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Freehand

Freehand, Uncategorised

♪♫ Love Is The Coal That Makes This Train Roll

9th March 2011

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I know you’re probably getting sick of my unexplained, extended absences and I’m really sorry! So far, this year has been one crazy whirlwind of events and I’m finding it impossible to make time for blogging. I’m trying to get some structure back in the blog so I think instead of attempting a new mani every day, I’m gonna aim for three a week on set days (I’m thinking Monday, Wednesday and Saturday) so you’ll know what you can expect.

The internet connection in my house has been down since Sunday and no-one’s called up to fix it since it’s an 08 number and we only have cell phones so it will cost upwards of 35p per minute to call the ISP (I know it doesn’t sound much, but we’re all really stingy).

I’m blogging from home home today (my parents’ house) since I had to come back to get one of my wisdom teeth pulled. I’ve been complaining about it for months so I’m glad it’s finally gone. It wasn’t half as bad as I was expecting and I barely even felt the injections. It was actually the nicest procedure I’ve ever had done in a dentist’s office, if anything that takes place there can be called nice!

For the mani I used:

Carla Di Roma – Grape Wine

A coat of BYS Tinkerbell

Barry M Blue Glitter sponged from the corners downwards

GOSH Metallic Blue freehanded for the lines using a striper brush (eBay)

I’ve made a few additions to my list of regular polishes that work well for stamping. This GOSH Metallic Blue is on there! Head over to the Stamping Polishes page if you want to see all of the polishes I use for stamping.

Freehand, Uncategorised

Awesome Aztec

1st March 2011

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I am now in love with freehand nail art! It takes longer and is not as ‘perfect’ looking as stamping but there is so much more you can do with it. That’s not to say I will be freehanding my nails all the time because there just aren’t enough hours in the day but it’s definitely something I’m going to keep playing with whenever inspiration strikes.

Today’s idea, once again, comes from Marina at Forever The Ugly Duckling. She just has too many great ideas! She suggested I try an Aztec pattern so I did some searching for a reference and found this pair of printed leggings which I based my design on.

I used Avon Chocolate as a base and GOSH Metallic Blue for the patterns and topped it off with a coat of NYC In a New York Minute top coat.The brush I used is from this set available from the Born Pretty Store.

Freehand, Review, Uncategorised

Born Pretty Store and my First Freehand Nail Art

27th February 2011

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I received a few items from Born Pretty Store a few weeks ago to review. You’ve already seen some of the Bullion put to use and I’ll cracking out the rest of the amazing nail art supplies in good time. Here are the goodies that I got….

I’ve wanted some of these tiny brushes for ages. I did buy a pack of nail art brushes on eBay but there are very few that are suitably teeny for painting designs like this on your nails and I’m actually using one of them to apply my eyeliner!!

This pack of 4 brushes is perfect for drawing anything you can imagine on your nails. They’re small but easy to grip and each one is a different size so you can use the smallest ones for lining and the larger ones for filling in colours.

I decided to try my hand at roses, which are heavily inspired by (read: copied from) Marina at Forever The Ugly Duckling who does some really cute and imaginative, yet simple, freehand nail art which is what actually inspired me to have a go myself.

I started out drawing the outlines of the flowers then filling them in with the blue. Then I went over the outlines again to emphasise them since the blue kind of covered them over. Then I decided to add the leaves by doing the same thing – outline, colour, outline again!

I’m really pleased with how it turned out and I’ll definitely be doing more freehand nail art in the future if I can come up with any ideas! If that’s something you guys would like to see?

I used:

Brushes from Born Pretty Store

Barry M Berry Ice Cream as a the base colour

Rimmel Black Satin to outline the flowers

Beauty UK Neon Blue to fill the flowers

BYS Fern for the leaves

Top coat of NYC

Disclaimer: The nail art brushes were sent to me by Born Pretty Store for review. Everything you read here is my honest opinion.

Freehand, Uncategorised

Flashy Franken

21st February 2011

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I was having a dilemma on Friday night. I couldn’t pick out a single colour from my 150+ collection which I felt like wearing on my nails. At Marina’s amazing suggestion on twitter, I decided to franken myself a new one.

I had seen this mani by Erika a while ago and knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted something similar, so I decided to aim for a light pink with gold shimmer much like China Glaze Pink-Rox-E and I think what I ended up with is a pretty good match, if I do say so myself.

I mixed this shade from BYS Tickle Me Pink, an ancient, very sheer gold from Collection 2000 and a tiny smidge of BYS Metallic Fuschia.

Then to spice it up a little, I freehanded some gold tips with a little black line to emphasise them. I’ve done this a few times recently with different colour combinations, but they normally turn out really messy though so I haven’t been photographing them. I freehanded the tips with Sally Hansen Amber Chrome and used Rimmel Black Satin for the lines applied with one of these little brushes from Born Pretty Store which made all the difference when it came to keeping the lines neat.