Glitter Tips Gleeq Week - Day 4

Today is Day 4 of 'Gleeq Week' and I went for circles.

I started with two coats of Nails Inc Tudor Way then placed a silver Glequin in the center of each nail to work round for the circles. Originally I just did the ring of light blue and dark blue and top coated, then I decided it needed more silver so added the extra ring which I'm really glad about as it really finished it off.

You can purchase Glequins from Born Pretty Store HERE for $6.45 with free delivery. You can get 10% of your order using the code QPL91 which will also be in my side bar!

I hope you have been enjoying 'Gleeq Week' and come back tomorrow for the last day!

♥ A ♥

Glitter Tips Gleeq Week - Day 3

For Day 3 of Gleeq Week I thought I'd show you one of the first designs I did using Glequins.

I decided on a diamond pattern and picked Avon Vintage Blue as the base colour. Then I picked the light green and blue coloured Glequins for the diamond pattern.

It's not as neat as the previous two designs from days One and Two, but I really liked the colours and the pattern so I still wanted to show them.

I really enjoyed wearing these, after a while the diamonds started to look like little fish to me!

You can purchase the Glequins from the Born Pretty Store HERE for $6.45 with free delivery and you can get 10% off your order using the code QPL91 which is also in my side bar.

I hope you liked these as much as I did and come back tomorrow for Day 4 of 'Gleeq Week'!

♥ A ♥

Glitter Tips Gleeq Week - Day 2 Glequin Gradient

It's Day 2 of 'Gleeq week' and today I have a Glequin Gradient to show you.

If you missed yesterdays Glequin mani and my review of the Born Pretty Store Glequins you can see that HERE.

This was so tricky to photograph!

Hopefully you can get the idea from the pictures though.

I've used two coats of Barry M Matt White as a base and positioned the Glequin gradient across the middle of the nails. I also tried to give the effect of it fading out to the top and bottom of the nails too if that makes any sense at all!?

Starting from the thumb the colours are Red to Orange, Pale Pink to Pale Lilac, Dark Blue to Turquoise, Dark Green to Lime Green, Pale Green/Gold to Silver.

You can purchase the Glequins from the Born Pretty Store HERE for $6.45 with free delivery and you can get 10% off using the code QPL91 which is also in my side bar!

I hope you have enjoyed Day 2 of 'Gleeq Week' and see you tomorrow for Day 3!

♥ A ♥

Glitter Tips Gleeq Week - Born Pretty Store 'Glequins'

As I mentioned in yesterdays post this week is 'Gleeq Week' on Glitter Tips.

I was kindly sent a 12 pack of 'Glequins' from Born Pretty Store to review and I had so much fun using them I thought I'd make a week long series of posts.

For those of you who don't know what 'Glequins' are I will explain the best I can.
They are hexagonal pieces of glitter that come in many different. They were dubbed 'Glequins' by Sammy at The Nailasaurus as she felt they were to large to be called glitter but too small to be called sequins, so using both the words 'glitter' and 'sequin' she coined the term 'Glequin'. And it stuck!

I find the best method of applying these fiddly little things is to first apply your base colour and wait for that to dry. Then apply a coat of normal, not fast dry, topcoat or clear polish and use the end of an orange stick dipped in topcoat/clear polish to pick up the 'Glelquins' and gently place onto the wet/tacky nail. I then finish with another coat of the normal topcoat and a coat of my Seche Vite Fast Dry top coat, mainly because my nails don't feel finished without it now, but also because it leaves the surface nice and smooth for extra sparkle. And boy do these sparkle!

My first 'Glequin' look is after the jump!

A Little Update...

I disappeared again!

Sorry about that.

Yet again it was due to internet problems. Never get Virgin Media. Ever.

It seems to have resolved itself for the time being but not in time for me to have any chance of catching up with the New 31 Day Nail Challenge unfortunately. Hopefully I'll be able to give it a go again next time it comes round.

However, during my mini blogging break I had a chance to think about ways I can make my blog content a little more structured and varied. I quite often find myself stuck for inspiration so I think a bit of structure might help that a bit and enable me to provide you all with a bit more variation and more regular posts without straying too far from what I've always wanted my blog to be primarily about, nail art.

So here is what I'm aiming for-

Monday, Wednesday and Friday - Nail art posts.

Tuesdays - Tutorials/Swatches/Reviews etc.

Thursdays - My favourite post from another blogger that week/An interview with another nail blogger. This is all dependent on how much interest I get. Picking a favourite blog post each week will be fine but if you have a nail blog and are interested in having an interview on Glitter Tips then email me at glittertips22(at)gmail(dot)com.

Saturday and Sunday - I want to keep the weekends quite casual, my weekends are usually quite busy with the kids, friends, family and naps, so I may not always have a post for these days but if I have anything extra to post like hauls or updates then these will be on the weekend.

That's my aim, hopefully it will work but I'll see how it goes and give things a tweek as I go along if needs be!

This week however, will be 'Gleeq Week' on Glitter Tips.

I was sent some Born Pretty Store 'glequins' to review and decided to dedicate a week to them!

Anywho, that's all the news I have for you so I shall leave you with a few recent photos of my little pugger, Rolo.

♥ A ♥

The New 31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 11 - Splatter

We are on Day 11 of the challenge and today's theme was Splatter!

I have never tried splatter nails before so this was completely new to me. I knew the basic method so just grabbed my weapons of choice and got to work.

I started with two coats of Barry M Matt White as a base. Then I randomly added blobs of Barry M Shocking Pink, Pure Turquoise, Mint Green and Berry Ice Cream to a sponge and sponged it onto the nail to create a random gradient type background.

Then I took my drinking straw and used Barry M Black and Matt White for the splatter effect.

I have to say I honestly thought I was going to get myself into a complete mess with this but I'm really happy with how it turned out and I managed to keep the mess to a minimum too so that was a bonus!

Tomorrow is Tape Mani day, which I always get into a mess with!

♥ A ♥

The New 31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 10 - Geometric

You might have seen today's nail art somewhere else before.

And it was more than likely here on Copy That, Copy Cat blog.

Copy That, Copy Cat was one of the first nail art blogs I came across when I first started getting into nail art. It is an absolutely amazing blog full of gorgeous swatches and designs, I could sit and read it all day, in fact I think I did the first time I came across it!

Anyway, when the 3D Cube design was first posted I instantly loved it and thought firstly 'How is that even possible?!' and then 'one day I will be confident enough to attempt to recreate that'.

Apparently today was that day!

They are a bit wobbly in places but I love them. I think I might cry when I have to take these off tomorrow!

The polishes I used to recreate this look are two coats of Barry M Matt White as the base, Barry M Black for the patterns outline and Barry M Pure Turquoise, Shocking Pink and Yellow for filling in.

Tomorrows challenge is Splatter, another technique I have never tried before!

Don't forget to take a look at what the others have come up with today!

♥ A ♥

The New 31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 9 - Saran Wrap

I have never done saran wrap/cling film nails before so today was my first try.

I have to say I'm not a fan. Don't get me wrong I have seen some gorgeous photos of Saran Wrap manis before, but I tried several colour combinations today and could not come up with anything I liked! 

So I'm begrudgingly showing the one that I liked the best, or disliked the least.

I decided to use two colours from the China Glaze Cirque Du Soleil Worlds Away collection, of which I was lucky enough to be bought all twelve by MrGT for my birthday last month!

The two I chose are Running In Circles and Def Defying.

I used two coats of Running In Circles then when that had dried I applied a coat of Def Defying and blotted it with the saran wrap/cling film then finished with a coat of Seche Vite.

I do love these two polishes, and I have to admit this look is growing on me the more I look at them so maybe by this evening I will love them?

Who knows!

Tomorrows challenge theme is Geometric!

♥ A ♥

The New 31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 8 - Duochrome, Flakie or Holo

Today is Day 8 of the challenge and we had the choice of Duochrome, Flakie or Holo.

I chose Duochrome as I only have one holo and one one flakie. This is simply not good enough, I will be remedying that ASAP.

On to the nails.

When I walked the Mini Tips to school this morning the weather was beautiful with a lovely blue sky, but by the time it came to taking these photographs it was back to dull grey clouds. Not the most ideal conditions for photographing duochrome nail polish but I did what I could.

Roll on Summer!

For this design I started with two coats of Barry M Black on the pinky and index fingers, and one coat of Barry M Matt White on the rest. Then over the white I used two coats of OPI Skull & Glossbones.

Next I decided to use three of Rimmel Londons Metal Rush polishes (Review and Swatches here) in Purple Reign, Royal Blue and Gold Save The Queen for a gradient on the pinky and ring fingers and leopard spots on the other three then used Barry M Black to finish of the leopard print.

I love these so much I really don't want to take them off tomorrow!

Tomorrows challenge is Saran Wrap which I have never tried before!

Can't wait to see how that turns out, and don't forget to take a look at what the other ladies taking part have been coming up with!

♥ A ♥

The New 31 Day Nail Challenge - Day 7 - Ombre or Skittle

So we are one week into The New 31 Day Nail Challenge and today is Ombre or Skittle day.

Ombre wasn't appealing to me today so Skittle it was.

I have used this colour combination before in the Makeup Savvy challenge and I like it so much I decided to use it again but with a Cloud Mani as that's something I hadn't done before!

The polishes used are -

Thumb - Barry M Blue Moon, Pure Turquoise and Blue Glitter.

Index - Barry M Strawberry Ice Cream, Shocking Pink and Models Own Magenta Divine.

Middle - Barry M Mint Green, Spring Green and Green Glitter.

Ring - Barry M Berry Ice Cream, Boots LE Purple, and Magenta Glitter.

Pinky - Barry M Lemon Ice Cream, Yellow and Gold Glitter.

Tomorrows theme is Duochrome, Flakie or Holo!

Can't wait!

♥ A ♥