I ♥ Britain

These nails where inspired by one of my favourite Christmas presents….an M&S Percy Pig Piggy Bank!  I’m actually tempted to go to M&S and buy another one just in case this one breaks!

I really love everything about this piggy bank, from the colours to the patterns and shapes, it’s just so me, so I thought what better bit of inspiration for a nail design!  For this design I used the following Models Own Nail Varnishes: Red Alert, Feeling Blue, True Blue, Snow White, 3-in-1 Basecoat, Topcoat and Gloss and my white Models Own Nail Pen.  I also tried out my new nail brushes and nail varnish corrector pen, which I bought off eBay.  The nail brushes are really useful but aren’t as precise as nail pens but they are good because you don’t need to buy nail pens in every shade, you can just use the nail varnish directly out of the bottle.  The nail varnish corrector pen is quite useful and came with 3 replacement tips so is pretty good value for money, but cotton buds and nail varnish remover is cheaper but the corrector pens are more precise and don’t fall apart as easy so you decide! 

So back to this design… it is a little bit messy but for some reason I really love the messiness of the flags but wish the middle finger nails were a bit neater.  This design didn’t seem to take very long but was probably getting on for about 2 hours by the time I removed my old nail varnish and did the base coats.  This design I will defiantly be doing again I think this may well be my favourite design so far!

Scarlet Sparkles

This is my last post using my crappy old camera so hopefully I’ll be able to take some decent photos for a change! I painted my nails plain red on Christmas Eve using Models Own Red Alert but then decided to add a bit of sparkle for Boxing Day using one of my new Models Own nail varnishes (Scarlet Sparkle).  So as you can see from the photos my nails are now a bit battered but are looking rather good considering I started them 4 days ago.

I used three coats of Red Alert for the base which is quite a lot for a Models Own nail varnish but I have found that certain shades have drastically different levels of coverage (some, like Black Magic only need one coat and others such as Snow White need about 5 coats).   I only needed one coat of Scarlet Sparkle as the glitter is really dense and Models Own is the only brand that I have found that do such dense glittery nail varnishes, some other brands tend to be a bit wish washy in my experience.

 

For Christmas I had 15 Models Own Nail Varnishes and I really can’t wait to try them all out :) but for now here is a quick pic of them:

I will do some swatches and maybe some mini reviews on each of these as soon as I get chance and it will be a good time to test my new camera too I suppose!

Christmas Nails

I finally got round to doing some Christmas nails yesterday so here they are:

For these I used Models Own Nude Beige for the base because I wanted a plain background but now I wish I had used Models Own Prussian Blue as I think the Christmas designs would stand out more.  I used a variety of my nails pens to create these designs, along with Barry M Spring Green, because I haven’t got a nice green nail pen, yet! 

 

My favourite nail is either the Santa or the robin, as usual I can’t decide on a favourite!  These took about an hour and a half to do but it did make me feel Christmasy and was quite fun so if you’ve got some nail pens give it a go!

Reindeer Thumb Nail

Santa Thumb Nail

In case I don’t have time to do another post before Christmas…Merry Christmas everyone! :D 

Barry M Instant Nail Effects

I finally got my hands on Barry M Instant Nail effects this week so I thought I’d try it out!  I got it online directly from Barry M for £3.99 plus £1.99 for the delivery, which isn't too bad compared to some of the prices I saw the exact same polish auctioning at about £10 on eBay (I've no idea what those eBayers were thinking).  I also bought an extra one to add to a giveaway I’ll be doing in the near future :).  I used Models Own 25 Carat Gold for the base and then waited for it to dry.  

Barry M’s instruction on how to use this is to ‘apply a SINGLE COAT of instant Nail Effects, don’t overlap’ but I found this impossible to do, so I found the best method of applying it was to overload the brush and work from 1 side of the nail to the other really quickly as it dries/reacts really fast.

 

Barry M Instant Nail effects is an amazing nail varnish not only for the effect it creates but also how easy it is for anyone to do. 

 

I put a really thin coat of Models Own Gold Finger on top of the effect to make the design a bit glitzier.  Models Own glitter nail varnishes are really good and can produce a dense glitter effect with only 1 coat so I had to try and put as little nail varnish as possible on to the brush as I only wanted a bit of glitter on the top of my nails.  I finished these with a coat of Models Own 3-in1 Base Coat, Top Coat and Gloss.

♪♫ Musical Nails ♪♫

My friend Sarah suggested I did a Music theme for my nails and because I really couldn’t wait, I removed my freshly painted nail varnish and did these beauties:

For these I used Models Own Nail Varnishes (Sophie’s Pink, Black Magic and Snow White) for the base coats.  I used my Models Own Nail Pens to draw the musical bits on and then used Models Own 3-in1 Base Coat, Top Coat and Gloss to finish this design.  Some nails are a bit messy as I haven’t mastered using my left hand and controlling the amount of nail varnish that comes out of the pens but hopefully with more practice my designs will one day be as neat as the WAH Nails Pros! :) 

White Leopard Print

I decided to try out a white leopard print on all of my nails to see what it would look like and it looks quite good but I think I prefer the black leopard print more but maybe the white takes some getting used to!

For this design I used Models Own Black Magic for the base and then my Models Own White Nail Pen for the leopard print and topped with Models Own 3-in-1 Base Coat, Top Coat and Gloss.

What nail designs would you like to see me do in the future? 

Wintery Shades and Leopard Print ♥

This is another WAH Nails inspired design.  I used some of my new Models Own Nail Varnishes because they are such wintery colours and look really great together.  From thumb to little finger-Vintage Pink, Nude Beige, Pray, Grace Green and Purple Grey.

For these I painted each nail a different colour, waited for them to dry and then used my black Models Own nail pen to paint the leopard spots on.  At first I tried using the white nail pen instead of black to see what it looked like but I was unsure whether I liked it or not.

After painting the rest of my fingernails with black leopard spots I decided to repaint my little fingernails so that they had black leopard print too and I really love the final look of these.  I used Models Own 3-in-1 Basecoat, Topcoat and Gloss to finish off this design.  The white leopard print has given me a idea for a future post which I think will look fab! :)

My Nail Daze Xmas List

My list of things to get for my nails continues to grow so I thought I'd share it with you.  A lot of the things on this list are for me to experiment with and to see if i can come up with some cool designs using them and others (like the cuticle set) are essentials!

Models Own Nail varnishes (£5 each):

Gold Rush Ready to Wear (will be released soon)

Juicy Jules

Purple Passion

Disco Mix

Scarlet Sparkle

Purple Haze

Green Grass

Mushroom

Raspberry Crush

Fuzzy Peach

Pink Punch

Slate Green

True Blue

Blue Moon

Evergreen

Rock Cheetah Print £6.50 - coming soon but for the mean time i want:

Silver Foil Nail Rock Wraps £6.50

OPI Black Shatter Top Coat (as seen worn by X factor's Cher Lloyd). 

This polish hasn't been released yet but I have found an alternative:

Barry M Black Magic Instant Nail Effects £3.99

92 Nail Pens £26.99 (including p&p)

Nail Canes  £3.99 (including p&p)

 

Nail Guides £3.99 (including p&p)

Cuticle Pusher and Cutter Set £2.98 (including p&p)

Coloured Nail Letters £2.99 (including p&p)

Coloured Heart Rhinestones (ready for a Valentines day design) £2.36 (including p&p)

Rhinestone Tweezers £2.30 (including p&p)

Nail Stripes Tape £2.28 (including p&p)

CND Solar Oil £4.95 (including p&p)

*Snowy Nails*

Sorry I haven’t had time to blog this week because I’ve been busy as it was my graduation on Tuesday.  It snowed in the morning so I’ve got some nice photos in the snow, which is one benefit of having a graduation so late I suppose! 

 

Seeing as most of us have had snow I decided to do some snowy nails!  For these I used Models Own Prussian Blue and Models Own Feeling Blue for the base colours.  I’ve finally been able to try out my new Models Own Nail Pens properly and I am quite impressed with the coverage of these compared to my other nail pens and also the nail varnish doesn’t come out of the pen as quick so it makes it easier to apply.  My favourite snowy designs are the snowflakes and the snowmen so next time we get some snow I think I will just do snowflakes and snowmen on my nails!  I used Seche Vite dry fast Topcoat to finish of this design and I’m going to apply another topcoat in a day or two to try and keep them as long as I can!  

Purple Grey and Grace Green Mix ‘n’ Match

For this design I used the Models Own Purple Grey and Grace Green from my previous post. I thought these colours would look great together and I was right, they look gorgeous!  I painted the base of these nails before I went to sleep to make sure they where completely dry before I painted the tips, as I was worried the nail guides would peel off my nail varnish if it wasn’t dry all over.

                                      

When I got up this morning I stuck the nail guide stickers on and painted the tips the opposite colour to the base.   I peeled the stickers off after painting every 2-3 tips and I didn’t get any chips!  The coverage of these polishes is excellent so when doing the tips you only need 1 coat to completely cover the base colours.  I used Models Own 3 in 1 Basecoat, Topcoat and Gloss to finish off my nails.

This design was easy to do and because of the mix ‘n’ match effect it makes this design look interesting but sleek.  These colours are perfect for this wintery weather we are having and is easy to create yourself.

Models Own Gooodies :D

The fabulous people at Models Own have kindly sent me some goodies to try out so I’m going to do a review on each of these products (and the new nails pens that I bought last week) within the next week or two! I asked for some more autumn/wintery shades as all of my nail varnishes seem to be bright or glittery and so they sent me these beauties:

I’ve done some swatches of each of the colours (from left to right-Nude Beige, Vintage Pink, Pray, Purple Grey, Prussian Blue and Grace Green).

I have been struggling to decide on my favourite for over a day now and I still can’t decide so maybe I’ll know after a few nail designs using these colours. I think the Purple Grey and the Grace Green are going to look fab together so I think I’ll do a design using those too first! The surprise out of these 6 was defiantly the Prussian Blue. This was the 1 colour out of these that I must admit I didn’t have on my Christmas list but I really love it! The best way I could describe it is as a midnight blue, which is more matte than the rest of shades, but it really compliments the colour and I think it could be the new black. From what I’ve seen online Grace Green and Nude Beige seem to be the most popular shades but I think Vintage pink should be up there too. My Models Own collection is growing much more quickly than I thought it would and I've put a couple of things to one side for a giveaway in the future so watch this space!