Nail Art In A Hurry #3

Aloha ladies.

It's the weeeekend!  I have been since stupidly early waiting for the postman.  Sometimes he likes to come at 7am, sometimes he likes to come after lunch.  Undoubtedly, because I got up early, he'll come after lunch, but there we go.  He has by Fragrance Direct and Nail Polish Direct orders and I neeeeed them.  And my neighbours have my Ciate order but they haven't been in when I've been to knock.  How rude of them to have lives.

Anyhoo, here's the third post in the Nail Art In A Hurry series.  This one is super super simple (I only have four steps in the picture tutorial so make it consistent with the others...).  All we're doing today is adding a stud to the base of your nail.  Yep, that simple.  Even on plain nails it just gives it that slightly more finished look - makes it look like you've spent a bit more time on your nails, when really it's probably taken you 30 seconds extra, and that's the name of the game of course :)

1. Paint your nail with your chosen colour.

2. Apply a layer of topcoat.  I normally use a cheap slow-drying one, but you can of course use your usual fast-drying one if you move quickly enough!

3. Place a stud at the base of your nail (I pick them up with a dampened cocktail stick).

4. Topcoat, and off you go!

Of course, this isn't just limited to studs.  You could use rhinestones, stickers, pearls or anything else you can fit on your nail.  And when you've got a little more time, you can use these to jazz up the plain nails when you've got busy accent nails, or to add that little something extra to a patterned manicure.  Here are a few of the ways I've used them:

Nail Art In A Hurry #2

Aloha!

Today is the second Nail Art In A Hurry post.  Never again shall you have an excuse to leave the house with plain nails!

Today I have a twist on a French manicure.  I am properly rubbish at doing a normal French manicure, I just can't get a smooth, even line.  But this method is fool-proof.

1. Prepare your nail and apply your basecoat.

2. Starting at one side of your nail, sweep diagonally across your tip.

3. Repeat on the other side.

4. Clean up (or just don't make a mess to begin with), topcoat and you're done!

And when you have a little more time, try jazzing it up by adding lines or dots along the bottom of the tip, or maybe a rhinestone on the point.  And you just just have to limit yourself to traditional French manicure colours, this technique also looks great with other colours!

I have two more Nail Art In A Hurry posts coming up for you this week, but in the meantime let me know how you spice up your manicure when you don't have time for nail art?

Born Pretty Store Polish Review

Hello, happy Tuesday!

Today I have a polish that I was sent from Born Pretty Store to show you.  I was so excited when I saw these go up on the website, I was itching to get my hands on one!

They have the rather catchy name of Candy Color Glitter Sparkle Yoghurt Series.  The bottles are quite a cute shape, and not a bad size at 10ml, and the brush is quite similar to a Barry M brush.

The colour I have to show you is #17.

The polish consists of red a gold medium hex glitters, with silver microglitter, all in a lemon jelly base.

Coverage was good, I used two coats for these swatches and I didn't have any problems with dragging or the glitters clumping.

And here's a macro shot!  I love that silver glitter in there so much.

You can see this polish, and all the other colours, here.  They cost $4.36 (£2.94) and shipping is free to wherever you may be in the world.

Don't forget, if you decide to make a purchase of this or any of the other nail art goodies, you can use the code LKL91 for 10% off.

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!

The Lions

Happy Sunday everyone :)  I hope you're having a lovely weekend.  It's just about cooled down enough here for me to be able to handle being near my laptop (this thing produces a lot of heat...).  I know I shouldn't complain about the sun, because I'll only whine when it gets cold again, but there we go.  There's just no pleasing me.

Anyhoo, yesterday I went with a few friends to watch the last of the Lions games.  For those of you who don't know what on earth I'm talking about, it's rugby.  Every four years a squad is put together of players from England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland and they go on tour to either Australia, New Zealand or South Africa.  They play a load of warm up games against some of the smaller teams in the country, before finishing off the tour with three games against the national squad.  This year the tour was in Australia, and yesterday was the last of the three matched against them.  We'd both won a game each so far, so it was all hanging on yesterday's game.  And we smashed them!  It was epic :D  It's the most points the Lions have EVER scored in a test match.  Woohoo!

So, naturally, today I have some Lions nail art for you :)

The Lions badge is a shield made up of the four nations badges, which is what I've attempted here, and the logo for this year's tour was a lions head in the shape of Australia which I've drawn on my thumb.

I used Barry M Matt White, Nails Inc Knightsbridge Green, Barry M Bright Red and Nails Inc Southwark for my base colours.  All details were done using my white Barry M nail art pen, Sharpies and a little bit of yellow acrylic paint.

Did you watch the game yesterday?

Also, I'd love some feedback on the new header and removal of the border from the photo!  Please leave your thoughts in the comments :)