Gradient Tutorial

On Sunday, I was in London again for the last game of the season (boooooooo ) Tottenham v Sunderland. Unfortunately we got beat (and I missed the goal!) and now I have a long summer with no football. No doubt I’ll spend even more time doing my nails! I had an hour to spare when I got to London before I had to meet everyone in the pub, and managed to spend that whole hour in Victoria’s Secret! But I did get a free umbrella, worth £70! (I don’t know why anyone would pay £70 for an umbrella!)

Its been a while since I first did gradient nails, so I decided to give them another go, and do a quick tutorial while I was on, even though there’s probably much better tutorials than mine!

Start off by painting your nails white, I used two coats of Models Own Snow White.

I use a make up sponge, they’re cheap to buy, and don’t have any large holes in like other sponges sometimes do. I then cut it up so its just larger than my nail.

Paint the sponge with the polish, you need to be quite generous, as it sinks into the sponge. I used Barry M Greenberry, Models Own Lilac Dream, and Pastel Pink.

Dab the polish onto the nail, side to side, and then slightly up and down to blend the colours together.

It is very messy! But that’s quickly cleaned up with a cotton bud, brush and pure acetone.

I also added some tribal nail art using the Barry M nail art pen.

Lyndsey

Birthday Nail Art

Today is my 23rd Birthday! I wanted to do a quick blog before I went out, featuring my Birthday nail art.

I used Models Own Snow White, Pastel Pink, 2true Shade 48 and Lush Lacquer Glitter Girl, along with the Barry M nail art pens to create the balloons and cake. For the candle I use acrylic paint.

Lyndsey

Easter Nail Art

I hope every one had a good Easter! I’m a few days late with this post! I did these nails last Thursday, but I haven’t had time to blog about it! On Good Friday I had lunch with some of my family, Saturday I was at the Stadium of Light for Sunderland v Manchester United (after losing my season ticket!) then on Saturday night, our manager, Martin O’Neill was sacked! I was pretty gutted about that, I was over the moon when he got the job, but unfortunately it just hasn’t worked. I do think the timing was bad though, it either should have been weeks ago, or at the end of the season, hopefully we can stay up. Then Sunday, after watching the football with my dad, half my family turned up! My German cousin is over here visiting for a week with one of his friends, so I decided to take them (plus my other two cousins) for a quick look around the Stadium of Light, followed by a trip to the arcade!

Then on Monday, we appointed our new manager, Paolo Di Canio, which sparked a mass political debate, and was all over the national press. I know very little about politics, but agreed completely with one of Di Canio’s quotes; ‘We are not in the Houses of Parliament, we are in a football club.’ Regardless of his beliefs, I will continue to support my football team. As far as I’m concerned, he’s there to keep us in the Premier League, he’s not running the country. There’s a good article over at What’s Occurring? on the whole matter.

Tonight, my German cousin and his friend were at my house again, to watch the Bayern Munich game, along with my uncle, and one of my other cousins, and whilst half watching the football, I painted my cousins nails, with some blue ombre dots.

Finally onto my Easter nails! My inspiration came from Peachy Polish, and I used Models Own Beth’s Blue, Lemon Meringue, Jade Stone, Fuzzy Peach, Pastel Pink, Lilac Dream and Snow White. All apart from Snow White make up the Models Own Ice Cream collection.

Lyndsey

Southern Lights

Like Northern Lights, Southern Lights is part of the Models Own Wonderland collection, and just like Northern Lights, Southern Lights is also stunning! It is a dense light purple glitter, packed with holo glitter, and has some serious sparkle! Pictures show two coats with no top coat. Unlike most glitters, both Northern Lights and Southern Lights have a relatively smooth finish, rather than the usually gritty texture of glitter, so top coat isn’t essential. The only problem I had was with the formula, it was a little thick (as Northern Lights was.)

Lyndsey

Rainbow Gradient

I just had to give this another go! I really loved the first gradient I tried out, so I decided to do another, a pastel rainbow! All the polishes were Models Own, Pastel Pink, Lemon Meringue, Jade Stone, Beth’s Blue and Lilac Dream.

This is definitely one of my favourite ever manicures! I haven’t stopped looking at my nails! I also managed to clean it up better than I did with the last one. Messy, but totally worth the clean up!

Lyndsey

Gradient Nails

This is my first proper attempt at a gradient mani. I bought some makeup sponges a while ago to try it, lost them in the black hole that is my house, and only just found them again!

I started off with two coats of Models Own Snow White, then used Models Own Beth’s Blue, Lilac Dream and Pastel Pink for the gradient.

Apart from a couple of things, I love how this turned out. Firstly, it was quite late at night, so it didn’t look as patchy when I did it, secondly, also because it was late at night, my clean up wasn’t great. So I’ll know from now on to do this during the day instead!

I’m looking forward to experimenting with some different gradients!

Lyndsey

Northern Lights

Northern Lights is part of the Wonderland collection from Models Own. ASOS recently sent me a 25% discount code, so I decided to buy Northern Lights, along with Southern Lights. I chose to try Northern Lights first, and it immediately became one of my all time favourite polishes. It’s a dense light pink micro glitter, packed with micro holo glitter, and it is amazing. It’s so sparkly, I can’t stop looking at my nails! It also only needed two coats, although the formula seemed a little thick and gloopy. Pictures show two coats with top coat, there’s quite a few pictures, it was hard to capture how pretty this polish is!

I can’t wait to try Southern Lights! I also picked up one of the new Barry M textured polishes, and some fur effects from MUA. Have you tried any of the Wonderland collection? Which is your favourite?

Lyndsey

Valentines’ Nail Art

I’ve been slacking with my blog lately! I’ve got plenty of posts to catch up on, but I’ve got myself addicted to watching Bones on Netflix, and I just can’t stop, so I’m going to catch up with a few posts over the next couple of days. I also broke my middle finger nail right down, so I was waiting for it to grow back a bit, couldn’t file all my nails down! I also got myself some nail wheels, and I’m looking forward to trying out some nail art designs with them

Last night I did my Valentines’ Day mani. Now, I’m not a fan of Valentines’ Day at all, I personally think its a money making scam, and everything you can buy is tat that you’d never want any other day of the year, and no, I’m not just a bitter singleton! But, it is a great opportunity for some cute nails! I decided to go for hearts combined with leopard print. I used Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, Ciate´Mistress, and the Models Own nail art pen.

Barry M have also created their own range of texture nail polishes, (along with their new collection of gellies) which are out in Superdrug tomorrow (14th) and Boots on the 20th, and after trying the Leather and Skulls (and falling in love with it) I can’t wait to try these out and see what they look like.

Will you be trying any of the textured polishes?

Lyndsey

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!

I’ve set this post to post itself so I hope it works! I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas, and I hope you all have a great day!

Here is my Christmas Day nail art, snowflakes, Santa Claus and Rudolph. I used Ciate´Mistress, Models Own Snow White, Barry M Red Glitter and Nude, and the white Models Own nail art pen. For Santa and Rudolph I used acrylic paint.

Lyndsey

Snowmen, Snowflakes & Southampton

For the weekend, I did some more Christmas nail art. I’m a little obsessed, and I’ve had my Christmas Day nail art planned for a few days! I didn’t want to do anything too fancy, so I went for a snowman accent finger, and snowflakes. I used Barry M Silver foil effects, Models Own Snow White, Models Own white nail art pen, and acrylic paint for the snowman.

On Saturday, I had a 4.30am wake up, followed by a 6 hour bus journey to Southampton, St. Mary’s being the 39th football stadium I’ve visited. Always nice to tick off a new one, even if it is 300 miles away!

Thankfully, the long journey was worth it, and Sunderland won 1-0, with another goal for Steven Fletcher!

They were a very important 3 points for us, especially with some of the games we have coming up. It also meant we could have a bit of a Christmas party on the bus home, plenty of drinks and food, and songs!

Tomorrow I’m going to catch up with the remaining days of the Mini Mani Month, then relax for Christmas, I can’t wait!

Lyndsey