Paint All The Nails Presents Marble

Hey everyone! Today is Paint All The Nails' link up day, and this month we're doing marble nails. There's so many different ways to interpret this prompt, there's water marbling, or stone marble nails, but both of those involve water. Instead I wanted to create something that wouldn't make me want to flip my desk over, so I went with my old favourite: saran wrap. It's such a quick way to get the look you want. I wanted to try something a little different so I went with this half and half look. I also create a tutorial for these over at Divine Caroline so you can see that here if you want to create these yourself.

Stamping with Gelish

Hey everyone! I hope you're all having a lovely week so far, today I've been super stressed trying to sort out bills etc. for our new house, who knew moving was so stressful eh? Anyway, today's nail art is something a little different. I was sent a couple of polishes by Gelish last week, and I knew straight away I wanted to create some nail art with them. I wasn't really sure where I was going to take the design, but then it hit me that I've never tried stamping with gels, and it was SO much easier. I'm not claiming these are anywhere near perfect, but they're a lot better than I can normally manage, and that's because Gelish makes it easy to sort out any mistakes. 

I also decided to experiment a bit with a different camera and natural light, I've included the images after the jump so you can compare the difference. I love how clear they are, but at the same time I don't think I'm able to make a jump to using natural light because I do so many designs at night. But I'd like to see I can set the new camera up with my lightbox to see how they look then. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on the new images!

Rose Polka Dots

Hey everyone! I hope you've all had a nice weekend, my boyfriend and I have spent the whole day in IKEA finding furniture for our first house together. We move in less than 3 weeks so it's super exciting, but scary too. IKEA is also the worst on a Sunday, it took us an hour to even park, so it's been a pretty stressful day. It's nice to sit and write this and think about something else for a bit. 

Today's nails are these cute polka dot roses. I love doing polka dots down half the nail, it's mainly a result of laziness but I also like how it looks. With this design it stops it looking too swamped, and keeps the roses as the main part of the design. If you want to learn how to create these yourself I created a tutorial over at Divine Caroline, which you can see here.

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

Alice

Unicorn Nail Art

Hey everyone! So the whole point of creating the rainbow gradient I posted yesterday was to create unicorn nail art. I took pictures of the plain gradient because I loved how it looks, but also because there was a strong possibility that these could fail. I've never drawn a horse, unicorn or really any full form of horse-like creature before, not even on paper, so I was worried that these would turn out awfully. Whilst they're definitely not the best unicorn nails to exist, I was super proud of how these turned out and I wore them for a full week. 

Rainbow Glitter Gradient

Hey everyone! Now that Valentine's day is out of the way I have lots of non-romance related designs to show you. I've had quite a few designs sitting edited on my laptop for a while but I just haven't found the right time to post them. I posted a sneak peak of these nails on Instagram around a month ago when I'd just created them as I loved how they looked and I'd actually painted both nails for the first time in forever, but it's taken me a while to post the full design in all it's glory. Quite a few people on Instagram requested a tutorial for these, if that's something you'd all want let me know and I'll get one sorted! Anything pastel always gets my vote, but with the addition of China Glaze - Fairy Dust everything looks amazing!

Striped Hearts Valentine's Day Nail Art

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I hope, whether you're in a relationship or not, you've all had a lovely day. Me and my boyfriend aren't massive on celebrating it but we got each other cards and had a takeaway together which was nice. Of course, I had to have Valentine's nails too, so I created this simplistic look for Divine Caroline using polishes from the new OPI - New Orleans collection*. If you want to learn how to create these you can check out my tutorial here. 

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

Alice

Blue Floral Glitter Hearts Valentines Nail Art

Hey everyone! Today I have some more valentine's nail art to show you. I really like heart nail art, if you hadn't already figured that out, and I definitely don't contain creating heart designs to Valentine's day. But, it does give me an excuse to post more, and I've combined it with another favourite: florals. And another: Essie - Beyond Cozy. What could be better? If you'd like to create these yourself, or just find out more about the colours etc. I've created a tutorial over at Divine Caroline. They're actually very similar to a very old design of mine, if you want to see my awful nails from many years ago click here.

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

Alice

Nail Art Threesome: Polly Polish

Hey all! I'm back with the second and final part of my "nail art threesome" with Hannah (Polly Polish) and Allie (Brit Nails). Having done Allie's design on Thursday, today I'm doing one of Hannah's designs. I think out of the three of us I probably do the most nail art so I think Allie and Hannah might have struggled more than I did to choose. I've gone with a Valentine's theme on both the designs I did because of the time of year but also because that's when Allie and Hannah seem to do most nail art! Today's design by Hannah is this cute arrow hearts design, I love the pop of the colourful heart accent nail against the nude and black and I just couldn't resist recreating it. You can see Hannah's original post here but I've also included an image for comparison after the jump.

Hannah's original nail art

I used Barry M - Winning Streak* for my base, it's one of the new shades so it's a bit lighter than what hannah used but I liked it. Then I used Barry M - Miami for the heart, and MASH - Black for the arrows. Finished off with a coat of Seche Vite and a coat of Barry M - Matte Topcoat

Make sure to check out Hannah's post of Allie's nails, and Allie's post of my nails.

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

Alice

Nail Art Threesome, Brit Nails

Hey everyone! Myself, Allie of Brit Nails, and Hannah of Polly Polish have been talking on WhatsApp for what feels like my whole blogging life, but has really been around 2 years. I can't imagine blogging without them to be honest, and they've helped me through a lot, not just nails. So we decided that it was finally time to pay homage to each other by creating each others designs. This will consist of two different posts, one with Allie's design and one with Hannah's. 

Today I'm recreating one of Allie's designs. I chose this vibrant Valentine's design because it fits well with the time of year, and also because I owned the Picture Polish shade she used (baring it mind I only own 4). You can see her original post here, and you can see a picture below of her design to compare. Her nails are of course a lot longer than mine so it was never going to look as elegant, nor do I own any square studs apparently. I also don't own any stencils so I had to completely freehand the design. This meant that I didn't create the gradient with a sponge, but instead with a brush for the first time, and it isn't as fluid as it would be with a sponge. However, I was pretty happy with the final result, and I think it's very bright and fun, and I hope you can still see the similarities between the two designs! 

Barry M Spring/Summer 2016 Gelly Collection Swatches and Review + Comparison

Hey everyone! I'm super proud of myself for how productive I was on Saturday (for those of you who don't know it's my only nail day), I got tonnes done. Mainly all in the last couple of hours of the day but still. I'm quite a slow swatcher, so the most I've ever done in one day is around 12 polishes I think, although that's largely because I do nail art in between. However, this week I managed 3 nail art looks and I swatched both new Barry M collections in the space of a few hours. I didn't want to end up like I have previously and just leave my review sitting in my 'to edit' folder for months, so I've forced myself to get them edited tonight, and get the post out. 

This year's Barry M Spring Gelly collection* made me think that they hadn't been particularly imaginative. Both the nude shades seemed very similar to previous shades such as Lychee and Coconut. However, I was still excited to give them a try as they never disappoint, and I was right. In fact, I think Cream Soda* is actually a really unique off-white shade. I've done a comparison of the four nude/off-white polishes at the bottom of this post for you to see that there is actually quite a lot of difference in the shades. I think the collection work really well together, and they also fit well with the spring speedy dry polishes too. I think you'll definitely be seeing these in some nail art soon.