Pedicure Time Featuring My Mum

Hello everyone :)

Today I have a new kind of post for you all. My mum works in  factory and operates machines, I always want to paint her nails but they chip after a day and she wont let me change them that often :P So we came to a compromise a while ago that I could paint her toenails every week instead, she wears flip flops quite often so people always notice when her toes are pretty :) I thought that I'd start sharing her pedicures with you all as we decide on some quite nice nail art together. It's a great bonding experience too :) So here's this weeks nails...

Please ignore my mums gross looking feet, she's just got in from work and wouldn't let me do anything with them before taking the photos :p Anyway, my mum told me she wanted red, white and blue nails and then let me run wild with what kind of nail art I wanted to do. So I decided on a jelly sandwich with an accent on the big toe nail.

I used three coats of China Glaze Ride The Waves for the blue nails, two coats of H&M Berry Love on the red toes and two coats of OPI Alpine Snow on the white toes as the base colours. I then applied one thick coat of Milani Gems on each nail. I then layered Ride The Waves over the top of the blue nails, OPI Big Hair...Big Nails over the red nails and OPI Don't Touch My Tutu over the white nails to create the jelly sandwich. I then created the cloud accent nail using one coat of Alpine Snow and one coat of H&M Berry Love. 

I honestly love how these turned out and so does my mu, she is always amazed at the ideas I come up with and is genuinely pleased everytime I paint her toes. She likes to show them off to her friends at work and tell me about all the comments she gets :P

Do you paint the nails of your friends and family? Let me know in the comments :)

Thanks for reading,

Superhero Challenge - Ultimate Villain

Hello everyone :)

It's the last week of the Superhero challenge! I'm so sad, I love this challenge so much and it's made me push myself in terms of my nail art, I don't want it to end! I might have to create a challenge myself after this ones over ;) Anyway, todays post is based on my ultimate villain! I've been pondering who to choose for this theme since I started this challenge, there's so many villains to choose from! In the end I settled on two villains from my favorite tv show when I was small, these guys were the ultimate villains to me throughout my childhood...

 

That's right Jesse and James, also known as Team Rocket from Pokemon!

These two always showed up to ruin everything in literally every episode and I hated it! So i just had to base my nails on them for this theme, I also wanted to challenge myself as it's the last week so here's what I did...

 I based my nails on Jesse and James themselves and also their uniforms. My fore finger and little finger are the uniform nails, my middle finger is James and my ring finger is Jesse.

For the uniform nails I used OPI Alpine Snow for the base and red acrylic paint for the R. For the character nails I used Sally Hansen Iced Coffee as a base and then used acrylic paints for the features. However, I used Color Club Puccilicious for James' hair :P

I am so pleased with how these turned out! I think this is possibly the best nail art I have ever done and many of my friends took one look at my nails and knew exactly who they were, which makes me feel amazing! :P I'm so glad that I challenged myself with these nails today, I hope you all like them as much as I do!

Also, I thought I'd let you all know that I found out I passed my first year of University today! I got a 2:1 which means I also get my scholarship again next year! Yay!!! :)

Thanks for reading :)

Summer Fun Challenge - Pool Party

Hello everyone :)
Today I have another post for the Summer Fun Challenge for you all. The theme for this post is Pool Party and I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I haven't done a water marble in a while, and I've never done a full water marble, only ever as an accent nail so I thought this was the perfect chance to do one. Here's what happened...

Oh my god! It turned out perfect!! This is exactly what I wanted when I thought about this theme, and it's the first time I've managed to do a full water marble without giving up :P

For this water marble, I used OPI Alpine Snow, China Glaze For Audrey and Zoya Charla. I've decided that Charla is the perfect colour if you need to do any kind of manicure to do with water or mermaids :P It's such a versatile colour and I've used it so much on my nails already :)

I took this photo outside just to give you a better idea of the true colours of the polishes. I used the colours above because they reminded me of the water and also tiles that line swimming pools, I think they all worked well together :)

Overall, this is the best I could have hoped for. These turned out awesome, in my opinion :P And I love how this picture shows the super sparkliness of Charla, it's such a gorgeous polish. If you don't own it, seriously you need it!! :P

Have you ever done a mani inspired by water? What colours did you use? Let me in the comments :)

Please bare with me if my posting is a bit strange this week as my son has caught chickenpox so I'm trying to get my posts up around him :)
Thanks for reading :)

Superhero Challenge - DC Villain

Hello everyone :)
Today I have the next post of the Superhero Challenge! For this post I had to pick a DC Villain, I've really been struggling with this one since last week. I'd pick someone then realize I couldn't come up with a good design for them so I'd change my mind several times :P Today I finally settled on a character...

This is White Rabbit. She's one of the new 52 DC Villains and you can read more about her here - http://www.ugo.com/the-goods/dc-new-52-villains

I chose her as I love her costume (pink! and a bunny!) And I knew I'd be able to do a design for her that would look good :) So here are my nails...

These nails are again inspired by White Rabbits costume. 

Fore finger: Her ears and hair (the hair is awful! I apologize)

Middle finger: her mask

Ring finger: her corset

Little finger: her shorts and tail

For the base of my nails I used OPI Play The Peonies. A beautiful pale pink that I don't use often. However, when I do I always think why don't I use this..It's gorgeous! I used Jesses Girl Cupcake Frosting as the base on my little finger, this pink is also gorgeous and it's the first time I've used it. I then used OPI Alpine Snow for all the white and my Models Own Nail Art Pen in Black for the lines. 

Overall, I'm pleased with how these came out but if I'd found a character sooner I would have planned better, therefore they would have turned out better :P But I like them anyway :P While I was waiting for them to dry a girl knocked on the front door and she asked me what they were so I spent a while explaining them to her, she really liked them :) That made my day a little bit, I love talking about nails to people :P

Have you ever heard of the White Rabbit? Who's your favourite DC Villain? Let me know in the comments :)

Keep an eye out for a new challenge I'm starting tomorrow too!

Thanks for reading :)

Also, check out the other girls who are taking part in this challenge along with me to create the Super Six!

Sammy at The Nailasaurus

Debbie at The Crumpet

Sarah at Spellbinding Nails

Jo at Northern Nails

Kerrie at PishPosh and Polish

Superhero Challenge - Marvel Hero!

Hello everyone :)
Today I have my next Superhero Challenge post! This time I'm showing you some nail art inspired by a Marvel Comics Hero! Again, like the last post, I didn't want to do a common hero so I went and looked at some less well known heroes that Marvel have created and came across this guy...

 

Captain Britain! I thought he was very fitting for this challenge seeing as we're all British ladies taking part in this challenge....

So I decided that for this challenge I wanted to have my nails all the same so I took my inspiration from Captain Britain's outfit.

 For these nails I used Color Club Cold Metal for the base, OPI Alpine Snow for the base of the cross and then China Glaze Poinsettia over the top of the white. I've never used Cold Metal before and I was pleasantly surprised by how good the application was, if I was careful I could have gotten away with one coat! I used two coats of each polish in this nail art.

I'm really pleased with how these turned out. I know my lines aren't perfectly straight but they're better than they would have been a few weeks ago :P Unfortunately nobody knew they were based on a superhero until I told them :P Although people enjoyed learning all about Captain Britain :P (He was intended to be the British version of Captain America!) 

Thanks for reading :)

Also, check out the other girls who are taking part in this challenge along with me to create the Super Six!

Sammy at The Nailasaurus

Debbie at The Crumpet

Sarah at Spellbinding Nails

Jo at Northern Nails

Kerrie at PishPosh and Polish

First Successful Water Marble!

Hello everyone :)
I have a very exciting post for you all today! I finally managed to do a water marble successfully!! :D I'm so happy I could cry :P After seeing so many beautiful water marbles on my blog roll recently I thought I needed to attempt it again, so after reading a few new tutorials I gave it a go this morning. Here's what happened...

I only attempted an accent nail this time as I wasn't feeling too brave :P I used Sally Hansen Pink Boa for the hot pink, OPI Alpine Snow for the white and Hot Looks Candy Floss for the light pink. Overall I'm very pleased with how it turned out, although I would use a white base next time as the tip of my nail is quite sheer, not as sheer as this photo shows though :)

For this attempt I dug my dads long forgotten Brita Filter out from the back of the cupboard and used filtered water. This seems to work like a charm as it's the only time I've been able to get a decent marbled look. Usually when I try to water marble I pull my nail out and end up with a thick gloopy mess :( But I can do it now! I honestly can't wait to try this out in different colours and as a full mani! :)

Do you like water marbled nails? What colours suit this style best? let me know in the comments :)
Thanks for reading :)
Charlotte xxx

April Showers Challenge - Spring Design of Your Choice

Hello everyone :)
Sorry for the lack of posting over the weekend, I've been ill again :( I'm okay now though so back to the nails! :P
This is the last post for the April Showers challenge :( But I have a few challenges coming up that I'm taking part in so keep an eye out for those soon!
Anyway, this last post for April Showers was labelled as the spring design of your choice. I've been thinking about this one for a while and decided I wanted to combine two things, here's what I came up with...

I knew I wanted to try gradient nails again but I also wanted to do sheep as they remind me of spring and they weren't included in this challenge. So that's how I came up with this idea :)

For these nails I used two coats of OPI What's With The Cattitude? for the base. I then sponged on Color Club Twiggie for the grass and OPI Ogre The Top Blue for the sky. I then used a dotting tool and OPI Alpine Snow to create the sheep's body, Revlon Lunar for the legs and eyes, OPI Pink Friday for the nose and Essence Twins Romeo for the ears. Wow! That's a lot of polish :P

I'm so pleased with how these turned out! You can actually tell what they are and I really like the effect the gradient gives to the background of the sheep :P I'm really going to miss this challenge I had great fun coming up with different designs, but hopefully the next challenges I have lined up will be just as fun and creative :)

What colours do you think look nice in gradients? let me know in the comments :)

Thanks for reading :)

Charlotte xxx

Cupcake Nails

Hello everyone :)
I've taken a bit of a break from the April Showers Challenge this week as it's my last week of uni and I've been ill with viral gastroenteritis :( My son caught it last week and now everyone in our house has it. So last night I sat down and did some nails that would cheer me up... cupcakes! :)

Please excuse my awful cuticles!! They need some serious attention, what cuticle products would you all reccomend?

I used so many polishes for these nails but they turned out better than I expected them to :P

So here's a list of the base polishes I used on each finger:

Fore finger: China Glaze For Audrey (two coats)

Middle finger: Color Club Twiggie (three coats)

Ring finger: OPI Pink Friday (two coats)

Little finger: China Glaze For Audrey (two coats)

For the cake section of my nails I used two coats of Color Club Almost Famous, I then used two coats of OPI Alpine Snow to create the icing on the tip of my nails. I topped all this off with one coat of Lynderella Connect The Dots and H&M Berry love to create a cherry :)

Overall, I'm really pleased with how these turned out. I don't know what made me think to try this nail art out but I'm glad I did. I've had several compliments on them already. I'd love to try these nails again but using different glitter on the icing and using the same base colour on all the nails. They're so cute and fun!!

Do you like cupcake nails or are they too sweet for your taste? Let me know in the comments :)

Also, keep an eye out over the next few days for a review on SoFlaJo's polish - Fields Of Clover! :D

Thanks for reading,

Charlotte xxx

April Showers Challenge - Butterflies

Hello everyone :)
I have another April Showers challenge post for you today... Butterflies! I've been dying to do butterfly nails for a long time and never got round to it so I was so excited to see it in this challenge! I've been looking around online and seen some beautiful butterfly nails, so here's how mine turned out...

I think these turned out quite well for saying it was my first go! My boyfriend had no clue what they were when I showed him but my son knew straight away :P My inspiration for these nails was a monarch butterfly, even though they're orange and not pink :P

For these nails I used two coats of OPI Pink Flamenco, I could have gotten away with one coat if I was more careful. This is such a vibrant pink polish, I've fallen in love with it! :) I then used my Models Own Nail Art Pen in black to draw the lines and used a dotting tool and OPI Alpine Snow to create the dots.

I'm so pleased with how vibrant and cute these turned out :) Again, this is one of those kinds of nail art that is very versatile depending on the colour combination. I'd love to try this over a sponged base.

Have you tried butterfly nails? What colours would you use with this nail art? let me know in the comments :)

Keep an eye out for my 250 follower giveaway tomorrow! :D

Thanks for reading :)

Charlotte xxx

April Showers Challenge - Fresh Cut Lawns

Hello everyone :)
Another quick April Showers Challenge post today! The theme for today was... Fresh Cut Lawns. For this theme I was just going to paint my nails green as I was at a loss as to what to do. So I started painting them and then thought that I wasn't trying hard enough, and I'd be put to shame by the other girls amazing nail art! :P So I sat down and thought again and this is what I came up with...

I did a lawn mower cutting grass! :P Not the best or most original idea, but better than just plain green :)

I used OPI What's With The Cattitude? for the sky, OPI Alpine Snow for the cloud tips, Sally Hansen Going Green for the grass and China Glaze Poinsettia & Revlon Lunar for the lawn mower. I used different sized dotting tools to create the grass blades and the lawn mower and the polish brush to create the clouds.

These turned out okay but they looked better in my head :P I hate when that happens but.. oh well :P

I'm really looking forward to the next theme in this challenge...Butterflies!! So keep an eye out for that post soon :) And I have some very exciting things coming up for you all in the next few weeks so watch out for those too ;p

How would you have portrayed Fresh Cut Lawns in nail art? Let me know in the comments :)

Thanks for reading :)

Charlotte xxx

Week 16 Dotticure Mani

Hello everyone :)
Today I have week 16 of the 52 Week Challenge. This weeks theme was a dotticure mani, and I knew straight away what I was going to do. Over the past few weeks I've seen a few posts on some dotty nails and I loved the look of them and was dying to try them out. I thought I'd wait and save them for this weeks theme, here's what I came up with...

I dotted over the top of yesterdays Ombre nails seeing as I loved them too much to take off just yet :P I created the dots using several different sizes of dotting tools.

I used OPI Alpine Snow, OPI Pink Friday and OPI Pink Flamenco to create the dots, as well as the Gradient which you can read more about in my previous post :)

I really love how this turned out. I used to hate doing nails with polka dots, but now that I have proper dotting tools it is definitely much easier and one of my favourite techniques for nail art. I will be trying this again  with different colours schemes, it's another very versatile way to do nail art.

Do you like using polka dots in nail art? Let me know in the comments :) Also let me know what kind of polishes you'd like to see included in my 250 follower giveaway as I'm going shopping very soon ;)

Thanks for reading :)
Charlotte xxx

April Showers Challenge - Ombre

Hello everyone :)
Today I have another April Showers Challenge post for you. This challenge was Ombre! I've only ever done ombre before and I did it with green polishes. My last ombre was a different shade of green polish on each finger, so this time I decided I'd do a gradient ombre on each finger to make it a bit different from my last attempt.

I was originally going to a different coloured ombre on each finger but I thought that would be too distracting and you wouldn't know where to look. So I just went with pink as it's one of my favourite colours and very pretty for spring :)

I started by painting two coats of OPI Alpine Snow onto all my nails as a base colour to sponge over. I then sponged one thin coat of OPI Pink Friday to the bottom half of my nails. I then topped this with one thin coat of OPI Pink Flamenco to the top half of my nail. I sponged in the middle while the polish was still wet to make the colours blend together a bit better. I then topped it all off with a coat of Wet N Wild Hallucinate to add some sparkle to it :)

These nails are very versatile, just like all the nails I've done recently. You can change the colour scheme so that they're suitable for all occasions, I really want to try this with nudes and glitter, I think they'd be beautiful :)

Have you tried an ombre/gradient mani recently? What techniques and colours do you use? let me know in the comments :)

Thanks for reading :)

Charlotte xxx

April Showers.. Challenge - Ladybirds

Hello everyone :)
Today I'm back with another April Showers Bring May Flowers challenge post. Today's challenge was ladybird nails! Originally I was going to do a scene across my nails like a garden with lady birds but I didn't have enough time :( I will definitely try it in the next few days though :) So here's what I came up with...

I decided to go with ladybirds that are more real rather than cartoon like. So I searched for pictures of lady birds and tried to copy it as well as I could :)

I used two coats of H&M Berry Love for the base on all nails. This polish is my favourite red, it's a jelly polish but it's so bright and beautiful :) I then drew on black tips with Revlon Lunar and added dots for the eyes with OPI Alpine Snow and a dotting tool. I also used dotting tools to create the spots on the wings and the line down the back.

I'm so pleased with how this turned out, I think it's obvious what they are and they're so cute and appropriate for the season at the moment :) Also, my nail art skills are getting better as my right hand looks just as good as my left and that never happens! My son has an obsession with ladybirds at the minute so we've had lots of fun making them crawl all over him :P
what do you think about ladybird nails? Have you ever tried them? Let me know in the comments.
Thanks for reading :)
Charlotte xxx

More Nail Polish Contest Entry

Hello everyone :)
Today I have a post to show you my entry for More Nail Polish's Inspired By Nail Art Contest. The idea of the contest was to create some nail art that is inspired by something, anything really. As I am a dance student I thought I'd base mine on dancing, specifically ballet dancers :) So here's what I came up with...

So here's what inspired each nail... Forefinger: Pointe shoes. Middle finger: tutu skirt. Ring finger: Rhinestone corset. Little finger: hair bun. 

Here's what I used for each finger:

Fore finger: 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow and 1 coat of OPI Pink Friday for the shoe design.

Middle finger: 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow and then lace and pink fabric glued on top.

Ring Finger: 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow and 1 coat of OPI Pink Friday for the corset shape. Rhinestones glued on top.

Little finger: 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow and 1 coat of China Glaze Happy Go Lucky for the bun and 1 coat of OPI Pink Friday for the hair band.

These nails took me a lot of time and I'm really pleased with how they turned out :) Let me know what you think in the comments :)

Look out for my 52 week challenge post tonight and also a few other posts in the next few days including swatches of Nail-Venturous Floam! :)

Thanks for reading :)

Charlotte xxx

Week 10 Polka Dot Nails

Hello everyone :)
Time for another 52 Week Challenge post! This week our challenge was Polka Dots. Now when I think of polka dot nails I think that they're boring, |I don't know why. So I've never done one as they never appealed to me. However I knew this was coming up so I'd been looking around on google for a few weeks to prepare :P I came across some pretty pink and white spotty nails that I liked the look of and decided to combine them with something from one of the other challenges that I wanted to revisit, so here it is...

I used two coats of OPI Nail Envy base coat as a starting point for this mani. I then added reinforcement ring stickers and added 3 coats of OPI Pink Friday. I used OPI Alpine Snow to create the grips with a hair grip as I wanted large polka dots and then topped it all off with OPI Rapidry Topcoat.

I really wanted to go back and try half moon nails again and I found some of the reinforcement stickers a few days ago and I was dying to try them out. I thought they would fit quite well with what I wanted to do for this weeks challenge. I left my thumb and ring finger nail plain as I thought if I did all my nails it would be too much and I wouldn't like them. I really like them like this though, I'm so glad I went back and redid the half moon nails :)

I need to work on my polka dot skills though! :P They're not all the same size and shape which irritated me but I don't think they're too bad for my first try :) I think I'll be doing a lot of dots in future mani's to try and get better :p

What do you think to polka dot nails? Have you got any tips on how to create perfect dots? Let me know in the comments :)
Thanks for reading :)
Charlotte xxx

52 Week Challenge Week 7

Hello everyone :)
This weeks 52 week challenge was Valentines Day nails. I spent a long time looking for inspiration for this weeks challenge and their were several things I was sure of: I wanted to use pinks and white and I wanted some sort of nail art at the tip of the nail. So here's what I came up with...

I used 4 coats of OPI Isn't That Precious as the base colour. This polish is a new one and its absolutely beautiful, even though it took several coats to build up the colour pay off is worth it :) I then used two coats of Models Own Pink Blush for the V shaped tips, which I freehanded and am rather proud of :P I then used OPI Alpine snow and a dotting tool to add the small dots. 

Originally I wanted to add a love heart to the thumb and ring nail to add a little extra something to this mani but I knew I'd mess it up and get angry at myself, so I left it. I really like how it turned out actually. The colours worked well together and it was super cute and sweet and girly.

Also since I've been using Nail Envy for around 3 weeks now I've noticed my nails haven;t been chipping. Usually my nail polish starts to chip around 1-2 days after application, after using nail envy this doesn't happen anymore. I've also noticed my nails no longer peel or split horizontally, I am very impressed. Also I've barely made a dent in the bottle and I use it all the time :P

I hope you like my Valentines day mani, let me know what you think in the comments :)

Thanks for reading :)

Charlotte xxx

52 Week Challenge Week 4 - Plaid

Hello everyone :)
This weeks 52 week challenge was Plaid. Now I'm not a big fan of plaid nails. They just seem a bit weird to me :P I don't know why but anyway I had some new polishes arrive this week and wanted to use one for the base colour so here's what I came up with...

I used 4-5 coats of OPI Guy Meets Gal-Veston as the base. I've never used any of Sorbet finishes before but I really loved this polish it's such a gorgeous colour that builds really well, this would be perfect for a jelly sandwich :) I then used Models Own Black Nail Art Pen for the black stripes and OPI Alpine snow for the white blocks. I'm not happy with how messy this looks but I never have steady enough hands :P

I'm really enjoying this challenge so far, it's making me try things that I would never normally try and I'm learning a lot of new skills in the process. Also, I've added a page especially for the challenge at the top of my blog, it's got the full list of the challenge and the other girls who are participating so it saves me from keep  posting it every week :P
Hope you enjoyed reading this weeks post :)
Charlotte xxx