Cute strawberry nail art

I haven't had much inspiration for my nails recently and I've mainly been doing plain colours with a glitter accent. This week I decided that I wanted to do a fancy design but had no idea what I wanted to do. So I took to youtube and tried to find some new people to follow and look for ideas. I came across a channel called JauntyJuli and I loved her videos! Her designs are amazing and she explains them really well. 

I was browsing her videos and spotted one called Dainty Strawberry Nail Art and I knew it had to be my next design. It was so cute and looked like a fairly simple design to ease me back into using my brushes.  I won't explain the technique as it's all in the video I linked. But the blue base I used is Ciate - Ferris wheel (Which I love) and I used Models Own Hypergel - White Light instead of the white acrylic paint. 

I love this design so much! While my brush work needs some work (I'm not used to using my acrylic paints yet) I've had lots of compliments on these nails and I really don't want to take them off!

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Chubby Owl Polish

I had a massive influx of new polish last month and I remembered yesterday that I hadn't swatched these yet. They are by a UK Indie Brand called Chubby Owl Polish and they're so pretty!

Chubby Owl is run by Gemma and she's from Oxfordshire, her website is here. I've had her bookmarked on my to buy list for a while and I finally got around to it! From what I've seen, most of her polishes are glitters (fine by me!), she also sells nail sets and even has an 'Adopt an owl' set of polishes where £2 from each sale goes towards adopting an owl. 

I spotted Dazzling Gleam and loved it so I bought it, I also got Lilac Lovin free as she had an offer on that weekend.

First up we have Dazzling Gleam. This came in a rectangular 10ml bottle and I have to say, as usual, I love it! To me it's a beautiful lavender/mauve crelly that's packed with silver and pink glitter. These pictures show three coats and there was no fishing for the glitters either! There were plenty in there, I just painted my nails as normal.

The second polish I got is called Lilac Lovin'. This is a very pale, almost white lilac colour that is full of black hex, pink square and small gold, pink and goodness knows what other glitters are in there. But it's so pretty! 

This is two coats. Again, there was no need to fish for glitters, even the big ones. There were plenty to go around!

I'll definitely be buying more of these at a later date. The bottles are cute and have a little owl sticker on the front. Her formulas are perfect. They're not too thin, but they aren't thick either and they give nice, even coverage. 

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Summer Skittles

Due to personal circumstances, I haven't been able to do any nail art recently, and I miss it. I tried a couple of different designs today and none of them worked and I started getting really annoyed. I left it a few hours, came back upstairs and this skittlette happened.

Colours used:

NYC - Blue Sky

Barry M - Blueberry

Barry M - Blue Grape

Barry M - Diamond Glitter

OPI - 4 In The Morning

I decided that I'd been neglecting my Barry M's so I fished a few out that would go with my idea.

I started with a base of OPI Nail Envy and Orly Bonder on all my nails except my little finger which has OPI Glitter Off. 

First of all, I sponged Barry M - Diamond Glitter on my little finger to add a little sparkle. 

While this was drying, I applied two coats of NYC - Blue sky to all my other nails. This is a really pretty mint green and is perfect for summer.

Once this was dry, I added one coat of Diamond Glitter to my middle finger and added a black stud from this set from Winstonia Store. I had to bend them a little bit to get them to fit my nails. 

Next, I used Blueberry and 4 In The Morning to do the Leopard print on my pointer finger.

Finally, I used Blue Sky, Blueberry and Blue Grape to create the gradient on my ring and thumb nails. If you're unsure on how to get a gradient effect, there a great tutorial here.

This was all topped off with two coats of Cult Nails Wicked Fast.

The Verdict? I love this mani and it's been ages since I've had something like this on my nails so it will be staying for a few days!

Thanks for reading!

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Zoya Chyna

I've been eyeing up all the beautiful Zoya Pixiedusts for a while, but the price has always put me off. I decided a few weeks ago to treat myself to one and I realised that I hadn't even swatched it yet.

I chose Chyna which is a beautiful dark red that's packed with glitter! If you don't top coat, then it has a lovely matte finish. I loved this shade and will definitely be buying more as they're textured, but not to the point where my nails start to catch on things.

Below is showing the matte finish, I apologise for the fluff on the macro shot, I didn't realise it was there until I uploaded the photo. 

Here is the same shade, but with two coats of HK girl to make it all shiny. Adding top coat makes the colour slightly lighter, but I still love it. 

I will definitely be buying more pixie dusts now that I've tried this one and I think this one will be worn a lot at Christmas!

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Gothic Gala Lacquers swatches

Hi Guys! Sorry for the absence again! I've had a lot going on but I'm determined to try and get myself into some kind of schedule with my blogging!

In April I put in my second order to Gothic Gala Lacquers and they arrived last week! They are so amazing and shiny and I love them! I may be buying more at some point!

I bought 4 bottles and three of them will be shown below.

First up we have Astrid. This is a beautiful, what I would call Royal blue colour with micro glitters in it. It shines all different colours if you catch it in the sun. Unfortunately, I only managed to get one picture because my camera wasn't playing nice. But I definitely love this colour and the formula was really nice too. 

Next up we have Lilac Dreams. As the name suggests, this is a lovely lilac colour again with micro glitter and I'm sure it has a slight pink sheen to it too. This polish is actually a matte finish, but I forgot to take a photo before I started playing with my new top coat (my bad). It's also a thermal and when cold it turns dark purple. But I couldn't capture that either as it's been really hot here today and my nails wouldn't stay cold for long enough.

I also bought a bottle of Holo-y Goodness. I've decided I love a good holo because they're so shiny! So I thought I'd try a holo top coat then I can turn all my polishes into holos! It's amazing.

These are taken with flash.

This one was taken in natural outdoor light, but you can still see the sparkle.

Back to flash

As you can probably guess, I love these colours. I do have one more, but I haven't used it yet so you'll have to wait for that swatch. But I will definitely be buying more of these!