Monday 29 September 2014

Glitter Me Monday: Autumn Glitters

Hello lovelies!

I've been a very lazy blogger and not posted anything all week, oops! I did do my nails but just couldn't find the motivation to sort the pictures out and get them uploaded =(

BUT I am back and will hopefully be getting them all sorted and up here over the next week to make up for it so YAY.

For today's GMM I used lots of autumnal polishes/glitters-I LOVE autumn and so this mani made me very happy! I did some gradients using the Barry M autumnal gellies in Mustard, Paprika, Chilli and Cocoa. On my accents I used a coat of China Glaze-White Cap and then added some autumnal leaf nail vinyls which were from Make It Stick Designs. On my other fingers I used a variety of Autum glitters-Tara's Talons-Chocolate Orange, Nelly Polishes-Prototype and Absolut Lacquer-Falling Leaves.



What do you reckon? I kinda love these if I'm honest, they remind me of scrunching through leaves and large mugs of warming drinks. I love these sorts of colours together and they went together really well in the gradients.

What's your favourite season?

~Nail Art Novice~

Monday 22 September 2014

Glitter Me Mondays: Dark Metal Lacquer-U-Fig

Hello lovelies, happy (?) Monday to you!

For this week's GMM I just really fancied doing something silly again as I haven't done any daft nail art in a while. The glitter I'm using as my base is Dark Metal Lacquer-U-Fig which is from a new (to me!) British indie and I won it and a couple of  others in her end of summer giveaway. It's an almost khaki green full of tiny black microglitters that reminds me of kiwi fruits. I used three coats because the first looked a bit patchy but it filled in really nicely with a second (and the third was just to get a couple of bits I'd missed). Once it was on my nails I realised it was just crying out to be turned into silly monsters! For the eyes I used Sally Hansen-Man-go Team!, Collection-Look At Me! and Maybelline-Ceramic Blue plus Rimmel-Rose Libertine for the tongues. The black and white details were (of course) done using my Barry M nail art pens, and I added a layer of Rimmel's matte topcoat to finish.




Hehe! What do you think? I love fun nail art like this sometimes. I really like the glitter too, I think it's one that wouldn't be for everyone but it's definitely for me!

Here's a shot before I matted it so you can see the glitter in all its glory (this is with a coat of Seche Vite, it's actually a bit matte itself without topcoat)-it's really different to anything I've seen before but I like it!


See you soon!

~Nail Art Novice~

Saturday 20 September 2014

Polish of the Week: A-England-Iseult

Hello loves! How's your weekend going?

I've got another POTW today in the form of A-England-Iseult. I have used this polish on the blog before but I don't mind an excuse to do so again-I am always surprised by how pretty it is. Iseult is a very pale pink polish with a silvery shimmer to it-very delicate and pretty. I used it as the base for my cloud mani today and used Freckles Polish holos over the top in Purple Planters Punch and Blue Hawaii.

Please excuse my poor ring finger-in the last week I've had really bad breaks on both my ring fingers so I've had to bring all my other nails down a bit to match-sigh!

Ohhh it looks so sad and nubbiny =(

I really like the way the light catches these-those holos are gorgeous colours and Iseult is the perfect base for them I reckon. I love the rainbows/shimmers you can see on my thumb nail pic! It's a really girly mani but actually I don't mind it, for once!

What do you reckon?

~Nail Art Novice~

Don't forget the Tara's Talons store re-opens at midnight tonight and you can get 50% off with the code BACK50!

Thursday 18 September 2014

Tara's Talons NEW COLLECTIONS swatches

~PIC HEAVY POST~
~Items in this post were sent to me for my honest review~

Hello lovelies!
Today I have some exciting swatches from Tara's new collections. Tara's Talons is re-opening on Sunday at 1 minute past midnight and she has four new collections on offer for you. Today I have swatches of polishes from the Autumn and Return of the Randoms collections, and there's also a halloween collection based on the movie Scream and a topcoats collection featuring four different top coats to make your manis look even more fabulous.

First up is Back To School from the autumn collection. This is three coats. It's a grey crelly with what looks like at first just black mini glitters in it but when you get it on you notice that there are some blues and holoy glitters hidden in there too.



Application was smooth and easy although the finish was a little rough, but nothing that a layer of topcoat couldn't fix! This was in one of Tara's new mini bottles-still 5mls but now round so they match her larger ones-and with new shiny labels too! 

Next up is Blackberry-also from the Autumn collection. Again this is three coats, although I only needed two for opacity. It's a gorgeous purple with a fuchsia shimmer and plum coloured hexes.



This one went on really smoothly and has a really gorgeous shiny colour. It's really opaque-almost a one coater. The only "problem" (for want of a better word) I found was that as it was so opaque the hexes got lost in multiple layers and just added a strange bumpy texture to the nail instead (you can kind of see this at the top left of my middle nail-although it was more noticeable in person). I'd say thin coats or a single coat over undies would be the best way to wear this one if you didn't want that to happen. 

This next polish is Luxe from the Return of the Randomness collection. I really like this one! It's a bright aqua cream with gold microglitters throughout and the effect is so pretty! Three thin coats shown here:



This one has a slightly tricky formula in that it dried fairly quickly, so thin coats are needed and you have to work quite fast as you do so. It dries ever so slightly matte so needs a lick of shiny topcoat to bring out its full potential-but I think it's really lovely! I can see me wearing this one a lot.

Last but not least is Rainbows which is also from the Return of the Randomness collection. A gorgeous glitter bomb of every colour and size of glitter in a bottle. One coat over Back to School and two over Barry M-Crush.




Even from the mini bottle I had no trouble getting glitter onto my brush-it came out well loaded with the bigger shapes every time. I had to space them out a little given the tendency to clump together but that's how it is with all glitter bombs like this. Personally I think everyone should own at least one polish like this one because they're fun and bright and awesome. I'm loving them over autumnal colours right now too.

So that's my swatches, which one's your fave?

You can buy all these and many many moreTara's Talons from her Etsy store which will open at 0:01 on Sunday morning and she's having a 50% off sale to celebrate her re-opening! When you make an order enter the code BACK50 to get the discount, but the sale is only on for 24 hours! Don't worry though, if you miss it you can still use my blogger code to get 15% off any order after that. Just enter NailArtNovice at the checkout =)

Welcome back Tara!

~Nail Art Novice~

Monday 15 September 2014

Glitter Me Monday: Freckles Polish-Easter Bonnet Competition

Hello loves, happy Monday!

Now it's finally Autumn (my favourite season!) I think it's about time for me to get around to wearing some of my spring polishes-I'm so contrary haha. The polish I've chosen today is one of the original Freckles Polishes from the spring collection and I loved it as soon as I saw it! It's so bright and colourful and I hadn't seen one similar before so I snapped it up.

Shown here is two coats over a yellow base (which was over a white base because it's not the greatest of pale yellows, haha!)


When I was doing these nails I had a whole day to myself because my boyfriend was out at work and I had just come from two days of naked nails whilst I was working, so I was in the mood to do something a little OTT. Simply because I haven't done one in a while, I decided on a double tape mani, because they look so awesome when they're done. I used Barry M-Teal and Rimmel-Purple Addict because they matched the glitters and would contrast nicely with the bright yellow. About a hundred pieces of striping tape later, here's what I ended up with:



It took a while but it was really relaxing to do so I didn't mind too much-anyone else find painting their nails really calming? I worked out this ended up being 8 layers of polish in the end (including base coat/top coat) but I reckon it's worth it!

What do you think?

~Nail Art Novice~

Saturday 13 September 2014

Polish Of The Week: Rimmel-Serene

Hello lovelies!
Here's the start of a new feature on my blog that I'm hoping to do every week if I get chance. I, like many other nail polish addicts, have an ever growing collection of polishes and some of them don't get much chance to see the light of day all that often. For Polish of the Week (POTW) I'm going to choose a polish with a random number generator and my swatch book numbers and then use it in some nail art. This was an idea that I first came across on the lovely Vicky Loves Nails' blog where she calls it Pick A Polish and I thought it was a really clever idea to make sure you use some of those long forgotten beauties in your stash. I hope she doesn't mind me borrowing her idea here!

So my first POTW was Rimmel-Serene, a lovely white shimmery polish. It is unfortunately rather sheer so for this (pre-clean up!) photo I used two coats over a layer of white undies.

For my nail art I did a quick striping tape mani, using Sinful Colors-Let's Talk over the top. For some reason my camera just couldn't see this colour properly and has made it much more blue than it actually was


This one (normal lighting) is more colour accurate but still doesn't really show how bright this shimmery purple is-I'd suggest googling some swatches if you want to see it in all it's brightness!


I also had a friend visiting at the time and she wanted me to do her nails too so of course I obliged! She had a lovely maxi dress with chevrons on it and asked if I could match her nails to it. I used Serene and Smitten Polish-Bifrost plus some chevron vinyls and really like how they turned out!


I think I actually like hers more than mine, plus that holo polish looked amazing in the sunshine at the beach we visited.

So that's my first POTW done, hope you enjoyed it!

~Nail Art Novice~

Tuesday 9 September 2014

Glitter Me Mondays: Tara's Talons-The Mill Creek Killer

Hello loves,
Yet another week when I didn't manage to get this up on Monday but hey ho. I'm failing at blogging a bit at the moment because I keep getting distracted and doing things at the weekend and not getting posts scheduled-doh. I can't complain too much though, I had a great time this weekend cos my friend spontaneously decided to visit and take me to the seaside!

This week's GMM is another Tara's Talons because I love them and also because I have a lot of untried ones (I spoiled myself a little in her closing down sale!). This one's lovely-a black jelly base with blue and green glitters of various sizes in. It would layer well but I chose to wear it over a couple of coats of W7-Black to make life easier.




It's so sparkly! I love how it catches the light as I move.

Don't forget that Tara's Talons is RE-OPENING on the 21st September, and I should be able to give you a sneek peek at some of the polishes soon. Make sure you are following her on her Facebook page to get all the details, and tell your friends too as she's having a giveaway when she reaches a certain amount of followers!

As for me? I'm just going to try and get my blog posts back on track, so hopefully next week this will actually be posted on MONDAY, haha! We shall see...

~Nail Art Novice~

Thursday 4 September 2014

31 Week Nail Art Challenge 16-Tribal Print

Hello lovelies!

I'm kind of really proud of these nails, I have only ever done tribal nails once before and they didn't come out too well so I really like the way these ended up. I didn't really have a design in mind, just had a look at some designs on google and also asked some of the ladies in the Inspire Me Nails facebook group for a little inspiration (thank you!)

I used all Barry M polishes-Lychee, Mustard and Paprika as well as the black nail art pen, and then I added a layer of Rimmel's matte top coat to finish them off. Big thanks to my boyfriend as well, who did all the outlining on my right hand because straight lines are hard!



I really like these! The earthy colours are really autumnal, and as it's my favourite season I really like them! Also I love the matte look, normally I am a shiny girl but I think these were crying out to be matted. I also think they would look cool with bright colours instead, and I might have to try that soon!

What do you reckon?

Here's a list of the rest of the prompts for this challenge...reckon I'll get it done by Xmas?


~Nail Art Novice~

Tuesday 2 September 2014

Glitter Me Monday: Tara's Talons-Merryweather

Hello lovelies!
I'm glossing swiftly over the fact that this is being posted on Tuesday and moving straight onto this week's GORGEOUS glitter. This one's from Tara's Villains and Heros collection (part two) from earlier this year and I knew I had to have it as soon as I saw it. It's a bluey/purpley base with twinkly yellow/greeny glitters in and OH it's pretty! I used three coats alone here, I was going to do some nail art on top but I liked it too much!




These photos really don't do it justice, there's a lot more sparkle going on that for some reason my camera just didn't want to pick up-they're kinda mesmerising in person actually. There's a better photo of this gorgeousness on my instagram over here if you're interested.

Ugh,I just love this one. I already know she's going to be a pain in the bum to remove but I like her so much I think I might even forgive her that.

Oh and have you heard the good news? Tara is reopening on the 21st of this month with a grand opening sale! Make sure you like her Facebook page here for all the details/up to date news =)

~Nail Art Novice~
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