Nail Art Pens

A little while ago I was sent this lovely Nail Art kit from 'Presents for Men' (they also do presents for women!) - just after it arrived, the silly billy I am bit off all my nails (I know, such an idiot) - so instead of waiting until my nails grow to review them, I've created some nail art on my nail wheels - but be warned - I'm not very good :)

Presents for men offer a range of unusual gifts for women and men - I've had a good nosey around their site and they have a really nice range of gifts for not just men and women, but children too :)

In this nail art kit you get 10 different polishes for £19.99* - each are double ended - they each twist together, so if you find a combo you really like, you could attach them together.  Each pen has a brush (just twist the lid), and a pen (just pull the cap off the end). Each of the shades have a shimmer to them, but aren't glittery.

 

Here's an example of some of the nail art you could create with them - bear i mind, I'm not very good! (The Sun, Moon, Star one is my favourite!).  The purple shade below was a different nail polish, with the light blue dotted on top - it was super easy to do - just make sure to give the polishes a good shake first, and squeeze them out onto a piece of paper a little first (always good to do that to see what pressure you need to apply to the bottle too).

The Sun, Moon, Star one was super easy - just apply 2 coats of the navy blue, then take the golden yellow shade and draw some stars and half moons, then apply small polka dots randomly.

For these I used the green, pearl white and golden yellow.  The middle one is a pineapple inspired one - I applied one coat of green, let it dry, then with the yellow pen, I drew diamonds on the nail. Once that was dry, I highlighted the sides with the pearl white shade.  Then I created the daisy's using one base coat of green, and dotting the pearl white (for the petals) and the golden yellow as the centre of the flower.

The other one you can see in the background was abstract leaves using the light green - applied to a nude nail.  I love the idea of this - not having a base coat (maybe just a clear one) - I think polka dots graduated from the cuticle would look lovely this way too.

Finally, each of these have one coat of the light blue colour - the one has orange polka dots (blue and orange are complimentary colours so contrast well).  The other has drawn on diamonds in different colours coming away from the cuticle - I used the pen tip for this.

The nail art pens were really easy to use - you just need a bit of imagination or a good nail art Pinterest board (like mine!) for inspiration.  Feel free to recreate any of these - I'll definitely be doing the sun moon stars one once my nails are long enough (keep your eyes peeled on Instagram for that one!).

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*Post contains a PR sample

6 Nail polishes for Easter

After buying some little fluffy chicks to be in my blog photo's yesterday, I found myself feeling very festive today and thought I'd put together a post on Easter nail polishes, with a little nail art - now, I'm by no way a professional, but I like to tinker with nail art - so be gentle!

The nail polishes I picked are:
Essie - Cascade Cool
GOSH - Apple Bloom
Essie - Mint Candy Apple
GOSH - Sunkissed
Crabtree & Evelyn - Raspberry/Fuchsia
M&S Limited - Pale Peach

To create the nail art I used the Avon tool in the picture - it's only £3 and while I realise I chopped the ends off so you can't see them - it's a double ended tool - one end is a brush, the other a dotting tool. You can get as creative as your imagination will take you, even creating what look like decorative easter eggs - that's actually the intention when I started these, but I went a little polka dot crazy :P

Now that my nails are starting to grow back I'm starting to wear polish again, so I'm getting all excited planning my next creations, if only I had the skill to meet my ideas!

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*Post contains PR samples previously blogged about

July Favourites and a nail art tutorial

Happy Thursday!  It's kinda like Friday for me as I'm off tomorrow, Chris will finally be home from his Summer school (Fri) and I can't wait!  You may have arrived here expecting a long post all about my monthly favourites and then a bit of a nail art tutorial, and instead you've been greeted with a couple of videos.  Well, before you skip off, I'd really appreciate a bit of support.

I've been creating YouTube videos for nearly 2 years, and in that time, I've uploaded 127 videos, each of which takes around 4 hrs of my time (preparing, filming, uploading to laptop, editing, exporting, and uploading), possibly more.  I really enjoy making videos, but what I enjoy more, is seeing you enjoy them.  But over the last few months my views have dropped as my subscribers have increased.  Now, I'm lucky if I get 50 views on a video.  So, today I'm appealing to you - I would really appreciate it if you would take a moment and watch one of my videos.  It's crunch time for me now, I have one more video filmed that I need to edit and upload, and then I'll make the decision whether or not to continue with my channel, depending on how it (and my last couple) does.

So if you'd like to continue to enjoy my videos, please support me in giving them a view, it would mean the world to me :)

This months Bigest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Hayley from Water Painted Dreams

 

Written by Georgina Kent

Pink fun nail art

I've had my nail art kit for what... 2 days?  Already addicted!  As you may or may not know, I have a very arty background, so nail art is something I've been really keen to get into but until now I never had the tools.  But now I have this amazing nail art kit (the one that was in the blogger goody bag from Saturday) I can create all sorts of nails!  If you want to know which nail kit it was, it's by Rio and it's the Ultimate Nail Art, Professional Nail Art Collection - it's £29.99* and available on their website here.

** Excuse the quality of the photo, but this was taken late at night and with a flash **

I was sitting down last night to write today's blog post and I felt inspired not to blog, but to paint my nails.  They're horrifically weak at the moment and varnish is barely lasting 1 day, so I don't expect much out of these, however, I couldn't resist :)  I did forget to photograph the base coat, but it's the one I recently blogged about, Essie's Off the Shoulder.  So, as much as this isn't a 'step by step' guide, I'll try to show you how I did it :)

To do this look, you will need the following;

Step 1 - I should have used a base coat (clear) but I didn't (far too impatient!) so I used two coats of Essie's Off the Shoulder.

Step 2 - I took the white nail art pen (it's a long thin brush) and painted candy stripes down my thumb nail starting at the centre and working outwards.

Step 3 - Polka dot ring finger - I used the same brush and pot (white nail art pen) and simply dotted it on my finger, again starting from the middle.

Step 4 - I picked out 3 different pinks from the rhinestone wheel, dotted the adhesive in a line down the centre of my middle nail and placed each one on each dot, I started with the darkest pink nearest my cuticle.  I pushed down on them to help them set.

Step 5 - French mani - I took the same white nail art pen and drew a line across the tip of my little finger, filling in the very tip.

Step 6 - Glitter!  From the nail art kit I picked out a mini glitter in a snowy shade, covered my index finger in clear nail varnish and used a brush to pick up the glitter from the pot and add it to near my cuticles.

Step 7 - Cover all nails with a thick coat of Essie's Good to Go clear top coat which helps the nails dry quickly, gives them a glossy finish and helps the varnish last longer (unless you have horrifically weak nails like me!).

So there you have it, it really wasn't very difficult, all you need are patience.  It took me about an hour, but that hour went super quickly :)  And, to be fair, half that time was spent deciding what to do on each nail :)

If you decide to have a go at re-creating this look, please send me your pictures on Twitter so I can re-tweet them :)

This months Bigest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Stacie from Life is worth the fight

 

Written by Georgina Kent

Nail art tutorial - Summer brights

If you follow me on twitter you might have seen that I've been keen to start doing some nail art tutorials.  Now, I'm by no means an expert at this - polka dots is about as far as my skills take me right now, but as I learn new ones I'll share them with you and we can learn together :)  So here goes my first  one!

Here are all the bits and bobs you'll need.  A good base & top coat (I'm using the OPI base coat, and an Essie 60 second top coat).  You'll need a bright base shade and an accent colour - pick whatever colours you prefer (this would look nice in reverse too).  You'll also need cotton pads & nail varnish remover to remove whatever varnish you're wearing right now, and finally you'll need a nail art tool (mine is from Avon and costs about £3).

Next, after applying your clear base coat, add 2 coats of your bright base, or enough coats for full coverage.

Then take the bright colour and the tool, dip the tool in the pot and dot the varnish in a central line down the nail - preferably with a bigger blob near the cuticle.

That's it, simple, all done :)

So there you have it, a simple nail art tutorial to begin with.  If you don't have a nail art tool, if you're careful you can use the corner of the brush of the accent colour, you may not get very round dots, but it's better than not doing it at all :)

Here's another polka dot picture for inspiration that I created last night too :)

This months Bigest-Pixi3 advertiser is the lovely Shang from The Feminine Crusade

 

Written by Georgina Kent