Charlotte Olympia kitty nails, as seen at moveSlightly

I'm a big fan of the blog moveSlightly. And I'm also a big fan of cats. And you know what else I like? Very expensive shoes that I cannot afford. So when Elizabeth (moveSlightly) did the Charlotte Olympia kitty nails inspired by the cute slippers that EVERYONE has but NO-ONE can afford, I knew I would have to give it a go.

Crazy expensive beautiful shoes

Following the fab instructional post that made it seem oh-so-easy (warning: it's not) I then spent the next two or so hours painting tiny kitty faces on my nails. The black heads were easy peasy, it was all the small details that near enough killed me. As you might have gathered from looking at my previous posts, I have short nails partly because that's the look that I like and partly because I wear contacts and would rather keep what little vision I have. So the area that I have to work with is always pretty small, although this doesn't deter some people from doing some amazing things with small canvases. I also have a problem with nail art pens with the metal nibs - they always seem to come out too much when I squeeze them so generally I prefer to use brushes to do all the small details, which is what I did for the kitty faces. I think had I mastered the art of the nib it would probably have been a lot easier! Anyway, I can't delay the result much longer, here's what they turned out looking like:



Black kitty heads: Barry M Black
Black kitty ears: Andrea Fulerton Stripe & Sparkle Pattie
White kitty faces: Andrea Fulerton Stripe & Sparkle Kathleen

Meadham Kirchhoff SS12 inspired Valentine's nails

I loved the cute, kitschy prints and bright colours of Meadham Kirchhoff's Spring/Summer 2012 collection. You also might remember that I loved the nails, crowning them the best nails of London Fashion Week (although I have to say I was a little letdown to find out that they were wraps as I don't have the best relationship with them to be completely honest). I've long been meaning to do my own Meadham mani but never got round to it. Luckily for me, I think that Valentine's is just the perfect time to be sporting happy, smiley, frilly hearts on my nails.


The thumb and the ring finger hearts were done using different methods. I did the thumb first (since it's the largest surface area/canvas) and used Andrea Fulerton's "Gloria" nail art brush to first draw a heart shape and then do the frills around it. It took quite some times, especially those small frills (drawing anything that small that's curved is HARD) and I think I went over it just a couple of times. After doing this I figured out maybe now was the time to buy one of those Topshop nail art pens (which are actual pens and not brushes or metallically nibbed), which is what I did. My ring finger heart is the result of that. Let's have a closer look, shall we?

This is my thumb, done with a brush.

Here is my ring finger (and slightly blurred thumb). The ring was done with the Topshop nail art pen.


Although fricking hard to do, I much prefer the look of the heart created with the brush. The pen was great for my right hand (I'm right handed) as I don't think I could've coped with the stress of using a brush in my left hand to make tiny frilly hearts on my right hand. But if I was incredibly talented and ambidextrous it would be brush everytime. I'm not sure if it comes across it in the photos but the pen heart was a little fuzzy. I had to go over the lines MANY times compared to a couple times I did it with the brush - I think that contributed to said fuzziness.

So yeah, in conclusion - Topshop Nail Art Pen: great for curved lines and free-hand work but requires some going over and I hope you won't mind fuzziness. Andrea Fulerton Nail Art Brush: bloody hard work but a much better finish.

Red: Ciaté "Cocktail Dress"
White Nail Art Brush: Andrea Fulerton "Gloria"
White Nail Art Pen: Topshop
Black: WAH Nails/Models Own