First Born Pretty Store order is in!

Last month I made my first order from the Born Pretty Store. I first found out about this awesome website on instagram, while browsing through some nail hashtags, so I went to check it out, and it has so many stuff for nail art, you kind of get lost in it, which is great! There's so much to choose from, you almost can't close it without first ordering something.

But anyway, I had thought about doing my nails for both Halloween and Christmas this year, and because nail water decals are very in right now (and they're easy to use), I went looking for some.

I ended up ordering these

 Here they are in some more detail

 And these are four of the 10 sheets of the Christmas ones

Nail Art September Challenge - Day 22

Today's challenge was asters.

Before the challenge I didn't know this was a type of flower, but after googling it, and seeing a bunch of photos, I went ahead and tried my luck.

The flowers are lilac and purple, as I gathered from the interweb, so I chose to do a nude background, so they could have more contrast with it.

 

The middle of the flowers were done with a dotting tool, pressing down repeatedly throughout their shape, so as to mimic their characteristic texture.

Nail Art September Challenge - Day 19

Today the theme for the challenge is 'negative space'.

I wanted to do something simple and with high contrast, so I chose to use black nail polish, and because I love the combination, I chose my matte top coat to finish it off.

For the actual negative space, I used reinforcement labels. Here they are

This is how I placed them on my nails, after applying my base coat.

And this is the result! I always love matte black nails, so I think it turned out quite okay.

New stuff

A week ago I went to Primark (I was long overdue for a visit) and found that they now have a lot more nail related things on sale!

I already knew that they had revamped their make up and nail lines, with some new cool designs and packaging, but they now have some really cool and cheap things to do nail art with.

Here are the things I bought!

So, the first thing I came across were these super pink and cute brushes. I still didn't have any proper ones, only some improvised one that are pretty lame but did the job.

 
I still haven't used them all, just the dotting tool, but I know I'll be using them very often.
Price: €2.50


Next, it was something I'd seen online. When I first saw it I thought what's the big deal with this, but then I understood, and I totally saw the appeal and how useful it is.

It is a nail polish remover, but one where you don't have to use anything other than the bottle of remover and the nail you want to remove the nail polish from. I really liked the idea, especially when for when I screw up a nail, but already have all the others painted and I don't want to ruin them as well.
         

It is really simple to use and it works very well. I've used a few times already. You just have to put your finger inside the little hole in the sponge and rotate it a few times and voilà! Depending on the nail polish, it might take a few more rubs to remove it, but it definitely works!

Price: €2

And last, I bought a gel effect top coat. They actually had tons of colors, a few with the gel effect as well, but since I bought some other things apart from the nail stuff, I had to choose, and so I went with a safe choice, and also with something I needed (and always do).

This is probably my least favorite thing I bought. I've tried only once, but it's usually enough. It didn't dry completely and then I ended up having those little marks on my nails after it completely dried.

I will try it again, and see how it goes, otherwise I'll just use as a base coat.
Price: €1.50

Nail Art September Challenge - Day 16

Today the theme for the challenge is quatrefoil.

I had never even heard of this before starting this challenge, so the other day I googled it, and it looked so complicated. I thought 'how the hell does one go about doing that?'. Well, turns out it isn't that hard, but it's still a little tricky, but it's one of those things that come together with practice.

After watching a quick tutorial, I went for it, and here are the results

I only did the pattern on the accent nails, because I was afraid I might mess it up completely if I tried to do it on all of them.

There is one element missing, which is the little strokes of the darker color, but I made my dots maybe a bit too close together, so even if I had a really tiny brush, I would've made a big mess.

As a first try at something new, I'm quite pleased with how it turned out!

Nail Art September Challenge - Day 13

And on with the challenge! Today the theme was 'school things'. I had to google the theme a bit to get ideas for my nails, since I had never painted with anything related to it. After some looking around, I planned mine, and I think they didn't turn out to bad for my first time doing this theme,

Also, I painted the designs with acrylic paint for the first time. I have seen some people I follow on Instagram doing tutorials that show they do it, and I finally gave in. Because really, painting small stuff on the nails with actual nail polish is a always a pain in the butt, and I'm glad I tried the acrylic paint (of which I have quite a bit).

So here they are.

My favorite nail is the one with the tip of the pencil, I had thought I didn't have a pink polish that was that color I was looking for the rubber at the end, but turns out, it actually is what I wanted!

One thing I don't like though, is that the blue for the paper lines is too light, and so you can't see it very clearly, especially because the red on the side is too strong compared to it.

Here are the nails on my right hand. I didn't quite finish them, because I didn't have time. But I did do the other end of the pencil, which I am quite pleased about.

Nail Art September Challenge - Day 10

I missed the mark by two days, but I had stuff to do. But no harm done, I did do my nails for day 10 of the challenge, for which the theme was chevron.

I've seen countless times chevron strips being used for this effect, and obviously that would be the easiest and quickest way to do my nails, but I have yet to buy some, because I've never seen them on sale, at least not physically, so until I do, I will most likely do this free hand.

So here is the result.

Nail Art September Challenge - Day 7

Day 7 of the challenge was for triangles.

I had (what I thought was) a totally awesome idea, with a nude background color on the nails, and with tape I was going to make little neon colored triangles. And well, in my head it looked super cool, but it ended up ruined. Thankfully I had only done it on my left hand. And from what it looked like, it was because of the nail polishes, which aren't even that old, but I think neon polishes just dry up in the bottle faster than more 'normal' colors, so there you go.

Here is that attempt, just so you can also picture how it could have been *sigh*

It fell through when I took the tape off.

Anyway, I then proceeded to remove the nail polish, repaint my nails, and then I decided to do something way simpler, still with the background nude color. And here it is:

Nail Art September Challenge - Day 4

To start off this blog, I will start posting my first manicure for the @californails September challenge on Instagram.
This is the challenge

This is the first challenge I'm participating in, and I hope I can do it until the end, though I see that some are a bit more difficult than the others.

The challenge was only posted after day one, so my first entry is for day 4. Here it is