Hi everyone,

So, you'll be glad to know that I'm back to slightly erratic posts again after a brief stint at actual consistent posting. However, I'm quite proud that at least while things have been a little erratic, at least there have been no extended, unexplained absences.

I've just been feeling a bit stressed out and anxious recently due to the fact that I'm starting uni next week and I've been really tired all this week so all has compounded to me not really having much motivation. Although, it hasn't yet got to the the 'hiding out in my room doing nothing but reading Avengers fanfiction' stage so I'm by my standards, I'm managing all right.

Basically it was only because I really loved this design that I ever managed to photograph it and get it up.

If you're following me on instagram, you'll know I recently suffered a really bad nail break and had to chop off my baby claws, which was a sad time all around and explains the suddenly shorter and rounder nails.

As much as I loved my longer nails, I do feel (after an acceptable grieving period, of course), that it probably was time for me to have a change and cut them shorter again. They are feeling a lot healthier and I was able to cut off all the stained and peeling bits so they look super duper healthy. Yay!

Valentine's Day Leopard Nail Art

Hello there my lovelies,

Here's my first Valentine's Day look for this year. Considering I'd never a Valentine's look before (I know! Shock horror!) I thought this one came together quite well.

These nails all came about after seeing this picture on instagram and I fell in love with the pink and red leopard print. It (thankfully) gave me the inspiration I was lacking for my Valentine's Day mani.

However, I did my right hand first, as per usual, and added the pink dots, but then wasn't sure whether I liked them or not, so I left them off when I did my other hand. Even now, and I've been wearing them for close to two days, I still don't know which hand I like better. So I thought I'd post both and ask you for your opinion. What do you think? Which hand do you think is better?

A Nuggle's Guide to Nail Art Terms | Part 2

Hello there!

Today I'm back with my second and final part to my Nuggle's Guide to Nail Art Terms. If you missed the first, or wish to re-read it, your can find it here.

Otherwise, I'm back with my sister Tess and her boyfriend Juwan to quiz them about various nail related terms. When we left them last time, Tess was on a score of 7, out of a possible 15 and Juwan scored 5, so let's see who comes out on top!

HG
J: Hungry Jacks? Hungry Goblin? Definitely hungry goblin.
T: High definition? Oh wait that's a D.....
Well it's definitely not Hungry Goblin... HG is actually an abbreviation for Holy Grail, which is a product/s that is the best ever, in your opinion, something you swear by and would recommend to others (see my HG nail products here, if you're interested).

Holo
J: Something see through. Like a see through nail polish.
T: The ones that the ILNP brand do. The ones that change colour? Or are really sparkly?
Yup, these polishes are super-sparkly. Holo (or holographic for long) polishes have pigments in the them that means when you hold them in the light, you can see a rainbow of different colours. And yes, ILNP do amazing holos.

Jelly
J: Squishy. Jelly polish.
T: Gel nail polish. Do you call that jelly for short?
While calling gel polish jelly actually kind of does make sense, a jelly is a type of polish that is rather sheer and when built up of a couple of coats, has a transparent quality and squishyness about it that is reminiscent of jelly, so well done to Juwan for that one.

Lemming
J: White nail polish, like a lamington. And with yellow in it too.
T: Sounds like a fish.
No and no. A lemming is a polish that you really, really want, and can often be hard to find. And no, I have no clue why it's called a lemming.

Birefringence and Masquerade by ILNP (also, sorry for the dodgy white balance...)

Multichrome
J: Multiple colours of chrome.
T: More than two colours in one polish, otherwise it would be a duochrome. Ha I'm such a technical genius. (looked incredibly pleased at her knowledge)
To be honest, I don't know how widely used this term is. For me, a multichrome is different to a duochrome in that a duochrome has predominantly two colours, whereas a multichrome has a much fuller colour spectrum, like the two above. So yes, exactly what Tess said.

Negative Space Half Moon Mani

Hi lovelies,

These nails are ones I did a couple of weeks ago, when I was still working out the kinks in my new photography set-up and so the photos are a little off. But, I did really like this design, so I'm still going to post it. It's also my first attempt at a negative space nail art design and I thought it was important to record that. On a side note, check out this branching out in new techniques - first my half moon mani and now negative space and half moons together!

I also couldn't decide whether I liked it better glossy or matte, so I thought I'd post both. What do you think? I think having it matte makes the lines and the overall design look crisper and neater, but there is a reason why glossy nail polish is so well-loved..

A Nuggle's Guide to Nail Art Terms | Part 1

Hi lovelies,

So, I was talking to one of my non-polish-obsessed friends the other day and it was about halfway through the conversation (aka my polish-themed monologue) that I realised she staring at me with a rather bemused and confused expression and then informed me that she really had no clue what half of my word meant. Upon reflection, I realised I maybe had put a few too many jargon-y and nail-specific terms into our (my) discussion.

And since this is not solely a nail art blog, I came to thinking that maybe some of you, my dear readers, also do not know some of the terms I throw around on this blog. So, here is my dictionary/guide of nail terms for nuggles.

For your (and my) amusement, and as a comparison, I've asked a complete nuggle and a polish liker, but not enthusiast, to give their opinions on what each terms means. I know that the common practice in this instance is to use you boyfriend for the nuggle, but since I don't have one I've had to borrow my sister's boyfriend instead. And, as a bit of fun, I've included my sister Tess as well and have decided to have a little competition, even though I think Tess is at a distinct advantage, seeing as she does live with me and she also paints her nails fairly regularly but oh well.

So, without further ado, let me extend a welcome to Tess and Juwan and let's get cracking!

Base Coat (what it is and does)
J: Primary layer.
T: Clear varnish before colour. It's helps protect the nail and makes the varnish last longer.
Both got this pretty right. It's a clear coat of polish that is designed to protect the nail plate from staining and also to provide a sticky/tacky layer for the polish to adhere to in order to help it stay on longer.

Big 3 Free
J: ... Remover?
T: 3 big chemicals, I can't remember the names but they're pretty bad and if they're not in the polish then it's better.
Right on Tess! No, it's not remover, Juwan. If a polish is Big-3 Free it means it doesn't contain toluene, formaldehyde or dibutyl phthalate (DBP), which are some of the most nasty chemicals that can be found in nail polish. If your interested in reading more about the Big-3, Michelle from LabMuffin does a great series on them.

Bin Diving
J: .....
T: When your nail bends over? It dives over the edge??
I have to say, I did think this was fairly self-explaintory, but I guess not. Bin diving is when you go into a store and there is a massive box of nail polish and you have to dive and dig all the way through it to find the real gems (it's fun!)

Claws
J: Long pointy nails.
T: Long pointy nails, like stilettos and they're usually acrylic.
Perfect guys! Although alot of claws are acrylics, it's only because it takes a lot of dedication, perseverance and excellent genes to get your nails to that length.

Crackle
J: Bumpy texture?
T: When your polish starts to crack and chip off?
I'll be generous and give half points for Juwan for this one. Crackle refers to the finish of a polish and how it cracks when it dries, allowing you to see the colour underneath (it was also one of the two nail art trends I just can't manage to do - the other is water-marbling)

Cremes - Good to Grape by Sally Hansen and Mystique by Face of Australia

Creme
J: Texture. (I asked whether he was going to elaborate on that, but he declined)
T: Type of polish that's smooth and creamy
Nice work Tess - that's bang on the mark! Creme, like crackle, refers to the finish. Creme polish is your standard polish - it's got no shimmer, no glitter, no flakies, no nothing. It's just a smooth, even colour.

Beach Deck Chair Summer Nail Art

Hi everyone,

My nails today are definitely one of my favourites that I've done this year. In fact, I think they are my favourites. Which is kind of surprising considering they are a very simple design and involve a fairly pale pink, which I don't generally like very much at all. But, I do love them anyway. And something about them reminds me of summery deck chairs, hence the name. 

I have been all into the matte designs recently, especially mattifying neons and whites. I don't what it is about a matte white, but I really love it. It always looks so crisp and clean and sophisticated. I am also loving my nail shape at the moment. I've always nails that hover between squoval and oval and if you had asked me 3 months ago, I would have told you that I never would change from that shape. But.... I had been admiring the gorgeous nails of @paintedcandynails, @secretjewelgarden and @decorateddigits on instagram and decided to take the plunge and drastically alter the shape of my nails. And I love it! 

Pop Art Half Moon Nail Art

Hi everyone,

I've been on a massive matte design craze recently and this is the first of probably many matte designs that you'll see around here in the near future. I think this was my first attempt at doing a half moon mani, despite it being one of the most popular nail art designs in existence.

I think they turned out all right, although I definitely think I need to either work on my free-handed curves or invest in those little sticky hole things that most nail artists use (although using the sticky things seems far easier and less time-consuming, to be honest). I did love my choice of colours - I always think of pop art when I look at them, with the rich blue and the contrasting orange/pink.

My Holy Grail Nail Products

Hi everyone!

I was talking to one of my friends recently and they were asking me for advice and tips on nail care and nail art and stuff and I realised I hadn't ever put together a nail care post or written properly on my favourite products for my nails. So here's a list of my nail products that have my it to holy grail status for me, and why they have achieved this highly acclaimed status.

Lush Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter
This is a pretty legendary and well-known cuticle cream throughout the nail blogger world and it's pretty easy to see why. It's thick, nourishing and easy absorbed and moisturises better than any other I've tried. While I know many people, including all of my family, love it's sharp, lemony smell, I have to admit it took a while to grow on me. I hated it when I first bought it (I only bought it because I'd hearing non-stop about it's greatness for ages and thought I had better give it a go) but I've been using it for about a year and I do quite like the smell now. It does have a tendency to melt in the heat (so don't accidentally put it in your beach bag) and when it does melt, it acquires these grainy granules in it. Some people really dislike these, but I like them and the little bit of exfoliation they provide. Anyway, I live in Australia, so it's not like I can keep it under 30 degrees all the time!

It is a little pricey (in my cheap-sake opinion) at AUD$16.50 for a 50g pot, but it really lasts! I've been using mine daily for about a year now and it's not even half empty yet. Purchase it instore at Lush or online.

Inspired By: Avengers Assemble - Thor

Hi lovelies,

So I've been making a good head start on my New Year's resolutions and done another member of the Avengers as part of my Avengers Assemble series. Today, we have Thor, Norse God of Thunder...

While I was pretty happy with them overall, and very happy with some elements, I do think it could have been done a lot better. I was really quite proud of my lightning bolts and I reckon I've improved since I last tried them. It was just a pity that the pink bled through into the white when I applied my top coat...

Because these aren't the most straightforward 'Inspired By' nails I've done, here's a little run down on what each nail is meant to be.

New Years Nail Art + Year in Review

Hi everyone!

So it really is the last day of 2014, which is pretty cool but also pretty crazy. I know that nearly everybody says this, but honestly, if you had told me last year that I would be here right now, I, well, I probably wouldn't have laughed in your face, but I would have at least given you a nervous laugh and found some excuse to leave the conversation immediately.

I loved 2014. I really did. Some bits got a little sucky and I had a rough patch over the middle, but I still loved it. I feel I have accomplished a lot over this year, more so than usual. Mentally, I progressed from being 'in recovery' from my eating disorder to being 'in remission' - which is an amazing accomplishment and I also have come a lot more to terms with my medication and have also developed a much better self help plan for when I do start spiralling downwards (read more about that here and here). In terms of my nails, I feel I have improved quite a bit from the first nail art I did this year to these and I've been particularly proud of some of my more recent ones, like my Tony Stark/Iron Man nails. My photography is still an on going struggle, but hey, nobody's perfect...

I'm proud of how much I've been learning about coding and stuff and I'm loving being able to understand more about how my blog is set up and customise more of it. I'm also really loving my instagram and having more motivation for blogging and stuff. I got qualified as a nail tech and also as a make-up artist and I'm training for my Cert III in childcare and I adore my job in out of school hours childcare.

Anyway, so these nails I am pretty happy with. Considering I was working on a limited time frame and I was also really tired from working all day, I thought these were a pretty good compromise. The fact that I was using such an amazing multichrome as a base also helps make these look 100x better.

Gold Glitter Gradient and Christmas Tree Nail Art

Hi lovelies,

Today I'm back to red for my Christmas nail art, as well as Christmas trees. I'm feeling a little repetitive this year...

I was pretty happy with how these turned out, although I think I need to work on my glitter gradients a bit. I used just regular craft glitter for this and I have to admit I was a little stumped on how to put it in a gradient. But after a little trial and error, I discovered the best way was just to apply the red polish as normal and when it had dried to a tacky stage, just press the glitter on with my fingers. Of course, this method did mean placement and gradient was left a lot to chance and luck!

Penguins and Snowflake Nail Art AKA Traditional Winter Nail Design

Hi lovelies,

After my last Christmas nail design, I am quite happy to be able to tell you that I like how these pictures turned out. It's actually quite frustrating to me how my photography and photo taking skills seem to be fluctuating so much recently... Never mind, that is a problem for another day. Although actually, today's nail's were also a truly frustrating and irritating endeavour and to be honest, if the photos had come out as bad as the holly ones, I wouldn't have bothered editing and posting them. I was so over them.

Although - how cute are these guys??

First of all, I thought my blue background was going to be too dark, so I did a test run with two different blues on paper first. All was good and I did one hand in that colour. Then I started on the penguins. Now, normally when I do my nails I do all of them at once, through different stages, rather than completing one whole nail before moving on to the next one. However, if I'm not sure how well my design is going to transfer from my head on to my nail, I'll do one whole nail first to seen how it goes. But I was totally confident in my ability to paint penguins.

So I did their little white bodies and then the little black insides and the white eyes and then I was like, hold on a minute. Something looks wrong. A quick google of penguins then proved that yes, I was wrong and they actually have black bodies with white insides (tummys? I dunno what to call it). So I had to redo that entire hand (which was my right hand, because I always do my right hand first and let me tell you that my left hand was not thanking me for that).

Holly Berries Nail Art

Hi there everyone,

Big surprise, I'm back with more Christmas nails, although this time at least they aren't overwhelming red like the other two designs I've done. They just are slightly red, which I think shows that I'm branching out a bit in terms of Christmas colours. :)

These turned out so much better than I was expecting. When I started these, I didn't really have a plan in mind so I was pleasantly surprised when these turned out as well as they did. Also, they did look a lot better in real life - I was once again very frustrated at how the photos of these came out.

Christmas Presents Nail Art

Hi there everyone!

So, I'm a little behind schedule on my Christmas nail art designs for this year, so here's my second one. I had hoped to have many more by this time but then I made the decision to completely overhaul my blog's look and layout and name and everything in December. Nice work Dani. (I probably should have thought about how busy that decision was going to make me before I started). Oh well, live and learn.

To be honest, I'm not that enamoured with these nails. I did them late at night, when I was very sleepy and wanted to go to bed but wanted to have polish on my nails more.

Gold and Silver Leopard Print

Why hello to you all

Today's design is a simple, but lovely one (in my opinion anyway). However, I couldn't quite manage to capture it on camera very well and so unfortunately it looks a bit sub par in my photos...

Then and Now: Biology DNA Nail Art

Hello there everyone!

Today's post is going to be super photo heavy, so be prepared! :) Back in July of 2013, when I first started getting into nail art, I did a set of DNA/biology/cell inspired nails and by the time I got around to photographing them they were kind of chipped and so I never ended up posting them. But I found these pictures the other day and thought that I'd redo them to see how my skills had improved, especially since they were the first set of nails that really relied on my painting/freehand skills. I had done galaxy nails, tape mani's and gradients before, but nothing like this. I remember being so proud of them when I finished! :) But lets have a look at them, shall we?

My first attempt

To be honest, as a first attempt for something like this, they aren't too bad. They are definitely not great, but they could be a lot worse. Also, the original pictures hadn't even been edited, so all the editing I've done just now, which is why they have my current watermark on.

Okay, now you've seen the originals, lets have a look at the ones I've just done.

As you can hopefully see, I have improved quite a bit in a year and a bit. My clean up is better (although to be honest, that is something I still have to work on because I can never really be bothered doing clean-up), my lines are much crisper and I was able to get so more detail onto my thumb nail! My photography has also improved and my overall nail shape is better as well. In the before photo my index fingernail is really short and round and it took me ages to get it into a more squoval shape so that it matched the rest of my nails. 

Inspired By: Avengers Assemble - Iron Man

Hi lovelies!

So, does anyone remember that series I begun/challenge I set myself to do nail art based on all of the Avengers? If you don't, that's totally cool because my last ones were all the way back in September. But, I decided I actually needed to complete them and so here are my latest ones!

When I first did these, I was really, really, super proud of them. I thought they were a great concept, nicely designed, within my capabilities and they executed well too. However, so far, only about 3ish have guessed who these nails are based off of. In the past 3 days. I have to admit, I lost a bit of faith in my abilities because of that... Most seem to think they're based on a woman and even when I narrow it down to a character, in a movie, that I really like, they still didn't get it. Lots also thought they were Christmas themed nails.

Red and Matte Leopard Print Nail Art

Sometimes I swear my post titles are just getting longer and longer and less and less interesting...

Oh well...

Today's nail art is another one that I did ages ago and that I just discovered in my un-posted file. I guess I need to check that folder more often.

Also, in case anybody hadn't already noticed the trend, a lot of my posts this month are old designs and posts that I hadn't quite gotten around to finishing. When I got back into blogging regularly at the beginning of last month, I actually got super organised and got myself a proper schedule and went though and finished or deleted all my old half-done posts, so this month is a lot of backlog of older stuff!

Anyway, I was really happy with the way this turned out. I love that red and the overall crisp look of the design. It's such a pity that looks like these aren't wearable for more than a day or two because the rhinestones keep chipping off.

I was heavily inspired by this manicure by lemmingspolish on Instagram and while it's not completely true to the original, I'm pretty happy with it. I feel it would have been much improved had it had flatter studs, like the original, as opposed to the rhinestones that I ended up using. But oh well, I didn't have any studs like that, so I guess I'll just have to buy some. :)

Pumpkin Halloween Nail Art

Hi lovelies,

So, I was meant to have two more sets of nails up in this time, but unfortunately I was a bit sick over the weekend, so no nails...

But, since these are my (probable) second last set of Halloween nails, I definitely reached the goal I set for myself of doing at least 5 sets of Halloween nails. All up, I feel it has been a much better effort than last year!

However, it would have been nice to have had a slightly better set of nails to show you as my second last set. I had hoped my Halloween nails would have gotten better over the month, but alas, no. I can't quite decide whether they are worse than my witch nails or not.

Halloween Witch Nail Art

Hi everyone,

So, I do apologise for the pretty horrific quality of these pictures. I have no idea what my camera was doing and I had to go to work pretty soon after I did these and they got pretty ruined so I didn't get chance to re-take any photos.

Under normal circumstances I wouldn't post these because the quality is just so awful, but I did challenge myself to do as many Halloween nail designs as I could and I didn't want to have to discard a decent design because of the dodgy photos. It's not just the quality either, my poses are pretty weird as well - I have no clue why!