NOTD - Voodoo Child

Hey there lovely readers!

Jumping from the sweet Spring vibes of the previous post right into some gothic goodness...that's how I roll ;) 

Its true that as much as I love my dark side muchly, the inner Disney pastel princess still manages to seep through often & I love both worlds ;) My last nail art look was suitably sweet so today we have some dark Voodoo action...

My inner witch is content :) I've wanted to do a fun witchy Voodoo symbol style nail art look for some time & I'm chuffed with how these came out!

This look was the perfect opportunity to use one of the Primark Limited Edition Dusk collection polishes I picked up a while back. Did I buy these purely for the badass (& obviously Louboutin inspired) bottle? Maybe. But they also happened to be gorgeously gothic duochromes so WIN WIN in my book. 

I applied two coats of the Primark shade Cosmic, a beautiful dark purple flakie duochrome to my pointer, ring & pinkie fingers. Wanting a bit of contrast to the design I decided to paint the remaining nails in A England A Midsummer Nights Dream, a truly beautiful pale pink lavender holo, a bit of light to the darkness as its all about balance right?

I then googled some Voodoo symbols that I could attempt to freehand & picking a few different ones I used a fine nail art brush & some silver polish for the dark nails & black polish for the light nails.

For that extra touch of magic I added a pretty rhinestone to the middle finger before finishing with topcoat. Nails ready to cast some spells! Thanks as always for reading lovelies! Till next time!

Lotsa love to ya!

NOTD - Jewel Butterfly Nails

Hey there lovely readers!

Wowee its been a minute & then some since I've last blogged. As usual life & everything in between has been pretty chaotic & not all of it great. But...thankfully the winds finally seem to be changing for the better & whilst a bit late...I'm totally ready to get this year started properly.

NOTD - Japanese Art Inspired Nails!

Hey there lovely readers!

I'm currently continuing on my creative journey if you will with looking for more challenging & interesting nail art looks. Following on from my previous post I'm finding myself drawn more to artwork these days as inspiration & I've always been intrigued by Japanese art with its serene blossoms & beauty.

NOTD - Opal Semi Precious Stone Nails

Hello there lovely readers!

I've been on a bit of a mission you may call it to try & recreate as many semi precious stones as I can in nail art form. I've always adored gemstones & being part witch of course I fully appreciate their healing & mystical properties! ;)

You can catch all my Semi Precious stone recreations HERE, including the likes of Jade, Rose Quartz & Marble. This time I wanted to attempt one of my favourites which is the milky magical Opal stone!

NOTD - Keeping Sharpie!

Hello there lovely readers!

One of my favourite places to go looking for a bit of nail inspiration is Instagram. I follow large number of extremely talented beauties who create magic on their nails & one such lady is the lovely Kate aka @altergo_nails, who creates the most fabulous nail art!

I'm always on the lookout for fun new ways to create nail art & as I've now entered the wonderful world of stamping it glaringly obvious I've only touched the surface.

Kate recently shared a stamping design in which she used Sharpie pens to create a stunning rainbow watercolor like effect, say what?! Needless to say I was intrigued & after watching her fab tutorial I hotfooted it down to my nearest stationary shop to pick me up some Sharpies!

NOTD - Magnetic Galaxy Nails

Hey there lovely readers!

As its Guy Fawkes aka Bonfire night this week I simply had to share this beautiful polish with you as I found it rather apt for the occasion don't you agree?

NOTD - Quick & Easy Shattered Glass Nails!

Hey there lovely readers!

In this busy day & age sometimes a quick mani fix is required when it comes to the nails, but that still doesn't mean you have to restrict yourself with nail art! 

I'm ALL for finding quick & easy nail art hacks to achieve pretty nails that look like they took a lot longer than the 5 minutes they actually did for those occasions when I am running short of time. This is where nail art stickers are an absolute GODSEND.

NOTD - Napping Unicorns!

Hey there lovely readers!

In today's hectic world its muchly important to get plenty of rest, even for mythical creatures.. If anything they require it more so on account of all the wish granting, rainbow farting & other strenuous fairytale activities. So today I have some magical unicorns getting some shut eye partaking in one of my favourite hobbies...napping!

NOTD - Aquamarine Semi Precious Stone Nails

Hi there lovely readers!

Often, when I am uncertain of what shade of polish to pick for my next manicure, because you know, there simply AREN'T enough colours in the world, I sometimes grab a couple of polishes & throwing caution to the winds, have a play around to see if I can make my own custom shade to suit my mood!

Sometimes, when the nail gods are on your side & you mix two shades together, a magical thing occurs & you find yourself with a stunning new shade which is why I really love doing this! Don't get me wrong though...there have been times when this method has been majorly UNSUCCESSFUL. 

Nail Stamping For Beginners - My First Foray In To The World Of Nail Art Stamping!

Hey there lovely readers!

Grab yourselves a cuppa dear ones as this is a bit of a one! As I'm sure is QUITE clear by now if you are a regular peruser of my blog & basically just by looking at my page...nail art is my passion. Nails, beauty, food & cats...pretty much in that order most of the time. But yus, nothing makes me happier than when I'm sat down at my work station (aka the dining room table) with all my nail art bits & bobs laid out in front of me ready to get to creating something fun on my nails. 

I mostly love experimenting & playing around when it comes to my nail art designs, some projects more successful than others! Let me tell you there is nothing more devastating for a nail artist than spending time on a design you had such high hopes for it to turn out an epic FAIL. However as much as I love getting arty with my brushes, I also like to delve further & try out different techniques. One such technique, which has been around for quite a time now is Nail Art Stamping & I'll confess...its one that has had me in palpitations at the thought of attempting.

NOTD - Sharp Galactic Nails!

Hello there lovely readers!

You may recall a while back I blogged about the stunningly pretty Chameleon flakies from Beauty Big Bangs that give a magical dragon skin finish to your nails when applied over polish. If not then go have a peek at its prettiness HERE.

Needless to say I became completely obsessed with the stuff & next created a Dragon Egg nail design using another shade of Chameleon Flakies, 4A, which were perfect for the finished look I wanted to achieve. I also did a step by step tutorial on this look as well which you can check out in detail HERE f you want to have a go at recreating yourself!.

NOTD - Happy New Year!

Hello there lovely readers!

Pinch, punch & all that Happy New Year jazz to you dear ones! 2018 is finally here & I'm super excited to see what it has in store. 2017 wasn't all that great if I'm honest, don't get me wrong there were many high points for which I am very thankful for, including finally visiting Thailand & Dubai, two places that have been on my list for a long time. But there were also a few lows too, losing my little sidekick Hoshi was a huge blow & whom I miss everyday but of course as you know we do have another dear little furbaby within our family circle in the form of Lunar who is such a character! I'm starting a new job this week which I'm very much looking forward to & I also want to travel more this year too! So bring it on 2018...I'm ready for you

Anyhoos lets get down to business, I couldn't very well see in the new year without some form of action on my nails now could I? 

Festive NOTD - Snowflakes plus Step by Step Tutorial

Hey there lovely readers!

If you caught my previous post HERE you'll recall the gorgeous polish I shared with you all, in all its chameleon chrome goodness, the super pretty Zealous by For Your Nails Only. 

As I was utterly obsessed with this polish & had no desire to remove it from my nails I decided to use it as a base for my next festive mani & I think it worked out really well! 

NOTD - Zealous by For Your Nails Only

Hello there lovely readers!

Ooooh but do I have a beautiful polish to share with you today, I've actually used this in my next festive nail art design, but I wanted to share some swatches with you first of Zealous all by its onesie as I feel it deserves it on account of being just...so...darn...PURDY!

NOTD - Warm Lace

Hello there lovely readers!

Today I have another nail art design I created for this months Instagram nail art challenge I always love to partake in, these are hosted by the fab Clairestelle8 FYI & are always so much fun to do! Every month there are weekly themes for us nail art addicts to create a design for. Come find me on @aysh_xox :) Anyhoo the theme next to come up for this month was Lace.

I wanted to freehand a white lace pattern onto a warm duochrome base as I really feel white pops so stunningly on duochrome's especially!

NOTD - Dragon Egg Nails plus Step by Step Tutorial!

Hello there lovely readers! 

Taking a wee reprieve from Halloween Nail Art for the moment (not for long though!) as I really wanted to share this mani with you! 

You may remember the stunning Chameleon Flakies I reviewed a few posts back from Beauty Big Bang? These little pots of wonderfully magical flakes transform an ordinary polish into a stunningly ethereal multichrome flakie finish. 

Each shade has a different colour shift effect, the J2443-3A flakies, when applied over a dark polish, gave a stunning purple to green colour shift, have a peek at my post HERE to see how pretty it is. Well naturally I was eager to see how the other shade I picked J2443-4A would fare so couldn't wait to give it a try & this time, keeping in with the dragon theme I decided to use it as the perfect base to create me some Dragon Egg Nails!

NOTD - Dragon Skin Nails with Beauty Big Bang Flakies

Hello there lovely readers!

I always love discovering new nail art supply stores & recently Beauty Big Bang came upon my radar thanks to one of my favourite nail artists on Instagram (@hanninator) She reviewed some utterly STUNNING flakies that I knew immediately upon seeing that I simply had to try!

Even though I adore ALL nail polish, there's just something about flakies that gives me palpatations & these sure did that! The Beauty Big Bang Chameleon Flakes come in wee pots of 0.2g in a range of colour/finishes, even though they all look similar in the pot, once applied over a dark polish they transform your nails into the most magical multichrome flakie finish that immediately brings dragon scales to my mind, isn't it just stunning?

NOTD - Chameleon Chrome Nails with Magical Unicorn Dust!

Hi there lovely readers!

Now I'm sure that you've all seen by now the chrome nail trend that looks like your rocking molten metal on the talons & is the current obsession in the nail world. Seeing these stunning mirror finish metallic sci fi nails on my Insta feed has me itching to get in on some of that shiny action!

My only dilemma  has been that the majority of chrome powders I've come across work with UV Gel polish only. I do own a UV lamp, but the idea of using gel polishes, for me & I'm sure others, is just a bit much, especially seeing as I chop & change my nails so often. Though for this there is also a solution, that being using a peel off basecoat...this way I could easily remove said gel polish after a few days if I wish. 

But for now, like Indiana Jones hunting for the Holy Grail, I've been searching for a chrome powder that works on regular polish & I've just ordered one which I think may be exactly what I've been hunting for....but until then I thought I'd share with you a lovely & very budget friendly alternative you can get to achieve a futuristic finish to you nails & is courtesy of Born Pretty Store.

NOTD - Dotted French Duochrome!

Hello there my lovely readers!

I do love me a french mani I do, but sometimes doing just a bog standard white tip bores me so I like to look for different ways to make things a bit more interesting.

And there's nothing I love more than a dotticure so...combining the two together I created this dotted French look that I am loving so much! Smile lines are so yesterday...now its all about the dotted French ladies!

And even better is that this is so easy to do, no stress about getting that perfect sharp smile line edge to your French tips. All you need is your white polish & a dotting tool. And if you don't have one a bobby pin will suffice. Who says you need special tools for nail art?

You can stick with the French mani look & go for a nude or pale pink base but I was in the mood for some colour so I dug out this stunning Polish Me Silly lacquer in the shade Show Off which is the most beautiful ethereal blue purple duochrome with pink & gold shimmers. This I applied two coats.

Then grabbing my white polish & dotting tool, simply applied a large white dot at the centre of my tip, before adding a slightly smaller dot either side & if you can fit it on to your nail, then two final smaller dots on either side of those, so altogether you have about 7 dots all across the tip.

I added on a pretty blue rhinestone to complete the mani before finishing with topcoat to seal and shine & thats it!

Easy peasy huh? And it looks so pretty! I have a feeling that standard French tips will be taking a back seat for quit some time. Thanks for reading as always.

Lotsa love to ya!

NOTD - Distressed Watercolour Chrome Nails

Hey there lovely readers! Oooh its been a wee while non? Work has been keeping one muchos busy of late, even with the occasional working weekend thrown in but its all going well so can't complain! :)

I'm all for discovering interesting nail art techniques to create funky manis with minimum effort. Today's manicure features one such technique called 'Distressed' nail art or the 'dry brush' technique that, if my memory serves me right, came about by the fab Sarah aka Chalkboard Nails. All that is involved is simply wiping off the excess polish on the brush, then applying quick strokes of polish across the nail to create the effect. This technique looks fab using black over neon however I wanted to try something a bit different so decided to use my Revlon Chrome Chameleon polishes to create this distressed watercolour effect... 

The Revlon Chrome Chameleon polishes were part of a limited edition collection a while back consisting of a range of pretty duo and multi chrome shades. I do love me a good chrome so you can imagine my delight when I found these babies in my fav little hunting ground, Poundland! I knew they all needed a good home therefore happily obliged in taking them with moi.

The shades I picked up were Cobalt, Aquamarine, Pink Quartz, Tanzanite, Amethyst & Topaz. Now whilst they look mighty pretty in the bottle, the formula of these chromes unfortunately wasn't all that great, quite sheer, therefore would definitely require a base colour underneath to bring out the chrome finish. So thought for this they'd be perfect to use with this technique & I loved the watercolour finish!

For my base, instead of Black, i decided to stick with the chrome theme & instead used a couple of coats of W7 Pewter, a sleek gunmetal grey metallic shade. 

I then grabbed one polish at a time & after wiping off the excess polish on the edge of each bottle, simply applied quick strokes across the nail with the almost dry brush, adding quick light washes of colour.

With each shade I applied about 3-4 strokes, some horizontally down the nail, others vertically. By the time you've gone round all ten nails with one shade, the first hand should be dry already ready for the next shade. And even if its not then no big deal as the whole point of this look is to mix & merge the tones!

I love this technique as you can have fun with the colours & directions of your brush stroke & just pile on shade after shade to create this fab effect with interesting results! I will definitely be giving this a try with black polish over a bright neon! Or maybe some fiery orange/red duochromes...

Hope you liked the mani darlings! Thanks as always for reading!

Lotsa love to ya!