Guitar Hero Nail Art!

I think it's safe to say that I've become addicted to Guitar Hero this week! I first played it at a friend's house on Monday and by Thursday, we had it in our house and I ended up playing it for 6 hours straight. I have a blister on my finger and achy arms from rocking so hard on the drums!

I used W7 Black as a base and white acrylic paint for the thumb and button details before I topped them with colour.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to do some laundry. LOL JK, I'm gonna play guitar hero!

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

Happy New Year!!

Another year has come and passed, I had a great 2011 and I hope you all did too! Here's to an even better 2012!!

I used Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream as a base and black acrylic paint for the writing. The underline is GOSH Metallic Purple.

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 12... Mash Up

Merry Christmas everybody! The day we've all been waiting for is finally here and for me it will be over in just over an hour! I had a great time with my family; eating, drinking and Doctor-Who-Watching! I hope you all had a great day and Santa brought you what you wanted. He brought me some very nice things including 8 nail polishes, a new bottle of OPI Nail Envy and some polish thinner - fun and practical all rolled up in a few bottles!

I decided that for my last Christmas manicure I would just do a mash-up of festive nails and I know how much you guys love glitter so I squeezed in plenty of that. Red glitter never fails to get me in the holiday mood! 

Top to bottom:

W7 Blue Lagoon and the snowflake was freehanded with Barry M Silver Foil

Barry M Raspberry with BYS Gold Finger sponged on to the tip

Barry M Matt White with the tree freehanded with BYS Flash Dance, outlined with BYS Fern and decorated with Barry M Lilac Foil

Barry M Red Glitter over an unnamed, unbranded metallic red

What did you all get for Christmas?!

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 10... Christmas Crackers

I can't believe I almost forgot Christmas Crackers! The best crackers we ever had were a set my Grandmother bought years ago and each one had inside a little whistle which were all different notes and numbered. We had to line up according to the number on our whistle and a elect a 'conductor' to attempt to make us play Christmas carols by pointing frantically at the right number from the song sheet! It was a barrel of giggles.

I used Barry M Matt White as a base. The outlines were done using black acrylic paint and I used George Buttercup Shine for the yellow, La Femme Cherry Red and Barry M Gold Foil for all the detailing.

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 9... Christmas Pudding

The meal is the part I'm most looking forward to this Christmas. I can't wait to sit around the table with my family and fill myself with the traditional Christmas spread! We won't actually be having Christmas pudding, instead favouring Apple Crumble and custard. So to make up for that - I'll be wearing them on my nails!

My base colour is Avon's Deluxe Chocolate and I used Sally Hansen Insta Dry Whirlwind white for the icing. The leaves are BYS Fern and the berries are La Femme Cherry Red (4th day running!).

I used a top coat of NYC CLassy Glassy to finish.

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

Lana Del Rey Inspired Nail Art

The video for Lana Del Rey's new single, Born To Die, was released on Wednesday and I'm not exaggerating when I say I've been listening to the song on repeat ever since I first heard it (apart from the hours I spent at work or sleeping). This chick is just gorgeous and she's my hair idol. Mine WILL look like that one day!

Lana's nails in the video are so sexy. These were the best screen shots I could get of the nails but you can watch the stunning video in full here.

I used Cult Nails Cruisin' Nude as a base then freehanded the chevrons with La Femme Cherry Red (3rd day in a row I've used this shade!) using a striping brush.

I used Barry M Gold Foil with a smaller striping brush to freehand the gold lines.

If you don't have steady, line drawing hands, you can use scotch tape to mark off the area you want to paint red, just make sure your base colour is completely dry before you go sticking tape on your nails.

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 8... All of the Lights

Credit for today's Christmas nails design goes to Joya at Blanket Print Nails who posted a great and simple tutorial to get the holiday lights look on your fingertips. You can find the tutorial here!

Even though mine look more like bunting than holiday lights, I love the way they turned out. The snowy gradient is gorgeous too - I think I need to do more sponging!

I used Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream as a base and sponged Wet n Wild White on to the tips to make a little gradient.

For the lights, I used black acrylic paint, BYS Fern, La Femme Cherry Red, George Buttercup Shine and No7 Poolside Blue.

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 7... Sweet Talkin, Sugar Coated Candy Cane

It's starting to feel very Christmassy around here. I've had my first glimpse of snow yesterday and our house is completely decked out with lights and decorations! 

As I type this, I'm watching 101 Dalmatians which I think qualifies as a Christmas movie because there's snow everywhere. It takes me back to being about 6 years old although I have a completely new appreciation for it now I'm old enough to know that Hugh Laurie and Mark Williams (Horace and Jasper) are British comedy legends!

Today's nails were inspired by Christmas Candy Canes and they look quite tasty if I say so myself!

I used Barry M Matt White as a base and used a striping brush to freehand the stripes with La Femme Cherry Red.

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 5... This Old Thing

Today's Christmas nails are inspired by the always favourite tacky Christmas jumper! Enjoy!

I used Barry M Raspberry as my base colour then shuffled through all my plates to find some Christmassy designs and settled on Bundle Monster plates BM205 and BM14 stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Whirlwind White. 

I used white acrylic paint for the little details and also to colour in a few of the stamped designs to make them 'pop'!

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

12 Days of Christmas Nails: Day 4... Let it Snow!

Last year it snowed like crazy around this time of year but so far this winter, I haven't seen a single snowflake.

Remember my Halloween manicure with the skeleton? Well I've gone back to that idea of a design over two nails and it's so much fun!

Today was an exciting mail day in my house! I received my Red Angel stamping plates that everyone's been talking about so you can look forward to some brand new stamping manis in the near future. I already love them and would recommend you go buy them [link here]!

The base colour is NYC Glossies 243B and I used white acrylic paint for all the detail. The glitter and stars are from a random glitter polish that I found!

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

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.

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

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.

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

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.

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

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.

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

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.

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

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!

Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr

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



Twitter ♥ Bloglovin' ♥ Tumblr