Liquorice All Sorts

Goood morning everyone! It's totally horrible at the moment here in rainy Manchester! It's REALLY windy, rainy, cold and just generally not nice! Everywhere else in the country seems to be flooding, I hope it doesn't get that bad here!! 

Last night I got home from work and got straight to work on my nails! I'd had Saturday's mani on for way too long, well 48 hours... This is what I came up with!

I like my accent nail best, it's like a liquorice all sort! 

The purple I used was O.P.I - Suzi and the 7 Dusseldorfs and the blue was O.P.I - Unfor-greta-bly Blue, both from my Germinis set. I seriously love this set, I never want it to run out! The mustard yellow was China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss. Whilst this isn't the neatest line work, it really shows how much I've improved since I first started doing my nails. I must say, I'm actually pretty proud of myself.

Also, Mr Postman has just brought me a few little gifts this morning. I can't wait to play! YAY!! 

Have a fab day guys :) 

Ariana xo 

Jingle All the Way!

Hiya everyone!

Today I've been doing a little bit of glitter placement with my new Jingle All the Way holiday set by China Glaze.

   Pizzazz                                              Merry Berry

This set is so great! I've wanted Merry Berry for a few weeks after seeing it swatched and it's just as beautiful in person! It's like a big warm mug of mulled wine on my fingertips, mmmm.

And then there's Pizzazz! What can I say?! I absolutely love this glitter! It's like the confetti explosion that happens when someone wins Who Wants to be a Millionaire! I've said I love it and I actually do. Like, really really love love love it! It's made up of two sizes of glitter; a small one and slightly bigger small-medium one. And it's got so many colours in! After close inspection, I found gold, silver, fuchsia, teal, burnt orange and green. I feel like I'm wearing some multicoloured tinsel on my nails, all that's missing is it's plasticy smell! 

Close up of Pizzazz <3

Also this evening, I've been reading some really interesting stuff about Monsanto. They're literally trying to take over the world.

Have a nice evening everyone!

Ariana xo

Fantasy Fire Amazing-ness

Good afternoon!

So whilst writing my last post, I was waiting for these babies to dry.

You've probably heard of Fantasy Fire before and seen many beautiful swatches. Nevertheless, I could not resist posting them. Two coats of O.P.I - Unfor-Greta-Bly Blue followed by two coats of Max- Factor - Fantasy Fire, and viola, THIS HAPPENED!

This polish is sooo hard to photograph, for example right now, my nails have an amazing green-blue sheen to them which I just could not capture. Oh well, Fantasy Fire is beautiful, enough said. GET IT! 

Hope you enjoyed my swatches of FF and thanks for reading :) 

Ariana xo

Christmas is coming!

HEY! Just a quick one for the moment whilst waiting for my current manicure to dry! 

Yesterday, I did my first Christmas mani of the year! Yes, I know it's still November. No, I don't care. IT'S NEVER TOO EARLY FOR CHRISTMAS!!!! In my mind anyway…

Apologies for the fluff on my middle finger and crappy picture!

I used Essie - Sugar Daddy and China Glaze - Fairy Dust for the base. For the dots I used Essie - Fishnet Stockings, O.P.I - My Boyfriend Scales Walls and Barry M - np320, followed by a coat of horribly thick, gloopy Seche Vite. Sugar Daddy, Fairy Dust and MBSW are three of my all time favourite polishes and I looove dots, so even if this manicure was crap, I'd still love it!!

And if you weren't satisfied with this post, you will be now! Here's a picture of my cat eating peanut butter off my dad's spoon. Mmmmm

I blurred out my dad's face, he was picking his teeth. It was funny, but he'd be annoyed if I put it on here un-blurred.

Thanks for reading!

Ariana xo

Storm and Stars Contest!

Hi guys! Hope you've all had a great weekend! I've been sooo busy with work, so glad to be off today!

Today I entered Storm and Stars' IG contest with the theme being storms and stars :) I entered the beginner category. I've not really done much freehand nail art before like this, so this pretty much was a first for me and I really enjoyed it!

Outside, no flash or sunlight. I wish this November weather would stop sucking!

Outside with flash

Inside with flash

I used a base of A England - Tristam and once that had dried I sponged on Maybelline - 669, followed by O.P.I - Unfor-greta-bly Blue, then O.P.I - Suzi & the 7 Düsseldorfs. For the lightening bolts I used O.P.I - My Boyfriend Scales Walls and painted them on using a very fine bursh, I'm kind of wishing now that I had used a white acrylic paint and maybe added a bit of gold/silver? Still, I love the manicure anyway!!

I think I'm going to start entering more contests, even if I don't win or do a great job, it's still super fun and I really enjoyed participating! If you want to check out more entries on instagram, search the hashtag stormandstarscontest (either I'm being really thick or my laptop doesn't have a hash key) and also @stormandstars, her nails are always amazing!

Ariana xo

Bubbles!

Good evening nail lovers!

Last night whilst doing a bit of late night instagramming, I came across a lovely manicure by Lucy's Stash. After searching her blog for a while, I finally found the post from October about these nails! Check them out here, she's amazing! So anyway, I really liked the idea and thought I'd give it a go. 

 

I'm totally digging this manicure, the dots remind me of air bubbles and port holes and just general underwater-ness! I might even keep it on longer than 24 hours ;) maybe... 

I used Lime Crime - Milky Ways and A England - Saint George. I adore both of these colours but unfortunately my Milky Ways has gone a bit thick and really difficult to work with, boooo. I was quite disappointed about this to be honest, I've only had the polish a couple of months and I've not used it that much :( oh well! It's a really unique off-white creme with a hint of peach. I was going to use this with Lime Crime - Once In A Blue Mousse for the bubbles but I ended up going for Saint George, the most perfect emerald green. I can't wait for payday so I can splash out on more A England polishes, I'm sooo in love with them! 

Thanks for reading everyone :) seeee you next time!

Ariana xo

Snow globe stars

Hey guys. Today I've been playing around with a glitter I've had for a while but have never actually gotten round to using. It's Kleancolor - Silver Star, which has two different sizes of holographic glitter and chunky stars suspended in a clear base. It's pretty freakin' cool! Like most glitter polishes which have larger flecks in, the bigger pieces did take a bit of effort to get out of the bottle. The stars being heavier had sunk to the bottom and stuck to the sides, but that was nothing a little bottle shake couldn't fix!

Argh it's like a snow globe, how beautiful?!

The colours I used for the gradient were Collection 2000 - Wow and A England - Tristam. Collection 2000 has recently been rebranded Collection, so I'm not too sure if this particular colour has been discontinued or what, but it's a pretty generic metallic silver that's everywhere. And Tristam is just the most amazing polish in the world. The colour, the holo, the consistency, everything about it is just wow! I then layered a coat of Silver Star over the gradient, fished out a few stars for each nail and finished it all off with a layer of topcoat. 

I looove this manicure so much, it's like a frosty night sky! Unfortunately, my photography skills are yet to be perfected, so I apologise for the poor photos. Haha. I hope to bring you better pictures sometime soon!

Ariana xo

Why I love days off!

Hiiii everybody and happy Monday!! Today, I tried out about five different designs on my nails, all watching none other than DEXTER!! Seriously, what could be better than a day of nails and a Dexter marathon?!

Nothing would go right today, it was really frustrating! But I'll show you a couple of the designs I did anyway. This was the first time I have done a fishtail manicure, I though it would be a lot harder to do and I loved it! The colours I used were China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss, China Glaze - Harvest Moon and O.P.I - Call Me Gwen-Ever.

I didn't really want to do it on my right hand, soo I started again… I recently bought A England - Holy Grail (the old version) before it was discontinued and I honestly have never seen a gold like it before. It's a really beautiful yellowy antiqued gold with a shimmer and I don't think I'll find a polish shade anytime soon. The new holy grail which has taken its place, whilst still absolutely stunning, is a shade which I imagine has many dupes. So, I used this as a base for my second mani of the day, then dotted curved lines from the tip downwards using Barry M - Raspberry and Barry M - Black. 

This would be something really nice for christmas time using a forrest green and deep red. I'm definitely saving my Holy Grail for this years festivities!

Anyway, after much more trial and error, I decided I really actually loved my fishtail mani and ended up doing it again using the same colours! Only this time, I only did my accent and thumb nails full fishtail and for the rest of my nails just the tips. It was really nice!

With flash

In sunlight (bare in mind it's been a very dull day in Manchester)

Hope you all had as much of a fun Monday as I did, and if you haven't started watching Dexter yet - WATCH IT!! 

Thanks for reading guys!

Ariana xo 

Poppy Fields

Hello lovelies, hope you've all had a nice Saturday!

This evening, I did a gorgeous poppy memorial manicure but, silly me fell asleep on the sofa about five minutes after so now it's all smudged :( on the plus side, I had a good dream! 

With it being Remembrance Sunday tomorrow I thought it was important to show my respect for all those who have died fighting for their country. Whilst I hate war and fighting, accepting that in some cases it is necessary and remembering those who have fought is something we all must do. It's terribly sad, but unfortunately that is the world we live in! We can only hope that one day things can be different. Anyway, on to the nails!

I love doing flowers like this in my manicures, they're super easy yet really effective. All you need is polish and a dotting tool! If you don't have a dotting tool you can make one really easily, take a look at Cute Polish's tutorial on how to do so from things you'll find around the house. I applied a base coat, Essie - Grow Stronger, followed by two coats of China Glaze - Exotic Encounters, then dotted on Essie - Fishnet Stockings and O.P.I - Red My Fortune Cookie for the petals with Barry M - Black (I think it was just called black?!) for the center bit. Finished with a coat of Seche Vite.

I'm a bit nervous about taking these off, last time I used Exotic Encounters it stained my nails really badly! And that was even after two coats of a base coat! Grrrr!

I really enjoyed doing this design and it was nice to do something for such an occasion. Hope you enjoyed it too!

Thanks for reading everyone!

Ariana xo

Monochrome Colour Block

Hello all! 

Tonight I decided to go for a little monochrome colour blocking! I learnt a couple of lessons this evening which, in all honesty, I know will be forgotten by the morning. 

• Lesson numero uno - I really, really love the idea of grey and black together but, apart from in bright light, they will without a doubt both merge into one colour! 
• Lesson number two - doing a tape mani in partial lighting will never work out right! Never!

It's not all bad though, lesson number one counteracted lesson number two and therefore my shoddy line work isn't quite so obvious, woohoo! Anywaaay, now we've got the lessons out of the way, let us take a look at the nails!

For this manicure, I used O.P.I - My Boyfriend Scales Walls (my current fave) and 17 - Smoke Signals as a base. I then taped off a V section at the tip and painted on A-England - Jane Eyre. This was all topped off with a coat of my ever faithful Seche Vite!

See what I mean about the merging colours? Oh and don't mind the bit of fluff dried onto my topcoat...

We all know this design didn't go quite as planned. In fact at all as planned! But ever the optimist, I did learn some very important nail lessons so it wasn't a complete nail fail! Score!!

Thanks for reading everyone, goodnight!

Ariana xo

Watercolour Nails

Good afternoon! 

For a while now, I've been wanting to try out a watercolour manicure but sadly have never seemed to get round to it! So last night whilst watching 'Never Been Kissed' I decided to give it a go. It wasn't overly complicated but I was still a little worried about how it would turn out. Here''s the tutorial I followed.

These are the five colours I used.

l-r, O.P.I Red My Fortune Cookie, China Glaze Papaya Punch, Crema De Limon, Maybelline MNY Royal Blue, O.P.I My Boyfriend Scales Walls

For the base I used my boyfriend scales walls and the other four colours for the watercolour. I used a smallish-medium brush to dot the acetone about my nail! 

So here's what I did… Firstly I did two coats of my base coat topped with a coat of Seche Vite (I'm sure any other top coat would work perfectly well too). Then, I put a couple of dots of Red My Fortune Cookie on my nail, dipped my brush in the acetone and dotted it about my nail. 

I then repeated this with the other three colours, using the blue last. Finally, I added another coat of Seche Vite, did a bit of clean up, and viola! Watercolour nails done! My clean up wasn't brilliant and there's still loads of polish in my cuticle, it had all got embedded and stuff! Ugh, annoying!!

I wasn't super keen on this manicure at first, but when I woke up this morning and saw it in its full sunshiny glory, I really loved it! It's super easy and fun to do, I'll be doing it again soon!

Thanks for reading :)

Ariana xo 

I Heart Stripes!

Here's a manicure I recently did which I really loved! I never wanted to take it off :( but alas! I did and it was onto (hopefully) bigger and better things!

O.P.I Don't Pretzel My Buttons and A-England Tristam

Until next time,

Ariana xo

My very first post!

Hello all!

My name is Ariana, and after a lot of deliberation, I have finally plucked up the courage to start my very own blog! I'm writing this blog to share with you my passion for nails and all things nail related! Hopefully I'll be able to get the hang of this sooon and you'll all enjoy my posts! So for now, I shall leave you with todays nails……

I recently acquired a miniature set of O.P.I's Germany fall collection, which was quite aptly named 'Ger-minis' - cool, hey?! I used all four colours for this manicure and 'Don't pretzel my buttons' is definitely my favourite! Without a doubt, I'll be purchasing a full size one asap!

l-r, Nein! Nein! Nein! Ok Fine!, Don't Pretzel My Buttons, Unfor-greta-bly Blue and Suzi and the 7 Dusseldorfs

I really hope you enjoyed my first blog post and and thank you for reading :) 

Ariana xo