Floral ruffian

I have been looking at some fashion pieces to get ideas for my nail art and this dress by Albert Ferretti inspired these off centre ruffian floral nails:

I used Nails Inc Porchester Place for the orange base then painted on the ruffian (tutorial) with Barry M Lychee, sitting it slightly off centre so I had a sweep of colour down the side of the nail. I then used a small nail art brush and Barry M Passionfruit and Key Lime, NYC Blue Sky and Nails Inc Phoenix Place to draw on the flowers. The accent nail is NYC Blue Sky with Digital Nails Ultimate Ginger. 

I love this! I'm making a really effort to come up with some unusual colour combinations and nail art choices and I just love how this came out. The off centre ruffian is very fresh and cool, and incredibly easy to do if you have steady hands. 

For my right hand instead of using a brush to draw the flowers I used my dotting tool to put on splotches of the same colours- it looks exactly the same from a normal distance but you can see the difference here:

If you are not confident using a brush I would just go in with a dotting tool- it's still very effective.  For such a simple design it looks amazing! 

Tweet

Up! Nail Art with Indy's Indies

A new UK indie polish maker has popped up :). Indy's Indies first collection was inspired by disney films and a couple of autumn themed polishes. The one which caught my eye was the totally unique glitter topper Balloon House, inspired by the movie Up! This is a clear based polish with small circle glitters in a variety of matte colours. Rather than just doing a swatch of the polish I decided to do some nail art representing my favourite thing about the movie (other than the touching sequence where you are introduced to Ellie) Kevin!

My index and little fingers are single coats of Balloon House so you can see what it looks like alone (with added balloon tails). For my ring finger I hand placed glitter into the bunch to get the clustered effect. I then used my nail art pen to draw on the strings and the outline of Kevin on my middle finger before filling in the colours. The bubbles were my fault because I underestimated how thick the polish was and didn't leave enough time to dry between coats.

The colours used were: Essie Rock the Boat, Barry M Black nail art pen, Indy's Indies Balloon House, OPI Tomorrow Never Dies and Hi Pumpkin, NYC Lexington Yellow, Digital Nails Convergent, Elegant Touch White.

I love how this turned out and it got a few compliments as well :). I'm excited to see what else Danielle is coming up with and I hope there are some more gems like this in her future collections.

Tweet

Flame Nails

Today's post is a quick one of a flame manicure I did.

I based this on this tutorial by Honeymunchkin. If you're going to try this I recommend waiting until your base colour is dry before you start adding in colours with your striping brush.

The polishes used here are: OPI Every Month is Oktoberfest, I'm not really a waitress, A woman's prague-ative, Bourjois Sunny Sun, Orly Holla, NYC Chelsea Cherry, Digital Nails Bad Wolf and Lac Attack Weasleys' Wizarding Wheezes.

Tweet

Day 19: Glitter OMD Challenge

I went through three designs for glitter before settling on the awesomeness that is this one.

This is three coats of OPI Candle Light stamped with Barry M Guava which was then used to create a half moon shape on the nail with a coat of Digital Nails Ultimate Ginger over the Guava. Ultimate Ginger is an amazing glitter polish full of marigold, orange and white glitter, it perfectly suits this colour combination. The photos of this don't even come close to how amazing this looks in real life. The stamping is much more visible in person but I guess the colours were just a bit too much for the camera to pick up the stamping.

I think the half moon is a very flattering nail art design, it makes your nails look longer although perhaps not when the colours contrast this much.

Check out everyone else's glitter manis here.

Tweet

Day 14: Flowers OMD Challenge

For the flowers challenge I decided to freehand some very simple flowers over a complex jelly sandwich base.

The jelly sandwich is made up of OPI Bubblebath, Digital Nails Wibbly Wobbly and Digital Nails Bad Wolf. When I first finished this combination I thought my nails looked like they were mouldy but it was just the light and this jelly sw combination has been growing on me for the past day :). I think it looks like a meadow in the back ground thanks to the pink hexes present in Wibbly Wobbly. 

The colours of the flowers are a yellow polish mixed with white and dots of OPI Hi Pumpkin. 

Perhaps not everyone's idea of a summer mani but I am really enjoying the simplicity of this. check out everyone else's flower manis here. 

Tweet

Day 7: Holo OMD Challenge

I did something a little different for the holo challenge. I used one of my untried polishes Emily de Molly's Fifth Element in three coats then added a coat of Digital Nails Spectraflair. I only had a 10 minute sun window to take these photos so I apologise for the weird background and skin colour

The Emily de Molly polish has the brightest glitter I've ever seen, those red hexes are incredible.

The spectraflair produces this amazing subtle linear holo effect which really adds to The Fifth Element.

Remember to check out everyone else's Holographic mani (probably more arty than mine) here. 

Tweet

Digital Nails Spectraflair

When I was browsing the Digital Nails etsy shop I came across her Spectraflair top coat- a top coat which can make any polish holographic by applying it over the top. How could I resist that? I first decided to try it over solid polishes just to get a feel for the effect. If it doesn't come out in the pictures allow me to express how amazing this polish is: there are rainbows flying off my nails! I tried it over A England Dorian Gray, Barry M Racing Green, Barry M Black, Nails Inc Hampstead Heath and OPI Eurso Euro. One coat of spectraflair wasn't enough for my tastes (although if you're not secretly a magpie it would be) and two coats was magical.

More details below the jump

Tweet

June Tri polish post 4

Sometimes the best things are simple:

Tweet

Digital Nails Run you clever boy

This is the final Digital nails polish that I have to show you from the last lot that I bought and it is Run you clever boy and remember, a polish dedicated to the mysterious Clara Oswald. Here is the beautiful polish and a picture which could well have been the inspiration for this polish. Run you clever boy is a deep maroon coloured polish with green colour shifting flakies.

Source:Smiles on rainy days

Tweet

The Pandorica Opens

I got Pandorica from Digital nails along with the other Doctor Who themed polishes and have been saving it until I was short on time as I knew I wouldn't want to do nail art over the top of it. This polish is special to me as I got together with my boyfriend just after watching the two pandorica episodes one evening :). After I saw the swatch of it on Accio lacquer I was really excited because I love holographic polishes and boy is this polish holographic.

Tweet

The Ultimate Ginger- Digital Nails

My second Digital Nails parcel finally arrived :). I was really excited by the Ladies of Who collection and got four of them although now I wish I had bought Hello Sweetie as well. The first one I wanted to put on my nails was actually Run You Clever Boy, which is surprising because I'm not really a red kind of girl but my outfit choices conspired against me and I ended up wearing The Ultimate Ginger, a tribute to Amy Pond. This polish is a reference to the excellent episode where they meet Vincent Van Gough. For me this episode shows the heart of Doctor Who and highlights why fans love the show so much- how could you not be moved by the Doctor taking a struggling painter from a time when he is not appreciated to somewhere where an art critic will tell him that he is the greatest painter who ever lived. I think it also deals with the issue of depression in a very sensitive manner "the painful days don't take away from the good days".

Tweet

Expelliarmus

My Digital Nails parcel came last week and I've been working my way through these polishes ever since, once I took off Ultimate Ginger which I will be showing you tomorrow, I put on Expelliarmus, the Martha Jones inspired nail polish. I'm not really a purple person but this polish has enough interest to make me enjoy it and whoever I end up giving it to out of my friends will probably love it. The formula is excellent, I didn't have to fish for the large circles and the glitter applied really evenly. There is an awesome bright blue shimmer to this polish so I decided to pair it with my new Orly neon blue, Blue Collar. This is my second time using the Manicurator's geometric French tip design and I think it works really well with these two polishes, I used a white underneath the blue to make it more neon.

Click on the jump to see some more photos of this and of a Cambridge event.

Tweet