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

Nail Art Challenge June - Cath Kidston

I recently heard about a competition by Fragrance Direct to become the face ob Fragrance Direct. It sounds amazing and all you have to do is create a tutorial on your favourite look, does nail art count too? I'm not sure but it's worth a try. If you're interested the competition is open to all bloggers, for full T&C go to http://www.fragrancedirect.co.uk/page/competition

I decided to take part in two nail art challenges on Instagram this month. The first my @californails called #nailartjun and the second by @glamourouspumps and @nailsby_redkoletz called #nailartchallengejune. Next up for the second challenge is Cath Kidston nails. I love Cath Kidston nails, they're always super girly and pretty and aren't too difficult.

I started off with painting my index and ring finger while using Alpine Snow by OPI. I painted my middle finger and pinky blue using Sambora in Baby Blue. This is a brand I bought in a Roxy shop in Surfers Paradise. I actually only used one very careful coat of Alpine snow, this is probably the most amazing white I've ever had. There is a slight streakiness but since I'm covering most of it up anyway, I didn't need to add another coat. I used two coats of Baby Blue, I'm in love with this brand, the formula is so easy to work with and it's so opaque!

I used my dotting tool to apply some white dots to the blue polish and when the white was fully dry I added striping tape to my index and ring finger and applied one coat of the blue polish. Be very careful when pulling the striping tape off because it might take some of the paint with it. Also try and take the striping take off as quickly after applying the nail polish as you can because if it dries it might also pull the nail polish off. I love the way it looks at this stage and was worried about adding the roses!

I then used Barry M Pink Punch and a large dotting tool to apply the roses. I scattered them around my nails so that each nail would be different. I used OPI Pink Friday and a toothpick (My nail art tools hadn't arrived yet!) to add some detail to the roses. It isn't perfect but I don't think it needs to be.

Finally I used the toothpick and Essie's Navigate Her to add some leaves.

I'm really happy with how it turned out. I wasn't too happy with it when I just added the roses, but I think the leaves made a huge change! I always use Navigate Her by Essie for leaves for any floral nail art I do because it's a beautiful muted green that won't pull the attention away from the flowers, but will make them look much better.