Nails - Dazzle Dust

Years ago, I had a thing for collecting those little Barry M Dazzle Dust pots. I accumulated quite a collection, some of which have been binned over the years, but I kept some of my favourites. Which is a good thing as they're great used on nails!

I simply painted my nails (two coats) with Boots 17 Lasting Fix in Midnight Sapphire. Whilst the polish was still wet, I used the end of a spoon to put a small amount of Dazzle Dust just under the nail and then blew upwards onto the nail. This leaves a lovely shimmery gradient effect on the nail. I then applied a good top coat to seal and cleaned up a bit around the edges using a cotton bud.

Happy Friday everyone! I am glad it's nearly the weekend, despite having had a short working week. Got a weekend of wedding dress appointments (not for me, for my bestie!) ahead of me :)

Nails - Chain Link

I received a new nail art book for Christmas. I already own both of the WAH ones, which I absolutely love. Upon receiving this book, I did wonder if it would have the same old designs, but there are actually some I haven't tried before. And I've done a lot of nail art!

This is the first one I've tried - the chain link design. In the book it is shown being done with a gold pen, but I used my trusty barry m silver nail art pen over 17 Lasting Fix in Midnight Sapphire, which is such a pretty shade. This is such an simple design to create, and I love the fact you can customise it by doing bigger chains/different shaped links and using different colours. You could even add little gems!? What do you think?

Nails - Christmas mix 'n' match

Merry Christmas Eve! I hope you are as excited as I am :) I had to work yesterday, but now have the rest of the week off so obviously I decided to go all out with my nails last night - whilst drinking wine and watching The Holiday in celebration! Today I am going to do some baking for my mum (I've also promised I'll do her nails too!) and watch some rubbish television, before heading out for a few Christmas drinks with friends tonight.





Anyway, onto the nails. I love this GOSH nail polish in the shade 'Gold', which I used as a base colour - minus my ring finger which I coated in L.A. Colors French White. I used a white nail art pen and a red nail art pen to make little candy canes, painted a little green Christmas tree onto my ring finger (complete with baubles and a star!) and made strings of Christmas lights using my white nail art pen again and various colours. Obviously, I couldn't resist a Christmas cat on my thumbnail - these were bought last year from here :)

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas! x

Nails - Tartan

I've been wanting to try out a tartan nail design ever since Autumn hit. I attempted it a few weeks ago and it went terribly wrong, however this time I decided to make it a bit less complicated! Just simple stripes. I think it's quite effective. I messed up my right hand completely, so had to start again - these nails took me a good couple of hours in the end! Not the type of nail art you should do if you're impatient with nails drying...

I used barry m Blood Orange for the base coat, and used L.A. Colors French White and Models Own Lemon Meringue and nail art pen for the stripes/black squares. What do you think?

I've got today off, as well as Monday - so a four day weekend for me, yay! I'm starting it off with some Auntie-Nephew time with Ethan this afternoon :) Happy Friday everyone!

Nails - Autumnal

Some Autumn inspired nails from last weekend. A pretty mix n' match of nail art - fallen leaves, flowers and ombré. Colours I used are Models Own Black Magic and Utopia, barry m Blood Orange, 2true in shade 8 and Nubar 2010. I also used my barry m nail art pen. I love the Nubar 2010 'fallen leaves'...the light reflecting flakes really do remind me of Autumn leaves - so pretty!

Nails - Classic Outlined

I love this simple nail art. It's so classic and 'chic' and would look great with different colour combinations. For this I used Models Own Utopia (a firm favourite of mine) and my barry m nail art pen for the outline.

I hope everyone is having a good week! I'm glad it's Wednesday - middle of the week! I am looking after my handsome four month old nephew (seriously, where has the time gone? It doesn't seem like that long ago since I posted this!) all day on Saturday and I actually can't wait!

Nails - AA Violet Panache

This is my first American Apparel nail polish. I rarely venture into the store/browse the online store as I find it so overpriced. But my friend dragged me in there whilst in Covent Garden on Saturday. I naturally found myself at the nail polishes and decided I needed this lovely, vibrant colour in my ever-growing nail polish stash!




I only needed to apply two coats, although it did take a while to dry. But the colour makes up for it! I very rarely have nails without some sort of nail art/pattern, so drew on a 'woven' design using my silver barry m nail art pen - such an easy design, found in the new WAH book! My copy arrived last week and I love it as much as the first one.

I hope everyone has had a nice bank holiday weekend. My hightlight was going to see Les Misérables on Saturday evening. AMAZING. What's been your highlight of the weekend?

Nails - Watermelon

I love these fruity nails. I've wanted to do them for so long, but didn't have the right shades of green for the job. The other day I was shopping with a friend when I spied the 'Sinful Colors' collection in boots. The nail polishes are only £1.99 each so I grabbed a couple in the shades of green I needed. I think these nails are so cute - and it seemed I wasn't the only one! People on my photography course at the weekend were taking photos of them and all!

Nail polishes I used - Models Own Raspberry Crush and Utopia and Sinful Colors Exotic Green and Pistache. The watermelon seeds were drawn on using my barry m nail art pen.

What fruity nail art have you created? Link me up, would love to see it!

Nails - Ice cream!

Having arrived home from Malta to more gorgeous weather (although not quite as nice as Malta heat!) I thought I would treat my nails to something appropriate.





I used MUA Frozen Yoghurt as my base coat and started by drawing an ice cream onto my ring fingernail, complete with flake and sprinkles! I then decided to add ice cream 'drips' to all of my other nails. I used a mixture of boots 17 and Models Own, as well as my new barry m nail art pen to outline. I'm really impressed with the barry m nail art pens - I also have the silver one - they're so easy to use and don't smudge when you put a top coat over, which is quite often the case with nail art pens. I've only used them a couple of times but really happy with them so far so I'd recommend them!

Do you like this design?

Nails - Metallic Roses

I haven't done much nail art recently, mainly due to the fact my nails have been in a pretty awful state - chipped, cracked and split - so I've had to keep cutting them down. I bought a bottle of Sally Hansen advanced hard as nails today so I'm going to apply that throughout the week and hope for the best!

I had yesterday afternoon off and really wanted to use some of the time to pretty-fy my nails. My nails are still really short, so I decided to paint just one rose on each nail using some metallic colours.



I started with my favourite as a base - Models Own Utopia. The flowers were painted using barry m Lilac foil and a random teal green my Auntie gave me for Christmas [no brand name on bottle!] and I used Models Own Grace Green for the leaves. I outlined the roses using my Models Own nail art pen. I then used a dotting tool to make dots using opposing colours on each nail. And of course a slick of top coat to seal.



I hope everyone is having a good weekend. I haven't done much of interest today. Popped into town to get a few things, including some Topshop Joni jeans. It's rare I find jeans that I actually like/suit my shape, but the Joni jeans are perfect. Ben treated me to lunch at Pizza Express too, mmmm. We're off to see Oz: The Great and Powerful tonight, which I'm pretty excited about. And tomorrow, my brother and sister-in-law have invited us over then out for a Mother's Day Carvery lunch. Looking forward to seeing them, and the bump! Have you got anything lovely planned?

Nails - Rose nail art decals

I just had to share these gorgeous pink rose nail art decals. I originally bought some for the lovely Fiona, who then instagrammed them on her nails - when I saw her photo I decided I needed some for myself!




They are so easy to apply. You cut them to size, place in water for around 30 seconds then slip the decal off the paper and apply to the nail. Once dry, apply a top coat.
I only tried it out on my 'ring finger', but if I'd have had more time I would have done the whole lot! I painted the rest of my nails with my new barry m glitter nail polish in Rose Quartz, which I layered over Models Own Utopia [favourite!].

I hope everyone is having a lovely weekend. Ben and I attempted some Christmas shopping yesterday. I say attempted - we only managed to get a couple of gifts. I got a few bits and bobs from Primark [hello cat onesie, you are amazing] and some goodies from Lush. Hoping to go out today and actually do some proper present shopping! That's if I succeed in dragging Ben out of bed. Happy Sunday :)

Nails - Frills

I wasn't too sure what to call this - but it looks like frills, so I settled with that. I went a bit pin crazy the other day and pinned a load of nail art inspiration. This being one of them. I'd not seen anything like it, so thought I'd try it out!





It took me forever to do this - an episode of Vampire Diaries and two episodes of Heroes, to be precise. I was originally just going to do an accent nail, but decided 'sod it', and did the rest of 'em too! So pretty [well I think so!].

All I did was paint my nails white as the base. Then I did a strip of nail polish at the bottom, by the cuticle. I then used a dotting tool to 'dot' the lines across. I waited a little while between colours, which is why this took so long! I used Models Own Utopia, Black Magic & Mystique Mauve, essie bikini so teeny and barry m lilac foil.

How have you been spending your Saturday? I took Ben out for lunch at Nando's - I know, I know, such a romantic - probably shouldn't mention the fact he gave me his loyalty card so I could use his free whole chicken on my veggie stuff :)

Also, I've recently hit 500 followers [thank you!] so am thinking of doing a little giveaway! How about it? What sort of stuff should I get together for it?

Nails - Easter bunnies

Happy Easter everyone! I just wanted to share my Easter themed nails with you - bunnies!




For these nails I used Models Own Utopia, Peach Sherbet & Jade Stone and Barry M Bright Pink & Berry for the basecoats. I used L.A. Colors French White to create the little bunny heads, then my black Models Own wah nail art pen for the eyes and my pink and white topshop nail art pens for the ears. I really like them! So cute!

I'm off to catch up on last night's BGT and Take Me Out... enjoy your day everyone!

Nails - Holographic & leopard accent

I CANNOT STOP LOOKING AT MY NAILS.

When Lucy blogged about this nail polish, I knew I had to get my hands on it. I had been after a good holographic nail polish for a while, and can definitely recommend this. Just look at it! Such a beaut. And the photos don't even do it enough justice, it's just so lovely!



The nail polish in question is the Jessica Holograam Chic Duo - expensive, but worth it for this prettiness. Plus it's free delivery which is always a massive bonus in my eyes! You apply one coat of the Retro Revival base coat, then one or two coats [I used two] of the Disco Diva hologram polish. As I love accent nails I also leopard printed my ring finger up using Barry M Berry and my Models Own Wah nail art pen.

Nails - Diamond

This will be my last post of 2011 - crazy how fast the year has flown by!

For these nails I used barry m limited edition lilac foil for the base and did scrawls using my pink topshop nail art pen mr messy style! On my ring finger I drew and coloured in a diamond, using my black, pink and blue topshop nail art pens.






It was only after I'd done my nails that I turned to Ben and said, 'look, a diamond on my ring finger - hint hint!' - a little light-heartedly, of course.

Right, must get dressed as going out for a nando's and mooch around town, before heading out to a bar tonight to welcome in 2012! Not really fussed by new years eve to be fair, bit over-rated in my opinion, but I don't really want to be stuck indoors either. Hope you all have a great night whatever you're doing! x

Nails - snowflakes.

My first Christmassy nails of the year!


Barry M Racing Green with a coat of Nubar 2010 over the top. I painted the snowflakes on my ring finger using my new nail art pen from Topshop.


Hope everyone has had a good weekend? I spent this morning recovering from last night - it was my work christmas do, had such a good time! We went to a lovely Italian. I had a starter as a main because all the main meals were full of fish/meat - they gave me sooo much pasta, I could not eat it all! I somehow managed some tiramisu for pudding though, which was heavenly. Karaoke after, followed by lots of shots and drinking games...we will have lots to talk about at work tomorrow, that's for sure.
Had a yummy Harvester for lunch with my boyfriend today, and bought a gorgeous dress from h&m which I tweeted a photo of. I might wear it on Christmas Eve, I'll obviously replace the trousers with tights and wear a belt to nip it in a bit at the waist. And after trying my local starbucks for a half price tumbler with no luck, my Mum messaged me to say she'd got me one! Best Mum ever! .

Right I'm off to watch Elf! Hope you all have a lovely evening. Mine will be spent watching X Factor and Misfits. Who does everyone wants to win? I absolutely love Marcus, but have a feeling it'll be Little Mix. Although that could be a good thing, as it's usually the runner-ups who do better isn't it?!