellent Jacava quality - Blueberry Muffin is a one coater and I used two for Purple Promise.
I love the Jacava brushes as they're very narrow, which works really well for me, and the long handle makes them really easy to control.
Sorry I've been missing for the last week! I've been properly poorly - had a very nasty bug which has wiped me out completely. I've done nothing but sleep, make hot water bottles and watch Say Yes to the Dress. But today I started feeling a bit better! I could tell, because the first sign was wanting to paint my nails!
I did a very simple look using two of the Barry M Gellys which I posted about a month ago. I wasn't a huge fan of the brushes or the staining last time, but these were a lot easier to use second time round.
I started with two coats of Black Cherry, the very dark red one. I then used tape to mark off long triangles, and painted a coat of the red glittery one, Sparkling Ruby over the top. Just for good measure, and because I have a glamorous evening ahead in my pyjamas, I added a sparkly red rhinestone.
I love how these look!
I think Sparkling Ruby looks so much better over the dark base - it's somehow a lot more sophisticated than in its pure bright red form.
I'm a bit shocked at how much my nails have grown recently too! They're looking really long! That makes me think they'll probably break very soon...
Lauren at The Naily Mail did some gorgeous geometric nails last month, and I've been thinking about the design several times over the last few weeks. Today, when I was a bit stuck for inspiration for what to do, I decided to do my own version of them.
I started with a base of China Glaze Pink-ie Promise (which is lovely, but takes ages to dry well!) and then used striping tape with Zoya Blaze and Barry M Xmas Limited Edition 2012 to make the pattern, and then I added a coat of Seche Vite for extra gloss.
This was easy peasy to do (apart from waiting for Pink-ie Promise to dry) but I'm in love with how it turned out! I love the colours together and I love the effect, and the contrast between the creme, the metallic and the sparkly Zoya.
I really like this design, and I think this will be something I will be doing again with different colour combinations.
I'm excited about today's post! I have a third lovely Jacava polish to show you, plus some nail art I've done using the new polishes, plus details of an exciting Jacava giveaway which will allow one lucky person to win the entire Woodlanders polish collection!
Photo credit: Jacava.com
These were the three polishes I tried:
You can see my swatches of Holbein Place and Justice Walk by clicking on the links. Today I have Phene Street to show you.
This is the darkest of the three, and is a gorgeous muted, dusky purple. I really love the tone of all three of these polishes (and of lots more in the collection) which really does fit in with the misty autumnal woodland idea of the collection.
Phene Street is another polish with a fantastic formula and finish. This is two coats, although this was opaque with one. I only added a second out of habit!
I really like how these colours go together, so I also used them for a couple of nail art looks. First off, I used sellotape to make a simple blocked tape design.
I was really pleased with this, and wore this for a day at the weekend.
The colours go so well together, I think!
Then today, I've used the colours to make a gradient and a water marble.
These worked really well for water marbling, I was very impressed! And they're fabulous for gradients - I love how nicely they blended.
Last up, the exciting news! Jacava are running a competition which will allow someone to win the entire collection! (See the range here - that's SEVENTEEN bottles of polish!) All you have to do is check out their Twitter or Facebook, and follow the instructions to enter.
These polishes were provided for my honest review. I don't get anything if you enter or win the competition (I'm entering it too!) See my Disclaimer section for more information.
I'm sorry, I've been missing in action and haven't posted for a couple of weeks now. It's been our busiest time at work, and I've had zero spare time or energy for doing stuff to my nails! Things are starting to ease off now though, and I'm hoping to get back to more regular posting.
You don't need to buy lots of fancy nail art tools or expensive polishes or complicated things to make nail art! If you're a nail blogger, or a nail blog addict, you'll already know about these tricks, but my NORMAL friends and colleagues are always asking how I do some of the things I do on my nails, so here's a post for them! It's not magic, or something super complicated. It's usually something cheap and easy. Here are my top tips for nail art using stuff you probably already have at home.
These are my essential items - I always have these at home, and use most of them almost daily on my nails. Sellotape. Baking foil. Cocktail sticks. Makeup sponges. Cotton buds.
So, what do I use all these things for?
Let's start with makeup sponges. I buy these in the pound shop - this whole bag cost £1. Using these, plus some foil and tape, you can make a gradient nail art look, which looks far more difficult than it is. This is one of the things that my colleagues most often seem impressed by.
Start by dabbing the sponge on some tape on all sides - this removes any fluff or loose bits of sponge. This is especially important with cheap sponges, as they can be a bit rougher in quality than the more expensive ones.
Next step is to paint your nails with your base colour. Here, I've used Models Own Coconut Cream, which is a pretty off-white creme. Then, I lay down some foil on my work surface, and paint two stripes of my chosen colours next to each other on the foil. I'm using Models Own Coconut Cream and Bubblegum.
Then use your sponge to press down on the two colours (or three, if you're feeling fancy!) - I use the wedge shaped end of the sponge, but any surface works.
You then just dab this onto your nail. The amount of pressure used is something you need to get used to. Too light, and the colours won't transfer. Too firm, and you could make a mess and make the surface lumpy. To really blend the colours, move the sponge slightly in a wiggling motion up and down the nail. This is just a very slight movement though! Do this on all the nails, and repeat with an extra layer if necessary to make the colours more intense.
You'll end up with something like this! As you can see, there's a lot of mess round the sides of the nails, but we'll deal with that later. There's also some textured bobbly bits showing on my middle finger nail here, and that's my fault for not cleaning the sponge on the tape enough. They are tiny bobbles of sponge. When the polish was dry, most of it just brushed off.
This is where the cotton buds come in! Dipped in acetone or nail varnish remover, they're my essential for cleaning up the mess round my finger tips after a gradient.
Add topcoat, and ta da! One gradient mani. Depending on the colour combination you use, you could have something subtle and pretty, or dramatic and wild. You could do a three-colour gradient, or a different gradient on each nail, or a vertical gradient along the length of the nail... the options are as open as your imagination!
I've already shown you the sellotape used here for prepping the sponge for a gradient. That's just the start though, and my most common use for tape is for blocking off parts of the nail for a tape mani. I used China Glaze Shooting Stars over my gradient to make a pretty triangle design.
First off, I cut short strips of tape, and stick them to the back of my hand. This is to slightly soften the stickiness, so that it doesn't rip the polish off the nail! You also need to make sure your base polish is totally dry and firm. This is where a quickdry topcoat is helpful!
I then position the tape over the nail, and make sure it's lying flat on the nail, with no lifted edges or bubbles. Here, I've used two strips to tape off a triangle shape. I then paint the contrasting colour (in this case, my sparkly glitter) over the tape, and quickly remove the tape before the polish dries.
Again, you're only limited by imagination: you could do stripes, or block off the tip, or the base of the nail. Or you could tape off one side of the nail to make a 50:50 colour split. I did this triangle design, alternating with the opposite pattern of cutting a triangle of tape so that the middle section of the nail was blocked off.
Here's my final design!
And here's another tape mani. This one uses three new Jacava polishes - keep an eye out on the blog, full reviews are coming soon! To do this, I painted my base colour (the blue), taped off half the nail diagonally and painted the second colour (the pinky one), and then taped off the nail diagonally in the other direction before painting the third colour.
On to the cocktail sticks! I use these for all sorts of things - they're great for clearing cuticles of any flooded polish when it's still wet. They're really useful for helping to peel off tape from the nail, or to add rhinestones or studs (using the point of a cocktail stick dipped in topcoat). But three nail art techniques that can be done with a cocktail stick are dots, dragmarbles (also called drymarbles) and spun sugar manis.
Dotting is one of the easiest things you can do with a cocktail stick. Yes, you can buy fancy metal dotting tools of various sizes, but you don't need them to make dotty nail art. Just dip the cocktail stick tip in polish and dot it on your base. Depending how much you dip, you can make teeny tiny dots, or bigger ones, or even shaped ones.
Next, drag marbling.
Dry marbles, or drag marbles are something I've only recently started trying out. You need to check out Sveta Sanders, she's the expert at these! Basically, you paint a thick layer of one colour, then quickly dab on dots of another colour, and while they're still wet, use the cocktail stick to swirl and drag to make a marbled design. This can be messy or neat, complicated or simple. Or just messy, like mine!
This is what it's meant to look like!
Lastly, a spun sugar mani involves using the stick to draw out long strings of drying polish which you then trail over a base colour, just like spun sugar that is used to decorate desserts.
To do this, drop a few dots of polish on some foil, and leave it to start thickening up and drying a bit. Then use the cocktail stick to draw the polish back and forth over your nail. This works best when the strings are thin, like spun sugar. I'm still working on this, so some of my strings are a bit thick!
This process leaves a real mess on the sides of the fingers, but acetone and a cotton bud easily solves that!
Here are a couple of manis I did using a combination of the techniques. I'm less than happy with the finished look, but I like some individual nails more than others.
I'm fairly pleased with how the dots came out here, and I like the gold spun sugar nail. I'm not happy with the drag marble at all though, as it just looks like a thick mess. Oh well, it's a learning curve!
This second mani was done with my new Jacava polishes again. This time, the drag marble is a bit better, but I'm not sure if it's too subtle to see properly. The spun sugar looked better before I added topcoat, which has flattened it out a bit.
Lastly, foil glitter polish removal! Some polish, especially glitters, can be a real devil to remove. I'm sure we've all experienced having to scrub away at rough glitter on the nails, which shreds the cotton wool and is really hard work. But the foil removal method makes it super easy.
First, cut some strips of foil.
Then add a bit of cotton wool soaked in acetone or polish remover on the nail.
Then wrap the nail tightly in foil.
Do this on all nails.Wow, this photo makes my freaky bent thumb look really obvious!
After a few minutes, just slide off the foil and cotton wool, and the polish just wipes off! I love this method, and use it really often.
So there we go. That's my tips for some easy nail art using stuff that you almost certainly have at home already. Who says you need fancy tools and equipment to have fancy nails?
