Beauty and the Beach 2 - my entry!

There's this brilliant competition going at the moment that's run by TravelSupermarket.com. It's for beauty bloggers - you need to design your ideal holiday nails, hair and/or makeup. There are amazing cash prizes up for grabs! From what I understand, if you win one of the categories you'll get 500 pounds - that's over 900 NZD! If you're the overall winner, you get 1500 pounds. That's some serious fainting material right there. 

If you have a blog and you're interested in entering, head over there by clicking here!

I thought really hard about this, and it was actually really stressful trying to make the design work! There's so much more pressure on when you know it's going to be judged - I feel sorry for the people entering my competition now!

These are the guidelines...

"We are challenging bloggers to showcase their talent by posting a blog post that captures what they think is the perfect holiday hair, nails and make-up. It is entirely up to you whether you consider this look to be minimal and natural for lazing on the beach, or exploring a city's sites, or whether the perfect holiday look is glamorous evening hair and make-up for dining or clubbing."

Right, so what you'd wear on holiday. This posed a problem for me though - I wear anything on my nails, all the time! I'm quite happy to have floral in winter and bunny nails at Christmas-time and so on. So I decided to paint my nails in a way that represented what holidays are to me (hair and makeup to come!).

Disney nail art #2: Beauty and the Beast!

I feel like I've been waiting a lifetime to show you guys these nails! I did them over a week ago, and normally would have posted them straight away because I love them so much. Unfortunately (or fortunately) I had been organised and had posts already scheduled up until now... so I had to be patient. But here they are!

As you may know, I've given myself a rather relaxed Disney challenge. I have to do nails based on heaps of Disney movies, and they have to be detailed ones! I did Aladdin nails last month, which you can find here. I might do Cinderella next!

I did these nails with acrylic paint, and overall was very happy with how they came out. I particularly liked the Beast and the movie logo. Belle and the rose were okay, but her face is not quite right (and too big) and the rose could be any old rose - not the rose!

One year blogiversary giveaway and nail art competition!

Today marks one year since I made my first post on Nailed it NZ! It was just called "Nailed it" then, and I was just playing around with some pretty colours. Over the last year so many things have happened, to both me and my blog! 

Personally, I've graduated from university, made new friends, caught up with old ones, gone to hospital and had something that was causing me a lot of pain fixed, moved house and really just grown as a person.
In regards to my blog, my page views have gone from 0 to just about 150,000, I'm coming close to 600 GFC followers, my Facebook has a whopping 7000+ fans and my instagram, Tumblr and We Heart It are all coming up to the 2000 mark. And naturally, my nail art skill has improved significantly! Here's an example!

Tribal nail art done in June 2012

Tribal nail art done in April 2013

I've also recently signed a new advertising contract which I'm very happy with - see that little video to the right - that's it! I'm focusing on growing my YouTube, and have many wild, crazy dreams! My love of nail art has inspired me to do a nail technician course, which I plan to start next year. I'm so happy and excited about my future doing something that I love.

So this giveaway is to say THANK YOU! I'm so happy I found nail art and blogging, and I love all the wonderful comments and feedback I receive. I've gotten quite a few lovely emails lately, asking for advice, giving compliments, showing their recreations of my nail designs - I love it! Interaction with followers make the blogging experience so much better :).

Anyway, I'll move past the mushy stuff and on to the exciting bit!

I'm having both a giveaway and a nail art competition - so even if nail art isn't your thing you can still enter to win something!

Pastel gradient + KKCenterHk review!

This post has quite a few photos but I just couldn't resist - I love the way these nails turned out plus the lighting was good! A little while ago, KKCenterHk approached me and asked me to review some of their products. I chose these gorgeous glitters by N.Nail!

I've been a bit slow putting a review up, however, as I couldn't decide what to do with them! They fill the middle-ground between glequins and studs; they're quite thick and more raised than glequins, but not as much as studs. They do feel like much better quality than any other nail art glitter/glequin I've used. They're 2.5 mm across and I have no idea how many are in there - heaps! The only problem I had was that my wax pencil didn't work when picking them up - but you can just use clear nail polish and a cuticle stick. Most people don't have wax pencils anyway, but I thought it was worth mentioning for those that do.

Glow in the Dark nail polish!

I'm so excited about this nail polish. IT GLOWS IN THE DARK! I'm such a little kid, but honestly it's so cool. I have some other stuff from the $2 shop but this is way better. 

I'm reviewing this for Born Pretty Store, by the way! If you don't know who they are, they're an online shop that sell all kinds of beauty items including (my favourite) nail art!

Here's a couple of pictures of the nail polish bottle, one with the lights on and one with them off. It's green in the bottle but makes your nails glow blue. 2-3 coats is about the right amount.

Blue glitter nail polish from Born Pretty Store!

I love this glittery little polish I received from  Born Pretty Store to review! It's pretty dense and looks perfect over a black. I think it'd also look great over a silver or light blue.

In case you don't know about Born Pretty Store, it's a cheap online store that sells heaps of nail art items - plus free shipping! You can find this one here - blue glitter nail polish.. It's $4.61 US, which is pretty good especially with free shipping. Here's the nail polish bottle - it's a very pretty one!

Colourful pastel tribal nail art

 I've done some new tribal nails! Or easter egg nails, whichever takes your fancy :D.

These were great nails. They didn't take too long to do, I did them the same on both hands with no worries and they looked awesome. Tribal nails have been, are and always will be one of my favourite designs!