Recent Nails

In honour of Valentine's (I hate the holiday but I couldn't help myself) 

Candy Stripes. 

pink and purple bows

I did base coats of different shades and then did the classic bows designs using my pen tools.

To break it up, I did some stripes on my ring finger,

Mono

Since one of this seasons trends is monochrome, I thought I would give some black and white patterns a go to match the theme and this is how they came out. 

I started with a white base on each (except middle) and drew on each pattern with a pen tool. 

Hope you like them!

Tribal Print

I booked a holiday to indonesia yesterday for August and I'm so excited!

I did some tribal inspired nails for the occasion as they are quite summery and its a worldly design. 

I just used a base colour and my pens to do different designs using pinterest and the new topshop collection (below) for a bit of inspo. 

The designs are quite busy, and I think in this case less would be more, but you don't know until you try! 

Another Mash Up

I dont usually stick to one design on my nails, I like to test which ones I like, which ends up with loads of different ones. 

So using my nude Topshop colour (which I'm obsessed with) some black Barry M and white, I did a sort of geometric triangle, stripes, half leopard print, geometric stripes, and a bow. 

I always think the leopard comes out nice and I love the triangular patterns. 

I can just never decide on one!

curse of being a libra.. 

Christmas No.2 - Candy canes, snowmen and Glitter

Here is my second design for my Christmas themed nails! There will probably be a lot of these! I used a white base and shimmery red striper to create the candy cane stripes.
I then painted pale blue with white blobs for the snow man using my dotting tool. I have him some arms, buttons and a hat with my black striper.
My ring finger is my favourite, red shimmer with gold Barry M glitter, I might do a whole hand in this!
So it's a bit of a mixture today to test out the designs, but stay with me for more of these cute Christmas designs!

Stripey Stripes

I've been practising my stripes using my stripers and here are a few designs I've come up with! 

Geometric patterns and shades of pink with white verticals. 

WAH Nails Nail Art Book Inspo

Some friends gave me 'The WAH Nail Book of Nail Art' (available from River Island) for my birthday which is an ideal gift!

The book has so many ideas and inspiration in it.

I couldn't decide on one design so I tried a few and I love how it turned out as a mixture.

I did all of them using a base coat and my black and white striper and pen tools.

I love the bow, although hard to do left handed! And the flowers, they are different from my usual ones so I love how they turned out! 

Can't wait to try out more designs from WAH nails. 

Cath Kidston inspired nails

I did these by applying a base coat, adding a straight white line in the middle, dotting white along the line, and then adding flowers. They are done by randomly dotting large dark pink, and lighter smaller pink dots on top. Add some little leaves with a brush and enjoy your cath kidston style nails!

Zig Zags and Stripe Brights

Here is the first post on the New Stray Nails blog!

I'm gonna show you how to create the nails that are in my title photo (this will probably change in future so forgive me if its not that same). 

I watch a lot of video tutorials on how to create cool nails and one user that I'm subscribed to is Cute Polish, her videos are always helpful, simple and really effect. You can look at the video I used to do this design here.

First paint your nails with a base coat and the colour that you wish to use under your stripes. I went for bright colours and I mixed the ring finger with the colour from the opposite hand.

Then take some cello tape, preferably scotch tape so its not shiny. Paint the colours you want to use for the stripes on this.

I did two coats to make it more opaque.

Then once this has dried, cut thin strips of each colour. 

If you want to do zig zags, you'll need pinking sheers to create the effect.

Then neatly place the strips onto your already colourful nails and taa-daa!

Make sure you put on a top coat to make the polish last.

I hope you like it!