The True Nudes

I don't imagine there's a polish-lover out there who doesn't have at least one well-loved nude hiding away in their collection. Today I'm sharing with you my collection of what I like to call 'true nudes' - the milkier polishes that take an eternity to become opaque but look stunning on the nail.

From left to right, we have China Glaze 'Inner Beauty', Essie 'Mademoiselle' and 'Limo-scene', Revlon 'Natural Pink', Natural Collection 'Peach Manicure', Revlon 'Porcelain' and Essie 'Not Just A Pretty Face'. 

I'm currently sporting 'Limo-scene' and I love it... Essie really seem to bring it when it comes to milky nudes. Yes, it takes forever to build the colour up and make it opaque enough but for those with lovely nails anyway, a couple of coats of one of these would look fabulous and give you instant class at your fingertips. 

The polishes featured today start at £1.89 (Natural Collection) and as you can see, most of them are very similar... a major win for those with a limited budget or for those who have already tried one and found they didn't get along with it. 

What's your favourite true nude? Let's have a chat in the comment section :)

R x

Where Have You Been...? Updates & Upcoming Posts

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! With the exception of yesterday's jigsaw-themed tutorial, it's been a considerable while since I last posted and I thought I'd give you all a bit of an explanation before I jump back into regular posting. 

So, halfway through September I was due to move into university accommodation with three friends I made in first year. I ended up not moving in after all and spent a couple of weeks running around getting out of my contract and hunting for a car...

Two short days after picking up my new baby, second year started so I've spent the past couple of weeks settling back into uni life and re-adjusting things a little. I'm now in my third week of second year but I haven't been in at all so far this week because I've come down with some sort of virus :( 

In terms of TLO, I have plenty of designs lined up to post about and also something very exciting to share with you all in the next few weeks. I'm also planning on expanding into polish reviews and recommendations.

Hope my lovely readers have all been well, let me know if you've been up to anything exciting!

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Try Something New Tutorial: Jigsaw

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Today I'm featuring another nail design that I've seen everywhere and always wanted to attempt. As you might have already guessed given the title of this post, I'm talking about jigsaw nails...

These nails were surprisingly easy to create and super cute too. All you need to do is take four colours and divide your nail evenly into squares. Fill those squares with the colours and add dots to the edges to create the puzzle piece effect. Et voila! You look ridiculously proficient in nail art AND have really cool nails to show off. 


Here's a walkthrough of how to create jigsaw nails:
1. Get hold of a top coat, any four colours you like, a base coat and, for accuracy reasons, a striping brush or very thin nail art brush.
2. Apply your base coat to every nail and allow to dry a little.
3. Take your first colour and your chosen brush and create a square in the top left corner of your nail. It needs to stretch across to halfway across the tip of your nail and halfway down the nail. Fill this square in with the same colour. Clean your brush. (I wipe it across a remover-soaked cotton pad until it is coming up clean)
4. Take your next colour and create a square in the top right hand corner. It needs to be the same length as your first square. Again, fill in with the same colour and clean your brush.
5. Now take your third colour and continue with a square in the bottom left hand corner, making sure the polish stops in line with the middle of the nail. You could make this fully square, however I curved the bottom round to match my nail's natural curve. Fill in with the same colour and once again clean your brush.
6. Fill in the rest of the nail with your final colour and clean your brush.
7. Add another coat to any of the colours if you feel they are not opaque enough. 
8. Now you need to take it in turns with the colours to add dots to the outsides of the squares to create the jigsaw effect. If you can't figure out an order, follow my photo :-) Allow the nails to dry a little.
9. Finally, add your top coat and let the nails dry fully.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Essential Tools

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Today's post is just a quickie to discuss what I believe to be essential tools for creating nail art...

Striping Brush - This is essential for creating straight, neat lines. This brush would come in handy in gingham designs or any other design featuring lines. 

Dotting Tools - These are particularly handy for creating flowers or for any design involving dots. These are super cheap on Amazon and you can buy them in packs of varying sizes. 

Normal, Small Brush - This is essential if you are wanting to create shapes, fill in parts of the nail in one block colour or just use a thinner, smaller brush than the one that comes with a polish. This is especially handy if you are using acrylic paints to create your nail art. 

Can you think of any other essential nail art tools? Let us all know in the comments if you can!

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Next Step Up Tutorial - Very Berry

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! This Very Berry nail tutorial is the next step up from my last tutorial (Vintage and Floral) and builds on the skills you've started to pick up. This is quite rare for me, but this design is actually on my nails as I write this post and was created late last night as I sat in bed and decided I didn't like the polish I had on.

My Very Berry nail tutorial is PERFECT for autumn/winter and I've even added a bit of glitter for when Christmas rolls around and we're all breaking out the reds and greens with no idea what to do with them. This design could very easily be adapted to create a holly bush look too.


To create my Very Berry nails, here's what you need to do:
1. Get hold of a base coat, a patent/plain white (although if you're doing these at Christmas, a shimmery white would be totally appropriate!), a selection of red/plum/deep pink shades, a dark or khaki green and a top coat. If you're wanting to add glitter, get yourself a red glitter polish for ease or be brave and work with loose glitter - the choice is yours :-) You will also need a toothpick/cocktail stick or, preferably, a dotting tool. 
2. Apply your base coat and leave to dry.
3. Apply a coat of white to each nail and let it dry a little. Continue applying coats until the colour is opaque enough for you then leave the nails to dry a little more.
4. Choose one of your reddish colours and add three to four dots on each nail, spaced well apart and these make up the basis of each berry. Clean your tool.
5. Take your next reddish colour and add dots next to and/or slightly on top of the existing dots. Clean your tool.
6. Repeat this with each reddish colour in your selection until you have circular shapes like mine. Clean your tool.
7. If you are using loose glitter, this is where you should allow your nails to dry completely then add the glitter. If you are using a glitter polish, treat it like a normal polish and follow the instructions in point 6.
7. Now take your green colour and add leaves to the berries. Allow the nails to dry a little.
8. Finally, apply your top coat and allow your nails to fully dry.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Beginner's Tutorial: Vintage and Floral

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! A few weeks ago I was rooting round Boots and came away with a stash of new polishes to try out. I picked out two particularly fabulous colours that I paired together for today's design and I absolutely love them...

I love the combination of this deep, mustard yellow and muted navy blue and I think it creates quite a vintage effect. The best thing about this design is that it's perfect for nail art newcomers as I did all of this only using the brushes that came in the polishes. 

To create this exact design, here's what you need to do:
1. Get hold of a base coat, Maybelline's 'Electric Yellow', Mavala's 'Trinidad', Barry M's 'Matte White' and a top coat.
2. Apply your base coat to every nail and leave to dry.
3. Apply Electric Yellow to every other nail and leave to dry. Apply further coats until you feel the colour is opaque enough.
4. Apply Trinidad to the remaining nails and leave to dry. Again, apply further coats until you feel the colour is opaque enough.
5. Take your Matte White and get rid of excess from the brush. Dab the polish on to create the petals of flowers. You can create as many flowers as you like.
6. On the yellow nails, take Trinidad and dot it in the middle of your flowers. On the blue nails, do the same with Electric Yellow.
7. Leave the colours to dry a little then apply your top coat and leave to fully dry.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

#bravenails

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Any friend of mine is more than likely to know that I absolutely adore the musician Josh Groban. I created these nails earlier in the year and have been wanting to blog about them for so long but never found the time on my old blog, so now I've landed here I'm finally releasing my inner joy at these nails...

I tweeted about these the night I created them and I was absolutely thrilled about this... (I was so excited I even went to my Grandma's house the next morning and went through the lengthy process of explaining Twitter to her just so a fellow Grobie could get excited with me.) 

I love nail art and I love Josh Groban... and I love that a little hobby got me noticed by my absolute favourite musician whose music has genuinely helped me through hideous, hideous things in the past two years.

Any Grobies in the West Yorkshire area of the UK in desperate need of a manicure, I'll be more than happy to sort that out for you ;)

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo 

Eat At The Pie Hole

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Pushing Daisies is possibly my all-time favourite TV show and I'm still heartbroken that it was cancelled, but that definitely doesn't stop me loving the storylines and lusting after pie-making, dead-waking Ned. These nails were Pie Hole inspired and I hope any of you Daisy Pushers like them... :-)

In the top photo, we have a coffee mug on a serviette/napkin, a pie, live and dead strawberries on a wooden block and a knife and fork on a serviette/napkin. In the bottom photo, we have live and dead strawberries again, another pie, flour and pastry on a marble surface and one last pie. They may not be the best but I was proud of them and I think they represent The Pie Hole as an establishment quite well. 

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Stained Glass

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Today's post is a nail design that excited me greatly to create and walk around proudly showing off. I've seen stained glass inspired nails all over the place and I finally decided to create my own...

I love the vibrancy of these colours against the black, but these nails were a real labour of love and not advised for the nail art beginner of those with little time. I'm looking forward to adapting these for different occasions (Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's, Easter etc etc). 

If you're wanting to create my vibrant stained glass nails, you will need the following basic colours:
- Patent/plain black
- Patent/plain minty teal
- Patent/plain coral
- Patent/plain yellow
- Patent/plain purple

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo 

The 'Billie' Manicure: Floral & Girly

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! I'm back today with another custom manicure. If you read Thursday's post, you'll know that I had two of my college friends over last week and I did both of their nails. Hop back a few posts if you want to see Sophie's Harry Potter and France themed manicure but hang around here if you're interested in Billie's cute, floral and brilliantly girly manicure...

After much deliberation Billie plumped for small flowers, big flowers and patchwork nails, which happen to be one of my all-time favourite discoveries. We went with a pink theme and used various shades as the bases with blue and yellow as the main flower colours. Billie is a girly girl but with an edge to me, so the inclusion of black in two of the designs helps to bring out that aspect of her personality. 

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Pretty Little Sneakers

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! It's been a quiet few days here in Casa Lacquer but my obsession with photographing every nail design I create means that I have a great backlog of designs to share with you all. Today's is a design I distinctly remember earning me a lot of compliments from the girls on my uni course and one that can lend itself to almost every colour to match any mood...

Yep. Converse-esque nails. I love, love, love this nail design and think it's so versatile. The rocker could opt for vibrant reds and deep purples or blacks, the girly girl could opt for a baby pink or lilac and the adventurous ones among you could even try patterned bases to these sneaker themed nails (I've just given myself a fabulous idea there, haha).

If you're wanting to create sneaker nails, you will need the following basic colours:
- Any colour(s) you like for the base (i.e. for the actual shoe). I went for pastel colours here but you could choose absolutely anything and make it work for you.
- Patent/plain white (for the tip of the shoe and the laces)
- Patent/plain black (for the lace holes and the line across the lip of the shoe)

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Earn Your Stripes!

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! So, you know when you start to do your nails then by the time you finish you look down and think "I'm not entirely sure how I ended up with these nails"? I had that this weekend when I started off wanting white with vibrant-but-deep blue stripes. You can observe what happened for yourself...

I used glitter and also a matte topcoat to give this design a bit more 'jazz', but looking back now they'd look a lot better without the glitter. I like the pastels (obvious much given my last post haha!) and this is definitely one design that does benefit from a matte topcoat. 

If you're wanting to create my animal-esque striped nails, you will need the following basic colours:
- Patent/plain white
- Selection of pastel colours - I used coral, lilac, bluey-mint, green and yellow
You will also need:
- A matte topcoat

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

From the Archives...

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Today's post is a little different but I was browsing old photos taken on my phone at the weekend and came across a stash of my early nail designs back when I was experimenting with nail art and getting to grips with using my left hand to create something other than a mess...

One of the more frequent comments I receive both on the interwebs and in real life conversation is "I'd never be able to do nail art, it's too difficult" and I totally, totally get why so many of you think that. Back when I created these designs, I found them tough but now when I look back at the photos I'm cringing at so many things knowing how much better I am at it now. 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there really is no reason to have nail envy when you look at nail art photos, all you need to do is invest in a couple of tools (striping brush, dotting tools and a tiny paintbrush) and take the time to practice when you can. 

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

The Edgy French

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! French manicures are loved the world over and whenever I spot someone with a decent one it instantly makes me want one too. The only problem is... I get bored of it after a day and the effort I've put in gets erased when I change my nails a mere 24 hours later. How do you fix that? You 'edge' it up with some simple black stripes and a reliable ol' rhinestone...

You will need the following basic colours:
- Patent/plain white (a polish specifically designed for a Frenchie brush-wise is best as it's smaller and easier to use)
- Patent/plain black
- I also used a Sally Hansen shimmery pink topcoat over the white before I added the black and the rhinestone
You will also need the following accessory:
- Rhinestone (clear/silvery in colour)

I first created this around Christmas 2012 when I felt that my French manicure was a bit too formal and I love the fact that the general look is still obvious. This could be done with any colour stripe but generally speaking I'm not a fan of coloured rhinestones so I personally would recommend you stick with a clear or silvery one.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Just Beachy

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! High fives all around for my terrible title-pun. As you may have been able to guess, today's nails are beach themed and combine one of my favourite nail shades - blue- and one of this year's biggest trends - ombre effect...

Given that this involves ombre and sponging and all of those things that even nail art enthusiasts shy away from, I'm not going to discuss what this involves but if anybody would like a proper tutorial leave me a comment below and your twitter or email so I can let you know when I post it :-)

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Best Left For the Toes... Gold Gingham

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Now I LOVE gingham-esque nails and I love, love, love this design on my toes, but after loving it so much on my toes and trying it out on my fingers I have firmly decided it is best left to the tootsies...

You will need the following basic colours:
- Patent/plain pastel/baby pink
- Gold

You might think this looks fab on the fingernails but it just didn't wow me on my own nails. Maybe gold over something like black would look better on me... who knows? I do love this on my toes though so it's definitely not a design to throw to the scrapheap. I think on someone else this would be a great design to pair with a similarly coloured pink dress and gold accessories for a party or formal event - one for you freshers to consider this September!

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Neon Tribal

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! So, you know when you paint your nails an obscure colour then find you're bored of them... what do you do? Well, if you're me you create some random design then try to figure out if it fits into any category. Today's design is neon tribal and came about during my peak-of-summer neon phase...

You will need the following basic colours:
- Neon yellow
- Patent/plain black
You will need the following colours for the vertical stripes:
- Neon orange
- Neon green
- Neon pink
- Neon blue
- Neon purple

Despite the autumn creeping in I don't think neons are ready to get packed away for the colder months just yet and I think this could be brilliant paired with a simple, black outfit and neon accessories. 

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Mix and Match Floral

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Oh, I do love a good floral nail! I imagine you may have already noticed quite how much I love a floral nail given that another post this week was themed entirely on the floral side of things, but I really do think it's such a versatile and easy way of doing nail art. I also love a good mix and match nail design and if I can combine the two I feel like my fingers look pretty damn good.

I'm not going to post details on how to achieve these nails because I mixed the vibrant green myself and I'm fairly certain I mixed the green of the leaves myself too because I've never found suitable enough colours. Suffice to say though, I really loved this manicure and I totally fell in love with the mint nail with blue and white flowers in the second photo, so much so that I added it to my nail wheels. 

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

The 'Sophie' Manicure: Harry Potter & France

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! So it's been a couple of days since my last post, but I've been so busy petsitting for my cousins that I just haven't had time to sit down and write. Last week I had two of my college friends Sophie and Billie over for the afternoon and we watched Michael McIntyre, ate junk food and gossiped while I did their nails. Today, I'm sharing the manicure Sophie chose...

Sophie chose ten different designs so each nail was unique. For her first hand, she picked polka dots, Hogwarts uniform, the Eiffel tower, a shark and blood spatters with crime scene tape over the top. 

For the second hand, we did piano keys, a Horcrux symbol, the words 'je ne sais pas', HP glasses and scar and a galaxy nail.  

Now I'm looking back over the photos, I think the manicure I did for Sophie reminds me why I love nail art so much - it's such a good expression of personality and most of the designs I did for Sophie are symbolic of things she loves and that everyone associates with her (HP mad and a complete Francophile). 


If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Gingham Mint

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Oh, how I love a good minty polish! Unfortunately for me, as I've previously alluded to, I get very bored of plain colours on my nails and always feel the need to jazz them up in some way. One of the quickest ways of doing this is to create a gingham-style print over the top et voila - brand new nails.

You will need the following basic colours:
- Patent/plain mint green
- Patent/plain white

This design is perfect for spring (way to go Rachel - it's almost autumn here in the UK!) but I'm not one to restrict myself to seasonal colours and is so easy to create that it seems almost criminal to lock it away until the new year has arrived and the leaves begin to grow back. 

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Black and Blue

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! I went through a real phase not long ago of constantly having floral nails. I'm not so much a fan of pink or purple florals though, so I'm always looking for different ways of creating cute, girly, floral designs but without using colours I don't particularly suit.

You will need the following basic colours:
- Patent/plain black
- Patent/plain white
- Patent/plain pastel blue
If you want to add the leaves, you will also need:
- Patent/plain mid green

I love the contrast of vibrant pastel blue on pure black in this design and for those who love to be girly but with a bit of an edge, this design would probably be right up your street.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

It's Party Time!

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! There's something about a good, chunky glitter over patent black that has always excited me. I think it's perfect for a party, and with freshers week at universities up and down the UK coming up very soon I thought now was a great opportunity to share a simple to create yet gorgeous to look at manicure.

You will need the following colour for the base:
- Patent/plain black
To create the glitter, there are a couple of methods you can use:
- Sprinkling multicoloured glitter on wet nails by hand
- Using a glitter topcoat (mine is an American Apparel one)

Decent glitter topcoats can be a little expensive but in my opinion worth it. If you don't have the money to spend on something like the polish I used, you can purchase all types of glitter from Ebay for much cheaper prices.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Growl Power

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Leopard print suddenly exploded a couple of years ago and can now be found everywhere from clothes to shoes to even your nails. I never caught onto the trend because brown on brown just doesn't appeal to me, but my nail-lover cousin Amy and I were discussing the idea of pastel leopard print and it totally inspired me to try it out.

You can use any colours you like for the spots, but to recreate my design you will need the following base colour:
- Patent/plain white
If you're following my design, you will need the following colours for the spots:
- Patent/plain pastel blue
- Patent/plain pastel yellow
- Patent/plain pastel green
- Patent/plain pastel orange
- Patent/plain coral
- Patent/plain pastel purple
To go around the spots, this is the product you'll need:
- Barry M Nail Art Pen in black. Alternatives could be a normal black polish used with a dotting tool, black acrylic paint or another nail art pen (Rio isn't recommended for black though, it tends to smudge when applying a top coat no matter how long you leave it to try - be careful if you use this!)

Much like The Floral Patriot that I posted the other day, leopard print is a sure fire way to get your nails noticed amongst your friends and create a bit of nail envy! And receive a few compliments too of course.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Navy and White Polka Dots

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! When I'm in a nail rut and can't decide what I want to do, I often find myself reaching for one of the simplest yet classiest designs: polka dots. I get bored of plain colours on my nails within hours so when I want to try out a new polish, more often than not I add some dots and find that I love them.

This manicure is super, super easy and perfect for beginners. The staple colour you will need is:
- Navy or dark blue. Polka dots look great over patent polishes AND over shimmery ones, so why not go wild and add some shimmers?
You will also need the following colour to add the polka dots:
- Patent/plain white
[Note: I used the Barry M nail art pen in white, but a normal white polish with a dotting tool will work just as well!]

Super chic but with a funky edge! This can obviously be recreated time and time again with whichever colours take your fancy and is a perfect nail art fix for the junkie who needs something pretty on their nails but has very little time.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

The Floral Patriot

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! Now, is it just me or is there something strangely appealing about the colour combo of white, blue and red? Being British, the combo evokes a sense of patriotism and I'm sure it does in those of you all over the world with these colours as those in your flag too. Today's nails are simple, floral, patriotic and oh-so-pretty.

For this manicure, the staple colours you will need are:
- Patent/plain white
- Patent/plain light blue
- Patent/plain red
You will also need the following colours to add certain accents, such as the centre of the flower and leaf detailing:
- Patent/plain dark brown (black will suffice if you really can't find a dark enough brown, or of course you can experiment and choose any colour you like!)
- Patent/plain mid to dark green
Finally, you will need the following tool(s) to create the right shapes:
- Dotting tool (a cocktail stick/toothpick will suffice if you're new to nail art)
- Striping brush (for the leaf detailing, again, a cocktail stick/toothpick will suffice but it can be quite tricky to get the leaves accurate)

Et voila! Floral nails are always a massive hit amongst my friends and you'll be sure to receive a compliment or too when you wear these.

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

Back to School

Buenos días fellow lacquer lovers! The air is getting colder and the dark is setting in quicker and that can only mean one thing for those of us still in education: it's almost back to school time. Inspired by various designs spotted on Instagram, my Back to School manicure embraces the cute and quirky while still capturing the school theme.

For this manicure, the staple colours you will need are:
- Patent/plain white
- Patent/plain black
- Patent/plain bright yellow
You will also need the following colours to add certain accents, such as the apple detail or the detailing on the A+ nail:
- Patent/plain red
- Patent/plain mid to light blue or turquoise
[Note: I used Barry M nail art pens in black and white for all of the black and white detailing. Other nail art pens should be fine, as should black and white acrylic paints]
To make the apple more realistic, the following colours are recommended:
- Patent/plain mid to dark brown 
- Patent/plain mid green

And there you have it! A cute and quirky back to school manicure to make the dreaded first day of term that little bit more bearable. 

If you have any questions, you can leave me a comment below or tweet me @rachelizabethxo. I would LOVE to hear from you and find out your thoughts!

Happy painting!

Rachel xo

P.S. Did you know that you can follow my blog with Bloglovin? You can! And it would make me smile like a Cheshire cat if you did ;-)