International Space Station Nails

I have been pretty uninspired with my nails recently but I have finally found a great theme that I really love for some more detailed nail art. The theme is the International Space Station, the end of Expedition 35 and the return to earth of 3 of the crew. I have been following the ISS missions since Chris Hadfield (@cmdr_hadfield) the former Commander of the ISS began tweeting pictures and videos from space. If you haven't seen them go and check out his twitter and facebook page to see some really amazing photos and great videos of experiments in zero gravity. 

So here are the nails I did on my left hand: (thumb to pinky) the Expedition 35 insignia, the ISS, earth viewed from the space station, Chris Hadfield's Crest and finally earth's natural satellite - the moon.

On my right hand I painted the logos of the 3 space agencies with astronauts on Expedition 35: Canadian Space Agency, NASA, and the Russian Space Agency. On my index finger I painted another view of earth and on my little finger a view of earth by night (as seen in some of Hadfields images).

I hope you go and check out his twitter, all the videos on youtube of inside the ISS. I love these nails so much and I hope you guys do too!

Finally here is a video of Chris Hadfield singing David Bowie's Space Oddity...while floating in space. Amazing

Rose Tutorial

Evening all, I hope you had nice weekends! I posted some nails last week that had gold roses and lots of people asked for a tutorial on how I did the roses. I listened and todays post is a Rose Tutorial. My middle name is Rose, so they definitely are my favourite flower (followed by daisies!). I decided to go for a orange, pink and yellow roses using my favourite neon bright colours. 

Here are the finished product:

And heres how I did it:

Step 1: Start with a white base. I used 2 layers of Essie Blanc and sprayed with The Ultimate Fix quick dry spray to help with speedy drying.

Step 2: I added some yellow blobs using Pop Beauty (fluro funky yellow)

Step 3: I then added some pink blobs (Color Club) and orange blobs (Duri Cosmetics Bedeviled) 

Step 4: Finally I added some green leaves using a small striping brush and Models Own Toxic Apple

Step 5: Using a fine striping brush and black paint I then added the rose detail over each blob. I started in the middle of the blob with two short curved lines and then built up petal shapes around the centre with the petals getting lager on the outside of the rose. Then I added the detail around the edges of the leaves.

Step 6: Complete all the other roses and finish with a layer of Seche Vite top coat (and some more quick dry spray if you are in a hurry) and you are finished!

The bigger the blobs the more detail you can get in the roses. You can do the flowers in any colour to go with any season, but I am in love with neons at the moment so there was no question what colours to use. I hope you find the tutorial simple to follow and try them at home. Let me know any other requests, I have a list of tutorials that I will slowly make my way through.

Hope you love the nails as much as I do!

Nails for Alan Carr

Last week Little Mix were going on the Alan Carr Chatty Man to promote their latest single 'How Ya Doin'. To say thank you for having them the girls asked me to create a special set of nails they could give to Alan. I made a special set with Alan and their faces on as well as some other elements from the show. 

Here are the final nails. For those who don't know the show the globe and stamp are props from the set. You can watch the episode on YouTube - it's a great show! The girls gave him the nails before the show but watch for their performance of How Ya Doin, I had it stuck in my head the next few days!

The nails were framed and signed then given to Alan:

You can see Perrie with her nail wraps in the photo above mixed up with some shiny blue nails! I have been wearing the Little Mix nails and will be posting all about them soon.

maroon and gold roses

Hey all! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, been a little busy but I have some new nails to show you. I did these nails a while back but they never made it onto the blog for some reason. I really liked them so happy to share them with you today. The polish is Essie Recessionista with Barry M Gold roses and a rhinestone studded accent nail.

I hope you like these nails as much as I do, I love the effect of a coloured accent nail. I have some new summery nail designs coming up soon and other exciting things. Let me know if you have any requests, always happy for input!

Art Deco Nail Art

Back in October I was contacted by someone starting up a new magazine with a concept that each issue  is inspired by a different era in history. She asked me to put together some nail art for the issus, which was to be a 20s Jazz Age/Art Deco issue. I was happy to put something together as it would be fun to be part of, but for whatever reason the magazine was never completed. I was waiting to post the nails to include details of the magazine but as that won't happen I will share them with you today. I am pretty pleased with how the nails look and I even have a simple tutorial on how to create your own Deco nails.

I looked up art deco style and fashion and was inspired by the colours and bold angular shapes used in fabrics and architecture at the time.  

The second set of nails was inspired by 1920s jewellery, including pearls and sapphire colours (unfortunately my pearl studs seem to absorb the black paint).

Finally I put together a quick tutorial for doing some easy art deco nail art. Heres what you need:

Barry M Black, OPI Monsooner or Later, Nails Inc Basil Street, Seche Vite top coat and thin striping brush.

Step 1: Paint your nails a beige/ nude colour

Step 2: On the middle of your cuticle paint a long thin upside-down triangle using the striping brush

Step 3: On either side of the middle triangle paint smaller triangle shapes, then fill in.

Step 4: Repeat step 3, making smaller triangles either side of the central design. 

Step 5: Fill in all the triangles and then outline all the triangles drawn in the previous steps.

Repeat the pattern on your other fingers (or you can just use it as a design on an accent nail) the finish with a layer of top coat.

So there we are! I hope you like the nails, I was disappointed the magazine was never published but am very pleased with how my nails looked. I hope you try out the tutorial and even try out the full deco set which I did in a very similar way to the tutorial.

Litte Mix Nail Launch

It has been such a busy few days for me with the launch of Little Mix and Elegant Touch's nails. The nails are now available from New Look stores nationwide and the Elegant Touch website. They are available in the UK for now and will be available internationally some time soon. Both the nails and the wraps are £6.

On Thursday I headed off to the press launch of the nails where I would be answering questions about designing the nails with Little Mix and also Alexis Knox, the girls personal stylist, was on hand to answer questions about their individual style. Alexis had picked out some clothes from New Look's current range to show off the girls style and these were displayed by each girls nail sets and highlighted how personalised the nails were to each member. 

On the day I talked through the the design process and I have a litte of it to share with you. The first part of the designs was meeting with Little Mix and chatting to them about what styles they liked, what colours they would want on their nails and any other ideas they had for their nails. I put together a little mood board for each girl to help me put together a set of preliminary ideas.

From the preliminary designs the girls narrowed it down to two themes each: one wrap and one press on nail set. The wheels below show the final ideas for each girls sets from which only a few more changes were made to get to the final sets. 

Here are a close up of each girls nail sets:

Jade (can you tell she loves bows?)

Black and gold - perfect for the evening, and can you see the cute little 3D bows

pastel glittery mix - really cute for a full set or just an accent nail

Leigh-Anne

Caribbean cool - fun bright mix great for festivals

Fun denim mix with a studded accent nail

Perrie

Cosmic cool nails, glittery galaxy nails with plain glitter nails to match

Rocker chick nails with studs and red glitter

Jesy

chains/ studs and spikes

Cartoon graffiti

I finally ended my week by joining Little Mix at their launch event at New Look in Westfield.

This was a special golden ticket event for the first 200 people to buy the nails when they went on sale on Wednesday (props to the girl who came all the way from Japan to meet the girls).

The girls looked great at the event and were of course all wearing their nails.

I have had such a great time being a part of the whole process and it is really amazing being able to do something that I love and see it get such a great reception. I also want to say thank you to all the lovely people I met at the press day on Thursday who are reading this and have written about the nails. I hope everyone gets a chance to try out the nails, I definitely think there is something for everyone in the range.

Little Mix Nails

I have had such an exciting day today and I just wanted to share a quick post with you this evening before I do a longer post tomorrow.

My exciting news is that over the past 6 months I have been working with Elegant Touch to help Little Mix bring out a unique nail range selling in New Look stores nationwide. This has been such an amazing experience to work with the girls to get their ideas and fashions sense translated into two nail packs for each girl (one wrap and one press on nail set)

These are the nails and I love how well they turned out. Everyone at the press launch today seemed to love the look of the nails and I hope you guys do too! I will do a longer write up tomorrow including a little more about the process and more images of the nails, but I am pretty tired from a long day today!

Let me know if you have any questions about the nails I can answer in my post tomorrow.

Neon nails for Cosmopolitan

I have something exciting to share with you today - I was asked as part of Cosmopolitan's Beauty Fest to do a nail art how-to video. I went over to their offices and did two special neon designs on the lovely Penny, who happened to be wearing a necklace that matched the design rather well!

I did two designs: neon marbled nails and matte neon half moons (link to original article)

Matte neon half moon nails                             Gloss neon marbled nails

Penny and her amazing necklace to match her nails

And here are some I did earlier...

I put together a photographic tutorial of each step in the design progress. This design is quite abstract and comes out different every time and that is the great thing about this pattern: there is not much you can do to get it wrong. But do watch out for using too much water as then the paint will not stick to your nails and collect round the egde.

Step 1: Paint the slightly watered down first colour over a white nail base.

Step 2: While still wet, add the second colour in the gaps and allow the colours to blend naturally.

Step 3: Use the brush to blend as required and add more of either colour where you wish.

Step 4: When dry finish with a layer of top coat of a smooth shine.

Here are some close-ups of my nails with the marble effect on them

I hope you enjoy the video, it was my first on camera experience so I hope I was nice and clear! This marble effect is a really simple yet effective way to decorate your nails with a unique look. Also the neon half moon is a quick way to brighten a plain white nail and looks great with a gloss or matte finish.

Give them both a try and let me know how you get on!