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!