Animal vibes

Lady birds, from before autumn came!

The ring finger nail ended up a bit wonky, but I found it pretty funny. Animal designs are usually so childish that I can't do anything but love them, even if they're quite basic :)

Duck!

Experimenting with balls

With the nail dotter I had gotten for my birthday (thanks FANTASTIC 5) I felt like trying out different dotty patterns I could do with it.

Have a golden base coat and dotted a dark green onto. I also tried out the free cookies and cream caviar manicure from Marie Claire on my ring fingers. Cheers Marie Claire!

Quite a straightforward and quick design to do on holiday, but looked a bit random :)

- Nail Art Love -

Gem

Getting a bit dotty

Got a bunch of new colours which needed to be used as soon as possible so I dotted them all together for this oddly colourful and happy look.

A great combination of big and small dots around the tips which I used a toothpick for.

- Nail Art Love -

Gem

Return of dots & entry of nail caviar

Dots, dots, dots. They're a very good fall back option when you're out of ideas and can be varied in both layout and colours, essentially giving you an unlimited number of designs. The first picture below is a combination I've used before but this time in a more stamp-like pattern. I failed completely at taking a picture of the full design, so I only had this one with my (now broken) iPod.

This second design is a bit more elaborate. I was given quite a bit of nail caviar for my birthday but I've been a little sceptic to how long it will last (especially given my current training schedule). On the the other hand, since I now had so much of it I figured I should give it a try. I couldn't find a colour from my collection which matched the caviar perfectly, so opted for three shades of blue. Luckily, the dark blue has aged enough that it's not as runny as fresh polishes are, meaning that I was able to make some smaller dots with it.

I have yet to see how long this caviar lasts, if it's good enough I may start using it more often.

Fishy, fishy

Gema has in a previous post introduced a colour changing nail polish she got her hands on whilst in the States. She was kind enough to bring one back for me too, but I haven't had time to try it out until now and I was also lacking design ideas. Starting off with the incredibly broad search term "ice blue design" I came across a few sea themed designs and couldn't resist trying it out.

I think I may have a minor crush on the shark below. It was brilliant typing, as it looked like my keyboard was under constant shark attack (yes, I'm rather easily amused). In addition to the base colour Del Sol - Electrick I used Kiko's holographic grey and then normal black and white. Eyes were done with pin-dotter and other details with a toothpick.

The octopus is Maybelline's Colour Show - Purple Gem and the crab is TempleSpa's Monaco. Unfortunately the white dots got a bit mis-coloured in the sun but overall the design was well received!

Dotted lines

I recently went off and bought some new colours, all of which I was very keen  to try out. These were two of them, Papaya from Berry M's Gelly series and Grey Matter from Rimmel London. I was unsure of how to combine them, but then came across this design of three dots with (at least attempted) decreasing size. Ring-finger designs have long been popular but because I was unable to decide which way around to flip the colours, so I did one hand of each.

The gelly polish isn't all that easy to apply since it easily becomes too thick. The grey one, however, has a really nice brush. The design is good if you want something plain, even work appropriate but still a little more than a single colour.

Easter Nails

Easter is approaching, and how can I possibly resist doing a holiday themed design? Add to it that I've been stuck with coursework for a long time and hence hasn't done anything exciting in design way.

Originally, I was planning on doing a few Easter Eggs and a chicken, however I went through some other designs and I couldn't resist falling for all these spring colours. Sweden is currently offering a lovely spring sun (unlike London, from what I've heard) so it fits well. For details about the different designs read the picture captions; my right hand is a mirror of the left with some shuffling around of the colours.

Background: 'Blue Ice' from Gina Tricot, white is from Natural Collection, black eyes are drawn with a Sharpie whilst the pink details are done with a toothpick and a mix of the white and Barry M's Pink.

Turquoise from Technic (in a set that was given to me), pale purple is Shade no 11 from 2true, yellow from Barry M and coral is 'Tropic Island' from Lasting Fix. Details on the egg (ie the edges) were done with a toothpick, dots were made with a pin and tiny details on the chicken with a Sharpie.

Happy Easter everyone!