8 Spooky Nights Challenge - Candy

Hello everyone!
It's day three of the 8 Spooky Nights Challenge and the theme of todays post is candy! I really struggled with this theme as Halloween isn't very big in the UK so we don't get loads of cool sweets and stuff like the Americans do. However, I decided to base my nail art on what my family gives out to trick or treaters on Halloween...

My family always gives out these amazing sweets, I never remember the name of them but they're little sweets and when you bite into them they ooze out juice and they're just amazing! So that's what my nail art is based on :P I was originally going to do candy corn as it's pretty recognisable to everyone but I thought it wouldn't be very creative for me.

For these nails I used three coats of a franken I made that is still unnamed. I then added a oozing tip of colour using OPI Pink Friday, OPI Rumples Wiggin', OPI Fly & OPI Who The Shrek Are You? (L-R)

I apologise for the crappy pictures, my camera doesn't like me juts recently. I'm getting it sorted soon thouhg! :D I quite like these nails even though they're quite simple, I think they're good if you want some subtle nails with a small spalsh of colour to liven them up :)

Thanks for reading :)

8 Spooky Nights Challenge - Skulls

Hello everyone!

Today I start another nail art challenge! It's called 8 spooky nights and it's based around Halloween, so obviously I had to join in as I love Halloween! :P Here's a list of all the themes...

 

So todays theme was skulls and as soon as I saw this, I thought of sugar skulls so that's what I went with. Here's how they turned out...

 For these nails I used two coats of Barry M White as a base on all of my nails. I then added dots in Revlon Lunar, OPI Pink Friday, Essie Tour Ded Finance using a variety of different sized dotting tools. I then used a small nail art brush dipped in acetone to create the hollowed cheeks at the sides of my nails.

Overall I'm quite pleased with these nails, I think they could have turned out a lot better but I'm still pleased with my first attempt at sugar skulls. I may attempt these again in a few days time so keep an eye out for that :P I apologise for this being quite a short post today but I think the pictures speak for themselves.

Here's a list of the other ladies taking part:

Peace Love Lacquer

XO, Noelle

College Polished

PishPosh & Polish

Beauty Dish

Nail By Katie

Jenerally Speaking 

Galactic Lacquer 

Tres' Chic Nails 

Charlottes-nails 

Manic Manis

The Life, Time and Lacquers of Lilmoon

Makeup and Nails, Not War

Not Too Polished

Mimi Manicures

Seriously Swatched

8 Spooky Nights

Jilltastic Nail Designs

Thanks for reading :)

Fall Into Autumn Challenge!

Hello everyone!
Today I have the first post from the new seasonal challenge. This one is titled the Fall Into Autumn Challenge! Without a doubt this is going to be my favourite challenge is it includes school and halloween and all things fall :) So here's a look at all the themes included in this challenge...

So the first theme in this challenge was Back to School. I had an idea in mind from the moment I set eyes on this theme, here's what I came up with...

I decided to do crayon nails! When I was still at school I always used to buy big oxes of crayons to use to colour with, I had to have the biggest and best because that's the way I was :P I still do the same thing now I'm at university ut it's coloured pens instead of crayons :P

For these nails I used lots of different coloured polishes! For the bases of the crayons I used pastel colours (L-R) OPI Pink Friday, OPI What's With The Cattitude, NYC Hint Of Mint and OPI In MY Back Pocket. On top of these colours I used slightly brighter colours to create the actual crayon tip with a small art brush (L-R) Jesse's Girl Cupcake Frosting, Jesse's Girl Girls Night Out, Color Club Twiggie and Color Club Wham! Pow! I then used my Models Own Nail Art Pen in Black to create the black lines. I also used a small brush and acetone to remove some of the base colour around the crayon to allow my natural nail to show through.

I am so impressed with these, I never thought they would turn out as well as they did, I want to use so many different colours to create more of these now! :P I'm really looking forward to the rest of this challenge, there are lots of themes that are quite broad so I can be pretty creative. Keep an eye out for some more posts from me soon! :)

Thanks for reading :)

Birthday Nails

Hello everyone!

Just a quick post today to show you what my nails looked like for my birthday! I'm very girly so I decided that my nails would have to be pink. I finally decided I wanted to a do a pink ombre, using different finishes of polish. So here's what I ended up with...

For these nails I used the following polishes from top to bottom: two coats of OPI Pink Friday, three coats of Barry M Pink Silver Glitter, Two coats of OPI Rally Pretty Pink and two coats of China Glaze Tickle My Triangle.

I really loved how these turned out. I got many compliments on them from family and friends as they were all different finishes :P I want to try this style out again in so many different colours now!

I'm still doing nails in the theme of pink and sparkly for my late night out for my birthday; which is next Saturday. So if you have any suggestions please leave them in the comments :)

Thanks for reading :)

Nails From Last Night

Hello everyone :)

Just a quick post from me today on my nails from last night. I went out with my group of friends as it was one of their birthdays! So obviously I had to match my nails to my outfit. Here's what my nails looked like...

For these nails I used two coats of OPI Pink Friday and topped them off with one thick layer of Rainbow Honey's A Little Kindness. I thought these nails looked gorgeous and all my friends commented on how cute they thought A Little Kindness was :)

Now here's a photo of my outfit to show how my nails matched. I'm the blonde! :P

Sorry for the short and sweet post, I have some awesome posts lined up for this weekend though :)

Thanks for reading :)

Superhero Challenge - Ultimate Hero

Hello everyone!
Today I have the last post of the superhero challenge! I'm so sad, I love this challenge so much. Hopefully I'll be invited to join in more challenges like this in the future. The ladies who have taken part with me are all so awesome and their nail art is amazing!! Anyway, I've known for a few weeks what I was going to attempt for this final theme in the challenge. As my villain was based on a childhood cartoon, I wanted my hero to be based on one too and there could only be one trio that it could be...

 

The powerpuff girls!! They were my ultimate heroes when I was younger, I loved them so much and I watched the programme all the time! I could never quite decide who I liked more though, Bubbles or Blossom :P Here's how I interpreted the girls in my nail art...

 I wanted to use each of the girls faces on a nail and then I added a heart on my little finger, not only to show my love for them :P But also because at the end of the show there was a glowing heart type of thing and it reminded me of that :P

I used so many different coloured polishes and paints for these nails. The base for the faces is Sally Hansen Iced Coffee. The base on my little finger is OPI Pink Friday. I used Color Club Almost Famous for Bubbles' hair, and OPI What's With The Cattitude? for her eyes. I used OPI In MY Back Pocket for Blossoms hair and OPI Pink Friday for her eyes. For Buttercups eyes I used Color Club Twiggie. The rest of the colours used are acrylic paints.

I love these nails! When I started this challenge I didn't think I'd be very good compared to the other ladies taking part but I feel like I've come a long way since the start of the challenge. I'm so proud of the things I've created and I will definitely do more challenges like this in the future as they inspire me to try new things :)

I hope you've all enjoyed my posts from the Superhero Challenge :)

Thanks for reading :)

Superhero Challenge - Disney Hero

Hello everyone :)
Todays post is another Superhero challenge post! This time it's all about a Disney Hero! This turned out harder to choose than the other posts I've done as their are so many hero's I wanted to do! However, I can't draw very well especially on nails so I wanted something cute but quite simple too, here's who I settled on...

 

Marie from Aristocats! She's super cute and pink and everything I love about Disney! I know she's not typically a hero but she is classed as one by Disney, and I really wanted to include an animal :P It was a tie between Marie and Pocahontas, however Pocahontas is very difficult to do much with so I chose Marie :) here's what I did...

 I decided that I would use different parts of Marie on each nail to reflect her and her personality. On my forefinger, I focused on the bow in her hair. For my middle finger I did the bow she wears a round her neck. I left my ring finger blank as Marie is very into pink and I wanted this to come across. On my little finger I used Marie's tail, it s so fluffy!! :)

 

For these nails I used two coats of Barry M Pink Silver Glitter for the base on all my nails. This polish is new and it applies beautifully, However, as you can see on my ring finger, you can still see a little bit of nail line so three coats would be better than two. The pink used on Marie's bows is OPI Pink Friday and the other colours are acrylic paints.

I'm so pleased with how these turned out! They're super cute and girly and very me. Everyone commented on how well they suited me and my personality :P And everyone could tell they were based on a cat so that proves my drawing skills aren't that bad ;p 

Who would you have chosen as your Disney Hero? Let me know in the comments :)

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

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

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

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

Cloud Nails

hello everyone :)
Today I have a new mani for you all to feast your eyes on. I've loved the "cloud" style manis i've seen on nailsides blog, and I always said I'd give it a go and never got around to it. well I finally did and I absolutely love how it turned out! Take a look...

I used 2 coats of OPI Play The Peonies as the base colour. I then used 1 coat of OPI Pink Friday to create the first cloud shape and then topped this off with 1 coat of OPI Super bass Shatter to create the final cloud shape. 

Here's a closer image so you can really see the different colours I used. I liked using the two subtle pinks together and then adding a deeper pop of colour with the purple shatter, I think the colours work really well together. I also think this picture shows how well my photography is progressing, leave a comment telling me what you think and maybe some tips to help me improve even more? :)

To create the cloud shapes I let a drop of polish collect at the tip of the brush and used that to create the rounded end of the cloud shape, then repeated 3 times on each nail. The shatter was harder to do as I had to be really careful not to overlap strokes or I ended up with darker patches or less crackle etc :P Overall, I really enjoyed this mani, everything about it made me smile. a lot of my friends at uni had never seen anything like this before so I had to explain several times how to do it :P I will try this mani again soon but with different colour schemes. 

I'll be putting the 52 week challenge post up tomorrow :)

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment on anything about this mani or my photo skills :)

Charlotte xxx