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.

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31DC Inspired by a tutorial 33DC Tribal

To do a double challenge for this I just had to find a tribal tutorial that I liked. I found one by Simple nail art designs here .

I was doing these quite late at night so the lighting is a bit weird in these photos. I used A England Lady of the Lake, Essie The Girls are Out, Lilypad Lacquer Nature Calling and OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls for the colours and painted on the details with acrylic paint.

Tomorrow is the very last day of the 31day challenge and I will be recreating an awesome mani so come back and check it out :).

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31DC Artwork

I saw a picture on google images a while ago and pinned it and I thought I'd revisit it for my artwork mani. It's a field of flowers with poppies as the main focus.

This did not have any credit on google- but if you know whose it is please let me know. (EDIT- Lucy kindly found out that this belongs to Suzzee)

The polishes I used in this were NYC Lexington Yellow Chelsea Cherry, Essie The Girls are Out, Barry M Key Lime, Guava, Essie Rock the Boat. I painted all of this using a thin brush to make some of the dots more irregular than if I had used dotting tools.

I really like this, it does look like I have a field on my nails :).

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31DC Inspired by a pattern

I was inspired by the triangles pattern on some of my bedding. Unfortunately my blues sort of merged together, but the pink worked really well :).

I used Chirality Cu2+ and Dance Legend Teleportation for the base colours then made decals on a plastic bag for the two triangle nails with Essie The Girls are Out and Beach Bum Blu.

This one looks so much better in sun than in shade. The Dance Legend is so holographic!

I've enjoyed the 31 day challenge but this week is a struggle so I'm glad it's winding down. The 33 day challenge will continue until December but only three times a week which is much more manageable- I feel like I have a lot of untrieds I want to show you but haven't been able to because of the challenge restrictions. I also want to show you my autumn colour palette.

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31DC Flowers

As soon as I saw this design by Mr. Candiipants I knew it was a floral design that I would actually want to wear on my nails. I'm not a flower person at all but this soft out of focus look I really like. I also managed this on both my hands so I'm very happy.

The polishes I used in this were NYC Lincoln Centre, High Line Green and Pinstripe White, Nails Inc Blenheim terrace,  Jessica Lime Cooler and Essie Rock the Boat

This was noticed and admired by several people which is always a really nice boost :)

I don't have much more to say about this apart from that it looks really classy and fresh on the nails and it's super easy so you should give it a go :).

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31DC: Purple End of Summer Lavender Nail Art

When I think about the end of summer I think of the smell of lavender. In Cambridge at the moment all of the lavender is out and I love it, the smell and the look. Nail lacquer UK currently has a competition running where the theme is "the end of summer" so I thought I'd paint lavender on my nails. This also fits with the purple themed of the 31 day challenge.

The base for this manicure is Essie Rock the Boat and then I used Cirque Erda and A England Lady of the Lake.

I then decided to matte top coat the manicure to make it more interesting- sometimes the matte just makes manicures look complete and I think that is the case here.

Back to normal non- rotated pictures, I only thought that I should have done these the other way up for the sake of photos after I had done them...

I really really like this nail art and I hope you do too :). You may have noticed a new tab pop up in my pages this is where I will be summing up my 31 day challenge posts as I continue through the challenge so feel free to go have a look and see all of my challenge manis in one place :).

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31DC Yellow bees

I decided to use one of my untried glitters for this, Tara's Talons More polish less speed, I used NYC Lexington Yellow as a base and on the bee nails. This was a little on the fly but I really like where it ended up.

I drew on the bees and trails with my Barry M Black nail art pen. It's so easy to use, 5 months after they first came out they're still one of my nail art staples.

I'm thinking of the glitter as a field of flowers which the bees are flitting between. This is one coat of More Polish, Less Speed it's a real glitter bomb. It was smooth with one coat of topcoat.

I know yellow is not a popular nail polish choice however it is one of my favourites, it's so fun and can brighten up your day instantly. Tomorrow we're onto green, which is a combined swatch and nail art post. 

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31DC Orange

Orange, orange well I could paint on oranges but that's boring lets do something more exciting like waves of orange. I freehanded the waves with the polish brushes in Nails Inc Porchester Place, Essie Sunday Funday and H&M Orange. OK so the Essie is coral but who's checking ;)

I have to show you Porchester place alone, it's a gorgeous peachy orange shade. It was a little streaky on the first coat but perfect on the second.

So this nail art is fairly simple but we still have 29 days to go, I don't want to peak too soon. I also like designs where you use the brushes in the polish- less clean up required.

This mani makes orange wearable for me, I really like it.

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Holographic Brush Stroke Mani

I have been seeing brush stroke manis everywhere recently and after trying one out on my friend Heather (which you'll see tomorrow) I decided to do one on myself with a pink, blue and grey colour scheme. I also included two holographic polishes which gave this mani an extra dimension in the sun.

The above photo shows how this mani looks in the shade and the below shows how it transforms in the sunlight:

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Day 29: Inspired by Fashion OMD Challenge

Hello new followers *waves* I just got my 30th follower on bloglovin and got very excited :). I appreciate all of you reading my blog greatly, let me know if there's anything you would like to see that I'm not already doing :). Now onto the post:
There are fashions in make up as there are in clothes and this look is based on an Illamasqua tutorial inspired by henna. I greatly enjoyed making this look as I have an interest in body art and enjoy painting henna on myself occasionally.

The polishes involved here are Orly Blue Collar, Essie Sunday Funday and my Barry M Nail art pens in black and white. The eyeliner I used to draw the art on my fingers is Maybelline Master Precise Liquid Eyeliner in black

Although the nail art here is so simple the eyeliner art made this look really fun and interesting, definitely something I would consider again for the right kind of event, it would be a great look for a day festival or a fancy dress party.

Only two more looks to go, check out everyone else's fashion inspired manis here.

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Day 27: Inspired by Jewellery OMD Challenge

Only four more days to go of this challenge! Today's challenge is to be inspired by a piece of jewellery and I've had these earrings for a couple of months. My first thought when I saw them was that they'd be a good thing to copy in nail art.

I used NYC Full metal jacket for the base then dotted with Essie Naughty nautical, Jessica Goddess and Orly Hottie.

Remember to look at everyone else's jewellery inspired manis here.

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Day 25: Inspired by a Film OMD and Tri-Polish Challenges

The film I am being inspired by is The Lord of The Rings, in particular the idyllic images of Bilbo Baggins' home. I am still restricted by the tri-polish colours and I have used two of my polishes Essie Rock the Boat and NYC Greenwich Village as well as the white polish Jessica Goddess and some glitters pulled from Pocket Money Polishes I Want Candy to form clouds and a sun.

I enjoyed this although the designs which go along sets of nails look a little strange unless you have your nails in the exact right position.

I was quite pleased with myself when I thought of using the glitter from I Want Candy to form the sun, it's the perfect colour. I will be featuring I Want Candy in an upcoming post but it's a great neon glitter topper.

Check out everyone from the OMD Challenge's film manicures here and tri-polish manis below

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Day 23: Music Themed OMD and Tri-polish Challenge

For the music themed challenge I decided to take inspiration from the Taylor Swift song Sparks Fly.
Mostly because I thought it was a really easy idea to put across on my nails while still only using my tri-polish colours and the allowed extras but also because I guess this is how everyone wants their relationships to feel at least some of the time.

I literally drew sparks flying across my nails :). Here is the song:

I used two of my tri-polish colours, NYC Ink Stain as the base and Essie Rock the Boat in the trail and then used NYC Full Metal Jacket for the sparks and Fandom Cosmetics Rumbelle for the gold holographic in the trail.

This design was very easy to do with simply a small dotting tool and a thin paint brush, I managed to do it on both my hands.

I hope you enjoy this nail art as much as I did :). Check out everyone else's music themed manis here.

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Day 18: Delicate OMD and Tripolish Challenges

I'm not certain that this is delicate, but it's a design I really wanted to try and it involved being very delicate with how much polish was on the brush. This also fulfills my second tri-polish manicure using the polishes NYC Ink Stain and High Line Green, and Essie Rock the Boat

So I did this by putting down a base of OPI My Vampire is Buff then wiping the polish brushes until they were almost completely dry before wiping the nails with the brushes to create this feathery effect. All three polishes are in there but Rock the Boat doesn't show up particularly well.

Is it delicate? Muh, I like it and I prefer colourful to delicate anyway. Check out everyone else's delicate manis here and tri polish manis below

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Day 17: Gradient OMD Challenge

Day 17 of the challenge and I am feeling rather uninspired, I've already done multiple gradients in the challenge so I decided to do a greens gradient using three of my untried polishes.

I started by putting down two coats of Collection Hidden. Collection is a really low budget makeup range so I wasn't expecting much from this polish but it definitely surpassed my expectations, a gorgeous khaki green, opaque and self levelled in two coats. Good enough that it deserved its own picture alone, look how glossy it is without top coat!:

I gradiented it with Essie Mohito Madness and Barry M Superdrug Green limited edition. It took several coats to get to this level of opacity and then a lot of clean up because I forgot to sellotape my fingers before I started. I love this gradient it's like from dark to bright.

And then because I can't leave well enough alone I stamped a black grass pattern over the top which I think just completes this design :)

Remember to check out everyone else's gradient manis here.

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Day16: Ruffian OMD and Tri-polish Challenge

Today is a double challenge, day sixteen of the Oh Mon Dieu Challenge and the first day of the July Tri-polish Challenge. The tri-polish colours for this month are blue, blue and green. I have chosen NYC Ink Stain and High Line Green, and Essie Rock the Boat. I decided to challenge myself and do a ruffian manicure which is new to me. I lay down a base coat of Rock the Boat then sponged High Line Green onto the left side and Ink Stain onto the right side of each nail. I then used My Vampire is Buff (I'm pretending this is a proper white for the sakes of the tri polish) to cover most of each nail, leaving the area just above the cuticle clear so that the underneath colours are visible.

I love this apart from that the green has pulled up some of the nails, next time I would wait longer for the base colours to dry before painting on the ruffian.

This is what the base looked like before I painted on the ruffian. I quite like this alone as an abstract sort of design.

This is a really classy nail art design, perfect for wearing a pop of colour with a neutral topper if you need more subtle nails for an occasion but aren't willing to sacrifice your colour.

Check out everyone else's ruffian/half moon manicures here and look at all the other tri polish manis below :).

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Day 15: Hearts OMD Challenge

For the hearts challenge I got out one of my polishes which I have only shown you briefly before in this mani. The polish is Essie's The Girls Are Out, a beautiful deep pink shade. I am not a natural hearts person so I went for these understated tops of hearts which I saw on Globe and Nail. The black polish is A England's Bridal Veil.

Here is The Girls are Out alone, isn't she beautiful :).

This mani was made using a hole re-inforcement sticker cut in half, each half stuck on to form a bump of pink at the bottom of the nail and then painting the black on top as shown below. Bridal Veil is a one coater which is perfect for this mani as you just put on your coat and peel off the stickers immediately (you can also wait until your polish is completely dry but who has time for that)

I'm loving the contrast between the black and the pink with these :)
Check out everyone else's hearts manis here

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