Clare Island Nails

This manicure is very special - it was inspired by my recent trip to Clare Island! For anyone who isn't familiar with it, Clare Island is a large island off the west coast of Ireland that among other things was home to the famous Irish pirate queen, Granuaile. At the time I visited the weather was unusually good for Ireland, which made my day even more enjoyable! The island is so picturesque and beautiful. This manicure was inspired by the fact that everywhere you go on it there are reminders of the sea from the marine-themed restaurant to the beach to the beautiful view.  I can't wait to make a return trip!

I used OPI Steady As She Rose as the light pink base and painted on the pictures with a long striping brush and a blue from Pink Tease.

There is quite a bit of detail in this manicure so I will go through all of the pictures as some of them are a bit hard to decipher (oops!). 

Index finger - Edge of a fishing net, fish, seaweed ( yes it doesn't look like seaweed!)

Middle finger - Rope, swirly seashell and a fish skeleton

Ring finger - Edge of a fishing net, anchor, boat

Little finger - Porthole

Thumb - Sign, birds, swirly seashell

Easter Eggs

Hello everyone and happy Easter! I gave up chocolate for Lent and was very happy to finally get to eat some today! 

For today's manicure I painted on lots of different Easter eggs on my fingers and an Easter chick on my thumb. The dark brown base is No. 7 Beanie. I really like this colour (it reminds me of chocolate!) but unfortunately I have found that No. 7 polishes don't age very well. This polish is maybe a year old but it is very hard to use and very .. gloopy. There's no other word to describe it! 

I used a lot of colours for the nail art so it will probably be easier to list them!

Coral - No. 7 

Yellow - Model's Own Lemon Meringue

Green - Claire's nail polish

Gold - Claire's nail polish

Lilac - Barry M Prickly Pear

Purple - OPI Planks A Lot

Light blue - Essence You Belong To Me

Pink - Rimmel Strawberry Fizz

Camouflage

Today's nails are my interpretation of camouflage nails and are very simple to do! If you did this design using other colours it would look great as well!

To start off I painted on one coat of Essence Must Have, a dark grey shimmer which you can't see here, but any dark colour is fine to use. I painted on a dark green nail polish from Claire's (pictured below) with the brush provided with the bottle. I then painted on OPI A-Taupe The Space Needle and OPI On Stranger Tides in the same way. I didn't use a topcoat because I liked the texture of the nails as they were.

I really like this design as even though it isn't complicated nail art it looks like it is! It took me about five minutes to do (with about fifteen minutes drying time) and I think it is quite an easy look to master!

Sailor Stripes

For this manicure I painted on uneven stripes using the brushes the polishes came with. It probably wasn't a good idea to use Models Own Aqua Violet for the tips as it isn't very opaque, but otherwise I am quite partial to these nails. I think they look kind of nautical even though I didn't use any red.

I painted on two coats of OPI French Quarter For Your Thoughts to start off. Then I painted on uneven stripes of (in order of descent) No. 7 Minty Fresh, Catrice Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans, Barry M White and Models Own Aqua Violet. I finished with a top coat of Seche Vite.

Silver Scribbles

I really like today's nails! They are very simple but somehow very me!

I think they look like scribbles but in a good way! 

I used OPI Sea You In Hollywood for the base then waited until it was completely dry.  I then used an Elite Model's Fashion nail pen in silver to draw random lines back and forth horizontally on my nails. It took about five seconds for each nail! I finished with a top coat of Seche Vite. 

 

St. Patrick's Day Nails!

 Hi everyone! As today is St. Patrick's Day and I am Irish ... well, what nails could be more appropriate than these? They were kind of spur of the moment as I was heading out to watch the local parade at the time but they didn't turn out too bad.

I used Leighton Denny Persian for the dark green base and Barry M White for the little shamrocks on my ring finger. I used OPI Y'all Come Back Ya Hear for the orange and Barry M Gold Foil for the gold. On my index finger I used Models Peacock Green below the gold stripe. The wiggly line on my middle finger is supposed to represent a snake as St. Patrick allegedly banished the snakes from Ireland but it didn't work out so well!

I hope you are having a great St. Patrick's Day, wherever in the world you are!

Pi Day Nails!

Happy Pi Day everyone! Today is the 14/3, which are the first three digits in the number pi (3.14). Today is also coincidentally Albert Einstein's birthday! For all the maths nerds all over the world, today is a very special day!

I had never heard of Pi Day until last week, when my maths teacher informed us that we would be having a party for it, as she loves pi! I thought that the occasion called for some special nails.

The purple is OPI Planks A Lot. The yellow is Models Own Lemon Meringue, the gold pi sign is Models Own Champagne, the blue is China Glaze For Audrey. 

On the pie on my thumb the light colour is Essence Toffee to Go and the darker colour is 17 Mink. I topped it off with a coat of Seche Vite.

Concert Nails

Last week I went to see The Script in the O2 in Dublin and these were the nails I had for the concert. 

 If you haven't heard of The Script before, look them up right now! They are an Irish band with many brilliant songs and they are amazing live! My favourite song of theirs is probably "For The First Time"

I only had a few minutes to do my nails before heading off to the concert, so I opted for an understated chevron look, using the brushes that came with the colours I used. I used Catrice Genius In A Bottle for the gold. The blue was China Glaze For Audrey, the brown OPI A-Taupe The Space Needle and the glitter at the tip OPI Spark de Triomphe. The topcoat is Seche Vite.

In My Veins ( and arteries!)

I was inspired by a song I recently discovered by an artist called Andrew Belle called "In My Veins". I randomly came across this wonderful song on Youtube and I knew straight away that I loved it. I took my guitar out of its case in the corner for the first time in two months (I have been very busy!) and attempted to learn the chords for the song. 

Unfortunately, when you have a nail blog and you abandon your guitar for long periods of time, your fingernails grow long. It was so hard trying to play the chords that I went and filed all of my nails down. I figured I was probably making a huge mistake at the time, but it feels quite refreshing to have short nails. Maybe they will stay this length!

The song is called "In My Veins" but I thought my nails would look a bit dull with just veins so I added in arteries. Obviously this nail art is not biologically correct because the human heart isn't that shape at all but it was all in the name of creativity!

The nail art was also partly inspired by this post on Chalkboard Nails.

For the base I used three coats of Essence Absolutely Blue. It went on smoothly and dried quickly enough. I find it's much easier to do a few thin coats than one or two thick coats as the drying time is much shorter.

For the veins I painted on Essence Groovy with a long striping brush. For the arteries and heart I used No. 7 Devil's Delight and for the light shading on the heart I used 17 Ruby Gem.

Two Tone Nails

I was feeling uninspired so I decided to try a classic two tone look. I was originally going for equal halves but I like the way it ended up. 

To get a straight line I painted the blue polish on horizontally, being careful not to get polish on my cuticles. 

The colours I used were OPI Planks A Lot and NYC Waterstreet Blue. I used Seche Vite for the topcoat.

Lavender Stamping

Every time I look at this manicure I think "Lavender". I don't know why, maybe it's the colour or the fact that the stamping is with flowers but it just reminds me of lavender!

I used a polish from a brand called "Prime Collection". I received about twenty of their polishes as a present a few years ago.  It only seems to be sold on Ebay.  Unfortunately all the polishes I received were sheers. This one, a lilac shimmer, took four coats and is still not fully opaque!

I then stamped on 17 Royal Indigo with Bundle Monster 221 and finished it with a topcoat of Seche Vite.

Delicate Flowers - with gold tips!

 Today's post is just a quick one! I didn't want to take off my flower manicure but it was chipping at the tips so I grabbed Models Own Champagne and some striping tape and set to work!

This  was very simple to do. First I placed pieces of the striping tape at angles on all of my nails, then I painted the gold on beneath them. I then waited for the polish to dry - this is a very important step as if you don't wait until it is fully dry it messes up the straight line and defeats the purpose of using the tape in the first place! Then you carefully lift the tape up and voila! You have a changed manicure!

The gold tips brightened up the manicure and made it wearable for one more day which is convenient if you don't have time for complicated nail art, so I would definitly reccomend doing this with old manicures that you just can't bear to get rid of after they start chipping!

Delicate Flowers

These nails took quite some time and a bit of effort! These are probably the most complicated nails I have done so far.They are obviouly not perfect but I am really proud of them!

 

For the base I used three coats of Essence Cotton Candy. For the pink flowers I used Rimmel Strawberry Fizz, Leighton Denny Perfect to Party and OPI A-Taupe The Space Needle. For the blue ones I used China Glaze For Audrey and Leighton Denny Perfect to Party . For the swirls and little dots I used OPI A-Taupe The Space Needle. I used Seche Vite for the topcoat.