March Update! :)

Hello everyone!
Well here we are again with another blog post.  I think I left it too long (yet again) but I just never seem to find the time to sit down and get this done.  So we are about to hit April, 4th month of the year, yet another year where the time is flying in!  Perhaps it's because I'm fully qualified in June and that's why it's going so quick.

So on Monday 24th, me and the college girls had a trip out to the Scottish Beauty Show.  I have to say I was disappointed with the lack of nail stalls compared to last year.  Notably absent was NSI which was quite surprising.  However I did of course manage to find things to buy (you aren't surprised by that, are you?)

Nail polish.... more polish .... yup!  So the bargain of my day was the duo China Glaze set with shot glass.  £2.  No typo, honestly it was £2.  The colours are a beautiful foil like silver and gold.  I picked up 2 packs of small spikes, one gold, one silver.  They are much smaller than the spikes I used for my Rihanna nail art and I really wished I had these back when I did it.  Theres also a wheel of multi coloured glitter studs and the 4 little pots are 3 bar glitters and 1 tub of flowers.  You will notice the 3 stripers of the same colour.  I found these last year and I only got 1.  I used it so much it was all dried up and done and I had been trying to find it on Ebay or anywhere to order more and had no luck.  So when I saw the stall there again this year, I bought 3!  Well stocked up now haha!  Also picked up the China Glaze City Flourish Collection, Peonies & Park Avenue, which I am loving the shades!  I'm wearing a design using some of them right now.

This design ended up being done with all China Glaze bar the yellow dot.  I have to say that CG is beyond a doubt my favourite brand with OPI coming second.
There will be a haul video tomorrow (Saturday) showing off my Beauty Show items, be sure to check it out.

I done some gels last night on a clients natural nails.  It's a really pretty pale pink with glitter on the tip area.  It's just the perfect subtle shade!

I need to get a better camera so that it actually picks up the true shades!  I've been thinking long and hard this past month trying to decide which brand of gel polish I want to start stocking and using.  I'm just so indecisive it's really taken me this long to work it out.  I've decided to go with gelish.  It's a well known brand, good reviews and I think my clients will be happy to have a brand that is well known.  Once I get some colours I will put out on my Facebook page a post letting everyone know!

Keeping on the topic of gels;  I done my sculpted french gel assessment at college!  I hadn't been planning to do it Monday but due to be forgetting we had Easter Holidays coming up and the College being closed, I couldn't have the client come back in for the infill assessment like I had planned!  Thankfully I had done some good practice on these and the lecturer was happy to let me go ahead with the assessment.

 
 Of course me being me, I couldn't let her leave without some kind of nail art!  Dots were requested and dots were done!  Pleased to say I passed :)

Time to share with you my most recent nail art videos.  This one just went live today.

I'm not sure how I managed it but I actually forgot to take pictures using my camera for this design so I had to improvise with the practice nail I do!  I always try out my design ideas on a tip until I find something I'm happy with.  Once I'm happy I redo the design onto my nail wheels which I have for clients to look at.

Here is officially my longest nail art video!  I spent a lot of time editing this one but even with speeding up and cutting bits where I could, it was still over 12 mins!  I hope this doesn't put people off but because I was showing 5 different designs it made it hard to get the video any shorter.  At least you can skip to a certain nail to see how to do it if you wish!

This little slideshow was more made for people who only follow my Youtube channel.  I only ever post art done on myself there but I am actually fully capable of more!  I hope this vid let people see that.

A toe nail art!  Yup!  Not sure what put me in the mood for doing my toes considering how cold it is still, but it might of had something to do with how far up my glitter gel design had got and the fact I had lost the design on 3 nails.  This design didn't quite turn out as I was expecting, I was hoping the foil would of attached slightly better as it was a little patchy in some places.  However, with this being on my toes, when you look down they look great so it worked out in the end! 

Last video, honest!  I really do wonder everytime I update this how the hell I get so backlogged on my videos.  This was a quick design using 2 Sinful Colors I had picked up and was dying to use together.

This video tutorial will be up tomorrow!  I was requested to do some work showing the Naio powders I got so I manged to find the time to film these 3.  I want to get some gel tutorials done next.

I think I have rambled on long enough in this post.  I've not put everything here that's been on my other social media so be sure to stay fully up to date by following me on one of them!  Thanks for reading :)

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Arrrgh! I fell behind again!

*Hides face in shame*  I did it again!  I swear I feel like I just update this and next thing its 2 weeks later and I have so much to catch up on.  If you do happen to follow me on my other social media you won't have missed anything cos I post on those a lot of pics!   This blog however allows me to go more into detail about my thoughts and feelings on my work and related things so I still find it beneficial to do.

So where do I begin this week..... let's do my videos first!  

Now this design here didn't turn out exactly as I had hoped.  Although I managed to get the mylar pretty flat and not sticking out, something about it was getting to me and I ended up only wearing this design for a day.  Its not often that I end up disliking a mani, but it does happen!  The reason I keep a prototype for showing clients and the reason I still shared the video is because just cos I ended up not liking it greatly, that doesn't mean others will not be in love with this mani.  I feel this would of worked better embedded in acrylic or gel and would certainly love to try it out on someone in the future.

Ah so many goodies in this video.  I am in LOVE with banggood.com.  Honestly the way I go on about it you'd think I was sponsored by them but I assure you I paid for everything myself and I genuinely like their nail products.  Some items I got for use with my college nail project I'm working on.  I will eventually have a video for this BUT it won't be until May as the nails will be done on a person on May 1st.  I can't wait to be able to show it to you!  

Here was a cute gold and silver combo I did not too long ago.  The gold was OPI Goldeneye and it is an amazing shade!  I have been trying to use some of my less common colours I own as I want to get use out of all my polishes!  I should count them one day... but I'm a bit scared too haha!

My second "How to celeb nail art" went up too!  This was a really simple Rihanna design.  I want to do more celeb art but finding close up/clear pics is harder than you would think!  This was a mani that didn't stay on too long either, I couldn't cope with the spikes.  I would poke myself with them when I was getting dressed!  Spikes aren't for me.

The last of my catch up vids in this Naio acrylic powder.  I've been wanting to try them for a while and never got round to buying any but I was craving some new colours so figured why not use this time to try them!  I filmed a vid the other day of me doing nail art using some of these.  Compared to NSI colours I found these ones a bit more runny in consistency but not so much that it was in an unworkable manner.  This actually made them really good for use as blending and the pigment of colour was still strong too.  I only had NSI liquid to use so perhaps using there own brand liquid would of affected the consistency.

So thats all the Youtube stuff caught up on!  Now there is the matter of pictures... this could be long!
So I've been getting lots of practice in at college so let me pop those pics altogether!

This was an infill back fill assessment which I then added some quick nail art to.

This was my first full hand try at sculpted acrylics.  This sculpting thing is tricky but I can't wait to get better at it.

I had another go at sculpted acrylics here.

This was done today, full set of sculpted gel.  It wasn't too bad for a first try but plenty room to improve.  My structure was off on some of the nails and the room was a bit hot and messing with the gels didn't help me out either!  Its all about practicing though and I'm confident I will get there!

On to other things I've been messing around with in class is some nail art.  This was a technique I saw done by Absolute Nails on youtube and I wanted to give it a try.  My downside - I had no drill so had to hand file this down!  I know the shape isn't perfect but if you go check out her vid and see what you need to do, you will understand why I got fed up filing!  It is definitely a fun technique and I would love to do it some more after I get a drill.

 After sharing some amazing 3D sculpted work on Facebook I tried some out.  Now my butterfly turned out nothing like the superb, lifelike one in the picture, but for a first try it was ok!  You can't just get it right on the first try now can you? :)  The mouse/rat was just a spur of the moment try since I was doing other 3D but this is something I would like to try out again!

 Lastly I will share with you the art I have worn recently!

My jumper even matched when I took this!  I love the studs but I had one gripe!  The pink coating on them came away (a lot on some, small parts on others) so the only way I see around this would be embedding them under gel or acrylic.   If I was to wear them again on myself, I would pick silver ones only so that I wouldn't have to worry abour the colo9ur chipping .

I loved these!  The glitter on the tip I had just picked up and was dying to use, combined with the stud wheel that was also crying out to be used I came up with this!  the stars stayed on really well until I got one caught on my clothes and it pinged off, but that was after 5 days wear.

 This was the design I just took off my nails.  I like using striping tape but it can get a bit annoying when you can't get it to sit exactly how you want it too!  

I did my toes again!  It's been a while but I wanted to do something and I wanted to do that something with foil!  so here are my gel foil toes.  I'm finalising the video and it will be up this weekend to watch.
Also on my "to do" list is a slideshow video showing off my work in acrylic and gels.  Since I don't wear those myself (outwith some gel on my toes occasionally) I wanted to find a way to share my other work with those who follow me on youtube only.

 I feel like this has been one big epic update!  I will say it again... I will try write these more regularly!!  Thanks for reading if you got this far :)

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