cheeseburger nails

These are my cheeseburger nails, needless to say I have food on the brain (& nails for that matter!) lately & thought this would be fun to do, I'm quite happy with the outcome but now I fancy a cheeseburger...

tips & tricks - tools for nail art

Another nail related post, I know, I'm sorry, BUT this will hopefully benefit those of you who love nails/nail art as much as I do :)!

People have asked how I've created the designs I've posted so far as they look pretty difficult. They really are very simple if you have a little patience & a few tricks up your sleeve to make it slightly easier on yourself. Here are a couple of 'tools' I use to simplify the application of nail art.

I received some Hello Kitty chocolates as a small gift & was nibbling on them whilst painting my Christmas nails. I was just about to start the red & green polka dots when it occurred to me the empty packet is the perfect palette for nail varnish! Rather than dipping my utensil in & out of the nail varnish pot & continuously dropping the brush on my clothes I simply poured a little nail varnish into one section & dipped my utensil into the polish, it's so much easier to work with & perfect for when you're painting on a design that includes multiple colours.

The next tip I have is to use what you can get your paws on! I haven't bought a professional nail art brush kit, dotting tools or anything remotely extravagant yet, I've just been getting creative with what's lying around.

As you can see I've been using a lollipop stick, old liquid eye liner brush, bobby pin & cuticle stick. I used all of these tools to create the Christmas nail design in my previous post, the only other tool I used was a Models Own black nail pen to outline parts of the small drawings. Here's a breif list of what I find the items above useful for/easy to create with:

• Lollipop stick - medium/large polka dots
• Old eye liner brush - tips, stripes & drawings, such as the Christmas trees & candy cane.
• Bobby pin - smaller polka dots
• Cuticle stick - I use the needle-like pointed end for very small polka dots or small detail in drawings & the larger end for diagonal lines or medium/large drawings, such as the holly leaves on the Christmas pudding nail.

If you want to start playing around with pretty nail designs but not go to the extent of buying equipment than this post has hopefully been useful to you. Obviously as I progress & begin to reach a standard where I take on clients I'll invest in a more professional looking nail art kit! However, for now this is just the easiest way (for myself personally) of creating simple or not so simple designs for nails. I used to see photos of beautiful nail art online & wish I could re-create it, I just assumed it was too difficult until I decided to have a go & found it really wasn't too hard at all! I'm no expert at all but like I said, all you need is a little patience when it comes to detailed designs, remember that practice makes perfect & keep a few cotton buds dipped in nail polish remover nearby to wipe away any pesky small mistakes you may make :).

christmas nails!

I'm not sure if it was all the snow updates bombarding Twitter, watching the Gavin & Stacey Christmas Special or the (what should be) illegal amount of hot chocolate I drank this evening, but I was feeling extra festive tonight & decided to decorate some nails with a Christmas theme :).

This was my first attempt at very small, detailed designs such as the Christmas tree so the lines are a little wobbly! I quite like the outcome though, I may pop them on for Christmas day, only 20 days to go :)!

What kind of nail designs are you going to be wearing over the holidays?

baby shower

This weekend was the baby shower for our little girl; Daisy-Rose. Normally I would try & stick to posting purely hair & beauty related items but it was absolutely perfect, I just have to share some of the lovely photos/gifts.

I went slightly OTT & literally everything was pink, apart from some of the food including the beautiful giant Daisy cupcake! I made a huge lemonade & strawberry cocktail (obviously it was more of a mocktail as there was no alcohol!), decorated tonnes of cupcakes & we played games where we had to guess the baby food flavour, pin dummies on paper babies... I had no idea there were so many baby themed games!

We received some really thoughtful & adorable gifts, including a hamper from Mitchell's younger brother & his girlfriend - she made it all by herself, it was absolutely beautiful! I cant explain how grateful I am to all of our friends & family for coming along & having such a great time. Usually men 'aren't allowed' at baby showers but I wanted Mitchell to be there to enjoy it with everyone, I think he still has a headache from all the pink & 'aww!'s at teeny baby clothes but I suspect he loved the whole thing as much as me! I even sported some Daisy/Rose themed nails for the occasion, pure dedication!

I'm still recovering from all the excitement & nearly having a breakdown because the food wasn't symmetrically laid out on the table (pregnancy hormones are just wonderful!) but it was, as I said, absolutely perfect & it's made me even more excited for D-R to arrive! She's giving me little nudges as I type this & it really is overwhelming to think that in exactly 9 weeks I'll be holding my tiny pink princess, I cant wait for her to see how many people are counting the days until they meet her & absolutely shower her with love & adoration. Hopefully the next 9 weeks (still cant believe how soon her due date has come around) go very, very fast ♥.

floral nails - tutorial

BASE - MODELS OWN JADE STONE // FLORAL DESIGN - COLLECTION 2000 CANDY FLOSS, BARRY M PINK FLAMINGO, AMERICAN APPAREL SUMMER PEACH & MALIBU GREEN

01: Paint your nail with your chosen base colour & leave to dry.

02: Using a light shade of polish dab the end of the brush to create rough circle-like shapes.

03: Take a colour a few shades darker & paint small, rough 'U' shapes from the centre to the edge of your circle. *TIP - use an old liquid liner brush if you don't have a fine nail art brush, works just as well.

04: Use a white/very pale polish to paint small curved lines on the edge of your circles & add small green flicks.

tips & tricks - nail art for false nails

If you're a lover of falsies but find it hard to paint simple or detailed designs once they're glued on, this is a great tip! I've it seen floating around & tried it out; it's super easy compared to decorating applied nails. It's also extremely basic, here's a little trick you'll be glad to have up your sleeve -

01: Take a cotton bud & small piece of masking tape.

02: Wrap the tape around the tip of the cotton bud once, sticky side down.

03: Then, wrap the tape in the oppisite direction, turning it back on itself making it sticky side up.

04: Pop on your desired false nail, press down so it sticks to the tape.

05: Paint on your design, wait for polish to dry & voilà!

mix & match nails

COLLECTION 2000 CANDY FLOSS - £1.79 @ BOOTS | SILVER GLITTER POLISH - £2.25 @ CLAIRE'S ACCESSORIES | MODELS OWN/WAH NAIL ART PEN IN BLACK - £6 @ BOOTS

I recently bought the Models Own/WAH Nail art pen, how it's taken me so long & how I've lived without it I'll never know. I'm becoming increasingly addicted to nail art & plan to invest in a set of nail art pens in multiple colours, any recommendations are welcome!

This was very fun to create & although I think white would have worked better than black I'm pretty happy with my first attempt at nail art design :). Also, a quick tip - for the black with pink polka dot design I used the end of a bobby pin to create the dots, simple! What colours/designs are you into at the moment?