Something to brighten your day

What better way to spend my Christmas break from work then to catch up with the blog and get this improvement post up!

Looking through my photos this was the first ever gradient I did. Now it's not the worst I've seen or done for that matter, but I've learnt quite a bit since this original one. For example I now wet the sponge before using it so I don't get chunks of sponge stuck on my nails, as I did with my early gradients and I also put a white base down to enhance the paler colours and really make them pop.

There's quite a lot of room for improvement here but as I say for a first attempt it is quite good. The main issue is again I'm still using false nails that I've stuck on myself and they make for this really ugly border of nail polish where I've tried to blend he false nail in to the real one and ended up with polish all over my cuticles. Plus realistically the birds are just V's....

Now I'll be the first to say I'm not that keen on this recreation. Yes the gradient is good and the clean up is fine but personally I think the birds are a little big. They were created by painting white polish on a sandwich bag, leaving it a few days to dry and then using a hole punch in the shape of a bird to cut it out. The method I'm in love with because they look perfect but in this instance they are a little too large.

Overall I'd say I'm fairly happy with it but there are still things that can be altered to put it more in the direction of what I envisaged. Let's be honest though I'm such a perfectionist when it comes to nails that it may never happen!

For this manicure I used Essie 'Grow Stronger', Barry M 'Lemon Ice Cream' and 'Matte White', Rimmel 'Hot & Spicy', Sally Hansen 'Back to the Fucshia' and Sally Hansen 'Insta-Dri'.

Christmas jumper day!

Now I know this should have been an improvement post but I was off work yesterday and it was Christmas jumper day which I kept seeing everywhere so rather than do my improvement blog I thought I'd give Christmas jumper nails a go! 

I absolutely adore these nails, which I know is a bit braggy to say, but I'm usually my own worst critic so throwing a compliment out there every once in a while is fine in my book.

Rather annoyingly the photo went a little bit out of focus when I added my watermark but aside from that they are exactly what I wanted. I've seen countless jumper designs that are red and white, blue and white or a combination of those 3 colours, but then yesterday I stumbled across some turquoise and pink ones on Pinterest which looked so different but yet still Christmassy that I need to find my own variation in this.

These were done almost entirely using the O.P.I Nordic Collection. I hadn't used them at all before this but I kept staring at the gorgeous colours every time I went to paint my nails so had to settle on them for this really. 

As much as I love the green base (My Dogsled is a Hybrid) it didn't go on very easily. It's difficult to explain, it wasn't thick but it wasn't thin or watery either. It took three coats and was very streaky on all three coats until I smoothed it over with my topcoat. It dried quickly and looks great, but it's not something you're going to want to use in a hurry! I've read other bloggers reviews and their experiences are so different, it may have easily just been my bottle or the fact it was a mini!

Overall though I would definitely use this collection again. I only have 4 bottles but after reading the review by Polish Insomniac I really want the rest of them.

For this manicure I used Essie "Grow Stronger", Maybelline "Watery Waste", O.P.I "My Dogsled is a Hybrid", "Do You Have This Colour in Stock-Holm" and "My Voice is a Little Norse". This time I changed up my top coat to "Insta-Dri" by Sally Hansen

Holidays are coming!

I know this type of Christmas tree manicure has been done time and time again but I still love it. It looks so pretty and there is something so clean and nice about black nails, even if it is at Christmas!

In person these looked so good but because the polishes I used on the black were quite dark they don't show up brilliantly, but I have a light box ordered and on its way so hopefully that should make designs like this easier to capture

I'd been thinking about this for a few days but I had so many pretty glitters I knew I'd never be able to choose so my poor boyfriend got them lumped on his lap one evening and told to pick 5 he liked! I have so many go-to favourites that I use time and time again, so it's nice to leave that decision up to someone else every so often. Whilst they'll perhaps know colours you use regularly odds are they will have no clue which brand it is let alone which specific bottle.

For this design I used Essie "Grow Stronger", Barry M "Black", O.P.I "The Impossible", "Get Your Number" and "Can't Let Go", Ciaté "Party Shoes" and "Locket" and "H K Girl" by Glisten and Glow. The Stars were from Amazon

Insomnia

My first attempt at dream catcher nails was so appallingly bad that I haven't attempted them again until now. I spent a ridiculous amount of time looking at photo after photo on Pinterest to get some inspiration, and also to convince myself it wasn't  the mammoth task I'd worked it up to be!

Looking at this first attempt there is just so much wrong with it. There is no clean up at all (to this day I still can't paint my nails without getting paint on the cuticle and skin), the picture was taken with flash which gives it that rather attractive yellow glow and of course always take your photo on carpet....

I honestly don't know why I thought this was acceptable enough to take a photo of, but at least it shows me how I've improved over the last 18 months.

Now my recreation is something I am so proud of. I can't for the life of me paint feathers despite try after try so rather than attempt something I knew would fail I decided to stick actual feathers on my nails. It was incredibly fiddly and required my boyfriends hands to help out but it looks so good. 

I actually want to try all these other designs I saw for dream catcher nails because I think the above was such a success. It's a composite of all the ideas I've taken in recently and the fit together perfectly, plus the glitter gradient nails have gone well with 2 types of glitter. 

For this manicure I used Essie "Grow Stronger", O.P.I "My Vampire is Buff", Barry M "Pomegranate", Rimmel "Wild Orchid", Rimmel "Breakfast in Bed", Essie "Jazzy Jubilant", Maybelline Color Show "White Splatter" and Glisten and Glow "HK Girl". 

A gradient good enough to eat

Lately I've had a real, well I guess you could call it a craving, for floral nails. Other designs have kind of got between me and this need for flowers but finally we're reunited!

These nails were inspired by the lovely Mercedes at @nailsbymercedes on Instagram. I took a screenshot of them weeks ago but only just got round to actually doing them!

I think the flowers look lovely but the gradient was my pride and joy with these nails. To me they look just like the sour cola bottle type sweets which are a very similar pink and blue colour, couldn't stop thinking about the sweets whilst at work. Very distracting!

My only complaint with the flowers is how the petals ended up rounded rather than with a point but aside from that I pretty much cannot find a fault. 

For this manicure I used Essie "Grow Stronger", O.P.I "My Vampire is Buff", Rimmel "Breakfast in Bed", Rimmel "Ring a Ring o'Roses", China Glaze "Fairy Dust" and my trusty top coat of "HK Girl" by Glisten and Glow.

And so this is Christmas.....

This was an improvement post I was really not looking forward to doing. I've always loved how half moon manicures looked on other, clearly more talented, girls but for some reason I just cannot get the curve right on mine and it ends up looking like a straight line. I think if I was really honest I even knew back then this didn't look good but I was just proud of being able to do anything other than plainly painting my nails.

The only positive I can find for this is that it isn't a claw! But realistically it just looks like colour blocking and it makes my hands/nails look so short and stumpy.

For my recreation I realised this wasn't something I was ever going to improve on by just doing the same thing all over again so I've mixed it up slightly and the result is the below.

Now I have to be honest and say this really was not my best work. This is the first time I have used polishes by So Susan Cosmetics and don't get me wrong the go on quite well, definitely require a second stroke due to streaks, but the green is so dark it stains incredibly easily. I used a lot of pure acetone to try and clean this up but even that couldn't get clean lines with the green.

I do love the combination of colours though. I've been in such a Christmassy mood for the last few weeks and these polishes just came together so beautifully to create my first Christmas-themed manicure of the year.

Overall I'd say there is some improvement in the sense I knew these were not my strong point and modified it to make something that possibly, in easier colours to clean up, would be really lovely.

For this manicure I used Essie "Grow Stronger" as a base, "Red Cape", "Ice Queen" and "Mermaid" by So Susan and of course "HK Girl" by Glisten and Glow.

Duck duck goose!

I'm not normally one for such simple nails but a combination of a hashtag on Instagram and my boyfriends suggestion inspired this manicure!

I don't keep track of what polishes I have and haven't used like most nail girls, all mine get put away according to brand and I just rely on memory for knowing what I've used. So when I saw the hashtag untriednov I thought this would be a good opportunity to pull out all my untried polishes and find a way of using them.

This is a lovely pale yellow polish with black flecks by Models Own, and it's called Goose. It's the only Models own polish I have and if I'm honest it was very thin and almost watery in consistency. This 2 very thick coats and you can still see my nails underneath.

I would possibly consider using it again because it's so pretty but because it has to be applied thickly or with a silly amount of coats, it takes a very long time to dry. Definitely not one for when you're in a hurry!

The bow being stuck on was an indirect suggestion from my boyfriend. When I told him I was doing #untriednov he told me to start using the things I have to stick on nails, since I very rarely find anything to use them with. It sets this off brilliantly and lifts it slightly so they're not just plain painted nails.

Apologies for the big gaps between blogs lately. I keep getting home from work so late it's messing me up a little but hopefully I should get back on it in the coming weeks 😄

All dressed up and nowhere to go!

Tuxedo nails, and a little lady in a fancy red dress! 

The first time I did these nails they were my single greatest achievement, or at least that's what I thought at the time. I remember doing them the day before me and my friends all went shopping over Easter bank holiday weekend last year. I got compliments from my friends and even from a shop assistant on how good they looked.

There were two versions of this manicure. The one you see above with black nail caviar on the ring finger (and the rather attractive missing false nail on the thumb!) and also the ones below with the matte black and shiny tip. The reason for this was all the nail caviar either lost the black and turned a grey/silver or fell off completely. I haven't really used caviar much since because of how badly we got along.

Now as you can see it was a genius move to try and take pictures of a black and white manicure on a black background. The tip of the ring finger is virtually invisible. This time round I've got a little more sense!

The overall look on this manicure is different. The accent nail being in red and more white being on show on the tux nails gives the whole design a lot more brightness.

It was actually my boyfriends idea to have the accent nail as a red dress, I keep looking at them thinking its 4 well dressed men with just one date.

The lines are cleaner as this time I used a nail vinyl for the v shape at the tip of the nail rather than drawing them freehand. Also having the design on my natural nails really helped. I used the false stick on ones for so long and they were awful. They didn't fit properly so I tried to file the bottoms to shape them but this just made them look more raggedy and unpolished.

On the plus side there was no claw pose for these nails since I did the design upside down and had no choice but to pose this way with them.

For this design I used "Help me Grow" by Essie, "White Hot Love" by Rimmel, "Black Satin" by Rimmel and "Glisten and Glow" by HK Girl. The nails vinyls used were of course by Teismom (instagram) and the nail art brush was from Stylishnailartshop (instagram).

Autumn is here!

It's that time of year again where the cosy boots and woolly jumpers come back out of hiding. This also means of course that the dark nails are also back out to play. Personally this is my favourite time of year. I love the aforementioned boots like you wouldn't believe but I also love the dark colours that are now totally acceptable to be paraded on my nails once again.

These particular nails were devised whilst I was on a trip away with my boyfriend, which unfortunately is to blame for my 2 week absence from blogging and instagram. My original idea also featured leaves on the nails, or as an accent nail, but the two just didn't fit properly so I just stuck with my favourite bit!

These nails are super simple to do with almost any combination of colours. The only negative point with these would be that perhaps I used too many colours. Aside from that I think they've come out great. Without the studs they looked a little plain in my opinion, hence their addition.

For this manicure I used Essie "Help me Grow" as a base coat and then for the main part of the manicure I used Barry M's Chilli, Paprika, Mustard, Cocoa, Cardamom and Chai. My top coat is HK Girl by Glisten and Glow.

 

In a galaxy far far away....

Welcome to my third improvement post! 

This is one I've been looking forward to for a little while! A lot of other bloggers are doing Galaxy nails at the moment but since I knew this was coming up I held off doing any. This is only the second time I have ever done this design on my nails. I've seen so many amazing ones that it's actually put me off doing any because of how bad I'm worried I'll look in comparison.

I can vividly remember doing these last year. I was so proud of myself and looked at them constantly because of how amazing I thought they looked. Compared to the previous couple of nail designs I'd done these were, in my mind anyway, quite advanced and more like nail art.

Looking back at them now they look awful. The picture is blurry, there are flecks of nail polish around my nails, the colours aren't blended properly, you can see how bumpy they are because there obviously wasn't any top coat on them and of course the claw continues! On the positive side they did give me the confidence to start trying slightly more difficult things, as you should see in future posts.

My inspiration for the colours in this new version came from the film Guardians of the Galaxy. It's a brilliant film and because it's set in space it is a great source of inspiration for kooky nail art.

I am so pleased with how they have turned out. A friend said they had a Big Bang look to them which seems very apt. The colours go beautifully together and the glitter on top does make it look very much like space.

There is no comparison really to my first attempt; a little bit of glitter and a top coat can do wonders for most designs! Rather than the colours just being put in different areas they've been layered up and blended together to give the design a more realistic effect.

In planning for this manicure I did a whole host of Galaxy nails in different colours so I could pick which looked best and this easily outshone the others. The others, however, were very pretty and will be kept as potential backgrounds for other designs.

For this design I used my trusty base coat "Help me Grow" by Essie, "Black Satin" by Rimmel, "Encore" by Ciaté, "Mediterranean" by Barry M, "Teal" by Barry M and "Fairy Dust" by China Glaze (this was meant for Galaxy nails!). My top coat was of course the brilliant "H K Girl" by Glisten and Glow.

Brilliant in blue!

These nails are mostly inspired by the lovely powder blue on the index and pinky fingers as well as the glitter topper. The rest was just built around this. I've seen a lot of flowers on dotty backgrounds so I was probably influenced by that too. 

When I started out with nails I wasn't remotely fussed with floral nails. They looked so complicated and they just weren't my style, but now I love these vintage style designs with roses and dots. I want to do them all the time but have to keep in mind they should be varied.

Now I admit there are some problems with these nails. When cleaning up the acetone, I managed to drag the blue flower and mix it with the nude base a little, creating that odd look near the cuticles. Also my cuticles and the skin around my nails looks very dry which is not the case in person. But other than that I'm quite pleased with them.

Writing this blog is really encouraging me to try designs I haven't done before. Whilst I have done floral manicures, of course, I'm yet to actually do any on anything other than a plain background. I love how rather than clashing or fighting with the dots, the flowers fit perfectly and make a lovely addition to what otherwise would be quite plain.

The colours I used for this were 'My Vampire is Buff' by O.P.I, 'Mind the gap, Victoria' by Rimmel London, 'Midnight Cami' by Essie and 'Confetti' by Urban Outfitters. They work so well and I'm excited about doing more nude and blue manis!

A simple French

So my second improvement post!

I remember doing this design last march and thinking they were of a really good quality. Looking at this photo it's crazy to think that was my opinion back then, and that I happily went round with them on my nails!

As you can see I was still wearing the skin-drying false nails, which had a lovely ring of polish from the old manicure around the edge where the nail varnish had managed to get underneath. Oh, of course the claw pose continued, looking over my photos I kept on with this horrendous hand poisition for at least another 3/4 months!

My latest attempt I would consider to be greatly improved, but this time I've had much more practice since I've done a few different coloured French manicures in the last year and a half.

Everything in this photo is of a higher standard. The lighting is better and the hand pose is a far cry from the original. And stepping away from false nails has done my hands a world of good! I no longer have residual polish around the edge of my nails (unless it's particularly difficult to get off)! Removing the false nails has allowed my natural nails to grow well in terms of length and strength.

As I said in my previous improvement post, it's really encouraging to be able to see how far you've come by doing this; I would recommend anyone who feels like they have hit a bit of a wall with their nails, or in any other aspect for that matter, to look back at old work and try to recreate it. It definitely spurs you on to try even harder.

For this manicure I used Essie "Help me Grow" as a base coat, it's a little more expensive than I usually spend (Essie always is in England!) but I really like it. The white tips were created with Rimmel "White Hot Love" and nail vinyls from Linda over at www.nailvinyls.com (teismom on Instagram). For the gold strip underneath I used my brush from Stylishnailartshop, www.etsy.com/shop/Stylishnailartshop and "Fool's Gold" by Collection Work the Colour. The top coat I used was Glisten and Glow by HK Girl, as if you couldn't guess by the photos!

Pearl-fect in pink!

My lovely subtle, girly pink nails!

These nails were all based around me wanting negative space glitter chevrons and just going from there. It was my boyfriends suggestion to keep everything quite pale and subtle.

The flowers were inspired by a recent mani swap I did on Instagram with Mac_schoen_nails. They're so easy to create and as simple as they are they do look lovely and are a great addition to any quick, simple manicure.

I like them a lot because it's something I've not really gone for before. They've come out great compared to what I was expecting. My original plan was to have black and grey nails with the glitter chevrons but they didn't seem to go properly.

The pale pink on the index and pinky fingers is an unnamed polish by Avon, the white is "White Hot Love" by Rimmel and the pink detailing for the flower is "Ring a Ring o' Roses". The chevron nail was created with "Fairy Dust" by China Glaze and nail vinyls by Linda at www.nailvinyls.com and my top coat for the whole manicure is "H.K Girl" by Glisten and Glow.

As much as I put moisturiser on before these photos my cuticles still look so dry; if you have any suggestions for helping with this, they will be greatly appreciated!

From messy beginnings.....

So my very first improvement post!

These nails were painted Valentines Day 2013 for a "The Incredibles" themed girls night out. It was a brilliant night and I thought these nails were the bees knees. How embarrassing!

As you can see there was no such thing as clean up, watermarking, good lighting or any kind of decent hand posture, aside from "the claw"! These were done on false stick-on nails, the glue from which completely dried out my skin and nails. 

Since then I feel like I've come a long way and this is my new attempt.

The latest manicure is far improved from where it was. There was no flash used, thank god; I used to think that was the only way to light a photo! Also the clean up just makes it all look crisper and cleaner on the edges. Don't get me wrong I'm not saying it's perfect but in terms of progression it's come on leaps and bounds.

I'm never usually one for practice makes perfect, anyone would tell you I say "if at first you don't succeed give up", but this definitely makes me see it's worth it. If nothing else the health and condition of my hands and nails is a million miles better than where it was, Which to me is the most important part. It's lovely having pretty nails but there's really no point if your cuticles are dry and your skin is cracked!

The polishes used for this manicure were my base coat of Essie 'Grow on Me'! the red is 'Raspberry' by Barry M, the black is 'Black Satin' by Rimmel London, and the top coat is of course Glisten & Glow's 'HK Girl'. I also used striping tape from Amazon (didn't even own striping tape with the first attempt!) and the studs were a gift from a friend.

Even though this is a very simple design it's lovely to see how far I've come in 17 months.

Please let me know what you think of these posts or what needs improving :)

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Get to know me!

I thought my very first post should be about me so you could get to know me before I start up properly.

The idea behind these blogs will be nail care and nail art. I'm by no means a professional or expert but I really enjoy painting my nails and I try to put in a lot of effort in terms of caring for them. It wasn't always the case, I used to have stained and brittle nails from a total lack of care but I've worked hard to make them look good even with nothing on them.

I've only been doing this for 18 months so I'm still improving a lot. It all started when a friend did my nails for a night out and painted owls on for me giving them little stuck on pearl details. I didn't even know it was possible for ordinary people to do these things, I thought it was only in nail salons that you could get this kind of art work. After that I began buying more nail polish and started watching YouTube videos all the time. My friends now look to me to do their nails for a night out which is a brilliant feeling. 

I currently live with my boyfriend of 8 and a half years who is unbelievebly supportive of the time and money I spend on this and actually asks me to paint his little finger nails whenever I do my nails.

In any other spare time I have I'm a bit of a history fanatic. I subscribe to a history magazine and love historical books/TV programmes. Also I love Greys Anatomy, probably my favourite TV show. Obsessed! 

My plan is it post twice a week to begin with. One will be a improvement post. I will recreate old designs I've done starting with the oldest and working up. The other will be either a review of a product or I will write about the design I am wearing that week. If you have any suggestions for designs you want me to try or products you want me to test out just let me know :-)

My Instagram and Facebook names are exactly the same as the blog, fingertipped and I would love it if you guys went over and had a look there as well.

This post should be the first of many and I can't wait!