Sinful Colors - Mint Apple Aztec (ish) Nail Art

I promise you i haven't disappeared again.. I'm settling in to a pattern of posting once weekly, and then any other nail art i can fit in will be a little added bonus for you guys. I was preparing to do a 'naked nails' post, as i've been religiously using OPI - Nail Envy for a few weeks now, after recovering from three nasty breaks on my left hand. It was working wonders, until half term hit. If anyone else works in retail and manages to keep their nails long PLEASE let me in on your secret! My nails really do take a battering at work, especially when we have a lot of ear piercings as the hand sanitizer destroys my hands. So of course, i broke a nail. So i now have my nubbins back, shorter than ever. 

Despite this, i still treated myself to a new polish yesterday. Sinful Colors - Mint Apple is a gorgeous pale green, with a really subtle pink shimmer. It's so pretty i wish i'd left my nails bare and not bothered with nail art. But at 11o'clock at night you never make sound decisions! For this look i only used one thick coat but i'd suggest two thin coats for maximum opaqueness. 

For this look i used:

Sinful Colors - Mint Apple

W7 - Salt n Pepper

Barry M - Black and White Nail Art Pens

Claire's Accessories - Gel Top Coat

I can't believe i resisted buying this beauty for so long! Sinful Colors you never let me down :)

Stay tuned as i'm feeling like doing some nail art tonight, will hopefully post something tomorrow night as well!

Becky x

Love Graffiti Neon Nail Art! #RINAILART

Hi there!

So a couple of weeks ago I vowed to myself that I wouldn't be doing any Valentines Day nail art. Call me a grumpy blogger, but I haven't exactly been a fan of Cupid recently. 

Howeveeer. Today I decided to do my own 'Love' inspired manicure. It's not soppy, but at the same time it isn't Anti-Valentines either. It's messy, and chaotic. Just like love. And you know what? These turned out to be my favourite nails i've done to date!

Want to see? Good, because I might just spam you with photos!

For this look I used:

Sinful Colors - Snow Me White

Sinful Colors - 24/7 (Neon Pink, this beauty is BRIGHT)

Claire's Accessories - Lilac

Sinful Colors - Cinderella

Mua - Bold Blue

Miss Sporty - Clubbing Colors Purple

Claire's Accessories - Gel Top Coat (Genuinely my new favourite TC)

Barry M - Black & White Nail Art Pens

Okay, enough photos now. I'm really pleased with how these turned out. They probably only took about an hour if you take out the inbetweeny drying part *yawn*

Despite being a Valentines Scrooge this year (is that even a thing?) i'd love to see your mani's! Feel free to leave links below and if there's any take really catch my eye i'll share on my Facebook page :)

See you soon,

Becky x

Update: Entered these in to the River Island Nail Art Competition.. wish me luck! :)

Guess who's back, back again.

Hi there people!

So i'm finally back with some nail art for you after an unscheduled break from blogging. Before i jump to the photo's and tell you about polish used etc. i just want to talk a little bit about why i'm not posting so frequently. If this doesn't interest you then feel free to scroll down, i'll never know!

It was after reading this post written by Debbie from The Crumpet regarding 'blogger burnout' that i thought i'd take the opportunity to write about why i've been so absent lately. I know a lot of it has been to do with work, i've been doing 8 days on and 1 day off at the moment. It's tiring and it doesn't leave a lot of time and motivation for doing my nails. Not to mention they are all insanely short and breaking all the time due to the frequent use of hand sanitizer (I pierce ears and have to apply it twice for each piercing, bad times). 

But also mentioned is that a lot of women in the nail art (or any creative) community suffer with depression. This can mean a lot of things to different people, and everyone is affected by it in different ways. I'd probably say it started for me when i was a young teenager, and unfortunately i do still get bouts of it now. Sometimes it can just be a day or two of feeling a little low, and sometimes i can spend weeks being withdrawn and honestly just a little numb. It's times like this when all creativity and inspiration goes away completely, and it takes all the motivation in the world just to get out of bed. 

Unfortunately recently i've felt this way. I'm highly critical of everything i do, and even with my nails i judge myself far too fiercely. I started this as a new creative hobby that i found fun and interesting. It has infact replaced another hobby of mine which was cake decorating, as i'm unable to do it after moving back home. So that's what i'd like to focus on, getting some fun and life back in to my nail art and blog. My posts might still be a little all over the place, but that's better to me than withdrawing completely!

I'm sure that this is something i'll talk about in the future but for now i'm going to show you the nail art i wore yesterday for work as they were nice and fun! We decided to dress up in 80's gear as our store recently got all of our neon tutu's and legwarmers back in :) 

To create this look i used:

Sinful Colors - Black on Black

Claire's Accessories - Confetti

Chit Chat - Purple Glitter

Sinful Colors - 24/7

Seche Vite - Top Coat

Dotting tool & Striping tape

Oooh and i forgot to mention i got a new camera for christmas, this is my first attempt with it! Still got some fine tuning to do but i've noticed a big difference in quality already :) 

Want a close up of Confetti? Course you do! It's a newbie at Claire's Accessories and only costs £3, you're welcome ;)

And uh, just for entertainment purposes.. This is me, in 80's glory. Again, you're welcome.

If anyone has any questions or would like to talk about anything i mentioned today then feel free to drop me a comment or add me on facebook. Oh and as a side note if you'd like to check out the cakes i used to make i have a facebook page for that as well called Bubba's Bakery.

Hope this post didn't bore you or scare you all off! Much love to everyone who reads this,

Becky x

12 Days Of Christmas: All Wrapped Up

Hi there lovelies!

It's the 1st of December which means two things.. Firstly, i'm starting my own 12 Days of Christmas Advent Challenge! And secondly, i'm hosting my very first giveaway :D

I'll tell you more about the giveaway in a separate post, but let's crack on with today's manicure. These are the prompts for the 12 challenges, which i'll be posting every other day up until Christmas Eve. Anyone can join in, whether it's all 12 or just the odd one or two! 

So today's challenge is a look based on a wrapping paper design. I chose this gorgeous design by John Lewis that you can purchase here. 

I loved its simplicity and colours, so went for a nice subtle mani to match. 

To create this look i used:

Natural Collections - Unnamed Pink (2 coats)

W7 - Mirror Blue Mirror

W7 - Pink Suede

Claire's Accessories - Unnamed Pink

Born Pretty - Matte Top Coat

Barry M - White Nail Art Pen

Dotting tools

If i'm honest i'm not 100% happy with this manicure. I wish i'd left out the accent nails and just dotted them all the same. The matte effect did look beautiful though and it's definitely one of those mani's that just looks better in real life!

Stay tuned on the giveaway update,

Becky x

33 Day Challenge: Abstract

Hello again!

So today is another challenge, this theme was abstract. Despite being such a vague concept, i was a little stumped! I ended up googling abstract art which led me to a few black and white pieces that caught my eye. So i went with a simple B&W design, with a few splashes of colour. I used primary colours because when i think abstract, i think Mondrian!

To create this look i used:

Sinful Colors - Snow Me White

Barry M - Black Nail Pen

Claire's Accessories - Blue Neon

Claire's Accessories - Unnamed Red

Claire's Accessories - Unnamed Yellow

Seche Vite - Top Coat

Dotting Tools

I'll be naming the polishes i use for mani's like this in the future as i think it's a lot easier to read. You might also notice a few tweaks to the blog in upcoming weeks, as i'm new i'm learning as i go so i hope you don't mind! Anyway, it's time for the pics..

So there you go, another challenge completed! I thought i'd have a little more fun with my photos today so i took a few sky shots :)

Keep an eye out for today's £1PW coming in a little bit!

Becky x

33 Day Challenge: Chinese

Dàjiā hǎo, Hello everyone!

So i'm getting better at posting these challenges on time! The past couple of weeks have been spent training up in my store to become a key holder, so needless to say i've been a pretty busy bee. However i had my interview today and i'm happy to say i passed! So i should hopefully have more time to do my nails from now on.. hooray!

Anyway less chat, more challenge! Today's theme was Chinese and i immediately knew i wanted to do cherry blossom nails. It's obviously not an original idea but they look so pretty and i'd yet to try them out so thought why not! To achieve this look i used a beige Claire's Accessories base (2 coats), a beige/gold shimmer polish; again from Claire's and Seche Vite to seal. For the branches i used Barry M Black Nail Art Pen and a red polish for the petals from, you guessed it, Claire's Accessories. (Can you tell i own pretty much every colour from my work lol?)

So here are the pics!

Tadaa! Hopefully you like them, and if you'd like to create them yourself then i've put together a little tutorial below!

That's it for today, hopefully will post tomorrow otherwise it'll be on Wednesday for the next 33DC post!

Becky x

33 Day Challenge: Mexican

Okay so here is the second post of the day! ..Yes, i realise it's now 1o'clock at night BUT i couldn't find my camera to take photos.. Important thing is i found it hiding under the sofa and i'm posting now!

This is my second entry of the 33 day challenge, today's theme was Mexican! I knew straight away what i was going to do and was a little disheartened to see another version already on google. However i made the design my own and despite not having much time i'm pretty satisfied with the results :)

So i bring you.. Pusheen the cat nails, viva la Mexico! 

If you don't know who Pusheen the cat is then check him out here. For this mani i used Miss Sporty - It's Too Latte as a base and used a selection of colours for the dots. I did the nail decals using a Barry M nail pen and then painted in the colours using the same colours on the other nails. I then sealed it all off with my lovely new Seche Vite top coat! Apologies for the quality of the photos, had to take them late at night due to the previously mentioned hiding camera. 

Here they are!

(Look at his cute little face! *Squee*)

Well that's all for today, will be posting again on Friday with the next theme.. textured nails!

Ciao! Becky x