HAPPY HALLOWEEN

It's Halloween today and I decided to create some spOoOoOoky Halloween themed nails. However, this year I felt as though I had to up my game because last year I won and OPI competition for my Halloween nails...

So, this year I decided to ditch Frankenstein and the scary tree and, instead, replaced them with a witch's hat and Scream. I revamped my pumpkin and eyeball but the blood drips remained the same (not much you can do to spice up blood, unfortunately).

To create my Halloween 2013 nails, I started off by painting the base colours:

Next, I painted on the simple shapes:

And, finally, added in the details!

In terms of costumes, I've had quite a few events to plan for... 

First off was my house-warming in London. We had a red carpet themed party and I decided to dress up as Gwen Stefani from No Doubt. And yesterday, at last minute, I fixed together a ghost costume for a Uni Sport's Social (pretty much just snipped a few holes in a mattress cover and I looked like an absolute idiot). Tomorrow, my friends and I are going to a house party and we're dressing up as Spring Breakers - might have to create some nails for that outfit...

Happy Halloweeeeeen.

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LONDON FASHION WEEKEND

So it has been quite a while since I last posted - I've been very busy, again, and am currently trying to get through a tonne of uni work waah.

It was nearly 2 weeks ago that I received another amazing opportunity... this time it was to work at London Fashion Weekend! I worked on the Thursday, the first day of the event. My job was to work backstage as a dresser for one of the models. There were two types of shows - one was Designer and the other was Trend. The designer for our day was Zoe Jordan who was showing some of her SS13 pieces which were really striking. There were four trends for the Trend show: Graphic, Urban, Eastern and Dolls. 

Backstage

The trends and my lovely model - Vanessa

The best thing about working on the first show was that Labrinth was performing to celebrate the start of the event. We got a glimpse of him backstage and I also had to steam and iron his trousers - such a claim to fame haha. The shows all went very well and even though it was a long and exhausting day, I still had a lot of fun.

I had friends from home visiting me in London and so we went to the last show of London Fashion Week which was on the Sunday. It was interesting to actually see the fashion show from the audience's point of view whereas on Thursday I had been watching from backstage. One of my friends was wearing a hounds tooth dress - I painted her nails to match:

This week, I was set a challenge by my friend (and toppp blogger) Monica to create some nails to match the outfit she was blogging this week. Her dress was made up of a pretty floral pattern:

I decided to draw a gold vine across her nails and then painted flowers, which matched the colour scheme, on top of the vine. My nails were featured on her blog on Monday and you can check the rest of it out HERE!

Photograph taken from www.helloomonica.com

Please follow me on Twitter and Instagram!

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SNAKESKIN

This past week and a half has been very busy for me... I went on a trip to Barcelona and I went to London Fashion Week! 

My trip to Barcelona was only for 3 days but it was so much fun and we did a LOT in that time. Before I left for Barcelona, I had several essential tasks I needed to complete: my washing, my packing and (most importantly) my nails. I decided to try out some nail wraps that a friend bought for me, almost a year ago, for my birthday last year.

These snakeskin nail wraps were designed by Myleene Klass and are available here, along with many other designs. They're pretty straightforward to apply; simply match your nail shape to one of the small design sheets, apply it to the nail (it's stick on) and file the excess wrap away. From my previous experience, I've realised that nail wraps do not stay on for as long as promised on the packet. Nor do they look as 'pristine' as they did on the first day. I used a little bit of fake nail glue over the tips of my nails to prevent the wraps from peeling back.

Snakeskin is definitely a trend to watch this year - currently loving it in the 'Just Cavalli' advert featuring Georgia May Jagger:

Here are a couple of 'snake inspired' items that have also caught my eye...

Snake ring: Wildfox

Snake ring bandeau bikini top: Playful Promises (ASOS)

Snakeskin dress: Religion (ASOS)

Snakeskin iPhone 5 cover: Topshop

My snakeskin nails inspired me to bring out a pair of snakeskin wedges that I own from ASOS and there was no better place to wear them than to London Fashion Week! 

The photograph of myself (top left) was taken by Louisa Rogers.
To accompany my wedges, I wore a plain black dress with a black studded bag - both from Urban Outfitters.

At this start of this week, at very short notice, I got the opportunity to actually work at one of the shows at London Fashion Week. So on Monday I was an intern for a day at the Pringle of Scotland show. I wasn't doing anything terribly important, but it was an exciting experience to see the show and to observe the many different types of people who came to view it. And of course I had to freshen up my nails for the event (my nail wraps were starting to look a bit scruffy) so I created an acid yellow and blue design - inspired by WAH nails:

Acid Yellow Polish: Barry M - np300

Cobalt Blue Polish: Barry M - np291

Please follow me on Twitter on @McKinzzz :).

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MIDNIGHT CITY

Last week, after uni one day, my friends and I took a trip to the London Eye. Unfortunately there was a little bit of rain when we were on it, but nonetheless we still managed to see the amazing sights of London; Big Ben, St Paul's Cathedral and so on...

Our little trip inspired me to create some London skyline nails against a sunset backdrop:

I used the WAH nail art pen for details on the buildings and limited edition OPI colours for the backdrop. Unfortunately, those exact colours are not available anymore. However, similar colours, by OPI, are You're a Pisa Work and Atomic Orange.

I also spotted these Big Ben socks, recently released by Topshop, which would go perfectly for a trip round London!

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