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 😄