I'VE GONE DOTTY!!

DOTS DOTS AND MORE DOTS...

I love this design, but its not one for the fainthearted -

it took a lot of patience and concentration to keep every dot

the same size and equal distance apart. But I think it is

totally worth it because it looks stunning. 

I chose purple and gold because I had seen a fabulous dress

in the same colours and luurrrvved the combination! It think green and

gold would also work well together. 

I used a small dotting tool with a gold polish to create the

dots, then redotted each dot with a gold glitter to give it

an extra sparkle and shimmer. The purple I used was a Barry M

purple that had a slight shimmer in it (FACT: it was the

first nail varnish I ever bought) Both colours give a lovely

shine and make the design POP!

-- Leah

America Themed Nails!

We <3 NY!

Just in time for 4th of July!

We recently were part of a gymnastics show where our theme of the display was New York City...

 and of course we all had to do the nails to match!

(Not a great pic...but the best of us all together)

Faye's masterpiece...

A classic take on the american flag! The theme for the whole show was dancing down route 66, so I went for an american flag desgn! I did this by painting my nails with alternate red and blue (both Barry M shades, the red is the red gelly one which i LOVE) then with a striping brush, i did stripes on the red and painted on little stars on the blue, the stars arn't perfect, so don't be afraid to try doing things like that as if you get the jist of it, no one will notice if the details are a bit off! 

Leah's work of art...

For this design I combined the simple lettering of the classic 'I <3 NY' and the american flag. The letters were quite easy to do. 

I used paper to get the lettering do fine and crisp - it took a little patience to cut all the letters out, but then it was plain sailing from there. The lettering went on a dream and was easily secured with two clear top coats. After I took the pictures I applied a red glitter top coat on to the heart, which made it look so much better but I forgot to take a picture (sorry). 

The flag was a little more complicated, I used a striper with a very steady hand to accomplish the parallel lines. Another way to get the same look would be to use striping tape, but that can be just as fiddly. A small dotting tool created little dots in lieu of the stars. I decided not to do stars as the dots gave the same feel to the nails and I was doing this design the night before the first performance so I didn't have much time #cheeky

I really enjoyed this design and hope you do too. It was made even better as they matched the whole theme of the performances and all the Nailsketeers had NYC designs :)

 Abbi's spectacle...

With limited tools and time, I decided to keep my design simple yet (hopefully) effective! I used a french manicure white for the base of my fingers and 'hot looks' red for the thumb and heart shape. 


The 'I' 'N' an 'Y' were written on using an old liquid eyeliner (and I am pretty impressed with my handwriting on my right hand actually). 


The heart was the trickiest part, but I managed to do something resembling a heart by using the side of the brush and creating a thick 'V' shape. 

Overall I was fairly pleased with the results, although I did have to do some neatening up after taking these photos!  

Heather's doodle....

I wanted the iconic I <3 NY words in this design but then had a nail left over. As the skyline of NY is so well known, I thought why not have a go?

The lettering was fiddly but just took patience and a striping brush, which was also used for the skyline. And a dotting tool was used for the heart.

This was a pretty simple design to do, although quite time consuming, but I was happy with the final result!

We had a great time taking part in the show - Here is our finale! 

-Faye, Leah, Abbi & Heather

Summer inspired nails

I was searching through my favorite blogs for some inspiration for some summery nails, and came across a design on probably my actual favorite nail blog Pshiiit.com. It is in french but as I did French for A level and it is pretty much all picture related, I get on ok. So, for this blog post, I have shamelessly completely copied this blog post. 

I was actually surprised by how easy this was to do! so I painted my nails with the Barry M Gelly, Lycee as my base. Then painted the stems in black with a striping brush. Then blobbed on a bit of yellow (Maybelline Colour show, another brand I am falling in love with!) left that to dry for a little while, then added the detail on the flower all with a stripier brush! And as always topped it off with a coat of Sally Hansen - Drys Instantly, cus I don't have time to wait!!

I love these nails!! I never want to take them off!!! I love them so much, and they worked so well, I have even posted a picture of BOTH HANDS! Which I never usually do as my right hand is usually a train wreck, but this time, it almost looks better!! These nails are like Art that i would put on my wall! Did I mention that I love them?

Give it a try yourself! I bet the results will be better than you think!

-Faye. 

Matte Red with a Cute Glitter Triangle

Red Matte and Glitter

This design looks crisp and would look stunning in other colour-glitter combination. I will definitely trying it out with other colours such as green, blue and pink! I am yet to try any combinations using different colours, but i think some combos would look stunning! 

To achieve this design, paint your nails with two coats of a red glitter and top with a clear top coat. Then paint a red polish over the top using two diagonal lines leaving a triangle at the bottom of your nail. By using confident and smooth strokes you can create a clean point at the top of the triangle. And finally, finish with a matte top coat to protect the design. 

I got loads of compliments with these nails so I will be doing this design again very soon :) 

--Leah

Dotty Spotty

Dots I love, bright colours I love, so why not mix them together!

These nails were created with 6 colours from my extensive collection along with some help of my dotting tools. I had a vision of having the dots looking like they were scattered across the nail from a lot fading out to a few. The result wasn't exactly how I had imagined but I still loved how they ended up!

This is a great, fun, simple design for anyone who may just have bought themselves some dotting tools or even with a bobby pin. The colours schemes picked could be anything you choose, from all shades of one colour to one dot of each colour that you own...so go

                  ahead and have some fun with it!                                                         

                (As always, sorry about the picture quality)

~Heather

Say hi to Snoopy!

I am a big fan of snoopy, I often draw him, I've even painted him on my bedroom wall, so it was about time he turned up on my nails! I searched for 'snoopy nail art' on google and this design turned up (http://www.flickr.com/photos/natsy_/5985857392/) I thought it was super cute and fancied the challenge of the detail. It took me about 1 1/2 hour to complete but was also chatting whilst doing it.

I'm so so pleased with the result!

For this wonderfully fun design I used Barry M blue for the base, with white for the clouds and Snoopy. Barry M mushroom and yellow created Snoopy's accessories and a Natural Collection silver for his glasses. The kennel used Nina ultra pro red fox. Rimmels matte top coat finished off the look and made it slightly more cartoony.

The design was created purely with dotting tools, I find them best for precision work even though I have a collection of brushes too, if possible I'll always opt for the dotters! The black outline of the design was created with a black biro! I considered using liquid eyeliner instead but the biro was closer to hand, although it did slightly smudge when the top coat was going on so watch out for that (I think I may have been slightly impatient to finish it so should have let it dry slightly longer).

I love creating cartoony nails, so watch this space for more to be added to the collection!

~Heather

Pikachu Nails!

Hey Everyone, 

Last time I visited homehome I decided that I should probably make the most of my mums extensive collection of nail varnishes that she has acquired over the years (some that are probably older than me :/). So after rummaging around for a while I finally found a nice new Barry M yellow (the obsession clearly runs in the family). 

Yet again, like all Barry M nail varnishes, it turned out pretty flawless after just one coat.

After playing around with several different designs I decided I liked the contrast of my black liquid eyeliner and the yellow and thought I would see what I would happen.

I ended up with lightning strikes (that looked like 'M's' at first, so I had to add another flick!) and I was pretty pleased with the bold look it created and got a fair few complements from cashiers when I went shopping the next day, as well as my friend James telling me they looked like Pikachu nails, which inspired the title of this post! 

  

Hope you like yet another of my simple and easy to do nail designs! 

Lots of love,

Abbi. XxxX