Cherries and Apples

Hey guys,

Got some fruity nail art for you today! I absolutely love cherries as a mani, they're so cute and easy to do. I thought I'd jazz it up a little and do some apple on my accents nails. Also, can I add how much I LOVE Essie Mint Candy Apple?! Regular readers will know I'm obsessed with pastel polish, specifically finding the perfect mint shade, and this is it. I want to have little minty fresh babies with it.

I loves me some super shiny nails

I used:

Essie Mint Candy Apple (I love it when the name is apt!)
OPI Big Apple Red (!)
OPI You Don't Know Jacques
Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream
Barry M Spring Green
Revlon White
Seche Vite
Dotting tool
Teeny brush

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Alice

xXx

Say Hello to Mr. Urdd

Hello all!

Been a while since I blogged- mainly because I've been away SO much with work lately exhibiting all over the place, busy busy busy!

Most recently, I went to the depths of North Wales for the Urdd Eisteddfod. For the unintiated (I imagine about 97% of the people who read this post!) the Eisteddfod is a Welsh traditional festival, with lots of booths and stands showcasing Welsh goods such as food, handmade jewellery, scarves, art, as well as hosting loads of competions in music and dancing. Literally everything. You think americans are fiercely patriotic?! They ain't got nothing on the Welsh!  

The Urdd is specially aimed at childen- cue a shitload of screaming brats running across my stand, which is full of VERY expensive, perilously wobbling harps. I was *this* close to capturing some particular little squirts and selling them off for slave labour. Tempted to get myself sterilised after a week of that hell. Seriously.

Anyway- the icon of the Urdd Eisteddfod is the lovely 'Mr. Urdd', who I decided to paint on my nails!

What I used:

Revlon White on White

Barry M Spring Green

OPI Big Apple Red

Mac eyeliner (I forgot my bloody black polish so had to improvise)

Sellotape

Seche Vite

And this is the ACTUAL Mr. Urdd in all his egg shaped glory:

 I was going to do the black outlines, but as I mentioned I forgot my black nail polish so had to get a bit improvvy with my eyeline!

And just to make sure you ALL have nightmares, here's a picture of someone dressed as Mr. Urdd during the Eisteddfod!!

Til next time,

Alice

xXx

Vintage Roses, aka Cath Kidson nails

Good morning peeps!

This week, I did potentially the best nail art I've ever done! I've been wanting to do vintage roses for a loooong time, I've seen them about the place loads and always eyed them up jealously, thinking that I would make a right pigs ear out of it if I tried them. But then on the weekend I said to myself, "Self, stop being a wimp and give it a go." And it turned out really well!
Enough waffling, let the copious picture spam commence....
   

Squeeeeee! I'm so pleased with them!

I was inspired by a Cath Kidson notebook I've got at home, which is the pattern below.

For the base I used Barry M Mint Green, which is the most gorgeous pastel green ever. I then swirled OPI Party In My Cabana into white nail polish (Sally Hansen White On, just to be really specific!) and used a tiny dotting tool to paint it on my nail. For the leaves I used a tiny paintbrush and Barry M Spring Green. Topped it all off with a top coat of Seche Vite, which made ALL the difference, they looked a bit messy until Seche performed it's usual smoothing magic.

inspiration




natural light

 I was so pleasantly surprised with how easy it was! Although personally I think my right hand is much better then my left- I did my left first, and the flowers are a lot smaller and not as confident as the ones on my left. I'm loving the retro, vintage feel to them- my friend described them as 'kitsch' which I thought meant cute and a bit old school. HOWEVER, the dictionary definition is "Art, objects, or design considered to be in poor taste because of excessive garishness or sentimentality, but appreciated in an ironic way" which I'm less than thrilled about, haha! I hope she had the same thought as me...either that or I have been thoroughly dissed!


favourite nails

That's all for me- it's been snowing this weekend which is very exciting! I'm planning a snowy themed manicure as I do like me some co-ordination, I'll be sharing those tomorrow hopefully.

Thanks for stopping by!

Love,

Alice

xXx





Holy @?!# it's Pop Art!

These are quite possibly the COOLEST nails I have ever done! Uber chuffed with myself and these bad boys.

I was inspired by the old school comics, like the picture below- all that 'crash bang wallop' jazz in the Batman cartoons.

They took a hell of a long time to do, I'm not gonna lie! And there was no way I was going to do my right hand as well- I'm pretty good at doing designs with my left hand but this was a tad ambitious. They're a tiny bit messier than I would like- a few slightly messy lines (yup I know I have OCD) but at a glance they really stand out.

I used about a bazillion polishes for this mani (well, it feels like it!) On my right hand I switched them round for a bit of variation, and just put polka dots all over rather than do the pop art. It's pretty unusual for me to have non-matching hands- I love me some symmetry- but it actually looked better that way, I think both hands would have been overkill.



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L-R: Seche Vite, Art Deco Black, Clarins Orange Pur, No. 7 Stand Back, Miss Sporty Yellow, Barry M Spring Green, Clarins Golden Red, Art Deco White...and a dotting tool (phew!)



I actually think my nails looks pretty cool with just the white explosions on them, before the polka dots!

I put Nail Envy on as base coat, then painted my main colours over that. Seche Vite on top to speed up the drying process, before I drew on the white spikes with Art Deco. It has to be one of the most annoying polishes to use long term- if you keep the bottle open for more than two minutes it gets so gloopy and unuseable. My thumb is my favourite, and by the time I got to my ring/ pinky finger it as like trying to paint with tippex! Then I used the black Art Deco to line the spikes (again, by the time I got to the ring finger it was so gloopy I was THIS close to throwing it against the wall).
Another Seche Vite layer, before using a Sharpie to write on the exclamations. That was a nightmare- by then my nail was so thick with polish I had to write really, really lightly, and slowly build up the letters as any pressure made the polish dent and drag.

Then I used my dotting tool to paint the white....and you can probably guess what next (yup, another layer of Seche!) I had to wait about an hour to put the final top coat on thought, as any sooner than that and the Sharpie smudged something rotten.

It was all worth it in the end though!




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indoors with flash



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right hand




favourite nail

I did my friend Sarah's nails for her and she loved them- but I always find it so much easier to do art on my own nails rather than someone elses! Definitely need to practise that


Sarah's nails

I'm definitely going to do this again, I really want to practise it and get it perfect. I just got some nail art pens, I might try it with them and see if it makes drawing the exclamation bubbles any easier.

Thanks for reading!

xXx



Cherries...or Boobies?

Hello all!

Hope you're well- I've been sniffling like a fluey pig and generally feeling very sorry for myself this week! Caught my boyfriend's evil cold and I've been pathetic since the weekend. I did manage to squeeze in a quick mani yesterday though and I love it, so it's cheered me up a bit!

I've wanted to do cherries for aaaaaages, and the minute I thought of cherries I knew I wanted to do them with a really rosy pink background. Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream is the softest, prettiest pink I have and it was the perfect base colour. Look at the swatches below and you'll see what I mean!

 I let the base coat dry and then used a dotting tool to paint the cherries in Clarins Golden Red- the richest, classiest red I've ever seen. I've have it since I was about twelve (I remember playing dress up with my mum's polish before I stole it!) and it's still in really good nick. I seriously need to buy a new one though- it's so hard to find a bright red that isn't tacky and cheap looking, and this one is proper fifties pin up red!

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tools of the trade

The little cherry stems were painted with a teeeeeeeny little paint brush and Barry M Spring Green- steady hand a must! Then once they were dry I used the same brush to dot the white marks on, to make the cherries look really shiny (I used a french tip whitener for the white, can't even remember what one!) Then once it was dry I covered the lot in Seche Vite. Word of advice if you're going to try this- give the cherries a good half an hour to dry before you put the SV on, I applied mine way too early and dragged my entire thumb :( I had to emergency repair with an orange stick and touch up with Strawberry Ice Cream! 

I absolutely love how sweet these are! Although my charming boyfriend did point out that some of the cherries look like 'little red boobies!' And after sulking for a bit I had to reluctantly concur that some of them did in fact resemble breasticles! I think the trick is to make sure that the white shiny dots go on the very edge of the cherry....rather than floating around in the middle somewhere!

(there's a particularly boob like pair on my left ring finger right at the top...haha!)

xXx