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

Barry M Nail Art Pens

Nail art just got so much easier! Up until now, I’ve been using the Models Own WAH nail art pens, which have a thin needle like nib, and a long brush. The main problem I have with these is having to squeeze them as you draw your design, which often results in a few blobs, and wobbly lines. Currently available in black, white, silver and pink, the Barry M nail art pens are just like a felt tip pen, you pump the nib down a few times, and the polish flows down the tip.

I wanted to try them out straight away, so I gave my cuticles a break and used a nail wheel instead (inspiration for a couple of designs from one nail to rule them all.) A couple are a bit lopsided, but other than that, it’s easily the neatest nail art I’ve ever done.

On my nails, I decided to go with paisley print with the white nail art pen, over Vant To Bite My Neck? finished with a matte top coat (which doesn’t look particularly matte!)

I had a couple of problems on my actual nails that I didn’t encounter on the wheel. The polish didn’t want to come out of the pen, then when I did eventually get it to go on the nail, it didn’t go on right. The only way I can explain it is when you try to write on shiny paper with a felt tip pen, and its sort of watery. I don’t know if anyone else has had this problem, and it’s strange as I didn’t have any problem on the wheel, using the exact same polish.

They dried really quickly though. I always had a problem smudging my nail art, even if I’d waited half an hour before putting top coat on. With these I only waited a few minutes and had no smudging at all. Overall, I absolutely love these pens, and I hope Barry M release more colours.

Barry M Nail Art Pens are available in Boots and Superdrug for £4.99 each, or on Nail Polish Direct for £4.75

Barry M are also releasing some ‘sequin effects’ nail polish, which look similar to the Nails Inc Sprinkles range. “Add a textured sparkle to your nails with new Sequin Nail Effects!  The rich formula packed densely with sequin specs is the perfect way to create a dramatic 3D effect on your nails.” They officially launch in June!

Lyndsey

Spun Sugar & Derby Day Delight

This will be picture heavy!

What a crazy 16 days it has been to be a Sunderland supporter! 16 days ago, Sunderland sacked manager Martin O’Neill after a 1-0 defeat to Manchester United. The following day Paolo Di Canio was appointed as manager, and a media storm followed. Di Canio’s first game resulted in a 2-1 defeat to Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, but everything felt a lot more positive after a good performance. April 14 was a day I’d been dreading for a long time. This year is the tenth year I’ve been going to watch Sunderland, and in those ten years, we’ve only beaten Newcastle once, and there has been a couple of humiliating defeats. In all honesty, I had prepared myself for another defeat, any last bit of confidence left me when I saw the team line up and Connor Wickham was out through injury, meaning we were left with Gateshead-born Danny Graham, who once said he would stay as far away from Sunderland as he could if he club ceased to exist.

I took my seat high up in the sky, with my legs still feeling like jelly from climbing 14 flights of stairs, and my stomach doing somersaults with nerves, and my fear of heights.

As expected, the atmosphere was brilliant, lots of singing, but you could feel the nerves! After a couple of penalty shouts, and a nasty, dangerous challenge by Gouffran on Adam Johnson, the breakthrough came in the 27th minute, a great finish from Stephane´Sessengon. Cue wild celebrations in the crowd, and from Paolo Di Canio!

Credit: FeintZebra

A couple of minutes after taking the lead, Simon Mignolet pulled off a brilliant save from Papiss Cisse, and Sunderland went into the break at half time winning 1-0. I still wasn’t confident. On our last trip to St James’ Park, we were winning 1-0 at half time, and Shola Ameobi came on to score the equaliser in the 90th minute. I’d have been even more worried if I’d realised Shola Ameobi had come on to replace Gouffran at half time, but I only found this out today when I watched the game again on TV.

Around 10 minutes in to the second half, Elliot came on to replace Krul, after the Newcastle goalkeeper landed heavily and dislocated his shoulder. An hour into the game, Cisse had the ball in the back of the net, but to our relief it was (wrongly) disallowed for offside. Alan Pardew’s reaction when he finally realised it had been ruled out was priceless. This was luck we usually don’t have, especially in derby games.

With 15 minutes left in the game, Adam Johnson went on a brilliant run and fired the ball into the top left corner. 0-2!

Credit: FeintZebra

Another crazy celebration from Di Canio!

Credit: FeintZebra

I began to believe that we could actually win. There was still the chance that we could implode, but as the seconds ticked by, this became less likely. Just over 10 minutes until full time, and I was happy celebrating a 2-0 victory, when BOOM! An absolute beauty of a goal from David Vaughan sent us wild once more, and gave us the victory, along with those incredibly important 3 points. I nearly burst into tears!

Credit: FeintZebra

I have never seen any Sunderland manager since I’ve been going show such passion for us, and going so crazy on the touchline. Even when we sang ‘Paolo, give us a wave’ he gave us a wave and then a fist pump!

I don’t think I’ve ever been prouder of the players than I was yesterday. Players that will now be spoken about in years to come. People still talk about Gary Rowell’s hat trick against Newcastle in 1979, Niall Quinn’s header in the rain at St James’ Park in 2000, Keiron Richardson’s free kick at the Stadium of Light in 2008. In years to come, we’ll still be talking about those three brilliant goals, and of course, Paolo Di Canio’s wild touchline celebrations. Thank you Paolo, for instilling passion and belief into the players and fans once again.

Away from football now, last Thursday I had 6 inches chopped off my hair! It feels super short at the minute, but it’s made a huge difference to how knotted my hair gets, even when tied up my hair before would end up with massive knots in it. I was out in Durham again for my friends birthday, and wore a spiked pocket leather skater dress from missguided.

For my nails, I attempted spun sugar for the first time, using Ciate´Mistress, and Barry M Matt White. Spun sugar was actually harder than I expected, mainly getting the polish to the right consistency. But I loved the finished look, even though it’s not perfect.

I did have to add a top coat, just to make sure it lasted for three days. The 3D effect disappears with top coat, but I still loved it, and it lasted until derby day, even going crazy I only chipped a tiny bit off!

Lyndsey

Born Pretty Studs

Just over a month ago, I placed my first order with Born Pretty. I’ve seen a lot of bloggers talking about this, and they have a great range of nail art stuff, which is all quite cheap. I’d been after some studs for a while, so I ordered a packet, along with some black stamping polish, a couple of pots of small hex glitter, some nail polish remover/acetone pumps, and some glow in the dark nail polish.

I tried the studs out first, and used them with the Nails Inc Leather Effect polish, Noho.

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

Boo Boo Fluff

Textured nails are big right now, and have been seen all over at NYFW. There’s leather, concrete, liquid sand, velvet, sequins, and caviar, so when I spotted the ‘fur effect nails’ at Superdrug recently, I decided to give it a go and bought Boo Boo Fluff, and Fluffy Bobbin.

Boo Boo Fluff is a bright cyan, so I started off with two coats of Kensington Park Road, then once I’d let that dry, added with the ‘fur,’ although like the names, its more fluff, so I’m going with fluff!. Please excuse the IKEA instructions, I didn’t want fluff everywhere and that’s the best thing I had!

After putting a layer of top coat on, I dipped my nail in the fluff and rolled it from one side to the other. This left a big clumpy mess on my nail, I used a fantail brush to gently brush off the excess (the tub says to blow, but it would have gone everywhere!)

And this is the finished result! It looked a lot better than I was expecting. My only problem was the feel of it! I didn’t mind touching it, but it was if my nails touched another material, my clothes, bedding etc, I hated it! I get the same feeling if I think about biting cotton wool. Eurgh! But apart from that I actually liked how it looked. 

I expected it to come off as soon as I got my hands wet, but it didn’t, and I found it dried really quickly, if you pressed the towel on the nails.

MUA Fur Effect Nails are available at Superdrug, and are currently on promotion, 2 for £4.

Would you try fur effect nails? What is your favourite textured nail trend?

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

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