Twickenham

Saturday 8th November 2014

 

As a treat my boyfriend managed to get us tickets to see England v's the All Blacks New Zealand rugby team at Twickenham. I had never been to Twickenham before so I was extremely excited, plus it gave me a chance to create some fun nail art for the occasion.

 

I decided to use a simple french manicure style but wanted to encorporate the England flag into it. I also had to include the England Rugby logo and the All Blacks logo too.

 

This was the main nails sorted but I also wanted to do something exciting on the thumbs. Having tried flock on a couple of designs before I decided to treat myself to some grass green flock and have a go at creating a pitch. I wanted to add a rugby ball onto it so people could tell what it was. I ended up cutting out a ball shaped template to stick on the nail and flocked over it, removing the template to reveal the white shiny ball underneith.

 

I was absolutely thrilled with my nails and couldn't stop looking at them. This was one design I was quite sad to take off.

 

We had an amazing day at Twickenham, cheering the boys into the stadium and the game was exciting!

 



Happy Halloween!!

Tuesday 28th October 2014

 

I am not a huge fan of Halloween but I couldn't resist doing some nail designs for it, especially when my friend Kerry came round for the evening.

 

I had a few ideas (all including glow in the dark nail polish!!) and chose my two for the evening.

 

For Kerrys nails I decided to do Pumpkin carvings. I painted the orange and then did a few coats of glow in the dark before painting on the faces in black. She was happy with the design.

 

 

For my nails I wanted to do a mixture of images. I first painted a base coat of glow in the dark and black on the nails and then I painted the triangles. On each nail I picked a different character.

As usual they are all hand painted, and my favourite the Frankenstein on the thumbs.

 

Thumb - Frankenstein

Index Finger - Pumpkin

Middle Finger - Cat

Ring Finger - Ghost

Little Finger - Vampire

 

I did try to get a photo of them glowing but it didn't turn out too well.

 



Sri Lanka

Wednesday 14th September 2014

 

For her birthday this year, my sister went away to Sri Lanka for a few weeks. As she was away on the day of her birthday we had a family get together when she returned and I asked to paint her nails for her.

 

She had been sending me photos throughout her visit and on a few of those she was wearing a new pair of purple trousers. I loved the patterns on them and decided to replicate it as much as I could.

 



Tour de France

Thursday 24th July 2014

 

I have always wanted to go to Paris and this year I got a chance to. We managed to get on a bus trip to see the final of this years Tour de France. It was such a great weekend and was really exciting to see the Tour going past.

 

For my nails I decided to use the colours of the winners jerseys, and I wanted to add the logo in there too. Instead of painting my nails normally with the colours I decided to only paint half, using a diagonal line to add a bit of visual interest.

 

As stated before I chose to paint the Tour de France logo on my thumb and decided on a French flag on my other thumb, mirroring the diagonals from the other nails.

 

I hope you like it. 

 

 

Little Finger - White Jersey - Best Young Rider

Ring Finger - Yellow Jersey - General Classification

Middle Finger - Green Jersey - Best Sprinter

Index Finger - Polka Dot Jersey - King of the Mountains

Left Hand Thumb - Tour de France logo

Right Hand Thumb - French flag

 

Daisy Nails

6th July 2014

 

Today I have painted my nails 3 times. I had an idea and it just didn't come out how I hoped. So I had another idea and that ended the same. And then I had my third idea which luckily I was happy with.

 

I have recently developed a fondness for flowers. I have never really been bothered before but I moved into my new house and have decorated my yard with lots of them. I love the colours and the shapes, they are beautiful.

 

It was whilst looking at my flowers that I came up with my first design of the day. I thought I could paint a different flower from my garden on every finger. I managed to do one hand and I didn't like it.

 

I did like the index finger on my first design so I painted all my nails with the same. And again I wasn't happy with the design.
 

I took all the polish off and came up with one last idea, daisies.They are my favourite flower, they are cheery and make me smile. So I went for a more graphic based daisy shape on a bright background. The sky blue I chose made the white of the daisies show up lovely and I am very happy with the final result x
 

 

Beach Nails

Thursday 3rd July 2014

 

My sister went to New Zealand recently and bought me back a little bit of sand. I have been thinking of ways to use it for months until today when it dawned on me... Nail design!!

 

I tried to create the look of the sea using a gradient effect and white lines. I then added sand using a clear coat on the bottom half of the nail. I was thinking of creating a perfect moon shape in sand but thought it would look better as a slightly rougher more natural shape.

 

To add a bit of colour I chose to paint a small starfish on each ring finger.

 

I absolutely love the final effect and I'm interested to see how well the sand lasts x

 

 

Edit: the sand lasted longer than my patience for it. It was rather scratchy and was a pain when putting on tights/washing hair/etc. It calmed down after a day but I took it off after a few days.



Holiday Cocktails Nails

Wednesday 25th June 2014

Hello all,

 

I have recently been away on holiday in Turkey. Whilst I was there I had a few non-alcoholic cocktails and was inspired by the bright colours to create this design.

 



 

I started by creating the gradient colours using a sponging technique (see youtube for examples). This worked a lot better than I was expecting and the bright colours were exactly what I wanted.

 



 

I was going to keep it as the simple gradient but then remembered some fruit cane slices I bought a few years ago and so decided to have a play with them.

 

I picked 5 types of fruit (Lime, Strawberry, Coconut, Lemon and Orange) and cut an angle out to make them look like fruit slices. I attached them using clear polish. I also tried to create the look of a straw, painting lines through each piece of fruit.

 

 



I love the final result, it reminds me of the holiday everytime I look at them.

 

What do you think? Have you ever used cane slices in your designs?

 

Rach x

Holographic Dots

Sunday 1st June 2014

 

Today I have spent the day with my family at my grandparents house. My sister has come to visit too so I decided it would be a good opportunity to do some nail art on other people. I bought a few colours to play with and asked if I could do something and she said yes, as did my Grandmother. I didn't have an idea to start off with so I just went with it on both their hands, ending up with similar designs.

 

The design I came up with is nice as a minimal design. The holographic colours looked lovely in the sunshine as well.

 

I am starting to feel more at ease painting other peoples nails, the nerves are starting to go x

Aviva Premiership Rugby Final

Sunday 1st June 2014

Congratulations to the Northampton Saints who are English Rugby Champions after winning the Aviva Premiership final yesterday!

As I've mentioned before I have become a rugby fan this year and yesterday was the final of my first premiership as a fan. After a lot of months of exciting games the Northampton Saints have won the final against Saracens. Both teams fought til the end and it was an amazing final.

As usual to show my support I painted my nails with all the teams who have competed this year. It was a big task but after some planning I managed to pull it off.

Left hand:

   Little finger - Worcester Warriors

   Ring finger - London Irish

   Middle finger - Exeter Chiefs / London Wasps

   Index finger - Harlequins

   Thumb - NorthamptonSaints

 

Right hand:

    Thumb - Saracens

    Index finger -Leicester Tigers

    Middle finger - Bath Rugby / Sale Sharks

    Ring finger - Gloucester Rugby

    Little finger - Newcastle Falcons

 

 

Let me know what you think and if you are out supporting the Saints today x

Seagulls!!

Saturday 10th May 2014

 

My sister lives in Wales so I don't get to see her very often but she came home for the weekend. As a treat we had an evening in watching the Alan Partridge film and I painted her nails. When I asked her what she wanted on them, the text I got back just read 'SEAGULLS!!!'.

 

So I got brainstorming. As her favourite colour is blue I chose a design that I could incorporate different shades of blue and her beloved seagulls.

 

 

My sister was extremely happy with the design and I quite like them too.

 

Let me know what you think? Do you find it easier or harder doing designs to a brief??

 

Rach x

Northampton Saints v Bath Rugby

Friday 2nd May 2014

As part of a weekend away my boyfriend and I bought tickets to see Northampton Saints v Bath Rugby at the Rec in Bath. It was such a lovely weekend and Bath is a wonderful city. The game was very exciting and it was great spending time with the Bath fans.

As usual to show my support I did some Saints nails (including one for Bath). They are similar to the last ones I did but I changed the angles of the lines.

 

I love my little saints stick man and was very happy with the final look. I even got a few comments at the game.

 

The game was great and ended in a draw. Afterwards we hung around and managed to meet a few players, including Stephen Myler who is my favourite Saint x

 

 

Sweeties and lollipops

Tuesday 25th February 2014

Today my friend Kerry came round for a catch up evening, so I thought I'd ask if I could do her nails. Luckily she jumped at the chance so I had to quickly come up with an idea. After a couple of hours mulling it over I came up with using 5 diff pastel base colours and painting sweets, cakes, lollipops, etc on them. I looked through my polishes and whilst looking at the colours decided on just using pink and blue. I also decided to cut down the designs to two - sweets and lollipops.

I painted the base colour and the images on and it didn't look as striking as I wanted so decided to draw a white outline on the pictures. This made them pop a little bit more. I also decided the background colours looked a bit dull so went for white dots on alternate nails.

I am happy with the final designs and Kerry loved them.

RBS 6 Nations Rugby

Saturday 22nd February 2014

Over the last few weeks the RBS 6 Nations Rugby Championships have started and today England played Ireland at Twickenham. I was a tad bored and decided I would paint my nails to show my support. I sketched a few ideas for this one and decided to include the England Rugby logo.

 

 

I decided against a basic white background on the nails as I can never get white to look nice. I thought a french manicure may be nice as the base on all the nails, but using silver. I then painted the England Rugby logo on the thumbs, filling up the nail with the image rather than getting the whole image in. I incorporated the silver in as the outlines as I thought it would work better than white. I am really happy with the final effect.

 

After doing the thumbs I thought the other nails looked too bare. I thought about adding red and green dots somewhere on each nail to link them to the image but wasn't too sure. After a bit of playing around I came up with the idea of making the rose logo out of dots. I am not sure how noticable these are as the thumbs are the main focus of the design but I do like it. The 'dot' rose may be an idea to work on for future designs.

 

 

Congratulations to England as they won todays game, 13 - 10.

Gold Leopard Print

Monday 3rd February 2014

Just a basic design this time, I love my leopard prints and I don't think I've ever actually done one in proper(ish) colours.

 

My main plan was to paint my toe nails, I thought it might be a nice change from just plain colours. I chose a gold base to add a bit of sparkle and used black and brown for the spots.

 

 

(PS. Sorry for the feet photo)

 

After seeing the final design I couldn't resist and had to do the same on my hands. I think they look classy but still quite exciting. I will happily do this design again.

 

 

NFL Super Bowl XLVIII

Sunday 2nd February 2014

Although I live in England, I have been introduced to American Football this year. I love all the colours and team logos more than the game itself but I was inspired to do a little Superbowl design for this year.

 

The two teams playing this year were Seattle Seahawks and the Denver Broncos. Boths teams logos are animal based and I thought it would be fun to have a go at drawing them (especially as I have recently bought myself a new nail art brush).

 

Both teams logos had a dark blue in them so I decided to paint most of my nails in blue and have the thumb and accent nail as the teams.

 

After finishing the design I decided to paint them in a matte top coat. I love the matt effect and the images. As usual each animal is hand painted and I was really happy with the result.

 

Well done to the Seahawks who won.

Leopard nail wraps

Monday 13th January 2014

Today I fancied doing my nails but have got horribly dry hands so I've decided to use one of my nail wraps that I bought a while ago. I chose to use a green/blue leopard print and like the design of it. It is really easy to use and will hopefully last for a while. I have used them before and think I need a bit more practice to get them on nicely.