NOTW 21: Pancake Nails!

It's Pancake Day! The time where everyone tries to make homemade pancakes and ends up buying pre made ones because they're sick of failure! (Well... that's what happens with us anyway!) I was so excited to try this design out and I think it's come out really well. This weeks Nails of the Week is inspired by pancakes! I wanted to create a design that looked like pancakes with syrup or chocolate on and I really like the result!

I used the water marbling effect to create the swirls and this was the first time I'd tried this technique and got it to actually work! It took a while to get everything right but overall I think it's great for a first attempt. The colours I used were Sally Hansen's 'Dune' (cream/nude) and Essie's 'Glamour Purse' (brown). I wanted to create a swirl pattern more than the normal pattern as I thought it would look more like syrup that has been poured on top. I love this design and I think I will be using this technique in the future now I know how to do it properly! I love the colours of the polish too; Dune is a pretty cream colour and Glamour Purse is a rich brown!

Do you make your own pancakes? What is your favourite topping?! Let me know!

Until next time...

TheDarkeowl

xox

NOTW 20: Tortilla Chip Day Nails!

As I said, I'm using weird and wonderful events to inspire my nails and I don't it comes wackier than this! Tortilla Day is today and I thought these would be a really fun design to try!

I let my nails grow out slightly and I cut them into a pointed tip, to imitate the triangular shape of the chips. I didn't have quite the right colour to paint my nails into realistic chip colour so I tried to make a more cartoony looking chip. I used Rimmel's 'Cute as a Kitten Heel' for the yellow, and for the little crispier brown parts I used Essie's 'Glamour Purse' and a very small dotting tool. I did add some highlights using Sally Hansen's 'Dune', but it didn't show very well because the base colour was too similar. I added some cheese to the ring finger to add a little more to the design and for this I used Sally Hansen's 'Man-Go Team!' and a large dotting tool.

Overall I'm really impressed with the design think it just looks like a fun abstract pattern!

Have you done any strange looking designs?

Until next time...

TheDarkeowl

xox

Blog Inspiration and Motivation

I've been posting pretty much twice a week since I started my blog, which I know isn't as much as other bloggers, but for me and the amount of products I have, it's enough to keep the blog going. Recently though, I've been in a bit of a ditch and the motivation has just kinda faded away. There is no way that I would even think of stopping blogging at this point in time, even though my blog isn't a huge sensation and I don't make any money from it, it is something I really enjoy and I would much rather that, than stop because I wasn't a huge success.

I feel a lot of bloggers recently have been feeling the pressure, I've seen a lot of posts talking about the competition in the blogging world and how changes in websites and their systems are making it more difficult for up and coming bloggers to be noticed. Of course the successful bloggers are successful for a reason, but one of my favourite things to do, is find smaller bloggers that don't have thousands of followers and see if I like their content, because I know how satisfying and exciting it is to get a new follower when you don't have many. I've also seen posts stating that people are struggling to come up with new content, and it seems to be a common thing around this time of year, so maybe my problem is just what a lot of others are feeling too.

I have a couple of posts planned, but they're to do with events in the year so have to go up on specific dates. I usually have a backlog of post ideas that need writing or photos, so if I end up with a day that I don't know what to post, I can just look back to those and pick one out to finish it. But recently, I haven't had the motivation to finish them, or to create new ones. I think it's something that a lot of bloggers go through but I'm trying to find my way out of it and at the moment, it's not really working. I'm always looking for new inspiration and what other people are posting about, not to copy them outright, but to see what is popular.

I think soon I will need to give myself a good kick and try even harder to find some post ideas. I know it seems a bit strange, but I thought this post explaining my possible lack of posts would be better than nothing!


Is anyone else going through this? Or if you have gone through this, how did you combat it? Please let me know!


Until next time...


TheDarkeowl
xox

Freedom Makeup 'Far Away' Star Wars Lipstick Collection!

Ok, so I got SUPER excited about these when I found them the other day! I had heard of Freedom Makeup here and there but never really paid much attention. I was just looking to buy some other products I needed, when I came across this little lipstick collection. I initially liked the colours so picked it up to find what the shades were. Turns out they are all Star Wars related! After that I just had to get them and had to show them some love on here!

Look Incredible February 2017

Hi everyone! This is my second Look Incredible beauty box, I bought last months but was too late to post it! I saw lots of people reviewing these and after looking into it I thought it was the best beauty box to suit me for the money! It's £21.49 including postage, and while this may be a little bit more than some other beauty boxes, the total of the products inside seem to amount to a lot more! Keep on reading to see what I got in this month's Look Incredible!

NOTW 19: Valentine Heart Gradient

I have another Valentine Nails of the Week for you today! These were also pretty simple to do and look really fun and bright! I decided to do a gradient for this design because I thought it would look really feminine and interesting, so it took a little more time than the previous design (see that post here).

I started off with a base of Sally Hansen's 'White On', waited for that to dry and then used a simple kitchen sponge and 'White On' with Revlon's 'Sweet Tart' to create the gradient. I did the gradient twice so that it was more seamless and then waited for it to dry. I then used my Cheeky stamping plates to create the design. I used a design that had a lot of different sized hearts on that seem to be stitched. I used my Konad stamping polish in black and applied this to all of my nails. I then finished with my Essence top coat and my Quick Dry drops!

I really like the colour of the gradient, I think it can be used with a lot of other Valentine designs, or on it's own! Have you designed any Valentines nails? What do you think of this design?

Until next time...

TheDarkeowl

xox

Valentines Day Eye Makeup Tutorial!

So Valentines Day is just around the corner and I think it's a great time to create some really lovely eye makeup designs. Whether you are going out, or just spending it snuggled up, here is a great makeup look for the day of lovers!

NOTW 18: Valentines Day Nails

I haven't done any Valentines Day nails before and I really want to start using calendar events as inspiration for my nails. So I did a generic heart design but I'm actually quite pleased with the result.

I used Nails Inc.'s St. James for my base and used my Cheeky stamps and Konad's black stamping polish for the design. The stamp is a really cool kind of doodle heart design and I thought it'd look great using a black polish. Looking on it, the design is pretty subtle as both of the colours are quite dark but it looks really nice when you can see the actual design. St. James is such a brilliant colour and a joy to apply! You actually only need one coat for it to become opaque but I still applied 2 to make sure. It's a lovely creamy, vibrant red colour and has such good lasting power!

For this design I actually struggled a bit with the stamps, I'm not sure if it was because the engraving wasn't deep enough or if I was doing something wrong. Either way I managed to fight my way through the dodgy application and create this design! I used my Essence top coat and the Quick Dry drops to finish. I had to be careful not to smudge the design however! Overall I'm really happy with the design and think it's a great, simple design for Valentines Day.

Speak to you soon!

TheDarkeowl

xox