Tuesday 30 April 2013

Just a quick one...



Just a quick one today. 
For this I got to use some of my favourite purple shades.

I started off with a light purple base. This time I used Savvy - Grapefruit. 
Once it was dry I used sticky-tape to create a 'v' shape and painted on my darker purple, BYS - Reign Supreme. 
Once THAT layer was completely dry I made the same 'v' shape with some more sticky-tape and brushed on Cate Ruby - Metal Mix. 

Check out some of Cate Ruby's nail polish... love the stuff! 

Enjoy!! xx

Sunday 28 April 2013

Silver Splatter

This is quickly become my new favourite nail art.
For two reasons...
1. I got to use my favourite shade of green and 2. I finally got my head around the whole 'splatter' art thing.

In the past I have tried and failed at creating splatter nail art. Either the splatters are too big and they cover the whole nail or I don't put enough polish on the straw to get anything coming out at all.
Now if I am being honest this is nowhere near how I wanted this art to turn out so it was a small case of serendipity....



I started off my painting my nails in Barry M Gelly - Watermelon.  I can safely say this is my favourite colour in my whole collection but I find it really hard to do stuff with it. Glad I came up with this.

Then I dipped the end of the straw into Barry M - Foil (make sure you cover the end of the straw). I aimed the straw at my nail and blew. I made sure it was a strong sharp blow and it will project the polish onto the nail better. Like I said, when I have tried this nail art before it always failed because  I never blew hard enough. The paint dripped in big blobs onto my nail. Yuck! So this time I did my research and tried it this way. So much better.


I really loved this nail art and I left it on my nails for ages because I didn't want to take it off.

I can't wait to try this style again. And with heaps of colours!

TIPS:
- Make sure the end of the straw is covered - think like when your blowing a bubble.
- I found the smaller the straw the better
- For easy clean up cover the area around your nail in Vaseline or sticky tape. Helps for when you clean up afterwards.

Enjoy!

-B xx

Friday 26 April 2013

Sweet & Style

I want everyone to check out Sweet & Style!
It is run by this awesome girl who wants to helps bloggers like me.




Being a blogger is hard, especially when you check your account everyday only to see that no one has viewed your posts or the number of followers haven't changed in over a month. It can be a little disheartening.
Sooooo Gabby has created this website dedicated to sharing the blogs of small, lesser known bloggers. Just to get the word out!!

So do me a favour and check out my 'Green Sparkles' post on her site. And while your there check out some of the other cool bloggers out there.

B xx

Thursday 25 April 2013

Lest We Forget


For ANZAC DAY

Just a small token of my gratitude... 



They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.

Age shall not weary them, nor the year's condemn.

At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,

We will remember them. 


Sunday 21 April 2013

Cate Ruby Swatch


I have been lucky enough the be sent some awesome nail polish from Cate Ruby.
I was so excited to receive them in the mail yesterday that I tried them on straight away.


In my parcel I received two super special colours. Meg (the pink) and Metal Mix (the silver). Even though my mind was racing with different nail art ideas to try with this amazing colours, I had to stop myself and do what I was supposed to do, swatch them. So here goes...



Meg was beautiful to put on. I only needed one coat to cover the whole nail AND it covered evenly. There is nothing I can say to fault this 'Barbie' beautiful polish. So I will talk about the positives....the best part about this polish was how easy it was to clean. I am always in a constant battle with other nail polishes during clean up time but Meg came off really easily and I was able to use plain old nail polish remover which make my cuticles happy. 
   

Metal Mix was a huge surprise. I expected it to be like other glitter nail polishes where you need a few good coats to evenly spread the glitter. But I was GREATLY mistaken. Metal Mix glided on with ease and like Meg, covered the nail almost in one coat, giving me this glitterly, silver, almost textured look. It was truly stunning on my nails. I could feel my mind coming up with hundreds of ways to use it in my nail art (hopefully be using it very soon).
The only downfall this polish had was clean up and removal. There was a lot of glitter to take off and it stuck to my skin around my nail. This didn't bother me too much as it happens with most fine glitter polishes.

Overall my first experience with Cate Ruby was great. I can not wait to try some more, especially 'Prissie-Lou' which looked amazing on Kylie Gillies nails at the Logies.

-B xx

Thursday 18 April 2013

Blue and Bling

Just a quick post.
Decided to being out some glitter for once....




I simply paint a couple of coats of the Australis - Aqua and then once it had dried I topped it with a few coats of
NYX - Prismatic Gold. 


I love the colour combination. I was originally going to a multi coloured glitter polish on top but I thought the gold would be a little bit more sophisticated. :)

I know it's not very 'artsy' but I thought it was better than nothin'. Haha
-B xx

Sunday 14 April 2013

SALE ALERT!!

Now, if there is one thing my mother has always taught me, it was always take advantage of a good sale. And today I have found one!! Just browsing around Priceline (looking for some pressed powder) I came across a bargain bin. Normally when I see a bargain bin my expectations are extremely low. But in this case I was sooo wrong. They had a HUGE selection of Savvy nail polish for less then $3 each.
Now I have never used Savvy nail polish before so I am extremely excited to have a go at these new colours...

From left to right: Grapetini, Tequila Sunrise and Cosmopolitan. 

So everyone needs to get there butts down to Priceline and stock up!! 

B xx

Saturday 13 April 2013

Just a little bit tribal...

Here is one of my favourite nail art design! 


I decided to use darker colours as the weather is getting pretty miserable. So I picked my favourite autumn shade - NYC Boundless Berry. This plum colour is popping up everywhere so I thought I would use it in a new nail design.
I started of by painting my whole nail with white. I used nail tape to tape a line done the middle and a few stripes to one side. I originally was going to the do stripes on either side side but felt that the symmetry wouldn't have been as effective. I am super glad I didn't.

Once the tape was laid I painted one side black and the other plum. When I removed the tape the white came through in this really cool pattern. I was really happy with it.



I used 17 Lasting Fix - Mini skirt and BC Co. Shade 11. 




So a lot of people asked what I use to get these perfect lines. Now I HAVE tried to get a nice straight line freehand but it is definitely not my strong point. So I use nail art tape. 


Nail tape was originally made to create designs on top of nail polish. I have used it for that purpose but because of the quality of my tape it doesn't like to stay on my nail. If you can get your hands on some good quality tape you can come create some pretty crazy designs.

Check out Polish Art Addiction's and Intergalacquer Nails' designs.

- B xxx

Sunday 7 April 2013

Tips and Tails

WHAT A BUSY WEEK!!!! Luckily I have made time for a few nail art designs.
I call this post Tips and Tails, so the simple reason because I have done the tips of most of my nails and my ring finger I have attempted to do a fishtail technique.



 The fish tail technique is simple (in theory) but if you don't have a strong free hand, kinda hard to do. But I thought I would give it a go and it turned out great. 







For the rest of the fingers I used a base coat and with a small paintbrush I painted on either the blue or the turquoise. Once it was dry and used the opposite colour to stripe a second stripe.

For the fishtail technique I though the best way to explain how I did it was to show you. Well to show you someone else's technique. Here is Lucy's Stash attempt at a fishtail technique. She has done a great job (even better than me) at  the fishtail technique and even included a simple tutorial. Make sure you check it out!!

The colours I used were:
Australis - Aqua
Barry M - Cyan Blue
Barry M - Foil (Silver)

A huge shout out to Australis Cosmetics who I have only discovered in the past few months. What amazing nail polishes and they are aren't that expensive. If you are looking for a good lasting nail polish, def go with Australis. 

Images: 
http://www.adventuresinacetone.com/2012/10/illamasqua-fishtail-nails.html
tatjanag.blogspot.com
quitepolished.blogspot.com