IMPORTANT CHANGES TO THIS BLOG

Hey guys,

So I just wanted to warn you about some major changes that will be happening soon to this blog.

The first one is that probably in a few days this blog will no longer be called 'Nail Art Newbie' and will instead be known as 'Sparkle Lane'.
I will also be changing the domain name of this blog to sparklelane.blogspot.com so please follow that, as this may not exist anymore once I change the name!

The main reason I am undergoing such a drastic change is because I would like to blog about more things than just nails, and feel that my current name doesn't allow me the flexibility to do this.

I hope you will choose to stay with me and enjoy the new content!

Oops..

Hey guys,

It seems like I am completely unable to stick to having nothing on my nails, last week I had just a simple colour on... and ended up doodling over that in biro and a sharpie

This week I tried completely bare nails, but once again couldn't stick with it.. i'm terrible.

I really can't wait for these exams to be over so I can properly paint them again... only a few more days to go!!

Fragrance Direct Haul!

Hey guys,

So today I have a few polishes to share with you! I haven't actually discovered them all myself yet.. but more on that later! They came in an absolutely huge box though!

This is the overall of all the polishes I have seen so far! As you can see I have 2 normal polishes, 1 magnetic and 2 glitters. The two main colours are 1 layer, all the rest are 2.

I mean look at this huge thing! Admittedly it was mostly bubble wrap, but it made it much more exciting having such a huge box to open!

So this is the main reason for the large package is this, and its also the reason I haven't seen all of the polishes yet. The idea is to open it like its meant to be opened - one per day. Its also hopefully something to look forward to during the rest of my exam period. The first polish is very cute though, I hope the rest of this is the same. I believe this is called 'Nordstorm Mini Mani Month'.

So here are the first two, my first ever Essie polishes! I have heard a lot about them and their really nice brushes. From trying them quickly just now they do seem really good!

I also don't have either a magnetic nail polish, or an orange nail polish - so clearly I needed to fill this gap in my collection!

These two are called Essie 'Fear and Desire' (Orange) and 'Snake Skin Repstyle - Lil Boa Peep'

Next, I bought this for the same reason as the ones before, I didn't have a silver nail polish in my collection so wanted to fill the gap.
This was the nicest one I could find on the website without spending more than I wanted to.

Its called 'Manhattan Lotus Effect Nail Polish - 01'.

Next, this one I didn't really need so much, but again I didn't have a copper coloured glitter! As you can see on the lid this is Sally Hansen 'Copper Penny'. Its so pretty! Just sadly not anywhere near as dense as a gold Sally Hansen glitter I bought before.

And finally, two clear polishes, because the only top coat I have left at the moment is a really cheap polish my mum bought, and its really annoying as it doesn't dry very quickly at all, and it also loosens the other layers underneath it meaning if you knock it before its dry, you end up upsetting the whole nail.

I have had some Rimmel ones before and I really like the brushes on these ones as they are really wide.





So that's my haul for now! I'm sure there will be an update on the rest of the Ciate polishes, I know its a bit out of date now, and i'm sure there are the full set online already - but as its still available to buy I might as well do my own review!

See you after exams!

Bridesmaids Nails

Hey guys,

So today I have some very special nails to share with you, these are the ones I wore for my cousin's wedding the other day.

Here is the design on both hands, I actually feel I was able to replicate the design on my non-dominant hand really well! 

For this I used Barry M 'Blueberry' for the main blue, Sinful Colours 'Snow Me White' for the white detailing, and a Ted Baker for the silver glitter - you can't see it very well here, but the silver is holographic and shines several different colours in the light. I also used a polish called 'Final Touch - lilac glow' over the blue which gave it a really pretty purply sheen under sunlight, sadly this also didn't come through on the photos. 

Here are the two accent nails, I actually really love my ring nail accent! However I was also actually really impressed with how long the gem stayed on on my thumb considering I only stuck it on with a bit of top coat! I literally had to stick my other nail underneath the gem to get it off, and even then the gem came off its silver backing! 

I'm not sure when my next post will be as I am still in the middle of my exams, however they will be over soon, finally! 

Tortoise Nails

Hey guys,

Just a quick post today, as i've mentioned before, but I have exams comming up at the moment so i'm revising hard!
This weeks have a kinda tortoise theme, but I also felt like putting actual glitter on my nails, so this is the result! A bit of glitter had fallen off at this point however as I kept picking at it all week because I could feel it was so thick on my nails!

Hope you like them! See you soon!

Bunting Nails

Hey guys,

I felt like doing sometime a little spring like today, and really fancied trying out my new white Barry M nail art pen and also felt like putting some cute bunting on my nails. I based it on a stamp that I got for Easter which has such a cute little bunting pattern on - I have taken some photos with it as I really like it. You can find it on Amazon here.

 The front of the stamp and my left hand

Very sorry for the badly chipped nails here - this is my right hand and so my writing hand, so it gets used a lot more! Saying that, I think I was still able to draw the bunting pattern on here with my non-dominant hand.

This is the back side, the actual stamp, its so cute! Apologies its kinda pink, I think I used a pink stamp pad on it last!

I hope you like them! See you next week!

P.S. Have you seen the new 3D Make-up printer which has been announced? It hasn't been released yet, but the idea seems so cool - I found an article here!

Snake-like / tribal nails

Hey guys,

Sorry I didn't post last week, I completely forgot! I believe I mentioned it recently, but I have some very important exams comming up so i've been working quite hard recently. Therefore i'm sorry for the late night photography of these nails - especially as I was actually quite proud of them!
Also last week, I went to see McBusted at the 02 with a couple of friends - you can see a post my friend wrote on the subject here (http://zoeandkarina.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/london-mcbusted.html) with a shock-horror actual image of my face! Please check it out, as her and her friend have recently started up a blog and i'm sure they would love feedback!

On to the nails, they were based on a design here. I got some Barry M nail art pens in White and Black for Easter so wanted to try them out! In this one I only used the black, but i'm hoping to use the white soon!

Like I said, I actually really like these nails!
The pink on these was actually more of a red colour, so once again apologies for the bad photos!

You may find the next month or so of posts are a bit off schedule, but i'll try and post at least once a week, but for the meantime - please forgive me!

Mini Egg Nails

Hey guys,

So perhaps not the most original nails this week, but I wanted something with pastel colours and yet an easter theme, that also wasn't too complex... the nails that fitted the bill were these Mini Egg Nails!

And now for the obligatory pictures with actual mini eggs...

I think I probably got the dots a little too big, but i'm still pretty happy with how they turned out.

The polishes I used were:
- Barry M - Berry I/C (Purple)
- Rimmel - 280 Sunshine (Yellow)
- Ted Baker Pink (This had to have at least 10 coats before it was completely opaque, shocking. I loved the colour once it was finally opaque though, even if it did take several hours to dry.)
- Sinful Colours - Snow Me White (White)
- Manhattan Rock Topia - Rock the Grass (Green)
- Sally Hansen - 340 Black Platinum (Black)

So the only thing to say now is; HAPPY EASTER! See you next week!

Multicoloured Easter Egg Nails

Hey guys,

Its nearing Easter time and to celebrate/show this I thought I would do a kind of Eastery theme on my nails this week - multicoloured/pastel coloured easter eggs.

Here they are! On here I have Orange, Yellow, Green and Blue - although the orange at the top looks a kind of pinky red next to the lighter orange on top of the yellow which makes it look like I used more colours in my opinion.

A very simple design, but I think it still fits the theme - I hope you like them!

Checked Tribal Nails

Hey guys,

I felt like doing something more complicated this week and stumbled across this. This is my recreation of the nails, nowhere near as nice in my opinion though. I think I did the sections too thick, and also didn't notice until after i'd taken the photos that one of my nails was chipped.. stupid me, its not even a small chip..

I think my ring finger is my favourite, I think it looks much much nicer with less of a pattern on it strangely. Let me know what you think!

Barry M Passion Fruit Swatch

Hey guys,

Just a swatch post this week of the other polish I bought recently. I have very important exams coming up soon and so I may be posting less and less in the near future (sorry!). After they are all over, I will be back with hopefully more than 1 post a week though!

I took a photo in direct sunlight as well as in the shade to show the difference, this is because I thought it looked like a pink in the bottle however unless in bright sunlight the colour looks red on the actual nail.

It also stained horribly despite putting a base coat on - such a shame! I now remember why I don't wear reds that much though.

See you next week!

Space Nails

Hey guys,

So this week to celebrate the end of Winter - then again I don't know about you, but we didn't have much of a Winter here, we didn't have a single drop of snow! For inspiration I used these two: Constellation Nails and Shooting Stars Nails

Here's all 5 nails, the thumb is constellation, the first a galaxy nail, lighting design, shooting star and finally a random star like nail.

Another photo, I forgot how much I love galaxy nails - it always looks so cool! As you can see, I finally used one of the Ted Baker polishes that I got in my set for Christmas. Other than the awkward top to hold, I was pretty impressed actually. The glitter is packed really dense into the polish and its so pretty and shines different colours.

See you next week!

I've hit 1,000 views / Crazy Chemistry Colours

Hey guys,

I know I only posted yesterday, but I was just checking the comments on my blog when I realised.. my view counter has finally hit 1,000 views!!

I know this isn't loads, but this is a big deal to me as its a big milestone in numbers, and I didn't start this straightaway when I created my blog so I have likely had more than this anyway.

Then again, the actual blogger view count says that I have had 2,204 pageviews, but according to others this isn't particularly accurate..

I also reached 20 followers on Bloglovin on March 11th which is quite exciting! I hadn't had a chance to share this yet but this post seems like the perfect time!




Anyway, to celebrate I thought I would share some photos I took in class the other day, they're not nail related at all, but I loved the pretty colours we made. Incase you don't know, i'm currently studying A2 chemistry as one of my options and although these were pretty all of them had toxic symbols on at the very least. Nasty.

All of the different ones we made in the actual experiment.

A close up of one of the Test tube racks - look at all the amazing layers! If you're wondering why some have bungs in the top and the others don't - the ones with bungs had an ammonia compound in - this stuff absolutely stinks and makes you cough like mad. I can't really describe it if you haven't encountered it before other than to say it feels like you have something blocking your nose when you breathe it in, its horrid!

 This one was most definitely my favourite though, I mixed number 6 and 10 in the photo above to make this.

If you're interested in knowing what the actual compounds were that I used to make these, simply just send a comment saying which ones and i'll find my chemistry notes and let you know! Sorry this is so random but I wanted something different to celebrate the milestone and I thought this was definitely something different - but then again who couldn't love all those crazy colours!

Northern Lights Nails

Hey guys,

Pretty nails this week, a gradient but a different way to normal and with a different colours, I based it on this tutorial.
I had a bit of trouble with my make-up sponge I used to put on the gradient, it broke apart onto my nail and when trying to pull it off I smudged them a bit as you can see. The blue also chipped quite badly compared to usual, i'm guessing its just a certain type. It also stunk extremely badly so i'm guessing it might have had some nasty chemicals in, I just found it in my mums collection.

 

I used 3 different polishes for this with a blue sparkly base which you can't really make out in the photos. The photos aren't anywhere near as good this week, I couldn't get the light right. 

I hope you like them, I definitely do!

Haul Post / Barry M Pearl Lady

Hey guys,

So today I have a minature Haul post for you along with some swatches of one of the polishes I picked up. I did this a couple weeks ago but haven't had time to post it until now sorry.

First of all though, when I went up to the Barry M stand in my boots I was met with a crazy sight. Swatch sticks of every colour but their new Silk paints - they were only officially released the day after I went (yeah.. I did go a long while ago now!)
However, this is such a genius idea, why can't all brands do this? They were all labelled with a handwritten piece of paper stuck on with tape so it seemed to be handmade rather than something Barry M had brought out themselves. Does anyone else have this or was this just a random thing my Boots store seems to have?

When I went in Boots had a 3 for 2 offer, but only on Barry M - annoyingly it was extended to the whole store only the day after - I went in again to pick up something and was quite annoyed. 

I picked up 2 nail varnishes after much deliberation and swatch stick comparisons, but the third item I really could not decide on. However in the end I went with a lipstick, but more on that later.

The two colours I picked out were Pearl Lady and Passion Fruit. 

This is what Pearl Lady looked like on me, however I don't think my photos really show how beautiful it is, the glitters in it make this a really nice textured polish. 

I do have a few complaints about this polish however.. for one, the polish wasn't opaque at all, I put three layers of the polish on (having to wait each time as I wanted the maximum amount of texture) but you could still see my tips quite clearly underneath. If I was to use this again I guess I would have to use a white undercoat but it was a bit disappointing. 

My other complaint is that I didn't actually find this to be that textured, I mean sure I could definitely feel the texture when I ran my finger over it, but compared to my other Barry M texture (Kingsland Road) it was nowhere near as textured. Shame really, but the polish is super pretty and the glitters really add to it.

Now for something completely different - lipstick. I have worn lipstick before, but only some I have "adopted" from my mums stash, and I have never bought a lipstick for myself before, neither had someone buy one for me. However as it was 3 for 2 anyway, I thought I may as well try one. 

I bought number 53 - their coral colour as it looked really pretty. I have to say I really like the polish packaging, I really like the mix of the matte black and the shiny black together. 

My lips.. yeah.. I thought I may as well do a lipstick swatch while i'm at it. The top one is my normal lip colour and the second is with the lipstick applied. I put on a base of Lip salve before I put the lipstick on as if not I have quite dry lips. 

Even with the base however I still found that the lipstick decided to clump together in the creases of my lips as you can see in the photo - this may be due to application, as i've stated I am not experienced at all with lipsticks so have no idea.

The colour is really pretty, just the summer coral I was looking for and although I dampen the colour down slightly to suit my skin tone, it is just what I was looking for so i'm really happy.

Hope you didn't mind such an obscure post! Should be back to normal with more Nail Art next week. 

Graffiti / Distressed Nails

Hey Guys,

So for my nails this week I decided to do nails using by Chalkboard Nails tutorial here. Although I don't think mine look anywhere near as cool, and didn't like them at all after I first did them, I think they've actually grown on me throughout the week.
I'm not sure which one of my hands looks better, on my right I put more of the black nail varnish over the top while over the left I didn't put so much.

Here's both hands, my right hand is a lot messier application as it is my dominant hand so I find it harder to paint it, but ignoring this, i'm not sure if it looks better with more black or less.

Another photo of my left hand. Let me know what you think!