Penguins

Hello everyone,
Today I'm going to show you a manicure I did a few days ago that I absolutely adored. This was one of my first attempts to do anything Christmas nail art related and I really loved how it turned out. I was browsing around weheartit and pinterest for inspiration for my nails and I stumbled across many penguin manicures and decided this is what I wanted to do. So here we are...

Here are my baby penguins :) Excuse the dragging on my index finger penguin, they took forever to dry :( Anyway I used two coats of Nails Inc. Eagle Street which is a beautiful dusty pink, I originally bought the nails inc set it was in just for this colour :) This polish surprised me with how opaque it is, in future I could get away with using just 1 coat with better application. For the penguins I used Barry M White and a nail art brush, followed by Barry M Black for the eyes with a dotting tool. I then used OPI Chopsticking To My Story for the beak and feet with a dotting tool. Also on my ring fingers I used Nails Inc. Shelton Street (from the same collection) to fashion a little bow tie for my penguin, how cute is that? :) 

Here's a close up of one of my penguins :) I was really pleased with how they came out, everyone I showed them to knew instantly that they were penguins so I'd say they were a success :p 

So I hope you enjoyed seeing my penguin mani and you're all getting ready for a lovely Christmas :)

Charlotte xxx

Snowmen

Hello everyone,
Today I have my snowman mani to show you. I really enjoyed doing this nail art, it took me a while to get it right but when I did I really loved it. Many people who saw this mani thought they were stickers and were amazed when I told them I did them, hopefully that means I'm getting better at my nail art :P Anyway, on with the pictures..

To create this look I used two coats of OPI Ski teal we drop as the base colour. I was really surprised y this colour I could have gotten away with using one coat but I wanted to make sure it fully covered everywhere on my nail so I did two. This colour is such a beautiful dark blue/green mix, reminds me of the night sky which is exactly why I picked it for this mani. I then layered the white glitter snowman polish over the top to give the illusion of snow falling :) It looks beautiful when the light hits the glitter and really does look like the glittering snow.

I did an accent on my thumb nails for once and I'm really pleased with how well my snowman turned out. So here he is :) I used OPI Alpine Snow for the snowman's body, I was surprised at how well this covered the dark base colour as all the whites I've used in the past have basically been rubbish but this one is perfect. I then used Revlon Lunar for the eyes, mouth and buttons using a dotting tool. For the nose I used chopsticking to my story with a small nail art brush. I finally used OPI Come To Poppy for the scarf. Overall I feel this was quite a simple way to do Christmas nails without having to spend a long period of time on them.

I've also been playing about with my camera in the last couple of days, I'm still getting used to it but hopefully my pictures will be improving as I learn more things :) Also, please excuse the state of my cuticles, being old in the cold and the wind for hours everyday really do not help me and I can't seem to get my cuticles to be hydrated and lovely looking :( Any suggestions can be left in the comments section as always :)
Thanks for reading :)
Charlotte xxx

Jelly Sandwich

Hello everyone :)
Today I want to show you all my very first jelly sandwich, I was browsing pictures from blogs and I came across a beautiful jelly sandwich manicure using rainbow connection and a white jelly. So I started thinking bout colours I could use and this is what I came up with...

I used 4/5 coats of Ciate My Fair Lady as a base, this is such a sheer polish but it builds up into such a gorgeous colour I knew this would be beautiful for a jelly sandwich. I then layered Milani Gems over the top and topped it off with one more coat of my fair lady.

I absolutely loved how this turned up, the soft muted pink of my fair lady toned down the bright colours of the glitter and made it more pastel coloured. I had many compliments on these nails, many people told me they reminded them of cupcakes. I think this is great way to wear glitter in a more subtle way, it's so feminine. I will definitely be doing this manicure again with different colours.

Thanks for reading :)
Charlotte xx

Milani Hi-Tech

Hello everyone :)
Today I'll be showing you pictures of Milani Hi-Tech.

This is a little blurry just to show the holo effect of this polish, it really is beautiful to look at. I used two coats of Milani Hi-Tech and topped it with Seche Vite, this is one of my favourite mani's so far.

 I love this polish, it's such a vibrant colour and really catches people's attention. I had several people ask me about it at uni last week. Also the holo effect of it is beautiful, I just couldn't stop staring at my nails :P

I've also been working on "the gap" and it really does make everything look much neater and I'm really pleased with how I'm coming along :P
Anyway thanks for reading :)

Charlotte xoxox

Secret Santa :)

Hello all :)

Just an update post really about the Secret Santa we've been doing over at the Polish-aholics Anonymous group on facebook. I sent out my parcel last week to the lovely Joy Cozart - http://okaynowjoy.blogspot.com/ (You can see her post on all the goodies I sent her over on her blog) I also received my parcel yesterday from Emma Hoop...

When I opened the box and saw all of these goodies I honestly couldn't contain myself. I had to literally make myself take photo's before tearing into everything :P She also included a beautiful hand written note explaining all the polishes which I thought was lovely :)

There was a $15 dollar limit and I am honestly amazed at the stuff you can get for that price in America as $15 dollars is roughly £9/10 in the UK and polish is a lot more expensive over here. I loved everything. I got Milani Gems, Milani Hi-Tech, China Glaze Skyscraper (Which was a huge lemming of mine) and a white glitter snowman :) She also threw in a Hello Kitty Xmas tree bauble which I am in love with :P I also got a cute stocking and a lovely pink nail file.

I absolutely loved taking part in this years Secret Santa and will definitely be doing it again next year :)

Charlotte xx

Matte & Sparkly :)

Hello again everyone :)
I'm really getting into this blog now, I love planning exactly what I'm going to post for you all :) Also, good news I'll have my new camera tomorrow so expect new and better photo's soon ! Anyway here's my most recent mani..

This is 2 coats of Barry M Black as the base with 2 coats of OPI Rainbow connection layered on top. I absolutely love this combination. Just looking at me makes me so happy, it's elegant but sparkly and I usually wear it with 17 Matte top coat as I just love what matte polish does to glitter :)

Here's a closer picture so you can see the sheer gorgeousness of this mani. Rainbow connection is definitely one of my favourite glitter polishes, the colours are all beautiful and mix of different sized glitters adds a lot of depth in my opinion. It also reminds me of confetti :D

I hope you enjoyed this mani, let me know what you think in the comments below. Also if anyone can recommend a decent black polish with good coverage ect.. let me know in the comments as I'm looking for a new one :)

Charlotte xo

Breaking Dawn Nails

I'm off to see Breaking Dawn tomorrow night so thought I'd do my nails tonight :) I've fallen in love with these nails, it was my first attempt at proper nail art so I know they're not amazing but still it's an achievement :P . I currently hate my camera as it doesn't pay attention to what I'm telling it to do so I think I need a new camera :D hopefully then my i'll be able to use more pictures in my posts :) So excuse the lack of pictures and the poor quality :( Anyway on to the nails...

So my index finger - I used Color Club Antiquated from the foiled collection, a beautiful pale gold colour that covers in two thin coats. I stamped a lace pattern over the top to signify Bella's wedding dress :) I used Barry M white to stamp the design, I'm sorry you cant see it very well :(

My middle finger - I used Barry M black as base and used Color Club Antiquated for the key (The key to the cottage they are given.)

My ring finger- Again I used Barry M black as base and layered two coats of Models Own Juicy Jules over the top. Juicy Jules is a glitter polish that contains scattered holo pieces, it's gorgeous :)

My little finger- Barry M black used as the base and Collection 2000 Hot Looks Big Hair to paint on a small heart, again sorry that you can't see it too well :(

I'm sorry this is so blurry :( I'm so angry at my camera right now but I couldn't not upload photo's of this mani.

So my thumb - Barry M black used as a base with Barry M white and Collection 2000 Hot Looks Big Hair as the colours for the chess pieces. I copied the chess pieces from the front cover of Breaking Dawn, this was definitely the hardest nail to do but I'm pleased with how it turned out :)

Anyway thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed my nail art :)
Charlotte xo

Halloween Nails

Hello :)
So this is my first post and It's probably going to take ma while to write but hopefully I'll get there in the end :P

I thought I'd start out with something I did a little while back just to start off getting into posting and stuff, so here's my first Halloween look..

I used Sinful Colors Courtney Orange for the base and layered Sinful Colors UFO over the top as they really compliment each other. Then I followed the tape mani tutorial from http://nailside.blogspot.com/ to create the pattern on the tips of my nails with OPI My Private Jet.

I also used OPI My Private Jet for the accent nail just to break the pattern up a bit, this mani was so bright and sparkly I loved it! :)

My pictures really don't do any of these colours justice they are beautiful. I plan on doing more tape mani's in the future as I need to work on getting the tape to stick down smoother to create straighter lines :P A couple of mine I had to freehand.

Moving on to the mani I actually wore for Halloween..

Frankenstein nails !! This is probably the most adventurous nail art I've attempted to date and I think it turned out quite well :) I used 5 coats of OPI Zom-body to love as it's very sheer but the colour build up is such a cute colour and it dries relatively quick. I used my models own nail art pen in black to draw the outline of the hair on then filled it in with Barry M Black I also used the nail art pen for the stitches. I used a dotting tool for the black and white of the eyes which were both Barry M polishes. I only have one picture of this as I'm new to photographing my nails and found it hard to get the lighting right, I'll be experimenting with this in my next few posts. Hopefully I'll get better :P

Thank you for reading my very first post and of course if you want to see more then follow my blog :) I can't wait till I can host my first giveaway and other things like that :)

Charlotte :) <3