Slenderman

Happy Halloween everyone! I'm so excited to show you my final Halloween design: Slenderman nails! I know all my other designs have been quite cute this year but I wanted to try something a little different. For those of you who don't know what Slenderman is, he's the character of the game Slender, which is basically just an incredibly creepy game. I'm too much of a wuss to have played it personally, having got scared enough just watching someone else play! If you want to read more about it, the wiki page for the game is here. Hopefully though, most of you know what the game is, and therefore can understand the meaning behind each of these nails.

On my thumb I have the Slender writing (albeit a bit thicker than the actual text), on my ring and pointer finger I have the trees and moon which represent the creepy setting of the game, on my middle finger I have slenderman himself, and then on my pinky I have one of the eight pages you have to find throughout the game. 

The base for these nails was Alessandro - Midnight Black, then I sponged on No. 7 Grey Skies, the white and black is all done with acrylic paint, I then used a coat of Seche Vite before finishing with a coat of Butter London Matte Finish 

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

Then and Now: Frankenvamp + Tutorial

Hey everyone! I have the last of my 4 halloween tutorials for you today, don't forget to check out the tutorials tab at the top of my blog if you want to see the previous 3! This post is also another Then and Now post just like last week. I was so sad that I had to take these nails off for work, but at least with a blog I'm able to document my designs so I don't feel quite as bad when they have to go. Anyway, the tutorial and the 'now' nails will be after the jump!

The base for these nails was OPI - My Vampire is Buff (quite fitting), and Barry M - Key Lime, the black is acrylic paint, as is the white, and the red is Barry M - Bright Red, all topped off with a coat of Seche Vite

Tutorial Tuesday: Models Own Velvet Spiderwebs

Hey everyone! I'm sorry it's been a few days since I last posted, I've been trying to get on top of the mountain of coursework that's due in very soon, and unfortunately that means my nails have fallen by the wayside. However, I still have 3 halloween posts for you (yep, I did an extra design) and I'm so excited for you to see the one I'll be posting on halloween itself. Today's post is a tutorial for these cute(ish) spider nails, which were done on a base of Models Own Obsidian*, from the Velvet Goth collection. The tutorial and swatches of Obsidian will be after the jump

Then and Now: Pumpkins + Tutorial

Hey everyone! Today's tutorial design is pumpkins, probably the most famous halloween food there is. Although, I'm about to making a shocking confession: I have never actually eaten pumpkin, dun dun dunnnn. The smell puts me off way too much, but every autumn I hear people raving about how good pumpkin is, yet I'm still not quite tempted to try it. Nevertheless, I can enjoy it on my nails, and it's such a simple design to complete so I'm sure you can all enjoy it too! The 'then' nails and the tutorial will be after the jump

For these nails I used a base of OPI - My Vampire Is Buff, then I used Barry M - Satsuma, Barry M - Mushroom, Barry M - Key Lime, and Seche Vite topcoat 

Tutorial Tuesday: Models Own Velvet Ghosts

Hey everyone! As promised, today I have one of my 4 halloween tutorials to show you. This design was intended to be a bit different, as I originally intended to have orange ghosts and white ghosts and look a bit like this, but I unfortunately put the white ghosts too close together to be able to fit the orange in as well. However, I like the look of it nonetheless and I thought I'd create a tutorial to go alongside it. The tutorial will be after the jump otherwise the post may end up a bit too long

Witch Owls

Hey everyone! As halloween is starting to creep up on us a bit (see what I did there?) I thought it was time to start bringing the halloween nails around. I have 5 designs for you this year, 4 of which are tutorials so I'll be doing tutorial tuesday and tutorial thursday this week, hopefully you wont mind too much. So I'm starting my halloween nails off with these cute witch owls. These were meant to be a tutorial but they ended up a bit too long-winded so I thought I'd just keep them as a simple nail design. I got this idea from Little Miss Nail Polish, you can see her design here.

To do these I started with a base coat of OPI - Nail Envy*, followed by 2 coats of OPI - Purple-iscious*, then I painted a circle of Layla - Marshmallow Twinkle using a small brush. Once that was dry I used Alessandro - Midnight Black and a small nail brush to paint on the hat, hair and broom, and then I used MASH - White for the eyes, to finish the design off I used a bit more of Marshmallow Twinkle on the broom, and I topped the design off with a coat of my trusty Seche Vite.

Here's a shot of the gorgeous Purple-iscious alone, I absolutely love this colour. It's so unique and there's so much going on that is just impossible to capture on camera. It shows up a lot more on the bottle in the pictures than it does on the nails unfortunately. The duo of Purple-iscious and Nail Envy has been specially designed for QVC to celebrate their 20th Anniversary this year and I think they chose an awesome colour to celebrate with, don't you?

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

Sally Hansen/Rimmel Jelly Sandwich

Hey everyone, today's post is just a quick jelly sandwich. For those of you who don't know what a jelly sandwich is, it's typically a layer of thin, jelly-like polish, a layer of glitter, and then another layer of the jelly-like polish to create a sandwich effect. I've only ever done it once before, here, and I really liked the look, but I couldn't think of which colours to do it with again. So when these gorgeous colours from Rimmel and Sally Hansen dropped through my postbox, I knew instantly that I had to create one using them, and in fact I sat down then and there and did this manicure. It's just taken me ages to post it! I did actually post a quick picture on Instagram as soon as I'd done it, so some of you may have seen this manicure before, but hopefully that wont matter to you too much! 

To create this look I used a base layer of Sally Hansen - Shell We Dance*, with a middle layer of Rimmel - Disco Ball*, and then a finishing layer of Shell We Dance, all topped off with a coat of Seche Vite to smoothen out the design. 

I really like the look this creates, but I never seem to be able to think of colours that I could use to do it more. What do you think? Let me know in the comments

Alice

Tutorial Tuesday: Pink Tribal

Hey everyone! You may remember these nails I did as a guest post for The Nailasaurus, and today I'm going to be showing you a tutorial for them! For these nails I used a base of Models Own - Strawberry Tart and then the gradient was done using Barry M - Passionfruit, the black glitter is Nubar Black Polka Dot and the black detailing is done using a black Barry M Nail Art Pen

You will need:

Sponge

Top coat

Nail polish remover/acetone

Light pink polish

Dark pink polish

Black nail art pen/acrylic paint and brush

Black glitter topper

Step 1: Paint your nails pink

Step 2: Using a sponge create a gradient (see my previous Palm Trees tutorial) using Models Own - Strawberry Tart and Barry M - Passionfruit

Step 3: Add a topcoat to smooth out your design, I use Seche Vite

Step 4: Using a black Barry M Nail Art Pen create a tribal design. This may look complicated but you can make it up as you go along. I drew some triangles and some squares and added a few dots, it doesn’t need to be perfect and the nail art pen makes it a lot easier

Step 5: Apply a black glitter to your other fingers

Step 6: Finish off with a topcoat to seal in your design and you’re done!

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

Blue Triangles

Hey everyone! Just a quick post from me tonight. I've had this design done for over 3 months now but I've just not got around to posting it, so I thought it was finally time. I unfortunately can't actually remember the lighter blue colour I used for this as it's been so long and I own so many that are so similar, but the dark blue is Layla CE33.This was all done using striping tape (I dont keep normal tape to hand most of the time) and finished off with a coat of Seche Vite.

What do you think?

Let me know in the comments!

Alice

China Glaze Monsters Ball Halloween 2013 Collection Swatches and Review

Hey everyone! I'm so excited for today's post, because I have the amazing China Glaze Monsters Ball collection to show you. This is my first time reviewing for China Glaze and the collection certainly doesn't disappoint. This a much more glitter-led halloween collection than I've seen China Glaze do before, but it works extremely well. And not only is it great for Halloween, but also for the rest of Autumn too! The rest of the pictures will be after the jump, as the post is probably going to be a long one

Tutorial Tuesday: Geometric Colour

Hey everyone! I'm back for another Tutorial Tuesday, although it's now technically Wednesday in the UK as it's 1am, it's still Tuesday in many other parts of the world, so hopefully it still counts! I'm so glad you all liked last week's tutorial so much, starting this off as a weekly thing seems to have been a good idea so far! Don't forget to check out my Tutorial tab to see all of my past tutorials and keep up to date. Anyway, today's tutorial is based on this design, which seemed to be a popular choice for tutorials. I've made the triangles a bit more centralised in this design, but the principle is the same and hopefully you will be able to translate it to look more like the original if you wish!

For these nails I used 3 coats of Shimmer Polish - Karen as a base, and then 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat. Unfortunately I can't seem to find Karen in the Shimmer Polish shop, but there are plenty of other fantastic glitters for you to have a nosy at!

Now for the tutorial! (Aka the reason you're all here)

You will need:

- A glitter base colour

- A small brush

- Top coat

- A multitude of different colours, I used:

·    Barry M – Blueberry

·    Barry M – Passion Fruit

·     Barry M – Mango

·    Barry M – Key Lime

·     Barry M – Prickly Pear
·     Barry M - Peach Melba

·    NYC - Lexington Yellow 

Step 1: Paint your nails with a glitter base colour. When that is dry use a topcoat to smoothen out the surface for the next steps

Step 2: Using a thin brush (see previous picture) draw the outline of where you want your shapes to be, it’s best to do this colour by colour

Step 3: Fill in the gaps from the previous step

Step 4: Repeat the previous steps with each individual colour; be careful to leave a gap in-between each triangle so that your glitter base is still visible.

Step 5: Finish off with fast drying top coat to smoothen your design and to speed up drying time, and then you’re done!

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

Cosmopolitan Blog Awards 2013

Hey everyone! I have some super exciting news for you all today. Some of you may remember that a month or so ago I was asking you all to vote for me for Best New Beauty Blog 2013 in the Cosmopolitan blog awards, and this week was the awards ceremony. I went with the intention of meeting up with some amazing bloggers (aka The Nailasaurus, xameliax, Brit Nails and Lucy's Stash) and with absolutely no expectation of coming away with a prize. So imagine my surprise when I won! I'm still not sure it's entirely sunk in but I'm absolutely honoured to have been chosen and voted for, and I have all you amazing readers to thank, so thankyou. I still cannot believe that I run a successful blog, let alone a prize-winning one, and it is purely down to you, and I really cannot thank you all enough.

I of course couldn't attend without doing my nails, and although I wanted something that I could do on both hands, I also wanted it to be something that stood out, and so I finally settled on this glitter/swirl/stud combo. The base for these nails was 2 coats of Alessandro - Midnight Black*, and 3 coats of Alessandro - Glitter Queen*. I then applied a layer of China Glaze - Fairy Dust to the black. Once that was dry I used a thin brush and white acrylic paint for the swirls, and finally I added the black studs (which I unfortunately cannot remember the origin of but they're most likely from Born Pretty Store) I've also included a few pictures of the event and whatnot after the jump!

Tutorial Tuesday: Drips

Hey everyone! Today I'm starting a new feature called 'Tutorial Tuesday,' I have a tonne of tutorials to show you but I never seem to post them. I've added a tutorial tab to the top of my blog due to Sarah's fabulous suggestion, but it made me realise that I just don't have enough tutorials. So for at least the next 10 weeks I will be doing a tutorial every tuesday for you all, I hope you like it!

Today's tutorial is for my drip nails, I did these quite a while ago and a tutorial was requested, so to whoever requested it I'm very sorry it has taken so long

You will need:

·      Barry M – Lychee (or a cream/nude polish)

·      Barry M – Blueberry ice-cream (or a blue polish)

·      Barry M – Berry Ice Cream (or a lilac polish)

·      Barry M – Dragon Fruit (or a pink polish)

·      Barry M – Black and White nail art pens

·      Small brush

·      Top Coat

Step 1: Paint your nails with a base of Barry M – Lychee

Step 2: Using a small brush paint a basic outline for your drips, this doesn’t need to be perfect

Step 3: Colour in the lines from the previous step

Step 4: Using the black Barry M nail art pen, outline the drips

Step 5: Using the white Barry M nail art pen, draw the reflections for the drips

Step 6: Finish off with a topcoat to seal in your design, a matte topcoat is great for making the drips really stand out

And that's it! What do you think? Let me know in the comments

Alice

Nicole By OPI - Selena Gomez Collection Review and Swatches

Hey everyone! Today I have a review of half the Selena Gomez NOPI collection. These have recently become available in the UK in Superdrug, so this is my first time trying any NOPI polishes and I'm definitely impressed. As you can probably tell from the title of this collection, the shades are all inspired by Selena Gomez, and as a result they're very bright and girly, but that's not a bad thing. This is definitely a collection to brighten your autumn wardrobe up. The rest of the review will be after the jump!