NPQ Weekly Challenge: Sparkle!

This design was create for the NPQ community weekly challenge. I tried to make it as sparkly as possible and just threw everything at it. Makes me sad that the camera doesn't seem to pick up the rainbow glitter but I'm sure you get the idea :).

White or silver base coats, followed by gradient glitter and stamping for the middle finger. Gems affixed (selection from Poundland) using a tiny bit of Seche Vite then the top coat of Seche to make sure they stay on. Striping tape accents, again fixed down with Seche.

Polises:

Barry M #333 - White texture glitter polish
Barry M #335 - Silver glitter
Sinful Colours #101 - White
Rimmel Coctail Colour #110 - Purple
Star Gazer #232 - Silver

Hope you like them! Happy New Years All! X

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Tutorial: Blue Heart Gradient

Thought I would write a super quick tutorial for todays Blue Heart Gradient mani and add this to the original post.

Polishes & Tools

Basecoat: Maybelline Express Finish 40Sec (£1 - Poundland)
Base layer colour & stramp: Sinful Colours - Snow Me White #101
Gradient colours: All from George at ASDA £1.99ea
Pale - No.69 Smarty Pants
Mid - No.9 Cloudless Sky
Dark - No.71 Boom
Top Coat: Seche Vite

Plate: Konad M83 (Amazon - £1.60)
Other tools: Allura foundation sponges (£1/bag Poundland)

Method

Paint one layer of base, followed by one layer of white.
Paint three lines of your chosen colour in order onto the foundation sponge as you can see in the photograph. Let it settle for a few seconds and gently dab it onto another sponge to remove any blobby excess. Dab the sponge onto the nail *gently* on-off-on-off with the light colour at the cuticle and the dark to the top. Adjust the placement of dabbing slightly further up the nail to improve the gradient, however, you will see where it needs altering and be able to adjust accordingly. Don't worry how messy you get, it all gets cleaned up in the end!

If it starts to pull the first coat of white underneath off, *don't panic*. The idea is to build a couple of layers of this so just move onto the next nail and let it dry. If the foundation sponge begins to break or stick bits to the nail, the varnish on it has become *too dry* and tacky, yet when it is 'too wet' it risks smudging the layers under it so getting used to the dabbing technique takes some practice. If moistening the sponge with varnish doesn't solve this then it may be that the foundation sponges are of the wrong quality to use for this. I had a batch ages ago which were horrible, but these Allura ones have been just fine.

Once you've done the base gradient repeat the process again until you are satisfied with the outcome. Remember the layers you are building are very thin and so you can afford to do 3-4 if needed.

(I have an alternative guide to gradients on my blog here: http://www.nailingtons.com/2013/04/how-to-guide-gradients.html. I assure you it's not a drive for user traffic, just possibly a more in-depth guide if needed.)

Let everything dry! When you have your gradient don't worry if it looks a bit blotchy. Take your *base coat* or clear varnish and paint a layer from cuticle to tip, quite slowly so that it gently smudges the varnish layers up, improving the transition of the gradient.

Let it dry. When I'm waiting for a nail set to dry I tend to see that as *'primary clean-up time'*. So, take a cotton wool bud with high-strength acetone remover or pure acetone and sweep round the edges. For even sharper cleaning, a small, flat square or angled nail art brush (99p set on eBay) can be used to clean around the cuticle area.

Once that's all dry, then fish out the Konad plate (M83). I painted on the Sinful Colours #101, quickly scraped, gently pressed down on the plate with the stamper then rolled it over my finger from right to left or top to bottom.

Waited for that to 'set' before applying a thick layer of Seche Vite top coat. Clean round the edges with the nail brush again and voila!

Hope this may have been of help to someone :)

Best wishes,
Sophie
~Nailingtons

(Sorry for typos - hope it makes sense, its late and ..zzzz :))

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 25: Merry Christmas!!

The final ones! It's been... mad! I absolutely love doing my nails but next time around I may chose not to do a whole 25 day stint :D. I think if you push yourself it can result in one of two things - you either get a little put off, or you create something way better that you every would have without the pressure. There have been moments of 'Oooh well, I really don't feel like it today' or 'Accck! What am I going to do today?!' but overall I'm really glad I did it and I really hope that I did manage to make something better that I would have otherwise, however, that judgement isn't really up to me!

Thank you all for following along my silly challenge and for your messages and likes. Hope you all have a wonderful day :) x

Merry Christmas!

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 24: Tinsely Baubles

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 23: Custard Angel

Have done a quick couple at once to catch up - couldn't do le nails due to an unexpected visit away. Stamps, freehand and glitter <3.

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 22: Candlelight

Christmassy candles created by painting two layers of dark polish (Sinful Colours #265) then getting a foundation sponge and a pair of tweezers and pinching into the sponge to pull out a 'ball' of sponge. Once you have this, get a blob of gold, yellow and orange and dab the sponge ball into each in turn (using the tweezers to hold the ball) then dab a circular layer onto the nail, gradually getting smaller towards the middle and just blend gently: Gold>Yellow>Orange. To paint the candle you can either use white and black nail art pens or a brush and varnish. Finished off by affixing a little gem on for the candle. The glittery nail is probably my favourite varnish at the moment, Barry M Textured Nail Paint #339 Countess.. it's so sparkly!

http://www.nailingtons.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Nailingtons

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 21: Fairy Lights

Not the most original design but I wanted to give it a go and put my own spin on it :).. sparkle jewels! Fairy lights couldn't be more christmassy so they had to be done! Also, they were very straight forward to do - two layers of white, draw a line in black with little squares (brush of nail art pen) and then affix multicoloured nail gems (£1 for a selection from Poundland/99p Stores) with some Seche Vite so they stay down and remain there. Another coat of Seche Vite to finish off. Shiny!

#nails #notd #nailart #nailpolish #nails2inspire #thenailartstory #craftyfingers #nailbling #lovemanicure #instafashion #amazing_pretty #prettynails #nailartwow #diynailart #naillove #nailitmag #nailartobsessed #nailaddict #ignails #nailswag #nailjunkie #nailbling #weloveyournailart #nailpromote #iinailsart #xmasnails #christmasnails #christmasnailart #hellokittynails #snowflakenails

Christmas Advent Nails Day 20: Freehand Hobbit Doors

Well I know these aren't very Christmassy BUT I'm seeing The Hobbit today so I had to do something for that besides, plenty of people watch LotR and Hobbit at Christmas so I'll justify it with that!

#nails #notd #nailart #nailpolish #nails2inspire #thenailartstory#craftyfingers #nailbling #lovemanicure #instafashion#amazing_pretty #prettynails #nailartwow #diynailart #naillove#nailitmag #nailartobsessed #nailaddict #ignails #nailswag#nailjunkie #nailbling #weloveyournailart #nailpromote #iinailsart #xmasnails #christmasnails #christmasnailart

Christmas Advent Nails Day 19: Kleenex Tissues

The moment I saw this box I thought 'Yey! It's so christmassy!' and really wanted to have a go at painting the design onto the nails.. so I did and here is the result! I'm not really sure how my scale reindeer matched up with the one on the box.. total accident as I was only using pictures from the side as reference. The layers of colour were achieved very slowly by using masking tape (always making sure the layer under is 100% dry) and creating layer on layer. Reindeer was hand painted with a mixture of browns. Finally a dotting tool for the snow.

http://www.nailingtons.com/

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 18: Fluffy Hats

Today I had a go at using 'nail fluff' so decided to try and make little Santa hats out of it. Used a beige for the undercoat, then masking take triangles followed by dipping them in fluff and added the white with a dotting tool.

#nails #notd #nailart #nailpolish #nails2inspire #thenailartstory #craftyfingers #nailbling #lovemanicure #instafashion #amazing_pretty #prettynails #nailartwow #diynailart #naillove #nailitmag #nailartobsessed #nailaddict #ignails #nailswag #nailjunkie #nailbling #weloveyournailart #nailpromote #iinailsart #xmasnails #christmasnails #christmasnailart #santahatnails

Christmas Advent Nails Day 17: Snowflakes

I was looking through some of my old nail art pics and noticed how smart the half moons looked. Knowing that I wanted to do snowflakes today, I incorporated that into the design. Two layers of white, followed by the hole-punch sticky circles (I don't actually know their names!!). Painted over with a baby blue then pulled the sticker off while wet. 

I put a coat of Seche Vite on here BUT it was a bad idea, because it then repelled the nail art pen used for the snowflakes. Soooo I had to go over the top again with the clear base coat, then draw the flakes on with a Barry M white nail art pen (I love these!). I don't find them very precise to work with but I think it looks alright for a first attempt. Accented the nails with the Barry M Limited Edition 335 glitter and added a little gem to finish off! Voila :).

#nails #notd #nailart #nailpolish #nails2inspire #thenailartstory #craftyfingers #nailbling #lovemanicure #instafashion #amazing_pretty #prettynails #nailartwow #diynailart #naillove #nailitmag #nailartobsessed #nailaddict #ignails #nailswag #nailjunkie #nailbling #weloveyournailart #nailpromote #iinailsart #xmasnails #christmasnails #christmasnailart #hellokittynails #snowflakenails

Christmas Advent Nails Day 16: Kitty Christmas

It wouldn't be a Christmas without some HK! I'm sure many of you would not agree with me :D But.. I had to do it! Mew.


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Christmas Advent Nails Day 15: Baubles!

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 14: Poinsettimas

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 13: Mono-chrimbo

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 12: Pressies

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 11: Ho Ho Snow!

White and blue gradient, stamped with some snow'ish flakes from the 'Cheeky' plate collection...I think! Finished off with a little hand painted snowman :)

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 10: Pinky Tree

Today I thought I'd go with something a little different to the traditional greens & reds. Had to do it twice because I smudged the tree just as I'd finished it all :(. Lots of pink and lots of shinies <3

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 9: I'm an Elf!

Well, I'm not really but any time I think of an elf, I hear Ben saying this from Ben & Holly's Little Kingdom, which is actually an awesome cartoon! Lines and dots were stamped, the rest is hand painted using a few brushes.

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 8: Pudding Nails!

I've seen lots and lots of these about lately. Not something terribly original but I've tried to add a little more detail and do the best I could.. Everyone needs pudding nails.. just-so-christmassssy!

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Christmas Advent Nails Day 7: Costa Cup

I had a yummy black forest hot chocolate from Costa ... The cup was so cute that I kept it and decided to try and convert it into nailart :).

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Christmas Advent Nails - Day 6: Blue Bows

Didn't have much time at all today so had to throw this together quite quickly. Tomorrow's are far more exciting^^.

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Christmas Advent Nails - Day 5: Something for Sinterklaas

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Christmas Advent Nails - Day 4: Silent Night

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Christmas Advent Nails - Day 3: Freehand'ish Mistletoe

Beige - 2true (Superdrug)#11
Mistletoe - Rimmel #520

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Christmas Advent Nails - Day 2: Tiny shiny tree!

Base green - George (ASDA): #78 Gnome
White - Sinful Colours: #101
Green glitter - Sinful Colours #932

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Advent Christmas Nails: Day 1

Advent has begun, and with it comes my attempt to create Christmas themed nails for each day. I'm going to give it a shot anyway.

1 Dec: To start off with I went for very traditional red and white with lots of sparkles and a little bit of stamping. I don't want to put myself off by doing anything too time consuming or complicated..yet!

Base red - Sally Hansen: Red Hot 
White - Sinful Colours: #101 
White Glitter - Barry M: TNP 8 Lady 
Red Glitter - George (ASDA): Ruby Slippers (love!)

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