Many of you have asked me which pen I use for my gel pen designs, I use this one, and here's a picture of the nib if you would like to try find a similar one:

To start of with, paint your nails your chosen colour (or colours if you're indecisive like me). The colours I used for this were:

Essie - Bikini So Teeny

OPI - Gargantuan Green Grape

Barry M - Strawberry

Barry M - Turquoise 

Rimmel - Lemon Drop

Next, draw teardrop shapes using the gel pen on all of your nails, spacing them out as best you can (I probably could have done with spacing them out a bit better!)

Once that's done, outline the tear drops with a lacey pattern. Remember not to push down too hard, just lightly 'brush' the pen over the nail and try to avoid splodging it. 

Then, draw mini tear drops inside the bigger ones

You can leave it like that if you want, but I like to add dots inside the tear drops and also in any available gaps. 

Once that is dry, try to wait as long as possible, add a top coat to seal in your design (otherwise it will wash off!), I used Seche Vite, and you're done!

I hope you like this design, it's definitely one you can try if you're starting off with nail art, I know it may look complicated but I promise it isnt, and it's something that you dont need fancy tools for, and a pen isn't as hard as a brush to control.

I've decided to enter this tutorial into Money Supermarket's 'Money Smart Nail Art' competition, because it seems to fit quite well into the theme of using 'household items'. 

Let me know what you think in the comments!

Alice

Hope you like it! Let me know what you think :)

Alice

I honestly have no clue how to work this so bear with me. I felt it was appropriate for this to be my first post because these are probably the most intricate nails I've done thus far.

 These are "Charro Days Fiesta" themed. I'm not too familiar with the festival or the traditions so I apologize if anything is incorrect. I did them for a contest on Instagram. I'm determined to win my first contest. Here's a picture of my index and middle finger.

These two are my favorite. I'm not very good at painting people but I'm happy with these. Lastly, here's a better picture of my thumb. I started with a gradient and used black acrylic paint on top.

I'm not sure how to end this, so yay! First blog post!

The base for these nails is Essie - Blanc, and the black is China Glaze - Liquid Leather, they were the only colours used except for a couple of touchups with acrylic paint, and I topped it all off with a coat of Seche Vite. 

I'm sorry there's only the one picture today, I barely had time to edit one and post this but I can assure you that I have some great posts coming up next week for you (one of which you may have seen a sneak peak of on my instagram)

If you like these nails, I've been selling a set of these in my (newly restocked) Etsy store on false nails for £7!

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

Hey everyone, today I've got some really lovely bows to show you. I know I promised a really exciting post yesterday but I didn't have time to edit them so these shall have to do. I received these from KKcentreHK to review and I absolutely love them. However, I was really struggling to think of any ideas for what to do with them, even though I've wanted bows for ages, so I just decided to do a simple design with a dotting tool, but I actually really like how this turned out. I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty more designs with these bows as they're definitely reusable. 

There's not really much to say about these as they're pretty self explanatory. I started with a base of Collection 2000 - Angel Wings, and then used China Glaze - Liquid Leather for the black dots, which I did with a dotting tool. Then I put a coat of Seche Vite on, and then a coat of Essie - Matte about You. Then I used nail glue to add the bows.

You can get these bows here for $4, and you get 2 in a pack. At first I did think that was a little bit pricey, but considering the amount of times you will be able to reuse them I think it's definitely worth it. You can also use my code 'ONTRTA' for 10% off :)

What do you think? Let me know in the comments!

Alice

I'm really excited to have been part of the launch of this magazine, and I cant wait to see what else is to come. I think we will be seeing a lot more of Nail It! 

You can stay up to date on their Facebook and Twitter

What do you think?

Tomorrow I have some more nail art to share with you which I'm pretty happy with, so I hope you will all like it too!

Alice

Hope you like them! Let me know what you think in the comments :) 

Alice

Hope you like them!

Alice

Hope you like it! I'd love to hear what you think.

Alice

Hey everyone, today's then and now post is a little different from previous posts as I actually have two examples of what these looked like 'then'. There's probably a years difference between all the posts so you can see how much I've improved each time (I also apparently was incapable of keeping my nails a similar length previously). As usual, the 'then' posts will be after the jump

Both times previously the blue was Barry M - Blueberry but it's unfortunately still missing, so I had to use Barry M - Turquoise instead this time around. Originally everything would have been done with a dotting tool and nail varnish, but this time I mainly used acrylic paint except for the base colour and leaves, and a small brush.  The white base colour is Essie - Blanc, and previously would have been Barry M - Matt White

As you can see I actually mattified the second mani, but for once when I mattified these nails they didn't look good (I feel betrayed) so I had to stick to a shiny finish. I actually remember taking the above picture, because I did it in the centre of town and my friends were yelling at me to hurry up, but that was in the days before I had a lightbox and I knew the light was about to run out (blogger problems), this time I had no such issues. 

What do you think? I actually think I prefer the centre of the roses from the second time around, and I'd have rather done it in Barry M - Blueberry, but otherwise I'm pretty please with how these came out. Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Alice

P.S. the giveaway winner was chosen on the 14th, but unfortunately did not reply in time, I'm now awaiting reply from the re-draw so please check your emails and spam to see if it's you!