12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 3 PRESENTS!

Sure, I love getting the family together and eating a delicious meal on Christmas day but the gifts are also pretty awesome. I wrapped my nails up in ribbons for today's manicure.

Base colours (top to bottom): NYC Prince Street, Cult Nails Iconic, Barry M Gold Foil, No7 Stand Back.

Ribbon colours (top to bottom): Cult Nails My Kind of Cool Aid, GOSH Metallic Blue, BYS Fern, W7 Metallic Neptune.

I used white acrylic paint for the outlines.

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12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 2 (Reindeer Nail Art)

Here goes Day 2 of my Christmas themed manicures! Coming up with ideas for this theme is so much fun and it's really getting me in the mood for Christmas. I thought I'd struggle to come up with 12 designs but as it turns out, I may have a job narrowing it down to just 12!

I can remember as a child being read the poem, 'Twas The Night Before Christmas' every Christmas Eve and I always tried so hard to remember all the names of the reindeer. I'll list all the ones I can remember and you guys can fill me in on the rest... Dancer, Prancer, Donner, Blitzen, Comet, Cupid, Vixen? Haha, am I right so far?

I used an unnamed Collection 2000 white as a base colour.

I outlined the main shape of the reindeer with Barry M Mushroom and then used black and white acrylic paint for the details. The antlers were done with L'Oreal Black Bean. Rudoph's nose is Barry M Red Glitter over La Femme Cherry Red.

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Pac-Man Nail Art!

A few days ago, a twitter friend suggested I do Pac-Man nails and I instantly jumped on the idea! Pac-Man was on my short-list for the Week of Geek but didn't end up making the cut and I guess I just forgot about the idea until Araneae mentioned it.

I used yellow (George Buttercup shine) as a base for my ring finger and black (Rimmel Black satin) for all the others. I used a nail art brush to freehand the outline of Pac-Man with black acrylic paint then black polish to fill out the remaining bits of nail.

For the ghosts, I used white acrylic paint to make out the shapes and then coloured them in using Miss Sporty Orange, Barry M Raspberry and L'Oreal Bebe. The blue of the maze is Barry M Cyan Blue which I painted on with a striping brush and I used a dotting tool with La Femme Grey Cream for the pac-dots.

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Movember Nail Art

Has everyone heard of Movember? It's a great initiative that runs throughout the month of November to raise funds and awareness for some too often ignored men's health issues, and more specifically protate cancer and other cancers that affect the male proportion of the population. 

Guys (or Mo Bros) are encouraged to start the month clean shaven and spend the next 30 days grooming their moustache to perfection, but I know a lot of gentlemen prefer to abstain from any form of grooming instead of going for the perfectly preened moustache!

To find out more and donate to the cause, click here.

I've seen a lot of pictures of Movember nails this month, but I think I've managed to trace the idea back to cutepolish on YouTube. You can see her original video for creating moustaches on your nails here.

I thought I'd add my own touch to this mani so I've used a few different Mo designs!

I used the always classic Cult Nails Cruisin' Nude as my base colour and painted on the Mos with black acrylic paint. All finished with a top coat of NYC Expert Last.

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In the Army...

I'm going to a birthday tonight and there is a dress up theme - 'army'. I'm not one for spending money on fancy dress costumes that I'll never wear again so I'm going in khaki clothing and mud/face paint, hopefully I'll look convincing! 

Fancy dress is always such a great opportunity for me to create some fun and original nail art so I painted my nails in a camouflage pattern to match the theme!

I used MUA Shade 23 as a base. To get the camo effect, I painted on random patches using BYS Fern, Barry M Mushroom and W7 Black. The insignia was created with black acrylic paint and Barry M Gold Foil.

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Day 30: Inspired by a Tutorial

Here we are at the penultimate day of the challenge and I'm getting a little emotional. This amazing journey will soon be over for Me, Chris and Rie so I'm gonna go out with a bang and give you the most awesome manis I can for the next two days!

Today I had to pick a tutorial to inspire my nails and I've always wanted to try out some of Jane @ Nailside's amazing designs. Jane comes up with the most amazing uses for scotch tape and her nails always look incredible.

I really wanted to try recreating her explosion design but I'm not very good with scotch tape so that went belly up very quickly and I decided to try her cartoon hearts. Swoon.

Follow me over to Cristina and Rie's tutorial inspired nails today.

My base colour is A-England Elaine. I used whit acrylic paint and Nails Inc. Shoreditch for the hearts, then topped it off with a few coats of NYC Top Coat.

I won't give you any details of how I achieved this look, you'll have to head over to see the tutorial at Nailside [here] and you can check out all of Jane's simple but stunning tutorials here.





For 'Day 31: Recreate Your Favourite Challenge' we've decided to pick our favourite challenges from each other so check back tomorrow for a double feature!

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Day 28: Inspired by a Flag

Today's nails were a no brainer for me from the very start of the challenge. I always knew I would base them around the Union Jack and the flags of each part of Britain.

Did you know that even though the United Kingdom is a country itself it's split further into four countries - England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland? Don't ask me how it works, that's just the way it is! (more info here). I decided to leave out Northern Ireland because there were a few possibilities and I didn't want to get it wrong!

Just some personal trivia for you - I was born in England but now live in Wales and I've spent my whole life travelling between the two for work, school and leisure. In the town where I live, there's a small bridge over one of the rivers that runs between the two where you can stand with one foot in England and the other in Wales!

I really can't wait to see what Cristina and Riehave come up with today.





Index to Pinky:
Scotland, Wales, United Kingdom, England



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Day 27: Inspired by Artwork

On Thursday night, I found myself deep in conversation with a friend of mine who's spent some time travelling around Australis we got on to the topic of Aboriginal Art and suggested I do some nails in the same style. At the time, I didn't catch on to the fact that today's nails had to be inspired by Artwork but when she sent me a link to some images it was like... *lightbulb*!



This is a piece by Colleen Wallace Nungari and was my main influence today.







Click over to see Rie and Cristina's Art inspired nails today!

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Day 23: Inspired by a Movie (V For Vendetta Nail Art)

Some of you may remember back to September when I did 'Just Like The Movies' week? Well, I pretty much used up every idea I've ever had for movie manicures! A friend suggested I use a 'V For Vendetta' theme and I immediately jumped on that concept.

In case anyone hasn't seen the movie, I won't give away too many details but it's loosely based on the events leading up to what is now known as Guy Fawkes Night (November 5th 1605 wiki). I don't know how well the story is known in the U.S. but it's a part of British history that every kid is taught about in school. Everyone I know that's seen the movie really likes it, so if you haven't seen it yet - you should!

Don't forget to check out Cristina and Rie's Movie Manicures too!

Thumb to Pinky:  'V', Rose, Fireworks, V himself, Government insignia





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Halloween Nail Art!

I wasn't originally planning to do any Halloween nails but I had a Twitter request so of course, I had to oblige!

I used Miss Sporty Orange and Rimmel Black Satin as my base colours.

The stamps are from Bundle Monster plates BM224 and BM223 and I used white acrylic paint to freehand the skeleton.

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Day 22: Inspired by a Song

I kind of cheated a little today, my mani is inspired by a few songs. Well, actually, an album! A few weeks ago, I went to see a guy called Charlie Simpson in concert and of course I had to decorate my nails for the occasion. I've been saving them to post today.

Charlie Simpson is such a great musician. He's been in a few bands in his time; playing pop rock, post-hardcore and now acoustic folk. I used his song, 'Parachutes' in my video tutorial for the Ocean Waves nail art so some of you may recognise it...


Charlie Simpson - Parachutes

My thumbnail is the album cover and each of my other nails is inspired by one of the songs on the album.

Don't forget to visit Cristina and Rie's blogs today to see their song inspired nails!





Thumb to pinky: Album cover, Sundown, Parachutes, Thorns, Cemetary





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Day 16: Tribal Print

I've been dreading this day for a while. I love tribal nail art but had no idea how to come up with a decent design myself, however, once I forced myself to sit down and actually do it, the ideas just kept coming and I am completely in love with this design!

The black detail is all created with acrylic paint which has allowed me to get the crisp lines that I know I couldn't have achieved by using black nail polish. At the moment I only have black and white acrylic paint but I think I'm going to have to look out for some more cheap pots in a better range of colours.

You should go and see what Rie and Cristina came up with today too!



Base colour: MUA Shade 23
Black acrylic paint
Barry M Cyan Blue
Barry M Limited Edition Red for Buzz
Top Coat of NYC






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Day 12: Stripes

I was stuck for a long time trying to come up with a design for Day 12, then I remembered this Wah Nails design and set about picking colours. Blue and pink aren't two colours I would normally pair but these two neon shades look absolutely eye-popping next to each other. I'll definitely be trying this colour combination again!

If you haven't already, head over to see Rie and Cristina's stripy creations too!

Nails Inc Shoreditch
Barry M Cyan Blue for the stripes

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Day 9: Rainbow Nails

Today was a tricky one! Say the words 'rainbow nails' to me and my mind starts running wild! I was thinking stamping, dotting and striping all in one mani I decided reign in all that jazz and take the simple chic approach with rainbow stripes which I am absolutely over the moon with. Think 'Sammy and the Amazing Technicolor Manicure'!

Don't forget to peek at Cristina and Rie's rainbow creations today!





Polishes used
All on a white base coat
La Femme - Red Cherry
Miss Sporty - 323
George - Buttercup Shine
Collection 2000 - Spangles
Barry M - Cyan Blue
Barbara Daly - Purplicious



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So! FashioNAILble

Today's nail art comes straight from the catwalk at New York Fashion Week. I've decided to recreate a few of my favourite nail looks from NYFW Spring 2012 this week.

Even though I'm sure this design didn't originate at fashion week, CND's Wanda Ruiz used this checkerboard pattern to decorate the models' digits for the Nicole Miller show using a Raspberry Pink and Navy Blue.

I used No7 Lucky Lilac as a base. With a liner brush, I drew a cross on my nails and then used a small nail art brush to fill in two of the four sections with Primark's Yes Cyan!.

I don't know if you can see in the pictures but my top coat has bubbled a little. This could be because I used 3 coats of the stuff, or because I tried to thin it out with Nail Polish Thinner. The consistency definitely improved with the use of the thinner but it has now gone cloudy and apparently bubbly so I'll just move on to a new bottle. Not to self: don't use thinner in your top coat!

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No7, I Am Disappoint

Boots are running their £5 off No7 make-up when you spend £5 in store at the moment and since I always need hair dye or products, I  take advantage and stock up while the offer is on so I get a few vouchers. I run right over to the No7 counter and pick out a nail varnish which then costs me just £2. Bargain!

I picked up Minty Fresh which is a lovely colour but an absolute nightmare to apply! The formula is not particularly thin but it drags and streaks like a byatch and needed 4 coats for opacity.

Here's my step-by-step. You can see the extent of streakiness on the first picture. I would recommend you stay away from this polish at all costs! I'm tempted to throw it out because it's so dang frustrating! 

Anyway, on to the nail art... as if this mani couldn't get any worse, the colouring on the bullion that I used came off completely and smudged all the way up my nail when I applied my top coat. I still love the little detail though!

Stamping Plate: Bundle Monster BM212
Base Colour: No7 - Minty Fresh
Stamp Colour: NYC Glossies 243B
Top Coat of NYC
Bullion from Born Pretty Store
Gems from eBay

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