watermelon nail art

 

yesterday i was a bit bored and so decided to do something proactive (nail art counts as proactive in my world) and summery as it was wet and grey outside, not how august is meant to be as far as i remember! those of you that read my liebster award post  will know that i've just finished a law degree and so i'm in the slow process of moving everything home and sorting my room out. this meant leaving my beloved bag of nail varnishes behind and so i only have a few here and had to make do with what i've got! i opted for watermelon nails as i've seen a lot recently and pretty much only have pink and green nail varnishes!

           

firstly i did two coats of NYC - bubblegum pink  as the majority of it shows and i didn't want it to be streaky. i then used models own - jade stone  to paint a large french tip over the pink base.

 

i then used a dark red nail varnish (i would have used black if i had it with me!) to create the look of the watermelon seeds. i did this by putting a blob of the nail varnish on some paper and then using a sharpened pencil as a dotting tool to make some little polka dots all over the remaining pink area. i finished with a top coat once the dots were dry.

 

having seen a few pictures recently of watermelon nail art i wish i had my white nail varnish with me to draw a thin line over the join of the pink and green to make it look more realistic and detailed but oh well, you can't have everything! i'm quite pleased with the look as it's so bright and also quite childish in a way too - perfect for cheering up a rainy day! plus, it's really easy to do. let me know if you try it out!

pink ombre nails

 

i did this manicure the other day after my first attempt at ombre nails (see them here) as i wanted something a bit brighter and with more of a faded effect. unfortunately last week was really busy and so i only managed to get a couple of photos whilst i was out and about. hopefully you get the gist though, and like them as much as i do!

i used my go-to base of the moment, ballerina, before sponging on some model's own 'pastel pink' from the top of the nail to about two thirds of the way down. i then waited for this to dry and finally sponged on a layer of O.P.I's 'that's berry daring' from the top to about half way down the nail, blending it in with the pastel pink as much as possible. et voila!

this is a nail art look that i've really enjoyed doing because it's just so easy. no waiting for coats of nail varnish to completely dry and no tricky manoeuvres with sticky tape. and better still, all you need is a (clean!) washing up sponge. yay!

don't forget to do a top coat once you're done to give it a softer edge and to add some shine after all that sponging.

ombre nails tutorial

 

so here's my attempt at ombre nails... i thought i'd try something a little different to blending shades of one colour and i needed an excuse to use my new chanel 'black satin' nail varnish so came up with this. the base is two coats of chanel's 'ballerina' which i reviewed here, and is a really pretty pale pink. a perfect contrast to the black.

 

 

i did the blending by putting a blob of black satin on a piece of paper and then using the corner of a washing up sponge to dab the nail varnish directly onto the nail. the difference in colours means that it's not as blended as it could be, but i do quite like the effect and thought it was an easier way to wear black nail varnish than just painting the whole nail.

 

 

next time i think i'll try something a lot brighter, but i am pleased i've managed to find a use for the black nail varnish because i wasn't sure how exactly i'd wear it. as i said in the review of ballerina aswell, chanel nail varnish is great quality and really shiny. and the bottle is pretty too!

miss sporty - clubbing colours: orange crush and taxi

i have to admit, this isn't the first time i've used the bright yellow 'taxi' by miss sporty. i painted my nails the other day but really wasn't a massive fan. the outcome was messy and streaky - all in all a bad nail day! i wanted to give it another go though so decided to do some quick and easy nail art on top of 'orange crush' that i painted my nails with yesterday, and here's the finished product!

overall i'm pleased with the result. it's a lot brighter than the pictures look (i blame the bad lighting!) and i think the colours work well together to create quite a dramatic nail art look. i used masking tape to cover the base colour because i think it's less sticky than other sorts of tapes so is less likely to pull off the base coat. i had to use two coats of the yellow to get full coverage though which made it quite thick and so the result wasn't as clean as i would have liked when i pulled off the masking tape. still, i'd try it again for a relatively easy but different look, maybe next time with pastel colours... any suggestions?

the half moon manicure

in preparation for a well-deserved (in my opinion!) saturday night out, i decided to experiment with a half-moon manicure on myself and a friend and i thought i'd show you the results and let you know how we did it. i've tried this type of nail art a few times now and so far this has been my best result so i'm quite pleased with myself!

firstly, paint your nails the colour you want the half moon to be. i chose gold and my friend chose black. do a couple of coats if need be so the colour is opaque enough to make an impact.


the crucial part of the manicure and the reason why its never worked particularly well for me before is because the base colour needs to be COMPLETELY dry before you go onto the next stage. this week we were prepared and painted our nails yesterday to ensure that they were dry. otherwise, the sticker just peels off the base colour and it's a total waste of time and a bit of a mess!

so, once the base colour is dry... 

to get the rounded half moon effect, use hole punch reinforcement stickers. i got a pack of about 200 from paperchase for about 75p. i've found that they're much easier to use when you cut a small chunk out of them as you can see in the picture above. once you've done this, stick the stickers directly onto your nails. make sure you stick them down well, otherwise the nail varnish will seep underneath.

then paint the top colour over the base colour. make sure you don't go beyond the base of the sticker so try and keep a steady hand! 

once the top coat is dry, slowly peel off the stickers making sure that the base colour isn't coming with it! if some does, use a small brush to fill in the gap. finally, to soften the edges, paint over the half moon manicure with a top coat.
 

gold glitter manicure

this manicure was my task for wednesday evening and i have to say, it was more of a challenge than i expected! but i'm pleased with the outcome and my attempts at being creative (and patient) with nail glitter!


the base colour i used was 'dark navy' by e.l.f cosmetics. i'm a big fan of navy nail varnish, particularly because i'm pale and i think in general, black is too harsh for my skin tone. navy is a nice, sleek substitute and goes with pretty much everything!

the real challenge came when i brought out the nail glitter by gosh in gold. i've never tried loose nail glitter before but i was excited to attempt to use it without creating too much mess. 

once my nails were completely dry i used some masking tape strips i made and stuck them onto my nails taking design inspiration from here. i then painted on some clear nail varnish and shook a bit of glitter onto the nail. i carefully spread it around with my finger and tried my best to push it into all the corners! 

this takes patience and by the end of it the table looked like a 6 year old had attacked it on a craft day. however, once i peeled off the masking tape i was pleased with the results! some of the glitter did manage to make its way onto the taped areas but because of the navy and gold combination i have told myself that this looks like stars and was therefore planned ;) i finished with a top coat.

i'm looking forward to trying out some other designs with the glitter but it's definitely for a day when i have plenty of time to experiment! also, on reflection, i may invest in a paintbrush to make it easier to apply the glitter, and remember to put a bit of newspaper down beforehand too.