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

Sophy Robson for Sephora

Do I talk about Sophy Robson too much on my blog? Probably. But I just can't get enough of her nails and seeing her shoot with Sephora just made me DIE! My favourite of the bunch has to be the purple half moon mani:

What can I say, I guess I'm just a sucker for half moon manis and most especially, giant rhinestones!!

I had some free time last week to do my nails so opted to try out this look. I didn't have any gorgeous gold crystals but I did make a trip to Poundland for some of their nail art kits (which turned out to be buy one get one free!!!) so I used the silver gems in that. And the result?

Not too bad. This is after a week's wear and you can see that it's wearing off at the ends - eep! What you can't see is some of the gems have fallen off but otherwise it's all in pretty good nick! I started off by using Barry M's Limited Edition pastel purple (the one they did for Boots with the gold lid) before painting on the darker purple - Revlon's "Passionfruit" (scented and oh-so-nice) on top, leaving the half moon. I did this freehand and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I then added a bit of Seche Vite and the gems on top before sealing with another layer of Seche Vite.

I'd love to get my hands on those bigass gold gems that Sophy used so I guess I'll keep my eyes peeled on eBay for them. The whole shoot that Sophy did for Sephora is just pure and total NAIL PORN so you should all definitely take a look!

Cupcake Nails

It's my birthday on Thursday and I'm turning the big 2-3 so to celebrate I've finally decided to paint cupcakes on my nails. It's been done a million times before in a million different ways so whilst it's nothing earth shatteringly new it's incredibly cute and puts a smile on my face when I look down (although I've literally just thought of a way to make them cuter..)

Yellow: OPI "The It Colour"
Orange: Revlon "Mango Madness"
Bluey-Green: Revlon "Ocean Breeze"
Pink: Revlon "Bubblegum"
Pink Glitter: Barry M "Pink Iridescent"
Purple: Barry M Limited Edition Boots colour
White: Barry M
Red Cherry: OPI "Monsooner or Later"
Sprinkles are: Barry M (blue), OPI (yellow), Revlon (pink and purple)

The Revlons are all scented polishes (something I remember being totally into when I was 12 and reading Bliss and J-17 magazines - those were the days!) and I definitely love catching whiffs of them throughout the day!

These were actually super easy to do and I actually replicated it pretty well on my right hand as well:

Crappy Photobooth pic

To do the cupcakes I painted on rectagular blocks of colour along the edge of my nail (a bit like a giant french tip) before layering on the white polish to create a frosting effect. A blob of red for the cherry on top and some multicoloured sprinkles completes the look! And I also added glitter onto my ring finger cuppycakes as I can't resist having one different from the others.

Of course I've asked for a whole heap of nail art goodies for my upcoming birthday and am hoping someone will sneak a bottle of this into my pressies:

An incredibly suitable present for a polish fanatic like me: Deborah Lippmann's "Happy Birthday".

Floral Nails - A First Attempt

I had a go at doing floral nails earlier this week. This is definitely not the best photo in the world of them but my camera is back in London and I'm still at my parents'.


I've been meaning to try out floral nails for a while now but didn't have the right colours. When I spotted the Models Own Pro range in Boots the other day I couldn't resist picking up a couple of bottles. After umming and ahhing for about half an hour I chose Rosewood Pink (a dusty vintage sort of rose pink without being overly saccharine) and Freedom of Peach (a nudey sort of peach). I've been meaning to get some colours I could use for florals and these seemed perfect!

Originally I wanted a blue base colour but the blue I have with me didn't go with the colour of the flowers (which I practised on a notepad beforehand). To do the flowers I tried all sorts but preferred using the brush that came with the polish to "dab" on spots of colour. I think that when trying to do vintage-y Cath Kidston type floral prints it's much better to be less precise and more rough so after the first colour (Freedom of Peach), I layered on top Rosewood Pink in the same dabbing motion before switching to my trusty Barry M White. I then added some leaves using a Topshop polish, although I'm not too happy with the shade of green...

(I swear my hands are not normally this wrinkly?)

Overall I think it's quite decent for a first try but I wish I had something light and sheer with me that I could've used as a base coat. Ahh well, next time. Practise makes perfect and all that. More runway nails to come soon, I promise! I've got a good idea in my head but it'll take a couple of weeks to gather the right materials...!

Easter manicure

This totally isn't a runway look (as far as I'm aware!) but I just wanted to share with you the nails I had over Easter. I changed them last night but I haven't decided if I like my new nails or not so in the meantime here's some cute pastel bunnies...

Yellow: OPI "The It Colour"
Green: Barry M
Pink: Barry M
Blue: Topshop
Purple: Barry M Limited Edition colour for Boots
White (eyes and insides of ears): Barry M
Black (eyes): Barry M
Pink (noses): Deborah Lippmann "Pop Life"

As you can tell I like to use a lot of Barry M! I love Barry M as they're cheap (always in some sort of 2 for £5/3 for 2 type dealio) and they're quite opaque. I've gone back to my parents' for Easter and have only a small selection (read: 20) of polishes with me so I haven't listed the full names of the colours. If anyone wants them, just leave me a comment and I'll get back to you when I'm in London again.

I was going to use the WAH nails/Models Own nail art pens for the eyes and ears but I find using the actual brush that comes with the polishes much easier than the nail art brushes (sometimes too fine a line) or the fine end (always end up with polish spurting out the top!!) Speaking of Models Own, yesterday I stumbled across a Boots that has the Models Own Pro range and since Boots are doing a very yummy 3 for 2 across all make-up, I snagged a couple of bottles which I've used in my most recent nails! Photos to come on that look...

Married to Chanel

These were some nails I did a while ago. Rather simple, chic and featuring Chanel (I'm a sucker for Chanel). If you'd like to read more about how I did them, click here to see the article I wrote for Grazia.

Base: Revlon "Grey Suede" (the best nude colour I've found for my skintone so far)
Tips: Barry M Black with Nailene's Perfect French Tip Stickers
Chanel logo: eBay (also have some LV to use and some YSL ones on my hitlist...)

Marc by Marc Jacobs SS11 v2.0

I did these nails after three attempts at doing some more runway nails. I couldn't do any of the previous prints any justice on my nails and was getting increasingly frustrated when I thought I'd do this as it's relatively simple.

I used Butter London's "Pearly Queen" as the base colour, then layered on dots with the end of a hair pin (works quite well if you don't have any tools like me!) The black and white were Barry M and the red was OPI's "Monsooner or Later". Easy peasy.

These nails were actually retweeted by Marc Jacobs and Sophy Robson (my nail idol)!

Marc by Marc Jacobs SS11 Simone nails

So this is the story of how this blog came about.

I was on bored, looking at the new Marc by Marc Jacobs collection and loved the colours of this Simone dress. Then I looked at the nail polishes on my shelf. I had pretty much the exact same colours just sitting there so I figured I'd give it a go. And from there it's kinda grown. I love prints, I love fashion (obviously, I have a degree in it) and I'm hopelessly head over heels in love with nail art. So here we are.

White: Barry M
Yellow : OPI "The It Colour"
Greige: Deborah Lippmann "Waking Up in Vegas"
Blue: Andrea Fulerton "Gloria" nail art brush
Red: OPI "Monsooner or Later"