Rose Nail Art - Bundle Monster Stamping

Good Evening Everyone!

I have a top with this print on, and wondered if it would translate well onto the nail. I like how it came out and it also looks lovely in other colour combinations! I started with a base of Sparkle and Fade light grey and stamped the vine image from BM20 with Barry M Mushroom. I then added some raspberry "blobs" using Nails Inc Piccadilly before stamping the rose image from BM14 with MUA Medium Pink.

I topped it off with a slick of Seche Vite and voila! Sophisticated floral mani in muted tones! Let me know what you think!

Cath Kidston Nails

I wouldn't describe myself as a girly-girl, but I really like Cath Kidston Prints! I would never paper the walls with it, but I love it on accessories. It will always remind me of my friend Alice as well, because she is obsessed! I'm not sure how internationally well-known Cath Kidston is, but she's a pretty well established High End brand over here in the UK. A British Fashion Designer, Cath Kidston is famous for her signature, nostalgic floral patterns and home furnishings. I decided to incorporate my favourite print of hers into a manicure:

Here is the original print I based the design on, and I think it's as intricate as I can get it, seen as nails are SO SMALL.

For the accent nail I switched up the base colour from blue to Leighton Denny Babydoll - my new favourite Pink from the October Glossy Box.

I created the design by painting a base of either Bootie Babe Blue Baboo (see below) or Leighton Denny  Babydoll, and painted the large white flower shapes and polka dots with Claire's White Nail Art Pen. I then added a blob of MUA pink in the centre of each one. Now, I reckon I'm quite well known for my freehand work, and although I seem to be able to do an alright job on Dinosaurs or Super Mario (like in my previous posts), I have never been able to get the hang of drawing roses - I just have no idea why! Because of this I enlisted a bit of help with this design from Bundlemonster Image plate BM04, stamping the rose image on top of the MUA Pink circle using American Apparel Coney Island. After transferring the image to the stamp, I dipped a cotton swab in varnish remover and cleaned off the edge of the image, leaving only the heart of the rose, because I needed the design to be so small. After I had stamped all of these, I added some green foliage with a dotting tool and American Apparel Office and Barry M Spring Green. After a coat of Seche Vite, I was good to go!

I'm popping in a review here too, as I've been waiting on these polishes for AGES from brand new polish company Bootie Babe. Their polishes are packaged in novelty "booty" bottles that look like little bums! It's a bit gimicky, but it's fun and I think that is important with cosmetics! I was sent Blue Baboo and noticed that it was the perfect shade of sky blue for my Cath Kidston idea. The polish formula is O.K...it drags a bit and is a little paint-like, but definitely workable. Now, as much as the bottle makes me laugh, and I think it's a fun idea, the handle is almost impossible to use. It is absolutely tiny, and tapered so it slips out of your fingers. I gave up after a couple of nails and used a different brush to apply it. All in all, I like the idea and the novelty, but the quality of the polish and the handle design could be improved. Here is Blue Baboo on its own, as well as some shots of the bottles!

See how small the bottle handle is compared to my fingers? Very fiddly. You get just over 9ml of polish in these bottles.

A lovely shade of blue and not quite like any other shade in my arsenal. I would definitely head over to their website and check them out, there's loads of other great shades to get hold of.

I hope you like this one guys! I realise I don't post as much as I used to, but I think the posts I put up these days have much more crammed in to them, and have A LOT more time spent on them! I have some great designs coming up for you all :D

In other news, the Winner of my Glossy Box contest from 2 weeks ago was Vicky at Manicured Maniac - Congratulations to her! She has been notified and her very own Glossy Box is on it's way to her! WOOP VICKKKYY!!!

Glossy Box are also hosting a Nail Art competition, and I urge you all to get involved to win the OPI Muppets Collection! Emily's Nail Files also has a mention as a place to go for inspiration! Well, you're already here so you're one step ahead of the game! I'd love to see some of you enter, I know you're all SO creative xxxx

Models Own Purple Ash with Freehand Flower Nail Art!

I had forgotten in the haze of spring pastels and summer brights just how much I really love Autumn shades! Models Own Purple Ash is a lovely deep maroony purple, but I wanted to brighten it up a little with some floral details. I added a stripe of Claire's Blue Glitter, then added a few flowers from Konad image plate M57. Using a pearlescent green Nail Art Pen from eBay, I added some vine and leaf details:

 

This was quite hard to capture, as the glitter and the pearlescence of the green caught the light differently at different angles, but I think you get the right idea of the detail! Models Own Purple Ash is a great polish to apply, and it's perfect in 2 coats. The Nail Star Nail Art Pens from eBay get a lot of stick from around the blogisphere, but I actually get on well with them - except for the horrendous stinkiness of them.

I hope you like it! Overall, I'm finding the transition into Autumn trends rather easy - I 'd forgotten how lovely some of the deep, muted shades are! 

Don't forget that you can still vote for me in the Cosmopolitan Blog Awards in the Best New Beauty Blog section! Just click on the pink button on the top right side of the page!!! :D

 xxx

Bundle Monster Roses Nail Art!

Hi Everyone!

So sorry I've been absent for the last 3 weeks, I was in America visiting the 8th Wonder of the World - Disney World. I thought I would have more time to blog, but after rollercoaster-ing all day, and unfortunate breakages as a result of acting the like the epitomal "big kid", I didn't quite happen! I am sporting short nails at the moment (they KEEP breaking!) but decided to use my Bundle Monster plates and have some double stamping fun - I kind of think this looks more like a wallpaper design, haha -

The flash picture showed the subtle gold design better!

I started with 3 coats of Bloom Nicole, which is a gorgeous sheer cream colour. I often use two coats of this on the tips if I want a classic french - it looks so natural and elegant. It really compliments a tan, too! I then used Bloom Goldie to stamp the vine image from BM21, and finished it off with a rose, from BM14, in the corner of each nail. I used Konad Special Polish in Red, and Black for the accent nail.

I hope you like it - I'm loving being back! Haha!

Just Bumbling Along...

Afternoon! A freehanded, summery bumblebee manicure today - just as the weather here in good ol' England has taken a turn for the (almost) wintery. I felt daft wearing this in monsoon weather!

I started out with 3 coats of Essence Speed Of Light Blue, a lovely (and cheap!) baby blue. Using Nail Art Pens from Ebay, I painted the flowers by making 5 small coloured dots in a circle, then adding the centre dot in yellow. Using Claire's Black Nail Art Pen (which, I find, is better quality than the Ebay pens, it's more opaque), I added the small dots to make the 'bee-line' and the stripes on the Bee. After adding some Silver wings, I used a coat of Rimmel 60 Second Clear Polish, and was ready for the short-lived sunshine!

There you are! I want the sun to come back out, so I cant take some great photos of this OPI Holographic that I'm wearing! No fair, England, no fair. I hope you're enjoying the summer wherever you are!

Also, you may have noticed a Cosmopolitan Blog Awards button on my page, to the right, because the time to nominate your favourite blogs is here! It's a great way to show your favourite bloggers how much you enjoy their writing. Although my blog is now 6 months old (almost to the day!), I still fit into the New Beauty Bloggers catagory! Awesome! I've nominated my favourites, have you?

x

Daisy, Daisy.

I picked up a couple of BeautyUK polishes this week, here is shade 41, Soft Lilac

It's a lovely, muted lilac cream, maybe a little pinker than this suggests, a bit patchy in the first two coats, but it evened out really nicely with the third coat. This photograph is without topcoat - it's SO SHINY. It applies really smoothly and dried very quickly. At £1.99 for 9ml, these are good quality and well worth it - I will definitely be buying more, the colour selection is excellent!

I freehanded in some little white and gold daisies using Claire's Nail Art Pens

Using the white pen, I made 5 small dots in a circle, then added a gold dot to the middle, to make the daisies.

A nice look for Spring! The other shade I bought was Soft Green. What do you think? Have you tried Beauty UK's nail polishes?

Easter Manicure

I wanted to quickly show you what I was sporting on Easter Sunday, but first - I have reached 500 followers today! How cool is that?! Thank you so much to everyone who reads! If the 100 follower Giveaway wasn't already running, I would do something to celebrate - I'll rack my brains for something after it's ended!


For this Manicure I used a base of Models Own BlooBoo for all but the ring finger (Rimmel Lemon Drop)  and thumb (American Apparel  Coney Island). I then used Claire's Nail Art Pens and a dotting tool to create the nail art. If you have any questions about any colours, just pop it in the comments and I will let you know - there are too many to name!

 So we have an Easter Chick and an Easter Bunny, who has dropped some eggs off in the grass :D

I love Pastels and Creams, so this was a nice Mani for me to have on! I hope you all had a lovely day and you're not getting as fat as me from over indulgence!

Sorry for the rather sporadic posts, after this MASSIVE piece of work is handed in to Uni, I will be back on form :D

If you haven't already, enter my International 100 Follower Giveaway - PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE pop your details in the Google Docs form! I can't accept entries that are added to the comments! Good Luuuuck!

Cherry Blossom Freehand

Hi everyone! Today is a new day, and you can vote for my Bundle Monster Contest Entry! You can vote once per day, I would LOVE it if you could give me a cheeky thumbs up! Cheers m'dears!

Todays Manicure was actually very quick and easy, although freehand. No tiny shapes and intricate parts to consume time, you can do the whole thing in 4 steps (I should really do a tutorial for this). It was inspired by Sakura, Japanese Cherry Blossom Trees - They're beautiful and are my favourite flower (is a blossom a flower? It is now.)

Obtained through Google Images.

I painted American Apparel L'Espirit over my base coat, a beautifully smooth Lilac Creme, opaque in ONE COAT (although did two anyway). Using Barry M Mushroom, I then used a small paint brush to paint jagged tree branches in straight-ish, horizontal lines across the nail. Once this was dry, I used a small dotting tool to dab in spots of American Apparel Coney Island at the end of the banches, and then repeated with Superdrug MUA Medium Pink. Here are the results:-

all pictures in natural light - no sun!

my camera HATES purples - this is slightly more lilacy IRL, and less cornflower blue.

flutter by!

As you can see, I added some Fimo Cane butterflies, purchased from eBay. For those of you who don't know, Fimo canes are a nail art applique made from polymer clay that come in a long cane, with a design through the middle - see THIS post for more info. You can then slice them very thinly, with a craft knife, and stick the resulting piece onto the nail design. I was awful at slicing to begin with, but, like everything else, practice makes perfect, and I managed to slice these thinly enough that, with two coats of Seche Vite Topcoat, they were smooth to the nail and incorporated flat into the design. I prefer it this way because then I don't catch them on things, or pick at them, but you could cut them thicker and "perch" them on, to look like "real" butterflies - it's up to you!

It's a very Springy look, and I like the way it came out, but if I could change one thing it would be that it's maybe a little crowded - a few less branches next time :)

I BUM American Apparel polishes - the formula is perfect and their shades are great. the types of creme polishes are right up my street aswell - I love matte block colour, can't be doing with these shimmery polishes I'm afraid! They've bought out some new shades too, check it ooowwwwt. As I mentioned, L'Espirit is more lilacy and less blue, but my camera has a little cry when it sees purple - I have NO idea how to adjust the colour in any kind of editing program, either, so you will have to use your....

 Imaginaaaaaaation.

Hmm. Too obscure?


x

BundleMonster Contest Entry

If you haven't heard, BundleMonster (the creator and distributor of the Image Plates I use to create some of my designs) are having a Nail Art competition over at their Facebook Page. There are 25 sets of their NEW image plates up for grabs for those with the most "likes"! Voting opens on the 13th, and I would REALLY appeciate it if you could wander over, take a look at my entry (and the others of course) and see if I deserve a thumbs up! I implore you to enter yourself, too, what have you got to lose eh?

Here is my entry, you had to use Bundle Monster products and I wanted to submit something that showcased some skill, as opposed to just a simple painted base and stamped image, so I whipped the pan scrubbers out and did a pink to purple, sponged gradient base. I hope to do a sponging tutorial in the near future, as it definitely requires a "knack" and I think some people might benefit! I then stamped the flower image from BM16 in pastel blue.

I started with two coats of Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream, then painted a blob of MUA's Medium Pink Shade onto a small piece of sponge that I cut from a standard, kitchen pan scrubber. I then repeated this on the tips with Barry M Ltd ed. for Boots.

Now, I needed the stamped image to be very opaque, and I don't own Konad Special Stamping Polish in Pastel Blue, but I DO own the White - I'm going to quickly show you how I mixed my own Blue stamping polish:

I started with The Konad Special Polish and Barry M Cobalt Blue. I then popped a blob of each onto the image on BM16, next to each other (as opposed to on top of each other) so as not to gammy up the brushes:

I then used a paintbrush to swirl them together, you can create a cool gradient image if you only mix them up a  little bit.

Make sure you still do this mixing quickly, as if the polish begins to dry on the plate, it will be difficult to scape and stamp a complete image. Once you've scraped off the excess polish, and rolled your silicone stamp over it, you're ready to stamp the image in Pastel Blue:

BOOM! The stamping polish world is now your oyster -you can literally do this with any coloured polish to mix your own pastel Special Polish - this will save you splurging on all the different coloured Pastels that Konad offer, because you can still get a good quality, opaque image when using this technique. Cool!

I added clear Rhinestones to the accent nails with Nail Glue, silver dots to the centre of the flowers with Claire's Silver Nail Art Pen and then added 2 coats of Seche Vite - what do you think, was this good enough to be entered into the Bundle Monster comp? Some of the designs over there are really good, but my nails just aren't long enough to do something fancy-pants with lots of different stamps. I really like how a gradient Mani looks - I get asked if they're Minx all the time!

Don't forget I have Giveaway going on! Win yourself some sexy stuff!

PEACE OUT

Models Own - Flowers!

quick note first of all - I finally got Twitter the other week (I'm still getting to grips with it, it's embarrassing, really) so if you want instant updates on the blog; giveaways and posts etc (as well as my very own rambling brain farts) you can click on the little tab on the left side of this page to follow! Alternatively, you can search Emilysnailfiles :) "Look at me Mum! I'm getting with the timez!!"

My Manicure today is more fanciful than yesterdays, thank goodness, and I've used two of my new Models Own polishes, Purple Ash and Blooboo. Now, I realise Purple Ash is from the Autumn collection, but by adding some lighter pastel accents, it can make a really sophisticated summer evening look, say for a summer Barbeque, or Evening Garden Party (which are my absolute favourite bits about summer!).

Purple Ash is a gorgeous Red-toned muted purple, and I've never seen any polish quite like it, certainly none in my own collection. The Models Own polishes are great, I can't really say enough good things about them - affordable, streak-free, fashion forward, high-shine and the colour choice is astounding. Love them!!! (and they're 3for2 in Boots at the moment, winnneerrrrr)

I added some little flowers from BM12 in Blooboo, a cool-toned pastel blue with the slightest royal blue shimmer - which you can't see on my nails, but its pretty in the bottle. Application is a dream, really lovely and smooth.

Here we go kids!

Back by popular demand, LES ORANGE.

and in the shade - you can see the silver better - and the SHINE!

I added Silver to the middle of the flowers using Claire's Nail Art Pen. Click to enlarge the photos! The little flowers look really pretty close up!

Have a lovely weekend my Darls! I need some new blogs to follow, if you've come across one recently, or have one of your own you'd like me to check out,  let me know on the comments, as well as what you think to this manicure :D