Yoshi Nail Art with Essie Mojito Madness

So this was a bit of a mistake, I was aiming for an Animal Crossing themed design (namely the trees) but it turned into Yoshi! I'm happy with it though, Animal Crossing shall be another day (or probably not as I will be too busy playing the New Leaf that's coming out June 15 :-D) I ended up with just one thumb accent and a spotty design (representing the eggs) on the rest of the nails:

I believe the eggs are white and green but this looks nicer. It is also the first time I got to try out my new Essie Mojito Madness! I dotted Mojito Madness with the large end of a dotting tool over Essie's Pretty Edgy:

Ah so much gloss! I'm a little late to the matte party (I've tried matte polishes but I really wanted to try the top coat). I purchased Essie's Matte About You top coat and you can see the difference it makes here:

Despite the fact that it says to apply a thin layer, if you haven't waited long enough for your polish to dry it'll drag your colour :-( So I opted for the big fat layer dabbed on carefully method instead! I'm in love with this matte look now, so cool! Of course, despite waiting 3 hours for my yoshi to dry, I completely forgot about the 'dab method' and destroyed poor yoshi:

Yuck! And this is the 'fixed' version! I tried to repaint some of the green and white and re-apply the top coat but the black still shows through. Ah well lesson learnt... until I forget again ;)

Unfortunately this is the end of my Essie Pretty Edgy mini. I'm down to the bottom of the bottle and it's so gloopy I'm amazed I got in on my nails without looking like a 3d mountain of mess. I will have to repurchase though because it's such a gorgeous green. RIP Mini Pretty Edgy, you've been awesome.

And this I just had to post because it was delicious. Ok it may have been the 30 minutes on the elliptical that made me ravenous but the Crunchie McFlurry was heavenly. Enough said.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the post! I'm keen to try other brands of Matte top coat, but we'll see how long this trend lasts. Well at least in my household :-) Until next time lovelies...

Simple star nail art with butter London HRH, Shambolic

Hi everyone, this is a short post to show you the gorgeousness of two purple butter London's - HRH with Shambolic. I also painted a few stars because I just can't stop after painting my nails ;-)

HRH is a metallic purple with micro blue flecks. Shambolic is a glitter polish very similar to HRH with blue and purple glitter with also bigger pink glitter chunks. Gorgeous!

These colours were made to be paired together @_@ Or I just like purple, it's a bit of both I think...

I received Shambolic for Christmas from the lovely bf, it was a part of a holiday set with other glitter polishes (yet to be worn, for shame!) HRH I think I purchased from a beauty salon that unfortunately closed down. I only did about one coat of Shambolic over 2-3 coats of HRH (some fingers were 3 coats where the polish applied a bit thinly). The glitter polish does appear to run clear so it should be paired with a base polish.

And just because I wanted to paint *something* I figured stars would be appropriate, with a shooting star on the thumb. I had no design intentions, just painted and dotted wherever :-) I used OPI Alpine Snow as usual. Little bit messy but hey I was watching Kourtney and Kim take Miami! Anyway, I hope you enjoyed and I'll see you next time!

Fireflies inspired nail Tutorial feat. Orly Glowstick

Recently I purchased 3 very neon Orly polishes from the 2012 Feel The Vibe collection. I did not know about this collection, I was picking up some medicine from the pharmacy and low and behold there was a new mini Orly polish stand at the check out. Convenient location. I spent more on Orly polishes than I did on medicine of course ;-) I picked up 3 from the collection, one being a bright fluoro yellow called Glowstick. And still in the butter London mood, I paired it with Slapper from the 2012 spring collection (we will not discuss how I managed to purchase Slapper twice accidentally):

In my mind I was picturing a beautiful field of glowing fireflies but on nails I can't decide if it looks like the fireflies I had in mind.... or a bubbling pit of doom :-D And if you think this looks familiar, you'd be right, it is a neon recreation of my loved Purple Starry Nights Tutorial. That fan brush had to get some use again :-)

So to recreate this firefly/bubbling pit look we need a neon yellow, and a variety of mint polishes. And for someone who really doesn't fancy mint colours, I seem to own quite a few:

Left to right we have butter London Fiver, OPI Mermaid's Tears, Essie Absolutely Shore, MAC Ocean Dip, Orly Glowstick, butter London Slapper and Orly Alpine Snow. You probably don't need this many, I just grabbed all I could locate. Mermaid's Tears and Ocean Dip are probably interchangeable. Probably don't even need Absolutely Shore but use as many as you like! The effect is discreet in the end.

Let's begin the tutorial! All steps were shot in the iPhone app Hipstamatic, check it out, it's a fab app for lazy "photographers" like myself.

Step 1: Paint your base coat. I chose butter London Slapper from the 2012 Spring Collection. Honestly photos do not do this polish justice. I took photos with a variety of lights with both my phone and SLR and none could show its true beauty. All I can say is to buy it if you like Teal colours. It also applied beautifully. It's dark and not really a Tiffany comparison but it's pretty. Enough said.

Step 2: Take a fan brush and paint a little on the edges and create downward strokes on the nail. The MAC colour is really subtle against Slapper hence the large arrow above. It's also only on one nail.

Step 3: Continue the fan gradient with another lighter colour. Clean and re-fan your brush regularly otherwise it'll stick together.

Step 4: Repeat step 3 with a lighter colour! Here we have Fiver from the Spring 2013 collection.

Step 4 continued - keep going with as many colours as you like! I clearly have too much time on my hands.

Step 5: Finish with a white fan brush coat. This is important as it enables the neon shade to look opaque and bright.

Step 6: Using a dotting tool (I use the Orly brand) to create different sized dots across the nails. They too will be a base for the neon yellow. Use both sides of the dotter and apply more/less polish for different sizes.

Step 7: Go over the dots again with the neon colour.

Step 8: Final fan brush over the white base and fill more at the tips so it's nice and opaque. Use the nail polish brush for the tips if necessary.

Step 9: Clean up around the nails with nail polish remover and add a top coat! I use Sally Hansen Double Duty Base & Top Coat.

And that's what it looks like in sunlight, bright as can be! We went out for a late lunch on the lake and it was such nice weather. Although you can feel winter coming...

Well that is it for the fireflies slash bubbly pit tutorial! I  hope you enjoyed the look and I'll see you next time...

Chicken and egg nail art for Easter!

Happy Easter! I felt like getting one more Easter mani in before I have to pack away my colourful pastels. I wanted to do another look with the new butter London spring polishes and this is what I came up with:

Fiver is a gorgeous mint green and although it's looking a little bluer above, I can assure you it's minty goodness.

I really felt like I needed 3 coats of Fiver because it was a little streaky. Oh how I wish it was spring here, but alas we are heading into autumn and winter.

Obligatory over filtered and prettied up instagram shot above. Today was one of those 'start painting and see where it takes you' days. I didn't think chickens would quite fit on all nails so I decided to finish with eggies. The brown used was actually another button London polish fave of mine - Yummy Mummy.

Well that wraps up Easter nail art, I hope you enjoyed them! Now time for CHOCOLATE! Until next time...

Easy Easter Egg Nail Art How To!

Hi everyone, it's time for the 2013 Easter Egg mani. For this look I wanted beautiful pastels and what better collection to use than the butter London 2013 Spring collection (despite the fact it's autumn/fall here :-) 4 of the colours made for a simple yet beautiful Easter egg nail art:

Butter London have 6 spring shades out and while I originally bought the purple, pink and yellow, I just had to have the mint green and some others... but here we have the four used in the look above, all prettied up with my new Easter decor from Bed Bath and Table:

No filters have been applied in the first nail art image at the top of this post so use that as your guide. I would swatch but I have eggs on my nails ;-) The pink is called Fruit Machine. Hmm is that related to the Neopets Fruit Machine I wonder (which I WON this week after 10 years of playing, hmph I mean yay?) The yellow is called Jasper, the purple Molly-Coddled and the mint green is called Fiver. Beautiful opaque cremes but I would say that the yellow needs a white base if being painted over another colour.

Step 1: Paint your base colour. I chose Molly-Coddled, the purple because I love purple, no other reason! It applied beautifully opaque in two coats. Cleaned up really nicely too. Can't say that about all polishes.

Step 2: Draw a white base in a half egg shape. Ideally use a small nail art brush (or even a mini polish brush) to draw the outline and fill with your regular paint brush.

Step 3: Repeat step 2 but leaving a small white border to make the yellow pop a bit more. Also, the yellow wasn't as opaque as the other colours and needed a white base to really bring out the yellow. But you could choose any colour as your egg colour.

Step 4: Take a small nail art brush and draw short zigzags or continuous Ms from one side of the egg to the other. Somewhere in the middle ideally, mine were a bit too high up I think. I chose The pink for the top zigzag. Fruit Machine is beautiful, I really need to wear it on its own.

Step 5: Repeat step 4 just under the first zigzag with another colour. I choose the mint green Fiver.

Step 6: Use the large end of the dotting tool to dot below and above the zigzags. The last step is to switch to the smaller end of the dotting tool and fill with your desired colours. I went pink on top and mint green on bottom, ties it all together nicely. And that is it!

And lastly we have my Easter haul. Please someone hide my credit card, Bed Bath and Table had 50% off their Easter range and I got a few things :-) They are actually for my wedding next year! The eggs were the only real Eastery thing I bought, the rest were just pretty and pink. Of course there are some new OPIs (I needed a new Alpine Snow and I bought a full size of Don't Burst My Bubble as I plan to use it for my wedding day). Aaaand I bought two new season Pandora charms, sigh.

Well I hope you enjoyed the post and hope you have a wonderful Easter long weekend! Until next time...

Easter Bunny with Carrots nail art!

I'm feeling inspired this Easter so I decided to go for an orange look for my first Easter mani. And what is orange? Carrots! Yes, I decided to upgrade from my previous silly carrot nail art and go with a more, er, respectable look. Ha I do not know it was midnight ;-)

I wasn't originally planning on painting bunnies, I quite liked the half carrot look I finished with late last night:

But I have some spare time this week so I decided to continue on with bunnies!

Then I just drew the outline/silhouette of bunnies and I really liked THAT look but I have this incessant need to draw eyes on things ;-)

Which is why I added some pink ears/feet and drew a small face. Not the best face I've done but still super cute. Well I hope you enjoyed this look and I'll see you next time!

OPI Oz The Great and Powerful Collection Swatches

It's not often I buy entire OPI collections and half of these are really these are minis but I thought I'd swatch them since they are so pretty! Excuse the broken nail on the middle finger, I love it how I can go a whole week with perfect nails then break one an hour before I plan to do swatches.

All swatches are two coats except for the skittle mani bottom left above which simply had one coat of Lights of Emerald City.

First we have I Theodora You, a light cream pink that is somewhat streaky to apply and needs a little extra care when painting.

Next we have Don't Burst My Bubble, a pale cream pink that is beautiful to apply and wear. I'm getting married this time next year and I'm seriously considering a full size of Don't Burst My Bubble as my wedding mani. Serious contender here. It's like having a subtle french mani without having tried hard.

Third we have Glints of Glinda a light tan cream which is easy to apply.

Last of the minis we have What Wizardry Is This? This is a liquid sand polish in a blackened gold. It's not as bumpy and annoying as I imagined it would be and it applies wonderfully.

The first glitter polish I'm showing is When Monkeys Fly! over What Wizardry is This? Huge gold glitter chunks with two smaller sized glitter pieces. It's gorgeousness speaks for itself.

Second glitter polish is Which is Witch? Small holographic silver glitter chunks with little shards of the same. Very pretty over the creams. This is shown over I Theodora You.

The last glitter polish is Lights of Emerald City which I bought last as it was sold out originally. Unique white chunks of glitter which will obviously be a royal pain to remove like all glitters but lovely over the other polishes:

My personal faves are Lights of Emerald City over I Theodora You and Don't Burst My Bubble. One mani from last week (from instagram):

Well I'm all swatched out. Hope you enjoyed the swatches and I'll see you next time :-)