An Autumnal Gradient

Hi guys!

It's been so long since I posted here and I actually feel really guilty about it! I'm hoping to get into a regular posting pattern again soon as I have so many manis to share with you :)

Today I'm going to show you an autumn inspired gradient that I created recently:

This time last year I picked up the Barry M 2014 A/W collection, which I'm ashamed to say have not been put to any use until now. I really wanted a warm and cozy manicure and think that these colours give that effect perfectly! This is 'Cocoa', 'Paprika' and 'Mustard' used in a sponged gradient. They remind me of leather, especially with the addition of the little gold studs!

Leaf or feather? You decide!

My accent nail is what I'm going to call a 'feaf' - a leaf/feather hybrid! My boyfriend says it is obviously a feather, however Kelly from @purrfect_nails says it is obviously a leaf. If I'm honest I wasn't sure what I was creating at the time, so it's open to interpretation! 

Although this is nothing like my usual style I actually really like how it looks. I want to start moving away from my 'comfortable' colours (e.g. pink) and start using some of my less used shades (brown, anyone?!) Watch this space!

Thanks for reading!

Helen x

31 Day Challenge - The Home Stretch!

Hi guys!

Here is my round-up of the final part of the 31 Day Challenge. I had such a good time doing this challenge, and now I'm worried that I won't be able to create any new designs without some sort of prompt haha!

Day 21- Inspired By A Colour - Seventeen 'Smoke Signal'

Day 22 - Inspired By A Song - Chance The Rapper 'Sunday Candy'

Day 23 - Inspired By A Movie - Big Hero 6

Day 24 - Inspired By A Book - PS I Love You

Day 25 - Inspired By Fashion - Vivienne Westwood

Day 27 - Inspired By A Pattern - Houndstooth

Day 28 - Inspired By Artwork - Mondrian

Day 29 - Inspired By A Flag - Pride Flag

Day 30 - Inspired By The Supernatural - Fairies

Day 31 - Honour Nails You <3 - @simplynailogical and @spejldame

31 Day Challenge - Days 17 - 20

My blog took a bit of a back seat over the last couple of weeks due to my illness, so I've decided to put all of my entries here in one blog post to catch up! If you follow me on Instagram, you will have already seen these posted each day, so this is just a nice little round-up of the second part of the challenge :)

Day 17 - Glitter

Day 18 - Half Moon

Day 19 - Galaxies

Day 20 - Watermarble

I'll be posting a round up of the final section of the challenge in a separate post.

If you'd like any details of polishes/techniques used, please get in touch!

Thanks for reading!

Helen x

31 Day Challenge - Day 16 - Geometric

Hey guys!

The prompt for day sixteen of the 31 Day Challenge is 'geometric', and I wanted to create some overlapping shapes on my nails. I started this mani with a base of Color Club 'Blue Heaven', an intense silver-blue linear holographic polish that I am in love with! I then grabbed a small detail brush and some black acrylic paint to carefully draw the shapes on the nail, making sure to create some overlap in them. Finally, using my detail brush I added colour with Kandy Colors 'Northern Lights' neon jelly collection (my fave jelly polishes to date!), and sealed it all in with Essence 'Better Than Gel Nails' topcoat. Et voila!

As you can see in that macro shot, the base colour is a holo finish and it is just beautiful when under the right light (i.e. not in my lightbox!). I tried to capture the colour shift as best as I could, but I'm not a photographer so these photos do not do it justice! Have a look at the photo below for a better idea of the holo goodness!

I was so pleased when I finished this mani as I can see a definite improvement in my freehand skills. Although the shapes aren't perfect, I am super happy with how this one came out, and it's given me more confidence to try freehand designs more often (even on my short nails) :D

Thanks for reading!

Helen x

31 Day Challenge - Day 15 - Delicate Print

Hi guys,

I had an unfortunate incident involving my nails and a car door the other day which has resulted in having to file them to a super short length. This makes me sad, but I'm determined to make the most of them being short! Being part of the nub club isn't that bad, is it?

Anyway, on to the design for today. The prompt for day 15 of the 31 Day Challenge is delicate print, and here is what I came up with:

I decided to stick to a very sheer polish as my base for this: Essie 'Sugar Daddy', which is barely noticable on the nail, even though I applied three coats here! I stamped the lace pattern (this plate from Born Pretty Store) onto my bare nail before adding Sugar Daddy. I then added a thin French tip with Claire's 'Rose Gold Liquid Metal'. On my ring finger I used two layers of Maybelline 'Gilded Rose', which is a gorgeous gold and pink glitter polish.

Finally I placed a small pearl at the base of my middle finger using Gilded Rose to hold it in place, and topped with WAH London 'Classy Glassy Glossy Topcoat'.

Thanks for reading!

Helen x

31 Day Challenge - Day 14 - Flowers

Hi guys!

I'm almost caught up on all of the prompts for the 31 Day Challenge now, which is good as the prompts are going to be getting tougher from here on out! Day 14 is flowers, so I did some freehand petals for this design:

I started with a base of my favourite nude - OPI 'My Vampire Is Buff' <3 I seriously cannot get enough of this polish. For the petals I used a small detail brush and Barry M 'Sugar Plum' and Barry M 'Kiss Me Quick' (pink flowers), and Seche 'Takes Chances' and Barry M 'Lap Of Honour' (purple flowers). I added leaves using Barry M 'Cardamom' and Nails Inc. 'Marylebone Road'.

I added a satin matte topcoat from Claire's to this design, which I think gives it more of a 'vintage' feel. What do you think?

With Matte Topcoat 

With Matte Topcoat

I really love this mani, and hope you do too!

Thanks for reading!

Helen x

31 Day Challenge - Day 13 - Animal Print

Hi guys!

Here is my second potential nail fail in the 31 Day Challenge line-up so far!

So the thirteenth prompt is 'animal print', and I decided to think a little outside of my usual box (the box full of leopard print, giraffe print, zebra print, etc...) and I went for birds feathers instead. I had seen this look multiple times on Instagram and thought it looked so effective, and this was the perfect opportunity to try it out. 

I bought a pack of dyed feathers from a local craft store, and chose a pretty black and fuchsia pink spotted feather for this mani. I applied a base coat of Sinful Colors 'Mauve' to all nails, and painted a waterfall design onto three of my nails using a striping brush and OPI 'Significant Other Color', OPI 'Unfrost My Heart', Barry M 'Sugar Plum', Seche 'Takes Chances' and Make-Up Gallery 'Purple Sheen'. Then I added one coat of Rimmel 'Clear' polish to my other two nails and carefully placed the feathers onto my nail. After trimming the feathers to fit my nail, applied two thick coats of Glisten & Glow 'HK Girl' to seal it in and add a glossy finish.

Although I do like this mani, there are definitely improvements that need to be made. Showing a little bit of base colour is important to define the feather, otherwise it just looks a bit like a blob on your nail (see my ring finger). Also, the feather needs to be trimmed slightly shorter than the nail so that you don't accidentally scratch yourself on the face (lesson learned!)

What do you think of this look? Yay or nay? 

Thanks for reading!

Helen x

PS Check out other designs in this challenge on Instagram by searching the hashtag #31DC2015

31 Day Challenge - Day 12 - Stripes

Hi guys!

Moving swiftly on with the 31 Day Challenge, we are now up to prompt number 12 - stripes. I never really know what to do when it comes to striped nails and I wanted to do something a little bit different to what I originally planned (nautical nails, anyone?)

Here's what I came up with:

Using China Glaze 'Fairy Dust' on a naked nail is one of my most favourite things to do ever in the world of nail art. Look at how sparkly it is! I thought it teamed perfectly with the colourful stripes, and gives the design more of a 'fun' feel to it.

On top of my Fairy Dust base, I added strips of striping tape in random widths along the nail, filling in sections with 'Mating Surfaces', 'No Nails, No Life' and 'An Even Bigger Splash' by WAH London, and Barry M's 2013 limited edition yellow, which annoyingly doesn't have a name! (Why do Barry M do that?!)

I finished the look with some clear rhinestones from a gem wheel that I picked up in Poundland, and sealed it all in with WAH London 'Classy Glassy Glossy Topcoat'.

Hope you like them :)

Thanks for reading!

Helen x

31 Day Challenge - Day 11 - Polka Dots

Bonjour!

The eleventh prompt on the 31 Day Challenge is polka dots, so I did a glitter placement! *Proud face*

If you've seen any of my regular polka dot manis, you will be aware that I am not the neatest 'dotter'. I am still learning how to get my dots equally spaces, the same size and un-smudged, so after a failed attempt at a simple dotticure, I took inspiration from @simplynailogical who's mantra is that glitter fixes everything. 

For this mani I started with a base of Essence 'Black Cat' which is a latex effect polish that dries semi-matte and is just lovely! As it was drying, I quickly added my loose glitter (also from Essence) in a polka dot pattern. As you can see on my middle finger, some of the pieces of glitter did not stick flat to the nail. I didn't add topcoat to this as I wanted the latex finish to be apparent, but if I was wearing this out of the house then a topcoat is a must to seal in the glitter. For my ring finger I added Rimmel 'Clear' nail polish in strips up my nail and placed the glitter pieces on by one to cover the full nail. This takes a lot of time but the effect is so cool. I found it difficult to line up the hexes so that they lay flush with each other, but that all comes with practice I guess!

All of this glitter has made me want to make everything look like a disco ball, so be expecting more glitter placement manis soon!

Thanks for reading!

Helen x

PS Check out all of the other submissions for the 31 Day Challenge on Instagram by searching the hashtag #31DC2015

31 Day Challenge - Day 10 - Gradient

Hi everyone!

Today I have some gradient watermelon nails to show you. I've decided that it's still summer so therefore they aren't inappropriate to wear just yet. Although I know I'm going to have to start preparing myself for autumn, I just can't bear to pull away from bright colours!

This is my first attempt at watermelon nails, and I really like how they turned out. I am definitely going to recreate them at some point and add more detail as I think there needs to be a slightly darker shade of green towards the base of my nails and my seeds aren't perfect, but it'll do for now! 

I used polishes from a WAH London Ultimate Nail Art Kit that I nabbed from Boots for the super bargain price of £10! 'No Nails No Life' is the pink, and 'Biters Beware' is the green (how great are those polish names?!). I sandwiched MoYou London 'White Knight' in between the two colours as pink and green don't blend too well :)

Anyone else hungry for watermelon now?!

Thanks for reading!

Helen x