Nails from the last few weeks....

Hi again,

It's been a while - been busy organsining my next job and sleeping in :)

Here's my nails from the last few weeks.

I found this silver polish the other day, after being sick of having to paint on 3 plus coats of my silver glitter and having it chip after a day.  Then to make it ever better, I discovered that it stamps perfectly - yay for another stamping colour.  It's Posh Polish by beauty UK, Olympic Silver no. 2.

I then decided to paint each nail a different colour and stamp it with silver.

I used essence Miami Roller Girl in Four Wheel Drive pink, green from the faceshop (in Korea), La Femme Beauty in blue & Hot Looks in Hip Hop orange.

I used BM-322 from Bundle Monsters 2012 collection.

Orange on my thumb, Green on my middle finger.

Blue on my pointer & ring finger and Pink on my little finger.

Next up it was time for Easter nails, I used some of the same colours.

The Faceshop green, Miami Roller Girl in Pink, Miss Sporty in Yellow and Konad Special Polish in Black.

I used the Faceshop green as the base coat, Konad special polish in Black for stamping and dotted with the yellow & pink.

I used the bunny outline stamp for most nails and dotted ontop.

For my accent nails (on my ring fingers), I used the bunny and egg stamp with dots around the outside.

I used BM-302 plate.

The most recent set of nails I've done is for my leaving party, I went for sparkly and simple.

I used Nails inc. special effects in marylebone as the base coat and Konad Special Polish in Black for stamping.

 I used BM-313 for the stamp - it came out looking like dinosaur eggs, which I thought looked kinda cool :)

Hope you liked them all, 

till next manicure

Nikki :o)

Once Upon a Time Challenge - Day 9 Inspired by your Favourite episode....

Hey All

Last Once Upon a Time Challenge - woohoo I made it an entire challenge (and month) without being a day late or not having a mani ready (was a close call at times, I can tell you!). It also coincides with my road trip which starts tomorrow - driving around the South of England with a friend from back home, can't wait to check out the English beaches (have heard they are all pebbles and coldness).

Anyway I digress. The topic of today's challenge was Inspired by your favourite episode - of which mine is the "Stable Boy" where Regina is forced to watch her true love, Daniel die by the hand of her Mother and she takes the first steps to becoming the evil Queen.  It's a pretty tramatic episode for Regina, but it shows where she gets her Evilness from and helps explain why she hates Snow so much - not only did she cause her own Mother to kill the man she loved, Snow always seems to find her true love - no matter how much Regina tries to keep them apart.

I used essence nail colour 3 (from Kradvat) for the base coat and Konad Special Polish in White.

 I went for a simple design with an accent nails. The main design represnts Regina's tears and also the lacy look is how she is sweet looking on the outside until you go against her decision.  The base coat colour is because it's a royal-ish blue and Regian's worn it a few times (and it really suits her).  The accent nail is orderly with the lines and flowers and I felt it fit with the rest of the manicure :)

Here's the final result:

And here's a close up of the designs:

accent nail. Plate: BM18.

Other nails.  Plate: BM-315.

And another whole had shot, a bit closer.

Hope you all like it and have enjoyed seeing the mani's I've come up with as much as I've enjoyed creating them. This challenge was just what I needed to kickstart my nail blogging again so thanks heaps of Taya for coming up with the idea.

And as usual make sure you check out the other girls blogs and their manis.

Taya

Mateja D.

Moonchild

Milena Vanchoska

Yecats 

Samantha Ann 

Fulya 

Always Polished Nails

Till next mani

Nikki x

Once Upon a Time Challenge - Day 1 Storybrook/Enchanted Forrest....

So it's been a while - almost a year to be exact since I've last posted. Things such as travel and new jobs have got in the way but now I'm attempting to start again:) It's taken a nail art challenge to give me the push I needed to start blogging again. The details of the challenge can be found here - http://tatjanag.blogspot.co.uk Created by Taya.

As soon as I saw that it was Once Upon A Time I knew I had to give it a go - I'm a wee bit addicted to that show, especially the story line of Snow and Charming :) If you haven't seen it I suggest you check it out, it's a good 45mins escape of TV show.

Today is the 1st day of the challenge and as it's my afternoon off I've manage to get it done (in between re-paints of nails, fixing chips & a broken down car - it's a long story).

Anyway the topic today was Storybrook/Enchanted Forrest - which for those of you who watch Once Upon A Time, the enchanted forrest is in the opening montage every episode.  I was aiming for the look above - so gradient blue, black silhouette trees and once upon a time worked in there somehow too.  Unfortunately, due to lack of a sponge and clashing colours it didn't go exactly to plan but I'm still pretty pleased with the result.


The polishes I used were Rimmel London 198 Azure (from Boots), La Femme Beauty blue (from Kradvat), Essence Nail Colour 3 01 Midnight date (also from Kradvat), Konad special polish in Black and baby blue.

First up started off with using Rimmel London in 198 Azure as my base coat.

(fingerless gloves due to coldness of my room, gotta love old English houses in Winter).

Then added my second colour, the La Femme Beauty Blue.

Then the final colour on the tips, Essence Nail Colour 3 01 Midnight date.

After waiting a REALLY long time for that to dry (usually gradients are done using sponges, but didn't have any to hand so just layered up the polish, ending up with 3 layers on the tips, hence the drying time) moved onto the stamping.

I used tree image from plate BM-225.

I mentioned that there was a long story behind my nails and today - here it is:

1. I added a tree in black and decided that you couldn't see it clear enough.

2. Tried tree again, this time two tone, black on base with blue on top.

3. Felt it needed more so added Once Upon a Time across all my nails using Konad letter stamps in Gold.

4. Decided it was too busy so removed nails, re-did gradient and stamped tree again.

5. Drove to a friends and chipped a nail on the steering wheel.

6. Cursed the Car.

7. Car got it's own back, as on the way home engine died and had to wait 15 mins in the cold minus one glove till it would go again.

8. Made it home and did some retouches.

9. Finally finished and took some pics (didn't have the energy/enthusiasm to fix the edges).

Anyway here is the finished product.

I put the baby blue konad across the top of the stamp and black across the bottom then one quick swipe and I had a two toned tree that showed up great :)

And here is the first attempt - as you can see the letters came out but looked like a bit of a mangled mess :P

The next mani in the challenge is Favourite Villan from Once Upon a Time and pretty sure I've got a character in mind - just gotta work out a mani:)

Till Tuesday

Nikki x

Bye Bye Gelish, French & Blue starred...

Last week I decided the Gelish on my nails had run its course - manly due to the fact I couldn't type properly and I scratched a customer at work the other night - oops :P Here's a few shots of how far it grew out - pretty impressive length for me espically with working, it lasted over 8 weeks so really pleased with it.

And after an hour or two I was back to natural nails - abet very long natural nails. 

I then filed them to non-customer-scratching length and added a base coat to get them looking a wee bit healthier.

 Then attempted a french manicure with some glitter thrown on for fun (I am usually pretty bad at these, but was impressed this time).  Glitter was a cheap polish from the faceshop and white was part of a french manicure set I'd never used.

I then quickly got bored with this (plus it chipped within a day at work, gotta love the fast food industry and washing your hands every 5 mins) and did a bright blue number.

Using plates BM05 & BM20 (both the star patterns). Also tried entering this in the Bundle Monster competition to win the 2012 plates but sadly couldn't compete with those who had 1000's of votes from their blogs. Oh well maybe next time :)

Till next post,

Nikki x

Black & White, Tropical & Royal Purple...

The Gelish is still going strong and it even lasted through a couple of weeks so I had long nails for my brothers wedding :)

Anyway enough about the gelish here are my nails over the last few weeks.

I had a hen's party to go to and the theme was black and white.  My first thought was for my nails, naturally, not my dress.

I went with black base coat  - a NZ$10 cheapy from a pharmacy when I needed black for Halloween one year.

And used Konad special Polish in White on stamp Konad M71.

I chose the lacey pattern in the upper right for all nails except two, which I used the bow in the lower left on to create feature nails just to keep it interesting :D

And the finished result.

 I was pretty pleased with these & got a few comments at the hen's party (and true to my nail addiction I ended up taking my nails with me to the party & doing a few nails :)

Then I was on holiday for two weeks.  As you can see below I took my nail polishes with me & in between sunbathing & drinking did mine & my friends nails.

My next design was inspired by another nail blogger (can't remember what blog but idea wasn't mine to start with).  

My base coat was one of my new revlon polishes I recieved the other day (gave in and ordered 8 online from a sale site, only took 2 months to be delivered but they were only $8 each so a steal).  And I used the Bundle Monster plate, BM-210 and the pattern in the top right, stamped in Konad Special Polish in White.  I then coloured in the middle of the pattern with Sally Hansen nail art pen in Blue.

Final look.

Kinda tropical I thought :) Didn't really wear that well though, rubbed off rather quickly.

For my last manicure I went back to using the gelish as my base again (so purple) and cause it had grown out so far I had to cover up the regrowth at the bottom.  I decided on a kind of reverse french manicure, with the tips at the base.  Sure there is a technical name for it but I never remember these things.

I used another of my new revlon polishes as the 'cover up' colour at the bottom, Endless possiblities.  Although it looks purple in this picture, its more like a peach/nude colour.

I stamped in Konad special polish in purple and used Bundle Monster plate BM17 as well as BM08 to add a little 'royality' to the look :)

And the end result.

Another 2 weeks of nails to come... going on holiday doesn't work with nail blogging so well :)

Till next week

Nikki

:o)