Nailvengers Assemble: New Year, New Technique

Hey everyone! Before I start off I just want to say a massive thankyou to you all for voting for me in the China Glaze holiday competition, because I won!! I'm so unbelievably happy and it's all down to you, so thankyou. Anyway, today I'm super excited to share a new project with you. Me, Sammy of The Nailasaurus, Lucie of Lucy's Stash, Allie of Brit Nails and Amelia of xameliax have started a new monthly challenge group called Nailvengers Assemble. After all meeting at the Cosmo Blog Awards, we've been in constant contact, and we decided that it would be a great idea to create something like this. I'm so excited to be part of this with such an amazing group of people, and I hope you will all get involved too! We will be posting on the last day of every month with a new challenge, and you will have the whole of the next month to post your versions of the prompt. This month's challenge is 'New Year, New Technique'. If you want to get involved you can use the hashtag #nailvengers and you can like our facebook page to keep up to date with what we're doing:

So for this month's new technique I chose to do negative space nails. I've been seeing them around for a while and I've always wanted to give it a go, and I'm so glad I did. These took a bit longer than expected but I'm really happy with how they came out.  I had to take these pictures on a different camera to usual so the lighting looks a bit different, but I'll be back to my usual camera for the next post!

The base for these nails was OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls, then I used Barry M - Gold Foil to draw the shapes using a brush, and acetone and a wide brush to clean up the space. Then I used Seche Vite to top it off

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

Don't forget to use the hashtag #nailvengers if you give a new technique a try this month

Alice

Tutorial Tuesday: Glitter Aztec Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today I have another tutorial tuesday that you'll have to head over to Divine Caroline for. After posting the nails I did at Pastille nail bar (which you can see here) I was a few times to do a tutorial for them, so here you go! Don't forget to check out the full tutorial here

What do you think? Let me know in the comments

Alice

Dotticure Guest Post from Lucy's Stash!

Hey everyone! I've been revising all day so it's nice to have a break for a bit, although if you follow me on Instagram you'll know that I may have got distracted from revision earlier and painted my nails, but unfortunately I don't have my lightbox at the moment so I can't take a proper picture! My last exam is tomorrow and I am so so excited to be free for 2 weeks, but until I can am properly finished, and until my lightbox returns on friday, the lovely Lucy from Lucy's Stash has kindly done a guest post for me, and I'm sure you'll love it as much as I do! I was lucky enough to share a hotel room with Lucy before/after the Cosmo blog awards and she's such a lovely person, and amazing at nail art, so I'm honoured to have her here today!

Hi everyone,

I’m so excited to be guest posting for Alice! Not only she is a freaking Cosmo Blog Award winner but I’ve also had a chance to hang out with her in person she is such a lovely person.

I have prepared a dotticure for you that I hope you’ll think is very intricate but to tell you the truth, it’s dead simple to do. Just start with two big dots on the opposite side of the nail and then create small dots around it in opposite colour. Then continue on both circles alternating the colours until they ‘meet’. Continue creating the dot circles in alternating colours until you fill the whole nail. Once you’re done let the design dry for few minutes and topcoat it.

Tutorial Thursday: Pink Checkers Stripe

Hey everyone! Because this week's Tutorial Tuesday was done by the lovely Amelia (see here), I decided I'd post my usual tutorial today instead! I'm so excited to show you this design, after seeing this image by Madeline Poole on Instagram I just knew I had to recreate it. The design itself is pretty simple but I think the simplicity is what makes it stand out so much. I definitely got a lot of comments on my nails whilst I was wearing these, and as they're so easy to do I think I'll be recreating them with quite a few colours! 

I didn't actually intend to do this design in pink, I had meant to do it with a nude base, but for some reason I picked up the pink and painted my nails with it without even thinking, and I didn't want to remove it after that so I just decided to go with it. I'm so glad I did because I think it works really well with the pastel colour. I guess my hand knew what I wanted more than my head! Tutorial will be after the jump.

The base for these nails is OPI - Mod About You, then I used striping tape from Born Pretty Store, MASH - White, and MASH - Black, but you can also use acrylic paint if you'd prefer! Then I finished off with a coat of Seche Vite

Tutorial Tuesday: Tortoise Shell Nails by xameliax

Hey everyone! Today's tutorial tuesday is going to be slightly different because rather than a tutorial from me, I have an amazing guest post in the form of a video tutorial from my lovely friend Amelia, who runs xameliax. After mentioning to her that I was struggling due to exams she kindly said she would do a guest post for me, and the nails she has done are absolutely gorgeous! I can't wait to see your recreations. So without further ado I'll pass you on to Amelia...

Hi Everyone! I'm Amelia the beauty and lifestyle blogger behind xameliax.com and I, like Alice and probably most of you reading this have a little obsession with nail polish! So when Alice asked if I'd like to guest post for her while she was beavering away revising for her exams (go you super clever girl) I took it as the perfect opportunity to do one of my favourite nail looks - Tortoise Shell!

This effect is so easy to re-create as you can see in my Youtube Tutorial! They took me less than an hour to do and i think they look amazing. With just three polishes and some cling film you can create this beautiful tortoise shell effect and with a few studs ontop it comes together to make this simple but stunning manicure!

::Polishes Used::

Duri Rejuvacote (Base Coat)

China Glaze - Call of the Wild (Base Colour)

China Glaze - Mahogany Magic

OPI - Don't Pretzel My Buttons

Barry M - Countess (Pointed Finger)

Born Pretty Store Small Square Studs

Seche Vite (Top Coat)

Why not give them a go yourself! Tweet us a picture of your tortoise shell nails @xameliax @onenailtorule and we'll retweet some of the best ones!

Happy Painting!

xax

Nails Inc. Polishes Review

Hey everyone! Apologies that it's been a few days since I've posted, I've been revising constantly, and yesterday (Friday) I passed my driving test (yay!) so I went out for a meal in the evening to celebrate and never got around to posting. I probably wouldn't have actually managed to get this up today if it hadn't been for my boyfriend, who very kindly edited all these pictures for me because I didn't have time. He's been offering to edit for a while now and I've struggled to let go of the reigns, but he didn't an awesome job so I think he's going to find himself bombarded with pictures now!

Exams aren't very far away now, so only one week and 2 days and my schedule should return to usual. I'm really sorry it's not been great for the past few weeks but hopefully you understand. I have a couple of posts in the 'vault' so to speak and I'll have a guest post from the lovely Amelia this week for you too which will be great I'm sure!

So today's post is a bit of a mix and match review with a few polishes from Nails inc. They're all from a variety of collections, but they work surprisingly well together. I love Nails inc. polishes and I'm really glad I got these to review because they're all amazing quality as usual, as you will see below! Full review will be after the jump

Tutorial Tuesday: Romance Isn't Dead for Divine Caroline

Hey everyone! Today's tutorial tuesday is going to be a little different. From now on, the steps for every other tutorial tuesday will be available to view on Divine Caroline, but I will only be posting the finished design look on here. The first tutorial I've done for DC is this cute heart design, which you can find on DC here. I knew I wanted to do some form of pattern within hearts, and I originally thought I'd do a tutorial for this design I did a while ago but once I started I realised I wanted to go for something a bit more cutesy. 

Don't forget to go check out the steps for this design HERE

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

Alice

Nude Squares

Hey everyone! Finally I have some nail art for you, which isn't just part of a tutorial (although hopefully you actually like the tutorials so it's not an issue!). I've had a mixture of ideas going round my head for a while and with the help of a friend I finally put 2 designs together which I think work pretty well. I was inspired by a design I saw posted on Instagram ages ago with no logo and no credit (and I've just tried for 20 minutes to find on google but I can't find any sign of it, let me know if you know the original), and I decided to repeat these nails, which were originally based from this tutorial by Pack a Punch Nails. 

The base for these nails is Barry M - Lychee, and the black and white is acrylic paint, I used striping tape from here to create the squares, I used these brushes for the triangles, and I finished it off with a coat of Seche Vite.

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

Alice

Tutorial Tuesday: Cosmo Swirls

Hey everyone! I've been super busy with revision and essays because I have a load of deadlines/exams coming up and I'm stressing a bit so apologies for not posting tonnes. I promise this isn't a sign of things to come in 2014, I just want to get my exams out of the way and then I'll be back to posting more regularly. I have a couple of nail art posts for you, a couple of reviews, and a couple of tutorials so I'll spread them out over the next 3 weeks until the end of exams just so you're not missing out! 

Anyway, today I have another tutorial tuesday for you. You might remember these nails from when I went to the Cosmo awards, and as they're clearly lucky because I won an award, I thought I'd do a tutorial for them. I actually created this tutorial for Nail It! so I wont be writing the steps down here because I think it's only fair that you head over there to see, (look HERE) but I will post the picture steps just so you have something to look at! 

As with my original post, 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 (this one) 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). Finished off with a coat of Seche Vite

  

Don't forget to check out the steps HERE. 

I also wrote a post for Nail It! about photographing your nails with a few other bloggers which you can see here if you're interested.

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

Alice

Tutorial Thursday: Vintage Wallpaper

Hey everyone! Welcome to my first post of 2014. I hope you had a good new year, mine was going to be just a quiet night in but we had a few odd goings on in my house involving weird noises, a santa hat that appeared from nowhere and some missing coal. Sounds vague but that's all I know, it was very weird! Nevertheless it was a good night and I'm slightly sad to see the back of 2013, but excited to see what this year will bring. You may notice that this should have probably gone up on tuesday (for tutorial tuesday) but as I did my favourites of 2013 post I decided I'd put the tutorial up today instead, hope you don't mind! Today's tutorial is the fourth and final tutorial that I created for Barry M, and I decided to do it based on these nails by Dressed Up Nails. Mine are absolutely nowhere near as good as hers (as can be expected as she is awesome) but I hope I've still done them justice, and I can't wait to see your recreations.