Nail Update: Summer, glitter and sparkles!

So last week I was working the black gloopy nail art look which I absolutely loved, in fact I loved the gloopy factor so much so that this week I decided to update this nail art design and give it a more summery twist by swapping black for pink, glitter and sparkles!

Check it out my lovelies:

I can't help but smile when I look at these - is that a bit weird?

 



This design is not only cute but also pretty damn easy to do so it ticks all those pesky nail art boxes!

If you're interested (and I'm naively assuming you are seeing as you've read this far!), here's everything that I used for this look (minus the nail glue which I threw away because I used it all up):

(Top to bottom, left to right: nail diamante pin wheel (purchased from New Look but there are loads of these available on eBay), cosmetic sponge. Nail polishes (left to right): OPI Original Nail Envy Nail Strengthener, Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat, Maybelline Color Show Nail Polish (shade - Sugar Crystals), Models Own Nail Polish (shade - Snowflakes NP145), Bourjois So Laque! Ultra Shine Nail Polish (shade - Rosé Merveille 45), Barry M Nail Paint (shade - Matt White 66). Nail art brushes both purchased via eBay).



To create this look start off with a base coat, I used OPI's Original Nail Envy Nail Strengthener  which is my standard base coat because it keeps my nails nice and strong.  Then for all the nails except your ring fingers, apply one coat of Maybelline's Color Show Nail Polish in the shade Sugar Crystals followed by two coats of Model's Own Nail Polish in the shade Snowflakes NP145.  While your nails are drying move onto your ring fingers and apply two coats of the Bourjois So Laque! Ultra Shine Nail Polish in the shade Rosé Merveille 45 and leave to dry whilst going back to the rest of your nails you painted earlier.

Using a thin nail art brush, apply the same Bourjois nail polish used on your ring fingers along the tips of your nails creating French tips.  Once done, use an even thinner nail art brush (you'll want this for the precision of your 'gloops') and paint in your 'gloops' and connect them to the French tips you just painted on. 

Going back to your ring fingers, make sure that they are completely dry and if so, grab a cosmetic sponge and dab a little bit of Barry M's Nail Polish in the shade Matt White 66 onto the sponge and then blot it onto some kitchen roll, tissue or tin foil and carefully dab it onto the tips of your nails working down to create a subtle ombre/dip dye effect.  Once your happy with your ombre effect, then apply Seche Vite's Dry Fast Top Coat to blend the white and pink nail polish together even more so.  Then apply the same top coat to the rest of your nails.

To finish off, grab a selection of diamantes for your two ring fingers and using some nail glue apply the diamantes to your ring finger nails.  Finish off with a final application of your top coat and you're all done! 

I hope my explanation made sense, I'm one of those people that has a tendency to waffle on a bit so it can be a real mission for me to explain something relatively simple without making it sound incredibly complicated and daunting.

Well, there you have it, a simple guide to some super summery and sparkly nail art - let me know what you think!

I could stare at these all day!

Black Gloopy Nails

Anybody for some black gloopy nails?  Yes?  Fab!  Imagine how awkward that could have been if you'd said no?!

I'm going to be honest with you here, these are probably one of my best nail art designs that I've done in terms of neatness so please recognise that when you see the pics and gasp in admiration at my unrivalled nail art skills.  Also, in case you hadn't noticed, this new 'neatness' skill may have gone to my head just a little bit so apologies for that.

What's that I hear? 'Amanda, please tell us what inspired your black gloopy nails?' - Well of course, I'd be happy to!  I'll try and keep this brief because I have a tendency to ramble when writing about nail art.  So this nail art design was inspired by Supernatural, if that means nothing to you other than ghosts and stuff then let's just pause for a moment whilst myself and everyone else around the world feels extremely embarrassed for your ignorance regarding this matter.  If the names Sam and Dean Winchester, Bobby Singer, Castiel or Crowley simply pass you by without the slightest bit of recognition then, well, you should be incredibly ashamed of yourself.  Oh and I should probably mention that it's a TV series (just in case you hadn't picked up on that) and I should also add that it's pretty great.

Now I do have something somewhat shameful to admit about this TV series - I somehow managed to end up about 4 seasons behind and I'm not quite sure how it happened.  OK, so that's a lie, I kind of know how it happened - basically, I went to uni and I didn't exactly forget about it but I found that I had no time to fit it in around my social life and workload.  Again, that's no excuse but let's also factor in the fact that in order to watch Supernatural, I had to borrow the series from my brother which I just kept forgetting to do.  This all changed though last week when I was ill and kind of pathetic and feeling sorry for myself whilst being confined to my bed.  Bored and with nothing to do, the thought hit me - 'Amanda, now is the PERFECT time to catch up on Supernatural, you can do this, you can TOTALLY do this!' - and I did!  I had since borrowed the series off my brother and had it at my disposal to watch so like the pro that I was, I speedily ploughed my way through season 6 and just yesterday finished season 7.  Yay me!  The only problem now is that I don't have season 8 and season 9 won't be released on DVD in the UK until October so I still have two more seasons to catch up on and I'm craving it so badly.  It's fine though, I can handle the Supernatural craving because I'm actually pretty tough - one time I got stung by a bee and didn't even cry, that's how tough I am.

Ok, so back to the nails - I knew I'd get side-tracked!  Basically, these black gloopy nails were inspired by Supernatural's season 7 title sequence, which looks like this:

 Pretty gloopy, right?  Not quite as gloopy as my nail art though (does that mean I win?):

I'm really enjoying how shiny these look!

Glooooooopy!

 

All that I used for this nail art design was two nail art brushes (which you can get super cheap off eBay), OPI's Original Nail Envy Nail Strengthener as my base coat, one coat of Maybelline's Color Show nail polish in the shade 'Sugar Crystals' as my base colour, Barry M's Nail Paint in the shade '47 Black' for my gloopy design and Seche Vite's Dry Fast Top Coat.  I discovered that this was a really quick nail art process which made me incredibly happy.  All I did was apply my base coat and base colour, I then used my slightly thicker nail art brush and painted over the whites of my nails with the black nail polish giving myself black French tips and then using the thinner nail art brush for precision, I painted in the drippy gloops and then finished with my top coat and that was it.  Pretty simple, huh?

Nail Art Tools

Ok, so I think I'm done here - feel free to brighten up my day by letting me know what you think about this nail art design or anything else covered in this blog post, you lovely bunch of people!      

I Am Not Kryptonite

I'm a pretty easy going person, I go with the flow, get on with what needs to be done and just, well, do it.  Sometimes though, I think people get muddled up and confuse 'going with the flow' with 'pushover and/or doormat', or at least this is what I've been finding lately.

There are and have been people in my life who have this expectation of me to drop everything for them without making a fuss.  'Making a fuss' is not my style, which they know all too well and which I think at times, they take advantage of.  The thing is, I do go with the flow, I can admit that, because I like being there for people and helping them out if or when they need it.  This being said, I am only human and therefore can't always drop everything just to suit someone else.  That's why on the rare occasions when I don't go with the flow and say 'no', certain people don't react well because they've become so accustomed to me saying 'yes'. 

Now me being the 'going with the flow' type, I always say 'no' in the nicest way possible, I don't shout or say it rudely, I simply say 'no', give my (legitimate, may I add!) reason and apologise - but this is not enough for some people.  Some people expect me to grovel or rearrange my life just to accommodate their own, which, I mean, come on - would they do the same for me?  Probably not, and they know that all too well but they like the power.  The power to know that they have some element of control over me and when they realise that in fact the power isn't there and was never really there in the first place, well, they can't really handle that because power is what makes them feel popular and gives their self-esteem, confidence and ego a real boost. 

We all like to feel powerful, don't get me wrong, but that power shouldn't come from someone else.  If your power is based on someone else then you become too self-reliant on other people to make yourself feel good, so that when you lose that power over someone then suddenly you don't feel so great about yourself because things haven't gone your way.  When I feel powerful, it's not through exerting (or attempting to) exert power over someone else, it comes down to achieving personal goals, from the simplest and most ridiculous thing such as doing 100 skips with the skipping rope (honestly, in that moment,  I felt like Thor and I was surprised when I looked in the mirror afterwards and didn't see Chris Hemsworth's scarily attractive appearance peeking back at me!) or when I won the French prize when I was in year 9 at school.  Even writing this blog post, right now, makes me feel powerful and that's because I am taking control of MY life and no one else's. 

The truth is, these 'powerful' individuals who think that they can control you, will in truth never really be able to do that because they aren't powerful, they possess a weak power, a power reliant on other people - there's no strength to that and it will inevitably crumble. 

Everyone should feel powerful but it shouldn't be dependent on other people, that's not true power.  True power comes from self-belief and yourself and nobody else (I am aware that that sounds incredibly cheesy but it's also incredibly true.).

So yes, I may go with the flow but that doesn't mean that you can control me because I am powerful, I just don't drain other people for it. I am not kryptonite. 

Eye-Catching Nail Art

It's pretty obvious by now that I'm partial to a bit of nail art, it's kind of my obsession.  If I had it my way I would get my nails done every week at WAH Nails and be some kind of nail-art-wielding legend.  However, a weekly trip to WAH Nails is just not possible - mostly due to the fact that it would be INSANELY expensive (if worth it) but there is no way that I could justify spending that much money on my nails on a weekly/fortnightly or even monthly basis.   

(If you want to know how much I really love WAH Nails then check out the piece I wrote about them for LiveLikeAVIP.com by clicking here).

Anyway, since a regular visit to WAH Nails is not an option for me, it leaves me with no choice but to wipe away those self-pitying tears and do my own nail art - which I do actually enjoy so it's not really that big of a deal (sorry, I'll admit it, I was just trying to get sympathy before!).

In my last post 'Guardians of the Galaxy European Premiere' I forgot to mention how I styled out my nails for the film premiere (I think I was a bit overexcited about the whole situation so my nail art didn't even get a look-in and for which I can only apologise as I have not only let myself down but also all the other nail art enthusiasts around the world - forgive me? Cool. Thanks. I knew you would.). 

The nail art that I opted for didn't really have much to do with Guardians of the Galaxy or any relevance to the Marvel franchise BUT it was bright and in your face which I felt was appropriate for cruising down a red (or blue) carpet.  I went for an eye-inspired nail design which took me about 4 hours to do - I know that some people may think that that's a crazy amount of time to spend on your nails but let's bear in mind that I was watching TV at the same time plus I find doing nail art quite therapeutic so 4 hours of it doesn't really bother me.  Wow, that was a long sentence.  Now that we've covered the fact that 4 hours is a long (but therapeutic) amount of time to spend on your nails, let's check out the finished result:

Eye can see yoooooou!

 

 

 

What do you think - eye-catching enough? (I'm really sorry, I'll quit with the eye puns!).  Drop me a comment and let me know.................or don't and just send me some good vibes - I'll take what I can get!

Guardians of the Galaxy European Premiere

So a bit of luck was thrown my way last week when I managed to get some tickets to the Guardians of the Galaxy European Premiere in Leicester Square.  By 'some' tickets, I mean 'two', so being the nice sister that I am, I offered the second ticket to my brother, I know, I know, my generosity is almost too much sometimes!

I have to say, this isn't my first movie premiere I've attended (in case you didn't know, I'm kind of a big deal.....................oh wait, you really didn't know that? I guess I'm not that big of a deal, sometimes I just randomly win stuff but it's pretty much once in a blue moon!).  The previous premiere I attended was for the Danny Boyle film Trance which starred James McAvoy and Rosario Dawson.  I took one of my best friends and watched one of the weirdest movies I'd ever seen (don't let the 'weird' bit put you off though, it was actually really good, weird but good!).  We got to walk down the red carpet which I'd been dreading - I really don't know why because no one actually cares about the non famous folk walking down the carpet - anyway we walked straight past Danny Boyle and Rosario Dawson on the carpet which was so bizarre but, you know, in a good way.  The only downside was that we didn't get to see James McAvoy as he was late to the red carpet and we had to go in plus he didn't stick about as he was performing in Macbeth that evening.  We were in the front row at the cinema and the cast plus Danny Boyle came onto the stage to introduce the movie so we got to see the entire cast properly (minus one James McAvoy. *Sad face*.).  The premiere wasn't massive now that I compare it to the Guardians of the Galaxy premiere but in a way, I preferred that as it meant that we actually got to see the stars of the movie, which after all, is kind of the point of a movie premiere, right?

 

So the Guardians of the Galaxy premiere was last night and honestly, I've never seen Leicester Square so busy before in my life - I reckon if I worked there I would probably have some kind of breakdown every time I made my way home on a movie premiere evening.  The size of this premiere versus the Danny Boyle one was insane.  It was massive.  There were crowds of people everywhere and it took my brother and me about 15 minutes just to get from one end of the area to the other part which was where we had to be to get in.  I guess, due to our lack of movie premiere experience, we made somewhat of a rookie error in that we went in to the cinema WAY too early and missed out on seeing Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel and worst of all? CHRIS HEMSWORTH. Not ok. However, we did walk straight past/in front of Karen Gillan who smiled at me (so we're basically best friends now - that's how it works, right?).  Karen Gillan looked stunning which was almost annoying because it completely destroyed my theory that actors/actresses only look good because they're airbrushed on screen and are under the right lighting, but if anything, I would say she is even more beautiful in real life (and also incredibly tall, although to be fair, I am pretty short so most people seem tall to me!).

We also saw the movie's director James Gunn who was managing to balance an actual real-life racoon on his shoulder which has since resulted in my want of a pet raccoon that I can walk around on a lead and take to movie premieres like it's no big deal.  I naively thought that this premiere would be like the Danny Boyle one and the cast would introduce the movie before it started, but sadly they didn't do that which I think was because there were two screenings of the film within the cinema and I reckon the cast introduced the movie in the other screening...........which I kind of feel like they should have at least brought the director or someone from the movie in to introduce the film for our screening, just because I'm not from The Only Way is Essex doesn't mean I don't deserve an intro from a member of the cast. Just sayin'.

The film was amazing though, probably the best film from the Marvel universe, it had it all: comedy, romance, action - there really was something for everyone!  I'm not massively into 'superhero' movies and I really didn't have high expectations for this one and to be quite honest, if I hadn't had tickets for the premiere I'm not sure I would have actually gone to my local cinema and paid to see it BUT that would have been a massive mistake on my part because it really is worth a trip to the cinema. Also the 3D was spot on so there's that as well!

 

Anyway, now that I'm somewhat of a movie premiere pro (HA!), I now know that should I ever attend a premiere again (unlikely as it is), I now know the protocol - basically don't go in until ALL the movie stars have arrived.  Otherwise, like me, you might miss out on seeing Chris Hemsworth and you'll forever wonder what those muscles look like in real life.

Elephants, Chunky Necklaces and Acrylics

The sun is out and I'm feeling pretty happy right now.............mostly because of this elephant necklace which is my new favourite statement necklace:

 

 

It's about time the sun sorted itself out and made a bit of warmth here in the UK, especially as I'm still dealing with my post holiday blues - it was never going to be easy coming back from a 30 degree Qatar to a somewhat chilly England.  Also there are no camels which makes me just as blue as the lack of heat.  BUT at least there are elephants in my life thanks to my new necklace, which in case you were wondering is from New Look.  OBVIOUSLY.  New Look basically do the best chunky necklaces around at the moment, don't believe me?  Then check out my chunky New Look necklace horde:




Ok, so maybe I'm a little bit addicted to chunky necklaces, but that's fine, I'm ok with that.

 



I'm already feeling the need to add a 9th and maybe even a 10th necklace to the collection!  I just love how statement necklaces can completely transform an outfit and bring it to life.  But, hey, that's just my opinion!

I came so very, very dangerously close to getting acrylic nails done today and THANK GOODNESS I didn't because there is no way that I'd be able to type this post with as much ease if I had.  Honestly, it would have been the slowest typing session ever if I'd got those pesky (yet so alluring) acrylics done.  I've only ever had acrylics once and not only did they make typing and writing a mission in their own rights but they completely destroyed my nails and after a long 6 months they're only just getting back to normal.  As a treat I might crack out some nail art on my 100% natural and 0% acrylic nails tonight because it's Friday which means tomorrow's the weekend and that's all I need to know in life.  Done.

2014: The Year of the Nail Art

New year, new nails - or at least that's the idea!  Now that it's insanely cold (I am just nowhere near ready for the snow to make it's chilly appearance) the only thing that's getting me through this frosty weather is having some fun nail art to display to the world (and by the world, I mostly just mean me and a handful of work colleagues who have to put up with me unsubtly waving my nails in front of their eyes so that they can acknowledge my handiwork). 

My New Year's eve nails (below) are not that exciting but that's due to the fact that I left it until the last minute to do my nails so I really only have myself and lack of time keeping skills to blame, such a rookie error - I feel so ashamed!

 



Freakin' loved the blue holographic nail polish though which was a sneaky purchase from Wah Nails in Topshop's flagship Oxford Circus store!

My next nail treat for 2014 was based on my five-year-old self's role mode - Jasmine, as in Jasmine of 'Aladdin and Jasmine' fame!  All I ever wanted was a flying carpet to sing 'A Whole New World' on but I was deprived of that joy because apparently flying carpets don't actually exist or whatever!  Here's my Jasmine nails for you to have a peep at:

 



My next nail art session involved smiley faced clouds with rainbows, cherries, camouflage, polka dots and a double French design. People have been loving this at work, even though I feel that my clouds look more like clowns (which is not ideal seeing as clowns terrify me!).

 



I was actually lucky enough to get my nails done at Wah Nails at the beginning of December which was sort of a dream come true as I'm not going to lie  to you, it's so nice to get your nails done by someone who actually knows what they're doing!  I even went all out and got acrylics - I don't like to brag but I kind of live life on the edge!



 

I just now need to figure out my next nail art designs to make sure that 2014 becomes 'The Year of the Nail Art' - because every year needs some kind of dramatic title, right?!