Valentines Bow Nail Art How To

Valentines Day is coming up this week so I decided to bust out the pinks and draw some pretty bows. This has been done time and time again but I couldn't resist! And I wanted to use the hot pink Zoya Ali that I picked up from Ulta last year (and still hadn't touched). So I came up with this:

Zoya Ali is a hot hot pink that looks red on the nails but over white comes out very fluro pink as you can see on the bow:

Can you believe it's the same colour!? It's much more pink in real life, the flash makes it a lot warmer and I couldn't adjust the white balance enough to make true to colour. Fluro pink is hard to pick up on camera. It makes me wonder if this is the 'Ali' used in the Pretty Little Liars intro where they paint the dead girl's nails since her name was Ali. I should google it. Oh there is a whole site dedicated to the nail polish of PLL! Wow! Hmm I don't know, the base nails in the picture sort of look white enough to bring out the fluro-ness but the formula isn't that thick. This polish came out Summer 2009 and the show started in 2010. But I digress, this was three coats of Zoya Ali. I got a little distracted haha ;-)

Firstly I dotted the centre of the bow with OPI Alpine Snow. I used a dotter on the other nails but I drew it on the thumb as it needed to be a bit bigger.

Then with my trusty nail art brush I drew the two sides of the bow, outlines first.

Then I filled the bows.

This 'last' step is probably the most time consuming part. I shaped my brush to a very fine tip with nail polish remover and carefully dipped the brush in the polish and lightly drew the bow detail. I started with the dots in the middle then worked on the little ovals down the bottom and finally worked around the outline set by the white. Added some strokes in the middle to make it look 'creased' then that was it! It looks a lot harder than it was, it was just drawing fine lines.

I also decided against adding the ribbon hanging down on the nails because I thought I didn't have enough room. If I started my bows higher up I might have been able to make it work. Instead I'll keep the thumb as the 'feature nail'.

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the look and have a fabulous Valentines day if you celebrate it :-) We will probably go for a picnic next weekend since the weather this weekend has been too rainy. I plan to consume a lot of cheese, weeeee. See you next time!

Kikki-K inspired ice cream nails!

Wow where did January go?! I went on a bit of a blogging hiatus recently. I took some time to relax and get back into the new year. And it was good. I got back into exercise, spent less time online, watched a lot of vampire diaries and played a massive amount of Tiny Tower on my phone. But I have something to share today! Around this time last year I did a similar ice cream nail art post but this year mine were kikki-k inspired! If you have a kikki-k nearby or peruse the online store, you may have noticed their sundae line. So cute! And I really really want this USB drive but I guess I'll have it in nail art form first ;-)

I don't normally do white nails but I felt like something different for "summer". What summer you might say if you live in the southern hemisphere. Indeed, we've been ripped off!

So this is about three coats of OPI Alpine Snow. I spent so much time cleaning up my nails and treating them with lotions and cuticle oil that I almost stopped at this point because it was so much effort!

The first colour used to draw the outline of the ice creams is a Sephora mini. I believe it is don't feed the hand models as shown from last year's post. I stuffed up one of the outlines and had to go over with alpine snow. A top coat will fix all mistakes, so it's all good.

Next I filled the bottom ice cream layer with OPI What's With The Cattitude. It took a few coats, it wasn't quite as opaque as I would have liked over that Sephora.

The middle layer consisted of the same Sephora colour as the outline. I kept a white line in between and went over it with more white where I made mistakes. I went for a beige instead of pastel yellow here. I thought yellow might not contrast with the white enough. And quite frankly chocolate is MUCH better than banana :-D

The top layer is Essie French Affair and it's a lovely light bubble gum pink.

I filled the ice cream "sticks" with Essie Mink Muffs but I didn't like it at first and covered the thumb with the Sephora to make it less brown. I think the Essie is fine by itself but I would have used a lighter colour if I had one. After the sticks add a final top coat and that is it!

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the post and had a fabulous new year. I'm going to go play more Tiny Tower (I cannot believe how addictive that game is). Have a wonderful week everyone and I'll see you next time!

Snowman Nail Art How To!

Hey everyone! I am avoiding packing for a road trip so I thought I'd post my latest holiday nails, snow men! Oh and share a picture of my latest Pandora bracelet, I got a snowman charm :-D

My little snowman came as part of a set:

I got this toy box full of mini holiday toys and they all play tunes or sounds. The snowman plays frosty the snowman, too cute. There was also an elf, reindeer and a Santa. I decided to do snowman nails. Onto the nail art!

The base for this look is Essie Lapis of Luxury.

To start with, I drew semi circles with a small nail art brush and OPI Alpine Snow.

Then on top of the snowman base, I drew circles for heads. I kind of stuffed the middle finger but not to worry, it will look fine later!

Then with the same nail art brush, I carefully drew a rounded square on top the head for a top hat, then some feet sticking out to make it look more hat shaped.

Then with an Orly dotting tool (the smaller end) I used black to dot the eyes. I believe the black I am using is one of the minis from one of those OPI Halloween mini sets.

Then using the closest orange I could find lying around I painted small triangles for the nose with the same nail art brush. This happens to be Yes, Your Lioness from the Sarfari Luxe mini set.

Then using the dotter again, did the mouth as dots (even though my snowman plush had a solid line, I think dots are cute).

More dots again on his body with the same small end of the dotting tool.

I personally thought my snowman looked cold so I gave him a scarf using Essie Pretty Edgy.

And lastly added some snowy dots in the background, and we're all done!

I finally jumped on the Instagram bandwagon and posted a piccy! I will be posting more throughout my holidays, so if you're into Instagram checkout thatleanne :-)

Now I mentioned I got a Pandora charm and this is it! I think they look similar, I just couldn't resist going in and having a looksy at some charms. I was going to get the tree but ended up deciding on the snowman instead.

The last time I shared my Pandora bracelet was back in June so I have a few more additions to share! Hmm let's see, I have acquired the snowman, a kitty cat from my mum for my birthday, a snowflake and a cameo butterfly. LOVE the cameo charms, they are so lovely. I picked that butterfly up in the shopping center in Santa Monica - the one near 3rd street promenade. I saw it and had to have it! I was short on suitcase space but still had cash to spend on my last day. Jewelry seemed to be the way to go!

I actually have the Pandora app on my iPhone and I spend a LOT of time there perusing charms. One day I will have a gold bracelet... one day!

Anyway I hope you enjoyed the post and are either on holidays or close to being on your holiday break! I am going to go finish packing now and wrap a few last minute gifts. I hope you all have a FANTASTIC Christmas/holiday and I will see you in the near future!

Choccy Gingerbread Men Nail Art!

Hi everyone! I don't know where the weekend went but as always it was too short! I ended up painting my nails with choccy gingerbread men on Sunday afternoon, they are the yummiest kind!

I actually started painting my nails with MAC Hangin' Loose with the intention of drawing holly but I don't know what happened, I just wasn't feeling it. I must have been hungry instead!

Anyway, to do these gingerbread men I started with a smart nail art brush and a drew the outline in OPI Alpine Snow.

Then I filled with Essie Mink Muffs with the same brush.

Then using an Orly dotting tool (the small dotting end) I dotted the eyes.

Then with the same nail art brush as earlier, I drew the mouth and the little bow tie outline.

Then I dotted the eyes lightly with the brush in black, filled the bow ties with green (Essie Pretty Edgy) and dotted two buttons. And for some reason drew a gingerbread house on my thumb :-P Some days I feel like drawing random things.

These were my inspiration! Well not exactly, Gloria Jeans ran out of the actual gingerbread men shaped gingerbread treats so I got choccy gingerbread trees instead. SO DELICIOUS.

I parted with the orange one to give to the bf and consumed this within seconds ;-D Yummy!

And completely off topic, I was watching Thanksgiving YouTube videos and I kept hearing about candied yams. And I was just sitting there thinking what are yams?! I googled and discovered some candied yam recipes (i.e. sweet potatoes). I must admit, the recipe sounded very strange to me. Sweet potato covered in butter, sugar and marshmallows? Then again I cannot judge, I come from Australia - the land of Vegemite :-D So I was willing to give it a try! I can't say we get ours 'yams' in a can so I boiled and mashed some sweet potatoes.

I have no idea how they are meant to look, taste or anything but this is how mine turned out. I had to google whether or not you eat them hot or cold. Google said either but after trying both I prefer cold. Either I grew accustomed to the taste and that's why cold seemed nicer or it really WAS nicer, I don't know. But something about marshmallows on a vegetable had me completely intrigued. So there you go. I added cinnamon but I don't know how much I should have added.

And lastly a random shot of what I was listening to today. I do not get sick of this song for some reason. I do not understand it or follow the lyrics but it's cool.

Well that's it for now :-) I am going on holidays shortly so I will be taking a little break over Xmas but I haven't figured out when exactly. I hope you all had an awesome weekend and I will see you next time!

Holiday nail art: Stockings!

Today I have a very pretty polish to show you - butter London Henley Regatta! I picked this up in Nordstrom (whilst on holidays earlier this year) but hadn't gotten around to wearing it until this week. I layered it over Illamasqua Viridian and drew some stockings to get into the Christmas spirit:

Henley Regatta is a glitter polish with a clear base but it's oh so pretty:

I only needed one coat to get this effect:

Viridian is gorgeous on its own but combined with this polish, it's downright gorgeous!

So as usual I started with the thumb nail and I wasn't really sure where I was going but I decided to draw my name on the stocking :-) I was slightly inspired by the coke name thing:

So to start, I outlined the stockings with a small nail art brush and OPI Alpine Snow:

Next I filled the tops of the stockings:

Then with Illamasqua Throb filled the rest of the stockings:

Then I wrote names for the rest of the stockings and all done!

And while I was in the festive spirit, I decided to dress up the dining table a little since we aren't having a Christmas tree this year (we're spending Christmas with the in-laws). I started with things I had lying around the house then I wanted to get some plates and cups so I went shopping. And Target was having a sale so I ended up redoing it like this:

I wanted to get a few more things but I am poor this Christmas haha. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the post and the stockings! I'm growing a nice collection of butter London polishes and no doubt I will expand the collection! Hope you all had a fantastic weekend and I'll see you next time!