Smidget Nailed It

Hello folks! Just a quick one - today I wanted to share with you all this tropical inspired nail art. Yes I was wearing my dressing gown in this photo... This was actually super easy to do! I started off by creating a gradient on all my nails except my ring finger, which I painted black. To create the gradient I used: China Glaze Werk It Honey, Pretty Fit and Glamletics  (for the gradient) Primark PS Polish in Marshmallow (white base) Start off with white on all the nails that will have the gradient, and then you can create the gradient. I just used a make up sponge (think cheap ones from Primark/Poundland), painted the polish onto the sponge in the order I wanted them to be, and dabbed the polish onto my nails in thin layers. Just do this till you're happy with the opacity (from memory this particular gradient was 3 layers). Next I used Born Pretty BP-L047  stamping plate and stamped in black polish over the gradient. For the accent nail I first stamp...

Hello! So this time I have decided not to go almost a month between posts (honestly I didn't even realise it had been that long between my last two). Today I have this gold & purple bling ('cause there are gems) mani. This is pretty out there for me but I was experimenting as I had purchased some nail art supplies ( this one  to be exact). As you can see it came with gems (I mainly wanted the brushes), so I figured lets put them to the test! To create this nail art I used the following: Barry M Molten Metal  in Bronze Bae Born Pretty  BP-L049 Stamping Plate Purple gems from the set linked above Born Pretty  No Smudge Top Coat I started off with Bronze Bae (I still maintain that this looks gold but that could just be me). I posted the above to my Instagram a few weeks ago.  Purple and gold go together really well in my opinion and I felt super inspired by the BP-L049 plate. I stamped my chosen design over every finger except m...

Hello! Somehow it has been another month and I have completed another round of the  Glam Nails Challenge  on Instagram. I'll warn y'all now; these designs are quite China Glaze heavy as I treated myself to the Chic Physique collection as a birthday present and I. FELL. IN. LOVE. If you're in the UK I purchased the Chic Physique collection from  here  (saves me linking each individual product!). Anyway, for April the prompts were as follows: And here are my corresponding mani's! ( Note: I am gradually updating my collection to be cruelty free but to do that I am using up old non cruelty free polishes. Most of these I bought years ago. I hate waste and the companies already have my money so I personally feel the best thing to do is use them up but not repurchase & look for cruelty free alternatives. I will however always highlight when I have used a polish from a non cruelty free brand.) Prompt 1: Easter A quick look back at the calendar is a...

Hello again! So despite what I said  in my last post  about being able to post more this month... I have not. Massive fail. But to be honest with you I have been preoccupied with a number of important life things (good things!), so nail art had to go on the back burner a bit. This is just going to be a quick, simple post. About a year ago I posted this picture to my Instagram. It was my first ever 'real' attempt at nail art. It's not pretty, mostly because I was too lazy to clean up around my cuticles (something I even noted in the caption!), and I just snapped the photo in poor lighting bumming around on my sofa. I took part in the Nail Addicts collab on Instagram; this month the theme was "Brand Wars" i.e. create some nail art using only 1 brand of polish. As you can probably guess from the post title I chose to use Barry M. Why? Because not only are they pretty darn cheap, the formulas are SO good AND THEY ARE CRUELTY FREE! So what does this have to...

Okay so I have been a little bit... not around on this blog for a while (again) thanks to finally adopting my cat! His name is Billy and he's an absolute sweetheart when he's not throwing the cat litter everywhere except the litter tray. As you would expect a lot of my time has been taken up dealing with him, and as such I've just been too tired to do my nails and write about it. Anyway, today I wanted to share with you a nail art challenge on Instagram I recently took part it. It's called the Glam Nails Challenge and is a series of prompts that you follow each month. Its feature account is  @glamnailschallenge , which is run by the lovely Bianka at  @nbnailart  (definitely check her out; her work is awesome!). The challenge uses the hashtag #glamnailschallenge followed by whatever month it is e.g. March was #glamnailschallengemarch. March was the first month I took part (my first ever challenge actually) and I absolutely loved it! Below is the list of prompts for e...

I'm a little later than I wanted to be in getting this out but I've been dealing with some life things over the past few weeks and I have been going through the process of adopting a cat! I've also felt a little unmotivated and just plain low over the past couple of weeks which hasn't helped. Nevertheless, on to the main point of this post: Barry M's Under The Sea nail paints! You can get these direct from  Barry M  or from your local Superdrug. They're £3.99 each (pretty standard for Barry M polishes), although I snagged mine in a 2 for £7 deal at Superdrug. As is suggested by the name, these shades are inspired by sea creatures, particularly mermaids. The bottle caps all have cute little fish decals which makes them stand out from the standard bottles. The collection has four duochrome shades: Angelfish, Butterflyfish, Jellyfish and Pinktail. Angelfish First up we have Angelfish. This is a gorgeous pale pink with a white shift, and the most sub...