Leafy Branch Tutorial

I couldn't work out what this pattern should be called, so I've ended up with leafy branch!  Not that it particularly looks like leaves or branches...

This is another really simple nail art look that's super quick to do.  You can see some of the ways I've used this pattern by clicking the links below:

China Nails

Leafy Branch Ombre

Glequin Skittlette

For this tutorial, all you'll need is:

• Base colour
• Nail art pen or Sharpie

You can of course use a thin nail art brush and polish rather than a pen.  I personally prefer to use a Sharpie - I have the double ended ones and use the thin end.

Here's the step-by-step picture tutorial:

1.  Prepare your nail as usual and apply your base colour.  Give this plenty of time to dry before you start drawing on it.

2.  Use your pen to draw a gently curving line on your nail, starting from any edge.  Finish the line off with a little loop.

3.  Add more loops, alternating side as you go down the branch.

4.  Colour in all your loops.

5.  Repeat steps 2-4 until you're happy with the coverage.  For some of the spaces, you might just need a little peak of a leaf coming in from the edge, as I've done at the bottom of my nail.

6.  Give that plenty of time to dry again (nothing worse than smudged Sharpie!), apply your favourite top coat and you're done!

If you have any tips for how to improve my tutorials or any ideas for tutorials you'd like to see, please post your suggestions in the comments.

Nail Art In A Hurry #1

Hello lovelies :)

I hope you all had a good start to the week.  We still have lovely weather here, although I do wish sunshine didn't have to come hand in hand with high pollen counts. I've scratched my eyes so much today I'm amazed I even have eyelids left...

Anyhoo, today I have the first in a short series of posts of Nail Art In A Hurry.  Countless times I've heard people say "when I'm in a rush I just put on some polish and a glitter topper".  Well, if you've got time to do that, you've got time to do these things too!

I have four short tutorials for you this week (unless I think of anymore...), and these are just simple, and most importantly quick, ways of making your manicure a little more interesting when you just don't have the time to do something more complicated.

Nothing here is ground-breaking, but hopefully it may be inspiration for you to give your nails that little bit more love next time you're in a rush.

So, first up, the reverse glitter gradient.  This is one of my favourite fall back manicures.  And if you've got time to apply polish and glitter topper, you've definitely got time to do this, because it's basically the same thing!

1. Prepare the nail and apply your base colour.

2. Apply your glitter over the bottom two-thirds of your nail.  Fairly dense glitters work best for this, but not full coverage ones!

3. Now apply your glitter over the bottom third of your nail.

4.  Topcoat, and you're done!

Here are a few more ideas for colour combinations, and don't forget you can use any shape glitter for this, why not give the feather/confetti ones a go?  And if you've got a little more time on your hands, glitter gradients make a great choice for skittle manicures.

As always, if you have any requests for tutorials, or suggestions for nail art, please let me know in the comments!

Sponged Nails Tutorial

Sponged nails are one of my favourite things to do when you're in a bit of a hurry or can't be bothered fussing about with brushes and tape and all that jazz, but still want something that looks a bit more interesting than just plain nails.

You can use any colour combination you like for these, and as many or as few polishes as you like.  You can see some examples of my sponged manicures here and here.

You will need: -

•  A metallic polish
• Black or white polish
• Two shades of your chosen colour
• Sponge

I use a make up sponge, but you can use any kind of sponge.  If you can't get your hands on any sponge at all, you could even used scrunched up bits of cling film or tissue.

Here's the step-by-step photo tutorial:

1. Prepare your nail as usual, and paint with your lightest polish (white or the lightest shade of your colour).

2. Tear off a little bit of sponge, and put a few drops of one of your other polishes on to some paper.  Dip your sponge in the polish and dab off the excess, then randomly sponge one or two areas of your nail.  The order you decide to sponge your colours in is totally up to you, and depends what sort of look you want over all - whichever colour you sponge last will be the most dominant.

3. Repeat with your next colour.  Use a fresh piece of sponge for each colour (you literally only need like a 5mm piece).

4. Add your final colour.

5. If you're not totally happy with the colour balance you've got on your nails, now's the time to go back in with a few little dabs of extra polish.  Sometimes I end up with one hand being a lot lighter than the other, so I add a bit more dark polish to one hand to even them up.

6. Clean up and add your favourite topcoat.  Sorted.

In keeping with well-established sponge-manicure tradition, here's a photo of my lovely doggy.

Jigsaw Tutorial

Hello ladies :)

This is a tutorial for jigsaw nail art!  I'm sure you've seen plenty of examples of this around the blogosphere, but you can see the version I did here.

I think there's probably a few different ways of doing this, and you could probably get cleaner lines using tape, but this is how I did it and the way that I find easiest.

You will need:-

• Four nail polishes
• A dotting tool
• A Sharpie (or nail art pen, or polish and a striping brush)

I chose to do a monochrome jigsaw, but you can of course do any colour combinations you like.  I recommend, however, that you choose one-coaters for this.  If that's not possible, then just make sure you use your polishes in order of lightest to darkest.

Here's the step-by-step picture tutorial.  I haven't used any nail art brushes for this, just the brushes from the polish.

1. Prepare your nail as normal and apply your base colour.  My black polish wasn't a one coater, so I used that first!

2.  Take your second colour and paint over half your nail.  Get the line as straight as you can, but don't worry too much, we can sort out any wobbles later.

3. With colour number 3, carefully paint across the nail, making a section halfway up your nail.  This doesn't need to go all the way to the edge, and the second edge doesn't need to be tidy because we're going to cover it up.  Just make sure you paint over the edge of colour 2.

4. This is the fiddliest one.  With your fourth colour, paint in the last quadrant of your jigsaw.  Just do your best with the edges (you can see I didn't quite get into the middle!), we'll tidy it up in a minute.

5.  Take your dotting tool and add a dot of colour 1, just on the edge where it joins with colour 2.

6.  Repeat this with each of the other colours, until you have a full jigsaw!

7.  This step is optional.  I didn't do this in my original manicure, but it's great to cover up some messy lines.  Just take your sharpie and draw over all your lines.  Give it time to dry, add your top coat and you're set!

Tiger Print Tutorial

This is a tutorial for tiger print nails, which I used in this animal print manicure.

To create this look, you'll need:

• Orange polish (Max Factor Bright Orange)
• White polish (Barry M Matt White)
• Black nail art pen (or black polish and a striper brush)
• Sponge (you only need a tiny bit - I just break bits off this make up sponge)

As always, have a go playing around with colours.  Neon skittle tiger print nails would look awesome...

Here's the step-by-step picture tutorial:

1.  Prepare your nail as normal, and apply your orange polish.

2.  Taking a little bit of sponge and your white polish, pick an edge or corner of your nail and sponge away.  Try to vary where you do this on each nail.  To achieve an even look, you might find it helpful to do your first dab onto a piece of paper before your nail - this removes the excess polish so you don't end up with a big blob!  Also, start at the edge and work your way towards the middle of the nail, so that the white naturally fades.

3.  Using your striping brush, start at the side of you nail, and gently flick your brush across.  Don't try to hard to keep your lines straight, just let them curve with the natural curve of your nail.  You want your lines to come about 2/3 of the way across your nail.  Now do the same starting on the other side, a little further up.  Keep alternating until you've covered the length of your nail.

4.  Now on each side of your nail you have gaps between the stripes.  Go back in with your striper brush and shorter lines.  You can angle these slightly to avoid joining them up with the lines on the other side!

5. Time for a bit of clean up (if you've been as messy as me!).  Apply your favourite top coat, and you're good to go :)  Please remember to give your stripes time to dry before you top coat, so you don't end up smudging it all like I did!

Union Jack French Tips Tutorial

This is a tutorial to create union flag tips!  I did this a little while back for the 31 Day Challenge, which you can see here.  Back then, I used black, white and silver, but today I'm using the proper colours :)  Play around with it and find a colour combination you love.

To create this look, you'll need:

• Blue polish (China Glaze Man Hunt)
• White polish (Barry M Matt White)
• Red polish (OPI Chick Flick Cherry)
• Your thinnest nail art brush
• French tip guides (if you don't have any, you could use some tape for a straight tip instead)

Here's the step-by-step picture tutorial:

1.  Prepare your nail as normal.  When your basecoat is dry, stick on your french tip guide.  You can cheat a bit here and bring it down your nail bed a little, so you have more 'tip' to paint.

2.  Paint your tip blue.  Try painting across the nail to make sure you get right up to the edge of your sticker.

3.  Take your white polish and your brush, and paint along the edge of the sticker.

4.  Thicken up this line until it's straight, and add a line going up the middle of your tip.

5.  Add in two diagonal lines going from the centre of your cross out to the corners of your nail.  These should be skinnier than your first two lines, but they do need to be wide enough for you to paint a red line on!

6.  Using your red polish and your brush, follow steps 3 and 4 again.  Make sure you leave a white margin around your red lines.

7.  Add red lines on to the diagonal lines.  These shouldn't go all the way to the middle!  Although I'm sure they'd still look great :)

8. Peel off your sticker  If you need to, you can use a little acetone on a small brush to tidy up your line.  Apply a coat of your favourite top coat, and you're done!

Zebra Print Tutorial

I just received an email reminding me about an essay I was supposed to submit on Monday...whoops.  That's the rest of my night gone!

So here's one I prepared earlier!

This is a tutorial for zebra nails!  You can see examples where I've used this technique here and here (yes, that's orange zebra print, not tiger print...).  It's super easy to do and, like all animal print, it's faaaaabulous.

You will need:

• Black polish
• White polish
• A striper brush

Of course, you can play around and use different colours :)  Just make sure you either use a darker polish for your stripes than your base, or one that's opaque in one coat.

1. Prepare your nail as usual, and apply your white polish.

2. Using your striper brush and black polish, paint a slightly curved V shape on your nail.  You can vary the size, position and orientation of this V on all your nails, then you don't have to worry about making every nail identical!

3. Starting from the other side of your nail, paint lines either side of your V.  Don't make these lines too straight - keeping the lines relaxed and a little bit curved is the key to this look :)

4.  Try making some of your lines fork into two, to give it a more zebra-y look.

5. Carry on with your lines until you've covered your whole nail.

6. Clean up any rogue polish and apply your favourite topcoat.  Ta da!

Penguin Tutorial

This is a tutorial to create cute little penguin nails, originally posted here.

For this look, you will need:

• Black polish (Barry M Black)
• White polish (Barry M Matt White)
• Orange nail art pen
• Dotting tool

I'm using an orange nail art pen because I happen to have one, but you could of course use nail polish and a small nail art brush or dotting dool.

Here is the step-by-step picture tutorial:

1.  Prepare your nail as usual, then apply your black base.

2.  Using your white polish, making sure the brush is fully loaded, start about two-thirds of the way down your nail and draw a stripe to the tip.  Let the brush fan out so that you end up with this nice curved shape.

3.  Using the large end of your dotting dool, add two white dots for eyes.  Let these dry, then use the small end to add two black dots to the centres.

4.  Using your nail art pen, add a small triangle for the beak (make sure you do this on the white part of the penguin - it won't show up on the black!) and two dots for feet.

5.  Add a coat of you favourite topcoat, and you're finished!

These little fellas are cute for any time of the year, but if you'd like to make them a little more festive, how about using a black glitter for your base?  Or adding some red and green bow ties?  You could even use different base colours to come up with some skittle penguins!  I'd love to see what you come up with :)

Rudolph Tutorial

Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny noooooossssseeee (like a light bulb!).

To create this cute little reindeer you'll need:

• Green polish (Barry M Spring Green)
• White polish (Barry M Matt White)
• Brown polish (OPI Over The Taupe)
• Red and red glitter polish (Barry M Bright Red and Red Glitter)
• Black Sharpie or nail art pen

Here's the step-by-step picture tutorial:

1.  Prepare your nail as normal, and apply your base colour.

2.  Using your white polish, paint a curve across the tip of your nail.  Note: If you've used a light background colour or your brown polish is really opaque, you can skip steps 2 and 3!

3.  Add a smaller curve on top of the previous curve.  You might find it easiest to get plenty of polish on your brush, place it about two third down the nail and paint a stripe.

4.  Using the same method as in 2 and 3, paint over your white shape with your brown polish.  Don't worry if you don't quite get up to the edges, we'll be going over these later anyway.

5.  Add a blob of red polish on your tip for Rudolph's nose.

6.  Add a blob of red glitter on top of this for some extra sparkle.

7.  Give your polish plenty of time to dry, then using your Sharpie or equivalent, outline Rudolph's head and nose, and add two dots for eyes.  Aim to do this a little neater than I did!

8.  Finish Rudolph by giving him some antlers!  Just draw two lines coming out of his head, then draw two more lines coming off each of these.

9.  Give your Sharpie or nail art pen plenty of time to dry, then apply your favourite topcoat and you're done!

I think this would look fab as an accent nail with all the other nails done as reindeer without a red nose!  Or if a reindeer on every nail's a bit much for you, how about as an accent nail with a glittery green mani?

Father Christmas Tutorial

Ho ho ho, merry Christmas!

To create a little Father Christmas on your nails, you will need:

• Nude polish 
• White polish 
• Red polish
• A small nail art brush
• A black sharpie or nail art pen

Of course, if you don't have a black nail art pen you can just use some black polish and a small brush.

Here's the step-by-step picture tutorial:

1.  Prepare your nail as usual, and apply your nude polish.

2.  Using your white polish, paint across about a third of your nail at the base, and a third at the tip, making this fishtail shape.

3.  Taking your red polish and nail art brush, fill in the base of your nail.  Make sure you leave a white trim on his hat!

4.  Paint a long red triangle from the hat down to Father Christmas' beard.

5.  Using your Sharpie (or equivalent) outline all your shapes.  Add in the bottom of his moustache, eyes, a smile and a bobble on the end of his hat!

6.  Clean up and apply your favourite topcoat, and you're good to go (remember if you're using a Sharpie or nail art pen, allow this plenty of time to dry before topcoating - no streaking Santas!)

This would look great as an accent nail with a red and green manicure.  Or how about adding some red glitter to make him sparkle or, if you're feeling adventurous, some white flocking powder for all his fluffy bits!

Christmas Tutorials

Because I'm feeling festive (and because I'm just this good at avoiding revision) I've decided some Christmassy tutorials are in order!

I've already made a few, but if you have any suggestions for tutorials you'd like me to make, just let me know!  It can be something I've posted in a manicure on here, or just any random festive nail art you'd like to see me attempt.

I can't wait to hear your ideas!

Leopard Print Tutorial

This is a tutorial for leopard print nails!  I love this look, and, once you've got the hang of it, it's really quick and easy to do when you need great nails in a hurry.

You can see some examples of manicures I've done using this pattern by clicking the links below:

Glittery Leopard Print

Half Leopard Print

Gradient Leopard Print

Leopard Accent Nail

I've just written the word 'leopard' so many times that it no longer looks like a word...

Here's what you'll need:

• Base colour (Barry M Gold Foil)
• Spot colour (OPI Warm and Fozzie)
• Black nail art pen (you could also use a Sharpie if you like)

Here's the step-by-step picture tutorial.

1.  Start by prepping your nail as usual (I buff and apply a basecoat) then apply your base colour.

2.  Using the brush that comes with the polish, apply a few blobs of your spot colour to each nail.  As a rough guide, I use 4-5 spots per nail, but you can adjust this depending on the size of your nail and the size of your spots!  Try to take some of your spots over the edges of your nails.

3.  Using your nail art pen, draw a rough C shape around each spot.  The wobblier the better here.  Don't make your lines too smooth and don't draw a full circle around the spots (see below).  If you're using a Sharpie instead for this step, you might find you get better results from dabbing with the Sharpie to make lines of joined up dots, rather than just drawing lines (if that makes any sense?)

4.  In any spaces you've got left, add in a few more little C shapes or just some dots.

5.  Apply a layer of your favourite topcoat and you're done!  CAUTION:  Nail art pens apply polish quite thickly, so please make sure you give your design plenty of time to dry before applying your topcoat, otherwise you'll end up with a very streaky leopard!

Here are some examples of how NOT to outline your spots!  Hopefully you can see that using a smooth line, or joining the line right the way up around the circle doesn't give as good a look as what I've done above.

If you have any tips for how to improve my tutorials or any ideas for tutorials you'd like to see, please post your suggestions in the comment area.

Rose Nail Art Tutorial

This is a tutorial for my rose nail art, originally posted here.

To create this look, you will need:

• Your base colour of choice (Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream)
• Two shades of green (Barry M Spring Green and Barry M Mint Green)
• Two shades of your rose colour (Barry M Bright Pink and Max Factor Disco Pink)
• White polish (Barry M Matt White)
• A small nail art brush

The colours in brackets are the shades I've used, but play around with different base and rose colours :)

Here's the step-by-step picture tutorial.

1. Start by prepping your nail as usual (I buff and apply a base coat) and apply your base colour.
2. Using the brush that comes with the polish, apply about 3 blobs of the lighter rose polish onto each nail.  Do more or less blobs depending on the size of your nails.
3. Using your nail art brush and the lighter green polish, dab two bits of polish next to each rose to create the leaves.
4. Using your nail art brush and the darker rose shade, paint two C shapes on to each rose.  You want one large C on the edge of each rose, then a smaller c facing the other way closer to the centre of the rose.
5. Using your nail art brush and the darker green polish, add a line to one side of each leaf.
6. Still using your nail art brush, use the white polish to add highlights to your roses.  Do this is the same way as you applied the darker shade, but on the opposite side.
7. Add white highlights to your leaves, again on the opposite side from the darker green.

Finally, apply your top coat and you're good to go :)

If you decide to give this look a go, I'd love to see your pictures.  You can post them on my Facebook page here.

Also, if you have any tips for how to improve my tutorials or any ideas for tutorials you'd like to see, please post your suggestions in the comment area.