Galaxy Nails!

As you can see, this isn't a Summer Challenge Catchup post. I have decided to stop with those now, because honestly I'm getting bored of them. I'm sorry if they were something you enjoyed, but it became more of a chore for me to get them finished. I'd rather be doing nail art that I wanted to be doing, rather than finishing the challenges. Hope you don't mind! <3 br="br">

 

This is a design that I've been wanting to try for a while now, but somehow I've never gotten around to doing it. It's one of those things that look really complicated when you first see it but once you know how it's done then it's easy. I still have tonnes of school work that needs to be done, but I'm just far too good (bad?) at procrastinating. At this rate, I'll be doing it all on the day before the deadline. Nevertheless, here's the nails.

 

I'm really happy with how these turned out, I wasn't expecting much from them. They're the kind of design which doesn't look amazing until the very end. Honestly, if you want to try galaxy nails just go for it. It's more or less impossible to mess them up in my opinion.

To do this, I used a base of W7's "Black", then sponged on Barry M's "White" for the shape of the nebula.  After that, I sponged Barry M's "Lemon Ice Cream" towards the middle of the white, followed by Barry M's "Peach Melba". Then, I sponged Max Factor's "Candy Blue" around the outside, and went back and sponged more black where I used to much. Finally, I dotted in some stars and added both a glitter top coat and a normal topcoat. The glitter topcoat I used was Rimmel's Rock Your Colour "Disco Gold".

 

I have a Facebook fanpage!

Although I've been too busy to get any actual blog posts done, I have had the time to set up a Facebook fan page! I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with it, but for now it has all of the pictures from my blog on it. Is there anything you guys want to see from me? Either on my Facebook or on the blog? Leave me a comment. :)

www.facebook.com/TheNailArtHobby

As for more blog posts, all of my coursework is due back at school by September 10th, so in theory it should all be finished by then. After that, I'm hoping to start posting every weekend at least. Thanks for your patience everyone, I'll be back soon! <3 br="br">

So... still no new posts

I'm sorry guys, I promised I'd post something over the weekend. Unfortunately I just don't have time to get any nail art done, let alone have the time to take pictures, edit, and post them. After the summer I'll be going into sixth form which means I have a lot of summer coursework to get done. Of course, school work has to be my main focus. Next week I'm doing some volunteer work during the day so that means that I'm going to have even less time to get nails done. Depending how busy school gets, I'm hoping to be able to start posting once a week (maybe twice) from September, but in the meantime I hope you all don't mind my lack-of-posts.

Summer Challenge Catchup, Day 10: Tropical Drinks

I'll be honest, I wasn't looking forward to this theme at all. I had absolutely no ideas. After all, I've never had a tropical drink before in my life to take inspiration from. Oh well. I did a quick Google search for tropical drinks and more or less copied the first image.

 

I think these could have turned out loads better than they actually did. But, I had a severe lack of inspiration today. I used a lot of colours for this design, so here we go. I used a base of Rimmel's "Aqua Cool". Then I used a small paintbrush to paint the different sized glasses with Barry M's "White". Then, for the index finger I used Nails Inc's "Atomic", Barry M's "Bright Red" and Sinful Color's "UFO". I did the flower with acrylic paint. For the middle finger used Barry M's "Strawberry Ice Cream" and I think Barry M's "Bright Red" for the flower. On the ring finger, I mixed Barbara Daly's "Kiwi" with Barry M's "Black" and "White" until I got the right shade of green. I used acrylic paint again for the flower. Finally, for the pinky finger I used Max Factor's "Candy Blue" and added more white to it as it faded up the glass. Then, I used Barry M's "Lemon Ice Cream" for the pineapple on the side of the glass.

On Monday, I'm going away for another 5 days. So that means if you don't get a post from me over the weekend, I'll post again either next Saturday or Sunday. I'll get all of the challenge themes done soon. Hopefully before the summer's over!

The Liebster Award (My first award!)

I've been tagged for my first award, which for someone still relatively new to blogging is pretty exciting! It's the best feeling in the world to feel that you're finally becoming recognised. Thank you Globe & Nail for tagging me. :)

For this tag, you need to do the following:

1. Each person tagged must post 11 things about themselves.
2. They must also answer the 11 questions the 'tagger' has set for them.
3. They must create 11 more questions to ask bloggers they have decided to tag.

4. They must then choose 11 bloggers with less than 200 followers and tag them in their post.

5. These lucky bloggers must then be told.
6. There's no tag backs.

 

11 things about myself

1. I have a brother two years younger than me, and a sister who is one year older than me.

2. I spend a large majority of my time on the Internet either on YouTube or talking to friends. A few of my favourite YouTubers are CTFxC, SHAYTARDS, nerimon, charlieissocoollike, danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil. Although these tend to change a lot. I think my all-time favourite would be CTFxC, I own one of their hoodies.

3. I can lick both of my elbows, but not at the same time.

4. My friends hate me for saying it, but I'm not a huge fan of Harry Potter or LOTR. I just never got into either of them. I read the Harry Potter books and enjoyed them, I just never became obsessed. Then LOTR is far to long for me to be able to watch all of the films or read the books.

5. I have a birthmark in my eye. My eyes are mostly hazel/green except for one portion of the iris in the left eye (I think) which is brown. Most people tend to freak out when they see it and ask if it hurts, which of course it doesn't.

6. After the summer holidays I'll be starting my A-Levels, which scares me to death. For my A-Levels I'm going to be doing Psychology, English Literature, French and Communication & Culture.

7. Other than doing my nails, I have no talent in art whatsoever. I can't draw to save my life, as all of my artsy friends will tell you.

8. I'm more of a dog person than a cat person, however if it's cute and fluffy I'll probably love it.

9. My favourite animal is a sloth because I think they're a lot like me. They're lazy and have long claws. Sums me up pretty perfectly I'd say.

10. I have zero interest in sports. The Olympics are boring for me, and so I have seen barely anything. I think it's great for people who actually enjoy the sports but I'd rather not have the Olympics thrown at me everywhere I go.

11. It took an insanely long time to think of all of these facts, because I'm such a boring person.

Questions set by the tagger

1. Why did you decide to start blogging, and how long ago did you start?

 I first really got into reading blogs when I saw The Nailasaurus's meme nails posted on Memebase. I saw her watermark on the picture so searched for her blog and read a few of her posts. I think from then I was hooked and brought stamping plates a few days later. I also checked her Best of British page and found a few other blogs to start following. After a while, I kinda figured that blogging might be a bit of fun so I decided to give it a go. I already had a Blogger account which I'd made in July of last year, so in April of this year I started using it.
2. Favourite polish finish? (Creme, glitter, holo, shimmer, ect.?)

Tough one... I think the colours in cremes can be gorgeous, but after seeing swatches of Gosh Holographic I can see that holos can be amazing too. One finish that I don't really like is frosted, something about it just makes me think it looks a little cheap. That's just my opinion though.
3. Ever had an embarrassing manicure failure?

Sometimes designs don't turn out quite how I imagined them in my head, but that happens to everyone sometimes. I can't think of anything in particular that was embarrassing. One time someone broke one of my nails by high-5ing me... does that count?
4. What is your nail art/nail care pet peeve?

When people don't clean up their nails, that annoys me. Sometimes the design they've done is really nice or the colour is pretty but they have nail polish all around their cuticles. I guess that ruins the overall look for me.
5. Biggest polish lemming?

Probably Gosh Holographic or OPI DS Original. They're both so pretty. Thankfully Gosh is re-releasing their Holographic polish soon, so it will be mine someday!
6. What brand of polish do you own the most of?

Barry M, definitely. It's super cheap and has some really nice colours. Probably one of my favourite brands too.
7. What is your favourite movie?

I like most Disney/Pixar movies, they never disappoint. I think if I had to pick a favourite one of those it would be between The Lion King, Monster's Inc and Toy Story. I can never think of a movie that isn't Disney to choose as my favourite though... this question is hard for me. I think any film that I watched a lot as a kid and brings back lots of memories is fine for me.
8. Favourite book? 

Most recently I've read The Hunger Games trilogy, and I liked those a lot. I also read Looking for Alaska by John Green a few weeks ago. That was an awesome book, even if I did cry a lot.
9. Any hobbies besides nail art and blogging?

Not really... I don't do much other than surf the Internet and paint my nails.
10. Three material possessions you couldn't live a day without?

My laptop (Internet connection included?), Clothes (who wants to go out into public naked? Unless you're into that...) and my bed (so that I can get lots of sleep).
11. Do you ever leave the house with naked nails?

Never, when my nails are naked I feel like they're prone to breaking and getting damaged. They're never without polish for too long, only however long it takes between removing the last manicure and creating a new one.

My questions for the tagged

1. What/Who got you started with nail art and how long have you been doing it?

2. How long have you been blogging for?

3. What is your favourite colour to wear on your nails?

4. Favourite nail art technique? (Water marbling, stamping, gradient, etc)

5. How many different polishes do you own?

6. Do you have a favourite polish that you keep buying when you run out?

7. Any tips/tricks you've learnt whilst doing your nails?

8. Most you've ever spent on nail polish?

9. How often do you paint your nails?

10. Where do you get your inspiration for nail art?

11.  Favourite design you've blogged?

And finally, I tag:

1. Cuti-CLUE-les

2. Hen's Nest

3. Patchwork Polish

4. Polish Etc.

5. Robin Sparkles

6. The (mis)Adventures of a Wanna Be Martha

7. Thejewellsparkle

8. WellNailed x

9.

10.

11.

Notice there are three empty spaces for tags? That's because the people I've tagged are the only people that I follow with under 200 followers and haven't (to my knowledge) done this tag. If you have a blog with less than 200 followers and want to be tagged, just comment and I'll add you onto it! :)

Thanks for reading all of this, I had a lot of fun writing it!

Summer Challenge Catchup, Day 5: Fruits

For this challenge, I'd considered finding a really obscure fruit to try and make my nail design more original. But then I thought if I did that, then no one would understand the nails. So, I decided to do a common fruit but in a way that was different to usual. Just for the fun of it. My friend suggested bananas so instead of just painting my nails yellow, I did this:

It's the Bananas in Pyjamas! I used to watch that program all the time when I was little, although the only part I remember is the theme tune. I'm pretty happy with how these came out. I started with a base of Barry M's "White", then used Max Factor's "Candy Blue" and a thin paintbrush to paint the stripes on all of my nails except the ring finger. Then, I did the details of the Banana using Barry M's "Yellow", Max Factor's "Candy Blue", Barry M's "Mushroom", and Barry M's "Black". After that, I went back to all of my other nails and added 2 small bananas just to make them look less boring.

I'm especially happy with how the Banana turned out, I can never usually get outline lines to be that thin with the brush I have. Thankfully, I ordered some new brushes from Ebay this morning so in the future small details should be much easier. Yay!

Summer Challenge Catchup, Day 4: Palm Trees

I think for this theme, most people did something along the same lines. That being, a gradient of either a sunset or a sunrise with the black silhouette of palm trees. Which is exactly what I've done. I did have other ideas in mind too, but I couldn't quite figure out how I would put them onto my nails, so I just stuck with the obvious.

 

The colours I used for this design were Barry M's "Strawberry Ice Cream", Rimmel's "Ultra Violet" and Rimmel's "Aqua Cool". Then, I used Barry M's "Black" and a thin paintbrush to add the silhouette details. I think the details could have been done more neatly but my brush is losing it's original shape so isn't as thin as it was originally. Looks like I'll have to get a new one, or maybe try some actual nail art brushes. What do you guys think?

Summer Challenge Catchup, Day 3: Favourite Summer Song

 When I saw this theme, I wasn't sure at all what I wanted to do my nails as. I don't really have a favourite summer song, I just listen to whatever is playing on the radio most of the time. So, I asked one of my best friends who is a huge music fan. A particular favourite is a woman who she describes as being one of the most perfect people alive. That is, Cheryl Cole. So, she suggested I take the design from the trousers Cheryl wears in her Call My Name music video and put it onto my nails. She's a genius. Here are said trousers:

 

And here are my nails.

 Yes, the Cheryl logo on my ring finger is upside down... I was too lazy to redo it and put it the right way round.

The logo was supposed to be like on the album cover, I think it turned out pretty good. Even if it did take about 5 attempts to get it all to fit on my nail! The colours I used for this design were, Barry M's "Bright Red", "Lemon Ice Cream", "Mint Green", "Black" and "White", Nails Inc's "Atomic", Max Factor's "Candy Blue" and Rimmel's "Ultra Violet". I also used some pink acrylic paint to write Cheryl before going over it with white polish. Using acrylic paint meant that I could erase it with water as many times as I liked. For the animal print, I used image plate BM221 and Barry M's "Black".

I'm happy with how these nails turned out overall, I think they're pretty cool. What do you think? :)