#ColourMeMarch Pastel Gradient

Today, March 11th, is Ladies Day at the Cheltenham Racecourse and this year it's all about colour, dressing up and being a royal for a day. When I heard about the #ColourMeMarch campaign from Etail-Pr I know I had to join in. Traditionally the campaign looks at outfit ideas, what to wear to the races. I have to be honest, I'm not very good at putting outfits together... but I can do my nails!

I've created a super festive colourful spring look, that's classy and fun at the same time!

I wanted something bright that'll pop right off the nails, but at the same time I didn't want something that was too crazy, too complicated and something that would take away from whatever outfit I'd decide to wear.

Gradients are one of my all time favourite things to do. They're easy and always look so impressive! For this gradient I used the new Neon Pastels set from Shop Eighty4. This is an American 5 free hand crafted nail polish line. I fell in love with their nail polishes on Instagram and knew I had to have them. The set comes with 8 neon pastels which arrived just in time for ColourMeMarch!

I started off with a white base using Barry M Cotton. This is one of the best white polishes I've used. I actually only used one coat!

I then applied some Bye Felicia Latex Nail Tape from Shop Eighty4 to protect my skin and for easy clean up. I finally understand the hype about these things! They're incredible!

I then used a cheap cosmetic sponge and applied First Date (pink), Creamsicle (Orange), S.O.S. (yellow), Candy Mint (green, and Power Puff (blue). I slowly dabbed it onto the nail making sure every "coat" was dry before sponging on a new one.

I pulled off the Latex Nail Tape and had hardly any clean up left to do. Perfect!

I'm so happy with how they turned out. They're really simple yet festive and they're definitely very colourful!

What do you think of my #ColourMeMarch nail art for Ladies Day at the Cheltenham Racecourse? Would you have any outfit ideas that could go with these nails?

xx Elaine

Pastel Ombre & Stamping

Ombre/Gradients are probably my favourite style of nail art, it's so easy to do and always looks so beautiful, no matter what colours you use. For a while now I've been wanting to create a pastel gradient and here it is!

I used from the cuticle to the tip: Kester Black Bubblegum, Sambora Baby Wave, Canmake in purple, Models Own Strawberry Tart and Models Own Peach Melba. It smells amazing, and I love the way it turned out! The colours are so beautiful together.

Canmake is a brand of nail polishes that I bought while I was in Japan, the nail polishes are very cheap, around 300 Yen, which at the time was about $3 (AU) and that converted to about £1.70 at the time. They're great quality and are opaque in 2-3 coats.

Like I mentioned before, I thing gradients are super easy to do, all you need is a cosmetic sponge and your nail polish! I start off with a white base.. OPI Alpine Snow. I use super cheap primark sponges, I think it's £1.50 for 20 sponges? I find these work much better than the more expensive ones from Boots of Superdrug.

I then draw a thin line of each colour onto the sponge, I don't use a lot of nail polish. It looks better when you apply a small amount and use 3 "coats" rather than overflowing the sponge with polish and applying 1 "coat". The more "coats" you apply the more intense the colour becomes, I usually only apply 2 as I like the pale pastel look.

I dab the colours onto my nail moving up and down slightly to mix the colours.  And when I'm happy with the intensity of the colours, I just need to do a lot of clean up.... The photo to the left is just a quick snap from my phone.

After creating the gradient I really wanted to try out my new stamping plate, the Cheeky Jumbo Plate 9 Wild At Heart. I'm pretty miserable at stamping, but with the help of some of my Instagram friends I managed to get 2 of the 4 images almost perfect!

This is probably the cutest stamping plate in the whole world. It has two sections, small animal stamps at the top, and large full nail stamps which I haven't quite mastered yet!

Do you own any of the Cheeky Plates?
xx Elaine