All In a Days Work

On Friday at work I came up with a whole nail wheel of designs for the up and coming 'Festival' theme we were having where I work. My job was to design some festival-y nail art, and here is what I came up with! Admittedly, I went on a bit of a tangent to strictly festival theme, but I seized the opportunity to re-do some designs I did a few years ago, before I knew about nail art pens and was not very practiced, which is something I've wanted to do for a while. I used a variety of bold colours and funky patterns. I created these all with Mavala nail polish, a few extra tools and a couple of black and white nail art pens.

(From left to right) 

1. You cannot see this design very well but it was just a dark purple colour, half matte and half shiny. 

2. This is just a simple polka dot design. The dots are not perfect as my nail art pen gets a little bit clogged sometimes.

3. Galaxy nails. I LOVED re-doing this design. I did about a year ago with more gold colours but have seen so many better variations of it since so I went with a more purple-y pink colour this time, and I love it. I think I will wear this on my nails soon!

4. A simple pink colour with the 'peace' symbol.

5. Leopard print

6. Small flowers.

7. Blue Aztec. I have done this design before but I am still not 100% happy with this. I want to practice it more to make it perfect!

8. Another design I have done before, this time I used larger blobs to create bigger roses.

9. Rainbow. I have never done this one before and was scared the colours would merge but I'm pretty happy with the final result.

10. Stain Glass Window. This is one I've seen in my Wah nails book which I have wanted to try This was the first time I'd done it and I'm pretty excited to do it on all my nails soon!

11. Strawberry. This design is very important to me as it was the very first bit of nail art I tried a couple of years ago, and it is the design that made me fall in love with nail art! Very close to my heart this old strawberry!

12. Melon. Have done it before and wanted to try it again as its so simple and really cute.

13. Carrying on the fruit theme, this is a pineapple I tried for the first time! It had a lot of potential to go wrong but I think you can tell what it is!!

14. Zig Zags

15. You'd think as a nail art fanatic I would have done this before but believe it or not, this is actually my first attempt at gradient nail art, and for my first attempt I was pretty happy! I also added the silhouette palm tree at a friends request!

16. Beach Scene

17. Ladybird. A friend had tried this before but I hadn't so had a go myself!

18. Converse shoes which I have done before! 

Here are some close ups of my favourites!

Close up of galaxy nail

I used a dark blue then rolled a cotton bud with white polish on it and gently rolled it across the nail. I did the same with some purple, added some white dots for stars, then finished with a glitter top coat to add real sparkle.

Close up of gradient

First I painted the nail orange, then whilst still wet, I dabbed on the pink using a makeup sponge. The back silhouette I did free hand with a nail art pen. 

Close up roses

For the roses, I first blobbed on pink, then using a manicure stick, I blobbed the green either side of the red. Using a nail art pen I outlined the leaves and roses and added in the swirls of the roses.

Close up mosaic

Again, I blobbed on the different colours, then filled in the gaps with a black nail art pen. Really simple but effective.