August challenge

Sooo i found this challenge on pinterest and it seemed fairly fun and manageable. I used to really enjoy nail art challenges... I'm not sure im really up for the 'pressure' of a link up atm (are there even any anymore? Lol) but i think it'll be fun to play along on my own.

So far im off to a good start following prompts but a bad start posting them Haha.

Prompt 1- gradient

I decided to go all summery for this one. Cos, why not? Lol. Plus i challenged myself to something new with a stamping gradient, which ive never done before. I have to admit it's more just stripes than an actual gradient but i quite like it anyway lol. Polishes are models own polishes for tans over Barry m something or other (i think it might just be called white? Lol). And the plate is mo you London pro but i forget the number lol.


Prompt 2- recreation

Recreation of an old mani? Recreation of someone else's? I dunno. I went for the former cos the bell ropes happened to fit really well with the fact i was at a ringing event all day lol. Technically this is a double recreation cos i already recreated it once lol. I think it looks better this time though. And i matched the colour of the 'sallies' to the bells ive been ringing Haha. Base is cupcake polish, im afraid i forget the name lol. Yellow is rimmel bee my honey, green is Barry m spring green and black is rimmel black out.

So that's me all caught up... for now! Haha. We'll see how the rest of the challenge goes lol. x

Sooo... it's been a while!

Having decided to write a blog post i can't think of anything to say! It's been such a long time and lots has happened (good and bad lol) and lots has changed... but equally lots hasn't lol.

I guess the point is ive recently started painting my nails again, after about three or four years of leaving my polishes pretty much untouched in a cupboard. And im really loving it. Ive been keeping it really simple to start with, i want to enjoy it not stress myself out! But im thinking of finding a challenge to do next month, just on my own not like a link up or anything so no pressure. I think that's the thing, i let the blogging (and nail painting by extension) become about other people, performing for an audience, albeit a very small one! When it was always supposed to be my thing for me, you know?

So now im trying to embrace 'me' a bit more and the nail polish is part of that... and i thought maybe blogging could be too. I don't know how much ill post and it'll probably be mainly just nail dumps so not very interesting for anyone to read... but that's ok, i don't expect anyone to and im happy with that Haha.

I might do a life update type thing at some point when i feel more comfortable... but then again i might not lol, we'll see. Im just here to enjoy myself! Now if only i could remember how to insert pictures on this app! Lol

40 great nail art ideas- kids tv

It's 40gnai time again, how did that happen?! But anyway, this week was kids tv...which is a pretty huge selection to choose from lol.

So i pushed way beyond what I'm strictly capable of painting here but i just had to do Blue Peter. I loved it when i was young...i had a Blue Peter badge and everything haha.

I only used two polishes so i can actually remember for once: white is Barry m cotton and blue is nails Inc baker street. And there was lots of back and forth retouching going on with this haha, I'm not great with freehand!

And this is the pic i copied from:

Ok so it's not the neatest nail art ever but im quite pleased with it. I think it's quite recognisable at least :) ...if you squint and hold it at a distance it kinda looks similar to the original :p. And i enjoy playing around with freehand stuff so this was fun :). x

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40 great nail art ideas- violet and geometric

So it's back to colour plus technique/pattern prompt this week. And an awesome colour it is :p. Anything in the purple line is fine by me. As for the prompt I'm not sure if I'm still right or not, i might have got a bit out but anyway I'm doing geometric. Which is rather fun....though calls for rather crisper lines than i was able to produce!

So the plan was very simple: purple base, tape squares in light purple, tape smaller squares in dark purple. Except i can't find my striping tape. Never fear! I have masking tape, that's gotta work right? I mean sellotape works and that's similar...plus, you know, the clue is in the name: tape for masking.
Except this tape has been in my guide box since around the time of Robert Baden-Powell (a little girlguiding humour for you there lol) and, it turns out, is no longer very straight out very sticky. Except when it comes to sticking to itself, it's great at that. Lol.

Plus it was late at night and i had real issues getting anything resembling right angles or uniformity of size haha. It occurred to me when i was taking photos this morning (yay for hindsight!) that it may have worked better to nearly cut out the squares from the middle of the tape with a craft knife. Ho hum, next time perhaps....i kind of like this design in theory, i just lost the will to live a little in the end haha.

Polishes? Um yes. Max factor lacquered violet (hey, can't argue with the colour part of the prompt haha), barry m lap of honour and barry m black currant.
And my photography is appalling cos lacquered violet looks totally different in each of my pictures haha sorry.

I feel like this is a design I've seen somewhere but I've not managed to find it on pinterest or Google so can't give credit...i expect the original was far between executed haha! x

40 great nail art ideas- spring

Oops I'm late again! Though actually i did these on these on the correct day i just kind of totally forgot to post haha. It's been kind of a manic weekend.

Anywho. I really enjoyed this prompt :) i love spring, it's the best part of the year as far as I'm concerned. The days are getting longer and the weather is getting better and everything comes back to life. I hate winter with a passion and spring has a hugely positive effect on my mental health.

But anyway. Onto the nails. I kept it really simple with blue skies and daisies. What more could you want? Haha.

Polish wise, um? I'm not entirely sure cos i used lots of different colours at random lol. I started with a pale blue nails Inc which i think is called regent's place. Then i dabbed on cupcake polish 'joy', which you can't really see in the photos but the holo snuck out every so often irl, which i enjoyed.

Then i sponged on barry m malibu and barry m coconut to finish the sky. The grass was a mixture of sponging and brush strokes using barry m key lime, barry m watermelon, a non gelly barry m i forget the name of and a revlon that i also forget the name of. The daisies are barry m coconut and nails Inc Carnaby street i believe.

And just for fun here's a pic of my left hand since it turned out surprisingly un-hideous lol.

I kind of liked this one actually. I'm not good at the whole 'pretty pictures' type of nail art but it was fun and cheerful and you could tell what it was supposed to be. Plus i liked how the sky turned out...now if only the sky irl would follow suit! Haha.

So there we are. Yay for spring :D. x

40 great nail art ideas- 3 shades of green

...and fluid lines.

Um. I haven't done the blogging thing for a while. A long while in fact :s. But i was enjoying this challenge before so I'm trying to get back into it and stick with it this time. So here we are with three greens and some wiggly lines lol.

Excuse the shocking photos. And the shocking state of my nails and cuticles and what not. I'm working on that. Now that I've stopped biting them lol, which was not conducive to pretty painting haha.

The three greens are sinful colors mint apple as a base. Then some random curly squiggles in a-England st George and barry m Arabian. The latter is a duochrome that has a lot of gold leanings and does show pretty much entirely gold in the pics but i still reckon i can just about get away with calling it green :p.

40 great nail art ideas- Christmas

Wow. Christmas. That is all lol.

Busy, busy...goes with the time of year i guess. But i did get a chance to paint my nails for a ringers social type thing on Monday so here's Christmas.

It couldn't get much simpler. Maybelline black out, maybelline winner takes it all and a little brush. Oh and some tape to keep the Christmas trees rectangular.

Not the most festive colours exactly but i just really love black and gold together haha.

I think my brain still hasn't caught on to the idea of Christmas yet. Though I'll be working and we're celebrating on Monday instead anyway so eh. Lol. I really should finish my Christmas shopping i guess!

Oh well. Have a lovely one! x

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40 great nail art ideas- winter

Lalala this will be a proper post at some point. Things got rather busier than I'd anticipated and i missed last week so here's a two for one:



Winter is coming plus last week which was glitter topper + decal. And it's shite. But stamping isn't something i do often (i bought two new plates recently and that doubled my collection haha). So. Here i made stamping decals with one of the moyou london pro collection but i forget which. And the moyou london black polish. The snowflakes are a moyou london nature plate but again who knows which? And moyou london white polish.



Other polishes. Nails Inc regent's place (base), maybelline winner takes all (gold), Tara talons naughty or nice (red and green glitter) and model's own jack frost (background glitter).

I'm not all that pleased but i didn't want to miss another week. I'm repeating myself. Must make time for this challenge this week. Hourly I'll come back and edit this post at some point too but in really tired right now haha. x

40 great nail art ideas- cartoons and comics

Oh dear, I'm very late this week! It's all been a bit busy. Ho hum.

So I'm not a massive comic reader. Or a comic reader full stop actually (and i totally blanked the cartoons part of the prompt and forgot it existed, oops lol). So i think the last time i read a comic was when i was very small and we used to go to the local newsagents and buy sweeties (sherbet pips please!) And I'd get Twinkle and baby brother would get the Beano.


Knowing myself as a kid i expect i probably enjoyed Jonny's Beano as much as i enjoyed Twinkle. But i do still remember it, and Nurse Nancy and the teddy bear hospital. I dressed up as her once on a holiday to Pontins :p.


So polishes. *think* lol. The base is Barry m coconut. The blue is model's own feeling blue, two barry m browns are cocoa and cappuccino, yellow is nails Inc Carnaby street, red is nails Inc st James, face is model's own naked glow and nails Inc Brompton place and black and white are acrylics. Phew. I don't think i missed any.


Oh well I've enjoyed my trip down memory lane, even if the resultant mani is a little scruffy haha. x

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40 great nail art ideas- grey + colour

So we're back to colour prompts. I knew straight away that i wanted to use a neon for the colour aspect, it's wildly unseasonal but i just love the contrast of neons with grey. My prompt of circles on the other hand i didn't have a clue about. Literally even as i started painting the circles i had no clue where i was going with it haha.



I kind of quite like the pattern on the thumb and ring but i was getting on for midnight by that point and i was lazy haha. So i went for really simple in the others.



The grey is Barry m pit stop and im not that keen on it tbh. It looked pale grey in the bottle but it's come up taupe-y looking on my nails/in photos. Maybe it's the light. Actually even though i love barry m I'm not a massive fan of this fast drying collection all round. The neon though is beach bag from one of my favourite collections by model's own :).



Eh. I don't hate this mani but it doesn't excite me particularly either. Nvm.

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40 great nail art ideas- your job

Ah i struggled so much to come up with anything for this! I work as a career, looking after elderly folk in the community. I kind of really love my job, and feel passionate about many things concerning it (dementia awareness, the crappy state of the social care system etc)...but the practicalities of it don't lend themselves well to nail art, nobody wants a commode painted in their fingertips haha. I considered several of the practical things i *could* pick out and paint but the whole idea didn't grab me. Those things aren't the reason i love what i do, you know?

So in the end i came up with this:



Basically just a selection of words that sum up what i *do* think it's important about my job. Respect and dignity and all those things that life seems to try to rob folk of.



And the hands. Man i struggled with those hands! They're meant to be holding hands. I think you can sort of tell that?



Actually, even though the hands are pretty crooked and the writing deteriorated as i went along (actually that's rather apt considering that's exactly what my handwriting does as i write notes throughout the day lol (except my handwriting is even scruffier (probably smaller too lol))), im pretty happy with this. Unlike that sentence which is a disaster lol. It turned out better then i expected anyway.



Polishes are nails Inc regent's place and barry m black grape. Very restrained haha. And it's definitely bed time now! Lol.

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40 great nail art ideas- black and white

Phew. So I'm away on a ringing holiday atm. Which basically equals nothing but ringing for four days (liberally interspersed with tea and cake lol). So I'm late again. And my hands and cuticles are awful cos no amount of hand cream and cuticle oil can combat hours of grotty bell ropes haha.

Anyway my pattern prompt this week was 'chevrons'.



They're rather scruffier than I'd like cos holiday Inn doesn't deem it necessary to provide a chair and desk/table anywhere near each other lol. And this top coat is yuck cos it's about two hundred years old,i couldn't find my regular one wheni was packing lol.



Well that and i didn't really bring appropriate brushes and resorted to one i bought and never got round to removing from my handbag (i intended to tape and then cba to wait for them to dry dry enough lol). I do enjoy black white and hot pink together though :).



Right. Ding dong lol. x

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40 great nail art ideas- Halloween

Ok so i admit it, I'm not really a huge fan of Halloween tbh. Spoil sport, right? Lol. I have nothing against it per se (and i do like an excuse to play dress up) it just doesn't excite me all that much. So i was a bit stuck for ideas. My initial plan was an apple bobbing themed 'pond mani' but that kind of failed haha (see end of post). So instead i found a matte black an some red and did something gory :p.



That's after clean up but actually i kind of prefer it before, for that extra gore factor lol.



I used one end of a revlon chalkboard nail art thingy (technical!) And barry m blood orange plus a little barry m dead heat on the index. Incidentally that finger was inspired somewhat by a couple of recent gory manis by piggie luv (and I'm really sorry i can't remember how to add the link on this app but Google her, she's seriously amazing).



I'm fairly happy with the result in the end, even if it was just randomly thrown together lol. The finger prints on my middle finger and thumb didn't show up great in the photos though. I'm a big murder mystery fan so this pleased me haha. Plus i did actually start training to be a forensic scientist dealing with crime scenes and evidence and such way back in the dim and distant past. My work area now looks rather like a crime scene itself tbh lol.

Oh and the less than successful plan A:



Now it's bed time....hopefully without nightmares! Haha.

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40 great nail art ideas- orange, purple and green

Hmph the Internet cut out and ate my post. Helpful. Lol. Oh well. I'm late anyway so that'll teach me! i kind of threw a bit of strop about this one and nearly didn't bother. Bad katie haha.



I have no idea where exactly I'd be camouflaged with these colours! Lol. I dunno, i didn't love this prompt much, it's the sort of random, free form technique i find really difficult. Insecurity lol. I don't think it turned out too badly in the end though?



Polishes are barry m satsuma and spring green, model's own pukka purple and then maybelline color shock black out to create different shades.



Ho hum.

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Lol.

40 great nail art ideas- geeks

Wow, I'm not sure how another week has been and gone since the last time i did this challenge. And, oh look, I'm late again! Lol. Oh well, better luck next week.

So. Another theme week this week. And 'geeks'...which is far more vague than it sounds, as it turns out lol. I've been all I've the place with ideas for this mani. I'd finally decided on being a bell ringing geek and doing method themed nails again but then i had a sudden change of heart at the last minute.

So instead we have science.



In more detail we have a representation of Guanine on my thumb. This is a major component of DNA. It's called a nucleotide base and is one of four: A (adenosine) which pairs with T (thymine) and G (guanine) which pairs with C (cytosine). Or i think that's right. I'll stop there cos it's a bit late for a science lecture lol.



Index finger is the famous formula for working out energy, E. But I've whacked some brackets in and timesed it by two because i wanted 2E. Can you see where this is going? Lol.

The middle finger is a diagram of the electrons in an atom of potassium. It's a reactive metal in group 1 of the periodic table and has the chemical symbol K.



The ring finger is *supposed* to be a map of the human Y chromosome, but i copied an image from Wikipedia so it could be anything really :p. The Y chromosome is one of two chromosomes that determine gender, X and Y (like the Coldplay song haha), XX for a girl and XY for a boy.

Finally by the pinky i didn't really know what to do so i added the symbol for 'female'.



So we have:
Guanine- G
2x the formula for energy - EE
Potassium- K
Male chromosome- Y

GEEKY. Yay. Lol. And female symbol so i can be a geeky girl lol.

Polishes: base is Barry m road rage (cos it's what i had on already haha), white is nails Inc floral street, red is Barry m dead heat, blue is Barry m damson, grey is Barry m chai, lilac is Barry m prickly pear and the black is acrylic paint. Huh, i didn't think I'd used that many polishes lol.

Yea so this was seriously fiddly (those rings on potassium!) And it's so far from prefect it's untrue. But im still kind of pleased with it :).

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