Tutorial | Nail the Matte Look featuring Swarovski Crystals

I can't help but reach for a matte top coat as soon as the weather turns a bit autumny. In the UK that started around June this year but hey, at least I had lots of time to practice! If you ever struggled to nail the matte look, I've put together a few tips to help you.

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31 Day Challenge: Back to School Stripes

I feel so nostalgic looking at these nails! When I was young I used to love the start of September as it meant new pens, notebooks and general school accessories. I still to this day love stationery and the smell of books. Yes, I'm weird like that.

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31 Day Challenge: Yellow Nails

Yellow prompt turned out to be not much better than yesterday's orange one. Not because I don't like yellow but because I did a destash about a week ago and, you guessed it, I apparently got rid of most of my yellow polishes. Perfect.

I had to work with what I got so I decided to use Ciate Loop the Loop as my base. It got me thinking, does anyone else feel like Ciate's mini bottles drive them insane? Or is it just me? They are very rectangular (as in wider than they are taller) and it's impossible to get the polish out once you get about half way though the bottle. I'm not sure if that's the problem with their regular size bottles as I don't own any.

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Valentine's Patchwork for Nail Spec

I don't know about you but I'm not feeling the pink nails at the moment. Probably because I've done so many of them already! Still, Valentine's Day is just around the corner so what's a girl to do? I've decided to go bold and base my design on a colour you wouldn't perhaps associate with romance - grey. 

Don't worry, it does still involve a few hearts here and there! When I was creating this design for Nail Spec I didn't want it to be too sickly and sweet. In the end, I went for a light grey background and a bit of cute patchwork to balance it out. I'm so happy with how it turned out, especially with a matte top coat.

You can check out my tutorial here. What designs do you go for during Valentine's Day? Xx

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Metallic Hearts for Valentine's Day

Man, I seriously admire everyone who dares to use full nail stencils. If you thought you just stick it on your nails and paint it over to reveal a cool pattern then well, TECHNICALLY, you'd be right, but there's a lot more to it! My boyfriend got me a load of stencils for Christmas and I (very naively) thought I'd leave them alone until I have no time on my hands to do anything free hand. Well, that was stupid!

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Uber Easy Floral Design Featuring Über Chic Detail Brush

Do you remember when I said that one day I'd crack the whole floral mani thing? Well, *drumroll* today is not that day. Yeah...It's fairly close though! One of the reasons I don't paint flowers very often is because, well, it makes me furious;) I just physically CAN'T do it! However I recently bought a gorgeous Über Chic detail brush and let me tell you, there's hope for me yet.

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Autumn Quirk-Fest

Have you ever been mushroom picking? My house back home is at the edge of the forest and as a child I used to pick mushrooms pretty much every Autumn. I always make the effort to go home at that time so I can do just that and see my family. And of course, let's be real, it's low season so flights are dead cheap! This year I haven't had a chance to go so I thought I'd take advantage of the fact it's STILL Autumn and create a quirky rustic mushroom design.

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Hardly a gloomy matte(r)

This is one of those quick I'm-out-the-door-in-five kind of designs. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I liked it when I made it. It was delicate but 'gloomy', does that make sense? I think it works well as an Autumn design. However as I'm writing this I am in the most beautiful place on the planet and erm, Autumn-who? I've done these a few days before my trip. If you follow me on Instagram then you know I'm currently in New Zealand and although it's not been too warm so far the views are compensating BIG TIME. Also it's surprising how productive you can be during 12 hours long flights/waiting for your boyfriend to hire the car...

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Leafing Halloween Alone!

I only need to look at my feed on any social media to know that the nail community is obsessed with Halloween this month. I see Halloween manis everywhere but I have to admit they are pretty awesome and it's hard not to be inspired. At the same time I've already done 2 festive designs and wasn't really feeling it again. I'm kind of into gradients these days so I decided to have a go at this beige-to-burgundy one that doesn't scream Halloween at all...

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September Nailbox Review

It's October and you know what that means, Halloween is shoved in your face everywhere you go! I thought it'd be a good idea to carve a pumpkin this year because (prepare yourself) I've only done it ONCE before. Of course all the pumpkins are already gone in my local Morrisons. I mean, seriously people, it's still like another 3 weeks to go!

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31 Day Challenge: Honour nails you love

I can't believe that the 31 Day Challenge is almost over! Although I had my ups and downs during this challenge l actually really enjoyed it! I'm not going to lie though, I'm looking forward to having my life back!

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31 Day Challenge: Inspired by fashion

I wasn't too sure what to do for today's 31 Day Challenge prompt. I like fashion fine but I'm not really into the latest trends. I know what style I like and whenever I go shopping I'm just picking bits and bobs to complement it. So I decided to do today's mani based on handbags that I really like.

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31 Day Challenge: Half Moon

To be honest, I wasn't looking forward to today's challenge because all I see lately are half moon nails! There are EVERYWHERE! My feed on any social media is full of nail polish companies posts from London Fashion Week and yep, you've guessed it, half moon designs are heavily featured! I guess they're just very in at the moment?

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Rust-ic Cages

I miss the times when I got inspired by something and translated it into nail art on the spot! Recently I feel like all my designs come from my to do list and it's starting to get on my nerves. I was so happy when I got myself this new notebook and had an instant lightbulb moment. Finally! It feels good to be inspired again!

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Baroque wallpaper

I've recently purchased a few MoYou stamping plates and they finally arrived! Oh it's just like Christmas!

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I'm dreaming of a matte Christmas

For whatever reason I decided to experiment with matte top coat and glitter. I tried a few options and I have to say I really like the 3D effect. Matte top coat in general is amazing! I love how different your nails look and how soft they are to touch. But do I want to go matte for Christmas? What about the usual glitz, shine and sparkle stuff? Well I thought about it, tried matte, saw the effect and decided: sod it! So I give to you a very rebellious matte Crimbo nails.

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Scribbles Scribbles...

Isn't typing amazing? Thanks to typing no one literate has a problem reading this post not to mention seeing my embarrassingly bad handwriting. Times when I did calligraphy at school are long gone. If I was however using my hand writing it would resemble something like this:

However for this look I used MoYou London stamping plates. I know, I OBVIOUSLY almost fooled you.

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