Catch up...

Ok, i know i haven't posted for ages and I don't really have an excuse but i will try and post more frequently again now!! So i have done quite a few manis since I last posted on here so i will try and post most of them. Here is the colourful zebra mani that I did for z in the alphabet challenge. I was inspired by quite a few designs from google, pinterest and various places. I chose to use quite bright colours and a nude background. These were quite easy and straightforward to do. What do you think?

Ellena x

X lined nails

For the letter X i had no idea what design to do so in the end I decided to just create an X shape on my nails. This is my first ombre so I think it actually turned out ok. I really like the colours I used. What do you think??

Ellena x

U for Union Jack

Hey everyone! I am sorry that it has been so long since i have posted! From now on instead of telling you how i did my nails i am just going to show you the steps.  For the letter U i thought i would do union jack nails. I was fairly pleased with how they turned out?? What do you think??

Please comment your thoughts

Ellena x

By the way esmithy88 was my instagram account name that's why it says that on my watermark.

S for Sugar skull

Hey Everyone! There were quite a few things that i could think of to do for the letter S but i decided on doing sugar skulls. This design was inspired by Cutepolish. These were really simple and easy to do! To begin with i painted all my nails with two coats of flashmob white lightning. I got this polish for my birthday and i really like it, it is really opaque. Once all of my nails were dry, i used a black rio nail pen to create two large dots at the top of my nail for eyes. I then made a nose by creating an upside down heart in the centre of my nail for the nose. After this i made a straight black line near the edge of my nail for the mouth and created five vertical rectangles around the line for the teeth. I then used a toothpick and four different nail polish colours-an unnamed orange polish; rimmel lasting finish pro, wild orchid; collection 2000 work the colour, baby blue and a fuchsia primark polish to create small dots all the way around both eyes. I finished all my nails off with a topcoat. This design was really simple and easy to do!

I hope you like them. Please comment below!

Ellena x

R for rabbits

Hey everyone! For the letter R I wasn't really sure what to do! The only thing i could think of was rabbits so that is what i did. I didnt want to do all rabbits on my nails because i have already done that before so i tried to think of something a bit different. In the end i decided on doing a girl and a boy rabbit on my middle and ring finger, and flowers on the rest of my nails. Anyway, to begin with i painted all my nails with two coats of george-cloudless sky. Once this was dry i used technic pretty pastels bubblegum and an fuschia primark polish with a medium dotting tool to create flowers over most of my nail-leaving a small space near the cuticle of my nail. Once this was dry i put a small dot of the other colour in the centre of the flower. I then used a mint green accessorize polish to fill in the gaps with leaf shapes. For my middle finger nail i used collection 2000 white out to create an arch shape near the edge of my nail for the head and a dotting tool to create two long ear shapes from the head. I then used technic pretty pastels bubblegum to fill in the ears, leaving a small white gap around the edge and create a small dot for the nose at the edge of my nail. I then used a rio black nail art pen to draw in eyes and a mouth. I repeated the same steps for the outline of the bunny on my ring finger but using the opposite colours (pink for the bunny's face and ears and white for the middle of the ears). I then used a black rio nail pen to create two thin arch shapes on the bunny's face for the closed eyes. After this i used a bright pink accessorize to create a small triangle for the nose and a small flower next to the bunny's ear. Finally, i used a small dotting tool and a white polish to fill in the centre of the flower. I finished off all my nails with a topcoat.

What do you think?

Please comment!

Ellena x

Birthday Nails

Hey Everyone! First of all sorry that i haven't posted in so long! Secondly, I am sorry this is not a alphabet nail art challenge post but as it was my birthday on sunday, i wanted to do birthday themed nail art! So anyway i will continue with the alphabet nail art challenge after this post but for now i wanted to show you these birthday nails. I wasn't sure on what exactly i wanted to do so i just kind of mixed and matched some ideas i had. To begin with i painted all my nails with two coats of technic seashell. Once they had dried, i began with my little finger nail-candles. I then used a rio nail art pen to paint two pink stripes and one purple stripe vertically across my nail-for the candlesticks-leaving a small space near my cuticle. For the flame of the candle i used an orange rio nail art pen to create a small teardrop shape at the top of each candlestick. I then moved onto my ring finger-cupcake. To begin with i used miss sporty clubbing colours baby pink to create a thick stripe at the edge of my nail. I then used a bright pink rio nail striper to create thin vertical lines across the pale pink section of my nail. After this i used a rio white nail pen to create the icing on the cupcake by doing a dome shape on top of the cupcake case. I finished this nail with a small red dot for the cherry on the top, using a dotting tool and an unnamed red polish. On my middle finger and my pointer finger i created bunting-I won't explain how i did this because i've already done this in my B for bunting. Finally i did my thumbnail-balloon. I used collection 2000 work the colour in the pink to create a balloon shape at the edge of my nail- an arch with a small triangle- and then i used a white rio nail pen to outline the balloon and a black striper to make a string. I finished off this design with rimmel rock your colour glitter top coat. What do you think?? Ellena x

Q for Quilt

Hey everyone! For the letter Q i really didn't know what to do! The only thing i could think of to was quilting but i wasn't sure about doing this design on my nails. Instead i thought i would try and do patchwork quilt style nails. Although most of the designs i've seen were split into four parts but i thought this might be a bit tricky for me to do so i decided just to stick with two. I knew I wanted to do roses on one side but i wasnt sure what to do on the other side so in the end i just did polka dots. Anyway, to begin with i painted my nails with two coats of rimmel lasting finish pro wild orchid. I know i use this polish a lot but i just love the colour and it's so opaque and easy to apply- I would definitely recommend this polish because i love it! To do the roses i used a dark pink rio nail pen to create small, rough circular shapes (these will eventually turn into roses)  across the left side of each nail. I then used a pale pink accessorize nail pen to create random shapes inside each dark pink circle. To finish off the roses i used a mint green accessorize nail pen to create small leaf shapes on either side of each rose. I then used the brush end of this colour to paint the right side of my nail. Once this was dry i used a darker teal accessorize nail pen to do small dots all over the mint green section of my nails. Finally, i used a white rio nail striper to create small crosses along the join of the mint green section and the lilac section on each nail. I finished this design off with a topcoat. This was really quick and easy to do. I hope you like it. Please comment below what you think!

Ellena x

O for Owls

Hey Everyone! For the letter O i instantly knew what design i wanted to do as I love owls. I have done a similar owl design before but only on one nail and in different colours (fuschia and gold). I decided to do this design in pale pink and blue and alter it slightly from my previous design by doing hearts for feathers  and owls on all of my nails apart from my little fingernail which i just did hearts on. Anyway, to begin with I used collection 2000 baby blue to create the owl's body on each nail. I did this by painting an arch shape that covered most of my nail apart from a small gap near the cuticle. For the ears i used the same polish and a medium dotting tool to create two small triangle shapes at the top of the owl's body. For the eyes I used a white polish and a large dotting tool to create two large dots just below the ears, then I used a smaller dotting tool and a black polish to add pupils to the centre of the eyes. For the wings and feathers i used a pale pink nail art pen from accessorize. I made the wings by creating two curved shapes at either side of the owl's body. I then created three small hearts in a triangle formation in the middle of the owl's body for his feathers, I also made hearts all over my little fingernail, once i had painted it with two coats of the blue polish. Finally, i used a rio silver nail art pen to create a small triangular shape, in between the eyes, for the beak. I finished the design with a topcoat.

N for notebook

Hey everyone! For the letter N i thought i would do lined notebook paper on my nails. As i went back to school today i thought that this would tie in nicely. However, i thought that plain lined paper on my nails might be a bit boring so i decided to mix them up a bit by adding doodles onto the paper design and doing some of my nails as the eraser end of a  pencil. They were quite easy to do and i'm fairly pleased with how they turned out. To begin with i painted my ring finger and my pointer finger with three coats of miss sporty clubbing colours, popcorn. I then painted my little finger, middle finger and thumbnail with three coats of white- I used collection 2000 mardi gras, white out. Once all my nails were dry i used a light blue rio nail striper to create thin horizontal lines across all of the white nails. After this, i used a bright pink rio nail striper to create a horizontal line near the edge of each white nail. I finished off the notebook paper nails with different doodles using a black rio nail pen: for my thumb i created a smiley face and a kiss (X); for my middle finger a small heart and for my little finger i wrote LOL on one of the lines. For the pencil nails, i used an orange rio nail striper to create thin vertical lines across all my yellow nails. I then used miss sporty clubbing colours baby pink to create a stripe at the end of each yellow nail, about two thirds of the way up each nail. Once they were dry i used rimmel 60 seconds, precious metal to create a thin silver line over the join between the pink and the yellow. I finished each nail design with a topcoat.

k for kitten

Hey everyone! For the letter K the only thing i could think of to do on my nails was kittens so that's what i did! I didn't want to do a kitten on every nail and have seen a lot of nail designs combining spots and a cat face so i decided to paint the rest of my nails with polka dots. To begin with, i painted my ring finger with a clear base coat and the rest of my nails with 3 coats of an unnamed coral polish from a boots gift set. Once my nails were dried i used a dotting tool and collection mardi gras white out to create diagonal rows of polka dots across all my nails apart from my ring finger. I then used the same white polish to make an arch shape on my ring finger nail  for the cats head and two small triangles at the top of it for ears. Once this was all dry i used an accessorize neon pink nail pen to fill in the ears. I used a black rio nail pen to create two small dots below the ears for eyes and a triangle in the middle for a nose. I then used the striper to create the cat's mouth and whiskers. I finished it off with a top coat.

Ellena x

J for Japanese cherry blossoms

Hey Everyone! I really couldn't think of anything i wanted to do on my nails beginning with the letter J. So i apologise for this nail design not really fitting under the letter J but hey-ho! I wasn't really sure of how to do a Japanese cherry blossom design on my nails so i kind of just made it up as i went along. They were really easy to do! To begin with I painted all my nails two shades of Technic seashell. Once it dried, on all of my nails except my middle finger i used a black rio nail striper to create strokes from one side of my nail to create a tree shape. I then used a bright pink nail pen to create small flower shapes along the branches and a few larger flowers at the edge of the branches. After this i used a black nail art pen to create a small dot in the centre of each flower. On my middle finger i created a few different sized flowers randomly placed across my nail. I then used a white nail pen to make a few small spots in the spaces around the flowers. I finished the design off with a top coat.

I for Ikat

Hey everyone! I'm sorry it's been so long since i've posted i just haven't seemed to get around to it. For the letter I i thought a few designs that i could do on my nails but as recently i've seen lots of ikat nails and haven't had a go at them myself i decided to do ikat nails. They were really easy to do, especially as they don't need to be particularly neat or uniformed. To begin with, i painted all my nails two coats of collection 2000 work the colour-baby blue nail polish. Once all my nails were dry, i used a white rio nail pen to create a rough triangular shape from the tip of each nail and another one from the base of each nail. After this had dried i used a neon pink nail pen from accessorize to draw a smaller pink triangle inside each white one. Then i used a black rio nail striper to roughly outline each triangle using a series of tiny lines and create a small random shape in the middle of each triangle. I finished the design with a top coat.

G for Galaxy

Hey everyone! For the letter G, as i couldn't think of much else to do and because i haven't done them before, i really wanted to use it as an opportunity to do galaxy nails. These are a little different than some of the galaxy nails i've seen before but i still used the same idea and technique of sponging different coloured polishes on my nails. I painted all my nails two coats of an unnamed black polish. Then i used a claire's dark purple glitter polish and a piece of makeup sponge to create an arch on all my nails. I then used rimmel cocktail colour "apple berry smoothie"; miss sporty clubbing colours "popcorn"; technic pretty pastels "looby lou"; an unnamed dark pink and collection mardi gras "white out" to sponge onto all my nails randomly. Afterwards, i painted all my nails with an unnamed silver glitter polish and miss sporty sparkle touch nail varnish. Finally, i finished the design with a top coat.

E for Elephant

Hey Everyone! I really couldn't think of anything at all for the letter E apart from elephants so, today's nails are elephants. I painted all my nails two coats of a George (asda) polish in the shade cloudless sky to begin with, which was surprisingly opaque. I then used a rimmel 60 seconds nail varnish in the shade precious metal with a nail art brush to shape a curved arch for the elephant's head and a curved line for it's trunk. I waited until this was dry before using a pale pink rio nail pen to fill in the ear. Afterwards, i used a black rio nail art pento create a curved line for the elephant's mouth and a dot for it's eye. I finished it off with a top coat.

D for Dots

Hey  Everyone! I decided to stick with the obvious one for this letter and do dots as i thought they would be nice and easy to do. However, i wanted to do something a little bit different so decided to do half and half dot in alternate colours. To begin with i painted my nails with two coats of collection 2000 work the colour, raspberry pink nail polish. Once all your nails are dry paint them with one coat of a fast drying top coat. After this i placed sellotape diagonally across each nail, making sure it was firmly pressed down. I then painted each nail with collection 2000 work the colour baby blue over the part of my nails which weren't covered in sellotape but it doesn't matter if you go onto the sellotape because the next step is to peel it off. Once i carefully peeled off the sellotape, i was left with my nail split diagonally into a bright pink section and a pale blue section. Afterwards, i simply took a medium sized dotting tool with the bright pink polish and painted evenly spaced dots on the blue side of my nails. I then repeated this step but using the blue polish on the pink part of my nails. I finished with a top coat.

C for cupcakes

Hey everyone! After much deliberation, i decided to do cupcakes on my nails for the letter C because i thought they would look pretty but be fairly easy to do. However, they didn't turn how quite how I wanted them to and I'm not that happy with the way they look but i do think they still resemble cupcakes so i decided to post them anyway. I used a new nail polish from bodycare for the base of all my nails, it's a technic nail varnish called seashell, it's a kind of metallic pale pink/lilac and i really like it. I then used a revlon nail polish in the shade sweet tart to paint roughly a third of the way up all my nails. After that had dried, i used maybelline fuchsia and a thin brush to paint stripes vertical on the pink part of my nails. I then used a white rio nail pen to paint a curved line at the top of my nail and filled it in, slightly overlapping the pink part of my nail and creating drips to look like icing. To finish it off, i used a dotting tool with technic's flamingo to create a small heart on the top of each nail. I finished it off with a top coat. By the way, on my thumb i did dots for "sprinkles" but didn't really like them so i decided to leave them off the rest of my nails.

B for Bunting

Hey everyone! I'm sorry it's been so long since i've posted but i will try and keep posting fairly regularly from now. Today's nails are bunting inspired. I wasn't sure what to do for B because there are so many possibilities but i decided on these. I know they're a bit simple but i think the colours look pretty together. Anyway, i painted all my nails two coats of rimmel lasting finish pro in the shade wild orchid. By the way, this nail polish is great, it lasts for ages and gives a really smooth, opaque finish so i would definitely recommend it. Then i took a white nail striper and painted a curved diagonal line across all of my nails. I then took a white rio nail art pen and drew medium sized triangles along one side of the curved line on all of my nails.Afterwards, i used a bright pink rio nail art pen to fill in all of the triangles but leaving a white border around the edge of each triangle. My triangles are a bit wobbly but i'm sure you could do better ones. Finally, finish off with a top coat.

Alphabet nail challenge

Hey everyone! I just wanted to say that soon i will be starting an alphabet nail challenge. If you don't know what that is, it's basically just where you have to go through the alphabet and for each letter then you have to do a nail design beginning with that letter. For example, for A you could do anchor themed nails. I will not do them everyday or every week or anything i will just do them when i feel like it but i will do them in order. 

Owl and polka dot nails

Hey Everyone! Today's nails are some really simple and easy to do polka dots and owls. I wasn't sure how to do my nails but seeing as i love owls and have been wanting to do them for some time i decided to match them with some contrasting polka dots. I used pink and bronze for my nails but you could use any colours you want. To begin with i painted all my fingers apart from my index finger two coats of collection work the colour nail polish in the shade- raspberry pink because i just love this colour and seem to be using it all the time even though i only recently brought it. Then I painted my index finger two coats of Rimmel lasting finish pro nail varnish, bare naked. Once all my nails were dry i simply dipped a medium sized dotting tool into miss sporty lasting colour nail polish in the colour- fall. I used my dotting tool to create evenly spaced dots across all my nails apart from my index finger. For my index finger i used the dotting tool in the bright pink to create an arch shape, which should cover most of your nail, for the owls body, then create two small triangles for ears either side of the top of the body. I then used a dotting tool in "fall" to create two teardrop shapes either side of the body for wings and three dots on the owl's stomach for feathers. Afterwards, i used a white rio nail pen to create large eyes for the owl and a black nail pen for pupils. Finally, i used a bright orange nail striper to create a triangle for the beak. I finished the design with a top coat. 

sheep nails

Hey everyone, today's nail art design is some cute little sheep i wanted to do as i was feeling in a spring/ summer sort of mood.  For the base coat on all my nails i used miss sporty clubbing colours in blue bath because it is the perfect colour for a sky. Then I used a metallic green rio nail pen to paint thin lines of different lengths two thirds of the way up my nail to create grass. I then used a medium dotting tool dipped in white nail polish and made a series of dots over the grass to make the sheep's body. Finally, i used a black rio nail pen to make a small arch shape on the side of the sheep's body to create the head and made four small black lines to create legs underneath the sheep's body. I finished the design with a topcoat.