Burns' Night Nail Art/BPS Striping Tape Review

Hi friends! Just a quick post from me tonight - some Scottish-y themed nail art for Burns' Night and a wee review of this striping tape from Born Pretty Store. (Discount code at the bottom of the post, too!)

Blue & Black Splodges/Cow Print | Nail Art

Holaaa! Another winner of a post title... We're off to Spain for a week tomorrow (well, tonight) so I really should be doing something sensible, like packing. But here I am! I painted these nails last night and I like them a lot - they were really quick today and I have such a thing for blue & black at the moment. I think they look a bit like very funky cow print nails, though I didn't strictly go in with that in mind, haha.

The blue is Kiko 336 - basically a dupe of Nails Inc Baker Street (which I don't own) and all those like it. LOVE this kind of electric blue and I really hope it never goes out of fashion!

Must dash! Have a splendid week!

Despicable Me 2 | Minions Nail Art

Hi friends! I had no plans for Minion nails but we're fiiinally going to see Despicable Me 2 tomorrow and I was wearing yellow already, so it was clearly FATE. I'm not really going to say anything about these since so many other people have done them already, but feel free to ask away if there's anything you'd like to know. YAY MINIONS!

The yellow is Illamasqua 'Blow' (hahaha) & the blue is Kiko 385 (which is amaaazing). (Silver is Color Club 'On the Rocks' and the brown is Nails Inc 'Fenchurch Street'.)

Do you love Minions? (If not, who ARE you?!) Hope you're enjoying a lovely weekend!

Feelin' Hot Hot Hot | Chilli Pepper Nail Art

...So we can rum boom boom boom!  

Hiya!  Getting all spicy with this hot little chilli (or 'chili' for my American friends) number!  

I honestly have no explanation for how this happened.  I had intended to do something entirely different but it just didn't work out quite exactly as I wanted and then this idea just popped into my head.  I'm really glad it did.  These nails are pretty different (I think) from most of things I've done before, but I think they're rather cute & fun.  I like them!

[An aside: do you get yellow chillis?  If not, those ones are just ordinary peppers...] 

I started with a white base (always a joy...) then painted the pepper-y shapes in Kikos 236 & 239 (lighter & darker reds, respectively), Barielle 'Lemondrops' and Sinful Colors 'Exotic Green'.  I added the stalks with Sinful Colors 'Last Chance' and then outlined & detailed with a skinny brush using a black Orly (Liquid Leather?).

Overall, I'm really happy with these.  I wanted them kind of 'arty' looking and they might be a bit too 'sketchy' in places and insufficiently so in others but I think it's a relatively forgiving design in that regard.  I also wonder if it might have been better with the chillis 'peppered' about (BOOM) a little more sparsely; if you try it, make sure you take into account the stalks & outlining when spacing your chillis!

If you've been following my nails for a little while, you may have noticed that I've changed my nail shape; I fancied a wee change & I'd broken corners off a couple of nails on my other hand, so the time seemed ripe.  I quite like them when they're painted but they do look a bit odd to me when they're not!  What do you think?  Does it suit me?  Is there another shape I should experiment with?  I'll almost definitely end up back with my trusty squares sooner or later...

Final thought: I think a print similar to this could be really cute for summer skirts/shorts/dresses...then you'd be looking HOT (and again!) all the time!  What do you think?  Could peppers be the new bananas?  Chilli jokes appreciated.

Hope you've had a top notch weekend.  I leave you with this:

A England (& Kiko) Stained Glass Nail Art

HIYAAA!  Welcome to my brand spanking new blog!  I've been posting nail art on my Tumblr for a while now and I'm super excited finally to have somewhere I can write as many words and post as many pictures as I like.  Oh, and I'm Kirstie, by the way.  NAIL ART TIME.

Much as I love Scotland, sunshine isn't something we enjoy a whole lot of.  However, it does mean I really appreciate a good sunny spell when it comes along.  And when I say, 'Appreciate', I mean:

Hello holo!  Direct sunlight.

SHAZAM.  This is all five of the A England polishes I owned (I've since got hold of my sixth) painted in varying sizes & shapes with a nail art brush, over a base of Kiko 399, a pale gold holo.  For me, all the colourful sparkles are really reminiscent of stained glass.  The way the different shapes are laid out and fitted together kind of also made me think of a tortoise's shell...I felt a bit like I was walking about with magical tortoise nails.  (Please don't judge me.)

I can't even express how much I love Adina's (A England's) polishes.  Even out of the sun, I still think they look so beautiful, really complex and unique.  The colours are gorgeous and rich, and some of them even have duochrome!  It's pretty evident that a lot of love goes into creating A England collections.

Green/gold duochrome WHAT UP!

When this idea first popped into my head I thought maybe I was just delirious with sunshine after a miserable winter.  I almost talked myself out of it on the basis that it would be 'Too much'.  Hahaha, no.  BEST. DECISION. EVER.

Pretty sure I've saved the best picture 'til last...

With flash.  The purple of Princess Tears gets me every time!

Seriously, I think this has to be one of my favourite manicures ever.  It just makes me so happy every time I look at it!  

I hope you've enjoyed this inaugural Nail Cake post - I'd love to know what you think!  Are you a holo/A England lover, too?