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

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